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Cause and Effect in Human Conduct
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will wear well, and bear close inspection. Each man makes or mars his own life; it is not made or marred by his neighbour, or by anything external to himself. Each thought he thinks, each deed he does, is another thread—shoddy or genuine—woven into the garment of his life; and as he makes the garment so must he wear it. He is not responsible for his neighbour’s deeds; he is not the custodian of his neighbour’s actions; he is responsible only for his own deeds; he is the custodian of his own actions.
The “problem of evil” subsists in a man’s own evil deeds, and it is solved when those deeds are purified. Says Rosseau:
“Man, seek no longer the origin of evil;
thou thyself art its origin.”
thou thyself art its origin.”
Effect can never be divorced from
