The Equinox (Volume I, Number X)

THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES He who seeks the origin of evil, seeks the source of what is not. Evil is the disordered appetite of good, the unfruitful attempt of an unskilful will. Every one possesses the fruit of his work, and poverty is only the spur to toil. For the flock of men, suffering is like the shepherd dog, who bites the wool of the sheep to put them back in the right way. It is because of shadow that we are able to see light; because of cold that we feel heat; because of pain that we are sensible to pleasure. Evil is then for us the occasion and the beginning of good. But, in the dreams of our imperfect intelligence, we accuse the work of Providence, through failing to understand it. We resemble the ignorant person who judges the picture by the beginning of the sketch, and says, when the head is done, ‘‘What! Has this figure no body ?” Nature remains calm, and accomplishes its work. The ploughshare is not cruel when it tears the bosom of the earth, and the great revolutions of the world are the husbandry of God. There is a place for everything: to savage peoples, bar- barous masters; to cattle, butchers; to men, judges and fathers. If time could change the sheep into lions, they would eat the butchers and the shepherds. Sheep never change because they do not instruct them- selves; but peoples instruct themselves. Shepherds and butchers of the people, you are then 31