The evil is the act of free will, but
the pressure on the will is the pressure of Passion. But Passion
happily is a young colt amenable to discipline. Where the assaults of
Passion are resolutely and piously withstood, and the incentives
thereto avoided--unnatural and unnecessary incentives I mean--Passion
itself acquires a certain habit of obedience to Reason, which habit is
moral virtue. Of that presently.
10. In a man of confirmed habits of moral virtue, Passion starts up
indeed independently of Reason, but then Reason ordinarily finds
little difficulty in regulating the Passion so aroused. In a certain
high and extraordinary condition of human nature, not only has Reason
entire mastery over Passion wherever she finds it astir, but Passion
cannot stir in the first instance, without Reason calling upon it to
do so. In this case the torpor of the will deprecated above (n. 7) is
not to be feared, because Reason is so vigorous and so masterful as to
be adequate to range everywhere and meet all emergencies without the
goad of Passion. This state is called by divines the _state of
integrity_.
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