Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

OHA?. ix. of Necessity. 251
reply embraces within a short compass all the points of
the case. Variety is a sound explanation indeed of a cer
tain class of evil. The decay and corruption of the vege
table world set off by contrast the birth and growth;
summer is all the more agreeable for winter ;
the decay of
autumn heightens the freshness of the spring. And on
the same law rest is all the more pleasant after fatigue,
food after hunger; and much even of the higher and more
intellectual kind of pleasure is relished the more for the
void and dulness alternating with it. But this is only by
a law of our nature in present operation, in consequence
of which change is necessary for us, though at the cost of
pain. Such a law is acknowledged to be a sign of great
imperfection. And, what is more to the purpose, all these
are cases in which ourselves alone and our own enjoyment
are concerned. To inanimate nature it is all the same
whether it decays or endures, lives or dies ; and therefore
we need not take its part in the matter into account.
But when we come to moral evil the case is very different.
It is true the law of comparison or contrast operates even
here, and we are pleased with the virtue which meets us
in the world, all the more for the evil which we see in it.
Indeed, the nature or quality of goodness the light that
issues from a good character, is so completely seen in the
sense and degree in which we do see it, by means of this
assistance i.e. by the contrast between this goodness and
a background of average and indifferent character, formed
as an image in our mind from the experience of human
life that it is difficult to contemplate without some sur
prise and awe the signal and noble use which the wicked
ness of the world answers ; inasmuch as for anything we
see to the contrary, in the present state of our capacities,
in which contrast seems to be so essential to true percep
tion, virtue could not be appreciated as it is without this
contrast, or be the bright light which it
dark background. The light shineth in
is without this
darkness. But
though moral evil answers this high purpose in the world,
is it a sufficient account of its existence that it does so ?
Is it just that one man should be wicked in order that the