ristocracy; where the government is
according to Desire and offices depend on money, that constitution is
called a Timocracy. The contraries are: to Kingdom tyranny, for Kingdom
does all things with the guidance of reason and tyranny nothing; to
Aristocracy oligarchy, when not the best people but a few of the worst
are rulers; to Timocracy democracy, when not the rich but the common
folk possess the whole power.

XII. _The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil._

The Gods being good and making all things, how do evils exist in the
world? Or perhaps it is better first to state the fact that, the Gods
being good and making all things, there is no positive evil, it only
comes by absence of good; just as darkness itself does not exist, but
only comes about by absence of light.

If Evil exists it must exist either in Gods or minds or souls or bodies.
It does not exist in any god, for all god is good. If any one speaks of
a 'bad mind' he means a mind without mind. If of a bad soul, he will
make soul inferior to body, for no body in itself is evil. If he says
that Evil is made up of soul and body together, it is absurd that
separately they should not be evil, but joined should create evil.

Suppose it is said that there are evil spirits:--if they have their
power from the gods, they cannot be evil; if from elsewhere, the gods do
not make all things. If they do not make all things, then either they
wish to and cannot, or they can and do not wish; neither of which is
consistent with the idea of God. We may see, therefore, from these
arguments, that there is no positive evil in the world.

It is in the activities of men that the evils appear, and that not of
all men nor always. And as to these, if men sinned for the sake of evil,
Nature itself would be evil. But if the adulterer thinks his adultery
bad but his pleasure good, and the murderer thinks the murder bad but
the money he gets by it good, and the man who does evil to an enemy
thinks that to do evil is bad but to punish his enemy good, and if the
soul commits all its sins in that way, then the evils are done for the
sake of goodness. (In the same way, because in a given place light does
not exist, there comes darkness, which has no positive existence.) The
soul sins therefore because, while aiming at good, it makes mistakes
about the good, because it is not Primary Essence. And we see many
things done by the Gods to prevent it from making mistakes