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That the motions of wrath and lust are so violent that they do necessarily require to be suppressed by wisedome: and that they were not in our nature, before our fall depraued it. CHAP. 19.
HEere-vppon the most accute and iudicious Philosophers held wrath, and lust to be two vicious partes of the minde: because they moued man with∣out all order and measure to actes vncondemned by wisedome, and therefore needed to be ouer-swayed by iudgement and reason: which (a) third part of the soule, they placed as in a tower, to bee soueraigne ouer the rest, that this com∣maunding, and they obeying, the harmony of iustice might bee fully kept in man. These partes which they confesse to bee vicious in the most wise, and temperate man, so that the minde had neede still to tye them from exorbitance to order: & allowe them that liberty only which wisedome prescribeth, as (b) wrath in a lust repulse of wrong, and lust in propagation of ones of spring: these I say were not vicious at all in man whilest hee liued sinlesse in Paradise. For they neuer aymed at any thing besides rectitude, reason directing them without raynes. But now when-soeuer they moue the iust and temperate man they must bee hamperd downe by restraynt, which some do easily, and others with great difficulty: They are now no partes of a sound, but paynes of a sicke nature. And whereas shamefastnesse couereth not wrath, nor other affects, in their immoderate actes, as it doth lusts: what is the reason but that it is not the affect but the assuming will that moues the other members, performing those affectionate actes, because it ruleth as cheefe in their vse? For hee that beeing angry, rayles, or strikes, could not doe it but that the tongue and the hand are appointed to doe so by the will, which moues them also when an∣ger is absent; but in the members of generation, lust is so peculiarly enfeoffed, that they cannot moue, if it be away, nor stirre vnlesse it (beeing eyther volun∣tary, or forcibly excited) doe mooue them. This is the cause of shame and auoydance of beholders in this acte: and the reason why a man beeing in vnlaw∣full anger with his neighbour, had rather haue a thousand looke vppon him, then one when hee is in carnall copulation with his wife.
L. VIVES.
VVHich (a) third part] Plato in his Timaeus following Timaeus the Locriā, & other Pythago∣rists diuides the soule into three parts: and in his De Rep. He places anger in the heart, * 1.1 concupiscence in the liuer and spleene, and reason the Lady and gouernesse of the worke (as Claudian sayth) in the brayne, (b) Wrath in a iust] It was called the whetstone of valor, & the rayser of iust and vehement affects against the foe, or a wicked Cittizen. Cicero. Seneca de Ira.