enjoy, nor could she ever receive any addition from without.  On the other hand, it is no less certain that she could not lose anything, for what is or exists by itself is always necessarily whatever it is.  Therefore my soul could not fall into ignorance, error, or vice, or suffer any diminution of good-will; nor could she, on the other hand, instruct or correct herself, or become better than she is.  Now, I experience the contrary of all these; for I forget, mistake, err, go astray, lose the sight of truth and the love of virtue, I corrupt, I diminish.  On the other hand, I improve and increase by acquiring wisdom and good-will, which I never had.  This intimate experience convinces me that my soul is not a being existing by itself and independent; that is necessary, and immutable in all it possesses and enjoys.  Now, whence proceeds this augmentation and improvement of myself?  Who is it that can enlarge and perfect my being by making me better, and, consequently, greater than I was?

Sect.  LXIV.  Good Will cannot Proceed but from a Superior Being.

The will or faculty of willing is undoubtedly a degree of being, and of good, or perfection; but good-will, benevolence, or desire of good, is another degree of superior good.  For one may misuse will in order to wish ill, cheat, hurt, or do injustice; whereas good-will is the good or right use of will itself, which cannot but be good.  Good-will is therefore what is most precious in man.  It is that which sets a value upon all the rest.  It is, as it were, “The whole man:”  Hoc enim omnis homo.

I have already shown that my will is not by itself, since it is liable to lose and receive degrees of good or perfection; and likewise that it is a good inferior to good-will, because it is better to will good than barely to have a will susceptible both of good and evil.  How could I be brought to believe that I, a weak, imperfect, borrowed, precarious, and dependent being, bestow on myself the highest degree of perfection, while it is visible and evident that I derive the far inferior degree of perfection from a First Being?  Can I imagine that God gives me the lesser good, and that I give myself the greater without Him?  How should I come by that high degree of perfection in order to give it myself!  Should I have it from nothing, which is all my own stock?  Shall I say that other spirits, much like or equal to mine, give it me?  But since those limited and dependent beings like myself cannot give themselves anything no more than I can, much less can they bestow anything upon another.  For as they do not exist by themselves, so they have not by themselves any true power, either over me, or over things that are imperfect in me, or over themselves.  Wherefore, without stopping with them, we must go up higher in order to find out a first, teeming, and most powerful cause, that is able to bestow on my soul the good will she has not.

Sect.  LXV.  As a Superior Being is the Cause of All the Modifications of Creatures, so it is Impossible for Man’s Will to Will Good by Itself or of its own Accord.