The number and order of the Passions, and the six primary ones

51. What are the first causes of the passions?

The agitation by which the spirits move the pineal gland is the cause of the passions.

But this alone is not sufficient to distinguish them from each other.

It is necessary to investigate their sources and examine their first causes.

Sometimes, the passions may be caused by:

• the action of the soul, which determines to conceive certain objects
• the temperament of the body alone
• the impressions that happen fortuitously in the brain
  • This is when we feel sad or joyful without finding any reason for it.*

Yet these same passions can also be excited by objects that affect the senses. These objects are their more ordinary and principal causes.

Hence it follows that to identify all of them, it suffices to consider all the effects of these objects.

52. What is their use, and how they can be enumerated.

The objects which affect the senses incite various passions in us due to:

• the various ways in which those objects can harm or benefit us
• their importance to use in general

The purpose of all passions is to dispose the soul:

• to desire the things that nature dictates to be useful to us, and
• to persist in this desire

I will list all the principal passions in the order in which they can be found.

These are the main ways our senses can be moved by their objects.

The Order and Enumeration of the Passions

53. Admiration

This is when we first encounter an object which is very positively different from what we previously knew, or from what we supposed it should be.

We admire it and are astonished by it.

This can happen before we know how this object can be suitable for us or not. I think that Admiration is the first of all the passions.

It has no opposite, because if the object presented to us does not contain anything that surprises us, we are not moved by it at all, and we consider it without passion.

54. Esteem and Disdain, Generosity or Pride, and Humility or Meanness

To Admiration is added Esteem or Disdain, depending on whether it is the greatness or smallness of an object that we admire.

In this way, we can esteem or disdain ourselves: hence arise the passions and subsequently the habits of Magnanimity or Pride, and of Humility or Meanness.

55. Veneration and Scorn

But when we esteem or disdain other objects that we consider as free causes capable of doing good or harm, from Esteem comes Veneration, and from mere disdain comes Scorn.

56. Love and Hatred

All the preceding passions can be aroused in us without us perceiving in any way whether the object causing them is good or bad.

But when a thing is represented to us as good for us, that is to say, as suitable for us, this causes us to have Love for it; and when it is represented to us as bad or harmful, this arouses Hatred in us.

57. Desire

From the same consideration of good and bad arise all the other passions. But to arrange them in order, I distinguish their times, and considering that they incline us much more to look to the future than to the present or the past, I begin with Desire.

For not only when one desires to acquire a good that one does not yet possess, or to avoid an evil that one judges could happen, but also when one desires only the preservation of a good, or the absence of an evil, which is all that this passion can extend to, it is evident that it always concerns the future.

58. Hope, Fear, Jealousy, Security, and Despair.

The acquisition of a good or the avoidance of an evil is possible, to be incited to desire it.

But when we also consider whether there is much or little likelihood that we will obtain what we desire, what represents to us that there is much likelihood excites Hope in us, and what represents to us that there is little likelihood excites Fear; of which Jealousy is a kind. And when Hope is extreme, it changes its nature and is called Security or Assurance.

Conversely, extreme Fear becomes Despair.

59. Indecision, Courage, Boldness, Emulation, Cowardice, and Terror.

Thus we can hope and fear, even though the outcome of what we expect does not depend at all on us.

But when it is represented to us as depending on us, there may be difficulty in choosing the means or in executing them.

From the former arises Indecision, which disposes us to deliberate and seek counsel. Courage or Boldness opposes the latter, of which Emulation is a kind. And Cowardice is contrary to courage, just as Fear or Terror is to Boldness.

60. Remorse

If one has determined upon some action before Indecision is removed, this gives rise to Remorse of conscience: which does not concern the future like the preceding passions, but rather the present or the past.

61. Joy and Sadness

The consideration of present good arouses Joy in us, that of present evil, Sadness, when it is a good or an evil that is represented to us as belonging to us.

62. Mockery, Envy, Compassion.

But when it is represented to us as belonging to other men, we can deem them worthy or unworthy of it: and when we deem them worthy, it arouses in us no passion other than Joy, insofar as it is for us a good thing to see things happen as they should.

There is only this difference, that Joy arising from good is serious, whereas that arising from evil is accompanied by Laughter and Mockery. But if we deem them unworthy of it, good arouses Envy, and evil arouses Compassion, which are kinds of sadness.

The same passions which relate to present goods or evils can often also be related to those that are to come, insofar as the opinion we have that they will come represents them as present.

63. Self-satisfaction, and Repentance.

We can also consider the cause of the present or past good or evil. And the good that has been done by ourselves gives us an inner satisfaction, which is the sweetest of all passions; whereas evil arouses Repentance, which is the most bitter.

64. Favor, and Gratitude

But the good done by others causes us to have Favor for them, even though it is not to us that it has been done; and if it is done to us, to Favor we add Gratitude.

65. Indignation and Anger

Similarly, the evil done by others, not being related to us, only causes us to have Indignation towards them; and when it is related to us, also arouses Anger.

66. Glory, and Shame

The good that is or has been in us, being related to the opinion that others may have of it, arouses in us Glory; and evil, Shame.

67. Disgust, Regret, and Joy

Sometimes the duration of good causes Boredom or Disgust, whereas that of evil diminishes Sadness. At the end of past good comes Regret, which is a form of Sadness; and from past evil comes Joy, which is a form of Joy.

68. Why this enumeration of Passions differs from the commonly accepted one.

Other people have written about the passions. But they base their list on what they distinguish in the sensitive part of the soul as two appetites, which they call one Concupiscible, the other Irascible.

But I do not recognize such a distinction which would mean that the soul has 2 faculties:

1. To desire
2. To anger

I do not understand why other philosophers wanted to relate all passions to concupiscence or anger.

Moreover, their enumeration does not include all the principal passions which mine does. There are an indefinite number of passions.*