Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume IV/Manichaean Controversy/Concerning the Nature of Good/Chapter 23

Chapter 23.—Whence a Bad Measure, a Bad Form, a Bad Order May Sometimes Be Spoken of.

Therefore a bad measure, a bad form, a bad order, are either so called because they are less than they should be, or because they are not adapted to those things to which they should be adapted; so that they may be called bad as being alien and incongruous; as if any one should be said not to have done in a good measure because he has done less than he ought, or because he has done in such a thing as he ought not to have done, or more than was fitting, or not conveniently; so that the very fact of that being reprehended which is done in a bad measure, is justly reprehended for no other cause than that the measure is not there maintained.&#160; Likewise a form is called bad either in comparison with something more handsome or more beautiful, this form being less, that greater, not in size but in comeliness; or because it is out of harmony with the thing to which it is applied, so that it seems alien and unsuitable.&#160; As if a man should walk forth into a public place naked, which nakedness does not offend if seen in a bath.&#160; Likewise also order is called bad when order itself is maintained in an inferior degree.&#160; Hence not order, but rather disorder, is bad; since either the ordering is less than it should be, or not as it should be.&#160; Yet where there is any measure, any form, any order, there is some good and some nature; but where there is no measure, no form, no order, there is no good, no nature.