[165] Pleasure does not venture to bring her wiles and deceptions to bear on the man, but on the woman, and by her means on him. This is a telling and well-made point: for in us mind corresponds to man, the senses to woman; and pleasure encounters and holds parley with the senses first, and through them cheats with her quackeries the sovereign mind itself: for when each sense has been subjugated to her sorceries, delighting in what she proffers, the sense of sight in variegated colours and shapes, that of hearing in harmonious sounds, that of taste in delicate savours, and that of scent in the fragrance of perfumes which it inhales, then all of them receive the gifts and offer them like handmaids to the Reason as to a master, bringing with them Persuasion to plead that it reject nothing whatever. Reason is forthwith ensnared and becomes a subject instead of a ruler, a slave instead of a master, an alien instead of a citizen, and a mortal instead of an immortal.
[166] In a word we must never lose sight of the fact that Pleasure, being a courtesan and a wanton, eagerly desires to meet with a lover, and searches for panders, by whose means she shall get one on her hook. It is the senses that act as panders for her and procure the lover. When she has ensnared these she easily brings the Mind under her control. To it, dwelling within us, the senses convey the things seen without, reporting them fully and making them manifest, impressing on it the forms of the several objects, and producing in it the corresponding affection. For it resembles wax, and receives the images that reach it through the senses, by which it apprehends material substances, being incapable, as I have said before, of doing this by itself.