90 GhazzaWs Alchemy of Happiness. 



cured of your malady," should answer," what advantage 

 is it to you whether I am abstinent or not "? Now though 

 the sick man is right when he says that there is no advan- 

 tage to the physician from his abstinence, yet if he is not 

 abstinent, he will perish. This class regards obedience and 

 transgression as of the same degree in value. But in the 

 same manner as disease may occasion a man's destruction, 

 so transgression defiles the heart, and will cause it to ap- 

 pear in the future world in a state of woe. And just as 

 abstinence and medicine restore the body to health, so to 

 avoid acts of transgression and sin and to be obedient to 

 God, are means of securing salvation. 



The fourth class of men who indulge in error, are those 

 who indeed receive the law, but in some peculiar and 

 erroneous sense. They wrongly say, " The law commands 

 us to keep our hearts pure from pride, envy, hatred, anger 

 and dissimulation. But this is a thing which it is impos- 

 sible to do. For the soul has been created with these 

 qualities and affections, and human nature cannot be 

 changed. It is just as impossible to make a black material 

 white by scraping it, as for the human heart to be free from 

 these qualities." These ignorant men do not know and 

 understand, that the law does not command that these 

 qualities should be entirely effaced and expelled from the 

 heart, but rather requires that they should be brought under 

 subjection to the heart and the reason, to the end that they 

 may not act presumptuously, go beyond the limits set by 

 the law, and indulge in mortal sins. It is possible even to 

 change these qualities, by doing only what reason requires, 

 and by respecting the restrictions of the law. Many devout 

 men in past times have secured this change of the affections 

 of the soul. These qualities once existed in the prophet 

 of God, but they were corrected, as we learn from the tradi- 

 tion: " I am a man like you. I become angry, as a man 

 becomes angry." And God speaks in his holy word of 



