If the cosmos is the effect of an immanent, omnipotent, and infinitely
beneficent cause, the existence in it of real evil, still less of
necessarily inherent evil, is plainly inadmissible. Yet the universal
experience of mankind testified then, as now, that, whether we look
within us or without us, evil stares us in the face on all sides; that
if anything is real, pain and sorrow and wrong are realities.
It would be a new thing in history if _a priori_ philosophers were
daunted by the factious opposition of experience; and the Stoics were
the last men to allow themselves to be beaten by mere facts. "Give me a
doctrine and I will find the reasons for it," said Chrysippus. So they
perfected, if they did not invent, that ingenious and plausible form of
pleading, the Theodicy; for the purpose of showing firstly, that
there is no such thing as evil; secondly, that if there is, it is the
necessary correlate of good; and, moreover, that it is either due to our
own fault, or inflicted for our benefit.