The Passions
22. The Subject of the Passions of the Soul
1. The subject of a thing is that in which the thing resides or occurs. We inquire here about the subject of the passions of the soul. We ask whether these passions really reside in the soul itself. Now, since the soul is the substantial form of a man and so makes him exist as a human being, the soul can be called, fundamentally, the subject of all that pertains to human nature. Since man is the subject of the passions, the soul is the subject of the passions. In another aspect of the matter, we may say that whatever exercises an influence upon the powers or faculties of the soul, belongs to the soul as to its subject. In this sense, too, the soul is the subject of the passions.
2. The passions of the soul belong to the realm of tendency and desire rather than to the realm of knowledge. Passions presuppose knowledge and follow upon it; but they are in the appetitive order, not the knowing order.
3. And, strictly speaking, the passions of the soul belong to the sensitive order, the order of the bodily faculties. Yet the influence of these passions is so readily admitted by the will into the intellective order (the order of the spiritual faculties of the soul), that there is justification for the name of "passions of the soul." Strictly then, the proper subject of the passions of the soul is the sensitive part of man; by justified extension of the phrase of the soul, these same passions are ascribed to the soul itself as their subject, though not their proper subject.
23. The Distinction of the Passions
1. The word passion means an undergoing. When sensitive appetite operates, the body undergoes some modification, some change. Sometimes such change is manifested outwardly, as, for instance, in the bright eye and animated manner of a person speaking of what he loves; or in the flushed face and stammering tongue of a man who is very angry. Passion is a kind of recoil or kick-back of the operation of sentient appetite; it is what a sentient being undergoes because of the functioning of such appetite. There are two kinds of passions, and they take their general names from the appetites they follow; thus we distinguish the concupiscible passions which follow the con-cupiscible appetites, and the irascible passions which follow the irascible appetites. The concupiscible passions are: love and hatred; desire and aversion; joy or delight, and sorrow or grief or pain. The irascible passions are: hope and despair; fear (timidity) and courage (daring), and anger.
2. The concupiscible passions stand related to good and evil simply. Love is for good, hatred for evil; desire is for good, aversion for evil; joy is for good, sorrow for evil. But the irascible passions are related to good and evil under the aspect of difficulty. Hope is for a good in some degree difficult to achieve; despair is for an evil too difficult to avoid; fear is for an evil hard to escape; courage is for a good difficult to attain; anger is resentment of an evil difficult to throw off. As they work out, all irascible passions turn into concupiscible passions: hope and courage, once successful, are turned into love and joy; anger, fear, and despair, when their force is spent, end in sorrow, and sometimes, when they have been mistaken or groundless, they end in joy.
3. Anger is the only passion of the soul which is not paired off with a contrary passion. For anger stands alone among the passions in having no natural contrary. Serenity might be called a contrary state, but serenity is not a passion.
4. Some passions are specifically distinct (within their genus as concupiscible or irascible) without being opposed. Thus love and joy are specifically different passions, but they can exist together with reference to the same object. Nay, one may cause the other, as love for a good thing attained causes joy in possessing it.
24. Moral Good and Evil in the Passions
1. The passions of the soul as movements of man's sensitive part are outside the scope of moral classification; they are neither morally good nor morally bad. But in so far as these passions are truly of the soul because the will accepts them and renders them voluntary, they have moral goodness or moral evil.
2. When the will permits a disorder, an inordinateness, in the passions they are evil. But passions rightly controlled by reason (that is, the intellectually illuminated will) are the occasions of virtue, not of vice. Thus, for example, love, hope, and desire enhance, and do not defile, the will's drive for good.
3. Therefore passions controlled by reason are morally good. A good act performed with feeling as well as with intention is all the better for thus coming more completely from the whole man. But when passions rise suddenly or strongly before the will can choose its act (and they are then called antecedent passions), they obscure the mind's judgment and the will's ready control, and thus they tend to diminish or destroy the goodness of a human act. When passion follows the will-act (and this is consequent passion) it does so either
(a) because of the reaction of lower to higher appetites in man, or
(b) because the will directly arouses the sentient appetites so as to have their prompt cooperation. In good acts, consequent passion indicates the will's intensity in good; when directly stirred up by the will, consequent passion increases the goodness of the good act. Thus, for instance, a man may directly rouse up courage to help him perform some difficult duty. Here the good act is all the better for having courage joined to good purpose.
4. Passions take their own specific good or evil quality from that of the act to which they incline a man.
25. The Order of Occurence Among the Passions of the Soul
1. Concupiscible passion, which tends simply to an end, precedes irascible passion, which is aroused by difficulty in achieving the end. Thus desire for a thing precedes the courage with which one faces difficulty in obtaining the thing. But concupiscible passion, which rests or is quiet in an end attained or lost (joy; sorrow) follows the irascible passion which overcame difficulty or succumbed to it. Hence, in passions of movement concupiscible precedes irascible; in passions of repose irascible precedes concupiscible.
2. In the order of execution, that is, in the carrying out of the drive of passion, love of the end sought comes first, then follows desire, then comes joy in the end attained or sorrow in its loss. But in the order of intention, the thing first wanted is joy in the object attained; by this anticipated joy, love and desire are aroused.
3. The first of the irascible passions is hope. Hope looks for a good to come, but involves knowledge that difficulty may lie in the way, and that the end hoped for may not, as a fact, be achieved. A person does not have hope for what is certainly to come; thus no one hopes that tomorrow will come, although he may desire its coming.
4. The four principal passions after love are joy, sorrow, hope, and fear; love is the fundamental passion. Joy and sorrow mark the subsiding of the passions; hope and fear direct their movement. Joy and sorrow are in things present; hope and fear are for things to come.
26. Love
1. Love is the simple appetite or appetency for good. There are three types of appetite and therefore there are three kinds of love, (a) First, there is the natural appetite implanted in all creatures by their Creator. This is the tendency of things to maintain their existence, their being, their connatural activities. By this appetite or tendency, things are said to have a natural love of themselves. Natural appetite and natural love involve no knowledge, no awareness, in the beings that have it. (b) In sentient creatures (men and animals) there is, in addition to natural appetency, an appetite for things which sense knowledge presents as desirable; that is, as good, as things to be gone after. By sentient appetency, for example, a dog tends to come at his master's call, to go after food which is known pleasingly by the sense of smell, and so on. Now, the quest of good is the expression of love of good; sentient appetency means sentient love. (c) In man alone among earthly creatures there is a spiritual, an intellectual appetency. It is the tendency to follow and obtain what the intellect-the mind, the understanding-presents as good, as desirable. And this intellectual appetency is called the will. Man, to be sure, has natural appetency and sentient appetency; he has, in consequence, natural love of himself, and he is stirred by the sentient love which is a concupiscible passion. But man's spiritual and intellectual appetency is, as we have seen, in control of the sentient appetency; yet this is no despotic control, and the sentient appetites with their resultant passions are always trying, so to speak, to swing the will their way. The sentient passions are frequently permitted by the will to enter and influence the intellective soul-faculties; when so permitted, they become truly passions of the soul. The fundamental passion of the soul is sentient love which is permitted to rise into the intellective order and influence mind and will. To sum up: the three types of love are: natural love, sentient love, intellectual or rational love. Love is a simple appetency and passion; it involves in itself no element of difficulty or of freedom from difficulty in attaining its end; it is a concupiscible appetite in the sentient order; in the will, as we have seen, there is no distinction of concupiscible and irascible tendencies.
2. Love as a passion is the undergoing, the kick-back, of the movement of appetite to good.
3. The words love, dilection, charity, and friendship are not completely synonymous, but they have a common core of meaning; dilection, charity, and friendship, are types or phases of love.
4. Love as a tendency to have or possess good is called love of desire (the ancient name is love of concupiscence); love as a tendency to do good is love of benevolence or love of well-wishing, and sometimes this is love of friendship.
27. The Cause of Love
1. Since love is the tendency experienced by its subject to have or to do good, and since good thus stirs love to action, it is manifest that good or the good is the proper cause of love.
2. Good, which is the goal as well as the cause of love, must, in sentient and rational beings, be known before it can exercise its appeal. Hence knowledge is a cause of love.
3. Likeness or similarity is a cause of love between and among creatures, for like attracts like. A creature necessarily loves itself; hence it has a natural tendency to love what is like itself.
4. None of the other passions, singly or together, can be regarded as the universal cause of love. A particular passion, such as desire, may cause a particular act of love, for one good can cause another good. But in general it must be said that the other passions presuppose love; they are products, rather than causes, of love.
28. The Effects of Love
1. Love seeks either to possess what is loved or to bestow benefit upon it. In either case, love seeks to be united with its object, in fact or in affection. Hence union with the beloved thing is an effect of love.
2. Another effect of love is that lover and beloved dwell in each other in some manner. The lover says, "I have you in my heart," or "This project is close to my heart." And, speaking of the love of God, scripture says (I John 4:16): "He that abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him." Thus a kind of mutual indwelling of lover and beloved is an effect of love.
3. Sometimes love is so intense that the lover is said to be "carried away" or "raised out of himself." This effect of love is called ecstasy.
4. Another effect of love is zeal. In its good meaning, zeal is steady ardor in loving. In one evil meaning, zeal is an unreasonable and intemperate ardor for making other people love something; this zeal is called zealotry. In another evil meaning, zeal is an inordinate ardor for exclusive possession of the object of love, and an unreasonable effort to block out others from loving it; this zeal is called jealousy. Zealous and jealous are, in root, the same word. Zealotry and jealousy are effects of misdirected and disordered love.
5. Love in itself is a perfecting and preserving force. But in its material aspects and elements, love may sometimes induce excessive and hurtful change in the lover.
6. Love is appetite for good; good defines end; all things act to an end. Therefore, all things act from love of one kind or another.
29. Hatred
1. The opposite of love is hatred. If love is "heads," hatred is "tails." To love a thing is to hate its opposite; to hate a thing is to love its opposite. Now, love is caused by good; hence hatred is caused by that which is a deprivation of good; hatred is caused by evil.
2. Hatred is caused by what hinders us from attaining good. Such hindrance not only deprives us of the good object, but deprives the object of its availability. Now, if we did not love a thing, we should not be aware of any block or hindrance in our way to it. If we did not love, we should not hate. Hence love is a cause of hatred.
3. Love is stronger than hatred. Sometimes hatred is more keenly felt than love, and so seems stronger.
4. Strictly speaking, a man cannot hate himself. In practice, a man may harm himself by sin or evil habit; we may say of a man that he is his own worst enemy. And a man may live like the beasts of the field, directing his love to things that cannot bring him to his true end. Yet such mistaken lives are not lives of self-hatred in the strict sense, but of self-love that is misdirected.
5. A man can actually hate the truth, not in general, but in particular instances in which truth proves embarrassing, or hampering, or otherwise contrary to his desires.
6. Hatred can be universal only in the sense that everything of a certain kind can be hated. The sheep hates all wolves. The good Christian hates all sin.
30. Concupiscence
1. Concupiscence is a strong tendency or appetite arising in the sensitive part of man. As we have seen, concupiscence can be admitted by the will to the intellective part of man, and thus may sway the judgment of intellect and the decision of will. Therefore we say that concupiscence can influence reason.
2. Concupiscence is caused by love, and it tends to pleasure or joy. It is a passion specifically distinct from its cause (love) and from its end (joy); it is the specific passion called desire.
3. Men and animals have certain strong and necessary desires- for life, for food, for drink, for propagation; these are forms of natural concupiscence. Only man, among earthly creatures, may have desire for things beyond natural needs-for fame, wealth, promotion, entertainment, modish attire, etc. Such desires are forms of nonnatural concupiscence; this is sometimes called rational concupiscence, since it is proper to man who is the only rational animal. When strong or disordered, nonnatural concupiscence (especially with reference to wealth) is called cupidity.
4. Natural concupiscence is finite; nonnatural concupiscence can be indefinite or potentially infinite. Thus a man may aspire to unlimited fame or power. But no man desires limitless supplies of food and drink; he desires merely ample supplies.
31. Delight or Joy or Pleasure
1. Delight (pleasure, joy, enjoyment) is a passion of the sensitive order, and comes from awareness of possessing what is suitable and pleasing. It is, like other passions of sentient origin, a passion of the soul because it is readily permitted by the will to arise from the sensitive order to the intellective order.
2. Delight or pleasure does not involve in itself any reference to time, although it is aroused by possession of present good; conceivably it could go on without end.
3. The words delight, pleasure, joy, and enjoyment are not perfect synonyms. Both animals and men can be stirred by pleasure or delight, but only man can experience joy; joy comes of achieving the object of rational (nonnatural) concupiscence or desire.
4. Delight rises from sentient to intellective order if reason permits; and, indeed, in reason itself, apart from sense movements, there is joy of fruition in the activity of the intellect and will. There are intellectual or rational pleasures as well as pleasures of sense appropriated or approved by reason.
5. Bodily pleasures are often more intense than intellectual pleasures, but they are not so great or so lasting. The objects of bodily pleasure quickly pass away; spiritual goods are incorruptible.
6. In the sensitive order, pleasures arising from the tactile sense (touch; feeling) are greater than the pleasures of the other senses. Indeed, the sense of touch must serve the other senses by giving their sense organs contact with their respective objects. However, if we speak of the sense pleasures of knowing, omitting those of using, we find that the sense of sight is the source of the greatest pleasures.
7. There are pleasures in accord with nature, and there are also nonnatural pleasures which exist because of some defect or disorder in the one who experiences them.
8. Pleasures as emotions or passions are sometimes incompatible and are in conflict with one another.
32. The Cause of Pleasure
1. Pleasure is the result of attaining a suitable thing, a thing which satisfies, and is therefore a good. It is the attaining of a good, together with awareness of the fact that the good is attained.
2. As we have said, pleasure in itself is not subject to time, and yet it is not incompatible with movement, and hence with time which is movement. A man enjoying an interesting story takes pleasure in moving on from chapter to chapter in the prospect of finally knowing the whole story. And there is pleasure in moving from aspect to aspect of a pleasing thing, and even in going over and over the details of a delightful event which is cherished in memory, or in looking again and again at the minutest features of a prized possession. Hence movement itself can be a cause of pleasure. One's own movement locally can cause pleasure, and people enjoy walking, riding, and sailing.
3. Things hoped for can stir pleasure, as can remembered joys. Thus hope and memory are causes of pleasure.
4. Even sadness or sorrow can be a cause of pleasure. Sorrow over a loss calls to mind the beloved object with which remembered joys are associated. Sorrow over an evil once sustained is accompanied by knowledge of escape or deliverance, and this knowledge is pleasurable.
5. The actions of others may cause us pleasure, (a) because they are the actions of one we love; thus parents take keen pleasure in beholding the meaningless movements of their baby; or (b) because these actions confer a benefit on us; or (c) because these actions make us appreciate the good we ourselves possess. Thus the slow and careful gait of an old man may make us rejoice in our youth and agility.
6. Doing good to others causes us pleasure, for it makes us aware of a pleasing ability in ourselves, and also pleasurably aware of an abundance of good that we can share. Further, to do good is in accordance with our nature, and there is pleasure in orderly natural action. Finally, in doing good to others we show our love for them, and love is the principal cause of pleasure.
7. Because like has a tendency to love like, likeness itself is a cause of pleasure. Creatures normally take pleasure in associating with their kind. Youth enjoys being with youth. People of like interests have pleasure in one another's company and conversation. Yet, accidentally, likeness which should cause pleasure sometimes occasions displeasure. A man may be displeased with another who is in the same line of business, not because of likeness of occupation, but because of something accidental to that likeness in this particular case, such as the fact that the other man is a competitor, a limiting factor in financial gain, and perhaps a challenger for a place of social prominence in a community.
8. Things that excite wonder are pleasurable. They give pleasing knowledge of striking facts or events, together with a desire for further knowledge (that is, the explanation of the wondrous things), and this desire itself is pleasing. And sometimes there is pleasure in studying and comparing things which, in themselves, are not pleasing; thus a medical student may find pleasure in working with specimens of deteriorating tissue.
33. The Effects of Pleasure
1. One of the effects of pleasure is a certain expansion of feeling; thus a person may say that his heart swells with delight. We read in scripture (Isa. 40:5): "Thou shalt see and abound, and thy heart shall wonder and be enlarged."
2. Another effect of pleasure is the thirst or desire for its continuance or its recurrence. Yet sometimes, when a pleasure has been enjoyed too completely, there is no immediate pleasure in the thought of it, and no actual desire for continuance. Thus a person who has eaten overmuch is displeased rather than pleased at the thought of food which recently gave him pleasure. Pleasures of the intellectual order are less likely to cloy than those of the sentient order. Spiritual pleasure is always enjoyed with a thirst for more.
3. In the realm of reason, pleasure lends impetus to the mind. The enjoyment of study or thinking keeps us at the work and makes us do the work better. But bodily pleasures hinder the use of the mind by distracting it, occasionally conflicting with it, and sometimes (as in the pleasure of drinking intoxicants) by fettering it.
4. In general, orderly pleasure within the proper field of an operation gives some perfection to the operation itself. What is done with pleasure is usually done with care and attention.
34. Moral Good and Evil of Pleasure
1. Just as desires for good acts are morally good, and desires for evil acts are morally evil, so the pleasures arising from good acts are morally good, and those from evil acts are morally bad.
2. Scripture speaks (Prov. 2:14) of those "who are glad when they have done evil, and rejoice in most wicked things." Not all pleasures are morally good. Yet every appetite is for good, and pleasure comes from satisfied appetite. Now, it must be remembered that the good which an appetite craves is good taken simply. But a man, in a particular choice, may approve and appetize what is merely a good aspect of what is not good simply. And a man may allow this good aspect to mask the whole evil object. Thus evil can be chosen under the guise of good. Evil so chosen can be enjoyed. Such enjoyment is morally evil pleasure. It is bad or sinful pleasure.
3. Man's happiness in heaven, in the vision of God, will include perfect pleasures, and these, of course, will be morally good pleasures.
4. A good will enjoys the work of virtue; an evil will takes pleasure in sinful works. Thus the pleasure of the will in its human acts is a measure of the moral quality of these acts. But sense pleasures are no measure at all of the moral quality of human acts, for a man may have sense pleasure in wrongdoing, and may find good deeds difficult and distasteful to sense.
35. Sorrow or Pain
1. Sorrow or pain is a passion of the soul which is burdened by present evil. Pain, as a synonym for sorrow or sadness or grief, is not merely bodily pain from ache, or sore, or wound; it is rather the pain of distress, of worry, of concern.
2. Pain is, first of all, in the sentient order and in the exterior senses. It passes to the interior sense of imagination, whence it is readily admitted into the intellective order and becomes truly a passion of the soul.
3. Pain or sorrow is a passion directly opposed to the passion of pleasure or delight. Pain labors under present evil; pleasure delights in present good. For, while pleasure has no time limits, as we have noted earlier in our study, it is enjoyed as of the present. Even remembered joys or anticipated pleasures, are brought under present consideration in imagination and memory before they are experienced as pleasurable.
4. Not every sorrow or pain is contrary to every pleasure, and pleasure and pain may be associated; thus a man may have sorrow at the loss of a friend, but rejoice in the fact that his friend died a holy death. Pain and sorrow stand opposed in a contrary object; thus the pain of the loss of a friend is opposed to the pleasure of having him alive.
5. The mind is at its best in contemplation, in confronting and dwelling with wisdom. Pain cannot enter here. Pain is not contrary to the pleasure of contemplation, except in what is accidental to contemplation.
6. Pleasure is desired for the sake of good, of satisfaction; pain or sorrow is shunned because of evil. Since good is stronger than evil, the desire for pleasure is stronger than the desire to avoid pain. Accidentally, however, the desire to avoid pain my be the stronger desire.
7. Pain felt in heart or mind is greater and keener than pain felt in the body.
8. St. John Damascene classifies pain or sorrow as torpor (stupefaction), distress or anxiety, pity, and envy.
36. Causes of Sorrow or Pain
1. Present evil is a cause of sorrow. Evil, which is the privation, and hence the absence, of good that should be present, is a negative thing. Yet the evil which causes pain or sorrow is sensed and understood as a positive thing; it is experienced as something present, not as something absent.
2. Desire and love can be causes of pain inasmuch as these passions are thwarted in their longing for, or grasp of a good that is withheld or removed.
3. The natural craving of a creature for the integrity of its being and nature is the cause of pain when the creature is wounded, diseased, hampered in action, or in any way made deficient.
4. St. Augustine says that sorrow in the soul is caused by the will resisting a stronger power; that pain in the body is caused when the sentient body resists a stronger body. Hence resistance to an oppressing and conquering force is a cause of pain or sorrow.
37. Effects of Sorrow or Pain
1. Bodily pain is a hindrance to the mind in its efforts to study, whether to learn new things or to attend to what is already learned. Pain may be so intense as to draw the whole attention of the mind to itself, and this makes learning impossible. Yet a man deeply devoted to learning may continue to use his mind despite a considerable degree of bodily pain. As for mental distress, a mild sorrow may actually incline the mind to study, especially to study the things of God through whom man hopes to be freed from pain and sorrow.
2. Pain is a burden upon the soul; it is a cause of depression.
3. Therefore, sorrow weakens the activity of the soul. What is done in sorrow or pain is ordinarily not so well done as it would be done without a burdening influence upon the soul. But, unless sorrow be overwhelming, it may sometimes, indirectly, improve the work of the soul inasmuch as the soul is determined to shake it off and banish it by strict and careful attention to the work in hand.
4. Of all the passions, sorrow or pain is the most harmful to man's bodily being. It is a depressing and contractive influence, repugnant to the normal movements of life.
38. Remedies for Sorrow or Pain
1. The weariness of sorrow or pain is relieved by pleasure, just as bodily fatigue is relieved by rest.
2. Tears and other outward expressions of sorrow give some relief to the afflicted person; these are natural manifestations; they seem to disperse sorrow, letting it escape outwardly, rather than keeping it pent up in the sufferer.
3. Pain is assuaged and sorrow is abated by the consolation of kindly words and deeds, the sympathy of friends.
4. The contemplation of truth, which is the noblest employment of the mind, gives the greatest pleasure, and therefore is a powerful relief for pain or sorrow. The greater is one's love of wisdom, the more powerfully does contemplation of truth counteract pain.
5. Bodily remedies, such as sleep and baths, are valuable remedies for sorrow or pain in so far as they quiet the disturbance of nature caused by pain.
39. The Moral Good and Evil of Sorrow or Pain
1. Sorrow or pain is not in itself a matter of free human activity, and hence has no moral aspects. But it can be the occasion of moral acts. St. Augustine says that it is good to sorrow for the good that is lost; that is, it is morally right and good to show appreciation of a valuable thing of which one is deprived. Similarly, sorrow for evil, as for our own sins, is morally good.
2. Nay, sorrow may be a virtue, that is, a stable habit of rightly judging an oppressive evil and of steadfastly rejecting it by the will. "Blessed are they that mourn," says scripture (Matt. 5:5). Mourning or sorrow can, therefore, be a virtuous good.
3. Sorrow can be a useful good, too. It can make man alert and careful to avoid what causes it, and what leads to it. In this way, sorrow for sin is very useful to man.
4. Bodily pain is not the greatest evil that a man can suffer, nor can interior sorrow as such be the ultimate evil. Greater than sorrow or pain is the evil of failing to judge evil rightly, and greater still is the evil of not willing to reject evil.
40. Hope and Dispair
1. Hope is an irascible passion. It is the looking forward to a good to come, not simply but with awareness that the good thing may not be attained, or at least that it will take effort to attain it. Now, all irascible passion presupposes concupiscible passion. Hope presupposes desire; we wish or long for a thing before we hope to attain it; and desire and hope are passions specifically distinct.
2. Hope is an appetite; it is not a knowing power. It is a power for tending towards, or striving after, what is known as good, in the face of delay or difficulty.
3. In man alone, of earthly creatures, does true hope exist. Animals, indeed, have a kind of hope, a sensitive tendency towards "future good to be attained with effort or by overcoming difficulty." The dog chasing a rabbit, hopes to catch it. Even plants and lifeless things, by striving to fulfill their natural tendencies in spite of what would repress or defeat them, manifest a kind of hope. We may say that a plant, growing in unsuitable soil and with insufficient sunlight, is hopefully striving to survive. But the tendency of quasi hope, implanted naturally in things by their Creator, is not hope in the sense of an understanding tendency consciously exercised in the effort to achieve a possible (future) good. Hope, in this meaning of the word, is found in man only among earthly creatures.
4. Despair is the opposite of hope; it is the contrary of hope. Despair is not the mere absence of hope; it is the surrender or withdrawal of hope in a situation in which a desired good is considered unattainable.
5. Hope looks to a future good, difficult but possible to attain. Hope is caused by whatever makes a difficult goal really or apparently accessible. Experience can be such a cause of hope, for experience may make a man realize that he can do what he once thought impossible. On the other hand, experience may make a man realize that he cannot do what he once believed he could do. Thus experience can be the cause either of hope or of despair.
6. Whatever stirs up confidence and lends assurance in the face of difficulties, may be called a cause of hope. Youth is such a cause. Even drunkenness is such a cause, for a man who has had too much to drink is likely to be expansive, self-confident, and hopeful of doing what, in sober moments, he would not even attempt. Similarly, fool-hardiness and thoughtlessness may be causes of hope.
7. Love can cause hope. We hope only for what we desire and love. Our hope for good to come to us through another person makes us love that person. Thus love begets hope, and hope begets love.
8. Hope is a notable help to action; it gives to action intensity and earnestness. And hope causes pleasure; and we have already seen that pleasure is an aid to operation.
41. Fear
1. Fear is an irascible passion. Like all passions it is fundamentally in the sensitive order, but may rise into the intellective order, and influence intellect and will; thus we say it influences reason. Fear, thus admitted to the intellective order, is a trepidation of mind and a troublesome indecision of will in the face of impending evil, that is, of danger. Fear is a kind of shrinking back from an evil which seems difficult, yet possible, to avoid or overcome. In a word, fear is agitation caused by impending evil.
2. Fear is not a general condition affecting all the passions; it is a special passion. The object of fear is an evil that is future, threatening, and apparently hard and even well-nigh impossible to avoid or overcome.
3. Fear is found in human beings and in animals; it can in no wise affect plants and lifeless things. Fear is called natural when it is a shrinking from what conflicts with normal tendencies; such is the fear of death, or the fear of pain. Fear is nonnatural or rationalized if it is a shrinking from an evil that only the mind can grasp; such is the fear, for example, of failing in an examination, or the fear of loss of good name when one is the victim of compromising circumstances.
4. Fear has various forms. Laziness fears the trouble of toil. Shame-facedness dreads the doing of a disgraceful thing. Shame fears the disgrace of a thing already done. Amazement shrinks from the enormity of impending evil. Stupefaction dreads great and altogether unusual evils impending. Anxiety dreads possible evils, not distinctly foreseen.
42. The Object of Fear
1. The proper object of fear is something oppressive, unwanted, harmful, which is imminent, and which one longs to avoid. This object may be the loss of a good which is possessed but threatened. Or it may be something good in itself (such as justice) which may operate to one's hurt.
2. Fear arises from the imagination of a future evil, and of evil envisioned as close at hand. What is feared is not yet actually present, but imagination makes it seem present, or nearly so. On the other hand, imagination may remove a fearsome thing to a distance, making it seem far off despite the fact that it is close at hand. Even a very old person, afflicted with disease and near to death, may think of death as far off, and so may have no fear of it. For, distant evils are not really feared. Even natural evils, such as death and bodily pain, are not feared until imagination presents them as imminent.
3. The evil of sin is the product of man's free choice, and hence is not properly the object of fear. Yet a man may fear external things, not subject to choice, which may lead him to sin. And, considering his own weakness as he imagines possible future trials, he may fear that he will sin.
4. Fear itself can be feared. A person can fear things that will cause fear, even if such things are not fearsome in themselves. Thus a legislator may fear to promote legislation, not extreme or frightening in itself, which might be used by unfriendly nations as the excuse or occasion for war.
5. Sometimes the suddenness with which a fearsome situation arises lends force and intensity to fear. Thus the very unexpectedness of menacing evil is an object of fear.
6. The threat of irremediable evils makes them peculiarly the object of fear. A military leader fears to lose any battle, even a skirmish. But he is doubly and trebly afraid of losing a decisive battle. A person fears the threat of injury or pain, but he fears much more the threat of death.
43. The Cause of Fear
1. The cause of fear is the threatened loss of what we love, or the impending failure to gain what we desire and love. Hence love is a cause of fear.
2. Another cause of fear is a realized want of power to repel impending evil. The realization of power existing in the impending evil is also a cause of fear.
44. The Effects of Fear
1. Fear makes a person shrink into himself; it is a kind of contracting of the appetites.
2. Fear drives a man to seek advice and direction, for the dread of impending evil takes away self-confidence and self-reliance.
3. In the body, fear manifests itself by trembling, pallor, nervousness, and other types of agitation.
4. Unless fear be so great as to deprive a person, momentarily, of the use of reason, it does not remove the person's responsibility for his acts. Fear indeed may have effects which interfere with bodily action; trembling hands may be ineffective, quaking knees may not support the body. But fear, short of that which takes away reason, cannot directly affect the intellect and will. Indeed, a moderate fear is a stimulus to the mind.
45. Daring or Courage
1. The contrary of fear is daring or courage. Fear shrinks from an evil; daring faces up to the evil and strives to overcome it.
2. Courage or daring springs from hope that the impending evil can be overcome. Yet fear, which is the opposite of courage, does not spring from the opposite of hope, that is, fear does not come from despair. On the contrary, despair comes from overwhelming fear, from fear that the impending evil cannot be escaped, that the difficulty confronting one cannot be overcome.
3. The hope that begets courage is a positive hope; it arises from the conviction, and the imagination, that means of safety are at hand, and that, in consequence, the fearsome thing is not so fearsome after all. Courage involves nothing negative, no lack, no deficiency. Hence it is wrong to suppose, as some have done, that courage is caused by some defect or lack in the courageous being.
4. True courage or daring is not a mere impulsive surge of valor, not a mere burst of boldness that is quickly spent when the impending evil is actually encountered. True courage, as a passion of the soul, faces up to danger and carries through its effort perseveringly. Courage stands up; it endures.
46. Anger
1. Anger is a passion which tends to strike back at evil, to inflict punishment or to have revenge upon the cause of the evil.
2. Anger can be aroused by other passions, and even by passions that stand opposed to one another, as, for instance, by sorrow and by hope. Anger has thus a kind of contrariety in itself, and has no contrary passion outside itself; anger is the only passion that is not paired off with an opposite. Anger wants satisfaction (a good) by striking back at what afflicts or disturbs or deters (that is, at an evil). Thus anger has a sort of dual object, including both good and evil.
3. Anger belongs to the irascible appetites; indeed it gives its name to the whole irascible order, for ira is Latin for anger, and irasci means to be angry. All the other irascible passions tend to turn into anger; hope, despair; fear, daring.
4. When anger rises from the sensitive part of man into the intellective part, it becomes an actual passion of the soul. Such a passion is aroused when the intellect judges that something is to be resented, or that a person inflicting an injury is to be punished. The will backs up this judgment of intellect. And this type of anger is therefore said to require an act of reason (intellect and will).
5. Indeed, in man, anger more consistently follows an act of reason than does desire. Therefore anger may be called more natural to man than desire is.
6. Anger may be more intense than hatred, but it is not so enduring, nor is it so grievous a thing in a person. St. Augustine views anger as the mote and hatred as the beam in the passionate conduct of a man.
7. Anger in man involves some aspect of justice and injustice. The harmful thing which arouses anger is understood as an injustice to the person who suffers it; the person suffering is stirred to mete out justice.
8. Anger is of three types: wrath, ill will, and rancor. Wrath is the angry outburst. Ill will is the continuing effect of the outburst. Rancor is the determination of the angry person to have revenge or to inflict deserved punishment.
47. The Cause of Anger
1. Anger is always caused by something done to oneself. If we are angered by what is done to others, this is because we imaginatively put ourselves in their place, and consider what is done to them as done to ourselves.
2. The cause of anger is some slight or insult involved in what is done to us. This insult may be one of three kinds: contempt, frustration of our will, and insolence.
3. Thus anger is provoked by what we deem derogatory to our own excellence. If a person actually excels in something-strength, riches, learning, beauty, grace of speech, etc.-he is "touchy" on these subjects, and is easily angered by what slights or contemns them. And if a person is aware of a defect or deficiency in himself, he is already hurt by this realization; his defect is a sore spot in him, and he is easily angered by what touches it unkindly.
4. Unmerited contempt, more than any other slight or insult, arouses anger. Hence deficiency or littleness in the author of an insult increases anger, for we feel that a slight from such a source is doubly unmerited. Thus an accomplished speaker or singer is more quickly and bitterly incensed against an ignoramus offering insult than against an educated and experienced man whose opinion of good speaking or singing has presumably a claim to hearing. But, on the other hand, the littleness of the offender who repents and asks pardon dispels anger more quickly than the formal apology of an offender whose abilities are superior.
48. The Effects of Anger
1. One of the effects of anger is certainly pleasure. An angry person has pleasure in thinking of vengeance. And the active wreaking of vengeance gives pleasure, for it is judged to be the righting of an injustice.
2. More than other passions, anger affects the body, stirring it to force, impetuosity, and vehemence in action; anger is therefore said to "influence the heart" more than the other passions.
3. Because anger is so markedly upsetting, its effect on reason is the more notable. More than any other passion, anger obstructs sound and sane judgment.
4. Another effect of anger is the enraged silence which is called taciturnity. An angry man may control anger in so far as fiery words are concerned, and remain silent although he burns inwardly. This is taciturnity. Again, anger may so suddenly or powerfully overwhelm a man that he cannot say a word; he stands speechless, though seething. This also is a type of taciturnity.