God and Mr. Wells

e a sufficient reason why the Artificer should have started the painful evolution of consciousness, instead of leaving the atoms to whirl insentiently in the figures imposed on them by the stupendous mathematician behind the veil?

[1] In Mr. Britling Sees It Through, which is in some sense a prologue to God the Invisible King, we find an emphatic renunciation of the all-good and all-powerful God. "The theologians," says Mr. Britling, "have been extravagant about God. They have had silly, absolute ideas--that he is all powerful. That he's omni-everything.... Why! if I thought there was an omnipotent God who looked down on battles and deaths and all the waste and horror of this war--able to prevent these things--doing them to amuse himself--I would spit in his empty face" (p. 406).

A complete answer to this question would be a complete solution of the riddle of existence. That, if it be ever attainable, is certainly far enough off. But there are some considerations, not always su