s intemperance,
and especially intemperance in wine. But these vices are subdued and
put to flight by good habits, and the man is made virtuous thereby
without finding fatigue in his moderation, as the Philosopher says in
the second book of the Ethics. Truly there is this difference between
the natural passions and the habitual, that through use of good morals
the habitual entirely vanish, because their origin, the evil habit, is
destroyed by its opposite; but the natural, the source of which is in
the complexion of the passionate man, although they may be made much
lighter by good morals, yet they do not entirely disappear as far as
regards the first cause, but they almost wholly disappear in act,
because custom is not equal to nature, which is the source of such a
passion. And therefore the man is more praiseworthy who guides himself
and rules himself when he is of an evil disposition by nature, in
opposition to natural impulse, than he who, being gifted with a good
disposition by nature, carries himself naturally well; as it is more
praiseworthy to control a bad horse than one that is not troublesome.
I say, then, that those little flames which rain down from her beauty
destroy the innate, or the natural, vices, to make men understand that
her beauty has power to renew Nature in those who behold it, which is
a miraculous thing. And this confirms that which is observed above in
the other chapter when I say that she is the helper of our Faith.

Finally, when I say, "Lady, who may desire Escape from blame," I
infer, under pretext of admonishing another, the end for which so much
beauty was made. And I say that what lady believes her beauty to be
open to blame through some defect, let her look on this most perfect
example; where it is understood that it is designed not only to
improve and raise the good, but also to convert evil to good. And,
finally, it is subjoined that she is "God's thought," that is, from
the Mind of God. And this to make men understand that, by design of
the Creator, Nature is made to produce such an effect.

And thus ends the whole of the second chief part of the Song.

CHAPTER IX.

The order of the present treatise requires, after these two parts of
the Song have been discussed, according to my intention, that we now
proceed to the third, in which I intend to purify the Song from a
reproof which might be unfavourable to it.

And it is this, that before I composed it, this Lady seeming