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There are no fewer movements in the intellectual or
reasonable appetite which is called the will, than
there are in the sensitive or sensual, but the first
are customarily named affections, the latter
passions.
The philosophers and pagans did in some manner
love God, the state, virtue, sciences; they hated
vice, aspired after honours, despaired of escaping
death or calumny, were desirous of knowledge, yea
even of beatitude after death. They encouraged
themselves to surmount the difficulties which cross
the way of virtue, dreaded blame, avoided some
faults, avenged public injuries, opposed tyrants,
without any self-interest. Now all these movements
were seated in the reasonable part, since the senses,
and consequently, the sensual appetite, are not
capable of being applied to these objects, and
therefore these movements were affections of the
intellectual or reasonable appetite, not passions of
the sensual.
How often do we feel passions in the sensual appetite
or concupiscence, contrary to the affections
which at the same time we perceive in the reasonable
appetite or will? How clearly was shown at one and
the same time the action of the pleasure of the
senses and the displeasure of the will, in that young
martyr mentioned by S. Jerom, who, forced to bear the
attacks of sensuality, bit off a piece of his tongue
and spat it in his tempter's face? How often do we
tremble amidst the dangers to which our will carries
us and in which it makes us remain? How often do we
hate the pleasure in which the sensual appetite takes
delight, and love the spiritual good with which that
is disgusted?
In this consists the war which we daily experience
between the spirit and the flesh : between our
exterior man, which is under the senses, and the
interior which is under the reason; between the old
Adam who follows the appetites of his Eve, or
concupiscence, and the new Adam who follows heavenly
wisdom and holy reason.
The Stoics, as S. Augustine remarks,(1) denying
that the wise man can have passions, appear to have
confessed that he has affections, which they term
eupathies, or good passions, or, as Cicero called
them, constancies : for they said the wise man did
not covet but desired, had not glee but joy; that he
had no fear, but only foresight and precaution, so
that he was not moved except by reason and according
to reason : for this cause they peremptorily denied
that a wise man could ever be sorrowful, that being
caused by present evil, whereas no evil can befal a
wise man, since no man is hurt but by himself,
according to their maxim.
And truly, Theotimus, they were not wrong in
holding that there are eupathies and good affections
in the reasonable part of man, but they erred much in
saying that there were no passions in the sensitive
part, and that sorrow did not touch a wise man's
heart: for omitting the fact that they themselves
were troubled in this kind (as was just said), how
could it be that wisdom should deprive us of pity,
which is a virtuous sorrow and which comes into our
hearts in order to make them desire to deliver our
neighbour from the evil which he endures? And the
wisest man of all paganism, Epictetus, did not hold
this error that passions do not rise in the wise man,
as S. Augustine witnesses, showing further that the
Stoics difference with other philosophers on this
subject was but a mere dispute of words and strife of
language.
Now these affections which we feel in our reasonable
part are more or less noble and spiritual, according
as their objects are more or less sublime, and as
they are in a more eminent department of the spirit:
for there are affections in us which proceed from
conclusions gained by the experience of our senses;
others by reasonings from human sciences; others from
principles of faith; and finally there are some which
have their origin from the simple sentiment of the
truth of God, and acquiescence in his will.
The first are called natural affections, for who
is he that does not naturally desire health, his
provision of food and clothing, sweet and agreeable
conversation? The second class of affections are
named reasonable, as being altogether founded upon
the spiritual knowledge of the reason, by which our
will is excited to seek tranquillity of heart, moral
virtues, true honour, the contemplation of eternal
things. The third sort of affections are termed
Christian, because they issue from reasonings founded
on the doctrine of Our Lord, who makes us love
voluntary Poverty, perfect Chastity, the glory of
heaven. But the affections of the supreme degree are
named divine and supernatural because God himself
spreads them abroad in our spirits, and because they
regard God and aim at him, without the medium of any
reasoning, or any light of nature, as it will be easy
to understand from what we shall say afterwards about
the acquiescences and affections which are made in
the sanctuary of the soul.
And these supernatural affections are principally
three: the love of the mind for the beautiful in the
mysteries of faith, love for the useful in the goods
which are promised us in the other life, and love for
the sovereign good of the most holy and eternal
divinity.
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