UPON OUR PASSIONS AND EMOTIONS.
One day, at a time when I was writing a treatise on the subject of the human passions—which treatise was afterwards published among my Miscellaneous Works—I went to him to be enlightened upon several points.
After having answered my questions, and satisfied my mind, he asked me: "And what will you say about the affections?" I must confess that this question surprised me, for though I am quite aware of the distinction between the reasonable and the sensitive appetite, I had no idea that there was such a difference between the passions and the affections, as he told me existed. I imagined that when the passions were governed by reason, they were called affections, but he explained to me that this was not so at all. He said that our sensitive appetite was divided into two parts: the concupiscent and the irascible….
The reasonable appetite is also divided, like the sensitive, into the concupiscent and the irascible, but it makes use of the mind as its instrument.
The sensitive concupiscent appetite is again subdivided into six passions: 1, love; 2, hate; 3, desire; 4, aversion; 5, joy; 6, sadness. The irascible comprises five passions: 1, anger; 2, hope; 3, despair; 4, fear; 5, courage.
The reasonable appetite, which is the will, has just as many affections, and they bear the same names. There is, however, this difference between the passions and the affections. We possess the passions in common with the irrational brute creation, which, as we see, is moved by love, hate, desire, aversion, joy, sadness, anger, hope, despair, fear, and fearlessness, but without the faculty of reason to guide and regulate the impulse of the senses.
The carnal man, that is to say, he who allows himself to be carried away by the impetuosity of his feelings, is, says the Psalmist: compared to senseless beasts and is become like to them.[1]
He, however who makes use of his reason, directs his affections uprightly and well, employing them in the service of the reasonable appetite, only in as far as they are guided by the light and teaching of natural reason. As this, however, is faulty and liable to deceptions and illusions, mistakes are often made which are called by philosophers disorders of mind.
But when the regenerate, that is to say, the Christian who possesses both grace and charity, makes use of the passions of his sensitive appetite, as well as of the affections of his reason, for the glory of God, and for the love of Him alone, this does not happen. Then he loves what he ought to love, he hates what he ought to hate, he desires what God wills that he should desire, he flies from what displeases God, he is saddened by offences done against God, he rejoices and takes delight in the things which are pleasing to God. Then his zeal fills him with anger and indignation against all that detracts from the honour due to God; he hopes in God and not in the creature, he fears nothing save to offend God, he is fearless in God's service. Thus, the Psalmist, a man after God's own heart, was able to say that his flesh, that is, the passions seated in his senses, and his heart, namely, the affections rooted in his mind, rejoiced in the living God.[2]
The winds, which, as some of the ancients held, come forth from the caverns and hollows of the earth, produce two very different effects upon the sea. Without winds we cannot sail, and yet through them tempests and shipwrecks happen. The passions and affections shut up in the two caverns of the concupiscent and the irascible appetite are so many inward impulses which urge us on to evil if they are rebellious, disorderly, and irregular, but if directed by reason and charity, lead us into the haven of rest, the port of life eternal.
This is what our Blessed Father taught me, and if you desire any more information on the subject you will find it in his Treatise on the Love of God.[3] His words did indeed open my eyes! They were of the greatest assistance to me in writing the book I alluded to.
[Footnote 1: Psal. xlviii. 13.]
[Footnote 2: Psal. lxxxiii. 3.]
[Footnote 3: Book 1. chap. 5.]