The Passions

The passions are the emotions aroused from something that is sensed. The things we see, hear, taste, touch, and even think about have physiological effects on our bodies and psychological effects on our souls. Some passions aid or impede our judgement; others compel or repel us from action.  Everyone has passions, but everyone also must learn to train them because they often go beyond or even against the direction of reason. Similarly, everyone has dominant or deficient passions that they must either master or muster, depending upon circumstances. This battle for proper order in the soul forges and fashions character. Without heroic battle, reason cannot govern and the passions will toss us about like a ship subject to raging waves in a storm. The liberal arts can help curb excessive passions or spur deficient ones to lead human beings, who are both rational and emotional animals, to true judgments and good actions.

Perfecting the Passions

Just as the passions are aroused through the senses, the passions may be tamed through the senses. When we see or hear something, those sensible objects form an image in our imagination, which, in turn, arouses the sensory appetites. Thus, a large part of perfecting the passions is appealing to the imagination with images that will arouse the passion proper to the situation. Pictures, paintings, songs, and poems that arouse the noblest passions fitting a situation help reason to rule, while things that arouse the basest passions at the wrong times compromise reason’s ability to rule. We include some art that, when contemplated, will help arouse the noblest passions. Yet, to control our passions, we need self-knowledge because identifying our emotions, most importantly our dominant emotion, is extremely difficult. Therefore, one seeking proper order in the soul needs to understand the passions, then reflect, meditate on, and examine their emotional reactions.

Definition and Explanation

• Itself
  • Love is the beginning movement of the concupiscible appetite toward a person or a good. It is the passion opposite to hatred. 
  • The passion of love is the first passion, for all other passions are born from this one.
• Causes
  • Union with a good arouses love because there is a connaturality between the lover and the beloved. When Dante finally sees Beatrice at the top of Mount Purgatorio, the narrator says, “I felt the mighty power of old love” (Purgatorio XXX.39).
  • Cognition of the good arouses love because we need to know that the good we united with is actually a good. In Paradise Lost, when Satan wants to make hell his good, he says, “The mind is its own place and in itself / Can make a Heaven of hell, and a hell of Heaven” (1.254-5).
  • Likeness with a good arouses love since one shares certain features in actuality or in potency. In Paradise Lost, when God describes to lonely Adam how he will make Eve, he says, “What next I bring shall please thee, be assured, / Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self, / Thy wish exactly to thy heart’s desire” (8.449-51)
• Effects
  • Union is the first effect of love, for either a lover really unites with a beloved, or a lover desires to unite with a beloved. In St. John Henry Newman's "Dream of Gerontius," as it prepares to enter purgatory, the soul of Gerontius says, "There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast, / Which ne'er can cease / To throb, and pine, and languish, till possest / Of its Sole Peace. / There will I sing my absent Lord and Love." 
  • Mutual indwelling comes from the union of the lover and beloved, since now the beloved good lingers in the lover’s apprehension or affections. William Wordsworth's "Surprised by Joy" exemplifies this.
    
  • Ecstasy (“out of state”) is another effect of love, since apprehending a good elevates that good to a higher sort of cognition than just desiring. But the desire for the beloved carries the lover outside of himself into the beloved. Gian Lorenzo Bernini depicts ecstasy beautifully in his sculpture, "The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa." 
  • Zeal is an effect of love, for the more intensely we love something, the more we desire to possess it and protect it from anything that is contrary to it. After Jesus' cleansing of the temple, John writes that "His disciples remembered that it was written, 'Zeal for thy house will consume me'" (John 2:17).
  • Hurt is a surprising effect of love, but hurt is only born out of a love for some good that is not connatural with our nature. In the Odyssey, Odysseus feels hurt when he remains with the nymph Kalypso, rather than his wife Penelope; "Hermes did not find great-hearted Odysseus indoors, / but he was sitting out on the beach, crying" (Book V, lines 81-2, Richmond Lattimore's translation). 
  • Finally, the greatest effect of love is that it causes all other operations. Every agent acts for some end. The end is good that the lover loves. Therefore, every agent acts out of some sort of love. St. Augustine exemplifies this when he writes, "Love and do what you will."

Examples from Western History, Literature, and Art

• Heroic Examples
  • Purgatorio XVIII 16-32
    • Virgil says to Dante: “Direct your intellect’s sharp eyes toward me, and let the error of the blind who’d serve as guides be evident to you. The soul, which is created quick to love, responds to everything that pleases, just as soon as beauty wakens it to act. Your apprehension draws an image from a real object and expands upon that object until soul has turned toward it; and if, so turned, the soul tends steadfastly, then that propensity is––it’s nature that joins the soul in you, anew, through beauty. Then, just as flames ascend because the form of fire was fashioned to fly upward, toward the stuff of its own sphere, where it lasts longest, so does the soul, when seized, move into longing, a motion of the spirit, never resting till the beloved thing has made it joyous.”
• Tragic Examples
  • Juliet’s suicide done for “love” (The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet 3.5)
    • Indeed I never shall be satisfied / With Romeo till I behold him—dead— / Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex’d. / Madam, if you could find out but a man / To bear a poison, I would temper it, / That Romeo should upon receipt thereof, / Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors / To hear him nam’d, and cannot come to him, / To wreak the love I bore my cousin / Upon his body that hath slaughter’d him.
  • Terrace of Lust in Dante’s Inferno V
    • I reached a place where every light is muted, / which bellows like the sea beneath a tempest, / when it is battered by opposing winds. / The hellish hurricane, which never rests, drives on the spirits with its violence: / wheeling and pounding, it harasses them. / When they come up against the ruined slope, / then there are cries and wailing and lament, / and there they curse the force of the divine.
    • And she [Francesca] said to me: There is no greater sorrow / than thinking back upon a happy time / in misery––and this your teacher knows. / Yet if you long so much to understand the first root of our love, then I shall tell / my tale to you as one who weeps and speaks. / One day, to pass the time away, we read / of Lancelot––how love had overcome him. We were alone, and we suspected nothing. / And time and time against that reading led / our eyes to meet, and made our faces pale, / and yet one point alone, defeated us. / When we had read how the desired smile / was kissed by one who was so true a lover, / this one, who never shall be parted from me, / while all his body trembled, kissed my mouth. / A Gallehault indeed, that book and he / who wrote it, too; that day we read no more.

Definition and Explanation

• Itself
  • Hatred is a beginning movement of the concupiscible appetite away from something seen as unfitting, evil, or not loved. It is the passion opposite to love.
  • Love is stronger than hatred as a cause is stronger than the effect, or as a good is stronger than the bad. Hatred seems stronger because what is unfitting is perceived in a more sensible way than what is fitting.
• Causes
  • Hatred arises from a harm done to oneself. 
  • Hatred can also arise from any form of disdain: contempt (believing something to have no worth), obstruction (preventing others from doing what they want), verbal abuse, being forgotten, others rejoicing at our misfortune, or others making evil things known to us. 
  • Another cause of hatred is harm inflicted out of someone else’s ignorance, out of passion, or out of malicious choice.
  • Finally, hatred can arise if we compare our deficiencies with others’ excellencies. This happens to Cain in Genesis: "In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.... Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him" (Gen. 4:3-5, 8).
• Effects
  • Hatred can impede the use of reason since the heat of the passion can agitate both the body and the mind. In Book One of The Iliad, Achilleus nearly kills Agamemnon in front of all the Greeks and is only stopped by divine intervention; his reason has been conquered by his anger (Book I, lines 188-222). 
  • The violent heat and fervor of hatred can cause the eyes to grow fierce, the face to boil, and the tongue to go speechless. In The Iliad, Homer describes how Agamemnon stood up in the assembly, his heart "filled black to the brim with anger / from beneath, but his two eyes showed like fire in their blazing" (Book I, lines 103-4, Richmond Lattimore translation). 

Examples from Western History, Literature, and Art

• Heroic
  • St. Augustine’s Letter 211
    • Hate the sin and love the sinner.
  • St. Josemaria Escriva’s The Forge 1024
    • It is true that the motive that leads us (and should lead everyone) to hate sin, even venial sin, ought to be a supernatural one: that God abhors sin from the depths of his infiniteness, with a supreme, eternal and necessary hatred, as an evil opposed to the infinite good.
• Tragic
  • Luke 11: 52-54
    • “Woe to you, scholars of the law! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter.” When he left, the scribes and Pharisees began to act with hostility toward him and to interrogate him about many things, for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.
  • Achilles’ wrath in Homer’s Iliad I.1-7
    • Sing, O Goddess, the wrath of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurting down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.
  • Iago’s soliloquy fostering hatred for Othello in Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moor of Venice 1.3
    • IAGO: Thus do I ever make my fool my purse. / For I mine own gain’d knowledge should profane / If I would time expend with such a snipe / But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor, / And it is thought abroad that ’twixt my sheets / He has done my office. I know not if ’t be true, / But I, for mere suspicion in that kind, / Will do as if for surety. He holds me well, / The better shall my purpose work on him. / Cassio’s a proper man. Let me see now, / To get his place, and to plume up my will / In double knavery. How, how? Let’s see. / After some time, to abuse Othello’s ear / That he is too familiar with his wife. / He hath a person and a smooth dispose, / To be suspected, fram’d to make women false. / The Moor is of a free and open nature / That thinks men honest that but seem to be so, / And will as tenderly be led by the nose / As asses are. / I have’t. It is engender’d. Hell and night / Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.

Definition and Explanation

• Itself
  • Desire is the middle movement of the concupiscible appetite toward a good that is absent, that is, separate from us. It is the passion opposite to withdrawal.
  • Absent goods are either intellectual, like wisdom or knowledge, or bodily, like health or wealth. These desires are either natural or non-natural. Natural desires are limited, like the desire for food, which does not continue after we have eaten; non-natural desires are connected to reason and are therefore unlimited, like the desire for riches or wisdom, which only increase after we get some share in riches or wisdom.
• Causes
  • Union with an intellectual good arouses desire because there is a possibility for a greater union between the lover and the beloved. 
  • Cognition of the bodily or intellectual good arouses desire because what we know may not yet be in our possession, but may possibly come into our possession.
  • Likeness with a good arouses desire since one shares certain features in actuality or in potency. In Paradise Lost, when God describes to lonely Adam how he will make Eve, he says, “What next I bring shall please thee, be assured, / Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self, / Thy wish exactly to thy heart’s desire” (8.449-51)
• Effects
  • Motivation is an effect of desire. The more we desire some good, the more driven we are in striving for it.
  • Wonder is another effect of desire. When we desire something, we wonder more about it.
  • Intensity is an effect of desire. Intensity is the degree to which we desire some good. Those who greatly desire a good strive after it with great intensity.

Examples from Western History, Literature, and Art

• Heroic
  • St. Andrew’s “O Bona Crux” prayer before his martyrdom by crucifixion
    • O good Cross, made beautiful by the body of the Lord: long have I desired you, ardently have I loved you, unceasingly have I sought you out and now you are ready for my eager soul. Receive me from among men and restore me to my Master, so that he who, by means of You, in dying redeemed me, may now receive me. Amen.
• Tragic
  • The Narrator of the Aeneid who describes how Aeneas unknowingly arouses Dido’s desire for him. Aeneid IV.91-102
    • Alas, what darkened minds have soothsayers! / What good are shrines and vows to maddened lovers? / The inward fire eats the soft marrow away, / And the internal wound bleeds on in silence. / Unlucky Dido, burning, in her madness / Roamed through all the city, like a doe / Hit by an arrow shot from far away / By a shepherd hunting in a Cretan woods– / Hit by surprise, nor could the hunter see / His flying steel had fixed itself in her; / But though she runs for life through copse and glade / The fatal shaft clings to her side.

Definition and Explanation

• Itself
  • Withdrawal is the middle movement of the concupiscible appetite away from an apprehended evil. It is the passion opposite to desire.
• Causes
  • Hatred of something can also bring with it withdrawal because we no longer want to be around the thing that causes hatred.
  • Sadness arouses withdrawal because we tend to avoid sadness.
• Effects
  • Withdrawal causes the limbs to grow cold and makes graceful movement difficult.
  • It can also cause sadness if we withdraw from a good thing, like a missed opportunity.
  • Withdrawal diminishes our sociability and inclines us to more loneliness.
  • Complaining is the mark of the passion of withdrawal. Procrastination is another manifestation of withdrawal.

Examples from Western History, Literature, and Art

• Heroic
  • Matthew 12:14-16
    • But the Pharisees went out and took counsel against him to put him to death. When Jesus realized this, he withdrew from that place. Many [people] followed him, and he cured them all, but he warned them not to make him known.
• Tragic
  • Raskolnikov after murdering Aliona and Lizaveta Icanovna in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment Part 2:
    • At last he reached Stolinary Place. Half dead, he turns into it...All his torments had weakened him so much, however, that he could scarcely move. The sweat rolled off him in drops, and his neck was soaked...He hardly knew what he was doing himself now, and the further he went the worse it got...Nor was he in full command of himself as he went through the gate of the house...He went into his room and threw himself down on couch, just as he was. He did not sleep, but lay there in the state of oblivion. Had anyone entered his room, he would have left up immediately and cried out. Fragments and shreds of thoughts swarmed in his head; but he could not get hold of a single one, he could not linger over a single one, in spite of all his trying….
  • Prospero’s neglect by withdrawing from his civic duty to study in The Tempest 1.2
    • PROSPERO: My brother and thy uncle, call’d Antonio— / I pray thee, mark me, that a brother should / Be so perfidious!—he whom next thyself / Of all the world I lov’d, and to him put / The manage of my state; as at that time / Through all the signories it was the first, / And Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed / In dignity, and for the liberal arts, / Without a parallel: those being all my study, / The government I cast upon my brother, / And to my state grew stranger, being transported / And rapt in secret studies.

Definition and Explanation

• Itself:
  • Joy is the end rest of the concupiscible appetite in a good person or good thing. It is the passion opposite to sadness.
  • Pleasure is the appetite’s attainment of a desired good, while joy is reason’s attainment of a desired reasonable good.
  • Intelligible spiritual pleasure is greater than corporal pleasure because a spiritual good is greater than a corporal good, the intellective appetite is more noble and capable of cognition than the sentient appetite, and the conjoining of a spiritual good to the intellective part of the soul is more intimate, more perfect, and more stable than the conjoining of a corporeal good to the sentient appetite.
• Causes: 
  • Activity is a cause of joy, if that activity is good and we see it as a good.
  • Hoping in the future and remembering the past can cause joy, because we bring those past or future goods to the present, and take pleasure in them.
  • The actions of another can cause joy because someone else can help us attain some good, or we see our own good through the actions of another, or the good action of a friend is our own good––since a friend is another self.
  • Doing good for another person can cause joy.
  • Being like someone that we want to be can cause joy.
  • Wonder, which is the desire to know the cause of some effect, is very pleasant, since wonder intensifies the joy of actually knowing the desired thing.
• Effects
  • Joy increases a desire for more joy, and pleasure increases a desire for more pleasure.
  • Taking joy in one’s work can help one work well, since we do the things we enjoy much better than the things we do not enjoy.
  • Pleasure can be a distraction, since it can draw our attention away from a higher good to a lesser good.

Examples from Western History, Literature, and Art

• Heroic
  • Paradise Lost 4.408- (Adam’s first words to Eve)
    • Adam, first of men, / To first of women, Eve, thus moving speech, / Turned him all ear to hear new utterance flow: / “Sole partner and sole part of all these joys, / Dearer thyself than all, needs must the power / That made us and, for us, this ample world / Be infinitely good, and of his good / As liberal and free as infinite.”
  • Luke 10: 17-21
    • The seventy two returned rejoicing, and said, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name.” Jesus said, “I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky. Behold, I have given you the power ‘to tread upon serpents’ and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” At that very moment he rejoiced [in] the holy Spirit and said, “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will."
  • John 20: 19-23
    • On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. [Jesus] said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
• Tragic
  • Aeneid IV.259-265
    • In those days Rumor took an evil joy / At filling countrysides with whispers, whispers / Gossip of what was done, and never done: / How this Aeneas landed, Trojan born, / How Dido in her beauty graced his company, / Then how they reveled all winter long / Unmindful of the realm, prisoners of lust.
  • Paradise Lost 1.156-162 (Satan mustering the fallen angels to war against Heaven)
    • Whereto with speedy words the arch-fiend replied: / “Fallen cherub, to be weak is miserable, / Doing or suffering, but of this be sure, / To do aught good never will be our task, / But ever to do ill our sole delight, / As being the contrary to his high will / Whom we resist.”

Definition and Explanation

• Itself
  • Sadness is the end rest of the concupiscible appetite in an apprehended evil. It is the passion opposite to joy.
  • Pain is exterior apprehension of conjoining with a physical evil, while sadness is interior apprehension of conjoining with a moral evil. Interior sadness is greater than exterior pain.
  • Sadness can take the form of listlessness, anxiety, pity, or envy.
• Causes
  • Sadness arises when we unite with an evil, whether physical or moral.
  • The postponement or complete denial of a desired good can cause great sadness.
  • When one desires unity with a good, but is not united with that good, sadness often arises.
  • When there is an evil force that threatens us and it cannot be resisted, that situation can arouse sadness.
• Effects
  • Sadness removes our ability to learn something new. Sadness and pain draw all attention to itself, and you need all attention to learn something new. But the greater the love is for learning and thinking, the more he can keep his mind’s attention from being completely turned toward the pain.
  • Sadness causes the mind to be weighed down. Sadness keeps man from enjoying what he wants, such a new knowledge. If sadness is escapable, there is a hope and movement to repel the evil. If the sadness is inescapable, then interior movements are impeded absolutely and even exterior movements.
  • Sadness weakens every operation: what we do with sadness cannot be done as well what we do with pleasure.
  • Sadness even harms the body, since the passion of sadness is contrary to vital movement. Sadness causes all things to move inward, even our blood, which makes our limbs grow cold.

Examples from Western History, Literature, and Art

• Heroic
  • Matthew 26: 36-46
    • Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to feel sorrow and distress.Then he said to them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch with me.” He advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.” When he returned to his disciples he found them asleep. He said to Peter, “So you could not keep watch with me for one hour? Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Withdrawing a second time, he prayed again, “My Father, if it is not possible that this cup pass without my drinking it, your will be done!” Then he returned once more and found them asleep, for they could not keep their eyes open. He left them and withdrew again and prayed a third time, saying the same thing again. Then he returned to his disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Behold, the hour is at hand when the Son of Man is to be handed over to sinners. Get up, let us go. Look, my betrayer is at hand.”
• Tragic
  • Paradise Lost 10.715-725
    • The growing miseries which Adam saw / Already in part though hid in gloomiest shade, / To sorrow abandoned, but worse felt within, / And, in a troubled sea of passion tossed, / Thus to disburden sought with sad complaint: / “O miserable of happy! Is this the end / Of this new glorious world and me, so late / The glory of that glory, who now become / Accursed of blessed, hide me from the face / of God, whom to behold was then my height of happiness?”
  • Paradise Lost 4.502-511 (upon seeing Adam and Eve embrace in Eden)
    • Aside the devil turned / For envy, yet with jealous leer malign / Eyed them askance, and to himself thus plained: / “Sight hateful, sight tormenting! Thus these two / Imparadised in one another’s arms, / The happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill / Of bliss on bliss, while I to hell am thrust, / Where neither joy nor love but fierce desire, / Among our other torments not the least, / Still unfulfilled with pain of longing pines.”

Definition and Explanation

• Itself
  • Hope is the beginning movement of the irascible appetite toward a future, difficult good that is possible to attain. It is the passion opposite to despair.
• Causes
  • Experience, wealth, and fortitude increase a man’s ability to do something and that increases its possibility which increases hope.
  • Anything that makes a person judge that something is possible causes hope, such as experience or persuasion.
  • Hope arises in us when we see or think about a future goal or good, that may be difficult to acquire, but is still possible to attain.
  • If we spend time thinking about the goodness of that good or goal, in itself or in its consequences, then hope will arise.
  • When we consider the possibility and means of achieving a future goal or good, then we become optimistic and hopeful.
  • Youthfulness can cause hope since young people have a long future ahead of them, big hearts capable of embracing the most arduous challenges, or an ignorance of, and inexperience with, obstacles.
  • The inebriation of wine or anything intoxicating also arouses hope, because we desire more goods when intoxicated, or think more things are possible than they actually are.
• Effects
  • There is a certain pleasure in the passion of hope, since our thinking about a future good makes that good present in our mind.
  • Wonder is another effect of hope, because we hope for things in the future, and we may wonder about how good that future good will actually be––either better or worse than expected.
  • Hope facilitates action. When we see a future, difficult, possible good, the difficulty of the good stimulates one’s attentiveness and the judgment that it is possible does not slow down one’s effort; so hope intensifies an operation. Hope also causes pleasure, and pleasure facilitates an action.

Examples from Western History, Literature, and Art

• Heroic
  • Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, wherein he calls for great hope and dedication.
    • Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
• Tragic
  • Prince Hamlet hoping to kill King Claudius in a sinful act so that he goes to Hell in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince of Demark 3.3.73-96
    • Now might I do it pat, now he is praying. / And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven; / And so am I reveng’d. That would be scann’d: / A villain kills my father, and for that / I, his sole son, do this same villain send / To heaven. O, this is hire and salary, not revenge. / He took my father grossly, full of bread, / With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May; / And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven? / But in our circumstance and course of thought, / ’Tis heavy with him. And am I then reveng’d, / To take him in the purging of his soul, / When he is fit and season’d for his passage? No. / Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent: / When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage, / Or in th’incestuous pleasure of his bed, / At gaming, swearing; or about some act / That has no relish of salvation in’t, / Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, / And that his soul may be as damn’d and black / As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays. / This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

Definition and Explanation

• Itself
  • Despair is the beginning movement of the irascible appetite away from a future, difficult good that seems impossible to attain. Despair is the passion opposite to hope.
• Causes
  • The greatest cause of despair is thinking that future, difficult goods are impossible to attain. Therefore, anything that makes a desired good impossible to attain, also causes despair.
  • Inexperience can cause despair, since a good may be possible to attain, but we just do not have the experience to know that. Experience can be acquired through personal encounter or through study. Therefore, the person who has never encountered or never studied the means that make a good achievable can tend to despair.
  • Loneliness can cause despair, since we can only achieve goods through the help of others, such as friends, family, coworkers, or God, and when we are alone, we lose their help in achieving those goods.
• Effects
  • Despair has physical effects on the body. Since it is a passion of withdrawal, despair makes our blood recede from our limbs so that they are more difficult to move. Thus despair does not facilitate any activity but rather impedes it.
  • The mark of despair is complaining, since when we despair, we see difficult things as impossible to overcome and begin to complain, as if that might make it more possible to overcome.
  • Just as loneliness causes despair, despair only causes more loneliness.
  • When we despair at achieving some difficult, future good, we often settle for other cheap and easy goods that are immediately pleasant.

Examples from Western History, Literature, and Art

• Heroic
  • Wise Antony to fearful Vincent in Thomas More’s Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation 2.16
    • And I doubt not, by God’s grace, but he that in such a temptation [to despair] will use good counsel and prayer, and keep himself in good virtuous business and good virtuous company, and abide in the faithful hope of God’s help, shall have the truth of God...so compass him about with a body shield that he shall not need to dread this night’s fear of this wicked temptation.
• Tragic
  • Matthew 27: 3-5
    • Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that Jesus had been condemned, deeply regretted what he had done. He returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? Look to it yourself.” Flinging the money into the temple, he departed and went off and hanged himself.
  • Aeneid VI.622-660
    • On Dido in her desolation now / Terror grew at her fate. She prayed for death, / Being heartsick at the mere sight of heaven...So broken in mind by suffering, Dido caught / Her fatal madness and resolved to die. / She pondered time and means, then visiting / Her mournful sister, covered up her plan / With a calm look, a clear and hopeful brow.
  • Paradise Lost 10.842-850
    • “O conscience, into what abyss of fears / And horrors hast thou driven me, out of which / I find no way, from deep to deeper plunged!” / Thus Adam to himself lamented loud / Through the still night, not now, as ere man fell, / Wholesome and cool and mild, but with black air / Accompanied, with damps and dreadful gloom, / Which to his evil conscience represented / All things with double terror.

Definition and Explanation

• Itself
  • “Confidence is...the expectation associated with a mental picture of the nearness of what keeps us safe and the absence or remoteness of what is terrible.” ––Aristotle (Rhetoric 1383a15-18)
  • Daring is the middle movement of the irascible appetite toward a difficult, but possible, future good and it attacks some danger for the sake of winning victory. Daring is the passion opposite to fear.
• Causes
  • Daring arises when we hope for a future, difficult, possible good. Daring always follows upon hope.
  • Daring is evoked by our own power, such as our strength, experience, study, or money, or by another’s power, such as the power of friends, helpers, or God. That is why Aristotle says, ““Those who have a good relationship with the divine are daring.”
  • We feel daring when a fearful thing is removed, such as an enemy.
  • There is also a certain bodily cause of the passion of daring. Daring arises when our heat heats up from breath, blood, or wine.
• Effects
  • Daring can lead to rash judgment or a lack of foresight.
  • Daring can also lead to one’s perseverance in carrying out a good action that one thought about beforehand. These wiser, more prepared people take into account all difficulties. They seem relaxed at the beginning of a challenge since they met the dangers with due deliberation and not passively. They do not experience anything unexpected in the midst of the challenge and continue on steadfastly. And they meet a challenge for the sake of virtue and persevere in willing this good.

Examples from Western History, Literature, and Art

• Heroic
  • Acts 9: 26-30
    • When he [Paul] arrived in Jerusalem he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. Then Barnabas took charge of him and brought him to the apostles, and he reported to them how on the way he had seen the Lord and that he had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus. He moved about freely with them in Jerusalem, and spoke out boldly in the name of the Lord. He also spoke and debated with the Hellenists, but they tried to kill him. And when the brothers learned  of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him on his way to Tarsus.
  • Acts 14: 1-3
    • In Iconium they entered the Jewish synagogue together and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks came to believe, although the disbelieving Jews stirred up and poisoned the minds of the Gentiles against the brothers. So they stayed for a considerable period, speaking out boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the word about his grace by granting signs and wonders to occur through their hands.
  • Aeneid IV.545-551
    • Duty-bound, / Aeneas, though he struggled with desire / To calm and comfort her [Dido] in all her pain, / To speak to her and turn her mind from grief, / And though he sighed his heart out, shaken still / With love of her, yet took the course heaven gave him / And went back to the fleet.
• Tragic
  • King Leonidas’ moment of rashness in the Histories of Herodotus, book 7.219-228
    • The Hellenes with Leonidas, feeling that they were going forth to death, now advanced out much further than at first into the broader part of the defile; for when the fence of the wall was being guarded, they on the former days fought retiring before the enemy into the narrow part of the pass; but now they engaged with them outside the narrows, and very many of the Barbarians fell: for behind them the leaders of the divisions with scourges in their hands were striking each man, ever urging them on to the front. Many of them then were driven into the sea and perished, and many more still were trodden down while yet alive by one another, and there was no reckoning of the number that perished: for knowing the death which was about to come upon them by reason of those who were going round the mountain, they displayed upon the Barbarians all the strength which they had, to its greatest extent, disregarding danger and acting as if possessed by a spirit of recklessness.

Definition and Explanation

• Itself
  • “Fear may be defined as a pain or disturbance due to a mental picture of some destructive or painful evil in the future.” ––Aristotle (Rhetoric 1382a20-2)
  • Fear is the middle movement of the irascible appetite away from a future difficulty or evil that is impossible to resist. Fear is the passion opposite to daring.
  • Fear can take a form in our actions, such as sluggishness, embarrassment, or shame, or in our inability to resist some evil, such as agony.
• Causes
  • Unfamiliarity can cause fear, because there is a risk of failure or sudden evils or obstacles. Thinking about and preparing for an evil ahead of time diminishes fear, but unfamiliar and sudden evils eliminate planning and remedies.
  • Love, believe it or not, can cause fear. We fear losing the things that we love. The more we love something, the more we fear losing it. 
  • Physical and moral weakness is a cause of fear. A person weak in body or in virtue cannot easily repel an imminent physical or moral evil.
• Effects
  • Fear has bodily effects. It draws one’s blood inward, for all heat leaves the limbs and goes to the core, just as scared citizens retreat to the center of a city. This inward movement makes one quiver, chatter, or turn pale. For this reason, graceful motion is very difficult for the fearful person.
  • If fear is moderate, it may impede the body, but does not impede the soul; rather, it may make the soul more careful, attentive, and deliberative.
  • If we fear with moderation, we become more deliberate; if we fear beyond moderation, we become rash or cowardly.

Examples from Western History, Literature, and Art

• Heroic
  • Luke 1: 26-30
    • In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”
  • Nestor persuading the Greek army not to fear the incursions of the Trojans in Homer’s Iliad 7.
    • When now the rage of hunger was removed, / Nestor, in each persuasive art approved, / The sage whose counsels long had sway’d the rest, / In words like these his prudent thought express’d: / “How dear, O kings! this fatal day has cost, / What Greeks are perish’d! what a people lost! / What tides of blood have drench’d Scamander’s shore! / What crowds of heroes sunk to rise no more! / Then hear me, chief! nor let the morrow’s light / Awake thy squadrons to new toils of fight: / Some space at least permit the war to breathe, / While we to flames our slaughter’d friends bequeath, / From the red field their scatter’d bodies bear, / And nigh the fleet a funeral structure rear; / So decent urns their snowy bones may keep, / And pious children o’er their ashes weep. / Here, where on one promiscuous pile they blazed, / High o’er them all a general tomb be raised; / Next, to secure our camp and naval powers, / Raise an embattled wall, with lofty towers; / From space to space be ample gates around, / For passing chariots; and a trench profound. / So Greece to combat shall in safety go, / Nor fear the fierce incursions of the foe.” / ’Twas thus the sage his wholesome counsel moved; / The sceptred kings of Greece his words approved.
• Tragic
  • King Richard as a tyrant who cannot even sleep at night because he broke civil, natural, and divine law in Thomas More’s The History of King Richard III
    • God never gave this world a more notable example neither in what unsurety standeth this worldly weal, or what mischief worketh the proud enterprise of a high heart, or finally, what wretched end ensued such dispiteous cruelty...And yet all the meantime [Richard] spent in much pain and trouble outward; much fear, anguish, and sorrow within. For I have heard by credible report of such as were secret with his chambers that after this abominable deed done, he never had quiet in his mind; he never thought himself sure. Where he went abroad, his eyes whirled about, his body privily fenced, his hand ever on his dagger, his countenance and manner like one always ready to strike again; he took ill rest a-nights, lay long waking and musing, sore wearied with care and watch, rather slumbered than slept, troubled with fearful dreams, suddenly sometimes start up, leap out of his bed and run about the chamber––so was his restless heart continually tossed and tumbled with the tedious impression and stormy remembrance of his abominable deed.

Definition and Explanation

• Itself
  • “Growing calm may be defined as settling down or quieting of anger” ––Aristotle (Rhetoric 1380a7-8)
  • Calmness is the end rest of the irascible appetite in a good that was acquired with difficulty. It is the passion opposite to anger.
• Causes
  • Calmness arises when we represent those with whom we are angry as formidable, worthy of reverence, as a benefactor, as involuntary agents, or much distressed at what they have done.
  • There are also bodily causes of calmness, such a relaxation, a healthy diet, and physical fitness.
  • Hope is another cause of calmness. The more intensely we hope for some good, the more calm we will be when we face difficulties.
  • We feel a calmness when others who angered us ask for forgiveness,
  • We become calm if we humble ourselves, if others are serious when we are serious, or if others do us a kindness.
• Effects
  • A bodily effect of calmness is physical health, because while anger and sadness destroy our bodies by making our blood boil or grow cold, calmness brings our blood to an even state.
  • Calmness improves our ability to reason, because while anger and hatred blind our perception with prejudice against certain variables, calmness enables us to consider and weigh all variables.

Examples from Western History, Literature, and Art

• Heroic
  • Matthew 27: 11-14
    • Now Jesus stood before the governor, and he questioned him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You say so.”  And when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he made no answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many things they are testifying against you?” But he did not answer him one word, so that the governor was greatly amazed.
  • Angel Abdiel to the Satan and the fallen angels in John Milton’s Paradise Lost 5.877-907)
    • “O alienate from God, O spirit accursed, / Forsaken of all good; I see thy fall / Determined and thy hapless crew involved / In this perfidious fraud, contagion spread / Both of thy crime and punishment… / That golden scepter which thou didst reject / Is now an iron rod to bruise and break / Thy disobedience…” / So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found, / Among the faithless, faithful only he; / Among innumerable false, unmoved, / Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, / His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal; / Nor number nor example with him wrought / To swerve from truth or change his constant mind / Though single. From amidst them forth he passed, / Long way through hostile scorn, which he sustained / Superior, nor of violence feared aught; / And with retorted scorn his back he turned / On those proud towers to swift destruction doomed.
• Tragic
  • Oedipus The King 335-357

• • • OEDIPUS: You would provoke a stone! Tell us, you villain, / tell us, and do not stand there quietly / unmoved and balking at the issue.
    • TEIRESIAS: You blame my temper but you do not see / your own that lives within you; it is me / you chide. 
    • OEDIPUS: Who would not feel his temper rise / at words like these with which you shame our city?
    • TIRESIAS: Of themselves things will come, although I hide them / and breathe no word of them...I will say nothing further. / Against this answer let your temper rage / as wildly as you will.
    • OEDIPUS: Indeed I am / so angry I shall not hold back a jot / of what I think. For I would have you know / I think you were complotter of the deed / and doer of the deed save in so far as for the actual killing. Had you had eyes / I would have said alone you murdered him.
    • TIRESIAS: Yes? Then I warn you faithfully to keep / the letter of your proclamation and / from this day forth to speak no word of greeting / to these nor me; you are the land’s pollution.
    • OEDIPUS: How shamelessly you started up this taunt! / How do you think you will escape?
    • TIRESIAS: I have. / I have escaped; the truth is what I cherish / and that’s my strength.

Definition and Explanation

• Itself: 
  • “Anger may be defined as an impulse, accompanied by pain, to a conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight directed without justification towards what concerns oneself or towards what concerns one’s friends.” ––Aristotle (Rhetoric 1378a31-33)
  • Anger is an end rest of the irascible appetite in some evil, and is born from some sadness or hope for retribution. It is the passion opposite to calmness.
  • Anger can take the form of wrath, bitterness, or rage.
• Causes
  • Anger arises from a harm done to oneself.
  • Anger can also arise from any form of disdain: contempt (believing something to have no worth), obstruction (preventing others from doing what they want), verbal abuse, being forgotten, others rejoicing at our misfortune, or others making evil things known to us.
  • Another cause of anger is harm inflicted out of someone else’s ignorance, out of passion, or out of malicious choice.
  • Finally, anger can arise if we compare our deficiencies with others’ excellencies. 
• Effects
  • Anger can impede the use of reason since the heat of the passion can agitate both the body and the mind.
  • The violent heat and fervor of anger can cause the eyes to grow fierce, the face to boil, and the tongue to go speechless.

Examples from Western History, Literature, and Art

• Heroic
  • John 2:13-17
    • Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”  His disciples recalled the words of scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
  • On Anger 3.36 by Seneca
    • All our sense must be toughened: they have a natural endurance, once the mind has ceased to corrupt them; and the mind must be called to account every day. This was Sextius’ practice: when the day was spent and he had retired to his night’s rest, he asked his mind, “Which of your ills did you heal today? Which vice did you resist? /In what aspect are you better?” Your anger will cease and become more controllable if it knows that ever day it must come before a judge. Is there anything finer, then, than this self-examination––how peaceful, how deep and free, when the mind has been either praised or admonished, when the sentinel and secret censor of the self has conducted its inquiry into one’s character! I exercise this jurisdiction daily and plead my case before myself. When the light has been removed and my wife has fallen silent, aware of this habit that’s now mine, I examine my entire day and go back over what I’ve done and said, hiding nothing from myself, passing nothing by. For why should I fear any consequences from my mistakes, when I’m able to say, “See that you don’t do it again, but now I forgive you. In that discussion you spoke too aggressively: from now on don’t get involved with people who don’t know what they’re talking about… You admonished that fellow more candidly than you should, and as a result you didn’t mend him, you offended him; in the future consider not just whether what you say is true but whether the person you’re talking to can take the truth. A good man delights in being admonished, but all the worst people have the hardest time putting up with correction.
• Tragic
  • Aeneid IV.723-798
    • The night had come, and weary in every land / Men’s bodies took the boon of peaceful sleep. / The woods and the wild seas had quieted / At that hour when the stars are in mid-course / And every field is still; cattle and birds / With vivid wings that haunt the limpid lakes / Or nests in thickets in the country places / All were asleep under the silent night. / Not, though, the agonized Phoenician queen [Dido]: / She never slacked into sleep and never / Allowed the tranquil night to rest / Upon her eyelids or within her heart. / Her pain redoubled; love came on again, / Devouring her, and on her bed she tossed / In a great surge of anger… / And Dido’s heart / Beat wildly at the enormous thing afoot. / She rolled her bloodshot eyes, her quivering cheeks / Were flecked with red as he sick pallor grew / Before her coming death. Into the court / She burst her way, then at her passion’s height / She climbed the pyre and bared the Dardan sword.
  • Oedipus The King 335-357
    • OEDIPUS: You would provoke a stone! Tell us, you villain, / tell us, and do not stand there quietly / unmoved and balking at the issue.
    • TEIRESIAS: You blame my temper but you do not see / your own that lives within you; it is me / you chide. 
    • OEDIPUS: Who would not feel his temper rise / at words like these with which you shame our city?
    • TIRESIAS: Of themselves things will come, although I hide them / and breathe no word of them...I will say nothing further. / Against this answer let your temper rage / as wildly as you will.
    • OEDIPUS: Indeed I am / so angry I shall not hold back a jot / of what I think. For I would have you know / I think you were complotter of the deed / and doer of the deed save in so far as for the actual killing. Had you had eyes / I would have said alone you murdered him.
    • TIRESIAS: Yes? Then I warn you faithfully to keep / the letter of your proclamation and / from this day forth to speak no word of greeting / to these nor me; you are the land’s pollution.
    • OEDIPUS: How shamelessly you started up this taunt! / How do you think you will escape?