Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

88 The Pelagian Controversy. CHAP. in.
which Grod had connected his duty could have easily, with
the aid of an unpainful caution of his own, mastered the
temptation. 1
Thus, in some calm interval, produced by
sight or sound, or by some cheering or tranquillising news,
or arising in the mind he knows not how, a man enjoys,
amid the business, anxiety, and turmoil of the world, a
brief repose and happiness within ; which does not, however,
while it removes to the distant horizon for the time the
evils and the pains of life, altogether put them out of sight.
Behind him are the sorrows and misfortunes of the past,
before him those of the future. He is not unconscious of
either but ; they yield
to the reign of the present hour,
which disables and unsubstantiates, though it does not
suppress them. The fulness of present peace occupies the
mind, excluding the power of realising anything which is
not in harmony with it ; and evil is only seen as a distant
shadow, hovering on the outside of things, a feeble and
inert phantom belonging to another world than our own,
which cannot come near enough to hurt, or penetrate
within the sphere of solid things. So, from some inland
scene is heard the distant roar of the sea, or from some
quiet country spot the noise of the neighbouring city ; the
sounds are heard, but they affect the mind altogether
differently than if they were near. They do not over
whelm or distract, but rather mingle with the serenity of
the scene before us.
This implanted rectitude or good habit it was which
made the first sin of man so heinous, and caused that dis
tinction between it and all the other sins which have been
committed in the world. For the first sin was the only sin
which was committed against and in spite of a settled bias
of nature toward good ; all the sins which have been com
mitted since have been committed in accordance with a
natural bias toward evil. There was therefore a perversity
in the first sin altogether peculiar to it, and such as made
it a sin sui generis. S. Augustine is accordingly exact in
1 Bonse igitur voluntatis factus piens, quod sine ulla quamdiu vellet
oft homo, paratus ad obediendum difficultate servaret. Op. Imp. 1. 5.
Deo, et prseceptum obedienter acci- c. 61.