Malevolent passions.—Malevolent inclinations give rise to the most terrible passions. But are there, indeed, in man naturally malevolent inclinations? Reid, the philosopher, disputes it and justly thinks, as we do, that malevolent passions are but the abuse of certain personal inclinations intended to serve as auxiliaries in the development of our activity. There are two principal malevolent passions, emulation and anger.
Emulation is but a special desire for success and superiority. This desire, induced by the thought that other men around us have attained to such or such degree of public esteem or power, is not in itself a malevolent inclination. We may wish to equal and surpass others without, at the same time, wishing them any harm. We can experience pleasure in excelling them, without exactly rejoicing in their defeat; we can bear being excelled by them without begrudging them their success.
Emulation then is a personal but not a malevolent sentiment; it becomes malevolent and vicious when our feelings toward others become inverted: when, for example, we regret, not the check we have been made to suffer, but the advantage our rivals have gained over us, and when we are unable to bear the idea of the good fortune of others; or again when, conversely, we experience more pleasure at their defeat than joy at our own victory. This sentiment, thus perverted, becomes what is called envy: and envy is generally the pain we feel at the good fortune of others; it is then a sentiment implying the wish to see others unhappy; and is therefore an actual vice, as low as it is odious.
Envy which has some analogy with jealousy must be distinguished from the latter. Jealousy is a kind of envy which bears especially upon affections it is not allowed to share; envy, upon material goods, or goods in the abstract (fortune, honors, power). The envious man wants goods he does not possess; the jealous man refuses to share those which he has. Jealousy is then a sort of selfishness, not as base as envy, since higher goods are in question, but which for its consequences is nevertheless one of the most terrible of passions.
Anger is a natural passion, which seems to have been bestowed on us to furnish us an arm against peril; it is an effort the soul makes to resist an evil it stands in danger of. But this inclination is one of those which cause us the quickest to lose our self-possession, and throws us into a sort of momentary insanity. Yet, although it is a passion of which the consequences may be fatal, it is not necessarily accompanied by hatred (as may be seen by the soldier who will fight furiously and who, immediately after the battle or during a truce, will shake hands with his enemy). Anger then is an effort of nature in the act of self-defense; it is a fever, and as such it is a fatal and culpable passion, but it is not a vice.
Anger becomes hatred when, thinking of the harm we have done or could do to our enemy, we rejoice over the thought of this harm; it is called resentment or rancor when it is the spiteful recollection of an injury received; finally, it becomes the passion of vengeance (the most criminal of all) when it is the desire and hope to return evil for evil. Pleasure at the misfortune of others, when it reaches a certain refinement, even though free from hatred, becomes cruelty.
Hatred changes into contempt when there is joined to it the idea of the baseness and inferiority of the person who is hated. Contempt is a legitimate sentiment when it has for its object base and culpable actions; it is a bad and blameworthy passion when it bears upon a pretended inferiority, either of birth, or fortune, or talent, and then belongs to false pride. False pride, however, is not always accompanied by contempt. We see men full of self-satisfaction, who yet know how to be polite and courteous toward those they regard their inferiors; others, on the contrary, who look down upon their inferiors and treat them like brutes. Contempt, with such, is added to false pride. A gentler form of contempt is disdain, a sort of delicate and covered contempt. Contempt when it applies itself to set off, not the vices, but the peculiarities of men, trying to make them appear ridiculous, becomes raillery or irony.
Such are the principal affections of the soul viewed as diseases, that is to say, inasmuch as they have need of remedies.
Let us now, to continue Bacon’s comparison, pass to their treatment.
176. Culture of the soul.—After having studied characters and passions, we have to ask ourselves by what means passions may be governed and characters modified or corrected.