although
to you, who are not altogether capable of understanding this order, all
things seem confused and disordered, nevertheless there is everywhere an
appointed limit which guides all things to good. Verily, nothing can be
done for the sake of evil even by the wicked themselves; for, as we
abundantly proved, they seek good, but are drawn out of the way by
perverse error; far less can this order which sets out from the supreme
centre of good turn aside anywhither from the way in which it began.

'"Yet what confusion," thou wilt say, "can be more unrighteous than that
prosperity and adversity should indifferently befall the good, what
they like and what they loathe come alternately to the bad!" Yes; but
have men in real life such soundness of mind that their judgments of
righteousness and wickedness must necessarily correspond with facts?
Why, on this very point their verdicts conflict, and those whom some
deem worthy of reward, others deem worthy of punishment. Yet granted
there were one who could rightly distinguish the good and bad, yet would
he be able to look into the soul's inmost constitution, as it were, if
we may borrow an expression used of the body? The marvel here is not
unlike that which astonishes one who does not know why in health sweet
things suit some constitutions, and bitter others, or why some sick men
are best alleviated by mild remedies, others by severe. But the
physician who distinguishes the precise conditions and characteristics
of health and sickness does not marvel. Now, the health of the soul is
nothing but righteousness, and vice is its sickness. God, the guide and
physician of the mind, it is who preserves the good and banishes the
bad. And He looks forth from the lofty watch-tower of His providence,
perceives what is suited to each, and assigns what He knows to be
suitable.

'This, then, is what that extraordinary mystery of the order of destiny
comes to--that something is done by one who knows, whereat the ignorant
are astonished. But let us consider a few instances whereby appears what
is the competency of human reason to fathom the Divine unsearchableness.
Here is one whom thou deemest the perfection of justice and scrupulous
integrity; to all-knowing Providence it seems far otherwise. We all know
our Lucan's admonition that it was the winning cause that found favour
with the gods, the beaten cause with Cato. So, shouldst thou see
anything in this world happening differently from th