On Free Choice of the Will 1.9–1.16

A. When, then, a human being is so constituted and ordered, does he not seem to you wise? E. I do not know who else could seem to me a wise man, if this one does not. A. I believe you also know that most people are foolish. E. That too is well established. A. But if the fool is the opposite of the wise man, then since we have found the wise man, you surely now understand who the fool is. E. To whom is it not plain that he is the one in whom the mind does not have supreme power? A. What, then, should be said when a human being is in that condition? That he lacks a mind, or that, although it is present, it lacks dominion? E. Rather the latter, which you put last. A. I would very much like to hear from you by what evidence you have perceived that there is in a human being a mind that does not exercise its rule. E. I wish you would take that part yourself; for it is not easy for me to bear what you heap on me. A. At least it is easy for you to remember what we said a little earlier: how beasts tamed and broken by human beings serve them, which human beings would suffer in turn from them, as reason showed, unless they excelled in something. This we did not find in the body; and since it appeared to be in the soul, we found nothing else to call it but reason, which we afterward remembered is also called mind and spirit. But if reason is one thing and mind another, it is certainly agreed that only the mind can use reason. From this it follows that one who has reason cannot lack a mind. E. I remember this well and hold to it. A. Well, do you believe that tamers of beasts can only be wise men? For I call wise those whom truth bids us call so, that is, those who are at peace through the rule of the mind and the subjugation of all lust. E. It is ridiculous to think that those are such whom people commonly call animal-tamers, or shepherds or cowherds or charioteers, to all of whom we see tame animals subject, and by whose effort untamed ones are subjected. A. There, then, you have the surest evidence to make it plain that there is a mind in a human being without dominion. It is in these men, for they do things that could not be done without a mind; yet it does not rule, for they are fools, and it is well known that the rule of the mind belongs only to the wise. E. It is remarkable that we had already settled this above and that I could not think of what to answer.

E. But let us link up the other points. For it has now been found that the rule of the human mind is human wisdom, and that the mind can also fail to rule. A. Do you think lust is more powerful than this mind, to which we know that rule over the lusts has been granted by the eternal law? I in no way think so. For it would not be most perfectly ordered for weaker things to command stronger ones. So I think it necessary that the mind be more powerful than desire, by the very fact that it rightly and justly rules desire. E. I think so too. A. Well, do we doubt that every virtue so far surpasses every vice that the better and loftier a virtue is, the firmer and more unconquerable it is? E. Who would doubt it? A. So no vicious mind overcomes a mind armed with virtue. E. Most true. A. Now I do not think you will deny that any mind whatever is better and more powerful than any body. E. No one denies it who sees (and it is easy to see) that a living substance is to be preferred to one that is not living, or one that gives life to one that receives it. A. Much less, then, does any body whatever overcome a mind endowed with virtue. E. That is most evident. A. Well, can a just mind, a mind guarding its own right and rule, cast down from its citadel another mind that rules with equal justice and virtue, and subject it to lust? E. In no way: not only because of the same excellence in both, but also because the mind that tries to do this to the other will fall from justice first and become vicious, and by that very fact will be weaker. A. You understand well. So it remains for you to answer, if you can, whether anything seems to you more excellent than a rational and wise mind. E. Nothing, I think, except God. A. That is my view too. But since the matter is difficult, and this is not the right time to inquire into it so as to come to an understanding of it, although it is held by the strongest faith, let a careful and cautious treatment of this question be kept in reserve for us.

For at present we can know that whatever that nature is which may rightly excel a mind strong in virtue, it can in no way be unjust. So not even it, though it has the power, will compel the mind to serve lust. E. There is absolutely no one who would not admit this without any hesitation. A. It remains, then, since whatever is equal or superior to the mind that rules and possesses virtue does not make it the slave of lust, because of justice, and whatever is inferior cannot do this, because of weakness, as the points we have agreed on teach, that nothing else makes the mind a companion of desire but its own will and free choice. E. I see that nothing follows so necessarily. A. It follows, then, that it seems to you right that the mind should pay penalties for so great a sin. E. I cannot deny it. A. Well then, should this very penalty be thought small: that lust rules over it, and, stripped of the wealth of virtue, drags it, poor and needy, in different directions; now approving false things as true, now even defending them, now rejecting what it had approved before and nonetheless rushing into other falsehoods; now suspending its assent and often dreading clear reasonings; now despairing of finding truth at all and clinging deep in the darkness of folly; now striving toward the light of understanding, and falling back again from weariness? Meanwhile that reign of the desires rages like a tyrant and throws the whole mind and life of the man into confusion with various and contrary storms: on this side fear, on that longing; on this side anxiety, on that empty and false joy; on this side the torment of losing a thing that was loved, on that the burning to obtain what one did not have; on this side the pains of an injury received, on that the torches of revenge for it. Wherever it turns, avarice can constrict it, luxury squander it, ambition bind it over, pride puff it up, envy twist it, sloth bury it, obstinacy goad it, subjection afflict it, along with all the other countless things that crowd and busy the reign of that lust. Can we, after all, think this no penalty, which, as you see, all who do not cling to wisdom must suffer? E. I judge this to be a great penalty indeed, and wholly just, if someone already set on the height of wisdom should choose to come down from there and serve lust. But it is uncertain whether there can be anyone who has wanted or wants to do this. For although we believe that man was created by God so perfectly, and established in a happy life, that he fell from there into the hardships of mortal life by his own will, yet while I hold this with the firmest faith, I have not yet attained it by understanding. If you think a careful inquiry into this should now be put off, you do so against my will.

E. But what troubles me most is why we suffer such very bitter penalties, we who are certainly fools and were never wise, so that we could deservedly be said to suffer them for deserting the citadel of virtue and choosing slavery under lust. I would in no way grant that you should put off explaining this by argument, if you can. A. You say this as if you had clearly established that we were never wise; for you are looking at the time from which we were born into this life. But since wisdom is in the soul, whether the soul lived some other life before its partnership with this body, and whether it ever lived wisely, is a great question, a great secret, to be considered in its own place. Yet this does not hinder what we now have in hand from being explained as far as it can be. For I ask you whether we have any will. E. I do not know. A. Do you want to know this? E. This too I do not know. A. Then ask me nothing more. E. Why? A. Because I ought not to answer your questions unless you want to know what you ask. Further, unless you want to attain wisdom, no conversation on such matters should be held with you. Finally, you cannot be my friend unless you want me to be well. And as for yourself, see for yourself whether you have no will for your own happy life. E. I admit that it cannot be denied that we have a will. Go on now; let us see what you conclude from this. A. I will. But first tell me also whether you are aware that you have a good will. E. What is a good will? A. The will by which we desire to live rightly and honorably and to attain the highest wisdom. Just see whether you do not desire a right and honorable life, or do not strongly want to be wise, or at least whether you dare deny that when we want these things we have a good will. E. I deny none of these, and so I confess that I now have not only a will but a good will. A. How highly, I beg you, do you value this will? Do you think that riches or honors or bodily pleasures, or all these together, are in any way to be compared with it? E. God forbid such wicked madness! A. Is it, then, a small cause for joy that we have something in the mind, I mean this very good will, in comparison with which the things we mentioned are utterly worthless, though we see a multitude of people refuse no labors and no dangers to obtain them? E. A cause for joy indeed, and a very great one. A. Well, those who do not enjoy this joy: do you think they suffer a small loss of so great a good? E. No, a very great one. A. You see now, I think, that it is placed in our will whether we enjoy or lack so great and so true a good. For what is so much in the will as the will itself? Whoever has it good certainly has something to be preferred far above all earthly kingdoms and all bodily pleasures. Whoever does not have it certainly lacks that which is more excellent than all the goods not placed in our power, and which the will alone would give him by itself. So, while he judges himself most miserable if he loses a glorious reputation, great wealth, and any goods of the body, will you not judge him most miserable even if he abounds in all such things? For he clings to things he can very easily lose and does not have for as long as he wants, but he lacks a good will, which is not even to be compared with these, and which, though so great a good, needs only to be willed to be had. E. Most true. A. Rightly and deservedly, then, foolish people, even if they were never wise (for this is doubtful and most hidden), are afflicted with misery of this kind. E. I agree.

A. Consider now whether prudence seems to you to be the knowledge of what is to be sought and what is to be avoided. E. It does. A. Well, is not fortitude that disposition of the soul by which we despise all the discomforts and losses of things not placed in our power? E. I think so. A. Further, temperance is the disposition that restrains and holds back the appetite from things that are desired shamefully. Or do you think otherwise? E. No, I think as you say. A. Now what shall we say justice is, but the virtue by which each is given his own? E. I have no other notion of justice. A. Whoever, then, has a good will, of whose excellence we have been speaking for some time, and embraces it alone with love, since meanwhile he has nothing better; who delights in it, and finally enjoys it fully and rejoices in it, considering and judging how great it is, and that it cannot be snatched or stolen from him against his will: can we doubt that he will oppose all things that are hostile to this one good? E. He must absolutely oppose them. A. Do we think that he has no prudence, who sees that this good is to be sought and the things hostile to it avoided? E. In no way does it seem to me that anyone can do this without prudence. A. Right. But why should we not grant him fortitude as well? For he cannot love and value highly all those things that are not in our power. They are loved by an evil will, which he must resist as an enemy of his dearest good. And since he does not love these things, he does not grieve when they are lost, and he despises them altogether; and this, as was said and granted, is the work of fortitude. E. Let us grant it indeed. For I do not see whom I could more truly call brave than one who goes without, with an even and calm mind, those things which it is not in our power either to obtain or to keep; and we found that he necessarily does this. A. See now whether we can deny him temperance, since it is the virtue that restrains lusts. And what is so hostile to a good will as lust? From this you surely understand that this lover of his own good will resists lusts in every way and opposes them, and so is rightly called temperate. E. Go on; I agree. A. Justice remains, and I certainly do not see how it could be lacking in this man. For one who has and loves a good will, and opposes, as was said, what is hostile to it, cannot wish evil to anyone. It follows that he does injury to no one, which is impossible unless one gives each his own; and you remember, I think, that you approved when I said that this belongs to justice. E. I do remember, and I confess that in this man, who values and loves his good will highly, all four virtues are found that you described a little earlier with my agreement. A. What, then, prevents us from granting that his life is praiseworthy? E. Nothing at all; rather, everything urges or even compels it. A. Well, can you in any way not judge that a miserable life is to be fled? E. I judge so emphatically, and I think nothing else should be done. A. But a praiseworthy life, surely, you do not think should be fled. E. Indeed, I think it should be diligently sought. A. Then the life that is praiseworthy is not miserable. E. That certainly follows. A. Nothing now remains, I think, that is hard for you to assent to: that the life that is not miserable is the happy life. E. That is most evident. A. We agree, then, that the man is happy who loves his own good will and, in comparison with it, despises whatever else is called good, the loss of which can happen even while the will to keep it remains. E. Why should we not agree, when what we granted above necessarily leads to it? A. You understand well. But tell me, please: is not loving one's own good will and valuing it as highly as was said itself a good will? E. You speak the truth. A. And if we rightly judge this man happy, do we not rightly judge miserable the one whose will is the contrary? E. Most rightly. A. What reason is there, then, why we should think it doubtful that, even if we were never wise before, it is by the will that we deserve and lead a praiseworthy and happy life, and by the will a shameful and miserable one? E. I admit that we have arrived at this by certain and undeniable steps. A. See another point too. I believe you remember what we said a good will is: it was said, I think, to be the will by which we seek to live rightly and honorably. E. So I remember. A. If, then, we love and embrace this will in turn with a good will, and prefer it to all the things that we cannot keep merely because we want to, then, as reason has taught, those virtues will dwell in our mind, and to have them is the very thing that it is to live rightly and honorably. From this it follows that whoever wants to live rightly and honorably, if he wills to want this above fleeting goods, attains so great a thing with such ease that for him to have what he willed is nothing other than to will it. E. Truly I tell you, I can hardly keep from shouting for joy, since so great a good has suddenly dawned on me and is placed so within easy reach. A. And this very joy that arises from attaining this good, when it lifts up the mind calmly, quietly, and steadily, is called the happy life; unless you think that living happily is something other than rejoicing in true and certain goods. E. So I think.

E. Why, then, do few become happy, when all want to be? A. A fair question. But do you think there is any human being who does not in every way want and wish for a happy life? E. Who doubts that every human being wants it? A. Why, then, do not all attain it? For we had said and agreed between us that people deserve it by the will, and a miserable life also by the will, and that so they receive what they deserve. But now some sort of contradiction appears, and unless we examine it carefully, it threatens to upset our earlier reasoning, so carefully worked out and so firm. For how does anyone suffer a miserable life by his will, when no one at all wants to live miserably? Or how does a human being attain a happy life by his will, when so many are miserable, and all want to be happy? Does it come about because it is one thing to will well or ill, and another to deserve something through a good or evil will? For those who are happy, who must also be good, are not happy because they wanted to live happily, since the wicked want that too, but because they wanted to live rightly, which the wicked do not want. So it is no wonder that miserable people do not attain what they want, that is, the happy life. For that which accompanies it, and without which no one is worthy of it or attains it, namely living rightly, they do not likewise want. For that eternal law, to the consideration of which it is now time to return, has established with unchangeable stability that merit lies in the will, while reward and punishment lie in happiness and misery. So when we say that people are miserable by their will, we do not mean that they want to be miserable, but that they are in a will that misery must follow even against their wishes. So it does not contradict our earlier reasoning that all want to be happy and cannot be; for not all want to live rightly, and to that will alone the happy life is owed. Unless you have something to say against this. E. I have nothing.

E. But let us now see how these things relate to that question we set ourselves about the two laws. A. Very well. But tell me first whether one who loves living rightly, and so delights in it that it is not only right for him but also sweet and pleasant, loves this law and holds it most dear, by which he sees that a happy life is assigned to a good will and a miserable one to an evil will. E. He loves it altogether and intensely; for it is by following that very law that he lives as he does. A. Well, when he loves it, does he love something changeable and temporal, or something stable and everlasting? E. Something eternal, surely, and unchangeable. A. What of those who persist in an evil will and nevertheless desire to be happy? Can they love this law by which misery is deservedly paid back to such people? E. In no way, I think. A. Do they love nothing else? E. On the contrary, very many things: those in obtaining or keeping which that evil will persists. A. I suppose you mean riches, honors, pleasures, beauty of body, and all the other things that people may fail to obtain though they want them, and may lose against their will. E. Those are the very things. A. Do you think these are eternal, when you see that they are subject to the turning of time? E. Who, even the most demented, would think so? A. Since it is clear, then, that some people are lovers of eternal things and others of temporal things, and since we agreed that there are two laws, one eternal and the other temporal, if you have any sense of fairness, which of these people do you judge should be subject to the eternal law, and which to the temporal? E. I think what you ask is plain: I consider that the happy, because of their love for eternal things themselves, act under the eternal law, while the temporal law is imposed on the miserable. A. You judge rightly, provided you hold unshaken what reason has now shown most clearly: that those who serve the temporal law cannot be free from the eternal law, from which, we said, all things that are just, and are justly varied, are drawn; and that those who cleave to the eternal law by a good will do not need the temporal law, as you seem to understand well enough. E. I hold to what you say. A. The eternal law, then, commands us to turn our love away from temporal things and, once it is cleansed, to turn it toward eternal things. E. It does command this. A. What, then, do you think the temporal law commands, but that people, when they cling with desire to the things that can be called ours for a time, should possess them by a right by which peace and human society may be kept, as far as they can be kept in such things? These things are, first, this body and what are called its goods, such as sound health, keenness of the senses, strength, beauty, and whatever others there are, partly necessary for the good arts and so to be valued more, partly of less worth. Then liberty; which indeed is not true liberty at all except that of the happy, who cleave to the eternal law; but I mean now the liberty by which those who have no human masters think themselves free, and which those desire who want to be set free by their human masters. Then parents, brothers, wife, children, relatives, in-laws, friends, and whoever is joined to us by any tie. Then the city itself, which is usually held in the place of a parent; honors too, and praises, and what is called popular glory. Finally money, under which one name is contained everything of which we are lawful owners and over which we seem to have power to sell or give away. How that law distributes to each his own of all these things is hard and long to explain, and plainly not necessary for what we have set out to do. It is enough to see that the power of this law in punishing extends no further than to take away and remove these things, or some of them, from the one it punishes. So it restrains by fear, and bends and turns toward what it wants the minds of the miserable, for whose governing it is suited. For while they fear to lose these things, they keep, in using them, a certain measure fit for the bond of a city such as can be formed from people of this kind. It does not punish the sin when these things are loved, but when they are taken from others through wickedness. So see whether we have now arrived at what you thought endless. For we had set out to ask how far the law by which earthly peoples and cities are governed has the right to punish. E. I see that we have arrived. A. You see, then, also this: that there would be no punishment, whether inflicted on people through injury or through such legal penalty, if they did not love the things that can be taken from them against their will? E. That too I see. A. One person, then, uses the same things badly and another well. The one who uses them badly clings to them with love and is entangled in them, that is, made subject to the things that ought to be subject to him, and makes them goods for himself, when he himself ought rather to be a good for ordering and handling them well. The one who uses them rightly shows indeed that they are goods, but not for himself, for they do not make him good or better, but rather become good through him; and therefore he is not glued to them by love, nor does he make them, as it were, limbs of his own mind, which is what loving does, lest, when they begin to be cut off, they disfigure him with torment and decay. Rather, he rises wholly above them, ready to have and govern them when need be, and readier to lose them and not have them. Since this is so, do you think that silver and gold should be blamed because of the greedy, or food because of gluttons, or wine because of drunkards, or women's beauty because of fornicators and adulterers, and so with the rest, especially when you see that a physician uses fire well and a poisoner uses bread wickedly? E. It is most true that not the things themselves but the people who use them badly are to be blamed.

A. Right. We have now begun, I think, to see what the eternal law can do, and we have found how far the temporal law can go in punishing. Two kinds of things, eternal and temporal, and again two kinds of people, some following and loving eternal things, others temporal ones, have been distinguished clearly enough. It has been established that what each chooses to pursue and embrace lies in the will, and that nothing but the will puts the mind down from its citadel of rule and from right order; and it is clear that when anyone uses a thing badly, not the thing but the one who uses it badly is to be blamed. Let us return, then, if you please, to the question set at the beginning of this conversation and see whether it has been solved. For we had set out to ask what doing evil is, and it was for this that we said everything that has been said. So we may now notice and consider whether doing evil is anything other than neglecting eternal things, which the mind enjoys through itself and perceives through itself, and which it cannot lose while it loves them, and pursuing as if they were great and wonderful the temporal things that are perceived through the body, the lowest part of a human being, and that can never be certain. For all evil deeds, that is, sins, seem to me to be included in this one class. But I wait to learn what you think. E. It is as you say, and I agree that all sins are contained in this one class: when someone turns away from divine and truly abiding things and turns toward changeable and uncertain ones. Although these are rightly placed in their own order and achieve a certain beauty of their own, yet it belongs to a perverse and disordered mind to be subjected to following those things which, by divine order and right, it was set over, to lead them rather at its own nod. And I think I now see settled and found what, after that question of what doing evil is, we had next set out to ask: where our doing evil comes from. Unless I am mistaken, as the reasoning we pursued has shown, we do it from the free choice of the will. But I ask whether free choice itself, by which we are shown to have the capacity to sin, ought to have been given us by him who made us. For it seems that we would not have sinned if we lacked it; and it is to be feared that in this way God may be thought the author even of our evil deeds. A. Do not fear that at all. But to examine it more carefully, another time must be taken. For this conversation now calls for a limit and an end; and I would have you believe that in it we have, as it were, knocked at the doors of great and hidden matters to be investigated. When, with God as guide, we begin to enter their inner rooms, you will surely judge how great a difference there is between this discussion and those that follow, and how far they excel, not only in keenness of investigation but also in the majesty of their subject and in the clearest light of truth. Only let piety be with us, so that divine providence may allow us to hold to and complete the course we have begun. E. I yield to your will, and most gladly join my judgment and my wish to it.