of the biggest questions that anyone can ask. It has been debated for many, many centuries. It has a double answer. Those who get the first answer will claim that it is correct, and those who get the second answer will assure you that there can be no other conclusion. The question hinges on one point, and that is: Must one experience evil in order to appreciate good? If it were possible for man to know all the wisdom and joy of the Infinite, he would have no necessity for experience with the opposite. But do we have to have pain before we can enjoy pleasure? Does the child that burns its hand on a hot stove have a larger consciousness of health when the hand is healed? Has it learned more about stoves? Unnumbered illustrations of this kind might be given to show that by experimentation we learn the relations existing between things in the phenomenal world. But if we apply this rule to sciences that are governed by absolute rules, it becomes evident that there is no necessity for knowing the negative. To become proficient in mathematics it is not necessary that one make errors. The more closely one follows the rules in exact sciences, the more easily and successfully one makes the demonstrations. This goes to prove that the nearer one comes to the absolute or cause side of existence, the greater is one's understanding that wisdom and order rule, and that he who joins wisdom and order rules with them.

God knows that there is a great negative, which is a reflection of His positive, but He is not conscious of its existence. We know that there is an underworld

42