Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

256 Scholastic Theory CHAP. ix.
one, viz. God ; but nothing had no cause, and was, there
fore, wholly independent of the Universal Cause.
Such an explanation as this, however, it is hardly
necessary to say, is no real explanation of the difficulty.
It is undoubtedly the first truth of religion that true being
and good are identical. The same argument, which proves
a First Cause at all, proves His goodness and if ; Being in
the Cause must be good, being in the effect must be good
too for the effect must follow the nature of the cause.
;
Nor can we avoid this conclusion but by a scheme of
dualism, which allows an evil first cause of being ; and,
therefore, evil being as its effect. So far the above ra
tionale is true, and is the proper contrary to dualism.
But this first truth of sound religion is, when examined,
no explanation of the mystery of the existence of evil, but
only another mode of stating it. We rightly say that true
being is identical with good ; but how comes there to be
being which is not true being ? On the religious ground,
and as believers in a God, we say, that evil cannot be an
existing thing because God is the Author of ;
everything,
and yet not the Author of evil. But plain common sense
tells us clearly enough that evil exists, and exists just as
really as good. A man commits some act of violence under
the influence of strong passion, malignant hatred, revenge,
cupidity ; his state of mind is as intense as possible; there
is the fullest determination and absorption in the act. Is
not this something something going on and taking place
in his mind ? We may distinguish, indeed, between the
animus and the material of the act, or, in the scholastic
language, between the act and the sin ; but this distinc
tion applies as much to good acts as to bad. The virtue
of a good act is something quite distinct from the feelings
and faculties of mind and body employed in it, of which
it is the direction. If virtue, then, is something, is not
vice something too ?
The real source of these argumentative struggles and
vain solutions was the original position respecting the
Divine Power, which, however true, was laid down without
that reserve which is necessary for this kind of truth. It