5. I think, my friend, you have given a sufficient answer to your companion, and I thought you drew an excellent conclusion from his own premises; for, in truth, if matter was unqualified, and God was the Creator of the qualities, and the qualities are evil, God will be the Author of evil. We are agreed, then, that he has been well answered. But it seems to me false to speak of unqualified matter, for we cannot say that any substance whatsoever is without qualities; in fact the very affirmation that it is unqualified, and the description of matter thus given, point out a particular kind of quality. So, if you please, once more discuss the matter with me; for matter seems to me to have had qualities from all eternity; and if I maintain that evil is an effluence of matter, it is that God may not be the cause of evil, but matter the cause of all the evil in the world.