Fourth Meditation: What Is Freedom? 175
self as the source and end of all being, and hence as the Good
as such. Thus the ontological status of evil must be a pure "pri-
vation of the good" (a view often mistakenly said to have been
invented by Augustine, but in fact one long antedating him,
in both pagan and Christian thought). Having no proper sub-
stance, evil cannot constitute the final cause or transcenden-
tal horizon of the natural will of any rational being; to sug-
gest otherwise is to embrace an ultimate ontological, moral,
and epistemological nihilism; it is to suggest that God him -
self is not the one Good of all beings, the one rational end of
desire. Whatever one wishes must then be what one sees as
being "good" in some sense or other, however perversely. Even
Milton's Satan elects evil only as encompassed within this more
original and more ultimate- this transcendental- longing:
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost.
Evil, be thou my good.
(Paradise Lost, 11. 108-110)It may be folly on Satan's part to attempt to choose the evil as
his good, but it would be simple insanity for him to attempt to
choose evil as truly evil for him. In itself, therefore, evil has no
power to draw the rational will to itself, no substance to offer,
no happiness to impart, no beauty with which to delight the
soul. It cannot bring a rational nature to fulfilment, but can
only thwart reason and desire. Therefore it can never form the
original or ultimate purpose of the will. It cannot be the deep-
est motivation of any action at all. It can at most serve as a
proximate end, veiling the truly ultimate end that prompts the
will to pursue it.
Again, you can confirm this for yourself, quite apart from