The spiritual life

The Use of Evil.^187

part proves that it is imperfect ; a fragment

cannot be perfect; only the whole can have

perfection predicated of it. Sothat we have

here a second step. The first is the fact of

manifestationimplyinglimitation,andthushmi-

tationmakinga diversityofobjects; thesecond

is that separate bodies must be imperfect, in

thateachisless thanthewholeof which only

perfectioncanbedeclared.

Noticenowthelinksoftheargument. Notice

thattheveryfact of a universeimpliesthisim-

perfection; that if you object to imperfection

youmustobject tomanifestation. Ifyouobject

to limitation, you must object to there being

anything which can be thought of, of which

consciousness can be predicated,anything save
thatabsolute unity,utterlyincomprehensible to

thought. Sothat wehavethis solidground to

start from, that the existence itself of the

universe bythe very fact of limitation,implies

imperfection in the limited, and that every

object being necessarily limited, is also necessarily imperfect, being less than the whole.

Now when that is realised, you have your

origin of imperfection, of what is called evil.

Thusimperfectionisco-eternalwiththeuniverse.

Limited, imperfection is a necessarycondition,

so that wheneverthere comes a universe into

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