SOURCE: "James on the Nature of Evil," in The Christian Examiner and Religious Miscellany, Vol. LIX, No. 1, July, 1855, pp. 116-36.

In the following review of The Nature of Evil, Clarke examines James's doctrine of evil, finding the author's theories inadequately developed and therefore impossible to comprehend, and concluding that James ultimately fails to solve "the problem of evil. "

[The Nature of Evil] is a remarkable book by a remarkable man. Mr. James is remarkable because he combines, in no small degree, the qualities of a seer, a metaphysician, and a poet. His spiritual insight, or intuitive glance at spiritual realities, is penetrating, and gives solidity to his books. They possess an internal substance which differences them from the writings of metaphysicians who, like Brownson and Bowen, for example, dwell mainly on the forms of thought and their external relations. Again, Mr. James is a metaphysician, with an intellect...