1. St. Augustine nowhere teaches that human nature is intrinsically evil, but he invariably teaches that it is substantially good. (“Omnis natura in quantum natura est bona est.” “Omnis substantia aut Deus est aut ex Deo.” De Lib. Arbit.) Therefore it follows that the very notion of _total_ depravity is impossible. St. Augustine distinctly says that “the very unclean spirit himself is good, inasmuch as he is a spirit, but evil inasmuch as he is unclean.” Hence, not even the nature of the devil himself is evil. So St. Thomas (“Diabolus, in quantum habet esse, est bonus”), “the devil, so far as he _is_, is good.” 2. St. Augustine teaches in explicit terms that existence is a good even to angels and men who are eternally bound by the consequences of evil. 3. Eternal death, according to St. Augustine, is a subsidence into a lower form of life, a privation of the highest vital influx from God in order to everlasting life, or supreme beatitude, but not of all vital influx in order to an endless existence, which is a partial and incomplete participation in good. These sinful souls, therefore, fulfil in a measure the end of their creation, and have a place and a function in harmony with the general order of the cosmos. There is no trace, in this view of Augustine, that God hates a portion of his creatures with an absolute, infinite, and eternal hatred, and is hated by them in return. The original act of creative love is an enduring and eternal act, in which even Satan is included. “Their nature still remains essentially good, and far superior in excellence and beauty to material light, which is the highest corporeal substance.” 4. Hell, therefore (Infernus), is simply a lower state of inchoate and imperfect being, “of saints nipped in the bud.” Infant damnation is only a gentle sadness—“levis tristitia.” All positive suffering in hell is probably temporal, and therefore must at last cease. The lost souls will enjoy there quite as much as they can do here, _minus_ the temporal sufferings of this life. They continue _natural_ beings, and therefore can enjoy all natural joy; and that which they lose, being the “beatific vision,” of which they have no conception, is a loss of which they are wholly unconscious. Swedenborg maintains, in the same way, the everlasting character of the punishment of those who have passed the final judgment, but admits many palliations to its sufferings. He teaches that delight is the universal substance of heaven, and also of hell, and that evil spirits are in the delight of evil, as good spirits in that of good. An evil spirit would be as unhappy in heaven as a good one would be in hell. § 7. The meaning of Eternal Punishment in Scripture.