We can train our souls to conquer our passions

48. Knowing the Strength or Weakness of Souls and the Ill of the Weakest

It is through the success of these conflicts that each person can know the strength or weakness of their soul.

The strongest souls are those whose will can most easily overcome the passions.

But there are those who cannot test their strength because they never let their will fight with its own weapons, only with those provided by some passions to resist others.

What I call its own weapons are firm and determined judgments concerning the knowledge of good and evil, according to which it has resolved to conduct the actions of its life.

The weakest souls are those whose will cannot follow certain judgments. Instead they let themselves be continually carried away by the present passions which often oppose each other. These draw the soul alternately to their side, employing it to fight against itself. This puts the soul in the most deplorable state.

For example, a soldier with a weak soul might wamt to flee death yet might also have the ambition to avoid the reputation of cowardice.

These 2 passions agitate the will differently. He obeys one now, and then later the other. He continuously opposes himself and thus makes the soul a slave and unhappy.

49. The Strength of the Soul Is Not Enough without the Knowledge of Truth

There are very few men who are so weak and irresolute that they only want what their present passion dictates.

Most have determined judgments to regulate their actions.

These judgments are often false and even based on some passions by which the will has previously been defeated or seduced.

But the will continues to follow them when the passion that caused them is absent.

They can be considered as its own weapons so that souls are stronger or weaker according to whether they can more or less follow these judgments and resist the present contrary passions.

However, there is a great difference between resolutions that come from some false opinion and those based solely on the knowledge of truth.

If one follows the truth, one is assured of never having regret or repentance. Whereas one always regrets having followed the former when their error is discovered.

50: No Soul Is So Weak That It Cannot, When Well Guided, Acquire Absolute Power over Its Passions

Each movement of the pineal gland has been joined by nature to each of our thoughts from the beginning of our life.

But these movements can still be joined to others by habit.

For example, words can excite movements in the gland even uf such words are just sounds to the soul when spoken or letters when written.

Yet by the habit acquired in thinking of their meaning, they customarily make us conceive this meaning rather than the shape of their letters or the sound of their syllables.

The movements of both the gland and the spirits and the brain, which represent certain objects to the soul, are naturally joined with those that excite certain passions in it, they can still by habit be separated from them and joined to very different ones.

This habit can be acquired by a single action and does not require long use.

For example, we might encounters something very filthy in our favorite food.

• The surprise of this can so change our brain’s disposition that we become horrified to see such food that we liked in the past.

The same can be noted in animals. They have no reason nor any thought.

Yet all the movements of the spirits and the pineal gland that excite passions in us also occur in them.

They serve to maintain and strengthen the movements of the nerves and muscles that usually accompany them, and not the passions as in us.

Thus, when a dog sees a partridge, it is naturally inclined to run towards it.

When it hears a gunshot, this noise naturally incites it to flee.

But nevertheless, dogs can be trained to avoid running towards the sight of a partridge or to go towards a gunshot.

Likewise, we can be trained to regulate our passions.

With a little skill, we change the movements of the brain in animals devoid of reason. It is evident that we can do so even better with humans.

Even those with the weakest souls could acquire a very absolute mastery over all their passions if enough skill was employed to train and guide them.