ARTICLE CLXXI.
Of Courage and Bravery.
Courage, when it is a passion and not a custom or natural inclination, is a certain heat or agitation which disposes the soul forcibly to bend itself powerfully to the execution of the things which it desires to do, of whatever nature they may be; and bravery is a species of courage which disposes the soul to the execution of the things that are the most dangerous.
ARTICLE CLXXII.
Of Emulation.
And emulation is also a species of courage, but in another sense; for we may consider courage as a genus which divides into as many species as there are different objects, and into as many others as it has causes; in the first aspect bravery is a species, and in the second, emulation. And this last is none other than a heat which disposes the soul to undertake things which it hopes to be able on its own account to succeed in, because it sees them succeed with others; and thus it is a species of courage of which the external cause is example. I repeat the external cause, because it must ever have in addition to that an inward cause, which consists in the fact that the body is so constituted that desire and hope have more power in causing a quantity of blood to pass to the heart than has fear or despair to prevent it.
ARTICLE CLXXIII.
How Bravery depends on hope.
For it must be remarked that although the object of bravery is difficulty, from which there usually follows fear, or even despair, so that it is in matters the most dangerous and desperate that we employ most bravery or courage, it is yet essential that we should hope, or even that we should be assured, that the end which is proposed will succeed, in order to oppose with vigour the difficulties that we meet with. But this end is different from this object of bravery; for we could not be assured of and hopeless of the same thing at the same time. Thus when the Decii threw themselves against their enemies and rushed to certain death, the object of their bravery was the difficulty of preserving their life during this action, for which difficulty they had only despair, for they were certain of perishing; but their end was to animate their soldiers by their example, and to cause them to win the victory, for which they had hope; or again their end also was to obtain after their death a glory of which they were assured.
ARTICLE CLXXIV.
Of Cowardice and Fear.
Cowardice is directly opposed to courage, and it is a languor or coldness which prevents the soul from proceeding to the execution of things which it would do were it exempt from this passion; and fear or terror, which is contrary to bravery, is not only a coldness, but also a perturbation and astonishment of the soul, which takes from it the power of resisting the evils which it thinks lie at hand.
ARTICLE CLXXV.
Of the uses of Cowardice.
And, although I cannot persuade myself that nature has given to men any passion which is always vicious and has no good and praiseworthy use, I have yet much trouble in guessing what end these two can serve. It merely seems to me that cowardice has some use when it exempts us from taking the pains which we might be incited to take by probable reasons, if other more certain reasons, which have caused them to be judged useless, had not excited this passion; for besides the fact that it exempts the soul from these pains, it is secondly useful also for the body, inasmuch as, in restraining the movement of the spirits, it prevents us from dissipating our forces. But usually it is very hurtful, because it turns away the will from useful actions; and because it only proceeds from the fact that we have not enough hope or desire, we only need to augment within us these two passions in order to correct it.
ARTICLE CLXXVI.
Of the uses of Fear.
As to the significance of fear or terror, I do not see that it can ever be praiseworthy or useful; it likewise is not a special passion, but merely an excess of cowardice, astonishment and fear, which is always vicious, just as bravery is an excess of courage which is always good, provided that the end proposed is good; and because the principal cause of fear is surprise, there is nothing better for getting rid of it than to use premeditation and to prepare oneself for all eventualities, the fear of which may cause it.
ARTICLE CLXXVII.
Of Remorse.
Remorse of conscience is a species of sadness which comes from the doubt which we have that a thing which we are doing or have done is good; and it necessarily presupposes doubt. For if we were entirely assured that what we are doing was bad, we should abstain from doing it, inasmuch as the will only tends towards things which have some appearance of goodness; and if we were assured that what we have already done was bad, we should experience repentance for it, not simply remorse. And the use of this passion is to make us examine whether that of which we doubt is good or not, or to prevent our doing it another time so long as we are not certain that it is good. But because it presupposes evil, the better part would he never to have occasion to feel it; and we may prevent it by the same means as those whereby we may exempt ourselves from irresolution.
ARTICLE CLXXVIII.
Of Scorn.
Derision or scorn is a sort of joy mingled with hatred, which proceeds from our perceiving some small evil in a person whom we consider to be deserving of it; we have hatred for this evil, we have joy in seeing it in him who is deserving of it; and when that comes upon us unexpectedly, the surprise of wonder is the cause of our bursting into laughter, in accordance with what has been said above of the nature of laughter. But this evil must be small, for if it is great we cannot believe that he who has it is deserving of it, unless when we are of a very evil nature or bear much hatred towards him.
ARTICLE CLXXIX.
Why the least perfect are usually most given to mockery.
And we notice that people with very obvious defects such as those who are lame, blind of an eye, hunched-backed, or who have received some public insult, are specially given to mockery; for, desiring to see all others held in as low estimation as themselves, they are truly rejoiced at the evils which befall them, and they hold them deserving of these.
ARTICLE CLXXX.
Of the function of ridicule.
As regards the modest bantering which is useful in reproving vices by making them appear ridiculous, so long as we do not laugh at them ourselves or bear any hatred towards the individuals concerned, it is not a passion, but a quality pertaining to the well disposed man which gives evidence of the gaiety of his temper and the tranquillity of his soul, which are characteristic marks of virtue; it often also shows the ingenuity of his mind in knowing how to present an agreeable appearance to the things which he ridicules.
ARTICLE CLXXXI.
Of the junction of laughter in ridicule.
And it is not wrong to laugh when we hear the jests of another; these jests may even be such that it would be difficult not to laugh at them; but when we ourselves jest, it is more fitting to abstain from laughter, in order not to seem to be surprised by the things that are said, nor to wonder at the ingenuity we show in inventing them. And that makes those who hear them all the more surprised.
ARTICLE CLXXXII.
Of Envy.
What we usually call envy is a vice which consists in a perversion of nature which causes certain people to be annoyed with the good which they see coming to others, but I here use the word to signify a passion which is not always vicious. Envy, then, in so far as it is a passion, is a kind of sadness mingled with hatred, which proceeds from our seeing good coming to those whom we consider unworthy of it; and we cannot think this with any reason excepting in relation to the good things of fortune. For as regards those of the soul, or even of the body, inasmuch as we possess them from birth, it is sufficient so far as worthiness is concerned that we have received them from God before being capable of committing any evil.
ARTICLE CLXXXIII.
How it may be either just or unjust.
But when fortune sends good things to some one who is truly unworthy of them, and envy is only excited in us because, naturally loving justice, we are vexed that it is not obse
rved in the distribution of these good things, our sentiments may be excusable, more especially when the good which we envy in others is of such a kind that it may be converted into evil in their hands, as when it is some charge or office in whose exercise they may comport themselves ill. When we desire the same good for ourselves and are prevented from having it because others who are less worthy possess it, this passion is rendered more violent; and it does not cease to be excusable provided that the hatred which it contains relates solely to the bad distribution of the good which we envy, and not to the persons who possess it or distribute it. But there are few who are sufficiently generous and just not to bear hatred to those who get the better of them in the acquisition of a good which is not communicable to many, and which they had desired for themselves, although those who acquired it are as worthy or even more so. And what is usually most envied is glory; for although the glory of others does not prevent our being able to aspire to it, it yet renders access to it more difficult, and heightens the price we must pay for it.
ARTICLE CLXXXIV.
From whence it comes that the envious are subject to have a leaden complexion.
For the rest, there is no vice which so detracts from the happiness of men as that of envy; for, in addition to the fact that those who are tainted with it distress themselves, they also disturb to the utmost of their power the pleasure of others; and usually they have a leaden hue, that is to say, one of mingled yellow and black like battered blood, whence envy is in Latin called livor, which accords very well with what has been said above regarding the movements of the blood in sadness and hatred. For the former causes the yellow bile which proceeds from the lower portion of the liver, and the black which proceeds from the spleen, to expand from the heart by the arteries into all the veins, and the latter causes the blood in the veins to have less heat, and to flow more slowly than usual, which suffices to render the colour livid. But because the bile, yellow as well as black, may also be sent into the veins by many other causes, and because envy does not send them there in sufficiently great quantity to change the shade of the colour, except when it is great and of long duration, we must not think that all those in whom we observe this colour are inclined thereto.
ARTICLE CLXXXV.
Of Pity.
Pity is a species of sadness, mingled with love or good-will towards those whom we see suffering some evil of which we consider them undeserving. It is thus contrary to envy by reason of its object, and to scorn because it considers its objects in another way.
ARTICLE CLXXXVI.
Those who are the most given to pity.
Those who feel themselves very feeble and subject to the adversities of fortune appear to be more disposed to this passion than others, because they represent the evil of others as possibly occurring to themselves; and then they are moved to pity more by the love that they bear to themselves than by that which they bear to others.
ARTICLE CLXXXVII.
How the most noble-minded are touched by this passion.
Nevertheless those who are most generous and strongest in mind, inasmuch as they fear no ill for themselves and hold themselves to be beyond the powers of fortune, are not exempt from compassion when they see the infirmity of other men and hear their plaints; for it is a part of generosity to wish well to one and all. But the sadness of this pity is no longer bitter, and, like that caused by the tragic actions which we see represented in a theatre, it is more external and in the senses than in the interior of the soul, which has yet the satisfaction of thinking that it does its duty in compassionating the afflicted. And there is this difference here that while the ordinary man has compassion on those who lament their lot because he thinks that the evils from which they suffer are very vexatious, the principal object of the pity of the greatest men is the weakness of those whom they see bemoaning their fate, because they do not consider that any accident which might possibly happen would be so great an ill as is the cowardice of those who cannot endure it with constancy; and although they hate vices, they do not for all that hate those whom they see subject to them, but only pity them.
ARTICLE CLXXXVIII.
Who are those who are not touched by it.
But it is only the evilly disposed and envious, who naturally hate all men, or those who are so brutal and blinded by good fortune, or rendered so desperate by evil fortune that they do not consider that any evil can happen to them, who are insensible to pity.
ARTICLE CLXXXIX.
Why this passion moves us to weep.
For the rest we weep very easily in this passion because love, sending much blood towards the heart, causes many vapours to issue from the eyes, and the coldness of sadness, retarding the agitation of these vapours, causes them to change into tears, in accordance with what has been said above.
ARTICLE CXC.
Of Self-Satisfaction.
The satisfaction which those who pursue virtue constantly have, is a habitude of their soul which is called tranquillity and repose of conscience; but that which is newly acquired, when we have just done some action which we think good, is a passion, i.e. a species of joy which I consider to be the sweetest of all joys, because its cause depends only on ourselves. At the same time when this cause is not just, i.e. when the actions from which we derive much satisfaction are not of great importance or are even vicious, it is absurd, and only serves to produce pride and an impertinent arrogance; and this we observe particularly in those who, believing themselves to be pious, are merely bigoted and given over to superstitions. That is to say they are those who, under the pretence that they go frequently to church, that they recite many prayers, that they wear their hair short, that they fast, that they give alms, think themselves to be absolutely perfect, and imagine themselves to be such close friends of God that they can do nothing to displease Him, and that all that their passion presents is well-directed zeal, although it sometimes guides them into the greatest crimes that can be committed by men, such as the betrayal of towns, the assassination of princes, the extermination of entire peoples, for the sole reason that they do not follow their opinions.
ARTICLE CXCI.
Of Repentance.
Repentance is directly opposed to self-satisfaction and is a species of sadness which comes from our believing ourselves to have committed some evil action; and it is very bitter because its cause proceeds from ourselves alone, though this does not prevent its being very useful when it is the case that the action of which we repent is evil, and when we have a certain knowledge of it, because it incites us to do better another time. But it often happens that feeble minds repent of the things they have done without knowing assuredly that they are evil; they only persuade themselves because they fear it is so, and if they had done the opposite, they would have repented in the same way; and this is an imperfection in them deserving of pity. The remedies for this fault are the same as those which serve to remove irresolution.
R. H, —
ARTICLE CXCII.
Of Favour.
Favour is, properly speaking, a desire to see good coming to some one for whom one has good will: but here I make use of this word to signify this will inasmuch as it is excited in us by some good action on the part of him for whom we have it. For we are naturally impelled to love those who do the things which we esteem to he good, even though no good comes to us by so doing. In this sense favour is a species of love, not of desire, although the desire to see good come to him whom one favours always accompanies it; and it is usually united to pity because the tribulations which we see falling upon the unfortunate are the cause of our reflecting all the more on their merits.
ARTICLE CXCIII.
Of Gratitude.
Gratitude is also a species of love excited in us by some action on the part of him for whom we have it, by which also we believe that he has done us some good or at least had that intention. It has thus the same content as favour, and so much the more in that it is founded on an action which affects us, and of which we have the desire to
make a return. That is why it has much more strength, especially in the minds of those who are, to however small a degree, noble and generous.
ARTICLE CXCIV.
Of Ingratitude.
As to ingratitude it is not a passion, for nature has not placed in us any movement of the spirits which excites it; it is merely a vice directly opposed to gratitude, inasmuch as the former is always virtuous and one of the principal bonds that bind together human society. That is why this vice is found only in men who are brutal and very arrogant, and who think that all things are their due; or in stupid people, who never reflect on the benefits that they receive; or feeble and abject persons who, being sensible of their infirmity and need, basely seek the help of others, and after they have received it, hate their benefactors because, not having the will to render them the like, or despairing to be able to do so, and imagining that every one is as mercenary as they, and that no good thing is accomplished without the hope of recompense, the think they have deceived them.
ARTICLE CXCV.
Of Indignation.
Indignation is a species of hatred or aversion which we have by nature against those who do some evil of whatever sort it be and it is often mingled with envy or pity, but yet it has a very different object. For we are indignant only with those who dc good or evil to persons who are undeserving of it; but we are envious of those who receive this good, and we pity those who receive the evil. It is true that it is in some ways doing evil to possess a good of which we are not worthy [digne]; and this may be the reason why Aristotle and his successors, supposing envy to be always a vice, have termed by the name indignation that passion which is not vicious.