Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 4.8

“I would have you understand what is this strength of power. We have a little while ago laid down that nothing is more powerful than the highest good?”

“Yes,” I said.

“But the highest good can do no evil?”

“No.”

“Is there any one who thinks that men are all-powerful?”

“No one,” I said, “unless he be mad.”

“And yet those same men can do evil.”

 “Would to heaven they could not!” I cried.

“Then a powerful man is capable only of all good; but even those who are capable of evil, are not capable of all. So it is plain that those who are capable of evil are capable of less.

“Further, we have shown that all power is to be counted among objects of desire, and all objects of desire have their relation to the good, as to the copestone of their nature. But the power of committing crime has no possible relation to the good. Therefore it is not an object of desire. Yet, as we said, all power is to be desired. Therefore the power of doing evil is no power at all.

“For all these reasons the power of good men and the weakness of evil men are apparent. So Plato's opinion is plain that  ‘the wise alone are able to do what they desire, but unscrupulous men can only labor at what they like, they cannot fulfill their real desires.’ They do what they like so long as they think that they will gain through their pleasures the good which they desire; but they do not gain it, since nothing evil ever reaches happiness.”

—from Book 4, Prose 2

My confusion about the nature of strength and weakness comes from my confusion about the nature of good and evil. Yes, I am right to think that power rests in the ability to achieve something, but no, I am wrong to think that evil is a “something” at all; nothing is gained, because nothing is fulfilled within my very nature. The degree to which anything is powerful is in direct proportion to the degree to which it is good, and so the more I turn to vice, the weaker I become.

That which possesses perfect goodness possesses perfect power, and we can surely call it Divine. That which lacks any goodness at all would possess no power at all, for it would lack any existence. 

In between we will find the full range of all created things, stronger as they work to achieve their ends, weaker as they fail in them. If I understand this rightly, I can see it so clearly in our own human nature, where by our own judgments and choices we may become more like the gods, or wither away into near nothingness.

I am misled because I see the people we usually consider as being powerful, and I see them apparently having the means to get the things they want. They win pleasure, and riches, and fame, and they do so in all sorts of forceful or manipulative ways. Yet how do these things actually give them what they want? They may change the circumstances around them, while they diminish what is within them. I cannot possibly believe they are making themselves happy, because they are not making themselves any better; they are, in fact, making themselves far worse, by thinking and acting in ways that contradict their purpose to know and to love.

If my happiness is my own good, how could something good come from doing something bad? How can understanding be achieved by choosing ignorance? How can love be practiced by pursuing hatred? It seems rather silly to be walking in the opposite direction of where I need to be going.

At a time when I thought I could possibly learn to be an author, producing profound short stories while sitting at a café in Paris or a pub in Dublin, a writing teacher reminded me that an antagonist in my story will hardly come across properly if I make him content and peaceable.

“He is your villain, and does dastardly things, precisely because he is a grasping man, dissatisfied with himself and his world, and he is desperately trying to find happiness, however twisted a form of it he perceives. He is always in conflict with others, precisely because he doesn’t have the very things he needs.”

“Doesn’t he see that he will never become happy by playing his games?”

“Ah, and there is the tragedy of the villain! Either he struggles to turn his own life around, or he perishes by his own hand!”

I never became that bohemian writer, of course, but I remember that advice, and I have unashamedly passed it on to my own students over the years. It wasn’t just a lesson about writing, but a lesson about living.

If I take the time to observe carefully, my daily experience only confirms this, and I should rightly wonder why I am still so impressed by the false achievements of wicked people. I have known many dishonest, selfish, and violent types in my life, but never once have I known one to give any indication of being at peace with himself or with his world. It isn’t that his vice may lead him to misery; it is that his vice already is his misery.

Written in 10/2015