101:5.9

As I am going to demonstrate a most philosophical proposition, namely, that religious reasoning is absolute master of the emotions. I would willingly advise you to give the utmost heed to philosophy. For reason is necessary to everyone as a step to science. In addition, it embraces the praise of self-control, the highest virtue. If, then, reasoning appears to hold the mastery over the emotions which stand in the way of temperance, such as gluttony and lust, it surely also and manifestly rules over the affections which are contrary to justice, such as malice, and of those which are hindrances to courage, such as wrath, pain, and fear. Perhaps some may ask, “How is it, then, that reasoning, if it rules the emotions, isn’t also master of forgetfulness and ignorance?” They attempt a ridiculous argument. For reasoning does not rule over its own emotions, but over those that are contrary to justice, courage, temperance, and self-control; and yet over these, so as to withstand, without destroying them.

Therefore the question is whether reasoning is absolute master of the emotions. Let’s determine, then, what reasoning is and what emotion is, and how many forms of emotion there are, and whether reasoning rules over all of these. Reasoning is intellect accompanied by a life of righteousness, putting foremost the consideration of wisdom. Wisdom is a knowledge of divine and human things, and of their causes. This is contained in the education of the law, by means of which we learn divine things reverently and human things profitably. The forms of wisdom are self-control, justice, courage, and temperance. The leading one of these is self-control, by whose means, indeed, it is that reasoning rules over the emotions. Of the emotions, pleasure and pain are the two most comprehensive; and they also by nature refer to the soul. There are many attendant affections surrounding pleasure and pain. Before pleasure is lust; and after pleasure, joy. Before pain is fear; and after pain is sorrow. Wrath is an affection, common to pleasure and to pain, if any one will pay attention when it comes upon him. There exists in pleasure a malicious disposition, which is the most complex of all the affections. In the soul, it is arrogance, love of money, thirst for honor, contention, faithlessness, and the evil eye. In the body, it is greediness, indiscriminate eating, and solitary gluttony.

As pleasure and pain are, therefore, two growths out of the body and the soul, so there are many offshoots of these emotions. Reasoning, the universal farmer, purging and pruning each of these, tying up, watering, and transplanting, in every way improves the materials of the morals and affections. For reasoning is the leader of the virtues, but it is the sole ruler of the emotions. Observe then first, through the very things which stand in the way of temperance, that reasoning is absolute ruler of the emotions.