Chapter 4, Section 1†

also “I have said, Ye are Gods.” 344 i. e. If totally and essentially by very nature evil with respect to themselves. In so far as they continue to exist they are good with respect to themselves. 345 Evil is the contrary of the Good. Hence since the Good is by Its very nature productive, evil must be destructive. Hence the devils, if essentially evil, must be essentially destructive. Now they are not essentially self-destructive, for, were they such, they could not exist. Therefore, if essentially evil, they must under all circumstances be destructive of other things. 346 The essence of (e. g.) an apple-tree is self-identity; its faculty is its latent power of producing leaves, apples, etc.; its activity is the actual production of the leaves, apples, etc. 347 (1) The devils do not destroy all things (e. g. they do not annihilate the human soul). Therefore they are not essentially evil. Evil passions are good things misdirected. (2) Often the destruction of a thing is beneficial (e. g. the falling of the faded leaf). In fact, nothing could be destroyed if it had not grown feeble and so become worthy to be destroyed. (D. here, in his zeal to explain evil away, countenances the base doctrine that might is right. What is wrong with the whole system of the universe is that its underlying law is the survival of the fittest. The enlightened conscience of humanity rebels against this law.) 348 The weakness is an imperfect good, and therefore the process of destruction which co-operates with the weakness is an imperfect good. 349 The Good is permanent. Hence its contrary must be unstable. 350 Evil is essentially a negative and self-contradictory thing. Its very permanence would be opposed to its own nature and would be due to an element of the Good within it. 351 There is a timeless ground in all personalities, and this ground is good. Eckhart and Tauler say, that even the souls in hell possess eternally the divine root of their true being. Ruysbroeck says, this divine root does not of itself make us blessed, but merely makes us exist. 352 i. e. That which is imperfect in them is capable of being made perfect. 353 The sum total of natural laws comes from the ultimate unity of Nature, which comes from the Good. Thus the sum total of natural laws is not, as such, opposed to the ultimate unity of Nature, and therefore is not as such opposed to the Good. It is not essentially evil. 354 Cf. Section 30. 355 The argument of the whole passage is that evil is not inherent in the essential nature of things as a whole or of any particular thing. It arises in particular things (accidentally, as it were) through their failure to fulfil their true nature. But what of this accident? Is it inherent? Perhaps we might answer, “Not inherent because capable of being eliminated.” 356 Matter, it is argued, is evil because the discordant motion of the soul springs from matter. But, replies D., matter is necessary for certain kinds of existence. Hence it follows that evil is necessary. But this is impossible. 357 D. is here alluding to the mystical doctrine of the timeless self—the ultimate root of goodness in each individual which remains unchanged by the failures and sins of the temporal self. 358 D. is arguing with those who hold that evil is in some sense necessary to the existence of the world, and therefore has a permanent place in it. Sin is, they hold, a necessary self-realization of human souls which are in their ultimate essence sinless. D. replies that, if this is so, we cannot explain how goodness can ever be (as it is) a form of self-realization for human souls. 359 i. e.