As it is with plants, so it is with human beings.

They too have their enemies,--temptations of various kinds and other evil influences that "war against the soul." And they too will be able to beat off their assailants just so far as their own growth is vigorous and healthy; and will succumb to their attacks, to their own serious detriment, just so far as their own growth is feeble and sickly.
The bearing of this fact on the problem of the origin of moral evil is obvious.

That the evils which assail the organism, be it a plant or a human being, are not inherent in its nature, is proved by the fact that when the growth of the organism is normal and unimpeded, the assailants are always beaten off.

As it is the growth of the organism--the development of its own nature--which enables it to resist the evils that threaten it, we must assume that its nature is good.

Indeed the evils that threaten it are called evils for no other reason than that they imperil its well-being; and it follows that in calling them evils we imply that the organism is intrinsically good.
When we have eliminated from human nature the vicious tendencies which are due either to immaturity or to the numberless influences that come under the general head of environment, we shall find that a very small percentage remain to be accounted for.