The Nature of Passion

A passion is an original existence or modification of existence.

• It does not contain any representative quality which renders it a copy of any other existence or modification.

When I am angry, I actually have the passion. ◦ In that emotion, I have no more a reference to any other object, than when I am thirsty, or sick, or more than five foot high. • Therefore, it is impossible that this passion can be opposed by or be contradictory to truth and reason, since this contradiction consists in the disagreement of ideas, considered as copies, with the objects they represent.

• Nothing can be contrary to truth or reason except what has a reference to it.
    ◦ As the judgements of our understanding only have this reference, it follows that passions can be contrary to reason only so far as they are accompanied with some judgement or opinion.
• This principle is so obvious and natural.
    ◦ Accordingly, it is only in two senses that any affection can be called unreasonable.
        1. When a passion, such as hope or fear, grief or joy, despair or security, is founded on the supposition or the existence of objects, which really do not exist.
        2. When in exerting any passion in action, we:
            1. choose means insufficient for the designed end
            2. deceive ourselves in our judgement of causes and effects.

Where a passion is neither founded on false suppositions, nor chooses means insufficient for the end, the understanding can neither justify nor condemn it.

It is not contrary to reason for me: 1. to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. 2. to choose my total ruin 3. to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me. 4. to prefer my own acknowledged lesser good to my greater good 5. to have a more ardent affection for my lesser good than my greater good.

In some circumstances, a trivial good might produce a desire superior to what arises from the greatest and most valuable enjoyment. ◦ There is nothing more extraordinary in this, than in mechanics to see one pound weight raise 100 pounds by the advantage of its situation. • In short, a passion must be accompanied with some false judgement for it to be unreasonable. ◦ Even then, it is the judgement that is unreasonable, not the passion.

• The consequences are evident.
    ◦ A passion can only be called unreasonable when it:
        ▪ is founded on a false supposition, or
        ▪ chooses means insufficient for the designed end.
    ◦ It is therefore impossible that reason and passion can ever:
        ▪ oppose each other, or
        ▪ dispute for the government of the will and actions.
• Our passions yield to our reason without any opposition the moment we perceive the:
    ◦ falsehood of any supposition, or
    ◦ the insufficiency of any means.
• I may desire any fruit as of an excellent relish.
    ◦ But whenever you convince me of my mistake, my longing ceases.
• I may will the performance of certain actions as means of obtaining any desired good.
    ◦ But my willing of these actions is:
        ▪ only secondary
        ▪ founded on the supposition that they are causes of the proposed effect.
    ◦ As soon as I discover the falsehood of that supposition, they must become indifferent to me.

• It is natural for someone not philosophical to imagine that the mind’s actions are entirely the same.
    ◦ Its actions:
        ▪ do not produce a different sensation
        ▪ are not immediately distinguishable to the feeling and perception.
• Reason, for instance, exerts itself without producing any sensible emotion.
    ◦ Reason scarce ever conveys any pleasure or uneasiness except in:
        ▪ the more sublime disquisitions of philosophy, or
        ▪ the frivolous subtleties of the school.
• Hence every action of the mind, which operates with the same calmness and tranquility, is confounded with reason by people who judge things from the first appearance.
• There are certain calm desires and tendencies, which though are real passions:
    ◦ produce little emotion in the mind.
    ◦ are more known by their effects than by the immediate feeling or sensation.
• These are two kinds of desires:
    ◦ instincts originally implanted in our natures, such as:
        ▪ benevolence and resentment
        ▪ the love of life
        ▪ kindness to children; or
    ◦ the general appetite to good and aversion to evil.
• When any of these passions are calm, and cause no disorder in the soul, they are:
    ◦ very readily taken for the determinations of reason
    ◦ supposed to proceed from the same faculty with that, which judges of truth and falsehood.
• Their nature and principles have been supposed the same.
    ◦ Because their sensations are not evidently different.

• Beside these calm passions which often determine the will, there are certain violent emotions of the same kind which have likewise a great influence on the will.
    ◦ When I receive any injury from another, I often feel a violent passion of resentment.
        ▪ This makes me desire his evil and punishment, independent of all considerations of pleasure and advantage to myself.
    ◦ When I am immediately threatened with any grievous ill, my fears, apprehensions, and aversions:
        ▪ rise to a great height
        ▪ produce a sensible emotion.

The common error of metaphysicians is in:

• ascribing the direction of the will entirely to one of these principles
• supposing the other to have no influence.

Men often act knowingly against their interest. ◦ For which reason the view of the greatest possible good does not always influence them.

Men often counteract a violent passion in prosecution of their interests and designs. ◦ It is not therefore the present uneasiness alone which determines them. • Both these principles operate on the will. ◦ Where they are contrary, either of them prevails according to the person’s general character or present disposition.

The strength of mind implies the prevalence of the calm passions above the violent ones.

• No one constantly has this virtue to never yield to the solicitations of passion and desire.
• From these variations of temper proceeds the great difficulty of deciding on people’s actions and resolutions, where there is any contrariety of motives and passions.