1 HAVING briefly clarified certain matters relating to the Trinity of God and the creation of the world, we shall now, with equal brevity, touch upon the corruption caused by sin. What we must hold is summarized thus: sin is not some positive essence, but a defect, a corruptive tendency; that is, a force which contaminates mode, species, and order† in the created will.2 Hence the corruptive power of sin, while opposed to good as such, yet has no being except