Delphi Collected Works of René Descartes

  ARTICLE CXXXVIII.

  Of their faults and the means of correcting them.

  But, although this use of the passions is the most natural which they can have, and though all the animals devoid of reason direct their lives simply by bodily movements similar to those which in our case usually follow these passions, and to which they incite our soul to consent, it is nevertheless not always good, inasmuch as there are many things hurtful to the body which cause no sadness at the first, or which even produce joy, and others which are useful to it although at first they are distasteful. And, in addition to that, they almost always cause the good things, as well as the evil, to seem much greater and more important than they are; so that they incite us to seek after the one and flee from the others with more ardour and care than is desirable, just as we also see that the brutes are often deceived by baits, and that, in order to evade small evils, they precipitate themselves into greater evils. That is why we should make use of experience and reason in order to distinguish good from evil, and to recognize their just value, so that we may not take the one for the other, or rush into anything too violently.

  ARTICLE CXXXIX.

  Of the function of the same passions inasfar as they pertain to the soul, and to begin withy of love.

  This would be sufficient if we had in us body only, or did it form the better part of us, but inasmuch as it is only the lesser part, we should chiefly consider the passions in so far as they pertain to the soul, with respect to which love and hatred proceed from knowledge and precede joy and sadness, excepting when these last two hold the place of the knowledge of which they are species. And when this knowledge is true, that is to say when the things which it constrains us to love are truly good, and those which it constrains us to hate are truly evil, love is incomparably better than hatred; it can never be too great, and it never fails to produce joy. I assert that this love is extremely good, because, uniting to us what is truly good, it in so far adds perfection to us. I also assert that it cannot be too great, for all that which the most excessive love can do is to unite us so perfectly to these good things, that the love which we have in particular for ourselves, places no distinction therein; this I believe can never be bad. And it is necessarily followed by joy, because it represents to us what we love as a good which pertains to us.

  ARTICLE CXL.

  Of Hatred.

  Hatred, on the contrary, cannot be so small that it does not hurt; and it is never devoid of sadness. I assert that it cannot be too small because we are not incited to any action by the hatred of evil to which we cannot be yet more stimulated by the love of good to which it is opposed, at least when this good and this evil are sufficiently known. For I confess that the hatred of evil which pain alone calls forth, is necessary in respect to body; but I speak here only of that which proceeds from a clearer knowledge, and I only relate it to the soul. I assert also that it is never without sadness, because evil, being merely a privation, cannot be conceived without some real subject in which it subsists; and there is nothing real which has not some goodness in it, and so the hatred which removes us from some evil, by the same means removes us from the good to which it is united, and the privation of this good being represented to our soul as a defect which pertains to it, excites sadness therein. For example, the hatred which removes from us the evil habits of someone, by the same means removes us from his company in which we might independently of that find some good of which we are vexed at being deprived. And similarly in all the other hatreds we may observe some element of sadness.

  ARTICLE CXLI.

  Of Desire, Joy, and Sadness.

  As to desire, it is evident that, when it proceeds from a true knowledge, it cannot be bad, provided that it is not excessive, and that this knowledge rules it. It is also evident that joy cannot fail to be good, nor sadness to be bad when we view them in their relation to the soul, because it is in the latter that consists all the inconveniences and embarrassments which the soul obtains from evil, and in the former that consists all the enjoyment of good which pertains to it. And thus, if we had no body, I should venture to say that we could not too greatly abandon ourselves to love, joy, nor too much avoid hatred and sadness; but the corporeal movements which accompany them may all be hurtful to health when they are very violent, and, on the contrary, be useful to it when they are only moderate.

  ARTICLE CXLII.

  Of Joy and Love, compared with Sadness and Hatred.

  For the rest, since hatred and sadness should be rejected by the soul, even when they proceed from a true knowledge, this should with greater reason be the case when they proceed from some false opinion. But people may doubt whether love and joy are good or not, when they are thus established on a bad foundation; and it appears to me that if they are only considered precisely as they are in themselves in reference to the soul, it may be said that, although joy is less solid, and love less advantageous, than when they have a better foundation, they do not cease to be preferable to sadness and hatred equally badly founded. In this way, in the vicissitudes of life where we cannot avoid the risk of being deceived, we always do much better to incline towards the passions which make for good, rather than towards those which relate to evil, even if it be only to avoid it; and even a false joy is often of more value than a sadness whose cause is true. But I dare not say the same of love in respect of hate; for when hatred is just, it only removes us from the subject which contains the evil from which it is good to be separated, while the love which is unjust unites us to things which may hurt, or at least which do not deserve to be so much considered by us as they are, which demeans and degrades its.

  ARTICLE CXLIII.

  Of the same passions inasmuch as they relate to Desire.

  And we must be very careful to remark that what I have just said of these four passions takes place only when they are considered precisely in themselves, and do not incite us to any action. For in so far as they excite in us desire by means of which they regulate our habits, it is certain that all those whose cause is false may harm, and that on the contrary all those whose cause is just may be of use, and, even when they are equally badly founded, joy is usually more hurtful than sadness, since the latter, by providing restraint and fear, disposes in a certain degree to prudence, while the other makes those who abandon themselves to it rash and imprudent.

  ARTICLE CXLIV.

  Of Desires whose accomplishment depends only on us.

  But because these passions can only bring us to any kind of action by the intervention of the desire which they excite, it is this desire particularly which we should be careful to regulate, and it is in this that the principal use of morality consists. And, as I have just said that desire is always good when it follows a true knowledge, so it cannot fail to be bad when it is founded on some error. And it seems to me that the error which we most ordinarily commit in respect to desires is that of not sufficiently distinguishing the things which entirely depend on us from those which do not so depend. For as to those which only depend on us, i.e. on our free will, it is sufficient to know that they are good, not to have it in our power to desire them with too much ardour, because it is following after virtue to perform good actions which depend on ourselves, and it is certain that we cannot have a too ardent desire for virtue. Besides which, since that which we in this way desire is incapable of failing to succeed with us, as it is on ourselves alone that it depends, we shall always receive from it all the satisfaction that we have expected from it. But the fault which is usually committed in this is never in desiring too much, but only in desiring too little; and the sovereign remedy against that is to free the mind as much as possible from all kinds of other less useful desires, and then to try to know very clearly and to consider with attention the goodness of that which is to be desired.

  ARTICLE CXLV.

  Of those Desires which depend only on other things, and what is the meaning of chance.

  As to the things which in nowise depend on us, good as they may be, we shoul
d never desire them with passion, not only because they may not happen and thus may vex us so much the more in proportion to the strength of our desire for them, but principally because, in occupying our thought, they turn us away from applying our affection to other things, the acquisition of which depends on us. And there are two general remedies for these vain desires: the first is generosity, of which I shall speak later: the second is that we ought frequently to cause ourselves to reflect on divine Providence and represent to ourselves that it is impossible that anything should happen in any other way than as it has been determined by this Providence from all eternity. In this way it is, so to speak, a fatality or an immutable necessity, which must be opposed to chance, in order to destroy it by treating it as a chimera which only proceeds from the error of our understanding. For we can desire nothing but that which we hold to be in some manner possible, and we can only hold to be possible those things that do not depend on us, in so far as we reflect that they depend on chance, i.e. that we judge that they may happen, and that similar things have formerly happened. And this opinion is founded only on the fact that we do not know all the facts that contribute to each effect; for when a thing that we have judged to depend on chance does not come to pass, that shows that some one of the causes that were necessary in order to produce it has failed, and in consequence that it was absolutely impossible, and that no such thing has ever happened — that is, a thing in the production of which a similar cause was also lacking — so that if we had not been ignorant of that beforehand, we should not have ever judged it possible, nor consequently have desired it.

  ARTICLE CXLVI.

  Of those that depend on us and on others.

  We must, then, entirely set aside the vulgar opinion that there is outside of us a Fortune which causes things to happen or not to happen in accordance with its pleasure, and we must recognize that all is conducted by divine Providence, whose eternal decree is so infallible and immutable, that, excepting the things that this same decree has willed to leave dependent on our free will, we ought to reflect that in relation to us nothing happens which is not necessary, and so to speak decreed by fate, and that thus we cannot without error desire that it should happen otherwise. But because the greater part of our desires extends to things which do not depend entirely on us, nor entirely on others, we ought to distinguish exactly in them what depends only on us, in order to extend our desire to that alone; and as to what remains, although we ought in this to hold success to be absolutely decreed by fate and immutable, in order that our desire may not occupy itself therewith, we should not omit to consider the reasons which make it more or less to be hoped for, in order that they may serve to regulate our actions. Thus, to take an example, if we have business in some particular place to which we may go by two different roads, the one of which is usually much safer than the other, although the decree of Providence is perhaps such that, if we go by the road which we judge to be safest, we shall not escape being-robbed by so doing, while, on the other hand, we might pass by the other without danger, we should not for all that be indifferent as to which one we choose, nor rest on the immutable fatality of the said decree. But reason desires us to choose the road which is usually most safe, and our desire should be accomplished in respect to that when we have followed it, whatever evil may thus befall us, because this evil, having been relatively to us inevitable, we have had no reason to expect exemption from it, but merely claim to have done the best that our understanding has been able to point out, as I suppose to have been the case. And it is certain that when we exercise ourselves in thus distinguishing fatality from fortune, we easily accustom ourselves so to regulate our desires, that, in as far as their accomplishment depends only on us, they may always provide us with complete satisfaction.

  ARTICLE CXLVII.

  Of the interior emotions of the soul.

  I shall only add here a consideration which, it seems to me, we shall find of much service in preventing us from suffering any inconvenience from the passions; and that is that our good and our harm depend mainly on the interior emotions which are only excited in the soul by the soul itself, in which respect they differ from its passions, which always depend on some movement of the spirits. And, although these emotions of the soul are frequently united to the passions which are similar to them, they may likewise often be met with along with others, and even take their origin from those which are contrary to them. For example, when a husband laments his dead wife whom (as sometimes happens) he would be sorry to see brought to life again, it may be that his heart is oppressed by the sadness that the appurtenances of woe and the absence of one to whose conversation he was used excite in him; and it may be that some remnants of love or pity which present themselves to his imagination draw sincere tears from his eyes, notwithstanding that he yet feels a secret joy in the inmost parts of his heart, the emotion of which possesses so much power that the sadness and the tears which accompany it can do nothing to diminish its force. And when we read of strange adventures in a book, or see them represented in a theatre, which sometimes excite sadness in us, sometimes joy, or love, or hatred, and generally speaking all the passions, according to the diversity of the objects which are offered to our imagination; but along with that we have pleasure in feeling them excited in us, and this pleasure is an intellectual joy which may as easily take its origin from sadness as from any of the other passions.

  ARTICLE CXLVIII.

  That the exercise of virtue is a sovereign remedy against the passions.

  And, inasmuch as these inward emotions touch us most nearly, and in consequence have much more power over us than the passions from which they differ, and which are met with in conjunction with them, it is certain that, provided our soul is always possessed of something to content itself with inwardly, none of the troubles that come from elsewhere have any power to harm it, but rather serve to increase its joy, inasmuch as, seeing that it cannot be harmed by them, it is made sensible of its perfection. And in order that our soul may thus have something with which to be content, it has no need but to follow exactly after virtue. For whoever has lived in such a way that his conscience cannot reproach him for ever having failed to perform those things which he has judged to be the best (which is what I here call following after virtue) receives from this a satisfaction which is so powerful in rendering him happy that the most violent efforts of the passions never have sufficient power to disturb the tranquillity of his soul.

  PART THIRD. OF PARTICULAR PASSIONS.

  ARTICLE CXLIX.

  Of Esteem and Disdain.

  After having explained the six primitive passions which are so to speak the genera of which all the others are species, I shall here observe succinctly what in particular there is in each of these others, and I shall keep to the same order in which I have before enumerated them. The two first are esteem and disdain; for although their names usually signify only passionless opinions on our part as to the value of a particular thing, still, at the same time, because there often arises from these opinions passions to which we have not given particular names, it seems to me that such may be attributed to them. And esteem, in so far as it is a passion, is an inclination which the soul possesses to represent to itself the value of the thing esteemed, which inclination is caused by a particular movement of the animal spirits conducted into the brain in such a way that they there fortify the impression which serve for this end. The passion of disdain, on the contrary, is an inclination possessed by the soul to consider the baseness or smallness of that which it disdains, caused by the movement of the spirits which fortify the idea of this smallness.

  ARTICLE CL.

  That these two passions are only species of wonder or admiration.

  These two passions are thus only species of wonder; for when we do not wonder at the greatness or smallness of an object, we do not make more or less of it than reason tells us that we ought to do in its regard, so that we then esteem or disdain it without passion.

  And, although often the
esteem is excited in us by love, and the disdain by hate, that is not universally so, and only proceeds from the fact that we are more or less inclined to consider the greatness or smallness of an object because of our having more or less affection for it.

  ARTICLE CLI.

  That we may esteem or disdain ourselves.

  Now these two passions may generally speaking relate to all sorts of objects; but they are chiefly remarkable when we relate them to ourselves, i.e. when it is our own merit that we esteem or despise. And the movement of the spirits which causes them is then so manifest, that it even changes the mien, the gestures, the gait, and generally speaking all the actions of those who have a better or a worse opinion of themselves than usual.

  ARTICLE CLII.

  For what reasons we may esteem ourselves.

  And because one of the principal parts of wisdom is to know in what way and for what cause each person ought to esteem or despise himself, I shall here try to place on record my opinion on the matter. I only remark in us one thing which might give us good reason to esteem ourselves, to wit, the use of our free will, and the empire which we possess over our wishes. Because it is for those actions alone which depend on this free will that we may with reason be praised or blamed; and this in a certain measure renders us like God in making us masters of ourselves, provided that we do not through remissness lose the rights which He gives us.