Beyond this were muddy turbid waters, with their inhabitants; and inside of them winds terrible and violent, with their prince and their progenitors. Then, again, a fiery region of destruction, with its chiefs and peoples. And, similarly, inside of this a race full of smoke and gloom, where abode the dreadful prince and chief of all, having around him innu- merable princes, himself the mind and source of them all. Such are the five natures of the pestiferous region," We find here five na- tures mentioned as part of one nature, which he calls the pestiferous region. The natures are darkness, waters, winds, fire, smoke; which he so arranges as to make darkness first, beginning at the outside. Inside of darkness he puts the waters; inside of the waters, the winds; inside of the winds, the fire; inside of the fire, the smoke. And each of these natures had its peculiar kind of in- habitants, which were likewise five in number. For to the question, Whether there was only one kind in all, or different kinds correspond- ing to the different_ natures; the reply is, that they were different: as in other books we find it stated that the darkness had serpents; the waters swimming creatures, such as fish; the winds flying creatures, such as birds; the fire quadrupeds, such as horses, lions, and the like; the smoke bipeds, such as men.
CHAP. 29. THE REFUTATION OF THIS ABSURD- ITY.
32. Whose arrangement, then, is this? Who made the distinctions and the classifi- cation? Who gave the number, the qualities, the forms, tne life? For all these things are in themselves sood, nor could each of the natures have them except from the bestowal of God, the author of all good things. For this is not like the descriptions or suppositions of poets about an imaginary chaos, as being a shapeless mass, without form, without qual- ity, without measurement, without weight and number, without order and variety; a con- fused something, absolutely destitute of qual- ities, so that some Greek writers call it a-o'.io. So far from being like this is the Manichsean description of the region of darkness, as they call it, that, in a direct- ly contrary style, they add side to side, and join border to border; they number five natures; they separate, arrange, and as- sign to each its own qualities. Nor do they leave the natures barren or waste, but people them with their proper inhabitants; and to these, again, they give suitable forms, and adapted to their place of habitation, besides giving the chief of all endowments, life. To recount such good things as these, and to speak of them as having no connection with God, the author of all good things, is to lose sight of the excellence of the order in the things, and of the great evil of the error which leads to such a conclusion.
CHAP. 30. THE NUMBER OF GOOD THINGS IN THOSE NATURES WHICH MANICH^US PLACES IN THE REGION OF DARKNESS.
^;^. "But," is the reply, "the orders of beings inhabiting those five natures were fierce and destructive." As if I were prais- ing their fierceness and destructiveness. I, you see, join with you in condemning the evils you attribute to them; join you with me in praising the good things which you ascribe to them: so it will appear that there is a mixture of good and evil in what you call the last extremity of evil. If I join you in condemning what is mischievous in this region, you must join with me in prais- ing what is beneficial. For these beings could not have been produced, or nourished, or have continued to inhabit that region, with- out some salutary influence. I join with you in condemning the darkness; join with me in praising the productiveness. For while you call the darkness immeasurable, you speak of " suitable productions.'' Darkness, indeed, is not a real substance, and means no more than the absence of light, as nakedness means the want of clothing, and emptiness the want of material contents: so that darkness could produce nothing, although a region in dark- ness— that is, in the absence of light — might produce something. But passing over this for the present, it is certain that where pro- ductions arise there must be a beneficent adaptation of substances, as well as a sym- metrical arrangement and construction in unity of the members of the beings produced, — a wise adjustment making them agree with one another. And who will deny that all these things are more to be praised than darkness is to be condemned? If I join with you in condemning the muddiness of the waters, you must join with me in praising the waters as far as they possessed the form and quality of water, and also the agreement of the members of the inhabitants swimming in the waters, their life sustaining and directing their body, and every particular adaptation of substances for the benefit of health. For though you find fault with the waters as tur- bid and muddy, still, in allowing them the quality of producing and maintaining their living inhabitants, you imply that there was some kind of bodily form, and similarity of parts, giving unity and congruity of character; otherwise there could be no body at all: and, 144 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Chap. XXXII.
as a rational being, you must see that all these things are to be praised. And however great you make the ferocity of these inhabitants, and their massacrings and devastations in their assaults, you still leave them the regular limits of form, by which the members of each body are made to agree together, and their beneficial adaptations, and the regulating power of the living principle binding together the parts of the body in a friendly and har- monious union. And if all these are regarded with common sense it will be seen that they are more to be commended than the faults are to be condemned. I join with you in con- demning the frightfulness of the winds; join with me in praising their nature, as giving breath and nourishment, and their material form in its continuousness and diffusion by the connection of its parts: for by these things these winds had the power of produc- ing and nourishing, and sustaining in vigor these inhabitants you speak of; and also in these inhabitants — besides the other things which have already been commended in all animated creatures — this particular power of going quickly and easily whence and whither they please, and the harmonious stroke of their wings in flight, and their regular motion.
I join with you in condemning the destructive- ness of fire; join with me in commending the productiveness of this fire, and the growth of these productions, and the adaptation of the fire to the beings produced, so that the}'^ had coherence, and came to perfection in measure and shape, and could live and have their abode there: for you see that all these things deserve admiration and praise, not only in the fire which is thus habitable, but in the in- habitants too. I join with you in condemn- ing the denseness of smoke, and the savage character of the prince who, as you say, abode in it; join with me in praising the similarity of all the parts in this very smoke, by which it preserves the harmony and proportion of its parts among themselves, according to its own nature, and has an unity which makes it what it is: for no one can calmly reflect on these things without wonder and praise. Besides, even to the smoke you give the power and energy of production, for you say that princes inhabited it; so that in that region the smoke is productive, which never happens here, and, moreover, affords a wholesome dwelling place to its inhabitants.
CHAP. 31. — THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
34. And even in the prince of smoke him- self, instead of mentioning only his ferocity as a bad quality, ought you not to have taken notice of the other things in his nature which you must allow to be com.mendable? For he had a soul and a body; the soul life-giving, and the body endowed with life. Since the soul governed and the body obeyed, the soul took the lead and the body followed; the soul gave consistency, the body was not dissolved; the soul gave harmonious motion, and the body was constructed of a well-proportioned framework of members. In this single prince are you not induced to express approval of the orderly peace or the peaceful order? And what applies to one applies to all the rest. You say he was fierce and cruel to others. This is not what I commend, but the other important things which you will not take notice of. Those things, when perceived and considered, — after advice by any one who has without consideration put faith in Mani- chaeus, — lead him to a clear conviction that, in speaking of those natures, he speaks of things good in a sense, not perfect and un- created, like God the one Trinity, nor of the higher rank of created things, like the holy angels and the ever-blessed powers; but of the lowest class, and ranked according to the small measure of their endowments. These things are thought to be blameworthy by the uninstructed when they compare them with higher things; and in view of their want of some good, the good they have gets the name of evil, because it is defective. My reason' also for thus discussing the natures enu- merated by Manichaeus is that the things named are things familiar to us in this world. We are familiar with darkness, waters, winds, fire, smoke; we are familiar, too, with ani- mals, creeping, swimming, fl3'ing; with quad- rupeds and biped. With the exception of darkness (which, as 1 have said already, is nothing but the absence of light, and the per- ception of it is only the absence of sight, as the perception of silence is the absence of hearing; not that darkness is anything, but that light is not, as neither that silence is anything, but that sound is not), all the other things are natural qualities and are familiar to all; and the form of those natures, which is commendable and good as far as it exists, no wise man attributes to any other author than God, the author of all good things.'
I CHAP. 32. — MANICH.EUS GOT THE ARRANGE-, MENT OF HIS FANCIFUL NOTIONS FROM VISI- j BLE OBJECTS. i 35. For in giving to these natures which.] he has learned from visible things, an arrange-' ■ [This portion of the argument is conducted with great adroit- ness. Augustin takes the inhabitants of the region of darkness,: as Mani describes them, and proves that they possess so much of' good that they can have no other author than God. — A. H. N.J I Chap. XXXIII.]
AGAINST THE EPISTLE OF MANICH.^IUS.
Uo ment according to his fanciful ideas, to repre- sent the race of darkness, Manichseus is clearly in error. First of all, he makes dark- ness productive, which is impossible. But, he replies, this darkness was unlike what you are familiar with. How, then, can you make me understand about it? After so many promises to give knowledge, will you force me to take your word for it? Suppose I be- lieve you, this at least is certain, that if the darkness had no form, as darkness usually has not, it could produce nothing; if it had form, it was better than ordinary darkness: whereas, when you call it different from the ordinary kind, you wish us to believe that it is worse. You might as well say that silence, which is the same to the ear as darkness to the eyes, produced some deaf or dumb ani- mals in that region; and then, in reply to the ol)jection that silence is not a nature, you might say that it was different silence from ordinary silence; in a word, you might say what you pleased to those whom you have once misled into believing you. No doubt, the obvious facts relating to the origin of animal life led Manichseus to say that ser- pents were produced in darkness. However, there are serpents which have such sharp sight, and such pleasure in light, that they seem to give evidence of the most weighty kind against this idea. Then the idea of swimming things in the water might easily be got here, and applied to the fanciful objects in that region; and so of flying things in the winds, for the motion of the lower air in this world, where birds fly, is called wind. Where he got the idea of the quadrupeds in fire, no one can tell. Still he said this deliberately, though without sufficient thought, and from great misconception. The reason usually j given is, that quadrupeds are voracious and j salacious. But many men surpass any quadruped in voracity, though they are bi- peds, and are called children of the smoke, and not of fire. Geese, too, are as voracious as any animal; and though he might place them in fire as bipeds, or in the water because they love to swim, or in the winds because they have wings and sometimes fly, they certainly have nothing to do with fire in this classification. As regards salaciousness, I suppose he was thinking of neighing horses, which sometimes bite through the bridle and rush at the mares; and writing hastilv, with this in his mind, he forgot the common spar- row, in comparison of which the hottest stallion is cold. The reason they give for assigning hipeds to the smoke is, that bipeds are con- ceited and proud, for men are derived from this class; and the idea, which is a plausible 10 one, is that smoke resembles proud people in rising up into the air, round and swelling. This idea might warrant a figurative descrip- tion of proud men, or an allegorical expression or explanation, but not the belief that bipeds are born in smoke and of smoke. They might with equal reason be said to be born in dust, for it often rises up to the heaven with a similar circling and lofty motion; or in the clouds, for they are often drawn up from the earth in such a way, that those looking from a distance are uncertain whether they are clouds or smoke. Once more, why, in the case of the waters and the winds, does he suit the inhabitants to the character of the place, as we see swimming things in water, and flying things in the wind; whereas, in the face of fire and smoke, this bold liar is not ashamed to assign to these places the most unlikely inhabitants? For fire burns quadru- peds, and consumes them, and smoke sufi^o- cates and kills bipeds. At least he must ac- knowledge that he has made these natures better in the race of darkness than they are here, though he wishes us to think everything to be worse. For, according to this, the fire there produced and nourished quadrupeds, and gave them a lodging not only harmless, but most convenient. The smoke, too, pro- vided room for the offspring of its own benign bosom, and cherished them up to the rank of prince. Thus we see that these lies, which have added to the number of heretics, arose from the perception by carnal sense, only without care or discernment, of visible objects in this world, and when thus conceived, were brought forth by fancy, and then presumptu- ously written and published.
CHAP. T,;^. EVERY NATURE, AS NATURE, IS GOOD.
36. But the consideration we wish most to urge is the truth of the Catholic doctrine, if they can understand it, that God is the autlior of all natures. I urged this before when I said, I join with you in your condemnation of destructiveness, of blindness, of dense muddiness, of terrific violence, of perishable- ness. of the ferocity of the princes, and so on; join with me in commending form, classification, arrangement, harmony, unity of structure, symmetry and correspondence of members, provision for vital breath and nourishment, wholesome adaptation, regula- tion and control by the mind, and the subjec- tion of the bodies, and the assimilation and agreement of parts in the natures, both those inhabiting and those inhabited, and all the other things of the same kind. From this, if they would only think honestly, they would 146 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Chap. XXXIV understand that it implies a mixture of good and evil, even in the region where they sup- pose evil to be alone and in perfection: so that if the evils mentioned were taken away, the good things will remain, without anything to detract from the commendation given to them; whereas, if the good things are taken away, no nature is left. From this every one sees, who can see, that every nature, as far as it is nature, is good; since in one and the same thing in which I found something to praise, and he found something to blame, if the good things are taken away, no nature will remain; but if the disagreeable things are taken away, the nature will remain unim- paired. Take from waters their thickness and muddiness, and pure clear water remains; take from them the consistence of their parts, and no water will be left. If then, after the evil is removed, the nature remains in a purer state, and does not remain at all when the good is taken away, it must be the good which makes the nature of the thing in which it is, while the evil is not nature, but contrary to nature. Take from the winds their terrible- ness and excessive force, with which you find fault, you can conceive of winds as gentle and mild; take from them the similarity of their parts which gives them continuity of sub- stance, and the unity essential to material existence, and no nature remains to be con- ceived of. It would be tedious to go through all the cases; but all who consider the sub- ject free from party spirit must see that in their list of natures the disagreeable things mentioned are additions to the nature; and when they are removed, the natures remain better than before. This shows that the natures, as far as they are natures, are good; for when you take from them the good in- stead of the evil, no natures remain. And attend, you who wish to arrive at a correct judgment, to what is said of the fierce prince himself. If you take away his ferocity, see how many excellent things will remain; his material frame, the symmetry of the members on one side with those on the other, the unity of his form, the settled continuity of his parts, the orderly adjustment of the mind as ruling and animating, and the body as subject and animated. The removal of these things, and of others I may have omitted to mention, will leave no nature remaining.
CHAP. 34. NATURE CANNOT BE WITHOUT SOME GOOD. THE MANICH^ANS DWELL UPON THE EVILS.
37. But perhaps you will say that these evils cannot be removed from the natures, and must therefore be considered natural. The question at present is not what can be taken away, and what cannot; but it certainly helps to a clear perception that these natures, as far as they' are natures, are good, when we see that the good things can be thought of with- out these evil things, while without these good things no nature can be conceived of. I can conceive of waters without muddy commo- tion; but without settled continuity of parts no material form is an object of thought or of sensation in any way. Therefore even these muddy waters could not exist without the good which was the 'condition of their material existence. As to the reply that these evil things cannot be taken from such natures, I rejoin that neither can the good things be taken away. Why, then, should you call these things natural evils, on account of the evil things which you suppose cannot be taken away, and yet refuse to call them natural good things, on account of the good things which, as has been, proved, cannot be taken away?
38. You may next ask, as you usually do for a last resource, whence come these evils which I have said that I too disapprove of. I shall perhaps tell you, if you first tell me whence are those good things which you too are obliged to commend, if you would not be altogether unreasonable. But why should I ask this, when we both acknowledge that all!| good things whatever, and how great soever, are from the one God, who is supremely good? You must therefore yourselves oppose Mani- chaeus who has placed all these important good things which we have mentioned and justly commended, — the continuity and agree- ment of parts in each nature, the health and vigor of the animated creatures, and the other things which it would be wearisome to repeat, — (in an imaginary region of darkness, so as to separate them altogether from that God whom he allows to be the author of all good things.) He lost sight of those good things, while taking notice only of what was dis- agreeable; as if one, frightened by a lion's roaring, and seeing him dragging away and tearing the bodies of cattle or human beings which he had seized, should from childish pusillanimity be so overpowered with fear as to see nothing but the cruelty and ferocity of the lion; and overlooking or disregarding all the other qualities, should exclaim against the nature of this animal as not only evil, but a great evil, his fear adding to his vehemence. But were he to see a tame lion, with its fero- ■ city subdued, especially if he had never been frightened by a lion, he would have leisure, in the absence of danger and terror, to observe and admire the beauty of the animal. My I Chap. XXXVI.]
AGAINST THE EPISTLE OF MANICH^US.
147 only remark on this is one closely connected -with our subject: that any nature may be in some case disagreeable, so as to excite hatred towards the whole nature; though it is clear that the form of a real living beast, even when it excites terror in the woods, is far better than that of the artificial imitation which is commended in a painting on the wall. We must not then be misled into this error by Manich?eus, or be hindered from observing the forms of the natures, by his finding fault with some things in them in such a way as to make us disapprove of them entirely, when it is impossible to show that they deserve entire disapproval. And when our minds are thus composed and prepared to form a just judgment, we may ask whence come those evils which I have said that I condemn. It will be easier to see this if we class them all under one name.
CHAP. 35. EVIL ALONE IS CORRUPTION. COR- RUPTION IS NOT NATURE, BUT CONTRARY TO NATURE. CORRUPTION iKlPLIES PREVIOUS GOOD.
39. For who can doubt that the whole of that which is called evil is nothing else than corruption? Different evils may, indeed, be called by different names; but that which is the evil of all things in which any evil is per- ceptible is corruption. So the corruption of an educated mind is ignorance; the corruption of a prudent mind is imprudence; the corrup- tion of a just mind, injustice; the corruption of a brave mind, cowardice; the corruption of a calm, peaceful mind, cupidity, fear, sorrow, pride. Again, in a living body, the corrup- tion of health is pain and disease; the corrup- tion of strength is exhaustion; the corruption of rest is toil. Again, in any corporeal thing, the corruption of beauty is ugliness; the cor- ruption of straightness is crookedness; the corruption of order is confusion; the corrup- tion of entireness is disseverance, or fracture, or diminution. It would be long and lal^ori- ions to mention by name all the corruptions f'f the things here mentioned, and of count- less other things; for in many cases the words may apply to the mind as well as to the body, and in innumerable cases the corruption has ia distinct name of its own. But enough has )een said to show that corruption does harm ")nly as displacing the natural condition; and n, that corruption is not nature, but against Kiture. And if corruption is the only evil to ^»e found anywhere, and if corruption is not nature, no nature is evil.
40. But if, perchance, you cannot follow jhis, consider again, that whatever is cor- Kipted is deprived of some good: for if it