form when he said, in substance: The dove, as she speeds her way through the air, may marvel at the resistance to her flight by the atmosphere, but we know that but for that resistance she could not fly at all. So far Kant. Applied, the conclusion would be: As the resistance of the air to the flight of the dove, so is evil to the progress of Intelligences.

[In the December number, 1908, of the "Cosmopolitan Magazine," I find the following reflections, by Mr. Ambrose Bierce, on the point here discussed; and while not accepting, without modification, every thought expressed, I consider the passage too pertinent, and too rich to be denied admittance into these pages:

"Let us for a moment suppose this country's reformers to have achieved their amiable purpose—their purposes, rather, for these are as the leaves of the forest, and no two alike. We have, then, a country in which are no poverty, no contention, no tyranny nor oppression, no peril to life or limb, no disease—and so forth. How delightful! What a good and happy people! Alas, no! With poverty have vanished benevolence, providence, and the foresight which, born of the fear of individual want, stands guard at a thousand gates to defend the general good. The charitable impulse is dead in every breast, and gratitude, atrophied by disuse, has no longer a place among human sentiments and emotions. With no more fighting among ourselves we have lost the power of resentment and resistance: a car-load of Mexicans or a shipful of Japanese can invade our fool's paradise and enslave us, as the Spaniards overran Peru and the British subdued India. (Hailers of "the dawn of the new era" will, I trust, provide that it dawns everywhere at once or here last of all.) Having no oppression to resist and no perils to apprehend, we no longer need the courage to defy, nor the fortitude to endure. Heroism is a failing memory and magnanimity a dream of the past; for not only are the virtues known by contrast with the vices, they spring from the same seed, grow in the same soil, ripen in the same sunshine, and perish in the same frost. A fine race of mollycoddles we should be without our sins and sufferings! In a world without evils there would be one supreme evil—existence. We need not fear any such condition. Progress is infected with the germs of reversion; on the grave of the civilization of today will squat the barbarian of tomorrow, "with a glory in his bosom" that will transfigure him the day after. The alternation is one that we can neither hasten nor retard, for our success baffles us. If, for example, we could abolish war, disease, and famine, the race would multiply to the point of "standing room only"—a condition prophesying war, disease, and famine. Wherefore the wisest prayer is this, "O Lord, make thy servant strong to fight and impotent to prevail."]

"Moral evil," then, is not a created thing. It is one of the eternal existences, just as duration is and space. It is as old as law—old as Truth, old as this eternal universe. Intelligences must adjust themselves to these eternal existences; this, the measure of their duty.

THE INTELLIGENT ENTITY: Of man's spirit, called often by other names—"mind," "intelligence," "ego," "self;" but by whatever name it is called, and all nice distinctions set aside, here I mean that conscious, self-determining entity, which thinks, reasons, wills, loves, aspires—I mean the real man. Let us in our discourse call him spirit. Of man, then, thus understood, our Prophet taught:

"The soul—the mind of man—the immortal spirit—where did it come from? All learned men and doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning; but it is not so; the very idea lessens man in my estimation. I do not believe the doctrine. I know better. * * * We say that God himself is a self-existent Being. Who told you so? It is correct enough, but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner, upon the same principles? * * * Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end. * * * There never was a time when there were not spirits; for they are co-eternal with our Father in heaven. * * * The spirit of man is not a created being; it existed from eternity, and will exist to eternity."

Man, then, in the Prophet's philosophy, is not a created, but a self-existent entity, one of the eternal things; not created, really uncreatable, as also indestructible. Not of earth origin, but existing in heavens without number, brother to all Intelligences—brother to the Christ with the rest. "I was in the beginning with the Father," our Prophet represents the Christ as saying—"I was in the beginning with the Father. * * * Ye [the brethren present when the revelation was given] were also in the beginning with the Father, that which is spirit. * * * Man [the race] was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence was not created or made, neither indeed can be."

But while these spirits or intelligent entities may be equal as to their eternity, they differ in the degree of intelligence—so our Prophet teaches: Where two things exist, one higher than another, there may be another thing higher yet. Where two things exist, one superior to another, there may be another still superior, and so on. So where two spirits exist, one being more intelligent than the other, there may be another more intelligent than the first. Yet, notwithstanding this difference in degree of intelligence, they are equal as to their eternity. "They existed before," said our Prophet, "they shall have no end; they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal." It is this difference in Intelligences that leads to order in this universe of ours. The more advanced Intelligences governing, controlling, devising, organizing, forming societies, making governments—all which shall tend to increase the glory and power and joy of Intelligences; to this end bringing into existence what we call worlds, world-systems, guiding them through immense cycles of time, and through processes that lead from chaos to cosmos, from telestial to celestial, and when attaining a point beyond which they may not be exalted in their present forms, breaking those forms, disintegrating them, throwing them back—these baser material things, not Intelligences—back to chaos, to be brought forth again to reach a grander cosmos—worlds without number have thus passed away, by the word of God's power, and many now stand, innumerable unto man; and as one earth and its heavens shall pass away, so shall another come, and there is no end to these works, this evolution and this devolution. And so the eternal drama proceeds. Intelligences meanwhile standing unhurt amidst this organization and disorganization of worlds; these integrating and disintegrating elements, this movement from lower to higher forms, from little to greater excellences; yet this without attaining to "highest" or "perfect," because advancing in the infinite, which knows no ultimates. Meanwhile Intelligences, amid these changes, under the law of eternal progress, are ever-increasing in power, glory, might, dominion, love, benevolence, charity, justice, and all else that can make for the increase of their power and glory. In which strivings and achievements eternal evil is present; makes necessary and possible, in fact, the very strivings and achievements; and is the "foil on which good produces itself, and becomes known."

THE RELATIONSHIP OF INTELLIGENCES: It is seen that our Prophet taught the eternity of Intelligences; and that they are not only not created, but uncreatable; that though they differ in degree of intelligence, of knowledge, of love, hence differ also in power, in influence, in glory—in