How highly do we value the good will?
We should rejoice a little that we have something in our souls -- this very thing that I call a good will -- in comparison with which those things, such as wealth, honors, and physical pleasures, are utterly worthless, things that a great many human beings will spare no effort and shirk no danger to obtain.
Augustine mentioned a question that those who do not attain such joy (good will) suffer a small loss by missing so great a good?
It's up to our will weather we enjoy or lack such a great and true good.
What is so much in the power of the will as the will itself? To have a good will is to have something far more valuable than all earthly kingdom and pleasures; to lack it is to lack something that only the will itself can give, something that is better than all the goods that are not in our power.
Some people consider themselves utterly miserable if they do not achieve a splendid reputation, great wealth, and various goods of the body. But even if they have all these things, when they cleave to things that they can quite easily lose, things that they do not have simply in virtue of willing them, while they lack a good will, which is incomparably better than those things and yet, even though it is such a great good, can be their if only they will to have it?
Then fools, even if they were never wise, are justly and deservedly afflicted with such misery.
