On the passions in particular

St. Thomas, from q. 26 to q. 48.

§ I

On the passions of the concupiscible appetite.

St. Thomas, from q. 26 to q. 39.

[I. LOVE. — 1° Love, as such, is « complacency in good »³. Understand a firm and robust complacency domineering the appetite; for if it be yet recent and weak, it will rather be the rudiment and beginning of love than love. Or otherwise: ³ Here q. 26, a. 1, o.

« Love is propensity or inclination unto good according to itself, abstracting whether it be present or absent. »

Love is threefold, as appetite is threefold, namely rational or intellective, sensitive or animal, and natural¹. Rational love is inclination unto good apprehended by intellect; sensitive is inclination unto good apprehended by sense, and this alone is passion: natural is the inclination of each nature, whether cognoscitive or not, implanted by the author of nature unto good convenient to it, as of a stone toward the center. ¹ Ibid., a. 1, o.

Love, whether rational or sensitive, is divided into love of friendship and love of concupiscence². Because to love is to will good to someone, the motion of love tends into two things, namely into the good which one wills to someone, whether to himself or to another, and into him to whom he wills good. The first is love of concupiscence, the second love of friendship. Love of friendship is love simply, because what is loved with love of friendship is loved simply and according to itself. Love of concupiscence is love secundum quid, because what is loved with love of concupiscence is not loved simply and according to itself, but is loved for another. Whence, while you love someone because he is useful to you, you love yourself with love of friendship, but him with love of concupiscence; if however you will good to him on account of himself, you love him with love of friendship. ² Ibid., a. 4, o.

2° The principal cause of love is good, because good is the object of love; but the object of love is its moving cause. Another cause of love is cognition, because the object moves not unless known, whence it is said: « Of the unknown there is no desire. » The third cause of love is similitude, according to that Eccli., XII, 19: Every beast loveth its like; whence the common adage: « Like rejoices in like »³. ³ Here q. 27, a. 1, 2 et 3, o.

But similitude is twofold⁴: one actual, while two have the same thing in act, e. g., two men humanity, two walls whiteness; the other potential, while one has power unto the form which the other has in act, as various foods, which through nutrition or assimilation pass into the species of the animal, reduced under its form. The first similitude causes love of friendship. For when two acts are alike in the same form, they are in a certain way one in that form: as two men are one in the species of humanity, and therefore the affection of the one tends into the other as into one [conformed] to itself, and wills him good as to itself. The second similitude causes love of concupiscence, because it makes that he who has only in potency the form which the other has in act, desire it, in whose attainment he delight, if he be sentient and knowing. ⁴ Ibid., a. 3, o.

Per accidens however from similitude hatred is born¹, when namely the like in one is impeding of good or excellence in another; whence he becomes hateful to the other, not qua like, but qua impeding that good. And thence another common adage from the Philosopher, VIII Ethic., c. 1: « The potter hates the potter; » and that Prov., XIII, 10: Among the proud there are always contentions. ¹ Ibid.

To these causes of love can be added sympathy or natural propensity of one unto another, society, familiarity, communication in goods or secrets.

3° The first effect of love is union: whence Dionysius, c. 4 de Divin. nomin., says love to be an uniting force². Union moreover is twofold: one real, whereby the beloved is present to the lover; the other affective, whereby from preceding apprehension someone is affected toward another. The first love causes effectively, because it moves the lover unto seeking the presence of the beloved; yet not so that the beloved be substantially in the lover, for this is impossible, but in every way which is possible and fitting, namely that they be mutually present to each other, converse together, and be joined in other ways beseeming love. ² Here q. 28, a. 1, o.

The second effect of love is adherence³; third, ecstasis⁴; fourth, zeal¹; fifth, injury to the lover²; sixth and most universal, speaking of love as such, inasmuch as it comprehends rational, sensitive and natural [love], is the general influx into all things which the loving one does³: 1° because every agent acts on account of some end. But the end is the beloved good. Therefore every agent, whatsoever it do, acts from some love; 2° because love is lord of the appetite, whose it is to apply unto acting; 3° because love is the root of all other affections and passions which move the animal. But if we speak of the sensitive appetite and as it is passion, it is not the cause of all that the lover does, because certain things he does or can do from election of the will, without passion. ³ Ibid., a. 2, o. ⁴ Ibid., a. 3, o. ¹ Ibid., a. 4, o. ² Ibid., a. 5, o. ³ Ibid., a. 6, o.

To these effects of love the holy Doctor joins four others, namely: liquefaction, fruition, languor and fervor. — All these things, which here we are forced only to note, will be read most usefully in the Angelic Doctor himself, in the places cited.

II. HATRED. — As love is propensity and weight unto good or the fitting, so hatred is aversion from evil or the unfitting⁴. Understand concerning hatred of abomination, whereby someone or something, for instance death, punishment, etc., we abominate and flee as evil; not concerning hatred of enmity, whereby we will evil to someone; for that is not aversion but prosecution of something which we apprehend as good with respect to ourselves and as evil with respect to him whom we hold in hatred of abomination. ⁴ Here q. 29, a. 1, o.

Hatred is born from love, because from the fact that something is loved as fitting, its contrary, as unfitting, is held in hatred⁵. ⁵ Ibid., a. 2, o.

III and IV. DESIRE and FLIGHT. — Desire is the affection of appetite tending unto good absent, whereby it differs from delight, which is of good present, and from love, which is of good according to itself, as it abstracts from present or absent¹. Flight, which is opposed to desire, is aversion and recession from future evil. ¹ Here q. 30, a. 2, o.

V. JOY or delight. — Delight is the rest of appetite in good possessed: if it be rational appetite, it is spiritual delight; if of the sensitive appetite, it is sensible delight, which alone is passion, because it alone is with corporal transmutation². For here the rest of appetite, whether rational or sensitive, ought not to be taken privatively for cessation from every act, as in insensible things, which when they attain their perfection feel it not, and therefore are held to rest through mere cessation of motion: but truly cognitive beings, while they attain their perfection, perceive or know it, and from that knowledge or sense is caused a certain motion of the soul in the good present complacent and resting, and that motion is delight. ² Here q. 31, a. 1, o.

Although intellectual delights in themselves are greater than sensual ones, because they are of nobler object and good more delectable in themselves, and are more firm; nevertheless, as regards us, sensual delights are greater than spiritual ones, partly because sensibles are more known to us than intelligibles, partly because sensual delights are with corporal transmutation, and are desired as certain necessary medicines: whence it happens that more follow sensual delights than spiritual ones.

The causes of delight are³: first, the very operation, for unto delight two things are required, namely attainment of convenient good and knowledge or perception of this attainment, but each is operation; second, motion or mutation and alteration; third, hope of the future; fourth memory of the past; fifth, similitude. ³ Ibid., a. 5, o.

The effects of delight are⁴: 1° dilation of heart, which seems to unfold and diffuse itself; 2° it causes thirst and desire of itself, when namely imperfectly had; 3° it aids the act of reason, when it is itself spiritual, and impedes, nay sometimes absorbs this act, if it be corporeal ¹; ⁴ Here q. 32, a. 1, 2, 3 et 7, o. ¹ « There is a certain delight which is had from the very act of reason, as when someone delights in contemplating or reasoning, and such delight impedes not the use of reason but aids it, because we attend more attentively to that wherein we delight ; attention however aids operation. But corporal delights impede the use of reason for a threefold reason : 1° indeed by reason of distraction, because we attend much to those things in which we delight...; 2° by reason of contrariety; for certain delights most exceeding are against the order of reason...; 3° according to a certain binding, since namely upon corporal delight there follows a certain corporal transmutation, greater even than in other passions, inasmuch as the appetite is affected more vehemently toward the thing present than toward the thing absent. » Here a. 3, o.

4° it perfects the very operation whereby it is perceived.

VI. SORROW. — Sorrow is the affection of appetite caused from apprehension of evil present ². It is clear from what was said of delight, to which it is opposed. Similarly its causes and effects are known from the contrary causes and effects of delight. ² Here qq. 35, 36 et 37

The remedies of sorrow are ³: The first, any delight whatever. The second, tears, sighs, groans, and other exterior signs of sorrow: partly because everything noxious shut up within afflicts more, because the intensification of the soul about it is multiplied more; but when it diffuses unto exterior things, then the intensification of the soul is in a certain way disaggregated unto exterior things, and thus interior grief is diminished: partly because tears and groans are operations fitting to the saddened and grieving, but every fitting operation brings delight. ³ Here q. 38, through five articles.

The third is the conversation of friends, because through this that friends grieve with him who suffers, he perceives himself loved by them; which is delightful. The fourth, for the wise, is contemplation of truth, because in contemplation of truth is greatest delight. The fifth, sleep and bath, whereby while the due state of the body disturbed by grief is restored, the mind is at once with the body refreshed.]

§ II. — On the passions of the irascible appetite.

[I and II. Hope and Desperation. — Hope is the motion of appetite tending unto future good difficult and arduous, possible however of attainment. Desperation, on the contrary, is the motion receding from arduous good impossible of attainment, at least morally ¹. In youths and drunkards and others who use not deliberation, hope abounds, because through inconsiderateness of difficulties they easily judge themselves able to obtain what they will. ¹ Here q. 40.

Audacity is the motion of appetite unto invading and overcoming ². It is said terrible, because light evils are despised. Nor does it stand against that every act of prosecution, such as audacity is, concerns good; for audacity is indeed concerning good, but also concerning evil under the rationale of good. For it is borne into evil to be overcome and put to flight, which victory and putting to flight is good and useful unto obtaining the good which appetite hopes. ² Here q. 45.

IV. Fear. — Fear is the motion of appetite around future evil arduous imminent, unto which resistance can be made only with difficulty; or it is the casting down of mind conquered by gravity of peril ³. The effect of fear is contraction, not only metaphorical whereby the appetite conquered by evil recedes and gathers itself into itself, but proper and corporal, inasmuch as from fear valor and spirits are contracted unto the interior parts, especially unto the heart, not that thence they make onset, as in anger, desire and audacity: as we see in cities that, when citizens fear, they withdraw themselves from exterior places and recur, as much as they can, unto interior and more fortified places, that they may be saved ⁴. ³ Here q. 41. ⁴ Here q. 44, a. 1, o.

From this effect several others are born, namely trembling, pallor, interclusion of voice, erection of hairs, sometimes sudden hoariness, fainting of spirit, stupor, disturbance of mind, thirst, aridity of the jaws, etc.

V. Anger. — Anger is appetite of vindication with fervor of blood around the heart ¹. It differs from hatred of enmity in this, that hatred wills evil to the neighbor as evil to him, but the angry man wills him evil under the rationale of just vindication. ¹ Here qq. 46 et 47.

The principal cause of anger is slight estimation and contempt, which is the greater the greater the excellence of the angry one.

The effects of anger are: 1° delight on account of hope of vindication, which is remedy of injury received; 2° fervor in the heart; 3° disturbance of mind and body; 4° taciturnity, either because the reason disturbed finds nothing worthy of the passion, or because so great is the disturbance that the tongue is impeded from natural use ². ² Here q. 48.

[After human acts and passions, St. Doctor considers the principles of human acts, and first the intrinsic principles, which are powers and habits. But because concerning powers he already spoke in 1a p., q. 77, he treats here only of habits, and first of habits in general, from q. 49 to q. 54. But because what pertains to habits in general are properly philosophical and less necessary, therefore we omit them here. Then he considers habits in particular, and first of good habits, which are virtues; secondly, of evil habits, namely vices and sins. Therefore a few things will be said by us here of virtues, but afterward we shall treat of sins.]