Immoderation is worse than timidity; for, while the former seeks selfish delight and acts with willing unrestraint, the latter seeks self-preservation and is under some external menace.
The lowest depths of degradation are reached when immoderation is brutish even in its manner, as when one is gluttonous of human flesh or desirous of sodomitic pleasure.
I answer that, Covetousness denotes immoderation with regard to riches in two ways.
Now gluttony is immoderation in food; and man cannot avoid this, for Gregory says (Moral.
Secondly, it denotes immoderation in the interior affections for riches; for instance, when a man loves or desires riches too much, or takes too much pleasure in them, even if he be unwilling to steal.
Covetousness may signify immoderation about external things in two ways.
The other way in which avarice may involve immoderation is in interior affection.
I wish that this excessive licence of mine may draw men to freedom, above these timorous and mincing virtues sprung from our imperfections, and that at the expense of my immoderation I may reduce them to reason.
