Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/40

18 And verily the deciding and judgment of this disputation lieth in the sense, which feeleth as well the one as the other, and is touched with them both: For say that the one doth surmount and hath the victory, it doth not therefore defeat utterly and destroy the other; but drawn it is thereto perforce, and making resistance the while. As for example, the wanton and amorous person, when he checketh and reproveth himself therefore, useth the discourse of reason against the said passion of his; yet so as having them both actually subsisting together in the soul: much like as if with his hand he repressed and kept down the one part, inflamed with a hot fit of passion, and yet feeling within himself both parts, and those actually in combat one against the other. Contrariwise, in those consultations, disputes, and inquisitions which are not passionate, and wherein these motions of the brutish part have nothing to do, such I mean as those be especially of the contemplative part of the soul: if they be equal and so continue, there ensueth no determinate judgment and resolution: but a doubt remaineth, as if it were a certain pause or stay of the understanding, not able to proceed farther, but abiding in suspense between two contrary opinions. Now if it chance to incline unto one of them, it is because the mightier hath overweighed the other and annulled it yet so as it is not displeased or discontent, no, nor contesteth obstinately afterwards against the received opinion. To be short, and to conclude all in one general word; where it seemeth that one discourse and reason is contrary unto another; it argueth not by and by a conceit of two divers subjects, but one alone in sundry apprehensions and imaginations.

Howbeit, whensoever the brutish and sensual part is in a conflict with reason, and the same such that it can neither vanquish nor be vanquished without some sense of grievance; then incontinently this battle divideth the soul in twain, so as the war is evident and sensible. And not only by this fight a man may know how the source and beginning of these passions differeth from that fountain of reason: but no less also by the consequence that followeth thereupon. For seeing that possible it is for a man to love one child that is ingenuous and towardly disposed to virtue: as also affect another as well, who is ill given and dissolute: considering also that one may use anger unjustly against his own children or parents: and another contrariwise justly in the defence of children or parents against enemies and tyrants. Like as in the one there is perceived a manifest combat and resistance of passion against reason; so in the other there