Moral Value of the Passions

Moral Value of the Passions.—The Stoics held that all the passions are diseases of the soul, and that one is perfect when one arrives at the condition of being passionless or apathetic. Lucretius, on the contrary, taught that all the impulses of passion are good. The truth is that the passions are good or evil according to the way they are considered. (a) Physically, the passions are good, since they are the acts of natural powers, or the perfection and complement of something good in itself. (b) Morally, they are indifferent, if they are viewed in themselves, as the product of the sensitive appetite. For this appetite is an irrational power of the soul, similar to that of the beasts, and acts are not moral unless rational—i.e., an act is good or evil only from its relation to reason. (c) Morally, the passions are good or bad, if commanded by reason and will, for thus they partake of the good or evil that is in the acts from which they proceed, just as the acts of the external members of the body are moral in so far as they execute the commands of the will. The passions are voluntary if commanded by the will, or not forbidden by it. Examples: Our Lord looked about Him with anger, being grieved at the blindness of His enemies who watched Him in the synagogue (Mark, iii. 5); He wept over the destruction of Jerusalem (Luke, xix. 41); He was sad at the approach of His passion (Mark, xiv. 34).

The passions are morally good: (a) if they are directed by the will to a morally good object; for example, shame is a praiseworthy passion, because it is fear of what is dishonorable, and pity is also good, because it is according to right reason, being sorrow for the misfortune of another; (b) if they are chosen by the reason for a good purpose; for example, it is good to excite the emotion of joy that one may pray with greater fervor, or to arouse the feelings of pity, fear, or hope, in order that one may be more earnestly moved to acts of mercy, repentance, courage; (c) if the circumstances are moderated according to right reason; for example, to grieve over the death of a friend excessively, so that one is unfitted for duty and suffers in health, is unreasonable; but to grieve even unto tears, as Christ did at the tomb of Lazarus, is an act of piety. Similarly, the slight anger of Heli was blamable and the great anger of Moses was laudable, because the evils in both instances called for severity (I Kings, ii, iii; Exod., iii).

The passions can either diminish or increase the goodness of an act. (a) They diminish its goodness, if they are antecedent—i.e., prior to the judgment of the reason—for they thus obscure the mind and make the act that follows less voluntary. For example, there is less goodness in an alms given under an impulse of sentimentality than in one given after serious consideration of the matter and from a motive of charity. (b) They increase its goodness if they are consequent—i.e., subsequent to the judgment and the result of the vehemence of the will, or of deliberate encouragement by the will (see 47 sqq.)—for, just as the external act increases the goodness of the internal act, so is it better that man should tend towards good, not only with the will, but also with the emotions. Examples: The spiritual gladness of the Psalmist is seen to have been more than ordinarily great from the fact that it acted upon his feelings, and both heart and flesh rejoiced (Ps, lxxxii. 3); to sing a hymn in order to encourage oneself to greater fervor or devotion adds to the goodness of what is done, through the greater promptness or ease it causes in the act that follows.

The passions are morally evil: (a) when they are commanded by the will and directed to an object, a purpose, or circumstances that are evil, Thus, envy is an ignoble passion, since it is unreasonable, being sorrow at another’s success. Examples; Titus drinks to excess for the delight of intoxication (bad object); Balbus purposely excites his imagination, that he may hate more bitterly and act more cruelly (bad end); Sempronius loves his children so immoderately that he grows morose and jealous (bad circumstance). (b) The passions are also morally evil when they should be forbidden and are not forbidden by the will. Example; Caius is surprised by a sudden burst of anger, which, though he judges to be unreasonable, he does nothing to check.

The passions can remove, diminish or increase the evil of an act. (a) Thus, antecedent passions take away all evil, if (a thing that is rare) they prevent entirely the use of reason; they diminish malice if they obscure the judgment. Examples: Balbus, fearing that he is about to drown, becomes panic-stricken, seizes Titus and almost drowns him. Caius, threatened with a black eye if he refuses, calumniates: his calumny would be worse if he acted coldbloodedly. (b) Consequent passions increase the evil, for then they manifest a strong intention, or are the result of direct purpose. Examples: Sempronius attacks the conduct of an opponent, not with dispassionate argument and from a love of truth, but with bitter personal feeling and from a desire of revenge. Titia works herself into a rage that she may be the more ready for an encounter with a person of whom she is unjustly jealous.

Though the passions are physically good and in their nature morally indifferent, they may have physical reactions or moral consequences that are harmful or evil. These dangers may be physical, mental or moral.

(a) Physical Dangers of the Passions.—It is a well-known fact that there is a close connection between the passions and the nerves, heart, and bodily organism in general, and that strong or persistent emotion can work great detriment to the health, producing disease, unconsciousness, or even death.

(b) Mental Dangers of the Passions.—It is admitted by all that the passions disturb the judgment, and can even take away the use of reason. For they act upon the body or the senses, and these in turn affect the mind in a way similar to what happens in sleep or intoxication. Thus, love makes one blind to the defects of the object of one’s love; fear makes one magnify the evil of what is dreaded; melancholy unbalances the mind, etc.

(c) Moral Dangers of the Passions.—It is likewise a matter of common experience that the passions are a source of many temptations and sins. Often they are antecedent (i.e., not premeditated or willed), as when they arise from bodily states over which one has no control or from imaginations strongly fixed in the mind, and at the same time tend to that which is not according to right reason, rebelling against the law of the mind. Thus, a person whose health is bad is easily dispirited, and this feeling occasions temptations to despair; one whose memory is haunted with the image of a lost parent becomes a prey to sadness, which makes it difficult to perform duties with zest and diligence.

A passion may become morally bad on account of the physical or mental evils connected with it. (a) Thus, a person has duties to his own well-being, and he indirectly wills (see 35 sqq., 94 sqq.) to neglect these duties, if he indulges harmful passions. Example: Sempronia grieves immoderately over the death of her mother, with the result that her health and mental vigor are impaired. (b) A person also has duties with respect to the life, health, and happiness of his neighbor, and he chooses to neglect these duties if he unjustly provokes emotions in others, foreseeing injurious consequences (see 96 sqq.). Examples: Titus so vexes Balbus by petty annoyances that the latter loses appetite and sleep, and becomes an invalid. Sempronia so exasperates her father by long-continued unfilial conduct that the latter becomes insane. Caius appeals to prejudices in order to have injustice done to a rival.

As to passions that incite to evil or deter from good, we must observe the following: (a) if the passion is consequent, one is placing oneself or others in danger of sin, and one’s conduct must be judged according to the principles given in 258 sqq. (Examples: Titus likes to brood over his troubles, although this causes temptations to neglect duty; Sempronia makes remarks to a hot-headed acquaintance which are a provocation to great uncharitableness); (b) if the passion is antecedent, it constitutes a temptation which one is bound to resist (see 252 sqq.). Example: Balbus has a natural dislike for Caius, and often feels impelled to judge him rashly or treat him unjustly.

Antecedent or involuntary passions, as well as other involuntary acts of imagination, thought and will, tending to evil, are sometimes called “first motions of the soul,” as distinguished from consequent or voluntary passions and acts, which are known as “second motions of the soul.” The first motions are of two kinds: (a) those that precede all deliberation and consent, actual or virtual (motus primo-primi), and these are free from all sin; (b) those that precede full deliberation and consent, but follow on partial deliberation (motus secundo-primi). These latter are venial sins.

Most theologians since the Council of Trent maintain that the inordinate movements of passion which precede the advertence of reason, such as lust, envy, sloth, etc., are not sins. The Council of Trent defined that the fomes peccati has never been understood by the Church to be truly a sin in the baptized, but has been called sin by St. Paul in the sense that it is from sin and inclines to sin (Council of Trent, fifth session). On the basis of this text some authors argue that it is of faith that the inordinate motions called primo-primi are not sins for the baptized. The condemnation of both the fiftieth proposition of Baius: The evil desires to which reason does not consent, and which man endures unwillingly (invitus), are prohibited by precept; and his fifty-first: Lust, or the law of the members, and evil desires of it, which men suffer unwillingly, are true disobedience of the law; is interpreted as establishing as certain the non-sinfulness of such movements in infidels. (See Merklebach, O.P., Summa Theol. Mor., Vol. I, n. 448).

St. Thomas taught otherwise that such inordinate movements of passion are venial sins (Summa. Theol. I-II, q. 74, a. 3, ad 2um; de Malo q. 7, a. 6. ad 4m; de Veritate, q. 25, a. 5). Although they precede the deliberation of reason, they attain to the order of moral acts, however imperfectly, insofar as sensuality in man by its nature is made to be subject to reason. Reason can and ought to control these motions, but fails to do so owing to the great number of them possible to occur. Hence they are not involuntary, but indirectly voluntary as sins of omission (II Dist. 24, q. 3, a. 2; de Veritate, q. 25, a. 5; Quodlib. IV, q. 11, a. 1). Since these movements are indirectly voluntary, St. Thomas’ teaching does not conflict with the Council of Trent which speaks of the fomes as habitual dispositions and not of its acts which St. Thomas considers. Clearly, too, his teaching does not fall under the condemnation of the propositions of Baius; with Baius the motions are involuntary, but for St. Thomas indirectly voluntary.

St. Thomas distinguishes the motions of sensuality differently from modern manualists. For him the motions-primo-primi arise from corporal dispositions which are not under the control of reason and hence can not be sins. Motions-secundo-primi arise from some apprehension of the internal senses proper to the passions and can, at least if taken singly, and ought to be ruled by reason. Thus, they are moral acts (de Malo, q. VII, a. 6, ad 8um; II Dist. 24, q. 3, a. 2).

Bodily suffering or sickness is sometimes called a passion of the body, but, unlike the passions of the soul, it is a physical evil. Morally considered, it is indifferent in itself, but it has contacts with morality in various ways. (a) Thus, it may receive morality from the will. Examples: Sufferings endured with resignation are acts of virtue; sickness or pain inflicted upon others is imputable to the unjust cause. (b) It may affect the morality of the act of the will. Examples: Severe toothache or other exquisite pain is an extenuating circumstance in sins of grumbling, for the suffering draws so much attention to itself that deliberation on other things is much diminished; weakness of stomach may be a moral advantage in freeing one from temptations to over-eating.

Though the passions are good in themselves, they are often morally dangerous. The regulation of the passions through the virtues of fortitude and temperance will be treated later on, but we shall indicate here some natural means by which, God helping, their first motions may be controlled. (a) Thus, if a passion is not strong, it may be repressed directly by command of the will. Example: The impulse to anger may sometimes be checked by the command of silence. (b) If a passion is strong, it may be combated through other activities which are its opposites or which, through the amount of energy they call for, will diminish proportionately the force of the passion. Examples: In time of fear one can fall back on thoughts of confidence; in time of mourning one can seek joy or alleviation in the society of friends or in the repose of sleep. Study or other strenuous occupation is an excellent means to overcome impetuous passion.

(c) If a passion is persistent, it may be diverted to some lawful object vividly represented and held in the imagination and thoughts. Examples. Those who are inclined to love immoderately the world or the things that are in the world should direct their love to divine goodness. Those who are inclined to be too fearful of men should think how much more God is to be feared.

14. “It must be said that the passions of the soul can have themselves to the judgment of reason in two ways: in one way antecedently; and thus, since they cloud the judgment of reason, upon which the moral goodness of the act depends, they diminish the goodness of the act. For it is more praiseworthy that someone do a work of charity from the judgment of reason than from the passion of mercy alone. In another way they have themselves consequently, and this in two ways: in one way by way of overflow, because namely when the higher part of the soul is moved intensely into something, the lower part also follows its motion; and thus passion existing consequently in the sensitive appetite is a sign of a more intense will; and thus it indicates a greater moral goodness. In another way by way of election, when namely man from the judgment of reason chooses to be affected by some passion, so that he may operate more promptly, with the sensitive appetite cooperating; and thus the passion of the soul adds to the goodness of the action.... It must be said that passion tending into evil, preceding the judgment of reason, diminishes sin; but consequent passion in one of the aforesaid ways increases it, or signifies its increase.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 24. a. 3. ad 1. 3. Therefore consequent concupiscence which arises from a merely natural resulting and overflowing of the higher part into the lower, renders, as is clear, that which proceeds from it voluntary, and more voluntary in the cause, the more intense it is, by this very fact that it depends upon the will. But it renders that less voluntary in itself, since it always in some way clouds reason and in some way impedes the free exercise of the will. St. Thomas, On Evil, q. 3. a. 10. But consequent concupiscence directly stirred up for acting, for example if someone deliberately stirs up hatred in himself against an enemy by turning over in his mind injuries received, so that he may desire vengeance more pertinaciously and execute it with greater boldness, renders that which proceeds from it more voluntary simply, because that passion directly and voluntarily stirred up is a sign that the motion of the will is stronger. “But this,” as St. Thomas observes, On Evil q. 3. a. 11., “is not to do good or to sin from passion, but rather to suffer passion from the election of good or evil.”

34. But concerning the passions in particular it is asked: “Whether moral good and evil can be found in the passions of the soul? — It must be said that the passions of the soul can be considered in two ways: in one way, according to themselves; in another way, according as they are subject to the command of reason and will. Therefore, if they are considered according to themselves, namely insofar as they are certain movements of the irrational appetite, thus there is not in them moral good or evil, which depends on reason, as was said above, q. 19. a. 3. But if they are considered according as they are subject to the command of reason and will, thus there is in them moral good or evil. For the sensitive appetite is nearer to reason itself and to the will than are the exterior members, whose movements and acts nevertheless are morally good or evil according as they are voluntary. Whence much more the passions themselves, according as they are voluntary, can be called morally good or evil. But they are called voluntary either from the fact that they are commanded by the will, or from the fact that they are not prohibited by the will,” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 24. a. 1, namely when they can and ought to be prohibited. Therefore it is not necessary that the passions always decline from the order of natural reason. Insofar as they are beyond the order of reason, they incline to sin; insofar as they are ordered by reason, they pertain to virtue, St. Thomas, ibid. a. 2. Hence the same Angelic Doctor says in article 3: “If by passions we simply name all movements of the sensitive appetite (and not only disordered movements), thus it pertains to the perfection of the human good that even the passions themselves be moderated by reason. For since man’s good consists in reason as in a root, that good will be more perfect the more it can be derived to the many things which fit man. Whence no one doubts that it pertains to the perfection of moral good that the acts of the exterior members be directed by the rule of reason. Whence, since the sensitive appetite can obey reason, as was said above, q. 17. a. 7, it pertains to the perfection of the moral or human good that even the passions themselves of the soul be regulated by reason. Therefore, just as it is better that man both will the good and do it by an exterior act, so also it pertains to the perfection of moral good that man be moved to good not only according to the will, but also according to the sensitive appetite, according to what is said in Ps. 83:8, My heart and my flesh have exulted in the living God, so that we take heart for the intellective appetite, but flesh for the sensitive appetite.” Therefore, just as exterior acts, so the passions can be considered in two ways: in one way according as they are in the genus of nature, and thus moral good or evil does not pertain to the species of the act or passion; in another way according as they are referred to the genus of morals, namely insofar as they participate something of the voluntary and of the judgment of reason, and in this way moral good and evil pertains to the species of the act or passion. Now, just as it has been said concerning exterior acts that they are good or evil according to themselves from the object, and that they are good or evil from the end, so it must be said concerning the passions. And as exterior acts are good or evil or indifferent from the object, because they bear before themselves something consonant with reason or discordant from it, or holding itself neutrally, as to pray to God and to help the poor man, theft and adultery, to walk and to speak: so in like manner some passions are consonant with reason, and some discordant, and some neutral, as mercy and shame, which is fear of a base thing; envy, which is sadness over another’s good; anger, which can be an appetite for ordered or disordered vengeance. Likewise, as exterior acts are morally good or evil from the end of the will, so also are the passions, as when someone from the judgment of reason chooses to be affected by some passion, so that, with the sensitive appetite cooperating, he may operate more promptly well or badly. And thus passion adds to the moral goodness or malice of the act. St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 24. a. 4; a. 3 ad 1. — Cf. the little work De Essentia boni malique moralis of Augustus Ferretti, who wrote excellently concerning the essence of morality against modern errors.

72. Notion. Passion can be taken in diverse ways.⁷⁵ For our purpose it is enough to indicate two acceptations:

1. According to Aristotle, passion is a motion of the sensitive appetite arising from the imagination of good or evil with a bodily transmutation. It is called a) motion, that is, act or operation, because in the Aristotelian sense passions are not habits, but commotions or acts, which nevertheless are called passions because they are produced by imagination and bring in bodily disturbances,⁷⁶ as will be said at once. It is called b) of the sensitive appetite, because neither the intellect nor the will properly elicits these acts, but the appetite, either concupiscible or irascible. It is called c) from the imagination of good or evil, because passions arise through some good or evil object vividly represented by the imagination. It is called d) with a bodily transmutation; Aristotle adds: "especially about the heart," because passions are vehement bodily commotions, which are especially felt in the heart: palpitations of the heart, a swifter flow and reflux of the blood, heat or cold, etc. For experience establishes that a man under the influence of passion has most intense bodily commotions. - Passions accepted in this Aristotelian sense are purely sensitive acts (Regungen des sinnlichen Strebevermögens, Gemütsbewegungen, émotions); they are neither good nor evil and are found in every man.⁷⁷ Therefore even in Christ there were passions, who said: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death,"⁷⁸ and of whom the evangelist narrates: "He looked round about with anger."⁷⁹ Passions can be very useful in performing arduous acts; hence the zeal and indignation of Phinees is praised.⁸⁰

2. According to the Stoics, Plato, and the common usage of modern authors, passions are disordered acts or habits of the sensitive appetite. Hence they are called diseases of the soul and entice men to many sins.⁸¹ Such passions would better be called vices;⁸² thus, for example, excessive love of riches is called avarice, excessive inclination to anger is called irascibility.

Concupiscence is taken in a threefold sense: 1. insofar as it is a special passion, namely, desire; 2. insofar as it is the same as passion in general; in this second sense we speak here of concupiscence; 3. insofar as it is the depraved inclination of the appetite (inferior and superior) vitiated by original sin. In this sense St. Paul says: "Sin (original) wrought in me all concupiscence" (Rom. 7:8). St. James (1:14) says: "Every one is tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured."

⁷⁵ Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 22, a. 1.

⁷⁶ Hence St. Augustine (De civ. Dei 9, 4) says: "The motions of the soul which the Greeks call πάθη, but among us some, as Cicero, call disturbances; some, affections or affects; but some, as is held in the Greek, more expressively call passions." Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 22, a. 2.

⁷⁷ S. theol. I-II, q. 24, a. 1.

⁷⁸ Mark 14:34.

⁷⁹ Mark 3:5.

⁸⁰ Num. 25:7 sqq.

⁸¹ Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 24, a. 3.

⁸² S. theol. I-II, q. 45, a. 1 ad 1.

73. Divisions. Following Aristotle,⁸³ St. Thomas⁸⁴ distinguishes eleven passions, of which six pertain to the concupiscible appetite and five to the irascible appetite.

Since all the passions are motions, as was said above, they vividly seek or flee either good or evil; and this motion is signified by the small arrows here placed next to each passion.

A few things must be said about each:

⁸³ Ethic. Nicom. l. 2, c. 5.

⁸⁴ S. theol. I-II, q. 23, a. 4.

⁸⁵ By Plato, Aristotle, and the scholastics two powers were distinguished in the sensitive appetite, namely, the concupiscible (τὸ ἐπιθυμητικόν), whose object is sensible good or evil taken simply; and the irascible (τὸ θυμοειδές), whose object is good or evil insofar as it is arduous. Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 23, a. 1.

74. 1. Love (insofar as it is a passion, but not insofar as it is an act of the will or a virtue) is the first propensity or inclination toward good according to itself, abstracting from whether it is present or absent; or it is mere complacency in good represented by the imagination. Hence it is briefly defined by the Angelic Doctor⁸⁶ as "complacency in the appetible" (Wohlgefallen). For the appetible effects a threefold immutation in the appetitive power: first, it causes in it a certain complacency of good, which is love itself strictly taken; second, it causes motion toward obtaining this good, which is desire; third, rest in the possessed good, which is joy or delectation.⁸⁷ Love, therefore, is the father of all the other passions, just as the desire for happiness in general is the father of all human acts. Wherefore St. Thomas⁸⁸ says: "From love are caused both desire, and sadness, and delectation, and consequently all the other passions; whence every action which proceeds from any passion whatever also proceeds from love as from a first cause." The passion of love can be concerned with any sensitive good whatever. Thus, for example, there is given love of riches, of carnal delectation, etc. And this passion of love, if it is well ordered, offers to the soul the best and strongest assistance; but if it is disordered, it also produces the worst effects and utterly reduces the soul into servitude. There will be discussion below about the causes of love and its effects in the treatise on charity. Hatred is opposed to love.

⁸⁶ Ibid. q. 26, a. 2.

⁸⁷ S. theol. I-II, q. 25, a. 2 and q. 26, a. 2.

⁸⁸ Ibid. q. 28, a. 6 ad 2.

75. 2. Hatred, insofar as it is a passion, is an aversion from evil, as from something unfitting and harmful (Mißfallen). Hatred is a very vivid passion and is vehemently felt,⁸⁹ and if it is well regulated it assists the soul excellently, because it makes a man abhor every true evil with all his strength; but if this passion is inordinate, it brings forth every wicked crime. For as love is strong as death, so hatred is hard as hell. There will be discussion of depraved hatred when sins against charity and disordered vengeance are treated.

⁸⁹ Ibid. q. 29, a. 3.

76. 3. Desire is a tendency toward absent good. Wherefore it differs both from delectation, which is about present good, and from love, which is about good according to itself, as it abstracts from present or absent.⁹⁰ St. Thomas does not name this passion desire, but concupiscence;⁹¹ modern authors, however, under the name concupiscence are accustomed to understand the whole appetite corrupted through original sin, as has already been said.

⁹⁰ Ibid. q. 30, a. 2.

⁹¹ Ibid. q. 31, a. 3 ad 2.

77. 4. Flight, which is also called horror (Abscheu, Schauder), is aversion and withdrawal from future evil. For example, bodily punishments are imminent for a boy, and he immediately flees them. If someone abhors almost every bodily fatigue and every strong exertion in the exercise of religion and the labors of his state, this flight is an inordinate passion easily inducing the capital sin of sloth or acedia.

78. 5. Delectation (Lust), as it is taken here, is the rest of the appetite in sensible good possessed and present. But rest here is not understood privatively, or as a mere cessation from work, but positively, or as that pleasant sensation which is had if the good loved and desired has finally at some time been obtained. Delectation is not the same as joy, but extends more broadly than it. For delectation is concerned with objects both sensible and spiritual; but joy is rather concerning a spiritual object, and therefore is not found in brutes, which nevertheless are capable of delectation. Indeed delectation and joy can be opposed according to diverse respects. "For sometimes someone feels delectation according to the body, concerning which, however, he does not rejoice according to reason."⁹² The passion of delectation is very easily disfigured by disorder and induces to very many sins; for inordinate sensible delectations are most frequent and most vehement. But well-ordered delectation contributes much both to working strenuously and to bravely overcoming all onrushing evils or at least tolerating them.⁹³ Sadness is opposed to delectation.

⁹² Ibid. I-II, q. 31, a. 3.

⁹³ Ibid. q. 33, a. 4.

79. 6. Sadness (Trauer) is an affection caused in the sensitive appetite from the apprehension of present evil. Therefore the passion of sadness is a certain internal pain and is rarely good, unless it lasts briefly. For sadness lasting a long time is accustomed to have the worst effects: it renders a man, as they say, apathetic and unfit for strenuous labor, it weighs down the soul, impedes the motions of the soul and even, sometimes, the motions of the body, and often harms bodily health.⁹⁴ But if sadness lasts briefly, it is excellent; for it restrains a man from inordinate concupiscence and delectation. -

What St. Thomas discusses about the remedies of sadness⁹⁵ is conformable to experience and worthy of note. The Angelic Doctor assigns as efficacious remedies against sadness: 1) fitting delectations, 2) weeping, sighs, and other outward signs of sadness; for interior pain is diminished when it is poured forth outwardly, 3) the compassion of friends, 4) contemplation of truth, 5) sleep and baths.

These six passions are in the concupiscible appetite; but in the irascible appetite are found five passions, which regard good and evil not simply, but as arduous, which we are able to attain not without strenuous appetite, once difficulties have been overcome.

⁹⁴ Ibid. q. 37, a. 1-4.

⁹⁵ S. theol. q. 38, a. 1-5.

80. 1. Hope is a tendency toward future good, difficult and arduous, yet possible of attainment. St. Thomas⁹⁶ briefly assigns the difference between hope and the other passions: "Concerning the object of hope four conditions are considered: first, indeed, that it be good; for properly speaking there is no hope except concerning good; and through this hope differs from fear, which is concerning evil; second, that it be future; for hope is not concerning a present good already had; and through this hope differs from joy, which is concerning present good; third, it is required that it be something arduous, attainable with difficulty; for one is not said to hope for some very small thing which is at once in his power to have; and through this hope differs from desire⁹⁷ or cupidity, which is concerning future good absolutely; whence it pertains to the concupiscible appetite, but hope to the irascible; fourth, that that arduous thing be possible of attainment; for no one hopes for that which he is altogether unable to attain; and according to this hope differs from desperation." - Hope is ordinarily a good passion, which assists our operations much; for it causes a certain delectation and sharpens our powers.⁹⁸ Desperation is opposed to hope.

⁹⁶ Ibid. q. 40, a. 1.

⁹⁷ Suarez (De passion. disp. 1, sect. 8) thinks that hope and desire do not differ except accidentally; the opinion of St. Thomas is truer.

⁹⁸ S. theol. I-II, q. 40, a. 8.

81. 2. Desperation is a motion of the sensitive appetite withdrawing from an arduous good which appears impossible of attainment. Thus, for example, a sick man, knowing that the illness is incurable, despairs of recovering health. Desperation is a very dangerous passion and causes many evils. There will be discussion below, n. 548, about desperation insofar as it is a sin against the theological virtue of hope. As man can sin by defect, so also by exaggeration of hope. St. Thomas⁹⁹ aptly notes that in youths and in drunkards and others who do not use great deliberation, hope not rarely abounds, because, when difficulties have not been sufficiently considered, they easily judge themselves able to attain what they will.

⁹⁹ Ibid. a. 6.

82. 3. Daring is an act rising up against a terrible evil, present, for the sake of overcoming it. Daring is not indeed a part of hope, but its effect,¹⁰⁰ and it increases and decreases with it. Sometimes daring arises from a bodily disposition; wherefore St. Thomas, citing Aristotle, says:¹⁰¹ "Those who have a small heart according to quantity are more daring; and animals having a large heart according to quantity are timid, because the natural heat cannot warm a large heart as much as a small one.... Those having a blood-filled lung are more daring because of the heat of the heart consequently arising from it.... Lovers of wine are more daring because of the heat of wine."

¹⁰⁰ Ibid. q. 45, a. 2 ad 3.

¹⁰¹ Ibid. a. 3.

83. 4. Fear is a motion of the sensitive appetite following upon the apprehension of a future difficult evil which cannot be resisted; or more briefly: it is the dejection of a mind conquered by the gravity of danger. Fear is accustomed to effect great bodily changes, for example, pallor of the face, trembling of the voice and limbs, erection of the hairs, dryness of the throat, indeed sometimes sudden canities, disturbance of the mind, and death. Several species of fear are assigned, for example, blushing and shame, bashfulness, stupor, etc.¹⁰² Moderate fear is very good and leads to true humility; excessive fear can cause desperation and impedes man from performing great works. Those things which were said above concerning fear in order to its influence upon the voluntary can also be applied to the passion of fear (at least in some measure).

¹⁰² Ibid. q. 41, a. 4.

84. 5. Anger is an appetite of vengeance with a heat of blood around the heart. Anger differs from hatred. For he who hates wills evil to another as such, but an angry man wills evil to another in vengeance for an injury received.¹⁰³ Hatred of neighbor, that is, hatred of enmity, is never licit, since it is directly opposed to the virtue of charity;¹⁰⁴ but anger is sometimes licit, namely, when it is an appetite of just vengeance. Likewise hatred, insofar as it is a passion, can be licit, namely, if it is an ordered aversion from a true harmful evil. - Contemptuous estimation and despising are the principal motives of anger;¹⁰⁵ for a man is accustomed to be very angry when his neighbor knowingly and deliberately offends him, since this arises from contemptuous estimation and despising; on the contrary, he more easily forgives an offense done from inadvertence or from a passing passion. Anger can produce baneful effects in the body and also disturb the soul. On this matter St. Gregory says:¹⁰⁶ "The heart inflamed by the goads of its anger palpitates, the body trembles, the tongue trips itself, the face grows fiery, the eyes are made fierce, and known persons are not recognized at all; with the mouth indeed it forms a cry, but the sense does not know what it is saying." Anger is the most vehement passion, and therefore greatly needs the direction of reason. - Anger does not have an opposed passion as do the other passions enumerated up to this point. For the object of anger is a present arduous evil. Therefore the opposed passion would have to be concerned with a present arduous good. But a present good cannot be arduous, and therefore no passion can be concerned with it.

These are all the passions enumerated by the Angelic Doctor. But if modern authors add other passions, those are either not true passions or are reduced to the eleven enumerated.

Influence of Passions upon the Voluntary

¹⁰³ Ibid. q. 46, a. 6.

¹⁰⁴ Cf. below n. 564.

¹⁰⁵ S. theol. I-II, q. 47, a. 2.

¹⁰⁶ Lib. Moralium 5, 45. - Below in the treatise on the capital vices there will be discussion of anger and its remedies.

85. Preliminary Note. Before the influence of passions upon voluntary acts is determined, it is useful to observe that passions can stand in two ways toward the will and reason: antecedently and consequently.¹⁰⁷ An antecedent passion arises from causes independent of the will, for example, from bodily disposition, from natural heredity, from sudden and unforeseen commotion, etc. But a consequent passion arises in two ways: a) By way of redundance; for when the will vehemently seeks something, motions arise at once in the sensitive appetite; "for the will cannot be moved intensely toward something without some passion being stirred up in the sensitive appetite";¹⁰⁸ for example, saints most intensely loving God have experienced ecstasies and other bodily changes; a bridegroom loving his bride more intensely feels carnal motions. - b) By way of election, when a man deliberately chooses to be affected by some passion, so that he may be able to act more promptly and fervently, the passion itself cooperating. For example, someone wishing to take vengeance upon his enemy first recalls to memory every injury endured, vividly presents to himself joy over the enemy humbled, and, to stimulate the blood more, drinks generous wine; by all these things a vehement passion of anger is produced by way of election. For this way of election there is not always required a positive act of the will, as in the example brought forward, but voluntary permission also suffices, as if a man voluntarily permits, for example, venereal delectation.

¹⁰⁷ S. theol. I-II, q. 24, a. 3 ad 1.

¹⁰⁸ Ibid. q. 77, a. 6.

86. Principle 1. Antecedent passion diminishes the perfect and free voluntary;¹⁰⁹ indeed, if it is so vehement that it takes away the use of reason, it takes away every voluntary.

The reason is that antecedent passion in some measure clouds reason, vehemently impels toward action, and therefore in some measure diminishes the perfect and free voluntary, and consequently also sin. Hence sins which are committed under the influence of passion are (other things being equal) lesser and are customarily called sins of infirmity. - But if passion is so vehement that it absorbs the use of reason, it also destroys the voluntary. For where the use of reason is lacking, the voluntary also is lacking. In practice passion is rarely so vehement that it totally takes away the use of reason, unless, however, it arises from a diseased quality of the body.

¹⁰⁹ As is said more broadly below n. 89, concupiscence or desire of sensitive good does indeed increase the voluntary simply so called (because, assisting and impelling it, the will is borne with greater impetus toward the object), but diminishes the perfect and free voluntary, because it diminishes the indifference of the will. Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 6, a. 7, and Billuart, De act. hum. diss. 1, a. 8.

87. Principle 2. Consequent passion by way of election increases the voluntary.

The reason is obvious; for the will acting from consequent passion not only wills the act, but also commands the sensitive appetite to assist it in acting by means of the passion. But just as the will is more intense when it produces not only the internal act but also the external act, so also it is in this case.

88. Principle 3. Consequent passion by way of redundance does not indeed increase the voluntary, but is a sign of a more intense will.

The reason is again obvious; for if the act of the will is so vehement that it not only moves the soul but also overflows into the sensitive appetite, this surely shows that the object is sought most intensely.

The Angelic Doctor¹¹⁰ thus embraces the doctrine proposed in these principles: "The passions of the soul can stand in two ways toward the judgment of reason: in one way antecedently; and thus, since they cloud the judgment of reason, upon which the moral goodness of the act depends, they diminish the goodness of the act. For it is more praiseworthy that someone do a work of charity from the judgment of reason than from the passion of mercy alone. In another way they stand consequently, and this in two ways: in one way by way of redundance, because, namely, when the higher part of the soul is moved intensely toward something, the lower part also follows its motion; and thus passion existing consequently in the sensitive appetite is a sign of a more intense will; and thus it indicates a greater moral goodness. In another way by way of election, when, namely, a man from the judgment of reason chooses to be affected by some passion, so that he may act more promptly, the sensitive appetite cooperating; and thus passion of the soul adds to the goodness of the action." - The Code of Canon Law also introduced the same doctrine into canonical practice, establishing in c. 2206 concerning the influence of passion: "Passion, if it was voluntary and deliberately excited or nourished, rather increases the imputability of the action; otherwise it diminishes it more or less according to the diverse heat of the passion; and it entirely takes it away if it precedes and impedes every deliberation of the mind and consent of the will."

¹¹⁰ S. theol. I-II, q. 24, a. 3 ad 1; cf. q. 77, a. 6 and 8.

89. Scholion 1. On antecedent concupiscence. The things which have been said hold good concerning all passions. But concerning concupiscence, insofar as it is a passion of the sensitive appetite pursuing good, and insofar as it is distinguished from a sensitive motion fleeing evil, such as fear, certain special things must be noted. For there is often discussion of concupiscence of the flesh, of concupiscence of the eyes, etc. But the question is only about antecedent concupiscence, since it is plain that consequent concupiscence does nothing with respect to the voluntary or involuntary, because it follows upon the voluntary itself, but is only a sign of an intense voluntary.¹¹¹ But antecedent concupiscence increases the voluntary, yet is accustomed to diminish the free, and consequently also the sin committed from concupiscence. This proposition, considered at first sight, seems to be paradoxical, but nevertheless is most true. For antecedent concupiscence causes the apprehended good to appear greater and the will to seek it more intensely. And this is proved by daily experience. Therefore we see that those who pursue some object with love are borne toward it with greater impetus than if they were not affected by this passion; for example, a man under the influence of carnal concupiscence acts most intensely to satisfy lust. But the freedom of acting is diminished by antecedent concupiscence. For the free voluntary proceeds from an intrinsic principle with cognition of the end placed under indifference. But antecedent concupiscence greatly diminishes this indifference, because it darkens reason by exaggerating the appetibility of the object and by diminishing the evil perhaps joined to the object. Hence this concupiscence as it were gilds things vile in themselves, and everyone is said to be tempted by his own concupiscence, drawn away and allured.¹¹² But since sin essentially consists in an act of free choice and not in the voluntary alone, antecedent concupiscence is accustomed to diminish the sin committed from it.¹¹³

¹¹¹ Billuart, De act. hum. diss. 1, a. 8.

¹¹² James 1:14.

¹¹³ Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 77, a. 6. Because many authors do not sufficiently distinguish the voluntary from the free, nor the diverse meanings of the word concupiscence, hence disagreements and confusions arise.

90. Scholion 2. On the influence of habits upon the voluntary. The things which have been said up to this point concerning the influence of passions upon the voluntary can be asserted in almost the same way concerning the influence of habits. But a habit, as it is taken here, is a constant inclination, acquired by repeated acts, toward producing similar acts.

a) A voluntary habit, that is, one caused and foreseen from free acts and not yet efficaciously retracted, increases the voluntary and does not diminish the free. The reason is that it offers to the will facility and propensity for acting; but the will freely consents to its influence. Hence good habits produce very good acts, for example, acts of virtues; but bad habits not retracted produce very bad acts; for which reason the Angelic Doctor¹¹⁴ asserts that he who sins from a voluntary habit sins from certain malice. From these things it appears, for example, that the sins of some man blaspheming from an inveterate and never retracted habit are not light from the fact that this man now thinks nothing while uttering blasphemies of this kind. For he freely retains the habit which is the cause of so many sins. Therefore all the sins which actually follow are imputed to him.

b) An involuntary habit, that is, one indeed caused from free acts, but retracted by a sincere act of contrition, diminishes or even takes away the voluntary. It diminishes the voluntary if actual advertence to the act is imperfect; it takes away the voluntary if this advertence is totally removed. And this is plain, for example, in a man who contracted a habit of making himself drunk or of blaspheming. If this man, aided by the grace of God, has elicited an act of true contrition, so that he again is in the state of sanctifying grace and has retracted all his depraved habits, but nevertheless because of the acquired propensity again falls back into the same sins, these sins are less voluntary and consequently less grave; indeed, if they anticipate every advertence of reason, they are only material sins. - It is plain of itself that a habituated or customary sinner is strictly bound to employ efficacious remedies for the extirpation of the depraved habit, as will be explained below in the treatise on penance.

¹¹⁴ Ibid. q. 78, a. 2: "A sin is said to be from certain malice when it is from the election of evil. But that to which one is inclined through his own habit is electable to each one. Therefore a sin which is from habit is from certain malice."

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.

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 24; De Veritate, q. 26, a. 6 and 7.

178. Principle I. Passions also can contribute to the morality of human acts, and indeed not only to the morality of the interior act but also to that of the exterior act.

1. Concerning passions the following can be consulted: Mercier, Psychologie; Bain, The Emotions and the Will (Les Emotions et la Volonte, trans. Lemonnier); Paul Janet, Morale; Ribot, La psychologie des sentiments; Janvier, Conf. N.-D.: Les Passions; Noble, Les Passions dans la Vie morale: I. Psychologie de la Passion; II. Moralite de la Passion; Gardair, Les Passions et la Volonte; Descurets, La Medecine des Passions; Payot, L'Education de la Volonte; Lejeune, Les Passions. Also Bossuet, Connaissance de Dieu et de soi-meme; Schram, Theol. Mystica; Scaramelli, Directorium ascetico-mysticum.

For passions can be considered in two ways:

1. as to the being of nature or physical being, insofar as they are common to us with brute animals, and thus they are physically good, since they are implanted by God;

2. as to moral being, insofar as they are proper to man, and thus a) they are not per se evil, nor good, but indifferent: for the movements of the sensitive appetite are not per se from reason, and consequently are not human; b) if they are considered insofar as they are subject to the command of reason and will, thus they are good or evil, insofar as they are voluntary, either directly insofar as they are commanded by the will, or indirectly insofar as they are not prohibited by it.

It is proved: 1) "For the sensitive appetite is nearer to reason and will themselves than the exterior members are." But the acts of the exterior members are morally good or evil according as they are voluntary. Therefore much more the passions themselves, according as they are voluntary, are morally good or evil (a. 1).

2. From the Scriptures, which a) commend certain passions (Ps. IV, 5; II Cor. VII, 9; Rom. XII, 15); b) assert that they are found in Christ, although bound by reason (Mt. XXVI, 38; Mk. III, 5; XIV, 33; Lk. XIX, 41; Jn. XI, 33); c) and praise men because of them or reprehend them because of their absence (Exod. XXXII, 19; Num. XXV, 11; I Kings II-III).

Hence to be ruled by passions is not evil because they are evil of themselves, but because the order is inverted according to which the superior part ought to rule the inferior; but it is good to rule them provided this is according to the order of reason (a. 2).

179. Corollary. - Therefore passions, if they are considered as to the being of nature, are not morally good or evil according to species, but indifferent; but if they are considered as regulated by reason, they can be, like exterior acts, good or evil according to species, according as their proper object will be fitting to reason or not fitting: thus, for example, shame, or fear of disgraceful things, is good, and envy, or sadness concerning another's good, is evil (a. 4).

180. Principle II. Voluntary passions increase the goodness or malice of the act. - It is proved: the more perfectly the good of reason or the moral good is derived to more things which befit man, the more perfect it is; hence it also pertains to moral perfection that exterior acts be directed by reason. But the sensitive appetite can obey reason. Therefore it pertains to moral perfection that passions be regulated by reason. Thus, just as it is better that man will the good and do it by an exterior act, so it is better that he be moved to good both according to the will and according to the sensitive appetite, in order to operate more promptly (a. 3).

This, however, must be understood of willed passions, which are chosen and commanded by the will (in the respectively diverse way in which this ought to be done for good and evil; cf. n. 146). For a passion which moves man toward sensible good, if it precedes the will, diminishes liberty and consequently goodness and malice; if it follows by redundance, it is not a cause but a mere effect of the will: not a cause, namely, but "a sign of a more intense will (or of a greater voluntary), and thus it indicates a greater moral goodness" or malice; if it follows by election, it adds to goodness or malice (ad 1).

Prooemium.

[After St. Thomas, I. IIae, from q. 22 to q. 48, had discussed the acts proper to man whereby the last end can be attained, from q. 22 to q. 48 he discusses the acts common to man and other animals, which are called passions; for inasmuch as they are subject politically to the empire of reason, they participate something of its regulation and of morality, and can conduce to the last end or turn away from it: whence the governing of them occupies a great part of the virtues, and from their disordination many vices spring up. Because however there are no grave controversies about this matter, and it is scarcely treated in the schools, although it matters greatly that tyros of theology not be ignorant of it, therefore we shall run through it summarily, yet sufficiently. Likewise of the virtues, of which the holy Doctor treats from q. 55 to 70, we shall say little, for the same reasons. Therefore all things which we shall say of the passions and virtues we shall embrace compendiously in a twofold dissertation.]

{ Question is asked 1° what passion is.

I answer. Common is the sense of all, that passion is an act of sensitive appetite whereby one is affected toward something or flees from it. But why, since it is an act, is it called passion? The reason is, because that act is apt to cause a transmutation in the natural disposition of the body, which transmutation inflicts passion, insofar as the subject suffers by losing something.

For the understanding of this it must be observed that to suffer is said in a threefold way. In one mode, commonly and widely, according as every receiving is suffering, even if nothing be cast off from the thing, as if it be said that air suffers while it is illuminated: and in this sense intellect and cognitive sense, receiving species, can be said to suffer. In another mode it is said properly to suffer when something is received with the casting off of another. And this happens in a twofold way. For sometimes there is cast off what is unfitting to the thing, and received what is fitting: thus, when the animal body is healed, it is said to suffer, because it receives health, sickness being cast off. Sometimes, conversely, it happens while there is cast off what is fitting to the thing, and received what is unfitting: thus to be sick is said to suffer, because infirmity is received, health^{1 1} Here q. 22, a. 1, o.

cast off. And this third mode is the most proper mode of passion.

Whence Augustine says, lib. IX de Civit., c. 4, n. 1: « Those motions of soul which the Greeks call πάθη, but some of ours, as Cicero, perturbations, some affections or affects, others truly, as this one [Apuleius] more expressively from the Greek, call passions. » Such motions therefore are most rightly called passions, and passion is defined by the Angelic Doctor¹ from Damascene in lib. II de Fide orthod., c. 22: « Motion of the sensible appetitive power, upon imagination of good and evil; » that is: Motion of sensitive appetite from imagination of good and evil, with bodily transmutation. ¹ Here q. 22, a. 3, in arg. Sed contra et o.

It is called motion, that is act or operation, and holds the place of genus; of sensitive appetite, because that appetite is its subject; from imagination of good or evil, whereby its principle is signified; with bodily transmutation, which distinguishes such motion from the motions of the will, which since it is not affixed to a corporeal organ, moves not itself with bodily transmutation, and from the motion of the sensitive cognitive part, which, although affixed to a corporeal organ, does not per se transmute the body physically, but only intentionally. But passion transmutes the body physically, at least the heart²; for in every passion something is added to or diminished from the natural motion of the heart, insofar as the heart is moved more intensely or more remissly according to systole and diastole. ² Here q. 24, a. 2, ad 2

Passion therefore imports two things³, namely the act of the soul, which stands as it were formal, and the bodily transmutation, which stands as it were material, from which nevertheless passion is named. If the first be wanting, there will be purely bodily passion; if the second be wanting, there will be no passion, but simply a motion or operation of the soul. ³ Q. 6 de Veritate, a. 2, ad 5.

Question is asked 2° how many passions there are.

I answer. There are eleven passions, six in the concupiscible appetite and five in the irascible appetite.

In the concupiscible appetite are: love, or inclination into good apprehended simply, whose contrary is hatred, or aversion from evil simply; desire, or inclination into good apprehended as absent, but future, having as contrary flight, or aversion from evil apprehended as absent, but future; joy, which is also called pleasure or delight, or repose in good apprehended and really possessed, and it has as contrary sadness, or disquietude and languor of mind from evil apprehended and actually pressing.

In the irascible appetite truly are found: hope, or motion into good apprehended as arduous, but possible of attainment, whose contrary is despair, or motion away from good apprehended as arduous and impossible of attainment; daring, or motion into good apprehended as terrible and imminent, but as surmountable, having as contrary fear, or dejection of mind from evil apprehended as terrible and imminent, and not avoidable; anger, or vehement inclination to vindicate, that is to inflict harm upon the cause by which the evil unto which we are subjected was inflicted, and of this passion there is no contrary.

The reason of this distinction¹. Since passion is an act of sensitive appetite, it is divided according to the division of appetite. Sensitive appetite is twofold, concupiscible and irascible; for in animals, as in other natural things, there is not only inclination to pursue what is convenient, but also to resist contraries and impediments. The first inclination in an animal is called concupiscible appetite, the second irascible appetite. The object of the concupiscible is sensible good or evil precisely as such, the object of the irascible is arduous good or evil. If therefore the concupiscible appetite tend toward good or evil simply, abstracting whether it be present or absent, in respect of good it is love, in respect of evil hatred; if it tend toward absent good or evil, in respect of good it is desire, in respect of evil flight; if it be occupied about present good or evil, in respect of good it is joy, in respect of evil sadness. But if the irascible appetite tend toward arduous and difficult good, either that good is possible of attainment, and hope is born, or it is impossible of attainment, and despair arises; if it flee arduous evil, either that evil is easy to repel, and daring rises up, or it is difficult to repel, and fear appears; or finally it is occupied about present evil to be avenged, and anger is provoked, to which no passion is opposed. ¹ Here q. 23, a. 1, o; 1° p., q. 81, a. 2, o.

Hence you have that passions of the concupiscible differ from passions of the irascible in this, that passions of the concupiscible bear upon opposite objects; for they tend into good or recede from evil: but passions of the irascible bear upon the same object with contrary motions.

Question is asked 3° for what reason anger has not, like the rest, an opposite passion.

I answer. Passions of the concupiscible are mutually opposed according to the contrariety of objects, namely good and evil; but in passions of the irascible there is held a twofold contrariety: one indeed, as in the passions of the concupiscible, of good and evil, as between hope and fear; but the other contrariety is according to access and recess relative to the same term, as between hope and despair, between daring and fear. Of anger says St. Thomas here q. 23, a. 3, o: « It is singular in the passion of anger that it cannot have a contrary, neither according to access and recess, nor according to the contrariety of good and evil. » And the holy Doctor brings this reason: « For anger is caused from difficult evil now pressing, at whose presence it is necessary that either the appetite succumb, and so sadness does not issue forth beyond its terms, which is a passion of the concupiscible, or it have motion toward invading the harmful evil, which pertains to anger. But it cannot have motion toward fleeing, because the evil is already posited present or past. And thus to the motion of anger no passion is contrary according to the contrariety of access and recess. Likewise also nor according to the contrariety of good and evil, because to evil already pressing is opposed good already attained, which can no longer have the reason of arduous or difficult, nor after the attainment of good does there remain any other motion than the quieting of appetite in the good attained, which pertains to joy, the passion of the concupiscible contrary to sadness; nor is merely cessation from motion opposed to it, as the Philosopher says in his Rhetoric, that to grow mild is opposed to being angry; which is not a contrary opposition [as motion is opposed to motion], but negative or privative [as cessation of motion is opposed to motion]. »

Question is asked 4° whether passions can be good or bad.

I answer. 1. Passions of the soul can be considered in a twofold way: in one mode, in themselves; in another mode, insofar as they lie under the empire of reason and will. If therefore they be considered in themselves, namely as certain motions of irrational appetite, thus there is not in them moral good or evil, which depends upon reason; but if they be considered insofar as they lie under the empire of reason and will, thus there is in them moral good or evil. For sensitive appetite is nearer to reason itself and will than the exterior members, whose motions and acts nevertheless are morally good or bad, insofar as they are voluntary. Whence much more the passions themselves, insofar as they are voluntary, can be called morally good or bad. But they are voluntary, either from this that they are commanded by the will, or from this that they are not prohibited by the will.

But then they are good when they are moderated by reason; bad, when they are beyond the order of reason². Hence Christ, having no sin, employed passions where he judged according to reason that they should be employed, thus Marc., III, 5, he looked round about with anger; ibid., XIV, 34, his soul was sad even unto death; Luc., XIX, 41, he wept over Jerusalem; Joann., XI, 33 and 34, he troubled himself and wept. And the Apostle, Rom., XII, 15, commands to rejoi- ² Ibid., a. 2, o.

^{1 1} Here q. 24, a. 1, o.

ce with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. And that is the common sense of men, that punishment can rightly be feared, good loved, evil fled, and deservedly; since sensitive appetite is from God as author of nature, there cannot fail to be some acts of it good, if they be regulated and commanded by reason.

But the rule and moderation of reason is attended to, not precisely according to intension or remission of passion, but according as, object and circumstances considered, right reason demands it intensified or remitted. Therefore not always does he sin who vehemently grows angry, or grieves, or fears, but he who exceeds what right reason demands in these or those circumstances. Whence Moses, Exod., XXXII, 19, is read to have been greatly angered on account of the adoration of the calf; Num., XXV, 11, the zeal and indignation of Phinees is praised; I Reg., II and IV, Heli is reprehended because he was not sufficiently indignant at his sons; finally Christ himself, as we already said, was saddened even unto death.

Question is asked 5° whether passion, while cooperating with reason and will, diminish or augment the goodness of the moral act.

Before the response, note that passions of the soul can stand in a twofold way toward will and reason, namely antecedently and consequently, and this latter in a twofold way¹: 1° by way of redundancy; for when the superior part of the soul is intensely moved into something, the inferior part follows her motion; 2° by way of election, namely when man from judgment of reason elects to be affected with some passion, that he operate more promptly and fervently, the sensitive appetite cooperating. This noted, ¹ Ibid., a. 3, ad 1.

I answer. 1° Passion antecedent to reason and will diminishes the goodness of the act, because it obscures the judgment of reason, whence depends the goodness of the moral act; for it is more laudable that one do the work of charity from judgment of reason than from mere passion of mercy². ² Ibid.

2° Passion consequent upon will by way of redundancy is a sign of intenser will, and thus indicates greater moral goodness, yet does not augment it¹. ¹ Ibid.

3° Passion consequent by way of election augments the goodness of the act²; because, since the good of man consists in reason as in root, so much the more perfect is that good, the more widely it extends to the many things that suit man: whence no one doubts that to the perfection of moral good pertains that the acts of exterior members be directed by rule of reason. But sensitive appetite can obey reason, as was said. Therefore to perfection of moral good pertains that even the passions themselves of the soul be regulated by reason. Therefore as it is better that man both will good and do it by exterior act, so also is it better that man be moved toward good according to will and according to sensitive appetite, according to that of Psal. LXXXIII, 3: My heart and my flesh exulted in the living God; which is to be understood thus, that we take heart for the intellective appetite, flesh however for the sensitive appetite.] ² Ibid. et o.

5. Aristotle and his school of old, called Peripatetics, recommended the moderation of the passions, not their extirpation. The Stoics on the other hand contended that the model man, the sage, should be totally devoid of passions. This celebrated dispute turned largely on the two schools not understanding the same thing by the word passion. Yet not entirely so. There was a residue of real difference, and it came to this. If the sensitive appetite stirs at all, it must stir in one or other of nine ways corresponding to the nine passions which we have enumerated. Such an emotion as Laughter affects the imagination and the sensitive part of man, and of course the body visibly, but it does not stir the sensitive appetite, since it does not prompt to action. To say then that a man has no passions, means that the sensitive appetite never stirs within him, but is wholly dead. But this is impossible, as the Stoic philosopher was fain to confess when he got frightened in a storm at sea. Having no passions cannot in any practical sense mean having no movements of the sensitive appetite, for that will be afoot of its own proper motion independent of reason: but it may mean cherishing no passions, allowing none to arise unresisted, but suppressing their every movement to the utmost that the will can. In that sense it is a very intelligible and practical piece of advice, that the wise man should labour to have no passions. It is the advice embodied in Horace's Nil admirari, Talleyrand's "No zeal," Beaconsfield's "Beware of enthusiasm." It would have man to work like a scientific instrument, calm as a chronometer, regulated by reason alone. This was the Stoic teaching, this the perfection that they inculcated, quite a possible goal to make for, if not to attain. And it is worth a wise man's while to consider, whether he should bend his efforts in this direction or not. The determination here taken and acted upon will elaborate quite a different character of man one way or the other. The effort made as the Stoics direct, would mean no yielding to excitement, no poetry, no high-strung devotion, no rapture, no ecstasy, no ardour of love, no earnest rhetoric spoken or listened to, no mourning, no rejoicing other than the most conventional, to the persistent smothering of whatever is natural and really felt, no tear of pity freely let flow, no touch of noble anger responded to, no scudding before the breeze of indignation,—all this, that reason may keep on the even tenour of her way undisturbed.

6. The fault in this picture is that it is not the picture of a man, but of a spirit. He who being man should try to realize it in himself, would fall short of human perfection. For though the sensitive appetite is distinguished from the will, and the two may clash and come in conflict, yet they are not two wholly independent powers, but the one man is both will and sensitive appetite, and he rarely operates according to one power without the other being brought into corresponding play. There is a similar concomitance of the operations of intellect and imagination. What attracts the sensitive appetite, commonly allures also the affective will, though on advertence the elective will may reject it. On the other hand, a strong affection and election of the will cannot be without the sensitive appetite being stirred, and that so strongly that the motion is notable in the body,—in other words, is a passion. Passion is the natural and in a certain degree the inseparable adjunct of strong volition. To check one is to check the other. Not only is the passion repressed by repressing the volition, but the repression of the passion is also the repression of the volition. A man then who did his best to repress all movements of passion indiscriminately, would lay fetters on his will, lamentable and cruel and impolitic fetters, where his will was bent on any object good and honourable and well-judged.

7. Again, man's will is reached by two channels, from above downwards and from below upwards: it is reached through the reason and through the imagination and senses. By the latter channel it often receives evil impressions, undoubtedly, but not unfrequently by the former also. Reason may be inconsiderate, vain, haughty, mutinous, unduly sceptical. The abuse is no justification for closing either channel. Now the channel of the senses and of the imagination is the wider, and in many cases affords the better passage of the two. The will that is hardly reached by reason, is approached and won by a pathetic sight, a cry of enthusiasm, a threat that sends a tremor through the limbs. Rather I should say the affective will is approached in this way: for it remains with the elective will, on advertence and consultation with reason, to decide whether or not it shall be won to consent. But were it not for the channel of passion, this will could never have been approached at all even by reasons the most cogent. Rhetoric often succeeds, where mere dry logic would have been thrown away. God help vast numbers of the human race, if their wills were approachable only through their reasons! They would indeed be fixtures.

8. Another fact to notice is the liability of reason's gaze to become morbid and as it were inflamed by unremitting exercise. I do not here allude to hard study, but to overcurious scanning of the realities of this life, and the still greater realities and more momentous possibilities of the world to come. There is a sense of the surroundings being too much for us, an alarm and a giddiness, that comes of sober matter-of-fact thought over-much prolonged. Then it happens that one or more undeniable truths are laid hold of, and considered in strong relief and in isolation from the rest: the result is a distorted and partial view of truth as a whole, and therewith the mind is troubled. Here the kindlier passions, judiciously allowed to play, come in to soothe the wound and soreness of pure intellect, too keen in its workings for one who is not yet a pure spirit.

9. Moral good and evil are predicable only of human acts, in the technical sense of the term. (c. i., nn. 2—4, p. 41.) As the passions by definition (c. iv., s. i., n. 1, p. 41) are not human acts, they can never be morally evil of themselves. But they are an occasion of moral evil in this way. They often serve to wake up the slumbering Reason. To that end it is necessary that they should start up of themselves without the call of Reason. This would be no inconvenience, if the instant Reason awoke, and adverted to the tumult and stir of Passion, she could take command of it, and where she saw fit, quell it. But Reason has no such command, except in cases where she has acquired it by years of hard fighting. Passion once afoot holds on her course against the dictate of Reason. True, so long as it remains mere Passion, and Reason is not dragged away by it, no consent of the will given, no voluntary act elicited, still less carried into outward effect,—so long as things remain thus, however Passion may rage, there is no moral evil done. But there is a great temptation, and in great temptation many men fall. The evil is the act of free will, but the pressure on the will is the pressure of Passion. But Passion happily is a young colt amenable to discipline. Where the assaults of Passion are resolutely and piously withstood, and the incentives thereto avoided—unnatural and unnecessary incentives I mean—Passion itself acquires a certain habit of obedience to Reason, which habit is moral virtue. Of that presently.

10. In a man of confirmed habits of moral virtue, Passion starts up indeed independently of Reason, but then Reason ordinarily finds little difficulty in regulating the Passion so aroused. In a certain high and extraordinary condition of human nature, not only has Reason entire mastery over Passion wherever she finds it astir, but Passion cannot stir in the first instance, without Reason calling upon it to do so. In this case the torpor of the will deprecated above (n. 7) is not to be feared, because Reason is so vigorous and so masterful as to be adequate to range everywhere and meet all emergencies without the goad of Passion. This state is called by divines the state of integrity. In it Adam was before he sinned. It was lost at the Fall, and has not been restored by the Redemption. It is not a thing in any way due to human nature: nothing truly natural to man was forfeited by Adam's sin. It is no point of holiness, no guerdon of victory, this state of integrity, but rather a being borne on angel's wings above the battle. But one who has no battle in his own breast against Passion, may yet suffer and bleed and die under exterior persecution: nay, he may, if he wills, let in Passion upon himself, to fear and grieve, when he need not. So did the Second Adam in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Readings.—St. Thos., 1a, q. 81, art. 2, in corp.; id., 1a 2æ, q. 23, art. 1, in corp.; ib., q. 23, art. 2, in corp.; Cicero, Tusc. Disp., iv., cc. 17-26; St. Aug., De Civitate Dei, ix., cc. 4, 5; Ar, Eth., III., v., 3, 4; ib., I., xiii., 15-17; St. Thos., 3a, q. 15, art. 4; id., 1a 2æ, q. 59, art. 5; Plato, Timaeus, 69, B, E: 70, A.