Augustine: Earlier Writings
l66 AUGUSTINE: EARLIER WRITINGS
of them; even so ought you to confess that free will, without which no one can live aright, is a good thing divinely bestowed, and that those are to be condemned who make a bad use of it, rather than to suggest that he who gave it ought not to have done so.
49. Ev.—I should like you first to prove to me that free will is a good thing. Then I shall agree that God gave it, because I admit that all good things come from God. Aug.—Have I not proved this to your satisfaction after all the labour of our previous discussion? You admitted that every corporeal form derives its existence from the supreme form of all, that is, from the truth. And you agreed that every form was good. Truth himself, in the Gospel, tells us that even the hairs of our heads are numbered. Have you forgotten what we said about the supremacy of number, and its power which extends from one end to the other? What perversity it is to number our hairs among the good things though they are small and utterly contemptible, and to attribute their creation to God, the Creator of all good things because all good things, the greatest and the least, come from him from whom is all good; and yet to hesitate to ascribe free will to him, seeing that without it no one can live aright even on the testimony of those who live evil lives. Now tell me, pray, what in us seems to be superior, that without which we can live aright, or that without which we cannot live aright. Ev.—Now please spare me. I am ashamed of my blindness. Who can doubt that that is far superior without which there can be no right living? Aug.—Will you deny that a oneeyed man can live rightly? Ev.—Away with such shocking madness. Aug.—You agree that an eye is a good thing, and yet the loss of it does not prevent right living. Can you imagine that free will, without which no one can live aright, is no good thing?
50. Look at justice, of which no one can make a bad use. It is numbered among the best good things which a man can have.
So are all the virtues of the soul which constitute the righteous and honourable life. No one makes a bad use of prudence or fortitude or temperance. In all of these, as injustice which you have chosen to mention, right reason prevails, without which there can be no virtues. And no one can make a bad use of right reason, [xix.] These are therefore great good things. But you must remember that there can be no good things, great or small, save from him from whom all good things come, that is, God. So we were persuaded by our previous discussion, in