ersman in the head, and the appetitive faculty at a distance,
last of all and lowest. And the lowest place they call [Greek omitted],
as the names of the dead, [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted], do show.
And some say, that the south wind, inasmuch as it blows from a low
and obscure place, is called [Greek omitted]. Now since the appetitive
faculty stands in the same opposition to reason in which the lowest
stands to the highest and the last to the first, it is not possible for
the reason to be uppermost and first, and yet for any other part to be
the one called [Greek omitted] (or HIGHEST). For they that ascribe the
power of the middle to it, as the ruling power, are ignorant how
they deprive it of a higher power, namely, of the highest, which is
compatible neither to the irascible nor to the concupiscent faculty;
since it is the nature of them both to be governed by and obsequious to
reason, and the nature of neither of them to govern and lead it. And the
most natural place of the irascible faculty seems to be in the middle
of the other two. For it is the nature of reason to govern, and of the
irascible faculty both to govern and be governed, since it is obsequious
to reason, and commands the appetitive faculty when this is disobedient
to reason. And as in letters the semi-vowels are middling between mutes
and vowels, having something more than those and less than these; so in
the soul of man, the irascible faculty is not purely passive, but hath
often an imagination of good mixed with the irrational appetite of
revenge. Plato himself, after he had compared the soul to a pair of
horses and a charioteer, likened (as every one knows) the rational
faculty to the charioteer, and the concupiscent to one of the horses,
which was resty and unmanageable altogether, bristly about the ears,
deaf and disobedient both to whip and spur; and the irascible he makes
for the most part very obsequious to the bridle of reason, and assistant
to it. As therefore in a chariot, the middling one in virtue and power
is not the charioteer, but that one of the horses which is worse than
his guider and yet better than his fellow; so in the soul, Plato gives
the middle place not to the principal part, but to that faculty which
has less of reason than the principal part and more than the third. This
order also keeps the analogy of the symphonies, i.e. the proportion of
the irascible to the rational (which is placed as hypate) making the
diatessaron