Choose a topic from Part 1:
1. No appetite is a knowing power, but cognitionalappetite is aroused by knowing. Knowledge lays hold of itsobject; appetite only tends to its object. Hence knowingis sometimes called rest, and appetizing is called movement.
2. Sentient or sensitive appetency is of two kinds. Aconcupiscible appetite is a simple tendency towards what is sensedas good and away from what is sensed as evil. An irascible appetiteis a tendency to overcome difficulty or hindrance in attaining goodand avoiding evil. Thus sentient desire is a concupiscibleappetite; courage or daring is an irascible appetite. These twotypes of appetite or appetency in the sense-order are species ofone genus. They cannot be reduced to one specific kind, forirascible appetency tends to grapple with difficulties from whichconcupiscible appetite tends away.
3. Reason, that is, the thinking mind, can exercise acontrollinginfluence upon the sentient appetency; bythinking, a person can stir up desire or courage; by fixing themind on pacific things, a man can allay anger. The will controlsthe lower appetites by directing the mind's attention toobjects other than those to which the appetites tend. Reason andwill (and these two faculties together are most frequently calledby the simple name of reason) have no absolute or despoticcontrol over the lower appetites; they exercise a politic andpersuasive influence.
"Spiritual persons ought to be equally ready to experience sweetness and consolation in the things of God, or to suffer and keep their ground in drynesses of spirit and devotion, and for as long as God pleases, without their making any complaint about it."
St Philip Neri
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"It is well to choose some one good devotion, and to stick to it, and never to abandon it."
St Philip Neri
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"The supreme perfection of man in this life is to be so united to God that all his soul with all its faculties and powers are so gathered into the Lord God that he becomes one spirit with him, and remembers nothing except God, is aware of and recognises nothing but God, but with all his desires unified by the joy of love, he rests contentedly in the enjoyment of his Maker alone."
St Albert the Great
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