It must not be forgotten that reason too needs to be sustained in all its searching by trusting dialogue and sincere friendship. A climate of suspicion and distrust, which can beset speculative research, ignores the teaching of the ancient philosophers who proposed friendship as one of the most appropriate contexts for sound philosophical enquiry.
The ethos of redemption is realied in self-mastery, by means of temperance, that is, continence of desires.
Love is never defeated, and I could add, the history of Ireland proves it.
A person’s rightful due is to be treated as an object of love, not as an object for use.
On one hand the eternal attraction of man towards femininity (cf. Gn. 2:23) frees in him-or perhaps it should free-a gamut of spiritual-corporal desires of an especially personal and sharing nature (cf. analysis of the beginning), to which a proportionate pyramid of values corresponds. On the other hand, lust limits this gamut, obscuring the pyramid of values that marks the perennial attraction of male and female.