PART I.

ANALYSIS OF THE PASSIONS.

CHAP. I.

General View of the Subject.

SECTION I.

On Passions, Emotions, and Affections; the specific difference between them.

By Passions, emotions, and affections, we understand those stronger or weaker feelings, with their correspondent effects upon the system, which are excited within us, by the perception or contemplation of certain qualities, which belong, or are supposed to belong, to the objects of our attention; and which, in some respect or other, appear interesting to us. In all cases,

when the violence of the emotion is not too powerful for the animal œconomy, the feelings or sensations excited, are pleasant or unpleasant, according to the nature of the exciting cause, the ideas entertained of it, or the intenseness with which the mind is struck by it. These feelings differ in degrees of strength, according

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to the apparent importance of their cause; according to certain peculiarities of temperament; and also according to the manner in which the influential qualities are presented to the mind.

One or other of the three terms, PASSION, EMOTION, AFFECTION, is always employed to express the sensible effects which objects, or ideas concerning them, have upon the mind; but they are so frequently employed in a vague and indeterminate manner, that some difficulty attends the attempt to restore them to their precise and discriminating significations.

The word Passion, is thus rendered subject to several peculiarities, in the application of it. Sometimes it is used in a generic sense, as expressive of every impression made upon the mind. When we speak of the passions in general, or of a treatise on the passions, we mean not to express the stronger impressions alone, the mildest affections are also included; and if we denominate any one to be a person of strong passions, we mean that he is subject to violent transports of joy, or grief, or anger, &c. indiscriminately. In one instance the word is emphatically employed to express suffering; as our Saviour's passion: in another it indicates anger exclusively; thus when it is said of any one that he is in a passion, it is universally understood that

he is very angry. The term passion, and its adverb passionately, often express a very strong predilection for any pursuit, or object of taste; a kind of enthusiastic fondness for any thing. Thus we remark that a person has a passion for musick, or that he is passionately fond of painting, &c. &c. In a sense similar to this, is the. word also applied to every propensity, which operates strongly and permanently upon the mind; as the selfish passions, the generous passions. Yet when we mean to particularize any of these, a different law of phraseology is observed. The word passion is appropriated by the evil propensities which are uniformly operative. Thus we do not say the affection of pride, or of avarice, but the passion. The term affection, on the other hand, is appropriated by the virtuous propensities; as the social, friendly, parental, filial, affectious, &c. though philosophically considered, the relation they bear to the state and workings of the mind, is perfectly analogous.

Nor is this capricious latitude of expression confined to common language, where accuracy is not always to be expected; it is also obvious among philosophers themselves, so that scarcely two authors, who have written upon the subject of the passions, are agreed in their ideas of the terms they employ. While some consider the

Emotions as highly turbulent, others assert that they are in their own nature quiescent :*-Some suppose a Passion to constitute the strength of an emotion; others confine the idea of a passion to the desire which follows an emotion:--Others again represent the Passions as the calmest things in nature, deeming them to be the steady uniform principles of action, to which reason itself is always subservient. Hence it becomes highly necessary to seek after some rules, which may render our ideas more consistent and uniform.

In most of these applications, no attention has been paid to the primitive signification of the word Passion; although this appears to be the safest method to recall us from those aberrations to which we are perpetually exposed. Few expressions wander so far from their original import, as to convey a sense which is totally foreign. The primary idea annexed to the word is that of passiveness, or being impulsively acted upon. In this sense the term properly signifies the sensible effect, the feeling to which the mind is become subjected, when an object of importance, suddenly and imperiously, demands its attention. If our imaginations be lively, our temperaments susceptible, the object interesting to us, we cannot avoid being affected, or suffer† Mr. Hume.

* Lord Kaims.