referred to body (to parts of our own body, often
also to external objects), and produced by the body (by the animal spirits
and, generally, by the nerves as well), while the rest find both object and
cause in the soul. Intermediate between the two classes stand those acts
of the will which are caused by the soul, but which relate to the body,
_e.g._, when I resolve to walk or leap; and, what is more important, the
_passions_, which relate to the soul itself, but which are called forth,
sustained, and intensified by certain motions of the animal spirits. Since
only those beings which consist of a body as well as a soul are capable of
the passions, these are specifically human phenomena. These affections,
though very numerous, may be reduced to a few simple or primary ones,
of which the rest are mere specializations or combinations. Descartes
enumerates six primitive passions (which number Spinoza afterward reduced
one-half)--_admiratio, amor et odium, cupiditas (desir), gaudium et
tristitia_. The first and the fourth have no opposites, the former being
neither positive nor negative, and the latter both at once. Wonder, which
includes under it esteem and contempt, signifies interest in an object
which neither attracts us by its utility nor repels us by its hurtfulness,
and yet does not leave us indifferent. It is aroused by the powerful or
surprising impression made by the extraordinary, the rare, the unexpected.
Love seeks to appropriate that which is profitable; hate, to ward off that
which is harmful, to destroy that which is hostile. Desire or longing looks
with hope or fear to the future. When that which is feared or hoped for
has come to pass, joy and grief come in, which relate to existing good and
evil, as desire relates to those to come.
The Cartesian theory of the passions forms the bridge over which its author
passes from psychology to ethics. No soul is so weak as to be incapable of
completely mastering its passions, and of so directing them that from them
all there will result that joyous temper advantageous to the reason. The
freedom of the will is unlimited. Although a direct influence on the
passions is denied it,--it can neither annul them merely at its bidding,
nor at once reduce them to silence, at least, not the more violent
ones,--it still has an indirect power over them in two ways. During the
continuance of the affection (e.g., fear) it is able to arrest the bodily
movements to which the affection t
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