Chapter 6: Of Human Passions in General — Their Use and Subordination to Reason

Now passions may be the subject of a three-fold discourse: natural, moral, and civil. In their natural consideration, we should observe in them their essential properties, their ebbs and flows, their springings and decays, the manner of their several impressions, the physical effects which are wrought by them, and the like.

In their moral consideration, we might likewise search how the indifference of them is altered into good or evil, by virtue of the dominion of right reason, or of the violence of their own motions; what their ministry is in virtuous, and what their power and independence in irregular actions; how they are raised, suppressed, slackened, and governed, according to the particular nature of those things which require their motion.

In their civil respects, we should also observe how they may be severally wrought upon and impressed; and how, and on what occasions, it is fit to gather and fortify, or to slack and remit them; how to discover, or suppress, or nourish, [reconstructed: or] alter, or mix them, as may be most advantageous; what use may be made of each man's particular age, nature, [reconstructed: propensity]; how to advance and promote our just ends, upon the observation of the character and dispositions of those whom we are to deal with.

And this civil use of passion is copiously handled in a learned and excellent discourse of Aristotle, in the second book of his Rhetoric; to which profession, in this respect, it properly belongs: because in matter of action, and of [reconstructed: judicature], affection in some sort is an auditor, or judge, as he speaks. But it seems strange that a man of so vast sufficiency and judgment — and who had, as we may well conjecture, an ambition to knit every science into an entire body, which in other men's labors lay broken and scattered — should yet in his books De Anima overlook the discovery of their nature, essence, [reconstructed: operation and] properties; and in his books of moral philosophy, should not remember to acquaint us with the indifference, irregularity, subordination, rebellion, conspiracy, discords, causes, effects, and consequences of each particular of them, being circumstances of obvious and daily use in our life, and of necessary and singular benefit, to give light to the government of right reason.

Touching passions in order to civil or judiciary affairs, I shall not make any observation; of either of the other, I shall in part touch upon, though not distinctly and asunder, but in a brief and confused collection of some few particulars.

The order which I shall observe, in setting down the honor and corruption of them in general (which method shall in part be kept in their particulars) shall be this: first, according to the antecedents of their motion and acts; secondly, according to the acts themselves; and thirdly, according to the consequents of them.

First, touching the antecedents to the act of passion, they are either the outward motives to them, as namely, the objects to which it is carried; and the causes whereby it is produced: or the inward root and principles of the act, whereby it is wrought and governed.

For the two former, passion is then said commendable, when it is direct and natural. And the corruption is, when it is carried to an undue object, or proceeds from an indirect cause: but these are more observable in the particulars, and therefore there I refer their distinct handling.

For the third, the dignity of passion chiefly consists in a consonance and obedience to the prescription of reason: for there is in man's faculties a natural subordination, whereby the actions of the inferior receive their motion and direction from the influence of the higher. Now appetite was in beasts only made to be governed by a sensitive knowledge: but in man, sense ought not [reconstructed: to] have any commanding or moving power, but only instrumental, ministerial, and conveying, in respect of the object. The action of sense was [reconstructed: not] from the first institution ordained to touch the affection, but to present itself primarily to the understanding; upon whose determination and conduct, the passions were to depend, to submit all their inclinations to it, and to be its ministers, in the execution of all such duties, as it should deem any way expedient for the benefit of man's nature: so that herein consists a great part of man's infelicity, by the Fall; that albeit his understanding itself be blinded, and therefore not able to reach forth any perfect good to the inferior parts; yet that small portion of light, which it yet retains for the government of our actions, is become ineffectual, as being able only to convince, but not to reform. [illegible]

The corruption then of passion in this respect, is the independence thereof upon its true principle: when it stays not to look for, but anticipates and prevents the discourses of reason; relying only on the judgment of sense, wherewith it retains an undue correspondence. So that herein is mainly verified that complaint of the Prophet: "Man, being in honor, has no understanding, and is become as the beasts that perish." For, as in the body (to use the similitude of Aristotle) if any parts thereof be out of joint, it cannot yield obedience to the government of the motive faculty; but when it would carry it one way, it falls another: so it is in the mind of man, when that natural continuity and union of faculties, whereby one was made in operation dependent on another, is once dissolved; when affections are disjointed from reason, and cast off the reins whereby they should be guided, there cannot be that sweet harmony in the motion thereof, which is required to the weal of man's nature.

It is prodigious to see an instrument (such as all appetite should be) to be the first and self-mover in its own actions; from where cannot in the mind of man but follow great danger: it being all one, as if a wagoner should commit himself to the wild and unswayed fancy of his horses; or, as if a blind man, who has not the power of directing his own feet, should be permitted to run headlong, without wit or moderation, having no guide to direct him. For as fire (though it be of all other creatures one of the most comfortable and useful, while it abides in the place ordained for it;) yet, when it once exceeds those limits, and gets to the house-top, it is most merciless and overrunning: so passion (though of excellent service in man, for the heating and enlivening of virtue, for adding spirit and edge to all good undertakings, and blessing them with a happier issue than they could alone have attained to) yet if once they fly out beyond their bounds, and become subject only to their own laws, and encroach upon reason's right, there is nothing more tumultuous and tyrannical. As Bias said of the tongue, that it was the best and the worst part of the sacrifice, so may we of the affections: Nec meliores unquam Servos nec Dominos sentit Natura deteriores — they are the best servants, but the worst masters, which our nature can have. Like the winds, which being moderate, carry the ship; but drown it, being tempestuous. And it is true as well in man's little commonwealth, as in greater states, that there are no more pestilent and pernicious disturbers of the public good, than those who are best qualified for service and employment; if once they grow turbulent and mutinous, neglecting the common end, for their own private respects, and desirous to raise themselves upon public ruins. And indeed it is universally true: things most useful and excellent in their regularity, are most dangerous in their abuse.