The Six Primary Passions

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? How can they 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.