foods that harm it without benefiting it. Its assistance to the vegetative soul is thus accidental, not essential. It is the inseparable enemy from whom one cannot part and against whose evil one is not secure.
(Subjugation, Anger, and the Balance of Justice)
The irascible soul, which is predatory, seeks subjugation because it sees its superiority over other animals through the faculties and ability to exercise disposition it has been given. It sees the world subjected to its constitution and its governor, and sees incidental events within existence, occurring by chance or through causes appearing, all preventing it from attaining its aims. It grows angry because the aim is not attained.
If it possesses a strong assisting sovereignty, whether an effective concentrated aspiration or an external commanding authority through which it can execute its anger upon the object of anger, it destroys him and manifests vengeance against him. It does not know the balance of injustice and justice within that vengeance and subjugation, since this does not belong to it, but to reason and the law of the time. Hence the poet erred who said:
Injustice belongs to souls' traits; if you find one abstaining, it is for some cause that he does not act unjustly.
(Distinguishing Subjugation from Injustice)
Had he said ‘subjugation’ instead of ‘injustice,’ he would have spoken correctly. For the judgment of injustice comes only through the Revealed Law, and is known through it. The soul has only subjugation,
