Inherent evil?

[Sharkû]

Since this touches a central point in Tolkien's works if there ever is one, I think we need to start with what the man himself had to say:

"The Enemy in successive forms is always 'naturally' concerned with sheer Domination, and so the Lord of magic and machines; but the problem : that this frightful evil can and does arise from an apparently good root, the desire to benefit the world and others — speedily and according to the benefactor's own plans — is a recurrent motive." (Letter 131; my italics -- indeed there is power to good there)
Tolkien gives the interesting annotation that this was "Not in the Beginner of Evil: his was a sub-creative Fall". Melkor's motives were thus primarily egoistic.

"But if they 'fell', as the Diabolus Morgoth did, and started making things 'for himself, to be their Lord', these would then 'be', even if Morgoth broke the supreme ban against making other 'rational' creatures like Elves or Men. They would at least 'be' real physical realities in the physical world, however evil they might prove, even 'mocking' the Children of God. They would be Morgoth's greatest Sins, abuses of his highest privilege, and would be creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally bad. (I nearly wrote 'irredeemably bad'; but that would be going too far. Because by accepting or tolerating their making – necessary to their actual existence – even Orcs would become part of the World, which is God's and ultimately good.) " (Letter 153; a draft never sent, though)

The parenthesis deserves being made bold by me -- we can conclude from it that all creations of Eru are inherently serving his cause that is in turn inherently good, even if they are sins. A tendency to the Boethian view of evil being practically non-existant is perceivable; i.e. evil is but the absence of good, unable to create and itself not created, inevitable bound to lose to good, or, in Melkor's case, to only further the good.