Positive capacity or disposition differs from both prayer or quasi-merit (_meritum de congruo_). Quasi-merit is entitled to a reward on the ground of fairness, whereas the _capacitas s. dispositio positiva_ is at most the fulfilment of an expectation based upon purely teleological considerations. Again, a reward can be bestowed upon some subject other than the one by whom the service was rendered, whereas the introduction of a new form necessarily supposes a subject disposed for or prepared to receive it. Thus only he who is hungry is disposed for the reception of food and entitled to have his craving satisfied. Negative capacity consists in the absence or removal of obstacles that impede the reception of a new form, as when green wood is dried to become fit for burning. c) There arises the important question whether or not divine grace is an object of merit, and if so, to what extent it can be merited by prayer and preparation. It is of faith that the just man, by the performance of supernaturally good deeds, can merit _de condigno_ an increase in the state of grace and eternal glory, and that the sinner is able to earn justification _de congruo_. On the other hand, it is also an article of faith that divine grace is strictly gratuitous.(414) The two dogmas seem incompatible, but they are not, as will become evident if we consider that the good works of the just and the salutary works of the sinner are entirely rooted in divine grace and consequently the merits which they contain are strictly merits of grace in no wise due to nature.(415) When we speak of the absolute gratuity of grace, therefore, we mean the very first or initial grace (_gratia prima vocans_), by which the work of salvation is begun. Of this initial grace the Church explicitly teaches that it is absolutely incapable of being merited; whence it follows that all subsequent graces, up to and including justification, are also gratuitous,(416) _i.e._ unmerited by nature in strict justice, in so far as they are based on the _gratia prima_. 2. THE GRATUITY OF GRACE PROVED FROM REVELATION.—Keeping the above explanation well in mind we now proceed to demonstrate the gratuity of divine grace in five systematic theses. *Thesis I: Mere nature cannot, in strict justice (de condigno), merit initial grace (gratia prima), nor, consequently, any of the series of subsequent graces in the order of justification.* This proposition embodies an article of faith.