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9. Since, then, a blessed life consists of these two things, and
is known to all, and dear to all; what can we think to be the cause
why, when they cannot have both, men choose, out of these two, to
have all things that they will, rather than to will all things well,
even although they do not have them? Is it the depravity itself of the
human race, in such wise that, while they are not unaware that neither
is he blessed who has not what he wills, nor he who has what he wills
wrongly, but he who both has whatsoever good things he wills, and
wills no evil ones, yet, when both are not granted of those two things
in which the blessed life consists, that is rather chosen by which one
is withdrawn the more from a blessed life (since he certainly is
further from it who obtains things which he wickedly desired, than he
who only does not obtain the things which he desired); whereas the
good will ought rather to be chosen, and to be preferred, even if it
do not obtain the things which it seeks? For he comes near to being a
blessed man, who wills well whatsoever he wills, and wills things,
which when he obtains, he will be blessed. And certainly not bad
things, but good, make men blessed, when they do so make them. And
of good things he already has something, and that, too, a something
not to be lightly esteemed, namely, the very good will itself; who
longs to rejoice in those good things of which human nature is capable,
and not in the performance or the attainment of any evil; and who
follows diligently, and attains as much as he can, with a prudent,
temperate, courageous, and right mind, such good things as are
possible in the present miserable life; so as to be good even in
evils, and when all evils have been put an end to, and all good things
fulfilled, then to be blessed.
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