Augustine: Earlier Writings (continued)
igS AUGUSTINE: EARLIER WRITINGS
since they are not vicious. Blame is applicable, that is, right and fitting, in the case of vice alone. Hence it is supposed to derive its name (vituperatio) from vitium,
41. Now, as I said, vice is evil for no other reason than that it is hostile to the nature of the thing in which it exists as a fault. Hence clearly the thing itself is by nature praiseworthy, though the fault in it is blameworthy. So we must confess that all vituperation of vices is actually praise of the natures whose vices are blamed. Because vice is the enemy of nature, the evil of a vice is greater in proportion to the damage done to the integrity of the nature. When you blame a vice you thereby praise the thing which you would like to see undamaged. You praise the nature of the thing regarded in its integrity. Nature is perfect. Not only is it free from blame but it deserves praise in its own order. If you see anything lacking in the perfection of nature you call it a vice or fault. By the very fact that you blame its imperfection you bear witness that you would be pleased with it if only it were perfect.
XV, 42. If blame of vices is praise of the honour and dignity of the natures of which these are vices, how much more is God to be praised even though there be these vices, for he is the Maker of all natures. From him they derive their being as natures, and they are vicious in so far as they depart from his purpose in creating them. They are rightly blamed in so far as he who blames them sees the purpose in creating them and blames only that which is no longer to be seen in them. The Purpose with which they were all created, that is, the supreme and unchangeable Wisdom of God, truly and supremely is what he is. See, then, whither things tend which depart from him. But that defection would not be blameworthy if it were not voluntary. Would you be right in blaming anything which is as it ought to be? I should think not. It is to be blamed for not being as it ought. No one owes what he has not received. To whom is a debt owed, if not to him from whom something has been received? Things returned by bequest are returned to him who made the bequest. What is paid back to the legal successors of a creditor is really paid back to the original creditor in the persons of his legal successors; otherwise there would be no paying back, but a simple surrender of goods or a passing on of an inheritance, or whatever other name can be given to such a procedure. Wherefore all temporal things are so placed in this temporal order that they must come to an end if the future is to succeed to the past, allowing the whole beauty of things in their tem-