Chapter X.
How six of these faults are related, and the two which
differ from them are akin to one another.
Of
these eight faults then,
although they are different in their origin and in their way of
affecting us, yet the six former; viz., gluttony, fornication,
covetousness, anger, dejection, accidie, have a sort of connexion with
each other, and are, so to speak, linked together in a chain, so that
any excess of the one forms a starting point for the next. For from
superfluity of gluttony fornication is sure to spring, and from
fornication covetousness, from covetousness anger, from anger,
dejection, and from dejection, accidie. And so we must fight against
them in the same way, and with the same methods: and having overcome
one, we ought always to enter the lists against the next. For a tall
and spreading tree of a noxious kind will the more easily be made to
wither if the roots on which it depends have first been laid bare or
cut; and a pond of water which is dangerous will be dried up at once if
the spring and flowing channel which produce it are carefully stopped
up. Wherefore in order to overcome accidie, you must first get the
better of dejection: in order to get rid of dejection, anger must first
be expelled: in order to quell anger, covetousness must be trampled
under foot: in order to root out covetousness, fornication must be
checked: and in order to destroy fornication, you must chastise the sin
of gluttony. But the two remaining faults; viz., vainglory and pride,
are connected together in a somewhat similar way as the others of which
we have spoken, so that the growth of the one makes a starting point
for the other (for superfluity of vainglory produces an incentive to
pride); but they are altogether different from the six former faults,
and are not joined in the same category with them, since not only is
there no opportunity given for them to spring up from these, but they
are actually aroused in an entirely different way and manner. For when
these others have been eradicated these latter flourish the more
vigorously, and from the death of the others they shoot forth and grow
up all the stronger: and therefore we are attacked by these two faults
in quite a different way. For we fall into each one of those six faults
at the moment when we have been overcome by the ones that went before
them; but into these two we are in danger of falling when we have
proved victorious, and above all after some splendid triumph. In the
cases then of all faults just as they spring up from the growth of
those that go before them, so are they eradicated by getting rid of the
earlier ones. And in this way in order that pride may be driven out
vainglory must be stifled, and so if we always overcome the earlier
ones, the later ones will be checked; and through the extermination of
those that lead the way, the rest of our passions will die down without
difficulty. And though these eight faults of which we have spoken are
connected and joined together in the way which we have shown, yet they
may be more exactly divided into four groups and sub-divisions. For to
gluttony fornication is linked by a special tie: to covetousness anger,
to dejection accidie, and to vainglory pride is closely
allied.