aws; and if he must needs chastise them for their disobedience, he sees to
it that the penalty cures them of the inclination to evil, and restores in
their soul a strong and constant tendency towards good: so far is he from
any desire that the penalty for the error should incline them more and more
towards evil.'

[200]
To make men better, God does all that is due, and even all that can be done
on his side without detriment to what is due. The most usual aim of
punishment is amendment; but it is not the sole aim, nor that which God
always intends. I have said a word on that above. Original sin, which
disposes men towards evil, is not merely a penalty for the first sin; it is
a natural consequence thereof. On that too a word has been said, in the
course of an observation on the fourth theological proposition. It is like
drunkenness, which is a penalty for excess in drinking and is at the same
time a natural consequence that easily leads to new sins.

127. XII. 'To permit the evil that one could prevent is not to care whether
it be committed or not, or is even to wish that it be committed.'

By no means. How many times do men permit evils which they could prevent if
they turned all their efforts in that direction? But other more important
cares prevent them from doing so. One will rarely resolve upon adjusting
irregularities in the coinage while one is involved in a great war. And the
action of an English Parliament in this direction a little before the Peace
of Ryswyck will be rather praised than imitated. Can one conclude from this
that the State has no anxiety about this irregularity, or even that it
desires it? God has a far stronger reason, and one far more worthy of him,
for tolerating evils. Not only does he derive from them greater goods, but
he finds them connected with the greatest goods of all those that are
possible: so that it would be a fault not to permit them.

128. XIII. 'It is a very great fault in those who govern, if they do not
care whether there be disorder in their States or not. The fault is still
greater if they wish and even desire disorder there. If by hidden and
indirect, but infallible, ways they stirred up a sedition in their States
to bring them to the brink of ruin, in order to gain for themselves the
glory of showing that they have the courage and the prudence necessary for
saving a great kingdom on the point of perishi