CHAPTER II.
HOW THE WILL VARIOUSLY GOVERNS THE POWERS OF THE SOUL.
A FATHER directs his wife, his children and his servants by his
ordinances and commandments, which they are obliged to obey
though they are able not to obey; but if he have servants and
slaves, he rules them by force which they have no power to
contradict; his horses, oxen and mules he manages by industry,
binding, bridling, goading, shutting in, or letting out.
Now the will governs the faculty of our exterior motion as a
serf or slave: for unless some external thing hinder, it never
fails to obey. We open and shut our mouth, move our tongue,
our hands, feet, eyes, and all the members to which the power
of this movement refers without resistance, according to our
wish and will.
But as for our senses and the faculties of nourishing, growing,
and producing, we cannot with the same ease govern them, but
we must employ industry and art. If a slave be called he
comes, if he be told to stop, he stops; but we must not expect
this obedience from a sparrowhawk or falcon: he that desires
it should return to the hand must show it the lure; if he would
keep it quiet he must hood it. We bid our servant turn to the
right or left hand and he does it, but to make a horse so turn
we must make use of the bridle. We must not, Theotimus,
command our eyes not to see, our ears not to hear, our hands
not to touch, our stomach not to digest, or our body not to
grow, for these faculties not having intelligence are not capable
of obedience. No one can add a cubit to his stature. We
often eat without nourishing ourselves or growing; he that will
prevail with these powers must use industry. A physician who
has to do with a child in the cradle commands him nothing,
but only gives orders to the nurse to do such and such things,
or else perchance he prescribes for the nurse to eat this or that
meat, to take such and such medicine. This infuses its qualities
into the milk which enters the child's body, and the physician accomplishes his will in this little weakling who has not
even the power to think of it. We must not give the orders of
abstinence, sobriety or continency unto the palate or stomach,
but the hands must be commanded only to furnish to the mouth
meat and drink in such and such a measure, we take away from
or give our faculties their object and subject, and the food which
strengthens them, as reason requires. If we desire our eyes not
to see we must turn them away, or cover them with their
natural hood, and shut them, and by these means we may bring
them to the point which the will desires. It would be folly to
command a horse not to wax fat, not to grow, not to kick, -- to
effect all this, stop his corn; you must not command him, you
must simply make him do as you wish.
The will also exercises a certain power over the understanding
and memory, for of many things which the understanding has
power to understand and the memory has power to remember,
the will determines those to which she would have her faculties
apply themselves, or from which divert themselves. It is true
she cannot manage or range them so absolutely as she does the
hands, feet or tongue, on account of the sensitive faculties,
especially the fancy, which do not obey the will with a prompt
and infallible obedience, and which are necessarily required for
the operations of the understanding and memory: but yet the
will moves, employs and applies these faculties at her pleasure
though not so firmly and constantly that the light and variable
fancy does not often divert and distract them, so that as the
Apostle cries out:
I do not the good which I desire, but the evil
which I hate.1 So we are often forced to complain that we think not of the good which we love, but the evil which we hate.
