Evil, then, in its formal concept is nothing positive; it is essentially negative, or rather privative. For this very reason, when we consider evil in the concrete, _i.e._ as affecting actual things, as occurring in the actual universe—we can scarcely speak of it with propriety as “existing,”—we see that it essentially involves some positive, real subject which it affects, some nature which, by affecting, it renders so far evil. Cancer in the stomach is a real evil of the stomach, a defect, a deficiency, a failure, in the adaptation of the stomach to its proper end. It is not itself a positive, absolute, _evil entity_. In so far as it is itself a positive, physical reality, a growth of living cells, it has its own nature, its natural tendency, its development towards an end in accordance with biological laws: in all of which it verifies the definition of ontological goodness. But the existence of such a growth in the stomach is pathological, _i.e._ a disease of the stomach, a prevention of the natural, normal function of the stomach, a _failure of the latter’s adaptation to its end_, and hence an _evil for the stomach_. Lying, too, is an evil, a moral evil of man as a moral subject. But this does not mean that the whole physical process of thinking, judging, speaking, whereby a man lies, is itself a positive evil entity. The thinking is itself good as a physical act. So is the speaking in itself good as a physical act. Whatever of positive reality there is in the whole process is good, ontologically good. But there is a _want of conformity_ of the language with the thought, entailing a _privation_ or _failure of adaptation_ of the man as a moral subject with his end, with his real good; and in this failure of adaptation, this privation of goodness, lies the moral evil of lying. Evil, then, has a _material_ or subjective cause, _viz._ some positive, actual reality, which is good in so far forth as it is actual, but which is evil, or wanting in something due to it, in so far as the privation which we have called evil affects it. But evil has no _formal_ cause: formally it is not a reality but a privation: “evil has no formal cause, but is rather the privation of a form”.(189)