How All Passions Are Caused by Some Movement of the Spirits

37. How All Passions Are Caused by Some Movement of the Spirits

The passions are created by the spirits contained in the cavities of the brain when they:

• go towards the nerves that enlarge or constrict the heart’s orifices
• push the blood towards the heart from other parts, or in some other way to maintain the same passion

38. Example of Involuntary Bodily Movements [Instincts] That Accompany Passions

The animal spirits can move the pineal gland to create fear in the soul. This happens when they go to the nerves of the heart by themselves.

Likewise, some spirits simultaneously go towards the nerves of the legs to flee. This moves the pineal gland and makes the soul feel this flight,

In this way, fear and flight can be excited in the body solely by the disposition of the organs, without the soul contributing to it.

39. How the Same Cause Can Excite Various Passions in Different People

The same impression that the presence of a frightening object makes on the gland and that causes fear in some men can excite courage and boldness in others.

This is because not all brains are disposed in the same way.

The same movement of the pineal gland that excites fear in some causes the spirits in others:

• to enter the pores of the brain into the nerves that move the hands for defense, and
• partly to those that push the blood towards the heart in the way required to produce spirits suitable to continue this defense and sustain the will.

40. What Is the Principal Effect of Passions?

The passions incite and dispose the soul to want the things they prepare their body for:

• The feeling of fear incites the soul to want to flee
• The feeling of boldness incites it to want to fight, and so on for the others.

41. What Is the Power of the Soul with Respect to the Body?

The will is so free by its nature that it can never be constrained.

The soul has 2 kinds of thoughts:

1. Actions, as its wills

These are absolutely within its power and can only be indirectly changed by the body.

All the action of the soul is in that by merely willing something.

This makes the pineal gland, to which it is closely joined, move in the way required to produce the effect that matches that will.

2. Passions, as all kinds of perceptions

These depend absolutely on the actions that produce them. They can only be indirectly changed by the soul, except when it is itself their cause.

42. How One Finds in Memory the Things One Wants to Remember

When the soul wants to remember something, it causes the pineal gland to tilt successively in various directions. This pushes the spirits towards different places in the brain until they find where the traces left by the object one wants to remember are.

These traces are the pores of the brain through which the spirits previously went through due to the presence of this object.

The easily rememberable experiences are where the pores are easier to be reopened by the spirits entering them.

When the spirits find these pores, they enter them more easily than the others. This excites a particular movement in the gland, which represents the same object to the soul. This makes the soul recognize that it is the one it wanted to remember.

43. How the Soul Can Imagine, Be Attentive, and Move the Body.

When one wants to imagine something never seen before, this will can make the gland move in the way required to push the spirits towards the brain’s pores. The thing can then be represented by those openings.

Thus, when one wants to keep one’s attention fixed on considering the same object for some time, this will keeps the gland tilted in the same direction for that time.

When one wants to walk or move his body in another way, this will makes the gland push the spirits towards the muscles for this purpose.

44. Each Will Is Naturally Joined to Some Movement of the Gland; But That by Industry or Habit It Can Be Joined to Others

However, it is not always the will to excite some movement or other effect in us that can make us excite it:

This changes according to how nature or habit has associated each pineal gland movement to each thought.

• If one wants to look at a very distant object, this will makes the pupil dilate.
• If one wants to look at a very close object, this will makes it contract.

But if one thinks only of dilating the pupil, one will not succeed in doing so merely by wanting it. This is because nature has not associated:

• the gland’s movement that pushes the spirits to the optic nerve in the way required to dilate or contract the pupil
• the will to dilate or contract it

Instead, such a movement is associated with the will to look at distant or close objects.

When speaking, we think only of the meaning of what we want to say. This makes us move the tongue and lips much more quickly and better than if we thought of moving them in all the ways required to pronounce the same words.

The habit that we have acquired in learning to speak has made us associate 2 things:

• the will as the movements of the gland that can move the tongue and lips
• the meaning of the words that follow from these movements, rather than with the movements themselves.