2. The rational creature, however, in addition to its phantastic nature has reason, which distinguishes between the phantasies, rejecting some, approving others, so that the creature may be guided accordingly. Now it is the nature of reason to have promptings to the contemplation of virtue and vice; and if, yielding to these promptings, we choose the former and shun the latter, we deserve praise for devoting ourselves to the practice of virtue, or blame if we take the opposite course. We must not, however, fail to remark that, though for the most part the nature of animals is adapted to all their needs, it is so in varying degrees, sometimes more, sometimes less; so that hounds in hunting and horses in war are not, if I may say so, far from the rational creature. Now, whether something external shall chance to excite this or that phantasy in us, confessedly does not rest with us; but it is for reason and nothing else to decide whether we shall use what has happened in a particular way or otherwise, reason either urging us, according to its promptings, to follow our better and nobler instincts, or misleading us so that we do the reverse.|140