Origen of Alexandria, On First Principles

In the church's preaching one will hear the word concerning the just anointing of God, which — since it is believed to be true — also urges us to live well and to flee sin in every way, so that we may take up privately the most necessary problem: understanding what the self-moved is. We must unfold the notion of it so that, once it has been clearly explained, what is being sought may be precisely presented.

Of things that are moved, some have the cause of movement in themselves, while others are moved only from outside. Things that are carried — such as wood, stones, and all matter held together only by habit — are moved only from outside. Let the notion that speaks of the movement of bodies be set aside for now, since it is not needed for what is proposed. But animals, plants, and in general all things held together by nature or soul have the cause of movement in themselves; from these they say metals also arise, and fire is self-moved, and perhaps springs as well. Among things that have the cause of movement in themselves, some are said to be moved from themselves, others from outside themselves. The inanimate are moved from outside themselves; the animate are moved from themselves. And animate things are moved from themselves when a fantasy arises and provokes an impulse. Again, in some animals fantasies arise that provoke impulse, as their imaginative nature moves the impulse in an orderly way — as in the spider, where the fantasy of weaving arises and an impulse follows to weave, its imaginative nature prompting it in an orderly way to that very thing, and the animal believes nothing else beyond its imaginative nature; and in the bee, toward making honeycomb.

But the rational animal also possesses reason alongside its imaginative nature, a reason that judges fantasies, rejecting some and accepting others so that the animal may be led according to them. Therefore, since in the nature of reason there are starting points for contemplating the good and the bad, by following which we contemplate the good and the bad, we choose the good and turn away from the bad. We are praiseworthy when we give ourselves to the practice of the good, but blameworthy when we do the opposite. One must not be ignorant, however, that the greater part of the nature ordered to all things exists in animals, and for the most part or for the lesser part, so that it is near, so to speak, the work of the rational in tracking dogs and in war horses. That this or that external thing happens to us, provoking a fantasy in us, is admittedly not in our power; but to judge whether to use what has happened in this way or another is the work of the reason within us — either by working in us according to the starting points that urge us toward the good and toward what is fitting, or by turning us away from the opposite.

If someone says that what is from outside is of such a kind that it is impossible to resist when it occurs in this way, let him examine his own passions and movements to see whether consent and sympathy and an inclination of the ruling part do not arise toward this or that thing through these persuasions. For it is not the case — to give an example — that the woman who appears and provokes and summons one to do something contrary to intention becomes the self-sufficient cause of abandoning intention; rather, having consented to the tickling and the smoothness of pleasure, and not having willed to resist or to confirm what had been anointed, one does the intemperate thing. But another person, to whom the same things have happened yet who has received more lessons and has been exercised — the ticklings and irritations happen to him as well, but reason, having been strengthened and nourished by practice and confirmed by doctrines toward the good, or having come near to being confirmed, has become steadfast.