The Passions in Particular

The Errors Which They Cause

If one considers how passions are composed, one will visibly recognize that their number cannot be determined, and that there are far more of them than we have terms to express them. Passions derive their differences not only from the different combinations of the three primitive ones, for in that way there would be very few; but their difference is also drawn from the different perceptions and different judgments that cause or accompany them. These different judgments that the soul makes concerning goods and evils produce different movements in the animal spirits, to dispose the body with respect to the object, and they consequently cause in the soul sentiments that are not entirely similar. Thus they are the reason why one notices a difference between certain passions whose emotions are not themselves different.

However, since the emotion of the soul is the principal thing found in each of our passions, it is much better to relate them all to the three primitive ones in which these emotions are very different, than to treat them confusedly and without order, with respect to the different perceptions one may have of an infinity of goods and evils that cause them.

When the soul perceives a good that it can enjoy, one might say perhaps that it hopes for it, although it does not desire it; but it is visible that then its hope is not a passion, but a simple judgment. For it is the emotion that accompanies the idea of a good, whose enjoyment one judges to be possible, that makes hope a true passion. When hope changes into security, it is still the same thing; it is a passion only because of the emotion of joy that then mingles with that of desire; for the judgment of the soul that considers a good as something that cannot fail to come to it, is a passion only because the foretaste of the good stirs us. Finally, when hope diminishes and despair succeeds it, it is still visible that this despair is a passion only because of the emotion of sadness that then mingles with that of desire; for the judgment of the soul that considers a good as something that cannot happen to it, is not a passion if this judgment does not stir us.

But, because the soul never considers any good or evil without some emotion and without some change even taking place in the body, the name of passion is often given to the judgment that produces the passion, because one confuses everything that takes place both in the soul and in the body at the sight of some good or some evil. For the words hope, fear, boldness, shame, impudence, anger, pity, mockery, regret, finally the name of all the other passions are, in ordinary usage, abbreviated expressions of several terms, by which one can explain in detail everything that passions contain.

By the word passion one understands the view of the relation that a thing has to us, the emotion and feeling of the soul, the agitation of the brain and the movement of the spirits, a new emotion and a new feeling of the soul, and finally a feeling of sweetness that always accompanies the passions and makes them all agreeable. All these things are understood. But sometimes by the name of some passion one understands only the judgment that causes it, or the emotion of the soul alone, or the movement of the spirits and blood alone, or finally some other thing that accompanies the emotion of the soul.

It is a thing very useful to the knowledge of truth to abbreviate ideas and their expressions; but often this is the cause of some error, principally when these ideas are abbreviated by popular usage. For one must never lighten one’s ideas except when one has rendered them very clear and very distinct by great application of mind, and not as one ordinarily does with the passions and all sensible things, when one has rendered them familiar through feelings and through the sole action of the imagination, which deceives the mind.

There is a great difference between the pure ideas of the mind and the sensations or emotions of the soul. The pure ideas of the mind are clear and distinct, but it is difficult to make them familiar. The sensations and emotions of the soul, on the contrary, are very familiar, but it is impossible to know them clearly and distinctly. Numbers, extension, and their properties are known clearly, but when one has not rendered them sensible by some characters that express them, it is difficult to represent them to oneself, for everything abstract does not touch one. Sensations, on the contrary, and the emotions of the soul are easily represented to the mind, although one knows them only in a very confused and very imperfect manner, and all the terms that excite them strike the soul strongly and render it attentive. It happens from this that one often imagines one understands discourses that are absolutely incomprehensible; and when one reads certain descriptions of the sentiments and passions of the soul, one persuades oneself that one understands them perfectly, because one is vividly touched by them and because all the words that strike the eyes agitate the soul. As soon as the word shame, despair, impudence, etc., is pronounced before us, there awakens immediately in our mind a certain confused idea and a certain obscure sentiment that applies us strongly; and because this sentiment is very familiar to us and represents itself to us without trouble and without effort of mind, we persuade ourselves that it is clear and distinct. However, these words are the names of composed passions, and consequently abbreviated expressions that popular usage has made from several confused and obscure ideas.

Since we are obliged to use terms approved by usage, one should not be surprised to find obscurity and sometimes a kind of contradiction in our words. And if one reflects that the sentiments and emotions of the soul, which correspond to the terms used in such discourses, are not entirely the same in all men, because of their different dispositions of mind; one will not easily condemn us when one does not enter into our opinions. I do not say this so much to shelter myself from objections that might be made to me, as to make well understood the nature of the passions and what one should think of the treatises composed on this matter.

After all these precautions, I believe I can say that all the passions can be related to the three primitive ones, namely: to desire, to joy, and to sadness, and that it is principally by the different judgments that the soul makes concerning goods and evils that those which relate to the same primitive passion differ from each other.

I can say that hope, fear, and the irresolution that holds the middle between these two, are species of desires; that boldness, courage, emulation, etc., have more relation to hope than to all the others, and that fear, cowardice, jealousy, etc., are species of fears. I can say that gladness and glory, favor and gratitude are species of joys caused by the sight of the good that we know in ourselves, or in those to whom we are united; as laughter or mockery is a species of joy that is ordinarily excited in us at the sight of the evil that happens to those from whom we are separated; finally that disgust, boredom, regret, piety, and indignation are species of sadnesses caused by the sight of something that displeases us.

But besides these passions and several others that I do not name, which relate particularly to one of the primitive passions, there are yet several others whose emotion is almost equally composed, either of that of desire and joy, like impudence, anger, and vengeance; or of those of desire and sadness, like shame, regret, and spite; or of all three together, when there are motives of joy and sadness joined together. But although these latter passions do not, as far as I know, have particular names, they are however among the most common; because in this life we almost never taste good without some evil, and we almost never suffer evil without some hope of being delivered from it and of enjoying some good. And although joy is entirely contrary to sadness, it nevertheless suffers it, and even shares with this passion the capacity that the soul has to will, when the sight of good and evil divides the capacity that the soul has to perceive.

All passions are therefore species of desires, joys, and sadnesses. And the principal difference found between passions of the same species is drawn from the different perceptions or different judgments that cause them or accompany them. So that to become learned in the passions, and to make the most exact enumeration of them possible, it is necessary to investigate the different judgments that one can make concerning goods and evils. But since we are primarily investigating here the causes of our errors, we should not dwell so much on examining the judgments that precede and cause the passions, as those that follow them, and that the soul forms concerning things when some passion agitates it; for it is these latter judgments that are most subject to error.

The judgments that precede and cause the passions are almost always false in some respect, for they are almost always based on the perceptions of the soul, insofar as it considers objects in relation to itself, and not at all according to what they are in themselves. But the judgments that follow the passions are false in every way; for the judgments formed by the passions alone are uniquely based on the perceptions that the soul has of objects in relation to itself, or rather in relation to its present emotion.

In the judgments that precede the passions, the true and the false are joined together; but when the soul is agitated, and judges according to the full inspiration of the passion, the true dissipates and the false is preserved, to serve as a principle for as many more false conclusions as the passion is greater.

All the passions justify themselves: they continually represent to the soul the object that agitates it, in the manner most proper to preserve and increase its agitation. The judgment or perception that causes it is strengthened in proportion as the passion increases; and the passion increases in proportion as the judgment that produces it in turn strengthens. False judgments and passions continually contribute to their mutual preservation. So that if the heart did not cease to supply the spirits proper for maintaining the traces of the brain and the outflow of the same spirits, which is necessary to preserve the feeling and emotion of the soul that accompany the passions, they would increase without ceasing, and we would never recognize our errors. But since all our passions depend on the fermentation and circulation of the blood, and the heart cannot always supply spirits proper for their preservation, it is necessary that they cease, when the spirits diminish and the blood cools.

If it is a very easy thing to discover the ordinary judgments of the passions, it is not a thing to be neglected. There are few subjects more worthy of the application of those who seek truth, who try to free themselves from the domination of their body, and who wish to judge all things according to true ideas.

One can instruct oneself on this subject in two ways: either by pure reason, or by the inner feeling one has of oneself, when one is agitated by some passion. For example, one knows by one’s own experience that one is inclined to judge unfavorably of those one does not love, and to spread, so to speak, all the malignancy of one’s hatred to cover the object of one’s passion. One also recognizes by pure reason, that since one can hate only what is evil, it is necessary, for the preservation of hatred, that the mind represent its object on its worst side. For in the end it suffices to suppose that all the passions justify themselves, and that they turn the imagination and then the mind in a manner proper to preserve their own emotion, to directly conclude what are the judgments that all the passions make us form.

Those who have a strong and lively imagination, who are extremely sensitive, and very subject to the movements of the passions, instruct themselves perfectly in these things by the feeling they have of what takes place within them; and they even speak of them in a more agreeable, and sometimes more instructive, manner than those who have more reason than imagination. For one should not think that those who best discover the springs of self-love, who penetrate best and develop in a more sensible manner the folds of the human heart, are always the most enlightened. It is often a sign that they are more lively, more imaginative, and sometimes more malicious and more corrupt than others.

But those who, without consulting their inner feeling, use only their reason to investigate the nature of the passions, and what they are capable of producing, if they are not always as penetrating as the others, they are always more reasonable and less subject to error; for they judge things according to what they are in themselves. They see roughly what those in the grip of passion can do, according as they suppose them more or less moved; and they do not rashly judge of things that others will do or will not do on such occasions, by those they themselves would do; for they know well that all men are not equally sensitive to the same objects, nor equally susceptible to involuntary emotions. Thus, it is not by consulting the feelings that the passions excite in us, but by consulting reason, that we should speak of the judgments that accompany the passions; lest we make ourselves known, instead of making known the nature of the passions in general.