The interior as well as exterior senses having now been spoken of, which are proper to the sensitive soul and serve to know the things that are profitable or harmful to the animal, it follows that we treat of the affective part, which belongs to that same sensitive soul, where the natural affections and passions are, which serve to desire and procure profitable things and to flee harmful ones, which are no less necessary for the conservation of our life and of any animal. And among these affections and passions there are two principal ones, which are roots and foundation of all the others, which are love and hatred, namely: love of the particular good that can profit us, and hatred and abhorrence of what can harm us, so that thus the animal should procure what is good and fitting for its
conservation, and flee the evil from which its destruction could follow. For these two concepts being lacking, the animal would remain either like a bird without wings, or a galley without oars, unable to seek what was profitable to it, and to flee the contrary. For which the Stoic philosophers said very well, as Seneca relates, that these two affections were like a tutor that divine providence had given to man, because just as the tutor who has charge of a child procures every good for him and turns him away from every evil, so these two affections do, when they are well ruled.
But here it is to be noted that, from these two affections, as from two principal roots, others are born. For from the good that we love, when it is absent, desire is born, and when it is present, joy. Likewise from the evil that we abhor, when it is absent, flight is born, which is desire to avoid it, and when it is present, sadness. And these six passions, which are love and hatred, desire and flight, joy and sadness, the philosophers call the concupiscible part of our soul, because it has for office to covet these sensible goods.
But if this good to which we are affected is difficult to attain, the desire of it makes us have hope that we shall attain it, because men easily hope for what they desire. But if the difficulties are such that they conquer our hope, then from here another contrary affection is born, which is distrust. Other times, if the desire is very great, it causes in our hearts another passion, which is spiritedness and daring to break through whatever difficulties may impede us from this good that we desire, such as was that which those strenuous knights of David had, who crossed through the midst of the camp of the enemies, to bring him the water that he desired. But if the difficulties are so many that they do not dare them, from here another passion contrary to the past one is born, which is fear, which also serves the guard of the animal, so that it may not dare what it cannot do, and so that it may seek its remedy either by hiding, or by fleeing. But if besides this someone crosses our path who totally impedes us from what many of us desire, or takes from our hands what we already possess, here wrath bristles up and grows fierce, which is said to be the avenger of the grievances and impediments that our concupiscence receives, so that it is like a sword that sets itself to defend this passion that it has for sister. These five natural affections and passions are also necessary for the conservation of our life, because if our soul had no more than an appetite for the things that are fitting for its conservation, and did not have courage and spirit to conquer the difficulties with which many times they are accompanied, it would not attain them, and thus it would lack what was necessary for it to live. Therefore that divine president, who in nothing is lacking, provided these five passions, which are hope and distrust, daring and fear, and wrath, which serve (each one in its manner) either to conquer this difficulty when they can, or to fear the danger and the labor, and to distrust the victory, when they cannot.
But it will not be reason to pass by here without profiting from this example for a very necessary instruction of the spiritual life, which we already treated in another place. For by this those who have good desires will understand that this does not suffice to attain the virtues that they desire, if they are not accompanied with a great fortitude to conquer the difficulties that in the execution of those good desires offer themselves. For it is a known thing that all virtues are surrounded and accompanied with difficulty, because where there is no difficulty, there is no virtue. And for this reason, when with the desire of the virtues there is not this aforesaid spirit and effort
to undertake them, the man will remain sterile and without fruit with all his good desires. For which it is said that hell is full of these good desires, but paradise of good works. It is true that, when the desires are great, they bring with themselves this spirit and fortitude.
But returning to the purpose, here it must be noted that these affections not only serve for the conservation as well of life as of the human species, but also help us for the exercise of some virtues. For wrath is said to be awakener of vindicative justice, which is the one that has for office to punish crimes. For with the wrath and indignation that is conceived against them, judges are moved to punish them, notwithstanding that what Aristotle wisely says is true, that “wrath is good for a soldier, but not for a captain.” Likewise, from the desire that we have for what we judge as good, two affections are born, which being well ruled, serve to procure virtues and abhor vices, which are love of honor and shame of vice. For that divine President seeing how friendly political and noble men are to honor, and desiring on the other hand that they should also be so to virtue, what did he do for this? He placed honor in virtue, so that at least for this cause they might be affected to it, since in it alone is true honor. And this was like sugaring virtue, and putting on it this bait to enamor men of it, notwithstanding that it is not true virtue that is procured for this cause alone. And from this root were born virtues and heroic deeds of the Romans, who undertook things so great for this honor. For this Scipio and other Roman captains did not receive the most beautiful maidens that were presented to them, but rather honoring them much, returned them to their fathers or husbands.
And just as love of honor affects the heart to virtue, so shame, which is another affection brother to this one, draws it back from vices because of the diminishment and dishonor that they bring with themselves. Which that most wise Governor and lover of all purity especially impressed in the hearts of women, and much more in maidens, which is like a natural wall of chastity. For thus it was fitting that that most wise artificer should put more protection in what mattered more and was more desired by many. And for this reason, besides the virginal seal, he provided this natural shame, which is like a bridle of this vice. Which is seen even in women little honest. And thus Ovid paints one of them, who, writing a letter to a youth whom she loved much, says in it that three times she had undertaken to speak to him, and as many times had grown mute, and her tongue had stuck to the palate. But that noble poet Virgil paints Queen Dido with so much great shame and honesty that, desiring after the death of the first husband to marry Aeneas, she says these words: “May it please God that first the earth open down to the abysses, and swallow me, and the almighty Father hurl upon me a thunderbolt, that he sink me together with the dark shades and profound night of hell, before I commit a thing against my honesty and shame.” And for confirmation of this I shall add here a notable thing that Plutarch relates. He writes that in a city of Greece there reigned so strange a humor of melancholy, that every day many maidens killed themselves, and no cure nor remedy was found for this evil. But a wise man, profiting from this natural affection that the Creator impressed in the hearts of women, gave order how a public edict should be placed, where it should be commanded that all the maidens who thus killed themselves, they should carry them to bury publicly naked in sight of all the people. With which natural shame and the fear of this so shameful penalty worked so much
in those maidens, that what no medicines nor remedy could finish, this natural affection of shame finished, and thus from then on this plague ceased.
It must also here be adverted that although some of these natural affections and passions that we have here recounted have names of vices or of virtues, they are not the one nor the other, but natural passions that are indifferent for good and for evil, according as we shall use them well or badly. For when these passions that are in the lower part of our soul follow the dictate of the superior part of it, where the understanding and the will are, embracing what reason places before them, then we use them well, which is serving ourselves from them for that for which they were given to us. And this movement Aristotle says is similar to the movement of the lower heavens, which move according to the movement of the superior heaven, which they call the first movable, which moves from East to West, giving a turn to the world in one natural day. For just as it is a fitting thing that the lower heavens should follow the movement of the superior, so it is that these passions of the lower part of our soul should follow the governance and empire of the superior part of it.
But when they follow another north, which is when, reason left aside, they move by the imagination and apprehension of sensual things, which is a very blind guide, then they go astray, because they follow this so blind leader. And this movement the same philosopher compares with the contrary movement of the planets, which move from West to East, giving to understand that it is not a decent thing that the inferiors should not conform with their greater ones.
But to understand this lineage of spiritual monarchy, it must be presupposed that in this kingdom of our soul the will is like the king who commands all the members and faculties that there are in man, and the understanding, when it is not depraved, is his faithful counselor, who represents to him the dignity and excellence of spiritual things so that he may love them, and the ugliness of vices so that he may abhor them. It also has its servants, which are all the members of the body, which move according to the empire of the will, without any resistance, and obey what is commanded them. There are also in this kingdom, as in all the rest, its flatterers, who counsel the king what is not fitting for him, which are these aforesaid passions, which, being affected to sensual and delectable goods, counsel the king that he too should be affected to them, although the understanding protests, saying that such goods and delights are harmful and poisonous, when they are contrary to reason. But when the passions and appetites are vehement, they blind reason, and overturn the will, and carry it after themselves. The example of this we see in a dropsical man, who knowing how much evil drinking does to him, still this appetite can do so much that it carries the will after itself, which makes the understanding approve this and give sentence that thus it must for then be done, and thus the members execute it.
And although we go out here a little from the principal matter, I shall not fail to say that the part of our soul where the malice of original sin is most discovered is this where our appetites and passions reside, which in our first creation were bridled and obedient to reason with the gift of original justice. But this gift lost
by sin, they then became unbridled and rebelled against it, and give it well enough to attend to. And from here proceeds that, as well the world as the demon, make very cruel war on us by this part. For since our flesh with these its appetites is naturally inclined and affected to the things of flesh, which are according to its nature, the enemy attends here, and stirs up these passions and desires, and thus disorders them and makes them exceed the limits and measure of reason. For this it is written of him in Job that with his breath he makes the coals burn, which coals are our passions and appetites, so that with this breath they pass the marks and the measure of temperance. So that, just as in the beginning of the world he undertook man by the woman, which is the strong part by the weak (the same those do who have placed siege upon a city), so this enemy commonly makes war on us by this weak part, because it is naturally inclined to the things of the earth. And thus he has this for his partisan and abettor, since it desires the same that he wishes, which are these sensual and earthly goods. But he with his suggestions in such manner kindles these desires, that what, if moderately procured and desired, would serve for conservation of life (for which these passions were given), desiring it disorderly, comes to be ruin and corruption of it. For from here is born the disordered love and desire of honor, from which ambition flows, and of money, whence avarice proceeds, and of sensual delights, whence gluttony is born with other dishonest desires. Likewise from here is occasioned hatred and immoderate wrath against whoever impedes this lineage of goods for us, and likewise envy of those whom we see advantaged in the things that we desire. And finally, all the other swarm of vices proceeds from these roots, stirred up by the demon.
And for this reason, just as the defenders of a city besieged by enemies put all their force in the weakest part, by which the enemies wish to enter it, so the true servant of God must understand that the Christian life is a perpetual battle and (as is written in Job) a perpetual militia or temptation upon the earth, which lasts almost all life, and that his profession is that of a man of war, and that in this weakest part of his appetites and passions he must put greater protection so that they do not go out of command, because here there is greater danger.
At the end it must be adverted that, just as the exterior and interior senses, which serve to know things, are in the head, some within and others outside it, as we already saw, so these aforesaid affections that are ordered to desire or flee them, have their seat and natural place in the heart. So that these two principal offices of the sensitive soul, which serve the one for knowledge and the other for appetite of things, that sovereign artificer divided with such order that he placed them in the two most principal members of the human body, which are the head and the heart, because in this one we place these eleven aforesaid natural affections and passions. Which we experience every day, because manifestly we feel the blood of the heart being kindled with wrath, and being pressed with sadness, and being dilated with joy, which two affections can grow so much, that they temper the heart in such manner, that they take life from us, as many times happens. Let this suffice, summarily said, for what touches the faculties of the sensitive soul, which man has in common with all animals.