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There are four principal passions of the soul: sadness, joy, hope, and fear. The reason for this is that passions which come before the others and are their source are called the principal ones. Now, since the passions of the soul are in the sense appetitive part, those passions will come first which arise immediately from the object of the appetitive part; that is, from good and evil. Those which arise through the intermediary of others will be in a sense secondary.
For a passion to arise immediately from good or evil two conditions are required. The first is that it arise from good and evil essentially or directly, because what is accidental or indirect cannot be first. The second is that it arise without presupposing any other. A passion is accordingly said to be a principal one for these two reasons: It does not come accidentally from the object, which has the role of an active principle, nor does it come subsequently. Now a passion which proceeds from a good inasmuch as it is good, comes from good essentially; but one which proceeds from a good inasmuch as it is evil, comes from good accidentally. And the inverse is to be under stood of evil. Good as such attracts and draws to itself. Hence any passion of an appetite tending to good will be a passion essentially and directly dependent upon good. But it is proper to evil as such to repel the appetite. Hence if there is any passion regarding good by which the good is shunned, that passion will not be from good essentially but in so far as it is apprehended as somehow evil. And the contrary is to be understood of evil: a passion which consists in flight from evil comes from evil essentially or directly, whereas one which consists in an approach to evil comes from evil accidentally. It is there fore clear how a passion arises from good or from evil essentially.
Because, however, to the extent to which a thing is last in the attainment of the end it is first in intention and in desire, those passions which consist in the attainment of the end therefore arise from good or evil without presupposing any others, and will these presupposed others arise. Now joy and sadness come from the attainment of good or evil, and that essentially; for joy comes from a good inasmuch as it is good, and sadness comes from an evil inasmuch as it is evil. And all other passions of the concupiscible power likewise come from good or evil essentially. This is so because the object of the concupiscible power is good or evil in an absolute sense. Yet the other passions of the concupiscible power presuppose joy and sadness as their cause; for a good becomes loved and desired by the concupiscible by reason of its being apprehended as pleasurable, and an evil becomes hateful and repulsive by being apprehended as saddening. Thus in the order of appetency joy and sadness are prior, though in the order of execution and attainment they are posterior.
In the irascible power not all the passions follow from good or evil essentially, but some essentially and others accidentally. This is so because good and evil are not the object of the irascible power in their absolute sense, but as they are modified by the condition of arduousness. Under this condition a good is repudiated as being be yond one’s capabilities, and an evil is tended to as able to be driven away or mastered. But in the irascible power there cannot be any passion which follows from good or evil without any other being presupposed; for after the good is possessed, it does not arouse any passion in the irascible power, as was said above. An evil that is present, on the other hand, does arouse a passion in the irascible power, not essentially but accidentally, inasmuch as the person tends to some thing evil that is present as something to be driven away or mastered. This is evident in the case of anger.
It is clear, then, from what has been said that there are some passions which first and essentially arise from good and evil, as joy and sadness, and some others that essentially but not first so arise, as the other passions of the concupiscible power and two of those of the irascible, fear and hope, one of which expresses a flight from evil, the other an approach to good. And there are some other passions which neither essentially nor first arise from good and evil, as the others in the irascible power, such as despair, boldness, and anger, which express an approach to evil or a withdrawal from good.
The most important passions, therefore, are joy and sadness. But fear and hope are the principal ones in their own class, because they do not presuppose any other passions in the power in which they are found, the irascible. Although the other passions of the concupiscible
power, such as love and desire, hate and aversion, are from good or evil essentially, they are nevertheless not the first in their class, since they presuppose others in the same power. Thus they cannot be called the principal passions either simply or in their genus. It remains, then, that there are only four principal passions: joy and sadness, hope and fear.
Answers to Difficulties:
1. Cupidity or desire is preceded by another passion in the same power, joy, which is the reason for desiring. Desire therefore cannot be a principal passion. Even though hope presupposes another passion, it does not presuppose one in the same power but in the concupiscible. All of the passions of the irascible power, in fact, arise from the passions of the concupiscible, as was said in another question. For this reason it can be one of the principal passions. Augustine, however, lists desire or cupidity in place of hope on account of a certain resemblance between them, because both look to a good not yet possessed.
2. Boldness cannot be one of the principal passions, for it arises from evil accidentally, since it looks to evil will a view to attacking it. For a bold man attacks evil inasmuch as he judges victory over evil and its repulse to be a good, and from the hope of such a good boldness arises. When carefully considered in this way, hope is found to be prior to boldness; for the hope of victory or at least of escape causes boldness.
3. Anger too arises from evil accidentally, inasmuch as an angry person considers revenge for an evil done to him a good and seeks it. Thus the hope of revenge to be obtained is the cause of anger. There fore, when a person is injured by someone upon whom he does not hope to be able to get revenge, he does not become angry, but he merely grows sad or he fears, as Avicenna points out a country burn kin is injured by a king, for instance. Consequently anger can not be a principal passion; for it presupposes not only sadness, which is in the concupiscible power, but also hope, which is in the irascible. The irascible power gets its name from anger, however, because it is the last of the passions which are in the irascible.
4. The passions regarding the future which are in the concupiscible power arise in some sense from the passions in the same power regarding the present. But the passions regarding the future in the irascible do not arise from any passions regarding the present in the same power but rather from such passions in another power, that is, from joy and sadness. Hence there is no parallel.
5. In the lime of execution and attainment love is the first passion, but in the lime of intention joy is prior to love and is the reason for loving, especially in the sense in which love is a passion of the concupiscible power.
6. Joy and sadness are the most Important among the passions, as has been said. Nonetheless hope and fear are the principal ones in their own class, as is clear from what has been said.
7. Since that work is not by Augustine, it does not impose upon us any necessity of accepting its dicta as authoritative. Here especially it is seen to contain a patent error. For hope is not in the concupiscible but in the irascible power; and sadness is not in the irascible but in the concupiscible. Yet if we must uphold its authority, we can say that it is speaking of those powers according to the meaning of their names: concupiscence is concerned will good, and on this basis all passions directed to good can be attributed to the concupiscible power; and because anger is concerned will an evil inflicted, all the passions which regard evil can be attributed to the irascible power. On this basis sadness is attributed to the irascible power and hope to the concupiscible.
8. The contrariety which is proper to the passions of the irascible power, namely, exceeding one’s capacity or not, makes the second passion arise from good or evil accidentally. For something which exceeds one’s capacity leads to withdrawal, whereas something which does not exceed it leads to approach. If these differences are taken will reference to good, then, a passion which follows from something which exceeds one’s capacity will come from good accidentally. If, on the other hand, they are taken will reference to evil, then a passion which follows from something that does not exceed one’s capacity will be accidental. Consequently in the irascible power there cannot be two principal passions which are directly contrary (e.g., hope and despair, or boldness and fear), as are joy and sadness in the concupiscible.
Parallel readings: De malo, 12, 1; Sum. Theol., I-II, 24, I; 3 ad I; II-II, 158, 2.
Difficulties:
It seems that we do, for
1. We merit by fulfilling commands. But by divine commandments we are induced to rejoice, to fear, to grieve, and to have other such passions, as Augustine says. We therefore merit by our passions.
2. According to Augustine2 such passions of the soul are not had without the will. In fact they are nothing but acts of will. But by our acts of will we can merit not only materially but also formally. Then so can we by such passions.
3. Psychical passions come closer to being voluntary than do bodily passions, because the psychical passions are to some extent within our power in so far as the concupiscible and the irascible powers obey reason, whereas bodily passions are not. But bodily passions or sufferings are meritorious, as is evident in the case of martyrs, who merit the aureola of martyrs by their bodily passions. With all the more reason, then, are psychical passions meritorious.
4. The answer was given that bodily passions or sufferings are meritorious in so far as they are willed.—On the contrary, the will to suffer for Christ can also be in one who will never suffer, and yet he will not get the aureola. A bodily passion therefore merits the aureola not only by reason of being willed but by being actually undergone.
5. If from the intensification of a given thing there follows the intensification of reward, that thing is essentially and not just materially meritorious. But from the intensification of bodily passion or suffering there follows the intensification of reward, because the more a person suffers, the more gloriously he will be crowned, as is said. We consequently merit by our passions or sufferings essentially and not just materially.
6. Hugh of St. Victor says: "After the act of will there follows the deed, so that the will is increased in its own work." Thus the external deed contributes something to merit. But the will can similarly be in creased in passion. Passion therefore contributes something to merit; and so the conclusion is the same as before.
7. Since merit is situated in the will, that in which the will terminates as formally completing it must pertain to merit as formally completing it. But in so far as a passion is willed, it is the object of the will; and so it determines the will more or less formally. The passion itself therefore pertains formally to merit.
8. Some of the confessors endured more grievous trials than some of the martyrs. It is accordingly said of them that they underwent a protracted martyrdom, though the passion of certain martyrs was finished in a short space of time. Yet the aureola is not due to the confessors. It accordingly seems that the bodily passion of the martyrs in itself directly merits the aureola.
9. Commenting on the words of the Epistle of St. James (1:2): "My brethren, count it all joy...,"the Gloss says: "Tribulation increases justice in the present life and the crown in the future." But it in creases these only by meriting. Since tribulation is suffering or passion, passion is meritorious.
10. The same appears from what is said in the Psalm (1 15: 15): "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." But precious means worthy of a price. Now the price of our labors is the reward which we merit by our labors. We can therefore merit by our passions.
It was said in answer that we merit by our passions or sufferings in so far as they are willed.—On the contrary, there is the truth which St. Lucy expressed: "If you cause me to be violated against my will, my chastity will be doubled in value for my crown." Even the under going of rape, then, which she would have suffered in this life, would have been meritorious for a crown. Thus passion or suffering does not merit merely because it is voluntary.
12. Difficulty is a necessary condition for merit. This is clear from what the Master says: in the state of innocence man did not merit, because nothing urged him to evil or drew him away from good. Now since passions or sufferings occasion difficulty, they therefore seem to have a direct influence upon merit.
13. Fear is a type of passion. Now we can merit by it even formally, since it is in the intellective part, as is clear when we fear things that we know only by the intellect, as eternal punishment. We can therefore merit by our passions.
14. Reward corresponds to merit. But the reward of glory will be not only in the soul but also in the body. Then merit too consists not only in the action of the soul but also in the passion of the body.
15. Where there is greater difficulty there is a greater score of merit.
But there is greater difficulty regarding sufferings and passions than regarding the operations of the will. Sufferings and passions are there fore more meritorious than the acts of the will, which are, however, formally meritorious.
16. We formally merit by virtues. But certain passions are listed by the saints as virtues—pity and repentance, for example. And certain ones are set down by the philosophers as laudable and the mean between extreme vices, as shame and indignation are instanced by the Philosopher. But all this refers to virtue. We therefore merit formally by passions.
17. Merit and demerit, being contraries, are in the same genus. But demerit is found in the genus of passions; for the first movements, which are sins, are passions. Anger and sloth also are passions, and yet they are listed as capital sins. The Apostle (Rm 1,26) calls sins against nature "shameful passions." Then we also merit by passions.
To the Contrary:
1'. Nothing can be meritorious unless it is within our power, be cause according to Augustine "it is by the will that one sins or lives rightly."12 But passions are not in our power, because, as Augustine says, "we yield to passions unwillingly."13 We therefore do not merit by passions.
2’. Whatever is a preamble to willing cannot be meritorious, since merit depends upon the will. But the passions of the soul precede the act of the will, since they are in the sensitive part, whereas the act of the will is in the intellective part; but the intellective part receives its object from the sensitive. The passions of the soul therefore cannot be meritorious.
3’. Every meritorious deed is praiseworthy. But according to the Philosopher "we are neither praised nor blamed for passions." We therefore do not merit by our passions.
4’. The ability to merit was greater in Christ than it is in us. But Christ did not merit by His passion. Then neither do we merit by our passions.— Proof of the minor: To merit is to make one’s own something which is not one’s own or at least to make more one’s own what is less one’s own. But Christ was notable to make His own what was not His own or to make more His own what was less so, because from the first instant of His conception everything that comes under the heading of merit was most completely due to Him. Christ there fore merited nothing by His passion.
5’. It was answered that He merited by making what was His in one way His in more ways.—On the contrary, a double bond makes the obligation greater. In like fashion a double reason for indebted ness makes a greater debt. Therefore, if Christ was notable to cause something to be more due to Him, neither was He able to make some thing due to Him in more ways.
6’. Difficulty diminishes voluntariness. Since merit must be voluntary, difficulty therefore seems to diminish merit. But passions cause difficulty. They therefore diminish merit rather than contribute to it.
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If meriting is taken in the strict sense, we do not merit by our passions directly but, so to speak, indirectly. Since we speak of meriting in connection will recompense, to merit in the proper sense is to ac quire something for ones if as a recompense. Now this is not done unless we give something that is equal in value to that which we are said to merit. We cannot give anything, however, unless it is ours and we have dominion over it. But we have dominion over our acts through our will—not only over those which are immediately elicited by the will, such as loving or willing, but also over those which are elicited by other powers at the command of the will, such as walking, speaking, and the like. These actions, however, are not equal to eternal life in value as if they were a price paid for it, except in so far as they are informed by grace and charity. Consequently, in order that an act may be directly meritorious, it must be an act either commanded or elicited by the will, and must moreover be informed by charity.
Because the principle of an act consists in the habit and the power and even the object, we are on this account said to merit secondarily, as it were, by our habits and powers and objects. But what is primarily and directly meritorious is a voluntary act informed by grace. Passions, however, do not belong to the will either as commanding or as eliciting them; for the principle of passions as such is not in our power, whereas things are said to be voluntary from the fact that they are in our power. Passions accordingly sometimes even anticipate the act of the will. Directly, then, we do not merit by passions. Yet, in so far as they in some way accompany the will, they somehow have a bearing upon merit so that they can be called meritorious indirectly.
Now a passion has a bearing upon the will in three ways: (1) As the object of the will. In this sense passions are said to be meritorious inasmuch as they are willed or loved. That by which we essentially merit in this case will not be the passion itself but the willing of the passion.
(2) As arousing or intensifying the act of the will. This can come about in two ways, either directly or indirectly—directly when the passion arouses the will to something like itself, as when the will is inclined by concupiscence to consent to the thing coveted or by anger to will revenge; or indirectly when by furnishing the occasion a passion arouses the will to its contrary, as in the case of a chaste person, when the passion of concupiscence wells up, the will resists will a greater effort; for we try harder in regard to difficult things. Thus passions are said to be meritorious inasmuch as the act of the will aroused by the passion is meritorious. (3) Conversely, when a passion is aroused by the will because the movement of the higher appetite overflows into the lower. For example, when by his will a person detests the filth of sin, the lower appetite is by that very fact moved to shame. In this sense shame is said to be either praiseworthy or meritorious by reason of the act of will which caused it.
In the first way, then, passion has a bearing upon the will as its object, in the second as its principle, and in the third as its effect. Thus the first way is more remote from meritoriousness; for will equal reason gold or silver could be called meritorious or demeritorious on the grounds that by willing these we merit or incur demerit. The last way is closer to merit, since the effect receives something from the cause and not the other way about. Thus if merit is taken in its strict sense, we do not merit by our passions except indirectly.
Merit, however, can be taken broadly in the sense in which any disposition that confers a fitness to receive something is said to merit it; for example, if we should say that by reason of her beauty a woman merits marriage to a king. In this sense even bodily passions are said to merit inasmuch as those passions make us in some sense fit to receive some glory.
Answers must therefore be given to each set of difficulties.
Answers to Difficulties:
1. By God’s commandments we are admonished to rejoice or to fear in so far as joy and fear and the like consist in acts of the will and are not passions, as is clear from what was said previously, or also in so far as such passions follow from the will.
2. Augustine says that these passions are acts of will because they come about in us from our will. Thus he adds: "In general depending upon the various things sought or shunned, not only is a man’s will attracted or repelled, but it is also changed and turned into these different affections." On else he is speaking of these passions in the sense in which the terms designate acts of the will, as has been said.
3. The bodily passion of a martyr has nothing to do will the meriting of the essential reward except in so far as it is willed, but it has bearing upon an accidental reward, the aureola of martyrs, through the kind of merit which confers a certain fitness for the aureola; for it is fitting that one who is confirmed to Christ in His passion should be confirmed to Him in His glory, as we gather from the Epistle to the Romans (8:17): "Yet so, if we suffer will him, that we may be also glorified will him." We should bear in mi, however, that the will cannot have the same attitude toward bodily sufferings when a man is not suffering them as it has because of their keenness while he is actually suffering them. In such matters, then, according to the Philosopher it suffices for a brave man not to be saddened. Consequently the bodily passion actually being experienced is both the sign of a firm and constant will and also that which evokes it, because a man makes an effort regarding difficult things. And so the aureola is not due to the confessor, though it is due to the martyr.
4. The answer is clear from what has just been said.
5. An increase in the rewards follows from an intensification of the suffering either because of a certain fittingness or because of the intensity of the will.
6. Even though the will is increased in both a passion and an external act, the case is not the same for both; for the act is commanded by the will, but the passion is not. They therefore do not have the same bearing upon merit.
7. The object determines the will as to the species of the act. Strictly speaking, however, merit consists in the act, not from the viewpoint of the species of the act, but from that of its root, which is charity. Thus it is not necessary that we formally merit by a passion even though it does stand as the object.
8. All the toil which a confessor endures over a long period of rime cannot, under the aspect of the genus of the deed, equal the death which a martyr undergoes even in a moment. For by death one is deprived of what is most valued, life and being; and for this reason it is the ultimate among things that strike terror, according to the Philosopher, and in its regard the virtue of bravery is exercised most of all. This appears very clearly from the fact that men worn out will long-continued afflictions shrink away from death, choosing in effect to undergo further afflictions rather than death. The Philosopher accordingly says that a man of virtue exposes himself to death, choosing rather "one good and great deed than many small ones," as if that act of bravery in facing death outweighed many other virtuous deeds.
Consequently, from the standpoint of the genus of his deed, the least martyr merits more than any confessor whatever. From that of the root of his deed, however, the confessor can merit more to the extent that he acts from greater charity, because the essential reward corresponds to the root, charity, whereas the accidental reward corresponds to the genus of the act. Hence it is that a confessor can surpass a martyr in the essential reward, but the martyr surpasses him in the accidental reward.
9. That comment in the Gloss is speaking of tribulation in so far as it is willed or excites the will.
10. The same is to be said of this difficulty.
11. For a virgin who would be violated for the sake of Christ, that very violation would be meritorious, just like the other sufferings of the martyrs, not because the violation itself would be voluntary, but because its antecedents, her remaining constant in the confession of Christ, from which the violation followed as a consequence, would be voluntary. Thus that violation would be voluntary, not will an absolute will but will a will in some sense conditioned, seeing that the virgin chooses to suffer this disgrace rather than deny Christ.
12. There are two kinds of difficulty: one which comes from the magnitude and excellence of the task, and this kind is required for virtue; another which is from the agent himself to the extent that he is deficient or hampered in his correct operations, and this kind is re moved or diminished by virtue. It is in the latter sense that passions cause difficulty. The first kind of difficulty, on the part of the task, has a direct bearing upon merit in the same way as the excellence of the act; whereas the second, from the weakness of the agent, has no bearing upon merit unless perhaps as an occasion, inasmuch as it sup plies the occasion for a greater effort. It is not true, however, that in his first state Adam would not have been able to merit—if we grant that he had grace, even though there were nothing drawing him away from good ôr urging him to evil—because, if he had stood fast, he would have arrived eventually at glory; and it is clear that this would not have been without merit. Nor does the Master say that he would not have been able to merit in the first state, but he does say that he would have been able to avoid sin without meriting; for he could avoid sin without grace because nothing was pushing him to evil, and without grace nothing can be meritorious.
13. That fear of eternal punishment which is directly meritorious is in the will and is not a passion strictly speaking, as is clear from what has already been said. A passion of fear can, however, be aroused in the lower appetite by reason of eternal punishment either because of an overflow from the higher appetite into the lower or be cause the intellect’s conception of eternal punishment is represented in the imagination, will the consequence that the lower appetite is moved through the passion of fear. But such fear does not have any thing to do will merit except indirectly, as has been said.
14. [The answer is missing.]
15. If we are speaking of difficulty on our part, then passions and sufferings involve more difficulty than acts of the will. But in that case the difficulty does not contribute anything to merit except in directly, as has been said; and similarly neither do passions and sufferings. But if we are speaking of the difficulty which comes from the excellence or goodness of the task, which does contribute to merit directly, then there is greater difficulty in acts of the will.
16. Some passions are called laudable by the philosophers because they are the effects and signs of a good will, as is evident in the example of shame, which shows that the man’s will is averse to the filth of sin, and in that of pity, which is a sign of love. On this account the names of these passions are sometimes used by the saints for the habits which elicit the act of will which is the source of these passions.
17. First movements do not have the complete nature of sin or de- merit but are in a way dispositions for demerit just as venial sin is a disposition for mortal sin. The movements of sensuality themselves, then, do not have to be directly meritorious, because what is meritorious cannot be anything but a voluntary act, as has been said. But those passions are sometimes called vices or sins inasmuch as acts of the will or even habits are designated by the names of passions. More over, vices against nature are called passions even though they are voluntary acts, inasmuch as by such vices nature is disturbed from its proper order.
Answers to Contrary Difficulties:
1'. We yield to passions unwillingly, not as regards consent, since we do not consent to them except by our will, but as regards some bodily alteration such as laughter and weeping and the like. Consequently, in so far as by our will we consent or refuse consent to them, they are meritonious or demeritorious.
2’. Though the passions of the lower appetite sometimes anticipate the act of the will, they do not always; for the appetitive powers do not stand in the same relationship as the apprehensive. Our intellect receives its object from sense; consequently there cannot be an operation of the intellect unless there is some previous operation of sense. The will, however, does not receive anything from the lower appetite, but rather moves it; and so it is not necessary that a passion of the lower appetite precede the act of the will.
3’. Even though passions are not directly praiseworthy, they can nevertheless be praiseworthy indirectly, as has been said.
4’. By His passion Christ merited for Himself and for us. For Him self He merited the glory of His body; for although He merited this through His other merits which preceded it, yet the splendor of the resurrection is by a certain fittingness properly a reward of the passion, because exaltation is the proper reward of humility. He merited for us, moreover, inasmuch as in His passion He gave satisfaction for the sin of the whole human race, but not by His preceding works, though He did merit for us by them. Retribution by way of suffering is required for satisfaction as a sort of compensation for the pleasure of sin.
5’. By His passion Christ did not make the glory of His body due after it was not due, nor did He make it more due after it was less due. He did, however, make it due in another way than that in which it was due before. But it does not follow that He made it more due. This would follow if the cause for which it was due were either increased or multiplied, as happens when an obligation is increased by a two fold promise. But that did not occur in the case of the merit of Christ, because His grace was not augmented.
6’. Directly difficulty hampers voluntariness, but indirectly it in creases it in so far as a person makes an effort against the difficulty. But the difficulty itself contributes to satisfaction by reason of its penal character.
Parallel readings: De malo,, li; 12, 1; Sum. Theol., I-II, 24, 3; 77, 6 ad 2.
That is to say, who merits the more, he who helps a poor man will a certain compassion of pity, or he who does it without any passion solely because of a judgment of reason?
Difficulties:
It seems that he who does it solely because of a judgment of reason merits the more, for
1. Merit is opposed to sin. But a man who commits a sin solely by choice sins more than one who sins under the urging of passion; for the first is said to sin out of definite malice, the second out of weak ness. Then a man who does a good deed solely because of a judgment of reason also merits more than one who does it will a passion of pity.
2. The answer was given that for something to be meritorious or to be an act of virtue there is required not only a good which is done but also a good manner of doing it, which in this case cannot be had without the emotion of pity.—On the contrary, for an act to be done in a good manner there are three requisites according to the Philosopher: the will choosing the act, reason establishing the mean in the act, and the relation of the act to the due end. Now these requisites can all be met without the passion of pity in one who gives an aims. Without it, then, there can be not only the good which is done but also the good manner of doing it.—Proof of the Minor: all three requisites mentioned are fulfilled by an act of the will and of reason. But an act of the will and of reason does not depend upon a passion, be cause reason and the will move the lower powers in which the passions are found, and the motion of the mover does not depend upon the motion of the thing moved. The three requisites mentioned can there fore be fulfilled without any passion.
3. For an act of virtue the discernment of reason is needed. Thus Gregory says that unless the other virtues do will prudence the things to which they tend, they cannot be virtues at all. All passions, however, hinder the judgment or discernment of reason. Hence Sal lust says: "all men who deliberate about doubtful matters ought fit tingly to be free of anger, love, hate, and pity; for the spirit does not readily see truth where these emotions hold sway." Such passions therefore detract from the praiseworthiness of virtue, and so from merit.
4. The concupiscible power hampers the judgment of reason no less than the irascible. But a passion of the irascible accompanying even an act of virtue disturbs the judgment of reason. Thus Gregory says: "By its fervour anger disturbs the eye." Then pity, which is a passion of the concupiscible, similarly disturbs the judgment of reason.
5. Virtue is "a disposition of a perfect being for what is best," as is said in the Physics. Then that in which we most closely approach perfect beings is most virtuous in us. But we approach God and the
angels most closely when we act without passion from a judgment of reason; for God punishes without anger and alleviates misery without the passion of pity. It is therefore more virtuous to do good will out these passions.
6. The virtues of a purified soul are more noble than those of other kinds. But, as Macrobius says, the virtues of a purified soul make one forget passions altogether. An act of virtue performed without passion is therefore more praiseworthy and meritorious.
7. The more the love of charity in us is purified of carnal love, the more praiseworthy it is; "for the affection among us should not be carnal but spiritual," as Augustine says. But as a passion love is to some extent carnal. Consequently an act of charity is more praise worthy without the passion of love. And the same holds true of the other passions.
8. Tully says that it is fitting that "benevolence should be characterized not by the ardour of love but by steadfastness" of mind. But ardour is a matter of passion. Passion therefore lessens the praiseworthy ness of an act of virtue.
To the Contrary:
1'. Augustine says: "So long as we bear the infirmity of this life, if we have no passions at all, then we do not live correctly; for the Apostle heaped blame and scorn upon some who he said were, among other things, without feeling (Rm 1,31). The sacred Psalmist found fault will those of whom he said (Ps 68,2 Ps 68,1): 'I looked for one that would grieve together will me, but there was none. "Thus it seems that without passions we cannot live correctly.
2’. Augustine says: "To be angry will a sinner that he may reform, to sympathize will an afflicted person that he may be delivered, to fear for one in danger lest he perish—I do not know whether anyone of sound judgment would find fault will these. The Stoics, indeed, are wont to blame even pity. But Cicero spoke far better and more conformably to human nature and to the feelings of the pious when he said in praise of Caesar: 'No one of your virtues is cither more admirable or more pleasing than your pity. "r And so the conclusion is the same as before.
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