that the beauty of the human form is not evil,
St. Augustine added, a body is born which is called comely and is keenly loved by those who take delight in it. But what gives pleasure is not so much the mobile form as the life which causes the mobility. For if the child loves us it strongly attracts us. If it hates us we are angry and cannot endure it, even though its form be such as we might enjoy. All this is the realm of pleasure and of beauty of the lowest grade. It is subject to corruption, otherwise it would be mistaken for the supreme beauty.
75. Divine providence is at hand to. show that the beauty of the human form is not evil, because it exhibits manifest traces of the primal numbers, though divine wisdom is not numbered among them; but also that it is beauty of the lowest grade, for mixed up with it are griefs and diseases, distortions of limbs, darkness of colour, and conflicts and dissensions of mind. By these things we are admonished that we must seek something unchangeable. These evils providence brings about by the agency of inferior beings who find their pleasure in doing this, and whom the divine Scriptures call avengers and ministers of wrath, though they themselves do not know the good that is being done by means of them. Like these are men who rejoice in the miseries of others, and make sport and mocking spectacles by subverting others or by leading them astray. In all these things the good are admonished and exercised, and they are victorious, triumphant and regal.