Sometimes these philosophers won’t deny how hard it is for someone to control themselves through reason, especially as they reflect on their own experience. People call prey to giving into their basest desires for many different reasons. Sometimes, they’re seduced by pleasure. Other times, they think what they are doing is good, when it’s really not. At another time, they are swept along by their strong desires as if they were tugged into it by ropes. For this reason, Cicero says that the sparks of goodness in people given by nature are often extinguished by wrong opinions and depraved manners (Cicero, Tusc, Quæst. lib. 3).

They’ll even confess that once people are ruled by their desires, it is very difficult to get them under control. The person becomes a like wild stallion which bucks off his riders and gallops aways without anyone guiding it. At the same time, they argue that it is beyond dispute that virtue and vice are within our own power. They say that if they have the choice to do something, then we must also have the choice not to do it. And if we can choose to not act on something, then we must also be able to choose to act. In both acting and refraining from acting, we seem to act from free choice. Therefore, if we do good when we please, we can also refrain from doing it. And if we commit evil, we also not choose not to do it (Aristot. Ethic. lib. 3 c. 5). Seneca even boasts that it is the gifts of the “gods” that we live, but we live well through our own power. Hence, Cicero says, no wise person ever thanked the gods for acquiring wisdom. “We are praised,” he says, “for virtue. We glory in virtue. But we wouldn’t be able to do this if it came from God and not from ourselves” (Cicero, De Nat. Deorum). A littler later after that, he adds, “The opinion of all people is that blessing must be sought from God, but wisdom from ourselves.” To summarize: all philosophers maintain that human reason is sufficient to govern a person. Of course, the will, which is inferior to reason, may be enlisted for evil by bodily appetites. But we have free choice. So there is nothing to prevent us from following reason as it guides us in all things.

“Blogging the Institutes” is my on-going attempt to paraphrase John Calvin’s work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. You can find out more about the series in the Introduction. For all the posts in this series, check out the Master List.