if that feeling vanish without producing any effect, it is in proper language an emotion: but if the feeling, by reiterated views of the object, becomes sufficiently strong to occasion desire, it loses its name of emotion, and acquires that of passion. The same holds in all the other passions. The painful feeling raised in a spectator by a slight injury done to a stranger, being accompanied with no desire of revenge, is termed an emotion; but that injury raiseth in the stranger a stronger emotion, which being accompanied with desire of revenge is passion :-envy is emulation in excess; if the exaltation of a competitor be barely disagreeable, the painful feeling is an emotion; if it produce desire to depress him, it is passion." This account of the distinction between emotion and passion is ingenious, and to a certain extent just. I am inclined to think, however, that the distinction will not, in every instance, hold good; and that some emotions, which are lively enough to be termed passions, are not immediately either accompanied or followed by desire. Of this description, I consider the emotions of astonishment, joy, sorrow, melancholy, and several others. Our passions are only emotions of a very lively nature, producing both on the body and the mind, in a greater or less degree, the effects already noticed; and as all our affections and emotions are susceptible of becoming very lively, they are of course susceptible of becoming passions. Mr. Hume, therefore, is not so far from the truth as some have supposed, when he gives the name of passion to all the principles of action in the human mind. He was wrong, undoubtedly, in deviating from the received acceptation of the term, and in giving the several classes of our affections and emotions an appellation to which though they all on certain occasions may be entitled, is not proper to them in their ordinary state. There is also something like sophistry in reducing all our principles of action under the general term of passions; and in maintaining, as the consequence of this, that every man is, and ought to be, led by his passions. Different opinions have been entertained by moralists concerning the utility of the passions. The Peripatetics contended, that though in themselves dangerous, they may be made most useful auxiliaries to virtue; while the Stoics, as is generally supposed, maintained, that as every degree of passion darkens the understanding, and is hostile to the exercise of reason, it is the duty of a wise man to attempt its utter extermination. I apprehend that the controversy on this topic between these rival sects was owing more to an ambiguity of language than to any radical difference of opinion. The Stoics, in particular, were not happy in their selection of words; and the Greek epithet that denotes passion, having different shades of meaning, expressing the different degrees of feeling, from calm emotion to the height of its turbulence and vehemence, was well adapted to the purposes of disputation. They understood the word in its worst sense; just as the term passion always suggests to the common people, the notion of anger or resentment. They did not mean to say that any principle of action implanted in our nature should be destroyed; but thought it unworthy of a wise and good man to indulge any emotion to excess, especially a bad one. So far their views were agreeable to divine revelation, which enjoins its disciples to be anxious for nothing, and to be temperate in all things. Nor can we suppose, that if the ambiguity of language had been laid aside, there would have been any material difference of opinion between them and the followers of Aristotle. But while one considered passion only as the cause of those bad effects which it often produces, and the other regarded it as fitted by nature to produce good effects, when under subjection to reason, it does not appear that what the one sect justified was the same thing which the other condemned. CHAPTER VIII. ON THE DESIRES. THERE is no way in which we discover more clearly the wisdom of the Deity, than the manner in which our intellectual and moral powers harmoniously combine in the accomplishment of one end, the virtue and happiness of man. Our appetites have been given us, as we have seen, to secure the existence of the individual, and the preservation of the species : our affections, which are still nobler principles of action, have been communicated to prompt us to pure and generous exertion; and our desires, which are principles of a still higher order, are intended to stimulate us in the pursuit of what is pure and lovely. Our desires are distinguished from our appetites and affections by various circumstances. They differ from our appetites in not taking their rise from the body-in not operating periodically, after certain intervals and in not ceasing on the attainment of a particular object. While we are pursuing the objects of our desire we are, in the judgment of others, as well as in our own, acting a part more suited to our rational nature than when yielding to the dominion of indolence or of appetite; and it is not till we pervert them from their true end that we fall in the esteem of our fellow-creatures. Our desires are classed by Dr. Reid among what he terms our animal principles of action; because, as he thinks, they require intention and will in their operation, but not judgment. This distinction he traces to the ancient moralists, who termed principles of this description blind desires. I see little propriety in this distinction; and, therefore, consider our affections and desires, especially our desires, as parts of our rational nature, to be employed under the direction of reason and understanding. The correctness of this opinion may be maintained, though we admit that the desire of superiority exists in a slight degree in some of the lower animals. It is said that in a herd of black cattle there is a rank and subordination. When a stranger is introduced into the herd, he must fight every one till his rank is settled. Then he yields to the stronger, and assumes authority over the weaker. This is the only known instance in which the slightest trace of any of our desires can be seen in the brute creation; and the difference between even this and the desire of power in man is so great, as to render it doubtful whether they are the same in kind. "To desire, it is essential that the object appear to us good ;-or rather, to appear to us good, and to appear to us desirable, are truly the same thing ;our only conception of what is good, as an immediate object of desire, being that it excites in us, when considered by us, this feeling of desire. If all things had been uniformly indifferent to all mankind, it is evident that they could not have formed any classes of things as good or evil. What we do not desire may be conceived by us to be good, relatively to others who desire it, but cannot seem good relatively to us. To enumerate the objects of our desire would be to enumerate almost every object which exists around us on earth, and almost every relation of these objects; without taking into account the variety of wishes more fantastic, which our wild imagination is capable of forming, a complete enumeration of all the possibilities of human wishes is almost as little to be expected, as a complete gratification of all the wishes of man, whose desires are as unlimited as his power is bounded*." The chief of our desires are, 1. The desire of knowledge, or the principle of curiosity. 2. The desire of society. 3. The desire of esteem. 4. The desire of power, or the principle of ambition. 5. The desire of superiority, or the principle of emulation. 6. The alternate desire of activity and repose; and, 7. The desire of happiness, or the principle of self-love. To these some writers add, the desires of continued exist * Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, by the late T. Brown, M, D. |