CAPITULUM X

HOW DISCRETION AND CONTEMPLATION RISE IN THE REASON




Thus it seemeth that the virtue of discretion needeth to be had,
with the which all others may be governed; for without it all
virtues are turned in to vices. This is Joseph, that is the late
born child, but yet his father loveth him more than them all. For
why, without discretion may neither goodness be gotten nor kept, and
therefore no wonder though that virtue be singularly loved, without
which no virtue may be had nor governed. But what wonder though this
virtue be late gotten, when we may not win to the perfection of
discretion without much custom and many travails of these other
affections coming before? For first behoveth us to be used in each
virtue by itself, and get the proof of them all serely,[101] ere we
may have full knowing of them all, or else can deem sufficiently of
them all. And when we use us busily in these feelings and beholdings
before said, oft times we fall and oft times we rise. Then, by our
oft falling, may we learn how much wariness us behoveth have in the
getting and keeping of these virtues. And thus sometime, by long
use, a soul is led into full discretion, and then it may joy in the
birth of Joseph. And before this virtue be conceived in a man's
soul, all that these other virtues do, it is without discretion. And