Book IV, I, p. 116
[Boethius] ‘But the greatest cause of my sadness is really this — the fact at in spite of a good helmsman to guide the world, evil can still exist and even pass unpunished. This fact alone you must surely think of considerable wonder. But there is something even more bewildering. When wickedness rules and flourishes, not only does virtue go unrewarded, it is even trodden underfoot by the wicked and punished in the place of crime. That this can happen in the realm of an omniscient and omnipotent God who wills only good, is beyond perplexity and complaint.’
[Philosophy] ‘If your recent conclusions may remain intact, you can learn from the Creator Himself since it is His realm we are speaking of, that the good are always strong and the wicked always humbled and weak. From Him, too, you can learn that sin never goes unpunished or virtue unrewarded, and that (117) what happens to the good is always happy and that what happens to the bad always misfortune….You have seen the shape of true happiness when I showed it to you just now, and you saw where it is to be found;… I will show you the path that will bring you back home. I will give your mind wings on which to lift itself; all disquiet shall be driven away and you will be able to return safely to your homeland. I will be your guide, your path and your conveyance.’
Book IV, II, p. 119
‘Now, there are two things on which all the performance of human activity depends, will and power. If either of them is lacking, there is no activity that can be performed. In the absence of the will, a man is unwilling to do something and therefore does not undertake it; and in the absence of the power to do it, the will is useless. So that if you see someone who wants to get something which he cannot get, you can be sure that what he has been lacking is the power to get what he wanted….And if you see a man who has done what he wanted, you will hardly doubt that he had the power to do it, will you?…Therefore, men’s power or ability is to be judged by what they can do, and their weakness by what they can’t do….Do you, then, remember how earlier in the argument we reached the conclusion that the instinctive direction of the human will, manifested through a variety of pursuits, was entirely towards happiness?’
‘I remember that this was proved as well.’
‘And you recall that happiness is the good itself and similarly that since they seek happiness, all men desire the good?…So that without any difference of instinct all men, good and bad alike, strive to reach the good….But surely men become good by acquiring goodness?…So that good men obtain what they are looking for?’
‘It seems so.’
‘But if the wicked obtained what they want — that is goodness — they could not be wicked?’
‘No.’
‘Since, then, both groups want goodness, and one obtains it (120) and the other doesn’t, surely there can be no doubt of the power of the good and the weakness of the bad?’
‘Anyone who does doubt it is no judge either of reality or the logic of argument.’
‘Again,’ she said, ‘suppose there were two men who are set the same natural task, and one of them performs and completes it by natural action, while the other cannot manage the natural action, but uses another method contrary to nature, and does not actually complete the task but approximates to someone completing it; which would you say had the more power?…Well, the supreme good is the goal of good men and bad alike, and the good seek it by means of a natural activity — the exercise of their virtues — while the bad strive to acquire the very same thing by means of their various desires, which isn’t a natural method of obtaining the good. Or don’t you agree?’
‘Yes, for what follows is also obvious; from what I have already admitted it follows that the good are powerful and the bad weak.’
(121)’…. Just think how great the weakness is that we see in wicked men; they can’t even reach the goal to which almost by compulsion their natural inclination leads them…. Think of the extent of the weakness impeding the wicked…. The quest in which they fail is the quest for the highest and most important of all things, and success is denied these wretched men in the very pursuit they toil at night and day to the exclusion of all else, the same pursuit in which the strength of the good stands out…. In the same way you must judge the man who achieves the goal of all endeavour, beyond which there is nothing, to be supreme in power. The opposite of this is also true; those who do not gain it are obviously lacking in all power.
‘For I ask you, what is the cause of this flight from virtue to vice? If you say it is because they do not know what is good, I shall ask what greater weakness is there than the blindness of ignorance. And if you say that they know what they ought to seek for, but pleasure sends them chasing off the wrong way, way too, they are weak through lack of self control because they cannot resist vice. And if you say they abandon (122) goodness and turn to vice knowingly and willingly, this way they not only cease to be powerful, but cease to be at all. Men who give up the common goal of all things that exist, thereby cease to exist themselves. Some may perhaps think it strange that we say that wicked men, who form the majority of men, do not exist; but that is how it is. I am not trying to deny the wickedness of the wicked; what I do deny is that their existence is absolute and complete existence. Just as you might call a corpse a dead man, but couldn’t simply call it a man, so I would agree that the wicked are wicked, but could not agree that they have unqualified existence. A thing exists when it keeps its proper place and preserves its own nature. Anything which departs from this ceases to exist, because its existence depends on the preservation of its nature.
‘To the objection that evil men do have power, I would say that this power of theirs comes from weakness rather than strength. For they would not have the power to do the evil they can if they could have retained the power of doing good…But I want you to understand the exact nature of the power we are talking about. A moment ago we decided that there is nothing with greater power than the supreme good….But supreme goodness cannot do evil….Now, no one thinks of human beings as omnipotent, do they?’
‘Not unless they are mad.’
‘But men can do evil?’
‘I only wish they couldn’t.’
(123) ‘It is obvious, therefore, that since a power that can only do good is omnipotent, while human beings who can also do evil are not, these same human beings who can do evil are less powerful. In addition to this we have shown that all forms of power are to be included among those things worth pursuing, and that all these worthwhile objects of pursuit are related to the good as to a kind of aggregate of their nature…. But all forms of power are worth seeking after, so that it is obvious that the ability to do evil is not a form of power.
‘From all this the power of good men is obvious and, beyond all doubt, so is the weakness of bad men. And it is clear that what Plato said in the Gorgias is true, namely that only the wise can achieve their desire, while the wicked busy themselves with what gives pleasure without being able to achieve their real objective. Their actions depend on the belief that they are going to obtain the good they desire through the things that give them pleasure. But they do not obtain it, because evil things cannot reach happiness.’
High kings you see sit loftily on thrones,
In purple bright, by sober arms enhedged…
Once strip from pride their robes of empty show,
And see within the straitening fetters worn…
The king’s own will’s deposed, the enslaver slaved.
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