CHAPTER V
if they observe that order which God has ordained for them? So then, whatever the members and senses do must be imputed entirely to the will.
Since the actions of the members and senses are imputed to the will, some one may wonder why the members and the senses are punished for the fault of the will. But in fact, only the will is punished and not the members and the senses. For nothing is punishment for anyone except that which is against his will (that is, whatever he does not want), and only a being who has a will can experience punishment. But the members and the senses will nothing through themselves. Thus, just as the will acts through the members and the senses, so it is also tormented or delighted through them. If anyone objects to this statement, then let him recall that it is really the soul (to which the will belongs) which feels and acts in those senses and members, and which is tor mented or delighted in them. We are accustomed to say that the actions done by an unjust will are sins, because sin exists in the will which does them.
Moreover, names such as 'fornication' or 'lying' are given to certain actions in order to signify that they are done unjustly. But an action (such as forni cation or lying) is one thing, and the fact that it is done justly or unjustly is another. Therefore, no being is unjust in itself.
CHAPTER V
That the Evil Which Is Sin or Injustice Is Nothing Like blindness, injustice is nothing at all. For blindness is nothing other than the absence of sight where sight ought to be; and the absence of sight is nothing more in an eye where sight ought to be than it is in a piece of wood where sight ought not to be. For injustice is not something which is able to infect and corrupt the soul in the same way that poison infects and corrupts the body, nor can it do something in the same way that a wicked man
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does evil deeds. When a savage least, having "broken its "bonds., rages about ■wildly, we say that this is caused by the absence of chains--not because this absence of chains is anything or causes something, but because chains would have kept the beast from raging. Or again, if a helmsman, having left the rudder, delivers his ship to the wind and the waves so that it is tossed and driven into some kind of danger, we say that the lack of a rudder causes this-not because this lack of a rudder is or causes anything, but because a rudder would have kept the ship from danger. So too, when an evil man rages and is driven into those evil deeds which are a danger to his soul, we say that in justice causes these actions--not because injustice has being or causes any thing, but because justice would have kept them from happening. For when justice is absent from the will, to which all the voluntary motions of the whole man are subordinated, then the will is without a helmsman and is uncon trolled and tossed about. In such a state it is driven by various appetites until it precipitates itself and all the members subordinated to it into mani fold evils. But if justice had been present in the will, it would have kept all this from happening.
Therefore, even though the affections and acts of an unjust will are usually called 'injustice,' and even though they are something when considered in themselves, we can see from the above examples that injustice itself has no being. And we understand evil to be nothing for the same reason. For as injustice is nothing other than the absence of a required justice, so evil is nothing other than the absence of a required good. No being, however evil, is called nothing; but for it to be evil is not for it to be something. For a being to be evil is simply for it to lack a good which it ought to have; and for it to lack a good which it ought to have is not for it to be something.
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