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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: First, invoking the Muses and assuming ironically the person of the non-
lover (who is a lover all the same), he will enquire into the nature and
power of love. For this is a necessary preliminary to the other question--
How is the non-lover to be distinguished from the lover? In all of us
there are two principles--a better and a worse--reason and desire, which
are generally at war with one another; and the victory of the rational is
called temperance, and the victory of the irrational intemperance or
excess. The latter takes many forms and has many bad names--gluttony,
drunkenness, and the like. But of all the irrational desires or excesses
the greatest is that which is led away by desires of a kindred nature to
the enjoyment of personal beauty. And this is the master power of love.
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