Disputationes metaphysicae

1. The madness of the Manichees.—The Manichees, as we reported above, posited a certain supremely evil being, existing such of itself and having its origin from no other, which would be the first root and cause of all evils; for they thought that evil cannot arise from good, but only from evil. Whence, since one cannot proceed to infinity, they consequently judged that one must stop at some evil which is of itself. But this heresy, besides having already been attacked, because no being from the fact that it is such is evil, is repugnant to other principles of faith and known also by natural light, namely that, just as there is only one God, so there is only one first principle and first cause of things, and only one uncreated being and of itself necessary, and so all beings which are not God are from God. It is impossible, therefore, that there be some supremely evil being existing of itself and unproduced, as Augustine confirms at length against the Manichees, especially in the book De fide contra Manichaeos, from the beginning, and De natura boni contra Manichaeos, cc. 40 and 41; St. Thomas, I, q. 49, a. 3, and often elsewhere.

2. There is some cause of any evil whatever.—But from this foundation of faith two certain conclusions are inferred. The first is that every evil has some cause. It is proved, because it has been shown that no being is evil of itself; therefore, if there is evil, it must be such from some cause. Next, because a thing is not evil except in so far as it recedes from the perfection due to it, but a thing never fails of due perfection except on account of some cause, either acting or at least impeding; therefore. And this will be more evident in explaining in particular the causes of evil, where we shall also explain how Dionysius said, On the Divine Names, c. 4, that evil has no cause, namely per se, or which would directly intend it.

3. Some good is the cause of evil.—Secondly it is inferred from the said principle that some good is the cause of evil; for every evil has a cause, as has been shown; therefore that cause is either some evil or good; if good, the intent is had; if evil, it is necessary that it too have a cause, of which the same question can be asked. Since, therefore, neither can one proceed to infinity, nor stop at some evil which has no cause, one must necessarily stop at some good which is the cause of evil.

4. It now remains to explain how good is the cause of evil, and in what genus evil can have a cause or require it, whether final or material, formal or efficient.

What the end of evil is

5. Medicinal evil falls under ordered choice.—I say, first: evil formally, as it is evil, does not require a final cause; yet it can have it from the extrinsic intention of the operator. The former part is proved, because evil, since it consists in privation and defect, is not per se intended in things, whence is that axiom: No one intending evil operates; therefore, in order that it be, it does not require a final cause, but can follow beyond the intention of the agent. But the latter part is evident, because an agent, especially a free one acting on purpose, can directly intend some evil for the sake of some end; for that which in one genus is evil can be useful, at least as removing an impediment to obtaining some end. In order that this may be more clearly understood, let us distinguish between the evil of fault and of punishment; and again in the evil of fault let us distinguish its permission from its effecting or from the fault itself. The evil of fault, then, formally and as such (for so we are speaking), not only does not require a final cause, but also cannot rightly and orderly have it, because it cannot be directly intended except by a depraved will, because neither can it be intended as an end, since under that notion it does not have goodness, nor as a means, because evils are not to be done that good may come; but an inordinate will can intend this evil, indeed even malice itself, at least as a means and under some apparent and false notion of good, as, for example, for taking vengeance on another or inflicting injury on one whom it hates, or something similar. But it is otherwise with the permission of such evil of fault; for this can be intended orderly and rightly and have a good end, because of itself it is not evil, but can be good. And in this way God permits evil for the sake of some good, both because such permission pertains to the beauty and variety of the universe, as Dionysius said, On the Divine Names, c. 14; and also because God knows how to elicit many goods from evils permitted, if they happen, as Augustine discourses at length, Enchiridion, c. 27. But the evil of punishment, not only as regards permission but also as regards effecting, can be per se and rightly intended for the sake of an honest end, namely the just vindication of fault; and in this way this evil as such can have a final cause; and so God intends the evils of punishment of which he is the author. To this can also be reduced the evil which can be called medicinal, which is sometimes inflicted to impede a greater evil, as when an arm is cut off to preserve life; for that evil is then directly intended, yet not as an end but as a means, and so it then has its final cause from the intention of the operator. So, then, good, not only apparent but also true, can be the final cause of some evil.

What the subjective cause of evil is

6. I say, secondly: evil, in so far as it is evil, has a material cause, which is always some good; which in other words is wont to be said, that evil as evil is in good as in a subject. So Augustine speaks, Enchiridion, cc. 13 and 14, where among other things he says that evil cannot be except in good, because if it were pure evil it would destroy itself; which St. Thomas also teaches, I, q. 48, a. 3. And the reason is that evil as regards the formal is neither a purely positive thing nor a pure negation; it is therefore the privation of due perfection; therefore it requires a subject to which such perfection is due; therefore that subject must necessarily be some good in which evil or malice is understood to be. This last consequence is proved, both because that subject must necessarily be some positive being, and consequently some good; and also because this very thing, namely that the perfection of which evil deprives is due to such a subject, is a sufficient sign and testimony that such a subject is good, because goodness and perfection cannot be due except to that thing which is good. And in this way Augustine, Contra Julianum I, c. 3, and Enchiridion, c. 12, and often elsewhere, from the very evil which sometimes befalls nature or will proves that the nature or will itself is good; because it becomes evil while it is deprived of due goodness, and is not altogether destroyed, otherwise it would now not be evil, but would altogether not be; in order, then, that it be evil, it is necessary that it be some nature deprived of due perfection.

7. Some objections.—But someone will object: for evil as regards the formal is not a positive and real being; therefore it does not require, indeed cannot even properly be in, a real subject; for a being of reason is in no subject; therefore it cannot be in good as in a subject or material cause. Whence Dionysius, On the Divine Names, c. 4, near the end, absolutely says that evil is not in the things which are. Secondly, because evil destroys the good whose evil it is; therefore it cannot be in it as in a subject; for no form destroys its subject. Thirdly, because otherwise corruption and death would not be evil, which is against the common sense of all; the sequel is evident, because corruption is not the evil of that subject which remains under the corruption itself, that is, of prime matter, since that is indifferent to the form of the generated or the corrupted; but if it is said to be the evil of the corrupted thing, then it is now not in that good whose evil it is; therefore it is not necessary that that good remain under such evil. And it is confirmed, for otherwise the annihilation of a thing would not be its evil, which seems incredible, since it is most worthy of hatred and very disadvantageous and adverse to the appetite by which all things desire to be.

8. They are dissolved.—To the first objection the answer is that evil as regards the formal, or malice, is in the subject after the manner of privation, of which Aristotle said that it is lack in a subject apt by nature; which lack is said to be in the thing itself in exercised act, as corruption or removal, as Cajetan well declares, I, q. 48, a. 2. Where St. Thomas, ad 2, says that evil is not being as it signifies the entity of the thing, yet has such being as suffices for the truth of the proposition by which we say that blindness is in the eye, which being does not signify to posit something in the eye, but rather to remove. In this way, then, evil is said to be in good as in a subject, not as positing something in it, but rather as removing a further perfection due to it. But when Dionysius says that evil is not in things, he understands that it is not as a true being positing something in them.

9. Any evil whatever does not destroy any good whatever.—To the second it has already been said above that not every evil is opposed to any good whatever; whence it is not necessary that evil destroy every good, but that to which it is formally opposed, not that which it supposes in the subject; as darkness destroys the goodness of light, yet not the perfection of the air. You will say: often evil diminishes the goodness of the subject, because it not only takes away the opposite perfection, but also diminishes the ability or aptitude to such perfection; as sin both formally excludes the good act and diminishes the promptness to doing a similar one; therefore evil can be so increased or multiplied as to destroy altogether the goodness of the subject; it does not, therefore, always suppose it. The answer is that a twofold ability of the subject to good can be understood. One is superadded to it and distinct from it, as is a habit in a power or a fitting temperament of qualities in an organ. The other is an ability altogether intrinsic to the faculty or subject, which in the thing is not distinguished from its entity, but by reason only. Again, ability to good can be diminished in two ways. First, through subtraction and real diminution of goodness, in which way the good of water is diminished when its coldness is diminished. In another way, through the addition of impediments, in which way the ability of matter to the form of fire can be said to be diminished by excessive humidity. The former ability, then, distinct from the power, can be diminished through subtraction and properly in itself, whence it can also be totally taken away through contrary evil; which is not inconvenient, because that ability is not the proper subject of such evil, but rather is a form or disposition opposed to it. But the latter ability is not diminished through subtraction, because, since it is not a thing distinct from the subject, as that is not diminished in its entity, so neither is ability of this kind, but it is only said to be diminished in the latter way, and would more properly be said to be impeded; and therefore it can never be consumed or wholly taken away. And because the subject of evil is good according to this intrinsic ability to its proper perfection, therefore the whole good which is in its subject can never be destroyed by evil. And by this reason, although sins are said to diminish the ability of the will to operate well, they can never wholly consume it, even if they are multiplied to infinity, as St. Thomas hands down more fully, I-II, q. 85, a. 1, ad 2. As also the radical ability of matter to one form cannot be taken away, even if the dispositions to the opposite form increase infinitely.

10. You will say: sometimes an unfitting form altogether destroys its subject if it increases too much, as heat water; therefore evil too will be able to destroy altogether the goodness of its subject. The answer is by denying the antecedent in rigour; for a form never corrupts its proper subject in which it inheres, although it can be a disposition to the corruption of the subject which it denominates. Which answer proceeds according to the opinion asserting that heat inheres in prime matter. But according to the opposite opinion it must be said that the heat which truly inheres does not destroy it formally, although per accidens it disposes to its corruption, not proximately but remotely; for in the instant in which the water is corrupted, according to this opinion a new heat is introduced, which now does not inhere in water but in fire, and by it, or rather by the form of fire, the water is formally corrupted. So, then, evil never destroys the subject in which it is; but if sometimes per accidens it disposes to its corruption, it consequently also disposes to the destruction of itself, so that it never remains without a good subject.

11. How death is an evil, and to what subject.—Annihilation is the evil of nothing.—Whence to the third I answer that death or corruption can be considered in two ways. In one way, as it is in becoming through the alterations and dispositions which precede the instant of death; and in this way it is easily understood to have the notion of evil with respect to the subject which is little by little corrupted, against which the argument does not proceed. In another way death can be considered as it is in the instant in which the thing is destroyed; and so I concede (whatever others think) that death properly and in rigour is not the evil of that thing which is destroyed through it, on account of the argument made. Whence St. Thomas, De potentia, q. 5, a. 3, ad 14, concedes that annihilation is not an evil, because it does not leave a good in which it would be founded; which Augustine too thinks, Enchiridion, cc. 12 and 13, where he proves at length that, nature being altogether destroyed, evil does not remain. But speaking broadly, this corruption or destruction of a thing is wont to be called an evil, because it is the total taking away of good, which is a sufficient reason for it to be hated or fled.

Whether there is a formal cause of evil

12. I say, thirdly: evil does not have a proper and intrinsic formal cause besides itself or its malice; but it can have a formal cause in a certain way remote and extrinsic. It is declared and proved, because, since evil formally consists in privation, privation itself is its form; but of privation itself there is no other form by which it is constituted, as is self-evident. But it often happens that the privation of one form follows upon another positive form, not through effecting, but by virtue of formal causality alone; in which way the privation of cold follows upon the information of heat produced in water; and so heat inhering in water, according to true philosophy, expels cold not effectively but formally; and so that heat can rightly be called the formal cause of the privation of cold, which privation is the evil of water. In this way, then, there can be a formal cause of evil, which I call extrinsic and remote, because it is not properly and intrinsically constituting evil itself, but is only the form upon which such evil follows.

What the efficient of evil is

13. That evil follows upon the perfect causality of the agent.—I say, fourthly: evil always has some efficient cause, yet not per se but per accidens and beyond the primary and intrinsic intention of the agent. The former part is known from what we said at the beginning of the section; for the notion of evil does not belong to being per se and from within; therefore from without; therefore through some efficiency or efficient cause; for nothing can come from without which does not proceed from another efficient. But in order that the latter part may be declared, it is to be noticed that evil can befall things in three ways. In the first way, through the perfect efficiency of the acting cause, as when an efficient cause by perfect power introduces a form, and upon it follows the privation of another form which has the notion of evil; and in this way fire is the efficient cause of evil in water, namely the privation of cold; and God is the cause of every natural evil or of punishment which in this way follows or comes about, because he both instituted the causes effecting this evil and operates with them. But it is evident that this efficiency is not per se but per accidens, because the purpose of the agent is not to destroy another, but to communicate its own being; but it happens that thence follows the non-being of another, because it is incompatible with another. But if anyone wishes to say that this evil, although it is not intended for its own sake, is nevertheless in some way intended for the sake of another, that is, as a means and disposition necessary for introducing another good, whoever (I say) says this will not err much. And therefore I said that this effecting of evil is beyond the primary intention of the agent, which per se is not to evil but to good. But I added that the discussion is of the intrinsic intention of the agent, that is, of that which it has by virtue of its action; for, if it is a free agent, it can directly and per se intend the evil of another for the sake of another end, as we were saying above of the evil of punishment, which God directly intends, the evil of fault being supposed; but this intention is extrinsic to that action through which such evil comes about.

14. Some evil arises from the imperfection of the cause.—An objection is met.—In the second way it happens that evil follows upon the action of an efficient cause from the imperfection or defect of such a cause. And this happens when the evil itself is admixed with the action itself, or with the effect or form introduced and intended by the efficient cause itself;¹ so limping is a certain evil in the notion of progressive motion, which follows in the action from a defect of the principal or instrumental motive power; and then too it is evident that the evil is beyond the intention of the agent, indeed does not follow upon it as it is agent, but as it is deficient. You will say: although, comparing that malice of the action to the positive power and efficiency of the cause, it is per accidens, nevertheless, comparing it to the imperfection of the cause, it will be per se from it, according to that rule: As affirmation is the per se cause of affirmation, so negation of negation. The answer is that hence it is at most concluded that evil as evil has a per se deficient cause, which as such is rather a non-efficient than an efficient cause, which comes to the same; for that malice is joined per accidens with efficiency as such, although per se it follows from the defect and imperfection of the cause. Which consequence is called per se either in order to the moral notion, as I shall explain immediately; or certainly according to a certain accommodation and attribution, the necessary consequence of one from the other being supposed; for properly and physically privation does not flow into privation nor defect into defect; but because from a defective cause a defective action follows, therefore the perfection of the effect is per se attributed to the perfection of the cause, but the defect to the imperfection.

15. The malice of the effect does not necessarily suppose malice in the cause.—Someone will say again: therefore this evil in the action or in the effect always supposes evil in the cause. But the consequent seems false, for of that malice of the cause I inquire whether it has another cause or not; if it does not have one, then there is an evil which has no cause, which we showed above cannot happen; but if it has a cause, either that too will have a defect, and so the same question will return of it, and so one will proceed to infinity; or one will have to stop at a cause which, since it has no malice or defect, is the cause of a defective action and effect. The consequent is against what has been said and against reason; for, since any cause whatever acts toward what is similar or proportioned to itself, why will a good cause having no malice produce an evil and defective effect? The answer is by absolutely denying the first sequel; for it is not necessary that the malice of the effect always suppose malice in the cause, because, by whatever reason the cause is impeded from acting according to the whole perfection due to the action or effect, the action will be able to be defective and evil in its genus. But the cause can so operate or be impeded even if no malice properly taken is supposed in it; although this mode of acting always supposes some imperfection, which is not always proper malice or the privation of due perfection, but only the negation of greater perfection, naturally consequent upon the limited perfection of such a cause.

16. Whence the effects of necessarily acting causes contract malice.—In order that this may be more clearly understood, let us distinguish between causes acting naturally and free ones; for a cause which acts naturally, if it is perfect in itself and not impeded, will act as much as it can, and therefore will never commit a defect in action which has the notion of natural evil; and this the reason made rightly convinces, because from a good cause, acting as much as it can and not impeded, there is nothing whence malice could result in the action. From a twofold cause, therefore, such a defect in the action can happen. First, from this, that the cause itself is badly affected in itself, as if the eye, for example, is wrongly disposed; and then it is true that the malice of the action supposes malice in the cause, yet it is not necessary to proceed to infinity, because that malice of the cause can come from the action of another cause perfect in its genus, which, while it intends to produce its perfect effect, consequently introduces into the eye some disposition unfitting to it, according to the first mode posited above; or it could in the very formation have come from some natural impediment, as I shall now say. Secondly, then, this can come from some extrinsic impeding cause, whether this be material or efficient, whether it be in the patient itself or in the mode;² for from the concurrence of such causes resisting and impeding one another it happens that the action of one cause comes forth defective and monstrous, even if in the cause itself no natural evil properly taken precedes.

17. An evil effect always supposes a defect in a necessary cause.—Nor does the reason made proceed against this, because, although from a good cause as it is good nothing proceeds but good and perfection, nevertheless, because that cause can be impeded from acting according to its whole perfection, it can thence happen that the effect does not receive the whole perfection due to it, or does not receive it with the mode, species and order accommodated to its nature, in which lack the notion of evil consists. But although then the malice of the effect does not come from the malice of the cause, it nevertheless always supposes in it some imperfection, at least negative, namely the defect of power to overcome the cause impeding it, or the indisposition or resistance of the matter. And so it is easily understood whence this evil can come about in natural effects, so that it is not necessary either to proceed to infinity or to stop at some evil which has no cause; for one must stop at the natural imperfection of one cause, with the impediment of another adjoined; but this impediment can come from the natural course and order and power of natural causes. But that imperfection or impotence to overcome the impediment does not require any cause, because it is a mere negation intrinsically and necessarily conjoined with such a nature of the thing, of itself limited to such a grade and perfection of being. Nor is it inconvenient that an imperfection which in the cause is merely negative and does not have the notion of evil be the root and origin of privative imperfection having the notion of evil in the action or effect, because by reason of the intervening impediment it can happen per accidens that the effect is deprived of the perfection due to it, because the cause is impeded from being able to act according to its whole perfection.

18. The dominion of a free cause is the adequate origin of malice and defect in its action.—But in a cause acting freely there is another proper mode of failing in its action, namely from the dominion which it has over its act, without another extrinsic impediment. For, by the very fact that it is free, it does not always act as much as it can and ought; and therefore from the same root it can effect a sinful action without another impediment. And hence it also comes about that evil proceeding from a free cause, which is properly moral evil or of fault, does not necessarily suppose in the cause another similar evil; otherwise we could not stop at the first evil of fault proceeding from such a cause, which is impossible. Indeed neither is it necessary that this first evil of fault suppose in the cause some prior evil which is not of fault but of another genus, namely of nature; for, as I said, it can proceed from the liberty of the creature alone; but liberty is not an evil, but rather a good. Especially because, according to the doctrine handed down above from Augustine, every evil of the rational creature is either of fault or of punishment; but the evil of punishment according to its whole self supposes some evil of fault; therefore the evil of fault, if it is the first, cannot suppose another evil. It supposes, however, some intrinsic and connatural imperfection of the creature, which is to be mutable and defectible, which, formally speaking, it does not have from another cause, but from itself, because it is from nothing and of limited and finite perfection in its order; for from this limitation it has both that it is not the rule of its own operations but needs a superior rule, and also that it is not per se and infallibly conjoined to its rule, but can fail from it. But this natural imperfection, although it is not evil (for it is not a privation, but a mere negation), can nevertheless be the origin of moral evil, because, liberty being adjoined, by virtue of it, without another extrinsic impediment, the mutable will can fail to do all that it can and ought, or do it not as it can and ought, but in another more imperfect way.

19. Evil in the effect sometimes from the mere lack of the influx of the cause.—In the third way it happens that evil follows without any positive efficiency from the mere subtraction of efficiency or of the influx of due goodness. For, since evil consists in privation, per se it does not require a positive influx in order to be in its own way; for every positive influx is terminated per se primarily at a positive form or thing; but this, per se speaking, is not necessary for privation; therefore, in order that evil follow, it is enough that the good due to some subject is not made or not preserved, the subject being preserved with the same aptitude and (so to speak) right to such good. And in moral things indeed this can happen from the mere dominion of the free power over its action. Although it is a controverted question whether there can be a pure moral evil without any action, which is wont to be called pure omission, of which matter we need not discourse; for it is enough for the matter of which we are treating that this evil by virtue of its being does not require action, whatever may be the case whether on account of the notion of the voluntary an act is necessary. But in natural things, because a cause cannot suspend action of itself, but only because either the patient is removed, or it itself is distant, or some other impediment intervenes, which does not come about without some positive action, therefore, although evil proceeding from a natural cause per se and formally often comes from the mere lack of action, nevertheless that always follows upon some other action or change; as, although darkness follows in the air from the mere non-illumination of the sun, nevertheless this lack of illumination follows upon the motion of the illuminating body or of another body. In this way, then, the privation in which evil consists can happen; and then almost the same judgement holds of this mode of effecting evil as of the first; for this evil follows per accidens from the action of another cause, not because the action itself is defective, but because the term of such action is incompossible with the action of another cause, or with some condition required for it.

20. But hence it is inferred that, when evil is said to have an efficient cause, it is to be understood either of a cause either positive or privative, because privation is reduced to the positive, as St. Thomas said in a similar case, I-II, q. 71, a. 6, ad 1; or certainly, if it is understood of a positively acting cause, it is to be verified with proportion; for in natural things there always precedes some natural action, upon which follows, or to which is adjoined, the privation which is evil; but in moral things, if we speak morally, there also always intervenes an action of the will which malice accompanies, or at least that action or virtual will is necessary, although perhaps, speaking metaphysically, it is not repugnant that there be such evil without formal action.

How evil is from the first cause

21. And from these things it is sufficiently evident what the proximate and particular efficient cause of evil is; but how evil is also from the first and most universal cause, which is God, briefly remains to be explained. The effects of secondary causes are attributed to God in two ways, namely either mediately, because he gave the power of acting to secondary causes, or immediately, because he concurs with them and flows proximately into their actions and effects. Again, we have from what has been said that evil follows from the proximate cause in two ways, namely either by virtue of its activity and positive perfection, or only from the lack of perfection or action. It must be said, then, that God is in the aforesaid two ways the cause of the evil which follows by virtue of the perfect activity of some cause. It is evident, because God both gave that power or activity and concurs with it to that perfect action upon which the evil of another follows. But God so effects this evil as the proximate cause does, as regards this, that he causes it not per se and directly but consequently and per accidens, because evil itself, since it is privative, is not otherwise makeable. Which is to be understood as regards physical action; for as regards the intention of the agent, since God is an agent through intellect, he can directly intend evil itself for the sake of some good. And in this way God is the cause of any merely natural evil whatever, according to that: The Lord kills and makes alive, 1 Kings 1 [recte 2]. He is likewise and most of all the cause of the evil of punishment, in which way it is said: There is no evil in the city which the Lord has not done, Amos 3. But what is sometimes said, God did not make death, Wisdom 2 [recte 1], is understood that he did not intend nor will it from his primary intention, but was in a certain way compelled by the fault of men, which being supposed, he truly makes death and wills it in punishment of fault. Wherefore God can effect this evil not only through secondary causes, but also immediately through himself, because it requires no defect in the immediate cause, but can proceed from perfect efficacy alone.

22. But that evil which follows from the lack of perfection or action of the proximate cause per se does not require the influx of God, nor is it necessarily conjoined with the action of God as such, and therefore it is not necessary that it be attributed to God. It is proved, because this evil does not follow from the perfection or activity of the proximate cause, but from imperfection and lack; therefore it does not follow from what the cause has from God, but rather from what it has of itself, or rather because of itself it lacks perfection not due to it. Again, the secondary cause does not need the concurrence of God in so far as it does not act, but in so far as it acts something; therefore this evil per se has nothing whence it is attributed to God, either mediately or immediately. And by this reason the evil of fault does not redound to God; for according to faith God is not the author of sin. Indeed neither can any malice of action proceeding from a defect of the proximate power be attributed to God, as is, for example, limping, which St. Thomas teaches, I, q. 49, a. 2.

23. But in this is to be noted a difference between the evil of fault and others, that in the evil of fault the imperfection which is necessarily supposed in the cause belongs to it of itself and in no way from without, and on account of the special condition and liberty of such a cause it can be the origin of the evil of fault without extrinsic impediment. Whence it comes about that the first and sufficient root of such evil as such is the proximate cause itself without the intervention of the first. But in other evils of natural actions the imperfection which is supposed in the cause, if it is merely natural and negative, cannot be the root of defective action unless some extrinsic impediment intervenes, as was said above, which impediment always comes from some positive motion or effect of which God can be the cause; and from this side the root of such evil can be referred to God. Again, if the imperfection of the cause is preternatural to it and consequently has the notion of some evil in it, such a defect always comes from some other natural action or motion, which must necessarily be from God. And in this way every natural evil can finally be referred to God, not in so far as it comes from a defect which is not from God, but in so far as it comes from some effect or action which is from God. Whence in the said example of limping, although the defect of that motion is not in that action by virtue of the emanation which it has from God, but from a weak or defective leg, nevertheless, because this defect of the leg can have been made by God, or by a secondary cause perfectly operating or intending its effect, therefore limping itself can finally be reduced to the first cause, which cannot have place in the evil of fault.

24. To this is added also another difference, that the evil of fault, on account of its baseness, cannot be intended or willed by God, but only permitted; but the other evils, whencesoever they come, if they do not include fault, can be directly willed and intended by God, because they do not have a baseness repugnant to his supreme goodness; and therefore of the evil of fault alone God cannot be the cause, but of the others he can. And hence too it is that evil proceeding from the mere lack of action, if it is moral, cannot be either from God alone or from him as the primary cause and root, but from the defectible liberty of the creature. But if such evil is merely natural, it can be either from God alone, suspending the whole action by which he alone preserves the good, or from God as the first cause and root, as if a secondary cause omits to act only because God suspends his concurrence.