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Augustine

acknowledged to be the true Good. Therefore happiness resides in God, and is none other than God; for accident cannot be predicated of Him, nor can He, who is best of all, be separated from the true Good. Men can to a certain extent participate in happiness, and in virtue of that participation attain to divinity.

All creatures make for happiness, and therefore seek God. Evil, notwithstanding the paradox, has no real existence; for God, who can do all things, cannot do evil.

Book IV.

Boethius confesses the truth and beauty of his teacher's words, but complains that the chief cause of his doubt and misery is still untouched. The fact that the universe is under the rule of a just and all-powerful God only makes the presence of evil in the world the more strange and lamentable; for evil does exist, if it be in appearance only, and its votaries succeed and flourish, while the good are often oppressed. It would indeed be direful, replies Philosophy, if in a well-ordered household, with which God's universe may fitly be compared, vile vessels were honoured and precious vessels despised.

But this is not the case. If our previous arguments hold, then it must follow that the good are always powerful, the wicked always powerless; for it is the essential characteristic of impotency to fall short of or miss the object of its aim. Now, while all men alike are conscious of the impulse towards Good, the good alone can attain thereto, the wicked never; for they start with a misconception of its nature, and an ignorance of the roads by which it may be reached. True, they may obtain the thing which their inclination leads them to seek, but never the thing which they really desire; for that, we have seen, is Good.

Again, it is quite wrong to suppose that the wicked are ever rewarded. In the mere loss of Good they suffer the most terrible chastisement that can be inflicted; their very freedom to work wickedness is a further aggravation of their punishment, and if their eyes were not blinded and their understanding darkened, they would rejoice in every correction laid upon them as one step more out of the mire in which they are plunged. Even the power which Philosophy does not deny that they possess-of a certain kind— is born of impotency, for they have power only over evil, and that is less than nothing. Plato was right when he said1 the wise alone have power to do 1 Gorgias, 507c.

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what they will; the wicked only arrive at the fulfilment of their inclination.

Nor is this all. The wicked cannot be said to exist any more than evil exists, for that alone is which keeps its nature and preserves its order. By disobeying the natural impulse towards Good, the wicked man has violated the law of his nature, and is become nothing more than a dead body, the ruin of a man that once was.

To return to the question of rewards and punishments, a threefold chastisement lies on the wicked, -firstly, in the will, secondly, in the power to work evil, and thirdly, in the accomplishment of the same. How gladly would I see them relieved of this burden, cries Boethius bitterly. It will disappear, answers Philosophy, even sooner than you hope, or they look for. For in the swift course of human life there is nothing comes so late that the waiting for it can appear long to an immortal soul. The great hopes and lofty scaffolding of wickedness often come down in unexpected ruin. But even supposing no such limit be set to wickedness, still if, as we believe, iniquity begets misery, a man must be ever the more miserable the longer he lives in iniquity. It is well for him that death comes quickly to put an end at once to his wickedness and his wretchedness.

After Boethius has acknowledged the fairness of both premise and conclusion, his teacher goes on to establish the theory which has already been put forward that punishment is a real benefit to the wrong-✓ doer. He puts a question concerning the future punishment of the soul, and it must be allowed that the answer he receives is exceedingly vague and indefinite. "Dost thou not reserve," he asks, "any other penalties for souls after the death of the body?" Assuredly I do reserve very grievous ones, of which, in my opinion, some, whose object is to punish, are rigorous; while others, whose object is to purify, are merciful. But I have no mind to speak now on this matter.

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These discussions naturally lead on to the subject of Fate and Providence. The divine Intelligence, enthroned in the citadel of its own simplicity, hath devised a method for directing the variable order of things. Contemplated in its sublime and pristine purity, this method is called Providence; with regard to, and in connection with, the things it acts upon, it is what the wise men of old called Fate. In other words, Providence is the supreme Reason that orders all things; Fate is the instrument which, in the hands of Providence, binds together all things, and keeps them each in its proper place. Providence

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holds all things in an equal embrace, however diverse, however numerous, they may be. Fate sets all things in motion, apportioning to them their convenient times, forms, and places. Fate is dependent on Providence and emanates from it, though the two are of very different character.

It is by means of

Providence that God assigns to everything that is to be done its stability and individuality. It is through Fate that He has His orders carried out at different seasons and in different. ways. What the intermediary agents between Providence and Fate may be, Philosophy does not take upon herself to assert.

"Whether it be through certain divine spirits which wait on Providence that Fate is carried out, or by the soul, or by the submissive service of the whole of nature, or by the heavenly motions of the stars, or by angelic virtue, or by the varied skill of demons, or by some of these, or by all of them, that the chain of Fate is woven-this is certainly clear, that Providence is the motionless and simple mould of all that is to be, while Fate is the moving coil and temporal order of all that which the divine Simplicity has ordered to be carried out."

In proposing these alternatives, Philosophy only wishes to emphasise the immobility of Providence as distinguished from the flexibility of Fate.

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