Malfuzat – Volume X — Page 461
12 May 1908 461 there would be no virtue either. Virtue is born out of sin; the existence of virtue is born out of the very existence of sin. Look here, if someone encounters the opportunity to com- mit adultery and has the ability [to indulge in it], but subse- quently abstains from that sin, then this is called ‘virtue’. If someone encounters the opportunities for stealing and cru- elty and other sins, and is also capable of committing them, but thereafter abstains from their perpetration and safeguards himself, then he carries out a virtue. To refrain from sin when having [both] the opportunity and ability to sin, this alone is worthy of reward and an act of virtue. Question: Two different forces operate in the world: The positive and the negative. If we always employ the positive and never make use of the negative, then the negative would grad- ually accumulate and gain force to such a degree that it would one day erupt at any given moment and suddenly destroy the world. The same situation applies to good and evil. If only vir- tue upon virtue were conducted throughout the entire world and no one committed any evil, then similarly one day evil would gather enough strength to destroy the world. Answer : The Promised Messiah as said: You see, if an indi- vidual is incapable of shouting, then his mild-mannered con- verse would not be considered a moral excellence. If man were to remain permanently stagnant in one state alone, unable to change to the other side, then virtue itself could never be virtue. The presence of both, abundance and scarcity, produces virtue. Were circumstances one-sided and other faculties not granted to mankind—man being eternally compelled to do good; com- pletely unpossessed of the ability to perpetrate evil—then what things would the terms ‘obedience’ and ‘virtue’ apply to? Allah