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This I do know, that the nature of God can never, nowhere, nowise
be defective, and that natures made of nothing can. These latter,
however, the more being they have, and the. more good they do (for
then they do something positive), the more they have efficient
causes; but in so far as they are defective in being, and consequently
do evil (for then what is their work but vanity?), they have
deficient causes. And I know likewise, that the will could not
become evil, were it unwilling to become so; and therefore its
failings are. justly punished, being not necessary, but voluntary.
For its defections are not to evil things, but are themselves evil;
that is to say, are not towards things that are naturally and in
themselves evil, but the defection of the will is evil, because it is
contrary to the order of nature, and an abandonment of that which has
supreme being for that which has less. For avarice is not a fault
inherent in gold, but in the man who inordinately loves gold, to the
detriment of justice, which ought to be held in incomparably higher
regard than gold.
Neither is luxury the fault of lovely and charming objects, but of the
heart that inordinately loves sensual pleasures, to the neglect of
temperance, which attaches us to objects more lovely in their
spirituality, and more delectable by their incorruptibility. Nor yet
is boasting the fault of human praise, but of the soul that is
inordinately fond of the applause of men, and that makes light of the
voice of conscience. Pride, too, is not the fault of him who
delegates power, nor of power itself, but of the soul that is
inordinately enamored of its own power, and despises the more just
dominion of a higher authority. Consequently he who inordinately loves
the good which any nature possesses, even though he obtain it, himself
becomes evil in the good, and wretched because deprived of a greater
good.
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