Augustine: Earlier Writings (continued)
created afterwards, and that by its goodness a soul later created should deserve to regain the state which the earher one had lost. Ihere would be nothing unworthy about it if the Creator had determined to show in this way that the soul so far excelled in dignity every corporeal creature that one soul could start from the position to which another had fallen. The sinful soul reached an estate of ignorance and toil, which is rightly called penalty, because before the penalty it had been better. Even if a soul, before it sinned and even before it was bom, was given a nature like that which another acquired after a guilty life, it has no small good for which to give thanks to its Creator, for even in its inchoate beginning it is better than any body however perfect. These are no mean advantages, not only to be a soul and so naturally to excel all bodies, but also to have the power with the aid of the Creator to cultivate itself, and with pious care to acquire all the virtues by which it may be liberated both from tormenting toil and from blinding ignorance. If that is so in the case of souls that are born, ignorance and toil will not be punishment for sin but a warning to improve themselves, and the beginning of their perfecting. It is no small thing to have been given, before there has been any merit gained by any good work, the natural power to discern that wisdom is to be preferred to error and tranquillity to toil, and to know that these good things are to be reached not simply by being born but by earnestly seeking them. But if the soul will not act in this way it will rightly be held guilty of sin for not making a good use of the power it has received. Though it is born in ignorance and toilsomeness there is no necessity for it to remain in that state. Indeed it could not exist were not Almighty God the Creator of such souls. For before he was loved he made them. In love he restores them. And being loved he perfects them. To souls which do not yet exist he gives existence; and to those who love him who gives them existence he gives happiness too.
57. If, on the other hand, souls pre-exist in some secret place and are sent out to quicken and rule the bodies of individuals when they are born, their mission is to govern well the body which is born under the penalty of the sin of the first man, that is, mortality. They are to discipline it with the virtues, and subject it to an orderly and legitimate servitude, so that in due order and in the due time men may attain the place of heavenly perfection. When they enter this life and submit to wearing mortal members these souls must also undergo forgetfulness of