על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ד ט״וOn the Special Laws, Book IV 15
א׳
1[84] So great then and transcendent an evil is desire, or rather it may be truly said, the fountain of all evils. For plunderings and robberies and repudiations of debts and false accusations and outrages, also seductions, adulteries, murders and all wrongful actions, whether private or public, whether in things sacred or things profane,
ב׳
2[85] from what other source do they flow? For the passion to which the name of originator of evil can truly be given is desire, of which one and that the smallest fruit the passion of love has not only once but often in the past filled the whole world with countless calamities, which, too numerous to be contained by the whole compass of the land, have consequently poured into the sea as though driven by a torrent, and everywhere the wide waters have been filled with hostile ships and all the fresh terrors created by maritime war have come into being, then fallen with all their mass on islands and continents, swept along backwards and forwards from their original home as in the ebb and flow of the tides.
ג׳
3[86] But we shall gain a clearer insight into the passion in the following way. Desire, like venomous animals or deadly poisons, produces a change for the worse in all which it attacks. What do I mean by this?
ד׳
4[87] If the desire is directed to money it makes men thieves and cut-purses, footpads, burglars, guilty of defaulting to their creditors, repudiating deposits, receiving bribes, robbing temples and of all similar actions.
ה׳
5[88] If its aim is reputation they become arrogant, haughty, inconstant and unstable in temperament, their ears blockaded by the voices they hear, deaf to all else, at once humbled to the ground and uplifted on high by the inconsistencies of the multitude who deal out praise and blame in an indiscriminate stream. They form friendships and enmities recklessly so that they easily change each for the other, and show every other quality of the same family and kinship as these.
ו׳
6[89] If the desire is directed to office, they are factious, inequitable, tyrannical in nature, cruel-hearted, foes of their country, merciless masters to those who are weaker, irreconcilable enemies of their equals in strength and flatterers of their superiors in power as a preparation for their treacherous attack.
ז׳
7If the object is bodily beauty they are seducers, adulterers, pederasts, cultivators of incontinence and lewdness, as though these worst of evils were the best of blessings.
ח׳
8[90] We have known desire to make its way to the tongue and cause an infinity of troubles, for some desire to keep unspoken what should be told or to tell what should be left unsaid, and avenging justice attends on utterance in the one case and silence in the opposite.
ט׳
9[91] And when it takes hold of the region of the belly, it produces gourmands, insatiable, debauched, eagerly pursuing a loose and dissolute life, delighting in wine bibbing and gluttonous feeding, base slaves to strong drink and fish and dainty cates, sneaking like greedy little dogs round banqueting halls and tables, all this finally resulting in an unhappy and accursed life which is more painful than any death.
י׳
10[92] It was this which led those who had taken no mere sip of philosophy but had feasted abundantly on its sound doctrines to the theory which they laid down. They had made researches into the nature of the soul and observed that its components were threefold, reason, high spirit and desire. To reason as sovereign they assigned for its citadel the head as its most suitable residence, where also are set the stations of the senses like bodyguards to their king, the mind.
י״א
11[93] To the spirited part they gave the chest, partly that soldier-like clad with a breast-plate it would if not altogether scatheless be scarcely vanquished finally; partly that lying close to the mind it should be helped by its neighbour who would use good sense to charm it into gentleness. But to desire they gave the space round the navel and what is called the diaphragm.
י״ב
12[94] For it was right that desire so lacking in reasoning power should be lodged as far as might be from reason’s royal seat, almost at the outermost boundary, and that being above all others an animal insatiable and incontinent it should be pastured in the region where food-taking and copulation dwell.