play, come in to soothe the wound and soreness of pure intellect, too
keen in its workings for one who is not yet a pure spirit.

9. Moral good and evil are predicable only of _human acts_, in the
technical sense of the term. (c. i., nn. 2--4, p. 41.) As the passions
by definition (c. iv., s. i., n. 1, p. 41) are not human acts, they
can never be morally evil of themselves. But they are an occasion of
moral evil in this way. They often serve to wake up the slumbering
Reason. To that end it is necessary that they should start up of
themselves without the call of Reason. This would be no inconvenience,
if the instant Reason awoke, and adverted to the tumult and stir of
Passion, she could take command of it, and where she saw fit, quell
it. But Reason has no such command, except in cases where she has
acquired it by years of hard fighting. Passion once afoot holds on her
course against the dictate of Reason. True, so long as it remains mere
Passion, and Reason is not dragged away by it, no consent of the will
given, no voluntary act elicited, still less carried into outward
effect,--so long as things remain thus, however Passion may rage,
there is no moral evil done. But there is a great temptation, and in
great temptation many men fall. 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