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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.
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