Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. in. The Pelagian Controversy. 69
evil is the power to injure oneself. Such power has no
more an advantage as power than it has as liability. It
is true that, when the subject-matter of power is good, then
the power to accomplish it has an excellence as power ;
that is to say, it is an additional advantage that the good
which happens to us is from ourselves, and not from an
exteinal source. And on this ground the attribute of power
as belonging to the Supreme Being is an excellent attri
bute : it being an excellence that the good which He enjoys
comes from Himself, and not from any other source.
The actions, again, which the good will perform in a
future state of necessity will not be the less good on that
account, and because they do not proceed from a power of
choice. It is true that in one sense a good act which
of choice is more
proceeds from the exercise of a power
meritorious than one which proceeds from a will acting
necessarily right. If we measure the merit of an action
by the degree in which it is in advance of the general
condition of the agent, then undoubtedly an action which
proceeds from a will determined necessarily to good has no
merit, because it is simply on a level with, and not at all
in advance of such a will. On the other hand, an action
which proceeds from a will which has to exert a power of
choice in order to compass it, has merit, because it is in
advance of such a will ; inasmuch as the certainty of an
action done is an advance upon the mere power of doing it.
But it is evident that that which is here spoken of is not
the positive merit of an action, but only a relative one ;
its merit as compared with the condition and ability of the
agent.
A will which acts of necessity for good is the very
strongest will on the side of good ; and therefore, compared
with the ability of this agent, a good act is a little result.
A will which has to exert a power of choice, and use
struggle and effort, is a weaker will ; and therefore a good
action, as compared with the ability of this is agent, a
greater result. The superior merit, then, of a good act, in
this case, is arrived at by comparing it with the weakness
of the agent ; in the same way
that the merit of a work
of art is sometimes arrived at by comparing it with the