 |
| Hail, the Saviour's Blessed Mother, Vase elect, above all other. |
In the lower animals the passions do not run to an irregular excess, because there is an automatic check upon them in the shape of irresistible instinct. If man were subject to the same conditions as the brutes, the passions would be to him an advantage pure and simple; so would they be if all our faculties were in the state of equilibrium established in Eden. The necessary compensating check must be applied by man's free-will guided by reason, conscience, and revelation. Failing this, the action of the unbridled passions is destructive :
1. Because of the prepotent influence which the critical action of Adam under probation exerts on his progeny.
2. Because man is not stationary like the animals but progressive; and his faculties demand a continual advance of gratification whether it be on good or evil lines.
3. Because the intellectual powers of man when wrongly applied, add an enormous energy to the force of the primary emotions. Thus it comes about that human passions possess an abnormal activity which is fatal to the social order of life, to the physical life of the species, and finally even to the individual who has sought his profit in them. "The corruptible body is a load upon the soul, and the earthly habitation presseth down the mind" (Wisd. ix. 15). You have a source of immense danger within you. Do not suppose that because the passions are natural in origin they can be safely indulged.
