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In other words, the question is not whether the gods exist but whether they intervene in our affairs. Emerson was unable to solve either this or the Manichaean proposition that unless one posits an evil deity as well as a good one, one must somehow accept the paradox “that evil may arise from the fountain of all good.” With that phrase Emerson stopped writing. Skepticism could go no further. At this point his uveitis set in and he was forced to abandon his studies.4
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Robert D. Richardson Jr. (Emerson: The Mind on Fire)