The Passions of the Soul

There is nothing in which the defective nature of the sciences which we have received from the ancients appears more clearly than in what they have written on the passions; for, although this is a matter which has at all times been the object of much investigation, and though it would not appear to be one of the most difficult, inasmuch as since every one has experience of the passions within himself, there is no necessity to borrow one’s observations from elsewhere in order to discover their nature; yet that which the ancients have taught regarding them is both so slight, and for the most part so far from credible, that I am unable to entertain any hope of approximating to the truth excepting by shunning the paths which they have followed. This is why I shall be here obliged to write just as though I were treating of a matter which no one had ever touched on before me; and, to begin with, I consider that all that which occurs or that happens anew, is by the philosophers, generally speaking, termed a passion, in as far as the subject to which it occurs is concerned, and an action in respect of him who causes it to occur. Thus although the agent and the recipient are frequently very different, the action and the passion are always one and the same thing, although having different names, because of the two diverse subjects to which it may be related.

Next I note also that we do not observe the existence of any subject which more immediately acts upon our soul than the body to which it is joined, and that we must consequently consider that what in the soul is a passion is in the body commonly speaking an action; so that there is no better means of arriving at a knowledge of our passions than to examine the difference which exists between soul and body in order to know to which of the two we must attribute each one of the functions which are within us.

As to this we shall not find much difficulty if we realise that all that we experience as being in us, and that to observation may exist in wholly inanimate bodies, must be attributed to our body alone; and, on the other hand, that all that which is in us and which we cannot in any way conceive as possibly pertaining to a body, must be attributed to our soul.

Thus because we have no conception of the body as thinking in any way, we have reason to believe that every kind of thought which exists in us belongs to the soul; and because we do not doubt there being inanimate bodies which can move in as many as or in more diverse modes than can ours, and which have as much heat or more (experience demonstrates this to us in flame, which of itself has much more heat and movement than any of our members), we must believe that all the heat and all the movements which are in us pertain only to body, inasmuch as they do not depend on thought at all.

By this means we shall avoid a very considerable error into which many have fallen; so much so that I am of opinion that this is the primary cause which has prevented our being able hitherto satisfactorily to explain the passions and the other properties of the soul. It arises from the fact that from observing that all dead bodies are devoid of heat and consequently of movement, it has been thought that it was the absence of soul which caused these movements and this heat to cease; and thus, without any reason, it was thought that our natural heat and all the movements of our body depend on the soul: while in fact we ought on the contrary to believe that the soul quits us on death only because this heat ceases, and the organs which serve to move the body disintegrate.

In order, then, that we may avoid this error, let us consider that death never comes to pass by reason of the soul, but only because some one of the principal parts of the body decays; and we may judge that the body of a living man differs from that of a dead man just as does a watch or other automaton (i.e. a machine that moves of itself), when it is wound up and contains in itself the corporeal principle of those movements for which it is designed along with all that is requisite for its action, from the same watch or other machine when it is broken and when the principle of its movement ceases to act.

In order to render this more intelligible, I shall here explain in a few words the whole method in which the bodily machine is composed. There is no one who does not already know that there are in us a heart, a brain, a stomach, muscles, nerves, arteries, veins, and such things. We also know that the food that we eat descends into the stomach and bowels where its juice, passing into the liver and into all the veins, mingles with, and thereby increases the quantity of the blood which they contain. Those who have acquired even the minimum of medical knowledge further know how the heart is composed, and how all the blood in the veins can easily flow from the vena cava into its right side and from thence pass into the lung by the vessel which we term the arterial vein, and then return from the lung into the left side of the heart, by the vessel called the venous artery, and finally pass from there into the great artery, whose branches spread throughout all the body. Likewise all those whom the authority of the ancients has not entirely blinded, and who have chosen to open their eyes for the purpose of investigating the opinion of Harvey regarding the circulation of the blood, do not doubt that all the veins and arteries of the body are like streams by which the blood ceaselessly flows with great swiftness, taking its course from the right cavity of the heart by the arterial vein whose branches are spread over the whole of the lung, and joined to that of the venous artery by which it passes from the lung into the left side of the heart; from these, again, it goes into the great artery whose branches, spread throughout all the rest of the body, are united to the branches of the vein, which branches once more carry the same blood into the right cavity of the heart. Thus these two cavities are like sluices through each of which all the blood passes in the course of each circuit which it makes in the body. We further know that all the movements of the members depend on the muscles, and that these muscles are so mutually related one to another that when the one is contracted it draws toward itself the part of the body to which it is attached, which causes the opposite muscle at the same time to become elongated; then if at another time it happens that this last contracts, it causes the former to become elongated and it draws back to itself the part to which they are attached. We know finally that all these movements of the muscles, as also all the senses, depend on the nerves, which resemble small filaments, or little tubes, which all proceed from the brain, and thus contain like it a certain very subtle air or wind which is called the animal spirits.

But it is not usually known in what way these animal spirits and these nerves contribute to the movements and to the senses, nor what is the corporeal principle which causes them to act. That is why, although I have already made some mention of them in my other writings, I shall not here omit to say shortly that so long as we live there is a continual heat in our heart, which is a species of fire which the blood of the veins there maintains, and that this fire is the corporeal principle of all the movements of our members.

Its first effect is to dilate the blood with which the cavities of the heart are filled; that causes this blood, which requires a greater space for its occupation, to pass impetuously from the right cavity into the arterial vein, and from the left into the great artery; then when this dilation ceases, new blood immediately enters from the vena cava into the right cavity of the heart, and from the venous artery into the left; for there are little membranes at the entrances of these four vessels, disposed in such a manner that they do not allow the blood to enter the heart but by the two last, nor to issue from it but by the two others. The new blood which has entered into the heart is then immediately afterwards rarefied, in the same manner as that which preceded it; and it is just this which causes the pulse, or beating of the heart and arteries; so that this beating repeats itself as often as the new blood enters the heart. It is also just this which gives its motion to the blood, and causes it to flow ceaselessly and very quickly in all the arteries and veins, whereby it carries the heat which it acquires in the heart to every part of the body, and supplies them with nourishment.

But what is here most worthy of remark is that all the most animated and subtle portions of the blood which the heat has rarefied in the heart, enter ceaselessly in large quantities into the cavities of the brain. And the reason which causes them to go there rather than elsewhere, is that all the blood which issues from the heart by the great artery takes its course in a straight line towards that place, and not being able to enter it in its entirety, because there are only very narrow passages there, those of its parts which are the most agitated and the most subtle alone pass through, while the rest spreads abroad in all the other portions of the body. But these very subtle parts of the blood form the animal spirits; and for this end they have no need to experience any other change in the brain, unless it be that they are separated from the other less subtle portions of the blood; for what I here name spirits are nothing but material bodies and their one peculiarity is that they are bodies of extreme minuteness and that they move very quickly like the particles of the flame which issues from a torch. Thus it is that they never remain at rest in any spot, and just as some of them enter into the cavities of the brain, others issue forth by the pores which are in its substance, which pores conduct them into the nerves, and from there into the muscles, by means of which they move the body in all the different ways in which it can be moved.

For the sole cause of all the movements of the members is that certain muscles contract, and that those opposite to them elongate, as has already been said; and the sole cause of one muscle contracting rather than that set against it, is that there comes from the brain some additional amount of animal spirits, however little it may be, to it rather than to the other. Not that the spirits which proceed immediately from the brain suffice in themselves to move the muscles, but they determine the other spirits which are already in these two muscles, all to issue very quickly from the one of them and to pass into the other. By this means that from which they issue becomes longer and more flaccid, and that into which they enter, being rapidly distended by them, contracts, and pulls the member to which it is attached. This is easy to understand provided that we know that there are but very few animal spirits which continually proceed from the brain to each muscle, but that there are always a quantity of others enclosed in the same muscle, which move there very quickly, sometimes by only turning about in the place where they are,—that is, when they do not find any passage open from which to issue forth from it—and sometimes by flowing into the opposite muscle; and inasmuch as there are little openings in each of these muscles by which the spirits can flow from one to the other, and which are so arranged that when the spirits that come from the brain to one of them have ever so little more strength than those that proceed to the other, they open all the entrances by which the spirits of the other muscle can pass into this one, and at the same time close all those by which the spirits of this last can pass into the other. By this means all the spirits formerly contained in these two muscles very quickly collect in one of them and then distend and shorten it, while the other becomes elongated and flaccid.

We have still to understand the reasons why the spirits do not flow always from the brain into the muscles in the same fashion, and why occasionally more flow towards some than towards others. For in addition to the action of the soul which is truly in our case one of these causes, as I shall subsequently explain, there are two others which depend only on the body, and of these we must speak. The first consists in the diversity of movements which are excited in the organs of sense by their objects, and this I have already explained fully enough in the Dioptric; but in order that those who see this work may not be necessitated to read others, I shall here repeat that there are three things to consider in respect of the nerves, i.e. first of all their marrow or interior substance, which extends in the form of little filaments from the brain, from which it originates, to the extremities of the other members to which these filaments are attached; secondly the membranes which surround them, and which, being conterminous with those which envelope the brain, form the little tubes in which these little filaments are enclosed; and finally the animal spirits which, being carried by these same tubes from the brain to the muscles, are the reason of these filaments remaining there perfectly free and extended, so that the least thing that moves the part of the body to which the extremity of any one of them is attached, causes by that same means the part of the brain from which it proceeds to move, just as when one draws one end of a cord the other end is made to move.

And I have explained in the Dioptric how all the objects of sight communicate themselves to us only through the fact that they move locally by the intermission of transparent bodies which are between them and us, the little filaments of the optic nerves which are at the back of our eyes, and then the parts of the brain from which these nerves proceed; I explained, I repeat, how they move them in as many diverse ways as the diversities which they cause us to see in things, and that it is not immediately the movements which occur in the eye, but those that occur in the brain which represent these objects to the soul. To follow this example, it is easy to conceive how sounds, scents, tastes, heat, pain, hunger, thirst and generally speaking all objects of our other external senses as well as of our internal appetites, also excite some movement in our nerves which by their means pass to the brain; and in addition to the fact that these diverse movements of the brain cause diverse perceptions to become evident to our soul, they can also without it cause the spirits to take their course towards certain muscles rather than towards others, and thus to move our limbs, which I shall prove here by one example only. If someone quickly thrusts his hand against our eyes as if to strike us, even though we know him to be our friend, that he only does it in fun, and that he will take great care not to hurt us, we have all the same trouble in preventing ourselves from closing them; and this shows that it is not by the intervention of our soul that they close, seeing that it is against our will, which is its only, or at least its principal activity; but it is because the machine of our body is so formed that the movement of this hand towards our eyes excites another movement in our brain, which conducts the animal spirits into the muscles which cause the eyelids to close.

The other cause which serves to conduct the animal spirits differently into the muscles, is the unequal agitation of these spirits and the diversity of their parts. For when some of their parts are more coarse and more agitated than others, they pass further forward in a straight line into the cavities and pores of the brain, and by this means are conducted into other muscles than those they would enter if they had less force.

And this inequality may proceed from the diverse matters of which they are composed, as we see in the case of those who have drunk much wine—that the vapours of this wine entering quickly into the blood, rise from the heart to the brain, where they become converted into animal spirits, which, being stronger and more abundant than those ordinarily there, are capable of moving the body in many strange fashions. This inequality of spirits may also proceed from diverse dispositions of the heart, liver, stomach, spleen, and all other parts which contribute to their production; for we must here notice principally certain little nerves inserted in the base of the heart, which serve to enlarge and diminish the entrances of its cavities, whereby the blood dilating there more or less forcibly, produces spirits disposed in diverse ways. We must also notice that although the blood which enters the heart comes there from all other parts of the body, it nevertheless often happens that it is more forcibly driven from some parts than from others, because the nerves and muscles which lead to these particular parts press or agitate it to a greater extent; and that, according to the diversity of the parts from which it comes the most, it dilates variously in the heart and then produces spirits which have different qualities. Thus, for example, that which comes from the lower part of the liver where is the gall, dilates in another fashion in the heart than that which comes from the spleen, and this one again differently from what comes from the veins of the arms or legs, and this finally quite otherwise than the juice of the food when, having newly issued from the stomach and bowels, it at once passes by the liver to the heart.

We must finally remark that the machine of our body is so formed that all the changes undergone by the movement of the spirits may cause them to open certain pores in the brain more than others, and reciprocally that when some one of the pores is opened more or less than usual (to however small a degree it may be) by the action of the nerves which are employed by the senses, that changes something in the movement of the spirits and causes them to be conducted into the muscles which serve to move the body in the way in which it is usually moved when such an action takes place. In this way all the movements which we make without our will contributing thereto (as frequently happens when we breathe, walk, eat, and in fact perform all those actions which are common to us and to the brutes), only depend on the conformation of our members, and on the course which the spirits, excited by the heat of the heart, follow naturally in the brain, nerves, and muscles, just as the movements of a watch are produced simply by the strength of the springs and the form of the wheels.

After having thus considered all the functions which pertain to the body alone, it is easy to recognise that there is nothing in us which we ought to attribute to our soul excepting our thoughts, which are mainly of two sorts, the one being the actions of the soul, and the other its passions. Those which I call its actions are all our desires, because we find by experience that they proceed directly from our soul, and appear to depend on it alone: while, on the other hand, we may usually term one’s passions all those kinds of perception or forms of knowledge which are found in us, because it is often not our soul which makes them what they are, and because it always receives them from the things which are represented by them.

Our desires, again, are of two sorts, of which the one consists of the actions of the soul which terminate in the soul itself, as when we desire to love God, or generally speaking, apply our thoughts to some object which is not material; and the other of the actions which terminate in our body, as when from the simple fact that we have the desire to take a walk, it follows that our legs move and that we walk.

Our perceptions are also of two sorts, and the one have the soul as a cause and the other the body. Those which have the soul as a cause are the perceptions of our desires, and of all the imaginations or other thoughts which depend on them. For it is certain that we cannot desire anything without perceiving by the same means that we desire it; and, although in regard to our soul it is an action to desire something, we may say that it is also one of its passions to perceive that it desires. Yet because this perception and this will are really one and the same thing, the more noble always supplies the denomination, and thus we are not in the habit of calling it a passion, but only an action.

When our soul applies itself to imagine something which does not exist, as when it represents to itself an enchanted palace or a chimera, and also when it applies itself to consider something which is only intelligible and not imaginable, e.g. to consider its own nature, the perceptions which it has of these things depend principally on the act of will which causes it to perceive them. That is why we usually consider them as actions rather than passions.

Amongst the perceptions which are caused by the body, the most part depend on the nerves; but there are also some which do not depend on them, and which we name imaginations, such as those of which I have just spoken, from which they yet differ inasmuch as our will has no part in forming them; and this brings it to pass that they cannot be placed in the number of the actions of the soul. And they only proceed from the fact that the spirits being agitated in diverse ways and meeting with traces of diverse preceding impressions which have been effected in the brain, take their course there fortuitously by certain pores rather than by others. Such are the illusions of our dreams, and also the day-dreams which we often have when awake, and when our thought wanders aimlessly without applying itself to anything of its own accord. But, although some of these imaginations are the passions of the soul, taking this word in its most correct and perfect significance, and since they may all be thus termed if we take it in a more general significance, yet, because they have not a cause of so notable and determinate a description as the perceptions which the soul receives by the intermission of the nerves, and because they appear to be only a shadow and a picture, we must, before we can distinguish them very well, consider the difference prevailing among these others.

All the perceptions which I have not yet explained come to the soul by the intermission of the nerves, and there is between them this difference, that we relate them in the one case to objects outside which strike our senses, in the other to our soul.

Those which we relate to the things which are without us, to wit to the objects of our senses, are caused, at least when our opinion is not false, by these objects which, exciting certain movements in the organs of the external senses, excite them also in the brain by the intermission of the nerves, which cause the soul to perceive them. Thus when we see the light of a torch, and hear the sound of a bell, this sound and this light are two different actions which, simply by the fact that they excite two different movements in certain of our nerves, and by these means in the brain, give two different sensations to the soul, which sensations we relate to the subjects which we suppose to be their causes in such a way that we think we see the torch itself and hear the bell, and do not perceive just the movements which proceed from them.

The perceptions which we relate to our body, or to some of its parts, are those which we have of hunger, thirst, and other natural appetites, to which we may unite pain, heat, and the other affections which we perceive as though they were in our members, and not as in objects which are outside us; we may thus perceive at the same time and by the intermission of the same nerves, the cold of our hand and the heat of the flame to which it approaches; or, on the other hand, the heat of the hand and the cold of the air to which it is exposed, without there being any difference between the actions which cause us to feel the heat or the cold which is in our hand, and those which make us perceive that which is without us, excepting that from the one of these actions following upon the other, we judge that the first is already in us, and what supervenes is not so yet, but is in the object which causes it.

The perceptions which we relate solely to the soul are those whose effects we feel as though they were in the soul itself, and as to which we do not usually know any proximate cause to which we may relate them: such are the feelings of joy, anger, and other such sensations, which are sometimes excited in us by the objects which move our nerves and sometimes also by other causes. But, although all our perceptions, both those which we relate to objects which are outside us, and those which we relate to the diverse affections of our body, are truly passions in respect of our soul, when we use this word in its most general significance, yet we are in the habit of restricting it to the signification of those alone which are related to soul itself; and it is only these last which I have here undertaken to explain under the name of the passions of the soul.

It remains for us to notice here that all the same things which the soul perceives by the intermission of the nerves, may also be represented by the fortuitous course of the animal spirits, without there being any other difference excepting that the impressions which come into the brain by the nerves are usually more lively or definite than those excited there by the spirits, which caused me to say in Article XXI that the former resemble the shadow or picture of the latter. We must also notice that it sometimes happens that this picture is so similar to the thing which it represents that we may be mistaken therein regarding the perceptions which relate to objects which are outside us, or at least those which relate to certain parts of our body, but that we cannot be so deceived regarding the passions, inasmuch as they are so close to, and so entirely within our soul, that it is impossible for it to feel them without their being actually such as it feels them to be. Thus often when we sleep, and sometimes even when we are awake, we imagine certain things so forcibly, that we think we see them before us, or feel them in our body, although they do not exist at all; but although we may be asleep, or dream, we cannot feel sad or moved by any other passion without its being very true that the soul actually has this passion within it.

After having considered in what the passions of the soul differ from all its other thoughts, it seems to me that we may define them generally as the perceptions, feelings, or emotions of the soul which we relate specially to it, and which are caused, maintained, and fortified by some movement of the spirits.

We may call them perceptions when we make use of this word generally to signify all the thoughts which are not actions of the soul, or desires, but not when the term is used only to signify clear cognition; for experience shows us that those who are the most agitated by their passions, are not those who know them best; and that they are of the number of perceptions which the close alliance which exists between the soul and the body, renders confused and obscure. We may also call them feelings because they are received into the soul in the same way as are the objects of our outside senses, and are not otherwise known by it; but we can yet more accurately call them emotions of the soul, not only because the name may be attributed to all the changes which occur in it—that is, in all the diverse thoughts which come to it, but more especially because of all the kinds of thought which it may have, there are no others which so powerfully agitate and disturb it as do these passions.

I add that they particularly relate to the soul, in order to distinguish them from the other feelings which are related, the one to outside objects such as scents, sounds, and colours; the others to our body such as hunger, thirst, and pain. I also add that they are caused, maintained, and fortified by some movement of the spirits, in order to distinguish them from our desires, which we may call emotions of the soul which relate to it, but which are caused by itself; and also in order to explain their ultimate and most proximate cause, which plainly distinguishes them from the other feelings.

But in order to understand all these things more perfectly, we must know that the soul is really joined to the whole body, and that we cannot, properly speaking, say that it exists in any one of its parts to the exclusion of the others, because it is one and in some manner indivisible, owing to the disposition of its organs, which are so related to one another that when any one of them is removed, that renders the whole body defective; and because it is of a nature which has no relation to extension, nor dimensions, nor other properties of the matter of which the body is composed, but only to the whole conglomerate of its organs, as appears from the fact that we could not in any way conceive of the half or the third of a soul, nor of the space it occupies, and because it does not become smaller owing to the cutting off of some portion of the body, but separates itself from it entirely when the union of its assembled organs is dissolved.

It is likewise necessary to know that although the soul is joined to the whole body, there is yet in that a certain part in which it exercises its functions more particularly than in all the others; and it is usually believed that this part is the brain, or possibly the heart: the brain, because it is with it that the organs of sense are connected, and the heart because it is apparently in it that we experience the passions. But, in examining the matter with care, it seems as though I had clearly ascertained that the part of the body in which the soul exercises its functions immediately is in nowise the heart, nor the whole of the brain, but merely the most inward of all its parts, to wit, a certain very small gland which is situated in the middle of its substance and so suspended above the duct whereby the animal spirits in its anterior cavities have communication with those in the posterior, that the slightest movements which take place in it may alter very greatly the course of these spirits; and reciprocally that the smallest changes which occur in the course of the spirits may do much to change the movements of this gland.

The reason which persuades me that the soul cannot have any other seat in all the body than this gland wherein to exercise its functions immediately, is that I reflect that the other parts of our brain are all of them double, just as we have two eyes, two hands, two ears, and finally all the organs of our outside senses are double; and inasmuch as we have but one solitary and simple thought of one particular thing at one and the same moment, it must necessarily be the case that there must somewhere be a place where the two images which come to us by the two eyes, where the two other impressions which proceed from a single object by means of the double organs of the other senses, can unite before arriving at the soul, in order that they may not represent to it two objects instead of one. And it is easy to apprehend how these images or other impressions might unite in this gland by the intermission of the spirits which fill the cavities of the brain; but there is no other place in the body where they can be thus united unless they are so in this gland.

As to the opinion of those who think that the soul receives its passions in the heart, it is not of much consideration, for it is only founded on the fact that the passions cause us to feel some change taking place there; and it is easy to see that this change is not felt in the heart excepting through the medium of a small nerve which descends from the brain towards it, just as pain is felt as in the foot by means of the nerves of the foot, and the stars are perceived as in the heavens by means of their light and of the optic nerves: so that it is not more necessary that our soul should exercise its functions immediately in the heart, in order to feel its passions there, than it is necessary for the soul to be in the heavens in order to see the stars there.

Let us then conceive here that the soul has its principal seat in the little gland which exists in the middle of the brain, from whence it radiates forth through all the remainder of the body by means of the animal spirits, nerves, and even the blood, which, participating in the impressions of the spirits, can carry them by the arteries into all the members. And recollecting what has been said above about the machine of our body, i.e. that the little filaments of our nerves are so distributed in all its parts, that on the occasion of the diverse movements which are there excited by sensible objects, they open in diverse ways the pores of the brain, which causes the animal spirits contained in these cavities to enter in diverse ways into the muscles, by which means they can move the members in all the different ways in which they are capable of being moved; and also that all the other causes which are capable of moving the spirits in diverse ways suffice to conduct them into diverse muscles; let us here add that the small gland which is the main seat of the soul is so suspended between the cavities which contain the spirits that it can be moved by them in as many different ways as there are sensible diversities in the object, but that it may also be moved in diverse ways by the soul, whose nature is such that it receives in itself as many diverse impressions, that is to say, that it possesses as many diverse perceptions as there are diverse movements in this gland. Reciprocally, likewise, the machine of the body is so formed that from the simple fact that this gland is diversely moved by the soul, or by such other cause, whatever it is, it thrusts the spirits which surround it towards the pores of the brain, which conduct them by the nerves into the muscles, by which means it causes them to move the limbs.

Thus, for example, if we see some animal approach us, the light reflected from its body depicts two images of it, one in each of our eyes, and these two images form two others, by means of the optic nerves, in the interior surface of the brain which faces its cavities; then from there, by means of the animal spirits with which its cavities are filled, these images so radiate towards the little gland which is surrounded by these spirits, that the movement which forms each point of one of the images tends towards the same point of the gland towards which tends the movement which forms the point of the other image, which represents the same part of this animal. By this means the two images which are in the brain form but one upon the gland, which, acting immediately upon the soul, causes it to see the form of this animal.

And, besides that, if this figure is very strange and frightful—that is, if it has a close relationship with the things which have been formerly hurtful to the body, that excites the passion of apprehension in the soul and then that of courage, or else that of fear and consternation according to the particular temperament of the body or the strength of the soul, and according as we have to begin with been secured by defence or by flight against the hurtful things to which the present impression is related. For in certain persons that disposes the brain in such a way that the spirits reflected from the image thus formed on the gland, proceed thence to take their places partly in the nerves which serve to turn the back and dispose the legs for flight, and partly in those which so increase or diminish the orifices of the heart, or at least which so agitate the other parts from whence the blood is sent to it, that this blood being there rarefied in a different manner from usual, sends to the brain the spirits which are adapted for the maintenance and strengthening of the passion of fear, i.e. which are adapted to the holding open, or at least reopening, of the pores of the brain which conduct them into the same nerves. For from the fact alone that these spirits enter into these pores, they excite a particular movement in this gland which is instituted by nature in order to cause the soul to be sensible of this passion; and because these pores are principally in relation with the little nerves which serve to contract or enlarge the orifices of the heart, that causes the soul to be sensible of it for the most part as in the heart.

And because the same occurs in all the other passions, to wit, that they are principally caused by the spirits which are contained in the cavities of the brain, inasmuch as they take their course towards the nerves which serve to enlarge or contract the orifices of the heart, or to drive in various ways to it the blood which is in the other parts, or, in whatever other fashion it may be, to carry on the same passion, we may from this clearly understand why I have placed in my definition of them above, that they are caused by some particular movement of the animal spirits.

For the rest, in the same way as the course which these spirits take towards the nerves of the heart suffices to give the movement to the gland by which fear is placed in the soul, so, too, by the simple fact that certain spirits at the same time proceed towards the nerves which serve to move the legs in order to take flight, they cause another movement in the same gland, by means of which the soul is sensible of and perceives this flight, which in this way may be excited in the body by the disposition of the organs alone, and without the soul’s contributing thereto.

The same impression which a terrifying object makes on the gland, and which causes fear in certain men, may excite in others courage and confidence; the reason of this is that all brains are not constituted in the same way, and that the same movement of the gland which in some excites fear, in others causes the spirits to enter into the pores of the brain which conduct them partly into the nerves which serve to move the hands for purposes of self-defence, and partly into those which agitate and drive the blood towards the heart in the manner requisite to produce the spirits proper for the continuance of this defence, and to retain the desire of it.

For it is requisite to notice that the principal effect of all the passions in men is that they incite and dispose their soul to desire those things for which they prepare their body, so that the feeling of fear incites it to desire to fly, that of courage to desire to fight, and so on.

But the will is so free in its nature, that it can never be constrained; and of the two sorts of thoughts which I have distinguished in the soul (of which the first are its actions, i.e. its desires, the others its passions, taking this word in its most general significance, which comprises all kinds of perceptions), the former are absolutely in its power, and can only be indirectly changed by the body, while on the other hand the latter depend absolutely on the actions which govern and direct them, and they can only indirectly be altered by the soul, excepting when it is itself their cause. And the whole action of the soul consists in this, that solely because it desires something, it causes the little gland to which it is closely united to move in the way requisite to produce the effect which relates to this desire.

Thus when the soul desires to recollect something, this desire causes the gland, by inclining successively to different sides, to thrust the spirits towards different parts of the brain until they come across that part where the traces left there by the object which we wish to recollect are found; for these traces are none other than the fact that the pores of the brain, by which the spirits have formerly followed their course because of the presence of this object, have by that means acquired a greater facility than the others in being once more opened by the animal spirits which come towards them in the same way. Thus these spirits in coming in contact with these pores, enter into them more easily than into the others, by which means they excite a special movement in the gland which represents the same object to the soul, and causes it to know that it is this which it desired to remember.

Thus when we desire to imagine something we have never seen, this desire has the power of causing the gland to move in the manner requisite to drive the spirits towards the pores of the brain by the opening of which pores this particular thing may be represented; thus when we wish to apply our attention for some time to the consideration of one particular object, this desire holds the gland for the time being inclined to the same side. Thus, finally, when we desire to walk or to move our body in some special way, this desire causes the gland to thrust the spirits towards the muscles which serve to bring about this result.

At the same time it is not always the desire to excite in us some movement, or bring about some result which is able so to excite it, for this changes according as nature or custom have diversely united each movement of the gland to each particular thought. Thus, for example, if we wish to adjust our eyes so that they may look at an object very far off, this desire causes their pupils to enlarge; and if we wish to set them to look at an object very near, this desire causes them to contract; but if we think only of enlarging the pupil of the eye we may have the desire indeed, but we cannot for all that enlarge it, because nature has not joined the movement of the gland which serves to thrust forth the spirits towards the optic nerve, in the manner requisite for enlarging or diminishing the pupil, with the desire to enlarge or diminish it, but with that of looking at objects which are far away or near. And when in speaking we think only of the sense of what we desire to say, that causes us to move the tongue and lips much more quickly and much better than if we thought of moving them in all the many ways requisite to utter the same words, inasmuch as the custom which we have acquired in learning to speak, caused us to join the action of the soul (which, by the intermission of the gland can move the tongue and lips), with the significance of words which follow these movements, rather than with the movements themselves.

Our passions cannot likewise be directly excited or removed by the action of our will, but they can be so indirectly by the representation of things which are usually united to the passions which we desire to have, and which are contrary to those which we desire to set aside. Thus, in order to excite courage in oneself and remove fear, it is not sufficient to have the will to do so, but we must also apply ourselves to consider the reasons, the objects or examples which persuade us that the peril is not great; that there is always more security in defence than in flight; that we should have the glory and joy of having vanquished, while we could expect nothing but regret and shame for having fled, and so on.

And there is a special reason which prevents the soul from being able at once to change or arrest its passions, which has caused me to say in defining them that they are not only caused, but are also maintained and strengthened by some particular movement of the spirits. This reason is that they are nearly all accompanied by some commotion which takes place in the heart, and in consequence also in the whole of the blood and the animal spirits, so that until this commotion has subsided, they remain present to our thought in the same manner as sensible objects are present there while they act upon the organs of our senses. And as the soul, in rendering itself very attentive to some other thing, may prevent itself from hearing a slight noise or feeling a slight pain, but cannot prevent itself in the same way from hearing thunder or feeling the fire which burns the hand, it may similarly easily get the better of the lesser passions, but not the most violent and strongest, excepting after the commotion of the blood and spirits is appeased. The most that the will can do while this commotion is in its full strength is not to yield to its effects and to restrain many of the movements to which it disposes the body. For example, if anger causes us to lift our hand to strike, the will can usually hold it back; if fear incites our legs to flee, the will can arrest them, and so on in other similar cases.

And it is only in the repugnance which exists between the movements which the body by its animal spirits, and the soul by its will, tend to excite in the gland at the same time, that all the strife which we are in the habit of conceiving to exist between the inferior part of the soul, which we call the sensuous, and the superior which is rational, or as we may say, between the natural appetites and the will, consists. For there is within us but one soul, and this soul has not in itself any diversity of parts; the same part that is subject to sense impressions is rational, and all the soul’s appetites are acts of will. The error which has been committed in making it play the part of various personages, usually in opposition one to another, only proceeds from the fact that we have not properly distinguished its functions from those of the body, to which alone we must attribute every thing which can be observed in us that is opposed to our reason; so that there is here no strife, excepting that the small gland which exists in the middle of the brain, being capable of being thrust to one side by the soul, and to the other by the animal spirits, which are mere bodies, as I have said above, it often happens that these two impulses are contrary, and that the stronger prevents the other from taking effect. We may, however, distinguish two sorts of movement excited by the animal spirits in the gland—the one sort represents to the soul the objects which move the senses, or the impressions which are met with in the brain, and makes no attempt to affect its will; the others do make an effort to do so—i.e. those which cause the passions or the movements of the body which accompany the passions. And as to the first, although they often hinder the actions of the soul, or else are hindered by them, yet, because they are not directly contrary to them, we do not notice any strife between them. We only notice the strife between the latter and the acts of will which conflict with them: e.g. between the effort with which the spirits impel the gland in order to cause a desire for something in the soul, and that with which the soul repels it again by the desire which it has to avoid the very same thing. And what causes this strife to come into evidence for the most part is that the will, not having the power to excite the passions directly, as has just been said, is constrained to use its best endeavours, and to apply itself to consider successively several things as to which, though it happens that one has the power to change for a moment the course taken by the spirits, it may come to pass that that which succeeds does not have it, and that they immediately afterwards revert to that same course because the disposition which has before held its place in the nerves, heart, and blood has not changed, and thus it comes about that the soul feels itself almost at the same time impelled to desire and not to desire the same thing. It is from this that occasion has been taken to imagine in the soul two powers which strive one with the other. At the same time we may still conceive a sort of strife to exist, inasmuch as often the same cause which excites some passion in the soul, also excites certain movements in the body to which the soul does not contribute, and which it stops, or tries to stop, directly it perceives them; as we see when what excites fear also causes the spirits to enter into the muscles which serve to move the legs with the object of flight, and when the wish which we have to be brave stops them from doing so.

And it is by success in these combats that each individual can discover the strength or the weakness of his soul; for those in whom by nature the will can most easily conquer the passions and arrest the movements of the body which accompany them, without doubt possess the strongest souls. But there are those people who cannot bring their strength to the test, because they never cause their will to do battle with its proper arms, but only with those which furnish it with certain passions in order to resist certain others. That which I call its proper arms consists of the firm and determinate judgments respecting the knowledge of good and evil, in pursuance of which it has resolved to conduct the actions of its life; and the most feeble souls of all are those whose will does not thus determine itself to follow certain judgments, but allows itself continually to be carried away by present passions, which, being frequently contrary to one another, draw the will first to one side, then to the other, and, by employing it in striving against itself, place the soul in the most deplorable possible condition. Thus when fear represents death as an extreme evil, and one which can only be avoided by flight, ambition on the other hand sets forth the infamy of this flight as an evil worse than death. These two passions agitate the will in diverse ways; and in first obeying one and then the other, it is in continual opposition to itself, and thus renders the soul enslaved and unhappy.

It is true that there are very few men so weak and irresolute that they desire nothing except what their passion dictates to them. The most part have determinate judgments, in pursuance of which they regulate a part of their actions; and although often their judgments are false or even founded on certain passions by which the will formerly allowed itself to be vanquished or led astray, yet, because it continues to follow them when the passion which has caused them is absent, they may be considered as its proper arms, and we may reflect that souls are stronger or weaker by reason of the fact that they are able to follow these judgments more or less closely, and resist the present passions which are contrary to them. Yet there is a great difference between the resolutions which proceed from a false opinion, and those which are founded only on the knowledge of the truth, inasmuch as if we follow the latter we are assured that we shall never regret nor repent it, whereas we do so always when we have followed the first-mentioned, and hence discovered our error in doing so.

And it is useful here to know that, as has already been said above, although each movement of the gland seems to have been joined by nature to each one of our thoughts from the beginning of our life, we may at the same time join them to others by means of custom, as experience shows us in the case of words which excite movements in the gland, which, so far as the institution of nature is concerned, do not represent to the soul more than their sound when they are uttered by the voice, or the form of their letters when they are written, and which, nevertheless, by the custom which has been acquired in thinking of what they signify when their sound has been heard or their letters have been seen, usually make this signification to be understood rather than the form of their letters or the sound of their syllables. It is also useful to know that although the movements both of the gland and of the spirits of the brain, which represent certain objects to the soul, are naturally joined to those which excite in it certain passions, they can at the same time be separated from these by custom, and joined to others which are very different; and also that this custom can be acquired by a solitary action, and does not require long usage. Thus when we unexpectedly meet with something very foul in food that we are eating with relish, the surprise that this event gives us may so change the disposition of our brain, that we can no longer see any such food without horror, while we formerly ate it with pleasure. And the same thing is to be noticed in brutes, for although they have no reason, nor perhaps any thought, all the movements of the spirits and of the gland which excite the passions in us, are none the less in them, and in them serve in maintaining and strengthening not, as in our case, the passions, but the movements of the nerves and muscles which usually accompany them. So when a dog sees a partridge he is naturally disposed to run towards it, and when he hears a gun fired, this sound naturally incites him to flight. But nevertheless setters are usually so trained that the sight of a partridge causes them to stop, and the sound which they afterwards hear when a shot is fired over them, causes them to run up to us. And these things are useful in inciting each one of us to study to regard our passions; for since we can with a little industry change the movement of the brain in animals deprived of reason, it is evident that we can do so yet more in the case of men, and that even those who have the feeblest souls can acquire a very absolute dominion over all their passions if sufficient industry is applied in training and guiding them.

We know from what has been said above that the ultimate and most proximate cause of the passions of the soul is none other than the agitation with which the spirits move the little gland which is in the middle of the brain. But that does not suffice to distinguish one from another; it is necessary to investigate their sources, and to examine their first causes: and, although they may sometimes be caused by the action of the soul which determines itself to conceive of this or that object, and also simply by the temperament of the body or by the impressions which are fortuitously met with in the brain, as happens when we feel sad or joyous without being able to give a reason, it yet appears by what has been said, that in all cases the same passions can also be excited by the objects which move the senses, and that these objects are their most ordinary and principal causes; from which it follows that in order to find them all, it is sufficient to consider all the effects of these objects.

I notice besides, that the objects which move the senses do not excite diverse passions in us because of all the diversities which are in them, but only because of the diverse ways in which they may harm or help us, or in general be of some importance to us; and that the customary mode of action of all the passions is simply this, that they dispose the soul to desire those things which nature tells us are of use, and to persist in this desire, and also bring about that same agitation of spirits which customarily causes them to dispose the body to the movement which serves for the carrying into effect of these things; that is why, in order to enumerate them, we must merely examine in their order in how many diverse ways which are significant for us, our senses can be moved by their objects; and I shall here make an enumeration of all the principal passions according to the order in which they may thus be found.

When the first encounter with some object surprises us, and we judge it to be new or very different from what we formerly knew, or from what we supposed that it ought to be, that causes us to wonder and be surprised; and because that may happen before we in any way know whether this object is agreeable to us or is not so, it appears to me that wonder is the first of all the passions; and it has no opposite, because if the object which presents itself has nothing in it that surprises us, we are in nowise moved regarding it, and we consider it without passion.

To wonder is united esteem or disdain according as it is at the greatness of an object or its smallness that we wonder. And we may thus esteem or despise ourselves, from which come the passions, and then the habitudes, of magnanimity or pride, and of humility or poor-spirit.

But when we esteem or think little of other objects which we consider as free causes capable of doing good or evil, from esteem proceeds veneration and from simple absence of esteem, disdain.

And all the preceding passions may be excited in us without our in any way perceiving if the object which causes them is good or evil. But when a matter is presented as relatively to us good, i.e. as agreeable to us, that causes us to have love for it, and when it is represented as evil or hurtful to us, that excites hatred in us.

From the same consideration of good and evil all the other passions originate; but in order to place them in order I make distinctions as to time, and considering that they lead us to regard much more the future than the present or the past, I commence with desire. For not only when we desire to acquire a good which we do not yet have, or avoid an evil which we judge may occur; but also when we only anticipate the conservation of a good or absence of an evil, which is as far as this passion may extend, it is evident that it ever regards the future.

It suffices to reflect that the acquisition of a good or removal of an evil is possible in order to be incited to desire it. But when besides that we consider whether there is much or little prospect that we shall obtain what we desire, that which represents to us that there is much probability of this excites in us hope, and that which represents to us that there is little, excites fear, of which jealousy is a species. When hope is excessive it changes its nature and is called confidence or assurance. Just as on the other hand extreme fear becomes despair.

And we can thus hope and fear although the issue of what we expect in no way depends on us; but when it is represented to us as dependent there may be a difficulty in the selection of the means or in carrying them into execution. From the first proceeds the irresolution which disposes us to deliberate and take council. To the latter courage or bravery is opposed, of which emulation is a species. And cowardice is contrary to courage, as fear or terror is to bravery.

And if one is moved to act before irresolution has passed away, that causes remorse of conscience to arise, which does not concern the time to come like the preceding passions, but the present or the past.

And the consideration of the present good excites joy in us, and that of evil, sadness, when it is a good or an evil which is represented as belonging to us.

But when it is represented to us as pertaining to other men, we may esteem them either as worthy or unworthy of it; and when we esteem them worthy, that does not excite in us any other passion but joy, inasmuch as it is some satisfaction to us to see that things happen as they should. There is only this difference, that the joy that comes from what is good is serious, while what comes from evil is accompanied by laughter and mockery. But if we esteem them unworthy of it, the good excites envy and the evil pity, which are species of sadness. And we must notice that the same passions which relate to present good or evil things may often likewise be related to those which are to come, since our belief that they will come represents them as if they were present.

We may also consider the cause of the good or evil, present as well as past. And the good which has been done by ourselves gives us an internal satisfaction which is the sweetest of all the passions; while the evil excites repentance, which is the most bitter.

But the good which has been done by others causes us to regard them with favour although it is not to us that it has been done, and if it is to us, we join to the favour gratitude.

In the same way the evil done by others and not having any relation to us, only causes us to be indignant with them; and when it is so related it likewise arouses anger.

Further, the good which is or has been in us, being referred to the opinion which others may have of it, excites a feeling of glory or pride in us, and the evil, shame.

And sometimes the duration of the good brings about tedium or disgust, while that of evil diminishes sadness. And finally from past good, regret proceeds, and this is a species of sadness; and from past evil comes gaiety, which is a species of joy.

Here we have the order which seems to me to be the best for the enumeration of the passions. In this I know well that I am parting company with all those who have written on this subject before, but it is not without great reason that I do so. For these derive their enumeration from the fact that they distinguish in the sensitive part of the soul two appetites which they name the concupiscent and irascible respectively. And because in the soul I recognise no distinction of parts, as I have said above, this seems to me to signify nothing but that it has two faculties, the one of desire, and the other of anger, and because in the same way it has the faculties of wondering, loving, hoping, fearing, and thus of receiving in itself every other passion, or else bringing about actions to which these passions urge it, I do not see why they have desired to refer them all to concupiscence or anger. And besides their enumeration does not comprehend all the principal passions, as I believe this one does. I speak only of the principal, because we may further distinguish many other more particular ones, and their number is indefinite.

But the number of those which are simple and primitive is not very large. For, in making a review of all those which I have enumerated, we may easily notice that there are but six which are such, i.e. wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness; and that all the others are composed of some of these six, or are species of them. That is why, in order that their multitude may not embarrass my readers, I shall here treat the six primitive passions separately; and afterwards I shall show in what way all the others derive from them their origin.

Wonder is a sudden surprise of the soul which causes it to apply itself to consider with attention the objects which seem to it rare and extraordinary. It is thus primarily caused by the impression we have in the brain which represents the object as rare, and as consequently worthy of much consideration; then afterwards by the movement of the spirits, which are disposed by this impression to tend with great force towards the part of the brain where it is, in order to fortify and conserve it there; as they are also disposed by it to pass thence into the muscles which serve to retain the organs of the senses in the same situation in which they are, so that it is still maintained by them, if it is by them that it has been formed.

And this passion has this particular characteristic, that in it we do not notice that it is accompanied by any change which occurs in the heart and blood like the other passions. The reason of this is that not having good or evil as its object, but only the knowledge of the thing that we wonder at, it has no relation with the heart and blood on which all the good of the body depends, but only with the brain where are the organs of the senses which are the instruments of this knowledge.

That does not prevent its having much strength because of the surprise, i.e. the sudden and unexpected arrival of this impression which changes the movement of the spirits, which surprise is proper and peculiar to this passion; so that when surprise is met with in other passions as it is usually met with in almost all, thus increasing them, what happens is that wonder is united to them. And the strength depends on two things, i.e. on the novelty, and on the fact that the movement which it causes possesses its entire strength from its commencement. For it is certain that such a movement has more effect than those which, being feeble to begin with, and only increasing little by little, can easily be turned aside. It is likewise certain that the objects of sense which are new, affect the brain in certain parts in which it is not usually affected, and that the fact that these parts are more tender or less firm than those which a frequent agitation has solidified, increases the effect of the movements which they there excite. And we shall not find this incredible if we consider that it is a similar reason which brings it about that, the soles of our feet being accustomed to a contact which is rough enough owing to the weight of the body which they bear, we feel this contact but little when we walk, while another much slighter and more gentle touch, when they are tickled, is almost insupportable because it is unusual to us.

And this surprise has so much power in causing the spirits which are in the cavities of the brain to take their way from thence to the place where is the impression of the object which we wonder at, that it sometimes thrusts them all there, and causes them to be so much occupied in preserving this impression that there are none which pass from thence into the muscles, nor even which in any way turn themselves away from the tracks which they originally pursued in the brain: and this causes the whole body to remain as immobile as a statue, and prevents our perceiving more of the object than the first face which is presented, or consequently of acquiring a more particular knowledge of it. That is what we commonly call being astonished, and astonishment is an excess of wonder which can never be otherwise than bad.

And it is easy to understand from what has been said above, that the utility of all the passions consists alone in their fortifying and perpetuating in the soul thoughts which it is good it should preserve, and which without that might easily be effaced from it. And again, all the harm which they can cause consists in the fact that they fortify and conserve these thoughts more than necessary, or that they fortify and conserve others on which it is not good to dwell.

And we may say more particularly of wonder that it is useful, inasmuch as it causes us to learn and retain in our memory things of which we were formerly ignorant; for we shall only wonder at that which appears rare and extraordinary to us, and nothing can so appear excepting because we have been ignorant of it, or also because it is different from the things which we have known; for it is this difference which causes it to be called extraordinary. Now although a thing which was unknown to us, presents itself anew to our understanding or our senses, we do not for all that retain it in our memory, unless the idea which we have of it is strengthened in our brain by some passion or else by the application of our understanding which our will determines to a particular attention and reflection. And the other passions may serve to make us remark things which seem good or evil; but we have only wonder for those which appear but seldom. We also see that those who have no natural inclination towards this passion are usually very ignorant.

But it much more frequently occurs that we wonder too much, and that we are astonished in perceiving things which deserve little or no consideration, than that we wonder too little. And this may entirely prevent or pervert the use of the reason. That is why, although it is good to be born with some inclination towards this passion, because that disposes us for the acquisition of the sciences, we must at the same time afterwards try to free ourselves from it as much as possible. For it is easy to supplement its defects by special reflection and attention which our will can always oblige our understanding to give on these occasions when we judge that the matter which presents itself is worth the trouble. But there is no other remedy to prevent our wondering to excess than that of acquiring a knowledge of various matters and exercising ourselves in the consideration of all those which may appear the most rare and strange.

For the rest, although it is only those who are dull and stupid who are in nowise impelled by their nature to wonder, that is not to say that those who are best supplied with wits are always those who are most disposed to it. As a matter of fact it is principally those who, although they have a fairly good supply of common sense, have at the same time no high opinion as to their sufficiency.

And although this passion seems to diminish with use, because the more we meet with rare things which we wonder at, the more we accustom ourselves to cease to wonder at them, and to think that all those which may afterwards present themselves are common, still, when it is excessive, and causes us to arrest our attention solely on the first image of the objects which are presented, without acquiring any other knowledge of them, it leaves behind it a custom which disposes the soul in the same way to pause over all the other objects which present themselves, provided that they appear to it to be ever so little new. And this is what causes the continuance of the malady of those who suffer from a blind curiosity—that is, who seek out things that are rare solely to wonder at them, and not for the purpose of really knowing them: for little by little they become so given over to wonder, that things of no importance are no less capable of arresting their attention than those whose investigation is more useful.

Love is an emotion of the soul caused by the movement of the spirits which incites it to join itself willingly to objects which appear to it to be agreeable. And hatred is an emotion caused by the spirits which incite the soul to desire to be separated from the objects which present themselves to it as hurtful. I say that these emotions are caused by the spirits in order to distinguish love and hate, which are passions and depend on the body, both from the judgments which also induce the soul by its free will to unite itself with the things which it esteems to be good, and to separate itself from those it holds to be evil, and from the emotions which these judgments excite of themselves in the soul.

For the rest, by the word will I do not here intend to talk of desire, which is a passion apart, and one which relates to the future, but of the consent by which we consider ourselves from this time forward as united with what we love, so that we imagine a whole of which we conceive ourselves as only constituting one part, while the thing loved constitutes another part. In the case of hatred, on the other hand, we consider ourselves only and as a whole, entirely separated from the matter for which we possess an aversion.

And two sorts of love are usually distinguished, the one of which is named the love of benevolence, that is to say the love which incites us to wish well to what we love; the other is named the love of concupiscence, that is to say the love that causes us to desire the thing that is loved. But it appears to me that this distinction concerns the effects of love alone, and not its essence; for as soon as we are willingly joined to some object, of whatever nature it may be, we have for it a feeling of benevolence, i.e. we also join to it willingly the things which we believe to be agreeable to it: and this is one of the principal effects of love. And if we judge that it is a desirable thing to possess it, or to be associated with it in some other manner than through the will, we desire it: and this is likewise one of the most ordinary effects of love.

There is also no need to distinguish as many kinds of love as there are diverse objects which we may love; for, to take an example, although the passions which an ambitious man has for glory, a miser for money, a drunkard for wine, a brutal man for a woman whom he desires to violate, a man of honour for his friend or mistress, and a good father for his children, may be very different, still, inasmuch as they participate in love, they are similar. But the four first only have love for the possession of the objects to which their passion relates, and do not have any for the objects themselves, for which they only have desire mingled with other particular passions. But the love which a good father has for his children is so pure that he desires to have nothing from them, and does not wish to possess them otherwise than he does, nor to be united with them more closely than he already is. For, considering them as replicas of himself, he seeks their good as his own, or even with greater care, because, in setting before himself that he or they form a whole of which he is not the best part, he often prefers their interests to his, and does not fear losing himself in order to save them. The affection which honourable men have for their friends is of this nature even though it is rarely so perfect; and that which they have for their mistress participates largely in it, but it also participates a little in the others.

We may, it seems to me, find differences in love according to the esteem which we bear to the object loved as compared with oneself: for when we esteem the object of love less than ourselves, we have only a simple affection for it; when we esteem it equally with ourselves, that is called friendship; and when we esteem it more, the passion which we have may be called devotion. Thus we may have affection for a flower, a bird, a horse; but unless we have a very ill-regulated mind, we can have friendship for men alone. And they are so truly the object of this passion, that there is no man so imperfect that we cannot have for him a very perfect friendship, when we are loved by him, and when we have a truly noble and generous soul, in accordance with what will be afterwards explained in Articles CLIV and CLVI. As to the meaning of devotion, its principal object is no doubt the supreme Divinity to whom we cannot fail to be devoted when we know Him as we should; but we may also have devotion for our prince, country, town, and even for a particular man, when we esteem him much more than ourselves. Now the difference which exists between these three sorts of love is shown principally by their effects; for inasmuch as in all of them we consider ourselves as joined and united to the thing loved, we are always ready to abandon the lesser portion of the whole into which we both enter, in order to preserve the other portion. This brings it to pass that in simple affection we always prefer ourselves to the object loved; and, on the other hand, in devotion the thing loved is so much preferred to the self, that we do not fear death in order to preserve it. We have frequently seen examples of this in the case of those who have exposed themselves to a certain death in the defence of their prince or their town, and in some cases even for the private persons to whom they were devoted.

For the rest, although hatred is directly opposed to love, we do not always divide it into so many species because we do not to the same extent notice the difference which exists between the evils from which we are separated by our will, as we do that which exists between the good things to which we are joined.

And I only find one distinct characteristic of any note which is alike in both. It consists in the fact that the objects both of love and hatred may be represented to the soul by the external senses, or else by the internal, and by its own reason: for we commonly denominate good or evil that which our interior senses or our reason make us judge to be agreeable or the contrary to our nature; but we term beautiful or ugly that which is so represented to us by our outward senses, principally by that of sight, which alone is more considered than the others; hence two sorts of love originate, i.e. that which we have for good things, and that which we have for beautiful things, to which we may give the name of attraction or delight in order not to confound it with the other, nor yet with desire, to which we often attribute the name of love. And from thence also, two kinds of hatred in the same way take their rise, the one of which relates to evil things, the other to ugly things; and this last may be called horror or aversion in order to distinguish it. But what is most remarkable here is that these passions of delight and detestation or horror are usually more violent than the other sorts of love or hate, because what comes to the soul by the senses touches it more forcibly than what is represented to it by its reason, and that even though these first passions have usually less truth; so that of all the passions it is these which deceive the most, and against which we should guard ourselves most carefully.

The passion of desire is an agitation of the soul caused by the spirits which dispose it to wish for the future the things which it represents to itself as agreeable. Thus we do not only desire the presence of the absent good, but also the conservation of the present, and further, the absence of evil, both of that which we already have, and of that which we believe we might experience in time to come.

I know very well that usually in the Schools the passion which makes for the search after the good which alone is called desire is opposed to that which makes for the avoidance of evil, which is called aversion. But inasmuch as there is no good whose privation is not an evil, nor any evil considered in a positive sense, whose privation is not a good, and that in investigating riches, for example, we necessarily shun poverty, in fleeing from sickness we make for health, and so on with other things, it seems to me that it is always an identical movement which makes for the search after good, and at the same time for the avoidance of the evil which is contrary to it. I merely remark this difference in it, that the desire which we have when we make for some good is accompanied by love, and then by hope and joy; while the same desire, when it tends to remove itself from evil contrary to this good, is accompanied by hate, fear and sadness; which is the cause of our judging it to be contrary to itself. But if we wish to consider it when at the same time it relates equally to some good with the view of seeking it, and to an opposed evil in order to avoid it, we may very clearly see that it is but one passion which brings about both the one and the other.

There would be more reason in distinguishing desire into as many different species as there are different objects sought after; since, for example, curiosity, which is none other than a desire for knowledge, differs much from desire for glory, and this again from desire for vengeance, and so on in the case of other objects. But it is here sufficient to know that there are as many species of the passions as there are of love and hatred, and that the most important and strongest are those which take their rise from the emotions of delight and revulsion.

Now, although it is only one and the same desire which makes for the search after a good and the escape from an evil which is contrary to it, as has been said, the desire which originates from delight cannot fail to be very different from that which springs from revulsion; for this delight and revulsion which are truly contrary to one another, are not the good and the evil which serve as objects for those desires, but only two emotions of the soul, which dispose it to seek after two very different things. That is, revulsion is instituted by nature to represent to the soul a sudden and unexpected death, so that although it is sometimes but the touch of a grub, or the sound of a trembling leaf, or one’s own shadow, which causes us to be seized with horror, we at once feel as much emotion as though a very evident peril of death offered itself to the senses; and this is what suddenly produces the agitation which causes the soul to employ all its forces in order to avoid an evil so present; and it is this kind of desire which we commonly call avoidance and aversion.

On the other hand, delight is specially instituted by nature to represent the enjoyment of that which gives pleasure as the greatest of all the good things which pertain to man, which causes us to desire this enjoyment very ardently. It is true that there are various sorts of delight and that the desires which take their origin in these diverse varieties are not all equally powerful. For, to take an example, the beauty of flowers incites us only to look at them, and that of fruits to eat them. But the principal one is that which proceeds from the perfections which we imagine in a person whom we think may become another self; for with the difference of sex which nature has placed in men, as in the animals without reason, it has also placed certain impressions in the brain which bring it to pass that at a certain age, and in a certain time, they consider themselves defective, and as though they were but the half of a whole, of which an individual of the other sex should be the other half. In this way the acquisition of this half is confusedly represented by nature as the greatest of all imaginable goods. And although we see many persons of this other sex, we do not for all that desire several at the same time, inasmuch as nature does not cause us to imagine that we have need of more than one half. But when we observe something in one which is more agreeable than what we at the same time observe in others, that determines the soul to feel only for the first all the inclination which nature gives it to seek for the good which that nature represents to it as the greatest that can be possessed; and this inclination or desire which thus springs from delight more usually receives the name of love than the passion of love which has above been described. It has likewise stranger effects and it is what provides the principal material for the writers of romances and for poets.

Joy is an agreeable emotion of the soul in which consists the enjoyment that the soul possesses in the good which the impressions of the brain represent to it as it own. I say that it is in this emotion that the enjoyment of the good consists; for as a matter of fact the soul receives no other fruits from all the good things that it possesses; and while it has no joy in these, it may be said that it does not enjoy them more than if it did not possess them at all. I add also that it is of the good which the impressions of the brain represent to it as its own, in order not to confound this joy, which is a passion, with the joy that is purely intellectual, and which comes into the soul by the action of the soul alone, and which we may call an agreeable emotion excited in it, in which the enjoyment consists which it has in the good which its understanding represents to it as its own. It is true that while the soul is united to the body this intellectual joy can hardly fail to be accompanied by that which is a passion; for as soon as our understanding perceives that we possess some good thing, even although this good may be so different from all that pertains to body that it is not in the least capable of being imagined, imagination does not fail immediately to make some impression in the brain from which proceeds the movement of the spirits which excites the passion of joy.

Sadness is a disagreeable languor in which consists the discomfort and unrest which the soul receives from evil, or from the defect which the impressions of the brain set before it as pertaining to it. And there also is an intellectual sadness which is not passion, but which hardly ever fails to be accompanied by it.

But when intellectual joy or sadness thus excites that which is a passion their cause is evident enough; and we see from their definitions that joy proceeds from the belief that we have of possessing some good, and sadness from the belief that we have of possessing some evil or defect. It often, however, happens that we feel sad or joyful without being thus able distinctly to observe the good or evil which are the causes of it; e.g. when this good or this evil form their impressions in the brain without the intermission of the soul, sometimes because they only pertain to the body, and sometimes, too, although they pertain to the soul, because it does not consider them as good and evil, but under some other form the impression of which is joined to that of good and of evil in the brain.

Thus when we are in full health and the weather is more serene than usual, we feel a gaiety within us which proceeds from no function of the understanding, but only from the impressions which the movement of the spirits causes in the brain; and we never feel sad in the same way except when the body is indisposed, even although we do not know that it is so. Thus the titillation of the senses is so nearly followed by joy, and pain by sadness, that the greater part of mankind does not distinguish the two. And yet they differ so much that pains may sometimes be suffered with joy, or pleasurable sensations received which cause displeasure. But the cause which brings it to pass that in a general way joy follows pleasurable sensation, is the fact that all that we call pleasurable sensation or agreeable sentiment is simply due to the fact that the objects of sense excite some movement in the nerves which would be capable of harming them had they not strength sufficient to resist the movement, or were the body not well disposed; and this produces in the brain an impression which, being instituted by nature to give evidence to this good disposition and this strength, represents that to the soul as a good pertaining to it, inasmuch as it is united to body and thus excites in it joy. It is almost the same reason which brings it about that we naturally take pleasure in being moved by all sorts of passions, even by sadness and hatred, when these passions are only caused by the strange adventures which we see represented in a theatre, or by other similar means which, not being able to harm us in any way, seem pleasurably to excite our soul in affecting it. And the cause which brings it to pass that pain usually produces sadness, is that the feeling which we call pain always proceeds from some action which is so violent that it hurts our nerves; in this way, being instituted by nature to signify to the soul the injury which the body receives by this action, and its weakness in not being able to resist it, it represents both to it as evils, which are always disagreeable to it, excepting when they bring about certain good results which it esteems more than these.

Thus the pleasure which young people often take in undertaking difficult tasks and in exposing themselves to great perils, even although they hope for no profit or glory by doing so, proceeds in their case from the fact that the reflection which they make that what they undertake is difficult, makes an impression in their brain which, being united to that which they might form were they to think that it is a good thing to feel sufficiently courageous, happy, skilful, or strong to dare to risk themselves to such an extent, is the cause of their taking pleasure in so-doing. And the happiness which old people have when they recollect the evils which they have suffered, proceeds from the fact that they represent to themselves that it is a good thing to survive in spite of them all.

The five passions which I have here commenced to explain are so united or opposed the one to the other, that it is easier to consider them all together than to treat each of them separately, as wonder has been treated; and their cause is not, as is that of the latter, in the brain alone, but also in the heart, the spleen, the liver, and in all the other portions of the body in as far as they serve for the production of the blood and consequently of the spirits. For, although all the veins conduct the blood which they contain towards the heart, yet it sometimes happens that the blood of certain of them is driven there with greater strength than that of others; it also happens that the openings by which it enters into the heart, or else those by which it issues out, are more enlarged or contracted on one occasion than on the other.

Now in considering the various alterations which experience causes us to observe in our body while our soul is agitated by various passions, I notice in love that when it occurs alone, that is, when it is unaccompanied by any strong joy, desire, or sadness, the beating of the pulse is equal and much fuller and stronger than is usually the case, that we feel a gentle heat in the breast, and that the digestion of food is accomplished very quickly in the stomach. In this way this passion is useful to health.

I notice, on the other hand, that in hatred the pulse is unequal, feebler, and often quicker; that we have fits of cold interspersed with a severe and biting heat in the breast difficult to describe; that the stomach ceases to fulfil its functions and is inclined to vomit and reject the food that has been eaten, or at least to corrupt them and convert them into evil humours.

In joy, that the pulse is equal and quicker than usual, but that it is not so strong or full as in love, and that we feel an agreeable heat which is not only in the breast, but also spreads throughout all the other exterior parts of the body with the blood which we see present there in abundance; and yet that we sometimes lose our appetite because the digestion is not so active as usual.

In sadness, that the pulse is feeble and slow, and that we feel as it were constrictions round the heart which press upon it, and icy chills which congeal it and communicate their cold to the rest of the body; and that nevertheless we continue in certain cases to have a good appetite and to feel that the stomach does not fail to do its duty, provided that there is no hatred mingled with the sadness.

I finally notice this peculiarity about desire, that it agitates the heart more violently than any of the other passions, and furnishes more spirits to the brain, which, passing from thence into the muscles, render all the senses more acute, and all the parts of the body more mobile.

These observations, and many others which would be too lengthy to transcribe, have caused me to judge that when the understanding represents to itself some object of love, the impression which this reflection makes in the brain leads the animal spirits, by the nerves of the sixth part, towards the muscles which are around the intestines and stomach in the manner requisite to cause the juice of the food, which converts itself into new blood, to pass quickly towards the heart without stopping in the liver; and that being driven thither with more strength than any that is in the other parts of the body, it enters in greater abundance and excites there a stronger heat because it is coarser than that which has already been several times rarefied in passing and repassing through the heart. And this causes the spirits also to be sent to the brain, whose parts are coarser and more agitated than usual. And these spirits, fortifying the impression which the first thought of the agreeable object there makes, oblige the soul to pause over this reflection; and it is in this that the passion of love consists.

In hatred, on the other hand, the first thought of the object which brings about aversion so conducts the animal spirits which are in the brain towards the muscles of the stomach and intestines, that they prevent the juice of the food from mingling with the blood by closing up all the openings by which it usually flows there; and it also conducts them in such a way toward the little nerves of the spleen and of the lower portion of the liver, where is the receptacle of the bile, that the portions of the blood which are usually thrown back towards these parts issue from them and flow with that which is in the branches of the vena cava towards the heart; and this causes many inequalities in its heat, insomuch that the blood which comes from the spleen hardly heats and rarefies itself at all, while on the contrary that which comes from the lower part of the liver, where the gall always is, enflames and dilates very quickly. In consequence of this the animal spirits which go to the brain also have very unequal parts and very extraordinary movements, from whence it comes about that they strengthen the ideas of hatred which are found to be already imprinted there, and dispose the soul to reflections which are full of sharpness and bitterness.

In joy it is not so much the nerves of the spleen, the liver, or the stomach, or the intestines, which are active, as those which are in the whole of the rest of the body, and particularly that which is round the orifices of the heart, which, opening and enlarging these orifices, supplies the means whereby the blood which the other nerves drive from the veins to the heart may enter there and issue forth in a larger quantity than usual. And because the blood which then enters the heart has already passed and repassed there several times, having come from the arteries to the veins, it dilates very easily and produces spirits whose parts, being very equal and subtle, are proper for the formation and fortification of the impressions of the brain which give to the soul thoughts which are gay and peaceful.

In sadness, on the contrary, the openings of the heart are much contracted by the small nerve which surrounds them, and the blood of the veins is in nowise agitated, which brings it to pass that very little of it goes towards the heart and yet the passages by which the juice of the food flows from the stomach and the intestines towards the liver remain open, which causes the appetite not to diminish at all, excepting when hatred, which is often united to sadness, closes them.

Finally, to the passion of desire the following fact is proper, namely, that the wish which we have to obtain some good, or to avoid some evil, promptly sends the animal spirits from the brain to all the portions of the body which may be of service in the actions requisite for this effect, and particularly to the heart and the parts which furnish it with most blood, so that in receiving greater abundance than usual, it sends a greater quantity of spirits towards the brain, both in order to maintain and fortify there the idea of this wish, and to pass from thence into all the organs of the senses and all the muscles which may be employed in obtaining that which we desire.

And I deduce the reasons for all this from what has been said above, that there is a connection between our soul and our body such that when we have once joined some corporeal action with some thought, the one of the two never after presents itself to us without the other presenting itself at the same time. We see in the case of those who have in illness taken some concoction with great aversion, that they can neither drink nor eat afterwards any thing approaching it in taste without the same aversion coming back to them; and similarly they cannot think of the aversion in which the medicines are held, without the same taste coming back to them in thought. For it seems to me that the earliest passions that our soul had had when first it was joined to our body must be due to the fact that sometimes the blood or other juice which entered into the heart was a more suitable nutriment than usual for the maintenance there of heat, which is the principle of life, and that was the cause of the soul uniting itself to this nutriment of its own free will, that is to say liking it, and at the same time the animal spirits flowed from the brain to the muscles which might press or agitate the parts from which it had come to the heart, in order to cause them to send it yet more; and these parts were the stomach and the intestines, the agitation of which increases our appetite, or else the liver and lung likewise, which the muscles of the diaphragm may compress. That is why this same movement of animal spirits has always since accompanied the passion of love.

Sometimes, on the other hand, there comes to the heart some juice of a foreign nature which was not qualified to maintain heat, or which even was capable of extinguishing it, and this was the reason that the spirits which rose from the heart to the brain excited in the soul the passion of hatred; and at the same time also these spirits went from the brain to the nerves which were able to drive the blood of the spleen and of the small veins of the liver towards the heart in order to prevent this hurtful juice from entering therein; and further they went towards these nerves which could drive back this juice to the intestines and stomach, or sometimes likewise oblige the stomach to vomit: and from this it results that these same movements usually accompany the passion of hatred. And our eye shows us that there are in the liver numbers of veins or ducts of sufficient width by which the juice of the food could pass from the portal vein into the vena cava and from thence to the heart without delaying at all in the liver. But there is also an infinitude of others that are smaller, where it might stop, and which always contains blood in reserve as does the spleen also; which blood being coarser than that which is in the other portions of the body is capable of serving better as nourishment to the fire which is in the heart, when the stomach and intestines fail to supply it with nutriment.

It has also sometimes happened in the beginning of our life that the blood contained in the veins was a nourishment sufficiently well suited to maintain the heat of the heart, and that they contained it in such a quantity that there was no need to derive any nourishment from elsewhere. And this has excited in the soul the passion of joy, and has at the same time caused the orifices of the heart to be more open than usual; it has also brought it to pass that the animal spirits (flowing abundantly from the brain, not alone into the nerves which serve for opening these orifices, but also generally speaking into all the others which drive the blood of the veins to the heart) prevent any fresh blood from coming from the liver, spleen, intestines and stomach. That is why these same movements accompany joy.

Sometimes on the contrary it has happened that the body has lack of nourishment, and it is this that must give the soul its first experience of sadness—that sadness at least which is as yet free from intermixture with hatred. The same reason has also caused the orifices of the heart to be contracted, because they receive only a small quantity of blood; and a sufficiently notable proportion of the blood from the spleen is present because it is so to speak the ultimate reservoir which serves to furnish blood to the heart when enough does not come to it from elsewhere. That is why the movements of the spirits and of the nerves which serve to contract thus the cavities of the heart and to conduct there the blood of the spleen, invariably accompany sadness.

To conclude, all the first desires which the soul can have had when it was newly joined to the body have been desires of receiving the things that were suitable to it, and of repelling those which were hurtful; and it has been to bring about these same effects that the spirits have henceforth commenced to produce movements in all the muscles and all the organs of the senses, in every method in which they can move them. And this is the cause that now, when the soul desires something, the whole body becomes more agile and more disposed towards movement than it customarily is apart from desire. And when it further happens that the body is so disposed, that renders the desires of the soul stronger and more ardent.

That which I have set down here makes sufficiently clear the cause of the differences in the pulse and of all the other properties which I have above attributed to these passions, without there being any necessity for me to pause in order to explain them further. But because I have only remarked in each that which may be observed to accompany it when it is alone, and which serves for a knowledge of the movements of the blood and the spirits which produce them, it still remains for me to treat of the several exterior signs which usually accompany them, and which are much better observed when several are mingled with one another as they usually are, than when they are separated. The principal of these signs are the actions of the eyes and face, changes of colour, tremors, languor, swooning, laughter, tears, groans and sighs.

There is no passion that is not evidenced by some particular action of the eyes. And that is so manifest in certain emotions that even the stupidest servants can remark by the eye of their master if he is or is not angry with them. But although these actions of the eyes are easily perceived, and that which they signify is known, it is not, for all that, easy to describe them, since each is composed of many changes which take place in the movement and shape of the eye which are so unique and so slight that we cannot perceive each one separately, although the result of their conjunction is very easily observed. We may say almost the same of the actions of the face which also accompany the passions, for although they are of greater extent than those of the eyes, it is at the same time hard to distinguish them; and they are so little different that there are men who present almost the same mien when they weep as when they laugh. It is true that there are some which are remarkable enough, as are the seams in the forehead which come in anger, and certain movements of nose and lips in indignation and scorn; but they do not so much appear to be natural as voluntary. And generally speaking all actions, whether of face or eyes, may be changed by the soul when, desiring to hide a passion, it vigorously calls up the image of a contrary one: so that we may make use of these actions as well in dissimulating our passions as in evidencing them.

We cannot so easily prevent ourselves from flushing or becoming pale when some passion disposes us to do so, because these changes do not depend on the nerves and muscles, as do the preceding, and because they proceed more immediately from the heart, which may be called the source of the passions, inasmuch as it prepares the blood and the spirits for producing them. It is, however, certain that the colour of the face only proceeds from the blood which, continually flowing from the heart by the arteries into all the veins, and from all the veins into the heart, produces more or less colour in the face, according as it to a larger or less extent fills the small veins which are towards its surface.

Joy thus makes the colour more vivid and more ruddy, because in opening the sluices of the heart it causes the blood to flow more quickly in all the veins, and because, becoming warmer and more subtle, it moderately distends all the parts of the face, and thus gives it a more cheerful and lively expression.

Sadness, on the contrary, in contracting the orifices of the heart, causes the blood to flow more slowly in the veins, and, becoming colder and thicker, the blood requires less space there, so that, retreating into those that are widest and which are nearest to the heart, it leaves the more remote; and since the most conspicuous of these are in the face, this causes it to become pale and sunk, more especially when the sadness is great, or when it supervenes quickly, as we see in sudden fright when the surprise increases the action which constricts the heart.

But it often happens that we do not become pale in sadness, but on the contrary become red, which must be attributed to other passions which unite themselves to sadness, to wit, possibly desire, and sometimes also hatred. These passions, heating or agitating the blood which proceeds from the liver, intestines and other interior parts, drive it towards the heart, and from thence by the great artery to the veins of the face, without the sadness which closes more or less the orifices of the heart being able to prevent it, excepting when it is an extreme sadness. But although it be only moderate, it easily prevents the blood thus come into the veins of the face from descending towards the heart, while love, desire, or hatred, force into it other portions of the blood coming from the internal parts. That is why this blood, being arrested around the face, renders it red and even redder than during joy, because the colour of the blood appears so much the more as it flows less quickly, and also because it can thus better collect in the veins of the face than when the orifices of the heart are more open. This is principally seen in shame, which is made up of self-love and a pressing desire to avoid present disgrace which causes the blood of the interior parts to come towards the heart and then from thence by the arteries to the face, and there is also present a moderate amount of sadness which prevents this blood from returning to the heart. The same thing usually appears when we weep, for, as I shall afterwards maintain, it is love joined to sadness which most frequently causes tears; and the same thing is evidenced in anger, where frequently a prompt desire for vengeance is mingled with love, hatred and sadness.

Tremors have two different causes; the one is that sometimes too little of the spirits in the brain passes into the nerves, and the other is that sometimes there comes too much to permit of the exact closing of the small passages of the muscle, which, in pursuance of what has been said in Article XI, ought to be closed in order to determine the movements of the members. The first cause is evidenced in sadness and fear, as also when we tremble with cold; for these passions may, just as well as the coldness of the air, so thicken the blood that it does not furnish enough spirits to the brain to permit of the despatch of some of them into the nerves. The other cause often appears in those who ardently desire something, and in those who are strongly moved by prayer, as also in those who are drunken. For these two passions, as well as wine, sometimes cause so many animal spirits to proceed to the brain that they cannot be conducted in a properly regulated way from thence to the muscles.

Languor is a tendency to relax and be motionless, and this is experienced in all the members; like tremors, it proceeds from the fact that sufficient animal spirits do not go into the nerves, but in a different way. For the cause of tremors is that there are not sufficient spirits in the brain in order to carry out the determinations of the gland when it drives them towards some muscle, while langour proceeds from the fact that the gland does not determine them to go towards any particular muscle more than to others.

And the passion which most usually causes this effect is love joined to the desire for a thing whose acquisition is not imagined to be at the time possible; for love so occupies the soul in considering the object loved that it employs all the spirits which are in the brain in representing to it its image, and it checks all the movements of the glands which do not contribute to this result. And we must notice regarding desire that the property which I have attributed to it of rendering the body the more mobile, only belongs to it when we imagine the object desired to be such that we can from this time forth do something which serves towards its acquisition. For if we imagine, on the other hand, that it is impossible at this time to do anything which is useful for that end, all the agitation of desire remains in the brain, without in any way passing into the nerves; and, being entirely employed in there strengthening the idea of the desired object, it leaves the rest of the body languid.

It is true that hatred, sadness, and even joy, may also cause some languor when they are very violent, because they occupy the soul entirely in considering their object, principally when the desire of a thing to whose acquisition we cannot contribute anything at the present time is united to it. But because we pause much longer over the consideration of the objects to which we ally ourselves by our own free-will than those which we dissociate therefrom, and than any others, and as languor does not rest on a sudden surprise but requires some time in its formation, it is to be met with much more in love than in all the other passions.

A swoon is not far removed from death, for death results when the fire which is in our heart is extinguished altogether, and we only fall into a faint when it is stifled in such a way that there still remain some traces of heat which may afterwards rekindle it. There are, however, several indispositions of the body which cause us thus to fall into a faint, but amongst the passions it is only extreme joy which we observe as having the power to do so. And the manner in which I believe it to bring about this effect is that, by opening the orifices of the heart to an unusual extent, the blood of the veins enters so suddenly, and in so large a quantity, that it cannot be rarefied there by the heat promptly enough to raise the little membranes which close the entrances of these veins, and thus it quenches the fire which it usually maintains when it only enters the heart in moderation.

It would seem that a great grief falling on us suddenly ought so to close the orifices of the heart as to be able also to extinguish its fire, but nevertheless we do not observe that to happen, or if it does happen it is very rarely the case. From this I argue that the reason is that there can scarcely be so little blood in the heart as to be insufficient to maintain heat when its orifices are almost closed.

Laughter consists in the fact that the blood, which proceeds from the right orifice in the heart by the arterial vein, inflating the lungs suddenly and repeatedly, causes the air which they contain to be constrained to pass out from them with an impetus by the windpipe, where it forms an inarticulate and explosive utterance; and the lungs in expanding equally with the air as it rushes out, set in motion all the muscles of the diaphragm from the chest to the neck, by which means they cause motion in the facial muscles, which have a certain connection with them. And it is just this action of the face with this inarticulate and explosive voice that we call laughter.

But although it seems as though laughter were one of the principal signs of joy, nevertheless joy cannot cause it except when it is moderate and has some wonder or hate mingled with it. For we find by experience that when we are extraordinarily joyous the subject of this joy never causes us to burst into laughter, and we cannot even be so easily induced to do so by some other cause as when we are sad. And the reason of this is that in great joys the lung is always so full of blood that it cannot be further inflated by repeated gushes.

And I can only observe two causes which make the lung thus inflate suddenly. The first is the surprise of admiration or wonder, which, being united to joy, may open the orifices of the heart so quickly that a great abundance of blood suddenly entering on its right side by the vena cava, rarefies there, and, passing from thence by the arterial vein, inflates the lung. The other is the admixture of some liquor which increases the rarefaction of the blood, and I can find nothing which could do that but the most liquid part of that which proceeds from the spleen, which part of the blood being driven to the heart by some slight emotion of hatred, assisted by the surprise of wonder, and mingling itself there with the blood which proceeds from the other parts of the body which joy causes to enter there in abundance, may cause this blood to dilate there much more than usual. We observe the same thing in many other liquids which, when on the fire, suddenly dilate when we throw a little vinegar into the vessel where they are; for the most liquid portion of the blood which comes from the spleen is in nature similar to vinegar. Experience also causes us to see that in all the possible occurrences which can produce this explosive laughter which proceeds from the lung, there is always some little element of hatred, or at least of wonder. And those whose spleen is not in a very healthy condition are subject to being not alone more sad, but also at intervals more gay and more disposed to laughter than the others, inasmuch as the spleen sends two sorts of blood to the heart, the one thick and coarse, which causes sadness, the other very fluid and subtle, which causes joy. And often, after having laughed much, we feel ourselves naturally inclined to sadness because the more fluid portion of the blood of the spleen being exhausted, the other, more coarse, follows it towards the heart.

As to the laughter which sometimes accompanies indignation, it is usually artificial and feigned; but when it is natural, it appears to proceed from the joy that we have in observing the fact that we cannot be hurt by the evil at which we are indignant, and, along with that, from the fact that we find ourselves surprised by the novelty or by the unexpected encountering of this evil. In this way joy, hatred and wonder contribute to it. At the same time I would fain believe that it may also be produced without any joy, by the movement of aversion alone, which sends blood from the spleen to the heart, where it is rarefied and driven from thence to the lung; and this it easily inflates when it finds it almost empty. And speaking generally, all that can suddenly inflate the lung in this way causes the outward action laughter, excepting when sadness changes it into that of groans, and the cries which accompany tears. In reference to which Vives writes of himself regarding a time when he had been long without eating, that the first pieces of food which he placed in his mouth caused him to laugh; and this might proceed from the fact that his lung, emptied of blood by lack of nourishment, was promptly inflated by the first juice which passed from his stomach to his heart, and which the mere imagination of eating could conduct there, even before the arrival of the food he was eating.

As laughter is never caused by the greatest joys, so tears do not proceed from an extreme sadness but only from that which is moderate and accompanied or followed by some feeling of love or likewise of joy. And in order to understand their origin properly, we must remark that although a mass of vapours continually escapes from all the portions of our body, there are at the same time none from which so much issues as the eyes, because of the size of the optic nerves and the multitude of little arteries by which the vapours reach them; and as the sweat is simply composed of vapours which, issuing from the other parts of the body, are converted into water on their surface, so tears are formed from the vapours which issue from the eyes.

Now, as I have said in the Meteors, in explaining the manner in which the vapours of the air are converted into rain, that this proceeds from the fact that they are less agitated or more abundant than usual, so I believe that when those that issue from the body are much less agitated than usual, although they are not so abundant, they do not any the less convert themselves into water, which causes the cold sweats which sometimes come from weakness when we are ill. And I believe that when they are much more abundant, provided that they are not also more agitated, they also convert themselves into water, which is the cause of the sweat which comes when we perform a certain amount of exercise. But then the eyes do not perspire, because during the exercise of the body, since the greater part of the animal spirits go into the muscles which serve to move it, less goes by the optic nerve to the eyes. And it is one and the same matter which forms blood when found in the veins or arteries, and spirits, when it is in the brain, nerves, or muscles, and vapours when it issues forth in the form of air, and finally sweat or tears when it condenses into water on the surface of the body or the eyes.

And I can only observe two causes which make the vapours which issue from the eyes change into tears. The first is when the figure of the pores by which they pass is changed by some accident or other; for that, retarding the movement of these vapours and changing their order, may cause them to be converted into water. Thus the falling into the eyes of the tiniest mite suffices to draw some tears from them, because in exciting pain in them it changes the disposition of their pores in such a manner that when some become more contracted, the small portion of the vapours pass by less quickly; and instead of their issuing forth as before at equal distances the one from the other, and thus remaining separate, they come into contact with one another, because the order of these pores is put out, and by this means they join one another and thus become converted into tears.

The other cause is sadness followed by love or joy, or generally speaking by some cause which makes the heart to drive forth much blood through the arteries. Sadness is requisite in weeping, because by chilling all the blood, it contracts the pores of the eyes; but since in proportion as it contracts them, it also diminishes the quantity of the vapours which they should allow to pass, that does not suffice to produce tears if the quantity of these vapours is not at the same time increased by some other cause. And there is nothing which increases it more than the blood which is sent to the heart in the passion of love; we see likewise that those who are sad do not continually shed tears, but only at intervals, when they make some new reflection on the objects of their affection.

And then the lungs are also sometimes inflated suddenly by the abundance of the blood which enters them, and which drives out from them the air which they contained, which, issuing by the windpipe, begets the groans and cries which usually accompany tears. And these cries are as a rule shriller than those which accompany laughter, although they are produced almost in the same way. The reason of this is that the nerves which serve to enlarge or contract the organs of the voice in order to make it louder or sharper, being united to those which open the orifices of the heart in joy, and contract them in sadness, cause these organs to enlarge or contract at the same time.

Children and old people are more disposed to weep than those of middle age, but for different reasons. Old people often weep from affection and joy; for these two passions united together send much blood to the heart and hence much vapour to the eyes; and the agitation of these vapours is so much retarded by the coldness of their bodily disposition, that they easily convert themselves into tears, even although no sadness has preceded. And if some old people also weep very easily from vexation, it is not so much the temperament of their body as that of their mind that disposes them to do so; and it only happens to those who are so feeble that they allow themselves to be entirely overcome by small causes of sorrow, fear or pity. The same occurs with children who never cry with joy, but much more frequently owing to sadness, even when it is not accompanied with love; for they have always enough blood to produce much vapour, the movement of which, being retarded by sadness, is converted into tears.

At the same time there are some who become pale instead of weeping, when they are angry, which may demonstrate in them an extraordinary judgment and courage, that is to say, when it proceeds from their considering the greatness of the evil and preparing themselves for a stout resistance, in the same way as do older people. But more usually it is a mark of an evil disposition, at least when it proceeds from a tendency towards hatred or fear, for these are passions which diminish the material of tears. And, on the contrary, we see that those who weep very easily are inclined to love and pity.

The cause of sighing is very different from that of tears, even though like the latter it presupposes sadness. For, our tendency to weep when the lungs are full of blood is replaced by a tendency to sigh when they are almost empty, and when some imagination of hope or joy opens the orifices of the venous artery which sadness had contracted; because then the small amount of blood which remains in the lungs, suddenly falling into the left side of the heart by this venous artery and being driven thence by the desire of arriving at this joy, which agitates all the muscles of the diaphragm and chest at the same time, the air is promptly driven through the mouth into the lungs, in order there to fill the place left by this blood; and that is what we call sighing.

For the rest, in order in a few words to supply all that can be added regarding the diverse effects or diverse causes of the passions, I shall content myself with repeating the principle on which all that I have written about them rests, i.e. that there is a connection between our soul and our body of such a nature that when we have once connected some corporeal action with some thought, the one of the two does not present itself to us afterwards without the other presenting itself also; and that it is not always the same actions which are connected with the same thoughts. For that suffices to provide a reason for the whole of that which each of us can observe as peculiar to himself or to others regarding this matter, and which has not been here explained. And, for example, it is easy to reflect that the strange aversions of certain people which prevent their being able to endure the scent of roses or the presence of a cat, or things of that sort, only proceed from the fact that at the beginning of their lives they have suffered much unpleasantness through some such objects, or else have shared in the feelings of their mother who has so suffered before they were born. For it is certain that there is a relation between all the movements of the mother and those of the child in her womb, inasmuch as what is harmful to the one is hurtful to the other. And the scent of roses may have caused a severe headache to a child while still in the cradle, or a cat may have terrified him without anyone having been aware of it, or of any memory remaining of it afterwards, although the idea of aversion which he then had for these roses or for this cat remain imprinted on his brain to the end of his life.

After having given definitions of love, of hatred, of desire, of joy, and of sadness, and having treated of all the corporeal movements, which cause or accompany them, we only have here to consider their function. And regarding this it must be observed that, in accordance with the institutions of nature they all relate to body, and are only bestowed on the soul in so far as it is united to body. In this way their natural use is to incite the soul to consent and contribute to the actions which may serve to maintain the body, or to render it in some manner more perfect. And from this point of view sadness and joy are the two foremost that are employed. For those things that are hurtful to the body are immediately made known to the soul only by the feeling of pain which it experiences, and which first of all produces in it the passion of sadness, then the hatred of what causes this pain, and, in the third place, the desire to rid oneself of it. Similarly, likewise, the soul is only immediately notified of things useful to the body by some sort of pleasant stimulation which causes joy within it, then causes the love of that which is believed to be its cause to arise, and finally brings about the desire to acquire what is capable of causing a continuance of that joy, or else causes us to rejoice again in the future after a similar sensation. And this shows us that they are all five very useful relatively to the body, and even that sadness in some way ranks higher and is more essential than joy, and hatred than love, because it is of more importance to repel the things which injure and may destroy, than to acquire those which add some perfection without which we may subsist.

But, although this use of the passions is the most natural which they can have, and though all the animals devoid of reason direct their lives simply by bodily movements similar to those which in our case usually follow these passions, and to which they incite our soul to consent, it is nevertheless not always good, inasmuch as there are many things hurtful to the body which cause no sadness at the first, or which even produce joy, and others which are useful to it although at first they are distasteful. And, in addition to that, they almost always cause the good things, as well as the evil, to seem much greater and more important than they are; so that they incite us to seek after the one and flee from the others with more ardour and care than is desirable, just as we also see that the brutes are often deceived by baits, and that, in order to evade small evils, they precipitate themselves into greater evils. That is why we should make use of experience and reason in order to distinguish good from evil, and to recognize their just value, so that we may not take the one for the other, or rush into anything too violently.

This would be sufficient if we had in us body only, or did it form the better part of us, but inasmuch as it is only the lesser part, we should chiefly consider the passions in so far as they pertain to the soul, with respect to which love and hatred proceed from knowledge and precede joy and sadness, excepting when these last two hold the place of the knowledge of which they are species. And when this knowledge is true, that is to say when the things which it constrains us to love are truly good, and those which it constrains us to hate are truly evil, love is incomparably better than hatred; it can never be too great, and it never fails to produce joy. I assert that this love is extremely good, because, uniting to us what is truly good, it in so far adds perfection to us. I also assert that it cannot be too great, for all that which the most excessive love can do is to unite us so perfectly to these good things, that the love which we have in particular for ourselves, places no distinction therein; this I believe can never be bad. And it is necessarily followed by joy, because it represents to us what we love as a good which pertains to us.

Hatred, on the contrary, cannot be so small that it does not hurt; and it is never devoid of sadness. I assert that it cannot be too small because we are not incited to any action by the hatred of evil to which we cannot be yet more stimulated by the love of good to which it is opposed, at least when this good and this evil are sufficiently known. For I confess that the hatred of evil which pain alone calls forth, is necessary in respect to body; but I speak here only of that which proceeds from a clearer knowledge, and I only relate it to the soul. I assert also that it is never without sadness, because evil, being merely a privation, cannot be conceived without some real subject in which it subsists; and there is nothing real which has not some goodness in it, and so the hatred which removes us from some evil, by the same means removes us from the good to which it is united, and the privation of this good being represented to our soul as a defect which pertains to it, excites sadness therein. For example, the hatred which removes from us the evil habits of someone, by the same means removes us from his company in which we might independently of that find some good of which we are vexed at being deprived. And similarly in all the other hatreds we may observe some element of sadness.

As to desire, it is evident that, when it proceeds from a true knowledge, it cannot be bad, provided that it is not excessive, and that this knowledge rules it. It is also evident that joy cannot fail to be good, nor sadness to be bad when we view them in their relation to the soul, because it is in the latter that consists all the inconveniences and embarrassments which the soul obtains from evil, and in the former that consists all the enjoyment of good which pertains to it. And thus, if we had no body, I should venture to say that we could not too greatly abandon ourselves to love, joy, nor too much avoid hatred and sadness; but the corporeal movements which accompany them may all be hurtful to health when they are very violent, and, on the contrary, be useful to it when they are only moderate.

For the rest, since hatred and sadness should be rejected by the soul, even when they proceed from a true knowledge, this should with greater reason be the case when they proceed from some false opinion. But people may doubt whether love and joy are good or not, when they are thus established on a bad foundation; and it appears to me that if they are only considered precisely as they are in themselves in reference to the soul, it may be said that, although joy is less solid, and love less advantageous, than when they have a better foundation, they do not cease to be preferable to sadness and hatred equally badly founded. In this way, in the vicissitudes of life where we cannot avoid the risk of being deceived, we always do much better to incline towards the passions which make for good, rather than towards those which relate to evil, even if it be only to avoid it; and even a false joy is often of more value than a sadness whose cause is true. But I dare not say the same of love in respect of hate; for when hatred is just, it only removes us from the subject which contains the evil from which it is good to be separated, while the love which is unjust unites us to things which may hurt, or at least which do not deserve to be so much considered by us as they are, which demeans and degrades us.

And we must be very careful to remark that what I have just said of these four passions takes place only when they are considered precisely in themselves, and do not incite us to any action. For in so far as they excite in us desire by means of which they regulate our habits, it is certain that all those whose cause is false may harm, and that on the contrary all those whose cause is just may be of use, and, even when they are equally badly founded, joy is usually more hurtful than sadness, since the latter, by providing restraint and fear, disposes in a certain degree to prudence, while the other makes those who abandon themselves to it rash and imprudent.

But because these passions can only bring us to any kind of action by the intervention of the desire which they excite, it is this desire particularly which we should be careful to regulate, and it is in this that the principal use of morality consists. And, as I have just said that desire is always good when it follows a true knowledge, so it cannot fail to be bad when it is founded on some error. And it seems to me that the error which we most ordinarily commit in respect to desires is that of not sufficiently distinguishing the things which entirely depend on us from those which do not so depend. For as to those which only depend on us, i.e. on our free will, it is sufficient to know that they are good, not to have it in our power to desire them with too much ardour, because it is following after virtue to perform good actions which depend on ourselves, and it is certain that we cannot have a too ardent desire for virtue. Besides which, since that which we in this way desire is incapable of failing to succeed with us, as it is on ourselves alone that it depends, we shall always receive from it all the satisfaction that we have expected from it. But the fault which is usually committed in this is never in desiring too much, but only in desiring too little; and the sovereign remedy against that is to free the mind as much as possible from all kinds of other less useful desires, and then to try to know very clearly and to consider with attention the goodness of that which is to be desired.

As to the things which in nowise depend on us, good as they may be, we should never desire them with passion, not only because they may not happen and thus may vex us so much the more in proportion to the strength of our desire for them, but principally because, in occupying our thought, they turn us away from applying our affection to other things, the acquisition of which depends on us. And there are two general remedies for these vain desires: the first is generosity, of which I shall speak later: the second is that we ought frequently to cause ourselves to reflect on divine Providence and represent to ourselves that it is impossible that anything should happen in any other way than as it has been determined by this Providence from all eternity. In this way it is, so to speak, a fatality or an immutable necessity, which must be opposed to chance, in order to destroy it by treating it as a chimera which only proceeds from the error of our understanding. For we can desire nothing but that which we hold to be in some manner possible, and we can only hold to be possible those things that do not depend on us, in so far as we reflect that they depend on chance, i.e. that we judge that they may happen, and that similar things have formerly happened. And this opinion is founded only on the fact that we do not know all the facts that contribute to each effect; for when a thing that we have judged to depend on chance does not come to pass, that shows that some one of the causes that were necessary in order to produce it has failed, and in consequence that it was absolutely impossible, and that no such thing has ever happened—that is, a thing in the production of which a similar cause was also lacking—so that if we had not been ignorant of that beforehand, we should not have ever judged it possible, nor consequently have desired it.

We must, then, entirely set aside the vulgar opinion that there is outside of us a Fortune which causes things to happen or not to happen in accordance with its pleasure, and we must recognize that all is conducted by divine Providence, whose eternal decree is so infallible and immutable, that, excepting the things that this same decree has willed to leave dependent on our free will, we ought to reflect that in relation to us nothing happens which is not necessary, and so to speak decreed by fate, and that thus we cannot without error desire that it should happen otherwise. But because the greater part of our desires extends to things which do not depend entirely on us, nor entirely on others, we ought to distinguish exactly in them what depends only on us, in order to extend our desire to that alone; and as to what remains, although we ought in this to hold success to be absolutely decreed by fate and immutable, in order that our desire may not occupy itself therewith, we should not omit to consider the reasons which make it more or less to be hoped for, in order that they may serve to regulate our actions. Thus, to take an example, if we have business in some particular place to which we may go by two different roads, the one of which is usually much safer than the other, although the decree of Providence is perhaps such that, if we go by the road which we judge to be safest, we shall not escape being robbed by so doing, while, on the other hand, we might pass by the other without danger, we should not for all that be indifferent as to which one we choose, nor rest on the immutable fatality of the said decree. But reason desires us to choose the road which is usually most safe, and our desire should be accomplished in respect to that when we have followed it, whatever evil may thus befall us, because this evil, having been relatively to us inevitable, we have had no reason to expect exemption from it, but merely claim to have done the best that our understanding has been able to point out, as I suppose to have been the case. And it is certain that when we exercise ourselves in thus distinguishing fatality from fortune, we easily accustom ourselves so to regulate our desires, that, in as far as their accomplishment depends only on us, they may always provide us with complete satisfaction.

I shall only add here a consideration which, it seems to me, we shall find of much service in preventing us from suffering any inconvenience from the passions; and that is that our good and our harm depend mainly on the interior emotions which are only excited in the soul by the soul itself, in which respect they differ from its passions, which always depend on some movement of the spirits. And, although these emotions of the soul are frequently united to the passions which are similar to them, they may likewise often be met with along with others, and even take their origin from those which are contrary to them. For example, when a husband laments his dead wife whom (as sometimes happens) he would be sorry to see brought to life again, it may be that his heart is oppressed by the sadness that the appurtenances of woe and the absence of one to whose conversation he was used excite in him; and it may be that some remnants of love or pity which present themselves to his imagination draw sincere tears from his eyes, notwithstanding that he yet feels a secret joy in the inmost parts of his heart, the emotion of which possesses so much power that the sadness and the tears which accompany it can do nothing to diminish its force. And when we read of strange adventures in a book, or see them represented in a theatre, which sometimes excite sadness in us, sometimes joy, or love, or hatred, and generally speaking all the passions, according to the diversity of the objects which are offered to our imagination; but along with that we have pleasure in feeling them excited in us, and this pleasure is an intellectual joy which may as easily take its origin from sadness as from any of the other passions.

And, inasmuch as these inward emotions touch us most nearly, and in consequence have much more power over us than the passions from which they differ, and which are met with in conjunction with them, it is certain that, provided our soul is always possessed of something to content itself with inwardly, none of the troubles that come from elsewhere have any power to harm it, but rather serve to increase its joy, inasmuch as, seeing that it cannot be harmed by them, it is made sensible of its perfection. And in order that our soul may thus have something with which to be content, it has no need but to follow exactly after virtue. For whoever has lived in such a way that his conscience cannot reproach him for ever having failed to perform those things which he has judged to be the best (which is what I here call following after virtue) receives from this a satisfaction which is so powerful in rendering him happy that the most violent efforts of the passions never have sufficient power to disturb the tranquillity of his soul.

After having explained the six primitive passions which are so to speak the genera of which all the others are species, I shall here observe succinctly what in particular there is in each of these others, and I shall keep to the same order in which I have before enumerated them. The two first are esteem and disdain; for although their names usually signify only passionless opinions on our part as to the value of a particular thing, still, at the same time, because there often arises from these opinions passions to which we have not given particular names, it seems to me that such may be attributed to them. And esteem, in so far as it is a passion, is an inclination which the soul possesses to represent to itself the value of the thing esteemed, which inclination is caused by a particular movement of the animal spirits conducted into the brain in such a way that they there fortify the impression which serve for this end. The passion of disdain, on the contrary, is an inclination possessed by the soul to consider the baseness or smallness of that which it disdains, caused by the movement of the spirits which fortify the idea of this smallness.

These two passions are thus only species of wonder; for when we do not wonder at the greatness or smallness of an object, we do not make more or less of it than reason tells us that we ought to do in its regard, so that we then esteem or disdain it without passion. And, although often the esteem is excited in us by love, and the disdain by hate, that is not universally so, and only proceeds from the fact that we are more or less inclined to consider the greatness or smallness of an object because of our having more or less affection for it.

Now these two passions may generally speaking relate to all sorts of objects; but they are chiefly remarkable when we relate them to ourselves, i.e. when it is our own merit that we esteem or despise. And the movement of the spirits which causes them is then so manifest, that it even changes the mien, the gestures, the gait, and generally speaking all the actions of those who have a better or a worse opinion of themselves than usual.

And because one of the principal parts of wisdom is to know in what way and for what cause each person ought to esteem or despise himself, I shall here try to place on record my opinion on the matter. I only remark in us one thing which might give us good reason to esteem ourselves, to wit, the use of our free will, and the empire which we possess over our wishes. Because it is for those actions alone which depend on this free will that we may with reason be praised or blamed; and this in a certain measure renders us like God in making us masters of ourselves, provided that we do not through remissness lose the rights which He gives us.

Thus I think that true generosity which causes a man to esteem himself as highly as he legitimately can, consists alone partly in the fact that he knows that there is nothing that truly pertains to him but this free disposition of his will, and that there is no reason why he should be praised or blamed unless it is because he uses it well or ill; and partly in the fact that he is sensible in himself of a firm and constant resolution to use it well, that is to say, never to fail of his own will to undertake and execute all the things which he judges to be the best—which is to follow perfectly after virtue.

Those who have this knowledge and feeling about themselves easily persuade themselves that every other man can also have them in his own case, because there is nothing in this that depends on another. That is why they never despise anyone; and, although they often see that others commit faults which make their feebleness apparent, they are at the same time more inclined to excuse than to blame them, and to believe that it is rather by lack of knowledge than by lack of good-will that they commit them. And, as they do not think of themselves as being much inferior to those who have more goods or honours, or even who have more mental gifts, more knowledge, more beauty, or, generally speaking, who surpass them in some other perfections, they do not at the same time esteem themselves much above those whom they surpass, because all these things seem to them to be of very small account as compared with the good-will for which alone they esteem themselves, and which they also suppose to exist, or at least to be capable of, existing in all other men.

The most high-minded are thus usually the most humble; and virtuous humility simply consists in the fact that the reflection which we make on the infirmity of our nature and on the faults which we may formerly have committed, or are capable of committing, which are not less than those which may be committed by others, is the reason that we do not prefer ourselves to any one else, and that we think that others, having their free-will as well as we, can likewise use it as well as we.

Those who are generous in this way are naturally impelled to do great things and at the same time to undertake nothing of which they do not feel themselves capable. And because they do not hold anything more important than to do good to other men and to disdain their individual interests, they are for this reason always perfectly courteous, affable and obliging towards everyone. And along with that, they are entirely masters of their passions, particularly of the desires, of jealousy and envy, because there is nothing the acquisition of which does not depend on them, which they think of sufficient worth to merit being much sought after; they are likewise free of hatred to other men because they hold all in esteem; and of fear, because the confidence which they have in their virtue assures them; and finally of anger, because, esteeming very little all those things that depend on others, they never give so much advantage to their enemies as to recognise that they are harmed by them.

All those who form a good opinion of themselves for some other reason, whatever it may be, have not a true generosity, but merely a pride which is always very vicious, although it is all the more so, the more the cause for which we esteem ourselves is unjust. And the most unjust cause of all is when we are proud without any reason, that is to say, without our thinking so far as this goes that there is in us any merit for which we ought to be esteemed, simply taking the view that merit is not taken into consideration at all, and that as glory is regarded as nothing but usurpation, those who ascribe most of it to themselves really possess the greatest amount of it. This vice is so unreasonable and absurd, that I should scarcely have believed that there were men who could allow themselves to give way to it, if no one were ever unjustly praised; but flattery is everywhere so common that there is no man so defective that he does not often see himself esteemed for things that do not merit any praise, or even that merit blame; and this gives occasion to the most ignorant and stupid to fall into this species of pride.

But whatever may be the reason for which we esteem ourselves, if it is other than the will which we feel in ourselves always to make good use of our free-will, from which I have stated that generosity proceeds, it always produces a very reprehensible pride, which is so different from this true generosity that it has effects entirely contrary to it. For all those other gifts such as cleverness, beauty, riches, honours, &c. usually being esteemed so much the more highly as they are found in the smaller number of persons, and being even for the most part of such a nature that they cannot be communicated to many persons, that causes the proud to try to depreciate all other men, and, being slaves to their desires, they have a soul incessantly agitated by hatred, envy, jealousy or anger.

As to abjectness or a vicious humility, it consists principally in the fact that men are feeble or have a lack of resolution, and that, as though they had not the entire use of their free-will, they cannot prevent themselves doing things of which they know that they will afterwards repent; it also consists in their considering that they cannot subsist by themselves nor do without many things the acquisition of which depends on others. It is thus directly opposed to noble-mindedness, and it often happens that those who have the most abject minds are the most arrogant and haughty, just as the most noble-minded are the most modest and humble. But while it is the case that those whose minds are strong and noble do not change in disposition in respect of the prosperity or adversity that comes to them, those whose minds are feeble and abject are led simply by Fortune, and prosperity does not puff them up less than adversity makes them humble. Frequently we even observe that they abase themselves with every mark of shame in the presence of those from whom they expect some profit or fear some ill, and, at the same time, that they insolently place themselves above those from whom they neither hope nor fear anything.

For the rest, it is easy to recognise that pride and poor spirit are not only vices, but also passions, because the emotions attached to them readily appear outwardly in those who are suddenly puffed up or cast down by some new occasion that produces them; but we may doubt whether generosity and humility, which are virtues, may likewise be passions, because their movements appear to be less, and because it seems that virtue has not so much in common with passion as has vice. At the same time I see no reason preventing the same movement of the spirits which serves to strengthen a thought when it has a foundation which is bad, from also fortifying it when it has one which is just. And, since pride and generosity consist only in the good opinion which we have of ourselves, and only differ inasmuch as this opinion is unjust in the one case and just in the other, it appears to me that we may relate them to one and the same passion, which is excited by a movement composed of the passions of wonder, of joy and of love, both of that which we have for ourselves, and of that which we have for the thing which causes us to hold ourselves in estimation. On the other hand, the movement which excites humility, whether virtuous or vicious, is composed of the passions of wonder, sadness, and of the love which we have for ourselves, mingled with the hatred which we have for the faults which cause us to disdain ourselves. And the whole difference which I observe in these movements is that the passion of wonder has two properties—the first being that surprise renders it strong from its commencement, and the other that it is equal in its continuance, i.e. that the spirits continue to move according to the same tenor in the brain. Of these properties the first is met with much more in pride and poor spiritedness than in generosity and virtuous humility; and, on the other hand, the second is better seen in the latter than in the other two. The reason of this is that vice usually proceeds from ignorance, and that it is those who know themselves the least who are the most subject to become proud and to humiliate themselves more than they ought to do; because all that happens to them anew surprises them, and brings it to pass that in attributing it to themselves they wonder at themselves, and esteem or despise themselves according as they judge that what happens to them is to their advantage or is not so. But because often after a thing which has made them proud, another follows which humiliates them, the movement of their passions is variable. There is, on the contrary, nothing in generosity which is not consistent with virtuous humility or anything else which might change them, and this causes their movements to be firm, constant, and always very similar to themselves. But they are not due so much to surprise because those who esteem themselves in this way are sufficiently aware what are the causes which make them esteem themselves; at the same time we may say that these things are so wonderful (i.e. the power of making use of one’s free-will, which causes us to value ourselves, and the infirmities of the subject in whom this power rests, which cause us not to place too high a regard on ourselves) that on every occasion on which we present them to ourselves anew, they always supply a new cause for wonder.

And it must be observed that what we commonly name virtues are habitudes in the soul, which dispose it to certain thoughts in such a way that they are different from these thoughts, but can produce them, and reciprocally can be produced by them. It must also be observed that these thoughts may be produced by the soul alone, but that it often happens that some movement of the spirits fortifies them, and that then they are actions of virtue, and at the same time passions of the soul. Thus, while there is no virtue to which it appears as though good native qualities contribute so much as to that which causes us only to esteem ourselves at a just value, and as it is easy to believe that all the souls that God places in human bodies are not equally noble and strong (which is the reason for my having called this virtue generosity, following the usage of our language, rather than magnanimity, following the usage of the Schools where it is not much known) it is yet certain that good instruction serves much in correcting the faults of birth, and that, if we frequently occupy ourselves in the consideration of what free-will is, and how great are the advantages which proceed from a firm resolution to make a good use of it, as also, on the other hand, how vain and useless are all the cares which exercise the ambitions, we may excite in ourselves the passion, and then acquire the virtue of generosity, which, being so to speak the key of all other virtues, and a general remedy for all the disorders of the passions, it appears to me that this consideration is well worthy of notice.

Veneration, or respect, is an inclination of the soul not only to esteem the object which it reveres, but also to submit itself thereto with some fear, in order to try to render it favourably inclined. In this way we possess veneration only for free causes which we judge to be capable of doing good or evil to us, without our knowing which of the two they may do. For we have love and devotion rather than a simple veneration for those from whom we expect nothing but good, and we have hatred for those from whom we expect only evil. And, if we do not believe that the cause of this good or evil is free, we do not submit ourselves to it in order to render it favourable to us. Thus when the pagans had veneration for woods, fountains, or mountains, it was not properly speaking these dead things which they revered, but the divinities which they believed to preside over these. And the movement of the animal spirits which excites veneration is composed of that which excites wonder and that which excites fear, of which I shall speak later.

At the same time what I call disdain is the inclination which the soul has to despise a free cause, in judging that, although in its nature it is capable of doing good or evil, it is nevertheless so much below us that to us it can do neither. And the movement of the spirits which excites it is composed of those which excite wonder and security or assurance.

And it is the noble-mindedness and feebleness of soul or poor spirit, which determine the good and the evil employment of these two passions; for the more noble and generous our soul is, the more inclination we have to render to each man what pertains to him; and thus we have not only a very profound humility in regard to God, but we also render without any repugnance all the honour and respect which is due to each man according to the rank and authority which he has in the world, and we disdain nothing but vices. Those who have a low and feeble mind, on the contrary, are subject to sin by excess, sometimes inasmuch as they revere and fear things which are worthy of disdain alone, and sometimes inasmuch as they insolently despise those which most merit reverence; and they often pass very quickly from extreme impiety to superstition, and then from superstition to impiety, so that there is no vice nor disorder of the mind of which they are not capable.

Hope is a disposition of the soul to persuade itself that what it desires will come to pass: and this is caused by a particular movement of the spirits, i.e. by that of joy and that of desire mingled together; and fear is another disposition of the soul which persuades it that the thing hoped for will not come to pass; and it must be observed that, although these two passions are contrary, we can nevertheless have them both at the same time, that is to say, when we represent to ourselves different reasons at the same time, some of which cause us to judge that the accomplishment of desire is easy, while the others make it seem difficult.

And no one of these passions ever accompanies desire without its giving place in some way to the other; for when hope is so strong that it entirely drives away fear, it changes its nature and is called security or confidence; and when we are assured that what we desire will come to pass, though we continue to desire that it shall come to pass, we nevertheless cease to be agitated by the passion of desire, which made its accomplishment be regarded with anxiety. In the same way, when fear is so extreme that it removes all place for hope, it converts itself into despair; and this despair, representing the matter as impossible, entirely extinguishes desire, which only relates to things that are possible.

Jealousy is a species of fear which is related to the desire we have to preserve to ourselves the possession of some thing; and it does not so much proceed from the strength of the reasons that suggest the possibility of our losing that good, as from the high estimation in which we hold it, and which is the cause of our examining even the minutest subjects of suspicion, and taking them to be very considerable reasons for anxiety.

And because we ought to have more care in preserving these good possessions that are very great than those which are less, this passion may be just and right in some circumstances. Thus, for example, a captain who is defending a position of great importance has the right to be jealous of it, that is to say, to be mistrustful of all the means by which it might be surprised; and a good woman is not blamed for being jealous of her honour, that is, when she is not only guarding herself against acting wrongly, but also avoiding even the slightest reason for scandal.

But we scorn a miser when he is jealous of his treasure, that is, when he gloats over it, and desires never to be away from it in case he is robbed of it; for money is not worthy of being guarded with so much care. And we despise a man who is jealous of his wife, because it shows that he does not love her in the right way, and that he has a bad opinion of himself or of her. I repeat that he does not love her in the right way, since if he had a true love for her, he would not have any inclination to distrust her; but it is not properly speaking she whom he loves, but just the good which he conceives as consisting in having sole possession of her, and he would not fear to lose this good did he not judge himself to be unworthy of it, or else conceive that his wife is unfaithful. For the rest this passion only relates to suspicions and distrust, since it is not properly speaking being jealous to try to avoid some evil when we have just cause for fearing it.

Irresolution is likewise a species of fear, which, holding the soul so to speak in a state of suspension between the many actions which it may perform, is the cause for its executing none, and thus for its having time for choosing before deciding, and this function is truly of a certain value. But when it lasts longer than it ought to do, and causes the time requisite for action to be employed in deliberation, it is very bad. And I assert that it is a species of fear, notwithstanding that it may happen, when we have a choice of several things the excellence of which seems to be very equal, that we remain uncertain and irresolute without our having for all that any fear; for this kind of irresolution proceeds only from the object presented, and not from any movement of the animal spirits; that is why this is not a passion unless it be that the fear we have of choosing wrongly augments our uncertainty. But this fear is so common and so strong in some people that often, although they have nothing to choose, and see only one thing which they may take or leave, it keeps them back and causes them to stop futilely and seek for something else; and then it is an excess of irresolution which proceeds from a too great desire to do right and from a feebleness of understanding, which, having no clear and distinct conceptions, simply has many confused ones. That is why the remedy against this excess is to accustom oneself to form certain and determinate judgments concerning all things that present themselves, and to believe that we always do our duty when we do what we judge to be best, although we may possibly judge very badly.

Courage, when it is a passion and not a custom or natural inclination, is a certain heat or agitation which disposes the soul forcibly to bend itself powerfully to the execution of the things which it desires to do, of whatever nature they may be; and bravery is a species of courage which disposes the soul to the execution of the things that are the most dangerous.

And emulation is also a species of courage, but in another sense; for we may consider courage as a genus which divides into as many species as there are different objects, and into as many others as it has causes; in the first aspect bravery is a species, and in the second, emulation. And this last is none other than a heat which disposes the soul to undertake things which it hopes to be able on its own account to succeed in, because it sees them succeed with others; and thus it is a species of courage of which the external cause is example. I repeat the external cause, because it must ever have in addition to that an inward cause, which consists in the fact that the body is so constituted that desire and hope have more power in causing a quantity of blood to pass to the heart than has fear or despair to prevent it.

For it must be remarked that although the object of bravery is difficulty, from which there usually follows fear, or even despair, so that it is in matters the most dangerous and desperate that we employ most bravery or courage, it is yet essential that we should hope, or even that we should be assured, that the end which is proposed will succeed, in order to oppose with vigour the difficulties that we meet with. But this end is different from this object of bravery; for we could not be assured of and hopeless of the same thing at the same time. Thus when the Decii threw themselves against their enemies and rushed to certain death, the object of their bravery was the difficulty of preserving their life during this action, for which difficulty they had only despair, for they were certain of perishing; but their end was to animate their soldiers by their example, and to cause them to win the victory, for which they had hope; or again their end also was to obtain after their death a glory of which they were assured.

Cowardice is directly opposed to courage, and it is a languor or coldness which prevents the soul from proceeding to the execution of things which it would do were it exempt from this passion; and fear or terror, which is contrary to bravery, is not only a coldness, but also a perturbation and astonishment of the soul, which takes from it the power of resisting the evils which it thinks lie at hand.

And, although I cannot persuade myself that nature has given to men any passion which is always vicious and has no good and praiseworthy use, I have yet much trouble in guessing what end these two can serve. It merely seems to me that cowardice has some use when it exempts us from taking the pains which we might be incited to take by probable reasons, if other more certain reasons, which have caused them to be judged useless, had not excited this passion; for besides the fact that it exempts the soul from these pains, it is secondly useful also for the body, inasmuch as, in restraining the movement of the spirits, it prevents us from dissipating our forces. But usually it is very hurtful, because it turns away the will from useful actions; and because it only proceeds from the fact that we have not enough hope or desire, we only need to augment within us these two passions in order to correct it.

As to the significance of fear or terror, I do not see that it can ever be praiseworthy or useful; it likewise is not a special passion, but merely an excess of cowardice, astonishment and fear, which is always vicious, just as bravery is an excess of courage which is always good, provided that the end proposed is good; and because the principal cause of fear is surprise, there is nothing better for getting rid of it than to use premeditation and to prepare oneself for all eventualities, the fear of which may cause it.

Remorse of conscience is a species of sadness which comes from the doubt which we have that a thing which we are doing or have done is good; and it necessarily presupposes doubt. For if we were entirely assured that what we are doing was bad, we should abstain from doing it, inasmuch as the will only tends towards things which have some appearance of goodness; and if we were assured that what we have already done was bad, we should experience repentance for it, not simply remorse. And the use of this passion is to make us examine whether that of which we doubt is good or not, or to prevent our doing it another time so long as we are not certain that it is good. But because it presupposes evil, the better part would be never to have occasion to feel it; and we may prevent it by the same means as those whereby we may exempt ourselves from irresolution.

Derision or scorn is a sort of joy mingled with hatred, which proceeds from our perceiving some small evil in a person whom we consider to be deserving of it; we have hatred for this evil, we have joy in seeing it in him who is deserving of it; and when that comes upon us unexpectedly, the surprise of wonder is the cause of our bursting into laughter, in accordance with what has been said above of the nature of laughter. But this evil must be small, for if it is great we cannot believe that he who has it is deserving of it, unless when we are of a very evil nature or bear much hatred towards him.

And we notice that people with very obvious defects such as those who are lame, blind of an eye, hunched-backed, or who have received some public insult, are specially given to mockery; for, desiring to see all others held in as low estimation as themselves, they are truly rejoiced at the evils which befall them, and they hold them deserving of these.

As regards the modest bantering which is useful in reproving vices by making them appear ridiculous, so long as we do not laugh at them ourselves or bear any hatred towards the individuals concerned, it is not a passion, but a quality pertaining to the well disposed man which gives evidence of the gaiety of his temper and the tranquillity of his soul, which are characteristic marks of virtue; it often also shows the ingenuity of his mind in knowing how to present an agreeable appearance to the things which he ridicules.

And it is not wrong to laugh when we hear the jests of another; these jests may even be such that it would be difficult not to laugh at them; but when we ourselves jest, it is more fitting to abstain from laughter, in order not to seem to be surprised by the things that are said, nor to wonder at the ingenuity we show in inventing them. And that makes those who hear them all the more surprised.

What we usually call envy is a vice which consists in a perversion of nature which causes certain people to be annoyed with the good which they see coming to others, but I here use the word to signify a passion which is not always vicious. Envy, then, in so far as it is a passion, is a kind of sadness mingled with hatred, which proceeds from our seeing good coming to those whom we consider unworthy of it; and we cannot think this with any reason excepting in relation to the good things of fortune. For as regards those of the soul, or even of the body, inasmuch as we possess them from birth, it is sufficient so far as worthiness is concerned that we have received them from God before being capable of committing any evil.

But when fortune sends good things to some one who is truly unworthy of them, and envy is only excited in us because, naturally loving justice, we are vexed that it is not observed in the distribution of these good things, our sentiments may be excusable, more especially when the good which we envy in others is of such a kind that it may be converted into evil in their hands, as when it is some charge or office in whose exercise they may comport themselves ill. When we desire the same good for ourselves and are prevented from having it because others who are less worthy possess it, this passion is rendered more violent; and it does not cease to be excusable provided that the hatred which it contains relates solely to the bad distribution of the good which we envy, and not to the persons who possess it or distribute it. But there are few who are sufficiently generous and just not to bear hatred to those who get the better of them in the acquisition of a good which is not communicable to many, and which they had desired for themselves, although those who acquired it are as worthy or even more so. And what is usually most envied is glory; for although the glory of others does not prevent our being able to aspire to it, it yet renders access to it more difficult, and heightens the price we must pay for it.

For the rest, there is no vice which so detracts from the happiness of men as that of envy; for, in addition to the fact that those who are tainted with it distress themselves, they also disturb to the utmost of their power the pleasure of others; and usually they have a leaden hue, that is to say, one of mingled yellow and black like battered blood, whence envy is in Latin called livor, which accords very well with what has been said above regarding the movements of the blood in sadness and hatred. For the former causes the yellow bile which proceeds from the lower portion of the liver, and the black which proceeds from the spleen, to expand from the heart by the arteries into all the veins, and the latter causes the blood in the veins to have less heat, and to flow more slowly than usual, which suffices to render the colour livid. But because the bile, yellow as well as black, may also be sent into the veins by many other causes, and because envy does not send them there in sufficiently great quantity to change the shade of the colour, except when it is great and of long duration, we must not think that all those in whom we observe this colour are inclined thereto.

Pity is a species of sadness, mingled with love or good-will towards those whom we see suffering some evil of which we consider them undeserving. It is thus contrary to envy by reason of its object, and to scorn because it considers its objects in another way.

Those who feel themselves very feeble and subject to the adversities of fortune appear to be more disposed to this passion than others, because they represent the evil of others as possibly occurring to themselves; and then they are moved to pity more by the love that they bear to themselves than by that which they bear to others.

Nevertheless those who are most generous and strongest in mind, inasmuch as they fear no ill for themselves and hold themselves to be beyond the powers of fortune, are not exempt from compassion when they see the infirmity of other men and hear their plaints; for it is a part of generosity to wish well to one and all. But the sadness of this pity is no longer bitter, and, like that caused by the tragic actions which we see represented in a theatre, it is more external and in the senses than in the interior of the soul, which has yet the satisfaction of thinking that it does its duty in compassionating the afflicted. And there is this difference here that while the ordinary man has compassion on those who lament their lot because he thinks that the evils from which they suffer are very vexatious, the principal object of the pity of the greatest men is the weakness of those whom they see bemoaning their fate, because they do not consider that any accident which might possibly happen would be so great an ill as is the cowardice of those who cannot endure it with constancy; and although they hate vices, they do not for all that hate those whom they see subject to them, but only pity them.

But it is only the evilly disposed and envious, who naturally hate all men, or those who are so brutal and blinded by good fortune, or rendered so desperate by evil fortune that they do not consider that any evil can happen to them, who are insensible to pity.

For the rest we weep very easily in this passion because love, sending much blood towards the heart, causes many vapours to issue from the eyes, and the coldness of sadness, retarding the agitation of these vapours, causes them to change into tears, in accordance with what has been said above.

The satisfaction which those who pursue virtue constantly have, is a habitude of their soul which is called tranquillity and repose of conscience; but that which is newly acquired, when we have just done some action which we think good, is a passion, i.e. a species of joy which I consider to be the sweetest of all joys, because its cause depends only on ourselves. At the same time when this cause is not just, i.e. when the actions from which we derive much satisfaction are not of great importance or are even vicious, it is absurd, and only serves to produce pride and an impertinent arrogance; and this we observe particularly in those who, believing themselves to be pious, are merely bigoted and given over to superstitions. That is to say they are those who, under the pretence that they go frequently to church, that they recite many prayers, that they wear their hair short, that they fast, that they give alms, think themselves to be absolutely perfect, and imagine themselves to be such close friends of God that they can do nothing to displease Him, and that all that their passion presents is well-directed zeal, although it sometimes guides them into the greatest crimes that can be committed by men, such as the betrayal of towns, the assassination of princes, the extermination of entire peoples, for the sole reason that they do not follow their opinions.

Repentance is directly opposed to self-satisfaction and is a species of sadness which comes from our believing ourselves to have committed some evil action; and it is very bitter because its cause proceeds from ourselves alone, though this does not prevent its being very useful when it is the case that the action of which we repent is evil, and when we have a certain knowledge of it, because it incites us to do better another time. But it often happens that feeble minds repent of the things they have done without knowing assuredly that they are evil; they only persuade themselves because they fear it is so, and if they had done the opposite, they would have repented in the same way; and this is an imperfection in them deserving of pity. The remedies for this fault are the same as those which serve to remove irresolution.

Favour is, properly speaking, a desire to see good coming to some one for whom one has good will: but here I make use of this word to signify this will inasmuch as it is excited in us by some good action on the part of him for whom we have it. For we are naturally impelled to love those who do the things which we esteem to be good, even though no good comes to us by so doing. In this sense favour is a species of love, not of desire, although the desire to see good come to him whom one favours always accompanies it; and it is usually united to pity because the tribulations which we see falling upon the unfortunate are the cause of our reflecting all the more on their merits.

Gratitude is also a species of love excited in us by some action on the part of him for whom we have it, by which also we believe that he has done us some good or at least had that intention. It has thus the same content as favour, and so much the more in that it is founded on an action which affects us, and of which we have the desire to make a return. That is why it has much more strength, especially in the minds of those who are, to however small a degree, noble and generous.

As to ingratitude it is not a passion, for nature has not placed in us any movement of the spirits which excites it; it is merely a vice directly opposed to gratitude, inasmuch as the former is always virtuous and one of the principal bonds that bind together human society. That is why this vice is found only in men who are brutal and very arrogant, and who think that all things are their due; or in stupid people, who never reflect on the benefits that they receive; or feeble and abject persons who, being sensible of their infirmity and need, basely seek the help of others, and after they have received it, hate their benefactors because, not having the will to render them the like, or despairing to be able to do so, and imagining that every one is as mercenary as they, and that no good thing is accomplished without the hope of recompense, they think they have deceived them.

Indignation is a species of hatred or aversion which we have by nature against those who do some evil of whatever sort it be; and it is often mingled with envy or pity, but yet it has a very different object. For we are indignant only with those who do good or evil to persons who are undeserving of it; but we are envious of those who receive this good, and we pity those who receive the evil. It is true that it is in some ways doing evil to possess a good of which we are not worthy; and this may be the reason why Aristotle and his successors, supposing envy to be always a vice, have termed by the name indignation that passion which is not vicious.

It is likewise in some way receiving evil to do evil, from whence it comes that some unite pity to their indignation, and others scorn, according as they are disposed to good will or evil towards those whom they observe committing faults; and it is thus that the laughter of Democritus and the tears of Heraclitus have proceeded from the same cause.

Indignation is often likewise accompanied by wonder; for we usually suppose that all things will be done in the manner we judge they ought to be done, that is, in the way we esteem to be good; that is why, when it happens otherwise, it surprises us, and we wonder at it. It is also not incompatible with joy, although it is more usually united to sadness; for when the evil as to which we are indignant cannot hurt us, and we consider that we would not desire to do the same, that gives us some pleasure; and it is possibly one of the causes of the laughter which sometimes accompanies this passion.

For the rest, indignation is noticed much more in those who wish to appear virtuous than in those who really are so; for, although those who love virtue cannot without aversion see the vices of others, they do not become impassioned excepting against those that are greatest and most extraordinary. It is being ill-tempered and fretful to have much indignation for things of slight importance; it is being unjust, to have it for things not blameworthy at all; and it is being impertinent and absurd not to restrict this passion to the actions of men and to extend them to the works of God or nature, as do those who, never being content with their condition or fortune, dare to find subject for criticism in the conduct of the world and in the secrets of Providence.

Anger is also a species of hatred or aversion which we have towards those who have done some evil to or have tried to injure not any chance person but more particularly ourselves. Thus it has the same content as indignation, and all the more so in that it is founded on an action which affects us, and for which we desire to avenge ourselves, for this desire almost always accompanies it; and it is directly opposed to gratitude, as indignation is to favour. But it is incomparably more violent than these three other passions, because the desire to repel harmful things and to revenge oneself, is the most persistent of all desires. It is desire, united to self-love, which furnishes to anger the agitation of the blood that courage and bravery can cause; and hatred brings it to pass that it is mainly the bilious blood coming from the spleen and the small veins of the liver that experiences this agitation and enters into the heart, where, because of its abundance and of the nature of the bile with which it is mingled, it excites a heat which is more severe and ardent than is that which may be excited by love or by joy.

And the external signs of this passion are different according to the difference of personal temperaments and the diversity of the other passions which compose it or unite themselves with it. We thus see people who become pale or who tremble when they become angry, and we see others who become flushed or who even weep; and we usually judge that the anger of those who grow pale is more to be feared than the anger of those who become red. And the reason of this is that when we do not desire to, or are unable to revenge ourselves otherwise than by our expression and words, we employ all our heat and all our strength from the commencement of our emotion, and this is the reason that we become red; besides which sometimes the regret and self-pity that we have, since we cannot avenge ourselves otherwise, is the reason why we weep. And, on the other hand, those who hold themselves in and make up their minds to a greater vengeance, become sad from thinking themselves obliged to behave so by the action which angers them; and they are sometimes also afraid by reason of the evils which may follow on the resolution which they have taken, which renders them pale, cold and trembling to begin with. But when they afterwards come to execute their vengeance, they become warm again in proportion as they had been cold to begin with, just as we notice that fevers which commence with chill usually become the most severe.

This shows us that we can distinguish two kinds of anger: the one which is very hasty and manifests itself very much on the surface, but which yet has little effect and can be easily appeased; the other which does not show itself so much to begin with, but which all the more powerfully gnaws the heart and has more dangerous effects. Those who have much goodness and much love are most subject to the first, for it does not proceed from a profound hatred, but from an instant aversion, which surprises them, because, being impelled to imagine that all things should go in the way which they judge to be best, so soon as it happens otherwise, they wonder and frequently are displeased, even although the matter does not affect them personally, because, having much affection, they interest themselves for those whom they love in the same way as for themselves. Thus what would only be cause for indignation in the case of another, is for them a cause of anger; and because the inclination which they have to love causes them to have much heat and much blood in their heart, the aversion which surprises them cannot send there bile in so small a quantity that it does not cause at first a great commotion in this blood. But this commotion does not last, because the strength of the surprise does not continue, and because, as soon as they perceive that the subject which has vexed them ought not to affect them so much, they repent of it.

The other kind of anger in which hatred and sadness predominate, is not so apparent at first if it be not perhaps that it causes the face to grow pale; but its strength is little by little increased by the agitation of an ardent desire to avenge oneself excited in the blood, which, being mingled with the bile which is sent towards the heart from the lower part of the liver and spleen, excites there a very keen and ardent heat. And as it is the most generous souls who have most gratitude, it is those who have most pride, and who are most base and infirm, who most allow themselves to be carried away by this kind of anger; for the injuries appear so much the greater as pride causes us to esteem ourselves more, and likewise the more we esteem the good things which they remove; which last we value so much the more, as our soul is the more feeble and base, because they depend on others.

For the rest, although this passion is useful in giving us strength in repelling injuries, there is yet no passion an excess of which we should more carefully avoid, because, in disturbing our judgment, they often cause us to commit faults of which we have afterwards to repent, and they even sometimes prevent our repelling these injuries as well as we might have done had we suffered less emotion. But as there is nothing which makes it excessive so much as pride, so I think that noble spirit is the best remedy which can be found against its excesses, because, causing us to esteem very little all the good things which may be taken away, and on the other hand to esteem highly the liberty and absolute dominion over self that we cease to have when we allow ourselves to be offended by some one, it brings it to pass that we have nothing but disdain, or at the most indignation, for those injuries which others are wont to resent angrily.

What I here call by the name glory is a species of joy founded on self-love, which proceeds from the belief or hope we have of being praised by certain others. It is thus different from the internal satisfaction that comes from our belief that we have performed some good action; for we are sometimes praised for things which we do not believe to be good, and blamed for those we believe to be better. But both are species of self-esteem as well as species of joy; for seeing that we are esteemed by others is a reason for esteeming ourselves.

Shame, on the contrary, is a species of sadness, also founded on self-love, which proceeds from the apprehension or the fear which we possess of being blamed; besides that it is a species of modesty or humility and mistrust of self. For when we esteem ourselves so highly that we cannot imagine ourselves to be disdained by any, we cannot easily be ashamed.

Glory and shame have the same functions in so far as they incite us to virtue, the one by hope, and the other by fear. It is only necessary to inform one’s judgment as to what is truly worthy of being blamed or praised in order that we may not be ashamed of doing well or make our vices a source of vanity, as happens in the case of many. But it is not good to rid oneself entirely of these passions as the Cynics used to do; for although common people judge very ill, yet because we cannot live without others and it is important to us to be esteemed by them, we ought frequently to follow their opinions rather than ours respecting the external aspect of our actions.

Impudence or effrontery, which is a disdain of shame and frequently of glory also, is not a passion, because there is not in us any special movement of the spirits which excites it; but it is a vice opposed to shame and also to glory, inasmuch as both are good, just as ingratitude is opposed to gratitude and cruelty to pity. And the principal cause of effrontery proceeds from a man’s having frequently received great affronts; for there is no one who does not in his youth imagine that praise is a good, and infamy an evil, much more important to life than it is found by experience to be, when, on receiving some signal affronts, he sees himself to be entirely deprived of honour and disdained by all men. That is why such men become shameless who, only estimating good or evil by their bodily well-being, see that after these affronts they flourish just as much as before or even sometimes much more, because they are free from many trammels imposed upon them by honour, and because they discover that if the loss of their goods is united to their disgrace, charitable people are always found who give to them.

Disgust is a species of sadness which proceeds from the same cause as that from which joy earlier proceeded. For we are so constituted that the greater part of the things as to which we rejoice are only good in our regard for a time, and afterwards become tiresome. This is specially true in respect of eating and drinking which are useful only so long as we have an appetite, and are hurtful when we have it no longer; and because they then cease to be agreeable to the taste this passion is termed disgust.

Regret is also a kind of sadness which has a particular bitterness inasmuch as it is always united to a certain despair and to the memory of the pleasure which gave us joy, for we regret nothing but the good things regarding which we rejoiced and which are so lost that we have no hope of recovering them at the time and in the guise in which we regret them.

Finally, what I call cheerfulness is a species of joy in which there is this peculiarity, that its sweetness is increased by the recollection of the evils which we have suffered, and of which we are relieved, in the same way as we feel freed of some heavy burden which we have for a long time borne on our shoulders. And I observe nothing very remarkable in these three passions, nor have I placed them here but in order to follow the enumeration which I made above; yet it seems to me that this enumeration has been useful in order to show that we have omitted none which were worthy of particular consideration.

And now that we are acquainted with them all, we have much less reason to fear them than we formerly had. For we see that they are all good in their nature and that we have nothing to avoid but their evil uses or their excesses, against which the remedies which I explained might suffice, if each one of us took sufficient heed to practise them. But because I have placed amongst these remedies the forethought and diligence whereby we can correct our natural faults in exercising ourselves in separating within us the movements of the blood and spirits from the thoughts to which they are usually united. I confess that there are few people who are sufficiently prepared in this way to meet all the accidents of life, and that these movements excited in the blood by the objects of the passions follow so promptly from these single impressions that are made in the brain and from the disposition of the organs, although the soul contributes in no wise to them, that there is no human wisdom capable of resisting them when sufficient preparation is not made for doing so. Thus many people cannot prevent themselves from laughing on being tickled, even though they have no pleasure in it; for the impression of joy and surprise which caused them formerly to laugh for the same reason, being once more awakened in their imagination, causes their lung to be suddenly inflated in spite of themselves by the blood which the heart sends to it. In this way those who are naturally much carried away by their disposition towards emotions of joy or pity, or fear or anger, cannot prevent themselves from fainting, weeping, or trembling, or from having their blood agitated just as though they had a fever, when their imagination is violently affected by the object of some one of these passions. But what we can always do on such occasions, and what I think I can here put forward as the most general remedy and that most easy to practise against all excesses of the passions, is that, when we feel our blood to be thus agitated, we should be warned of the fact, and recollect that all that presents itself before the imagination tends to delude the soul and causes the reasons which serve to urge it to accomplish the object of its passion to appear much stronger than they are, and those which serve to dissuade it to be much weaker. And when the passions urge us only towards things the execution of which necessitates some delay, we ought to abstain from pronouncing any judgment on the spot, and to divert ourselves by other thoughts until time and rest shall have entirely calmed the emotion which is in the blood. And finally, when it incites us to actions regarding which it is requisite that an immediate resolution should be taken, the will must make it its main business to consider and follow up the reasons which are contrary to those set up by the passions, although they appear to be less strong; just as when we are suddenly attacked by some enemy, the occasion does not permit of our taking time to deliberate. But it seems to me that what those who are accustomed to reflect on their actions can always do when they feel themselves to be seized with fear, is to try to turn their thoughts away from the consideration of danger by representing to themselves the reasons which prove that there is much more certainty and honour in resistance than in flight. And on the other hand, when they feel that the desire of vengeance and anger incites them to run thoughtlessly towards those who attack them, they will recollect that it is imprudence to lose their lives when they can without dishonour save themselves, and that, if the match is very unequal, it is better to beat an honourable retreat or ask quarter, than to expose oneself doggedly to certain death.

For the rest, the soul may have pleasures of its own, but as to those which are common to it and the body, they depend entirely on the passions, so that the men whom they can most move are capable of partaking most of enjoyment in this life. It is true that such men may also find most bitterness when they do not know how to employ them well, or fortune is contrary to them. But the principal use of prudence or self-control is that it teaches us to be masters of our passions, and to so control and guide them that the evils which they cause are quite bearable, and that we even derive joy from them all.