Nor has evil any _final_ cause, for it consists precisely in the failure of a being’s natural tendency towards its end, in the want of adaptation of a nature to its end: “nor has evil a final cause, but is rather the privation of a being’s due relation to its natural end”.(190) Evil cannot be the natural result of a being’s tendency towards its end, or a means to the attainment of this end. For that which is really an end must be good, and a means derives its goodness from the end to which it is a means. The good, because it is an end, or a means to an end, is desirable; and so, too, might evil be defined _a posteriori_ as that which is the object of no natural tendency or desire, that from which all things are averse: _malum est quod nullum ens appetit, vel a quo omnia aversantur_. Nor can evil be itself an end, or be as such desired or desirable. Real evil is no doubt often sought and desired by conscious beings, sometimes physical evil, sometimes moral evil. But it is always desired and embraced as a good, _sub specie boni_, _i.e._ when apprehended as here and now good in the sense of gratifying, pleasure-giving, _bonum delectabile_. This is possible because _pleasure_, especially organic, sensible pleasure, as distinct from the state of real well-being which characterizes true _happiness_, is not the exclusive concomitant of seeking and possessing a _real_ good: it often accompanies the seeking and possessing of a merely apparent good: and in such cases it is itself a merely apparent good, and in reality evil. The unfortunate man who commits suicide does not embrace evil as such. He wrongly judges death to be good, as being in his view a lesser evil than the miseries of his existence, and under this aspect of goodness he embraces death. Finally we have to inquire whether evil has an _efficient_ cause. Seeing that it is not merely a logical figment, seeing that it really affects actual things, that it really occurs in the actual universe, it must have a real source among the efficient causes of these actual things that make up the universe. It is undoubtedly due to the action of efficient causes, _i.e._ to the _failure_, the _defective_ action, of efficient causes. But being itself something negative, a privation, it cannot properly be said to have an “efficient” cause; for the influence of an efficient cause is positive action, which in turn must have for its term something positive, something real, and therefore good. Hence St. Augustine very properly says that evil should be described as having a “_deficient_” cause rather than an “efficient” cause.(191) In other words, evil is not the direct, natural or normal result of the activity of efficient causes; for this result is always good. It must therefore be always an indirect, abnormal, accidental consequence of their activity. Let us see how this can be—firstly in regard to physical evil, then in regard to moral evil.