All passions justify themselves, and the judgments they lead us to form in their own defense

There is no need for elaborate reasoning to prove that every passion seeks to justify itself.

This principle is clear from:

• our own inner experience
• observing the behavior of those caught up in strong feeling.

It is enough simply to set it out so that we may reflect upon it.

The mind is so much the slave of the imagination that it always obeys when the imagination is heated. It dares not speak against it when it is in a state of frenzy, for it is treated harshly if it resists.

Whenever it complies with its purposes, it is always rewarded with some sense of pleasure. Even those whose imagination is so disordered that they believe they have turned into beasts find reasons to prove that they ought to live as beasts do — to walk on all fours, feed on wild plants, and imitate every action proper only to animals.

They find satisfaction in living according to the impressions of their passion; they feel inwardly punished whenever they resist it; and this is enough to make reason — which usually serves pleasure — frame arguments designed to defend its cause.

If it is true that all passions justify themselves, it follows clearly that desire will naturally lead us to judge its object favorably if it is a desire of attraction, and unfavorably if it is a desire of aversion. Desire is a movement of the soul stirred by the animal spirits, which dispose us to want to possess or make use of things that are not yet within our power.

Even when we desire the continuation of what we already enjoy, it is because the future is not in our control. To justify itself, therefore, desire must judge its object as good in itself or in relation to something else; and the opposite must be true of desires that spring from aversion.

We cannot judge anything to be good or bad without some reason for doing so — yet there is no object of our passions that is not good in some sense. Even if some objects contain nothing truly good, and thus cannot be recognized as good by the clear light of the understanding, they can still be felt as good, since by definition they stir us. And feeling or taste is all too often enough to persuade the soul to form a favorable judgment.

We easily say that fire contains the heat we feel, or bread the flavor we taste, simply because of the sensations they produce in us — even though this makes no sense to the mind, which cannot conceive how heat or flavor could be properties of a material body.

In the same way, there is no object of our passions, no matter how base or worthless it may seem, that we will not judge as good when we feel pleasure in enjoying it. Just as we imagine heat comes out of the fire itself, we blindly believe that the objects of our passions cause the pleasure we experience when we possess them.

Therefore we conclude they are good, since they are capable of benefiting us. The same reasoning applies to passions directed toward what we consider evil.

There is nothing that cannot be seen as worthy of either love or aversion — either in itself or in its relation to something else. And once we are moved by a passion, we quickly find in its object all the good or evil needed to support it. It is therefore easy to understand, through reason itself, what kinds of judgments the passions stirring within us will produce.

If we are moved by a desire of attraction, it is clear that the passion will justify itself by forming favorable judgments about its object. The more intense the desire, the broader these judgments will become; often they will be absolute and unconditional, even if the object appears good only in some very limited respect. These favorable judgments will extend to everything that has, or seems to have, any connection to the main object of the passion — and this will happen all the more as the passion grows stronger and the imagination expands. But if the desire is one of aversion, the opposite will occur, for reasons equally easy to understand. Experience confirms this fully, and in this matter it agrees perfectly with reason. Let us make these truths clearer through examples.

All men naturally desire knowledge, for every mind is made for truth. Yet the desire to know, though just and reasonable in itself, often becomes a dangerous vice because of the false judgments that accompany it. Curiosity often presents the mind with empty objects for its study and its waking hours; it attaches to these objects false ideas of greatness, elevates them through the deceptive luster of rarity, and surrounds them with such charm and appeal that it is hard not to regard them with excessive fondness and attachment.

There is no trivial matter that does not fully occupy the minds of some people; and their preoccupation is always justified by the false judgments their vain curiosity produces. Those, for example, who are obsessed with words imagine that all true learning consists in mastering certain terms. They find a thousand reasons to convince themselves of this — and not the least of these, though the least reasonable, is the respect they receive from others who are dazzled by unfamiliar language.

Some people spend their whole lives learning how to speak, when perhaps they ought to spend their whole lives remaining silent; for it is obvious that one should remain silent when one has nothing good to say. But they do not learn to speak so that they may know when to be silent. They fail to understand that to speak well one must first think clearly; that one must train the mind to be sound, to distinguish truth from falsehood, clear ideas from confused ones, and what comes from the understanding from what comes only from the imagination. They imagine themselves to be fine and exceptional thinkers simply because they can please the ear with measured rhythm, flatter the passions with vivid figures of speech, and delight the imagination with striking expressions — even though their minds remain empty of real insight, light, or understanding.

There is some apparent justification for devoting one’s life to the study of one’s own language, since we use it every day; this can serve to justify the passion of certain minds. But it is hard to justify by any plausible reason the obsession of those who study every language indiscriminately. We can excuse those who fill their libraries with dictionaries of every kind, just as we excuse the curiosity of those who collect coins from every age and nation. Such things may be useful on occasion; and if they do not bring great benefit, at least they do no harm.

They possess a store of curiosities that does not burden them, since they do not carry their books or medals around with them. But how can we justify the passion of those who turn their own heads into a library of dictionaries? They forget their own affairs and essential duties in favor of useless words.

They speak their own language only with hesitation, constantly inserting foreign or archaic terms into conversation, and never paying their social debts in the common currency of speech. In the end, their reasoning is as confused as their language; every corner and fold of their memory is so stuffed with etymologies that their minds are stifled by the endless swarm of words swirling within them.

Yet we must admit that even the strange obsession of such scholars justifies itself. How? Listen to the judgments these pseudo‑experts form about languages, and you will understand.

Or assume certain axioms that they treat as unquestionable, and draw the conclusions they lead to. Suppose, for example, that a man who speaks several languages is as many times a man as the number of languages he knows — since speech is what distinguishes us from beasts. Suppose that ignorance of languages is the cause of our ignorance of countless things, because ancient philosophers and foreigners are wiser than we are. Grant such premises and follow their logic, and you will arrive at exactly the kind of judgments that fuel the passion for languages — judgments identical to those such scholars use to justify their studies.

Even the most trivial and contemptible branches of learning always have some aspect that shines in the imagination and easily dazzles the mind through the luster the passion attaches to it. It is true that this luster fades as the blood and spirits cool, and the light of truth begins to appear. But that light also fades whenever the imagination is re‑kindled, and we then see only dimly the sound arguments that once seemed to condemn our passion.

Furthermore, when the passion that drives us feels itself dying away, it does not repent of its course. On the contrary, it arranges everything either to depart with honor or to revive again shortly after. That is to say, it always leads the mind to form judgments that will justify it. In this weakened state, it even forms a kind of alliance with all other passions that can support it: they supply it with fresh energy and vigor, re‑kindle its dying embers, and bring it back to life. For passions are not indifferent to one another. All those that can coexist faithfully contribute to each other’s preservation. Thus the judgments that justify the desire for languages, or for anything else you may choose, are constantly reinforced and fully confirmed by every passion that does not oppose it.

The pseudo‑scholar pictures himself in many ways: sometimes surrounded by listeners who regard him with respect; sometimes victorious over those he has silenced with incomprehensible words; and almost always as raised above the ordinary run of men. He flatters himself with the praise he receives, the honors offered to him, and the notice taken of his person. He feels connected to every age and every land; unlike lesser minds, he is not confined to the present moment or the boundaries of his own city, but expands endlessly, and this expansion is itself his delight. How many different passions therefore mingle with his love of false learning — all working to justify it and urgently pressing for favorable judgments in its defense!

If each passion acted only for itself and took no notice of others, they would all fade away almost as soon as they arose. They could not produce enough false judgments to sustain themselves, nor long hold the imagination against the light of reason. But the workings of our passions are arranged in the most systematic way possible for their mutual preservation. They strengthen one another; even those most distantly related lend each other aid. It is enough that they are not openly hostile for them to observe all the rules of a well‑ordered society.

If desire stood alone, all the judgments it formed would serve only to represent the attainment of its object as possible — for desire itself arises only from the judgment that some good is within our reach. Thus it could only produce thoughts about the possibility of fulfillment, since the judgments that follow and sustain a passion always mirror those that first gave rise to it. But desire is fueled by love, strengthened by hope, increased by joy, renewed by fear, and accompanied by courage, ambition, anger, and many other passions. These in turn produce an infinite variety of judgments, which succeed one another and sustain the very desire that brought them into being. We should not be surprised, therefore, that a desire for something trivial, or even for something clearly harmful or useless, can constantly justify itself against reason for years or even for a lifetime — given how many different passions work together to defend it.

Here in brief is how passions justify themselves, explained through clear ideas:

Every passion stirs the blood and animal spirits. These agitated spirits are directed through the brain, either by the sight of the object itself or by the force of imagination, in such a way as to leave deep impressions representing that object. In their impetuous flow they bend and sometimes even rupture the delicate fibers of the brain, leaving the imagination corrupted and impaired for a long time. For the brain does not heal easily; its traces do not close up, because the spirits constantly pass through them. These impressions do not obey the soul; they do not vanish when we wish them to. On the contrary, they exert a kind of force over us, compelling us to view objects continually in ways that stir and disturb us, all in favor of the passion. Thus passions act upon the imagination, and the corrupted imagination in turn opposes reason, presenting things not as they truly are — so that the mind may judge them rightly — but as they relate to the prevailing passion, so that it may judge in its favor.

Passions do not only corrupt the imagination and the understanding on their own behalf; they also produce throughout the body all the physical conditions needed to maintain themselves. The spirits they stir do not stop in the brain; they flow outward, as I have explained elsewhere, to every other part of the body. They spread especially into the heart, liver, spleen, and the nerves surrounding the main arteries. In short, they pour into whatever organs can supply the energy needed to sustain the dominant passion. As they spread, they gradually clear away all resistance in their path, creating a smooth and rapid channel so that even the smallest stimulus can agitate us intensely — and thus lead us to form judgments that favor the passion. This is how passions establish themselves and justify their existence.

If we now consider the structure of the brain’s fibers, the degree of agitation and abundance of blood and spirits in people of different sexes and ages, it becomes easy to see which passions different individuals are most prone to — and therefore what kind of judgments they will form about the things they encounter.

For example, from observing the abundance or scarcity of spirits in different people, we can see that when the same matter is presented and explained equally clearly to everyone, some will judge it with hope and joy while others will view it with fear and sadness.

Those with a plentiful supply of blood and spirits — as is usually the case with young people, the sanguine, and the choleric — easily feel hopeful, because they have an inner sense of their own strength. They believe they can overcome any obstacle to their plans; they nourish themselves in advance with the anticipation of the good they hope to enjoy; and they form all kinds of judgments suited to justifying their hope and joy.

But those with a scarcity of active spirits — such as the elderly, the melancholy, and the phlegmatic — incline toward fear and sadness. Their soul feels itself weak, lacking the energy to carry out its intentions. They therefore form exactly the opposite judgments, imagining insurmountable difficulties to justify their fear, and surrendering to envy, sorrow, despair, and all those forms of aversion to which the weak are most susceptible.