Chapter XVI
The Fall of Satan
Chapter XVI That injustice is nothing except the absence of justice where justice should be.
T. Before the will received this justice, was it under obligation to will and not will in accordance with justice?
It was not obliged to will what it did not have, since it had not yet received it.
T. But you do not doubt that after the will had received justice, it ought to have willed according to it—unless this justice were lost because of some violence?
I think the will was always bound to this obligation, whether it kept the justice it received or whether it deserted it of its own accord.
T. You judge correctly. But what if the will should desert this justice which was so usefully and wisely added to it? And what if it deserted justice by freely using its own power, not being forced by any need or any violence, but simply by willing more than it should? Would there then remain in the will anything besides what belonged to it before the addition of justice?
S. Since nothing else had been added to the will except justice, then once justice had been separated from it, certainly nothing else could remain in the will except what was there first.
Of course, having received justice would make the will a debtor, for even after justice has been deserted, certain lovely vestiges of it remain in the will. For the fact that the will remains a debtor to justice shows that it was once adorned with the honor of justice; for it is completely just that whoever once received justice should always be in its debt—unless the justice were taken away by violence. And certainly we regard that nature which once had justice, and so is always in its debt for such an honorable good, as more worthy than a nature which never had justice and is not its debtor.
T. You are thinking well. But now add to your thought that the more praiseworthy the nature which is in debt to justice because it once had it, the more blameworthy the person who doesn't have the justice to which he is in debt.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Truth, Freedom, and Evil T.
Tell me now what shows a nature to be praiseworthy and what makes a person blameworthy.
S. To have had justice and to owe justice are natural dignities; but not to have justice is a personal dishonor. For owing results from the one who gave, but not-having results from the one who deserted. And so someone owes because he has received, but one does not-have because he has deserted.
T. Therefore, what you are blaming in a will which did not remain upright in justice is not that it owes justice, but that it doesn't have justice.
S. All I blame is the absence of justice or the not-having of justice. For as I've already said, it is an honor to be in debt to justice, but a dishonor not to have justice; and the more the debt honors the will, the more the not-having disgraces it.
So the will's not having justice, through its own fault, disgraces it only because having and owing justice, through someone's goodness in giving it, honors the will.
Isn't it the case that you judge a will to be unjust if it doesn't have the justice it should have, and you judge that there is injustice in it?
S. Who wouldn't so judge?
If it were not unjust, and if there were no injustice in it, then I think you would be blaming nothing in it.
S. Nothing at all.
T. So you are blaming nothing else in it except injustice, and you blame the will because it is unjust.
There's nothing else in it to blame.
T. Then, if you blame nothing else in the will than the absence of justice and its not having justice, as you've now said, and if it's true that you blame nothing else in it than the fact that injustice is in it, or that it is unjust: then it is evident that the injustice in the will, or its being unjust, is nothing other than the absence of justice, or its not having justice.
S. These two things can in no way be different.
T. Then, just as the absence of justice and not having justice have no being, so injustice and being unjust have no being; and for this reason they are not something but nothing.
S. Nothing else.
The Fall of Satan
T. Remember, now, we agreed that when justice departs from the will, nothing else remains in the will except its debt to justice and what it had before it received justice.
S. That's obvious.
T. But the will was not unjust, nor was there any injustice in it, before it had justice.
S. Not at all.
T. So when justice departs from the will, one of the following alternatives must be true: either the will is not unjust and there is no injustice in it, or to be unjust and injustice are nothing.
S. Nothing seems more necessary than this.
T. But you have conceded that the will has injustice in it, and is unjust, after it has deserted justice.
S. Of course, I couldn't avoid it.
T. So to be unjust is nothing and injustice is nothing.
S. What I earlier beheved without understanding, you have now caused me also to know.
I think now that you know—since injustice is only the absence of justice and to be unjust is simply not to have justicewhy it is that we call the absence of justice "injustice" only after justice is lost, and not before it is given; and you now know why we call not-having justice "being unjust," and regard both injustice and being unjust as reprehensible. For the absence of justice is never disgraceful except in a case where it ought to be present. For example, it is no shame for a man who should not yet have a beard not to have one; but when he ought to have a beard, his not having one is unseemly. In the same way, it is no defect to possess a nature which is not supposed to have justice, but it is dishonoring to have a nature which should have justice and does not. So the more it seems that someone ought to have a manly nature, the more it dishonors him not to have a manly appearance.
I see well enough that injustice is only the absence of justice where justice should be.