Commentary

This sentence continues the chapter On Reason and Passion by describing inner conflict as a battle between faculties that are, in Gibran's view, equally part of the self. The image of the battlefield is stark, and it conveys the suffering involved in moral choice without assigning victory to either side. Suheil Bushrui has noted that the chapter ends by recommending that the soul be made the master of both, a resolution that depends on the reader recognising the conflict as internal rather than external. Mikhail Naimy's biography records Gibran's sense of being divided between the Arab and American worlds, and between his artistic ambitions and his practical needs, which may have informed the metaphor. Virginia Hilu's letters include passages that describe Gibran's inner turmoil in similarly martial terms. Commentators have observed that the conflict Gibran describes is recognisably Platonic in structure, though he does not cite Plato directly in this chapter. The English text is stable and verifiable in the 1923 edition.