190 The SpiritualLife.
are the reflectors of light, themselves being
dark.
Take still further an extension of the same
thought. Evil does not exist in and byitself,
aswemay Judgefrom the phenomena around
us; evil, like good, lies in the relationship
between onething and another; it isrelative,
not absolute. What we speak of as evil
in one place maybe not evil in another; for
evolution implies this changing character, and
what is good at one stage may be evil at
another. Presently I will take certain things
whichwesay areevil,and shewyou thatthe
evil does not reside in the things but in the
relationships between them and certain other
things, and that it is in the relationship alone
thatwhatwecallevilresides. Letmetakean
illustration to shew you what 1 mean. You
may have a violently vibrating body,vibrating
withouttouchinganyotherbody; vibratingin-
wardsandoutwards,whichwoulddonoharm,
whichwould cause no pain, and the result of
that active motion of the bodywould not be
anything which you would recognise as evil.
Butplaceincontactwiththatviolentlyvibrating
body another body,and it will produce what
we call a pleasure or a pain-that is if the
secondbodyhasgotthepowerofresponse,the
