ARTICLE V

In the Fifth Article We Ask: ARE HOPE, FEAR, JOY, AND SADNESS THE FOUR PRINCIPAL PASSIONS OF THE SOUL?

Difficulties:

It seems that they are not, for

1. In enumerating the four principal passions, Augustine puts cupidity in place of hope. And the same, it seems, can be gathered from the words of Vergil in which he designates the main passions: "Hence men crave and fear, rejoice and sorrow."

2. The more perfect a thing is, the more important it seems to be. But the movement of boldness is more perfect than that of hope, since it tends to its object with greater intensity. Boldness is therefore a more important passion than hope.

3. Everything takes its name from the most important in its line. But the irascible power gets its name from anger. Anger should therefore be numbered among the principal passions.

4. There is a passion that looks to the future not only in the irascible power but also in the concupiscible. But the passion looking to the future which is in the concupiscible power, desire, is not included as one of the principal passions. Then neither are fear and hope, which in the irascible similarly look to the future.

5. Principal means coming before the rest; for according to Gregory "to be prince (principiari) means to come before the others." But love comes before the rest of the passions; for from love all the other passions are born. Love should therefore be placed as one of the principal passions.

6. Those passions seem to be the principal ones upon which the others depend. But all the others seem to depend upon joy and sadness; for a passion of the soul is that from which joy or sadness follows, according to the Philosopher. These two passions, joy and sadness, then, are the only principal passions.

7. It was said in answer that joy and sadness are the principal ones in the concupiscible power, but that hope and fear are the principal ones in the irascible.--On the contrary, it is said in Spirit and Soul: "From concupiscibility joy and hope arise; from irascibility, pain and dread."

8. In accord with the special character of the irascible power hope is opposed to despair, fear to boldness. But on the part of the concupiscible power are listed two chief passions which are contrary on the basis of the special character of the concupiscible power, namely, joy and sadness. Then on the part of the irascible there should be listed as principal passions either hope and despair or fear and boldness.

To the Contrary:

1'. In Spirit and Soul it is said: "Emotion is distinguished into four kinds, since we already take joy in what we love, or we hope for it as something that will be enjoyed; and we already grieve over what we hate or we dread it as something to make us grieve." Consequently these four are the principal passions: joy, pain or sadness, hope, and fear.

2'. Enumerating the main passions, Boethius says:

Drive away joy, and drive away fear.

Hope put to flight; let grief not stay near.

And so the conclusion is the same as above.

REPLY:

There are four principal passions of the soul: sadness, joy, hope, and fear. The reason for this is that passions which come before the others and are their source are called the principal ones. Now, since the passions of the soul are in the sense appetitive part, those passions will come first which arise immediately from the object of the appetitive part; that is, from good and evil. Those which arise through the intermediary of others will be in a sense secondary.

For a passion to arise immediately from good or evil two conditions are required. The first is that it arise from good and evil essentially or directly, because what is accidental or indirect cannot be first. The second is that it arise without presupposing any other. A passion is accordingly said to be a principal one for these two reasons: it does not come accidentally from the object, which has the role of an active principle, nor does it come subsequently. Now a passion which proceeds from a good inasmuch as it is good, comes from good essentially; but one which proceeds from a good inasmuch as it is evil, comes from good accidentally. And the inverse is to be understood of evil. Good as such attracts and draws to itself. Hence any passion of an appetite tending to good will be a passion essentially and directly dependent upon good. But it is proper to evil as such to repel the appetite. Hence if there is any passion regarding good by which the good is shunned, that passion will not be from good essentially but in so far as it is apprehended as somehow evil. And the contrary is to be understood of evil: a passion which consists in flight from evil comes from evil essentially or directly, whereas one which consists in an approach to evil comes from evil accidentally. It is therefore clear how a passion arises from good or from evil essentially.

Because, however, to the extent to which a thing is last in the attainment of the end it is first in intention and in desire, those passions which consist in the attainment of the end therefore arise from good or evil without presupposing any others, and with these presupposed others arise. Now joy and sadness come from the attainment of good or evil, and that essentially; for joy comes from a good inasmuch as it is good, and sadness comes from an evil inasmuch as it is evil. And all other passions of the concupiscible power likewise come from good or evil essentially. This is so because the object of the concupiscible power is good or evil in an absolute sense. Yet the other passions of the concupiscible power presuppose joy and sadness as their cause; for a good becomes loved and desired by the concupiscible by reason of its being apprehended as pleasurable, and an evil becomes hateful and repulsive by being apprehended as saddening. Thus in the order of appetency joy and sadness are prior, though in the order of execution and attainment they are posterior.

In the irascible power not all the passions follow from good or evil essentially, but some essentially and others accidentally. This is so because good and evil are not the object of the irascible power in their absolute sense, but as they are modified by the condition of arduousness. Under this condition a good is repudiated as being beyond one's capabilities, and an evil is tended to as able to be driven away or mastered. But in the irascible power there cannot be any passion which follows from good or evil without any other being presupposed; for after the good is possessed, it does not arouse any passion in the irascible power, as was said above. An evil that is present, on the other hand, does arouse a passion in the irascible power, not essentially but accidentally, inasmuch as the person tends to something evil that is present as something to be driven away or mastered. This is evident in the case of anger.

It is clear, then, from what has been said that there are some passions which first and essentially arise from good and evil, as joy and sadness, and some others that essentially but not first so arise, as the other passions of the concupiscible power and two of those of the irascible, fear and hope, one of which expresses a flight from evil, the other an approach to good. And there are some other passions which neither essentially nor first arise from good and evil, as the others in the irascible power, such as despair, boldness, and anger, which express an approach to evil or a withdrawal from good.

The most important passions, therefore, are joy and sadness. But fear and hope are the principal ones in their own class, because they do not presuppose any other passions in the power in which they are found, the irascible. Although the other passions of the concupiscible power, such as love and desire, hate and aversion, are from good or evil essentially, they are nevertheless not the first in their class, since they presuppose others in the same power. Thus they cannot be called the principal passions either simply or in their genus. It remains, then, that there are only four principal passions: joy and sadness, hope and fear.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. Cupidity or desire is preceded by another passion in the same power, joy, which is the reason for desiring. Desire therefore cannot be a principal passion. Even though hope presupposes another passion, it does not presuppose one in the same power but in the concupiscible. All of the passions of the irascible power, in fact, arise from the passions of the concupiscible, as was said in another question. For this reason it can be one of the principal passions. Augustine, however, lists desire or cupidity in place of hope on account of a certain resemblance between them, because both look to a good not yet possessed.

2. Boldness cannot be one of the principal passions, for it arises from evil accidentally, since it looks to evil with a view to attacking it. For a bold man attacks evil inasmuch as he judges victory over evil and its repulse to be a good, and from the hope of such a good boldness arises. When carefully considered in this way, hope is found to be prior to boldness; for the hope of victory or at least of escape causes boldness.

3. Anger too arises from evil accidentally, inasmuch as an angry person considers revenge for an evil done to him a good and seeks it. Thus the hope of revenge to be obtained is the cause of anger. Therefore, when a person is injured by someone upon whom he does not hope to be able to get revenge, he does not become angry, but he merely grows sad or he fears, as Avicenna points out -if a country bumpkin is injured by a king, for instance. Consequently anger cannot be a principal passion; for it presupposes not only sadness, which is in the concupiscible power, but also hope, which is in the irascible. The irascible power gets its name from anger, however, because it is the last of the passions which are in the irascible.

4. The passions regarding the future which are in the concupiscible power arise in some sense from the passions in the same power regarding the present. But the passions regarding the future in the irascible do not arise from any passions regarding the present in the same power but rather from such passions in another power, that is, from joy and sadness. Hence there is no parallel.

5. In the line of execution and attainment love is the first passion, but in the line of intention joy is prior to love and is the reason for loving, especially in the sense in which love is a passion of the concupiscible power.

6. Joy and sadness are the most important among the passions, as has been said.* Nonetheless hope and fear are the principal ones in their own class, as is clear from what has been said.*

7. Since that work is not by Augustine, it does not impose upon us any necessity of accepting its dicta as authoritative. Here especially it is seen to contain a patent error. For hope is not in the concupiscible but in the irascible power; and sadness is not in the irascible but in the concupiscible. Yet if we must uphold its authority, we can say that it is speaking of those powers according to the meaning of their names: concupiscence is concerned with good, and on this basis all passions directed to good can be attributed to the concupiscible power; and because anger is concerned with an evil inflicted, all the passions which regard evil can be attributed to the irascible power. On this basis sadness is attributed to the irascible power and hope to the concupiscible.

8. The contrariety which is proper to the passions of the irascible power, namely, exceeding one's capacity or not, makes the second passion arise from good or evil accidentally. For something which exceeds one's capacity leads to withdrawal, whereas something which does not exceed it leads to approach. If these differences are taken with reference to good, then, a passion which follows from something which exceeds one's capacity will come from good accidentally. If, on the other hand, they are taken with reference to evil, then a passion which follows from something that does not exceed one's capacity will be accidental. Consequently in the irascible power there cannot be two principal passions which are directly contrary (e.g., hope and despair, or boldness and fear), as are joy and sadness in the concupiscible.