XLVIII. "Lust" is desire and love in the matter of sexual
intercourse.
^^^^^Explanation--Whether this desire be excessive or
not, it is still called lust. These last five emotions (as I have
shown in III. lvi.) have on contraries. For deference is a
species of ambition. Cf. III. xxix. note.
Again, I have already pointed out, that temperance, sobriety,
and chastity indicate rather a power than a passivity of the
mind. It may, nevertheless, happen, that an avaricious, an
ambitious, or a timid man may abstain from excess in eating,
drinking, or sexual indulgence, yet avarice, ambition, and fear
are not contraries to luxury, drunkenness, and debauchery.
For an avaricious man often is glad to gorge himself with
food and drink at another man's expense. An ambitious
man will restrain himself in nothing, so long as he thinks his
indulgences are secret; and if he lives among drunkards
and debauchees, he will, from the mere fact of being
ambitious, be more prone to those vices. Lastly, a timid
man does that which he would not. For though an
avaricious man should, for the sake of avoiding death,
cast his riches into the sea, he will none the less remain
avaricious; so, also, if a lustful man is downcast, because
he cannot follow his bent, he does not, on the ground of
abstention, cease to be lustful. In fact, these emotions are
not so much concerned with the actual feasting, drinking, &c.,
as with the appetite and love of such. Nothing, therefore,
can be opposed to these emotions, but high-mindedness
and valour, whereof I will speak presently.
The definitions of jealousy and other waverings of the mind
I pass over in silence, first, because they arise from the
compounding of the emotions already described; secondly,
because many of them have no distinctive names, which
shows that it is sufficient for practical purposes to have
merely a general knowledge of them. However, it is
established from the definitions of the emotions, which we
have set forth, that they all spring from desire, pleasure, or
pain, or, rather, that there is nothing besides these three;
wherefore each is wont to be called by a variety of names
in accordance with its various relations and extrinsic tokens.
If we now direct our attention to these primitive emotions,
and to what has been said concerning the nature of the
mind, we shall be able thus to define the emotions, in so
far as they are referred to the mind only.