Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/46

24 that young persons are quick, prompt, and audacious; rash also, for that they be full of blood, and the same hot, their lusts and appetites are likewise fiery, violent and furious: whereas contrariwise in old folk because the source of concupiscence seated about the liver is after a sort quenched, yea, and become weak and feeble: reason is more vigorous and predominant in them: as much as the sensual and passionate part doth languish and decay together with the body.

And verily this is that which doth frame and dispose the nature of wild beasts to divers passions: For it is not long of any opinions good or bad which arise in them, that some of them are strong, venturous and fearless, yea, and ready to withstand any perils presented before them; others again be so surprised with fear and fright that they dare not stir or do anything: but the force and power which lieth in the blood, in the spirits and in the whole body, is that which causeth this diversity of passions, by reason that the passible part, growing out of the flesh as from a root, doth bud forth and bring with it a quality and proneness semblable. But in man that there is a sympathy and fellow moving of the body, together with the motions of the passions, may be proved by the pale colour, the red flushing of the face, the trembling of the joints, and panting and leaping of the heart in fear and anger: And again on the contrary side by the dilatations of the arteries, heart and colour, in hope and expectation of some pleasures.

But when as the divine spirit and understanding of man doth move of itself alone without any passion, then the body is at repose and remaineth quiet, not communicating nor participating any whit with the operation of the mind and intendment, no more than it being disposed to study upon any mathematical proposition or other science speculative, it calleth for the help and assistance of the unreasonable part: By which it is manifest, that there be two distinct parts in us, different in faculty and power one from another. In sum, Go through the universal world, all things (as they themselves affirm, and evident experience doth convince) are governed and ordered, some by a certain habitude; others by nature: some by a sensual and unreasonable soul; others by that which hath reason and understanding. Of all which man hath his part at once, yea, and was born naturally with these differences above said. For, contained he is by an habitude: nourished by nature: reason and understanding he useth: he hath his portion likewise of that which is unreasonable and inbred, there is together with