29
each of which the master cultivator, reason, weeds and prunes and ties up and waters and thoroughly irrigates, and so tames the jungle of habits and emotions.
30
For reason is the guide of the virtues, but over the emotions it is sovereign. Observe now, first of all, that rational judgment is sovereign over the emotions by virtue of the restraining power of self-control.
31
Self-control, then, is dominance over the desires.
32
Some desires are mental, others are physical, and reason obviously rules over both.
33
Otherwise, how is it that when we are attracted to forbidden foods we abstain from the pleasure to be had from them? Is it not because reason is able to rule over appetites? I for one think so.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.