Article I: On the Passions

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 9, a. 2, and q. 10, a. 3; q. 22 and q. 23, and q. 24, a. 3, ad 1; q. 73, a. 6; q. 77, a. 6 and 7; q. 78, a. 2 and 4.

90. Passion is a movement of an appetitive power from the imagination of a sensible good or evil, with a certain change of the body; or, an act of the sensitive appetite pursuing sensible good or fleeing sensible evil, under the direction of imagination, with a certain bodily transmutation. It is said to be:

1. We are treating not of bodily passion, but of animal passion: the soul cannot properly suffer per se, but by reason of the composite.

1. a movement or act, as genus; 2) of the sensitive appetite, in order that its subject may be indicated; 3) pursuing good or fleeing evil, in order that the twofold object and the proximate genus may be indicated; 4) under the direction of imagination, that is, of a sensible representation by the help of a certain sensitive faculty, in order that the principle of passion which indicates good and evil may be noted; 5) with a certain bodily alteration, in order that the effect may be indicated by which passion is distinguished both from movements of the will, which take place without bodily transmutation, and from sensible cognition, which takes place with only an intentional transmutation, without physical transmutation.

Passion comprises a twofold element: the material, which is the very transmutation of the body; the formal, on the part of the appetite, which is an act of the soul, without which it would be nothing but bodily passion, by which the body alone would suffer. Thus in anger the material element is the heating of the blood around the heart; the formal is the appetite for vengeance. For passion is from the soul as from an effective principle, from the organism as subject (I, q. 20, a. 1, ad 2).

91. There are eleven principal passions, to which all can be reduced, as the Scholastics teach after Aristotle. For passion is an act of the sensitive appetite. But this is twofold: concupiscible and irascible. For in man, as in animals, there is not only an inclination to pursue the sensible thing which is suitable and to flee what is unsuitable, but also an inclination to resist contrary and impeding things. Whence there is a twofold inclination: the inclination of the concupiscible concerning sensible good and evil taken absolutely as such, namely, concerning the delightful and painful; and the inclination of the irascible concerning sensible good and evil as it is arduous and difficult.

2. This division is not absolutely certain nor scientifically demonstrated; but thus far, says Mercier (Psychologie, n. 121), no better has been discovered.

Now there are six passions in the concupiscible appetite: if the appetite is borne toward good or evil simply, abstracting from whether it is present or absent, there is 1) love of good, and 2) hatred of evil; if the appetite is borne toward absent good or evil, there is 3) desire or concupiscence of good, and 4) flight from evil; if the appetite is borne toward present good or evil, there is 5) delight in good, and 6) sadness over evil.

There are five passions of the irascible appetite, which is borne toward arduous good and evil: if it is borne toward arduous good, either this will be possible to obtain, and then there is 1) hope, or impossible, and there is 2) despair; if it flees arduous evil, either that evil is possible to repel, and there is 3) daring, or impossible, and there is 4) fear; or finally it is concerned with present evil to be avenged, and there is 5) anger, to which no passion is opposed.

The passions of the concupiscible differ in species, both 1) according to the contrariety of good and evil because they are borne toward opposed objects (for example, love and hatred), and 2) according to diverse active power, or diverse degree in the process of appetitive movement toward the same object (for example, love, desire, and delight). Cf. q. 23, a. 1 and 4. The passions of the irascible differ both 1) according to the contrariety of the object (for example, hope and fear), and 2) also according to contrary movement, namely, according to approach and withdrawal with respect to the same object (for example, hope and despair, daring and fear). Anger has no contrary (a. 3).

1. Besides the eleven, there are other less principal passions which have a more determinate and particular object, among which there is considered a quasi-accidental difference (Q. D. De Veritate 26, a. 4). This happens in two ways: 1) according to intensity and remission: thus zeal is intense love, fury intense anger; 2) according to the material difference of good and evil: envy is sadness concerning another's prosperity insofar as it is esteemed one's own evil; mercy is sadness concerning another's adversity insofar as it is esteemed one's own evil.

92. Passion is divided in relation to the free will or to the human act: it is either antecedent, which precedes the deliberation of reason and the free consent of the will and causes it or entices it to the act: then something is done from passion; or consequent, which follows upon the free consent of the will and proceeds from it: then something is done with passion. This occurs a) by redundance, when the will is borne vehemently and intensely toward the object; for such vehemence naturally excites passion in the sensitive appetite: this is voluntary in the cause only; b) by direct excitation, when the will deliberately excites or fosters passion so that it may pursue the object more ardently and intensely, for example, love in order to tend toward something more intensely, hope in order more easily to obtain victory, anger in order more easily to take vengeance, concupiscence in order to pursue more intensely, fear in order to yield at once: this is voluntary in itself.

The will is not moved directly by an antecedent passion of the sensitive appetite, but indirectly and mediately, namely, by means of the object of the intellect. Once passion has been aroused, man is affected in a certain way and changed to some disposition, by which it happens that the intellect apprehends as fitting and good what it would not so have apprehended if passion were absent, just as to an angry or concupiscent person that seems good which does not seem so to one who is quiet (Jas. I, 14). A change of this sort happens in two ways: 1) sometimes, but more rarely, reason is totally bound, so that man does not have the use of reason, as happens in those who because of vehement anger or concupiscence become furious or mad, as through some bodily disturbance: for in these there is not any use of reason, nor consequently of will; 2) more often reason is not totally absorbed by passion, but the judgment of reason remains free as to something, and then the movement of the will also remains free, which does not tend of necessity to that to which passion inclines. And although reason is clouded by passion, nevertheless the judgment of reason remains free as to something, and according to this man can either totally repel passion, or at least hold himself so that he does not follow passion (q. 9, a. 2, and q. 10, a. 3).

93. Principles. I. Antecedent passion diminishes freedom, and consequently goodness or sin, because it diminishes the indifference of judgment and clouds reason, insofar as it shows the object so that it appears very delightful and fitting, or very troublesome or unfitting, and more so than it is. Indeed sometimes, if it is very vehement, it removes the cognition and deliberation of reason and therefore not only freedom but also the voluntary, properly so called. Hence the principle: What is done from passion is less free.

II. Consequent passion in no way diminishes the voluntary or freedom, nor consequently goodness or sin, because it is itself the effect of the free will; but a) it is a sign of a greater voluntary, if it proceeds from the will by redundance; b) if, however, it is directly excited by the will, it also simply increases the voluntary (extensively and intensively), because it makes one pursue good or evil also through passion and more intensely, and will it freely; and consequently it increases goodness or sin: for the more, according to St. Thomas, q. 77, a. 6, someone freely wills to pursue something with a greater inclination, the more perfectly he does good or evil. Hence the principle: What is done deliberately with passion is not less free but more voluntary.

94. Observations.

1. The general doctrine concerning passion is briefly expressed in can. 2206: "Passion, if it was voluntarily and deliberately excited or nourished, rather increases imputability; otherwise it diminishes it more or less according to the diverse heat of the passion; and it altogether removes it, if it precedes and impedes every deliberation of the mind and consent of the will."

2. It can happen that consequent passion diminishes deliberation and liberty as to the act following from it, insofar as the one acting proceeds further than he had previously determined, and, for example, kills him whom he had intended to wound. But as to that new act or further effect it will be antecedent, and the principles concerning antecedent passion are to be applied to it.