of the final victory of good. Were Haji Abdu a mere Theologist,
he would add that Sin, not the possibility of revolt, but the
revolt itself against conscience, is the primary form of evil,
because it produces error, moral and intellectual. This man, who
omits to read the Conscience-law, however it may differ from the
Society-law, is guilty of negligence. That man, who obscures the
light of Nature with sophistries, becomes incapable of discerning
his own truths. In both cases error, deliberately adopted, is
succeeded by suffering which, we are told, comes in justice and
benevolence as a warning, a remedy, and a chastisement.

But the Pilgrim is dissatisfied with the idea that evil
originates in the individual actions of free agents, ourselves
and others. This doctrine fails to account for its
characteristics,--essentiality and universality. That creatures
endowed with the mere possibility of liberty should not always
choose the Good appears natural. But that of the milliards of
human beings who have inhabited the Earth, not one should have
been found invariably to choose Good, proves how insufficient is
the solution. Hence no one believes in the existence of the
complete man under the present state of things. The Haji rejects
all popular and mythical explanation by the Fall of "Adam," the
innate depravity of human nature, and the absolute perfection of
certain Incarnations, which argues their divinity. He can only
wail over the prevalence of evil, assume its foundation to be
error, and purpose to abate it by unrooting that Ignorance which
bears and feeds it.

His "eschatology," like that of the Soofis generally, is vague
and shadowy. He may lean towards the doctrine of Marc Aurelius,