Article 3 — Whether passion is only in the sensitive appetite

Third, it is asked whether passion is only in the sensitive appetite. (Parallel texts: In III Sent., d. 15, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 2; In IV Sent., d. 49, q. 3, a. 1, qa. 2, ad 1; ST I.20.1, ad 1; I-II.22.3; Commentary on the Nichomachean Ethics, bk. 2, lect. 5.)

Obj. 1: It seems that it is not, for Christ suffered according to his entire soul as is clear in Psalm 87:4: my soul is filled with evils, which the Gloss ascribes to its sufferings; (Glossa Peter Lombard, (PL 191:811D); check glossa ordinaria.) however the soul’s totality pertains to the powers; therefore passion is able to exist in any power of the soul, and so not only in the sensitive appetite.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, every motion or operation that, with respect to itself, belongs to the soul apart from the body, belongs to the intellectual part, not the sensitive part; but as Augustine says in the City of God, (Augustine, City of God, bk. 14, ch. 5 (PL 41:409).) the soul is not affected by the flesh alone, when it desires, fears, rejoices, and becomes ill; but it can also be agitated by motions from itself; therefore such passions are not only in the sensitive appetite.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, the will belongs to the intellectual part, as is clear in On the Soul; (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.14, 432b5.) but as Augustine says in the City of God, (Augustine, City of God, bk. 14, ch. 6 (PL 41:409).) will is indeed in all of these, namely in fear, happiness, and other such things. They are indeed nothing other than will; for what is desire and happiness except will in the consent of those things that we will? What is fear and sadness except will in the disagreement from what we do not will? Thus, such passions are also in the intellectual part.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, it does not belong to the same power to act and to suffer; but sensation seems to be an active power, for a basilisk is said to kill by being seen, (Cf. Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, bk. 12, ch. 4, n. 6 (PL 82:443A).) and by looking, a menstruating woman corrupts a mirror, as is clear in the book On Sleep and Waking; (Aristotle, On Sleep, ch. 2, 459b27.) therefore, one must not place passion in the sensitive part of the soul.

Obj. 5: Furthermore, an active power is more noble than a passive power; but vegetative powers are active, over which sensitive powers are more noble; therefore sensitive powers are active, and so the same conclusion follows as before.

Obj. 6: Furthermore, rational powers are related to opposites, according to the Philosopher; (Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics 9.2, 1046b4.) but sadness is opposed to delight; therefore, since delight is properly in the intellectual part, as is clear in the Nichomachean Ethics, (Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 7.12, 1152b33; 10.6 1174b20.) it seems that sadness is there as well; and so passions can exist in the intellectual part.

Obj. 7: But one might respond that the words of the Philosopher are understood of opposite acts.

On the contrary, knowledge and ignorance, which are opposites, are in the soul’s intellectual part, and yet they are not acts; therefore the Philosopher’s words must not only be understood of acts.

Obj. 8: Furthermore, according to the Philosopher in the Physics, (Aristotle, Physics 2.5, 195a11.) the same thing is the cause of contraries by its absence and by its presence, as a pilot is of the ship’s safety and of its sinking; but the presence of an intelligible causes delight in the intellectual part; therefore, the intelligible’s absence causes sadness in the same part; thus the same conclusion follows as before.

Obj. 9: Furthermore, Damascene says in book 2 that pain is not a passion but the sensation of a passion; (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 22 (PG 94:940D).) therefore it is in the sensitive power, and not in the appetitive; and it is the same reason for delight and any other things that are called passions of the soul.

Obj. 10: Furthermore, according to Damascene in book 2 (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 22 (PG 94:940D).) and the Philosopher in the Nichomachean Ethics, (Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 2.3, 1104b14; 2.5, 1105b21.) a passion is that upon which follows joy and sadness; therefore the soul’s passions precede joy and sadness; but joy and sadness are in the appetitive part; therefore, the soul’s passions are in the part that precedes the appetitive part; therefore, the soul’s passions are in the in apprehensive part, which precedes the appetitive part.

Obj. 11: Furthermore, just as the body is changed in the activities of the sensitive appetite, so also in the activities of sensitive apprehension; therefore, passion is not only in the appetitive part, but also in the apprehensive.

Obj. 12: Furthermore, passion, properly speaking, happens by the casting off of one thing (Aristotle, Topics 6.6, 145a3, according to Aquinas, In IV Sent., d. 44, q. 3, a. 1, qa. 3, obj. 1.) and the reception of its contrary; but this happens in the intellectual part, for guilt is cast off and grace is received, the habit of dissipation is cast off and the habit of chastity is brought in; therefore, passion is properly in the soul’s higher part.

Obj. 13: Furthermore, the motion of the sensitive appetite follows upon sense’s apprehension; but sometimes such passions of the soul are aroused in us from certain objects that cannot be apprehended by sensation, such as shame from an unclean act, or fear of what is to come; therefore such as these cannot exist in the sensitive appetitive part; and so it is granted that they are in the rational appetite, namely in the will.

Obj. 14: Furthermore, hope is placed among the other passions of the soul; but hope is in the soul’s intellectual part, for the holy fathers held on to hope while in limbo; (Cf. Albert the Great, In IV Sent., d. 1, a. 20.) but the movement of the sensitive part does not remain in the separated soul; therefore passions are also in the soul’s intellectual part.

Obj. 15: Furthermore, the image is in the intellectual part; but the soul’s image undergoes something with respect to the powers, for the image’s powers, which are now perfected by grace, will be made perfect with the enjoyment of glory in the state of glory; therefore passion is not only in the soul’s sensitive appetitive part.

Obj. 16: Furthermore, according to Damascene, passion is a movement from one thing to another; (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 22 (PG 94:941A).) but the intellect is moved from one thing to another by proceeding from principles to conclusions; therefore passion is in the intellect, hence the same conclusion as before.

Obj. 17: Furthermore, the Philosopher says in On the Soul (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.4, 429b24.) that to understand is to suffer something; but understanding is in the intellect; therefore passion is in the intellect.

Obj. 18: Furthermore, Dionysius says about Hierotheus in On the Divine Names, (Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Divine Names, ch. 2, para. 9 (PG 3:648 B).) that he learned divine things by suffering divine things; but he was not able to suffer divine things according to the sensitive part, which is not capable of divine things; therefore passion is not only in the sensitive part.

Obj. 19: Furthermore, any of the soul’s determinate powers should not be ordered to what is in the soul incidentally; for neither knowledge nor power is determined with regard to those things that exist incidentally: but the soul does not undergo except incidentally; therefore passion is not in any of the soul’s determinate powers, and so it is not in the sensitive appetite alone.

On the contrary (1) is what Damascene says in book 2: (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 22 (PG 94:940D).) passion is a movement of the appetitive power in the imagination of good or evil; and again passion is a movement of the irrational soul with regard good or evil; (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 22 (PG 94:940D).) therefore passion is only in the irrational appetitive part.

Furthermore (2), passion, properly speaking, regards the motion of alteration, as has been said; (Above: a. 1.) but there is no alteration except in the soul’s sensitive part, as is proved in the Physics; (Aristotle, Physics 7.6, 248b27.) therefore, there is no passion except in the sensitive part.

I answer that it must be said that there is no passion, properly speaking, except in the appetitive sensitive part, as is clear from the two definitions of passion put forth by Damascene and by Gregory of Nyssa. (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 22; Nemesius (Psuedo-Gregory of Nyssa), On the Nature of Man, ch. 16 (PG 40:673B).) This is made clear in the following manner. Passion is spoken of in three ways, as has been said before: (Above: a. 1.) in one way commonly, inasmuch as any receiving is to suffer; and in this way passion is not in any one part of the soul, nor is it in the sensitive part alone. For taking passion in this way, the Commentator says in the book On the Soul (Averroes, On the Soul, bk. 2, comm. 51–52; bk. 3, comm. 4.) that all the soul’s vegetative powers are active, all the powers of the sensitive soul are passive, but the rational soul’s powers are partially active because of the agent intellect, and partially passive because of the potential intellect.

However, this kind of passion, though it belongs to both apprehensive and appetitive powers, belongs more to the appetitive powers; for since the activity of the apprehensive power is toward the apprehended thing inasmuch as it exists in the one apprehending, whereas the activity of the appetitive power is toward the thing inasmuch as it exists in itself, what is received into the apprehensive power has less of what is proper to the apprehended thing than what is received into the appetitive power, in virtue of what is desirable. Thus, truth, which perfects the intellectual part, is in the mind, but goodness, which perfects the appetite, is in things, as it says in the Metaphysics. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 6.4, 1027b25.)

Passion is said properly in another way, which consists in the casting off of one contrary and the reception of another by way of alteration; and this kind of the soul's passion cannot occur except from the body. This happens in two ways: in one way inasmuch as it is united to the body as a form, and thus it suffers by a bodily passion together with the body; in another inasmuch as it is united to it as a mover, and thus alteration occurs in the body from the soul's activity. This is called an animal passion, as was said above. (Above: a. 2.) Therefore, the previously mentioned bodily passion touches upon the soul's powers inasmuch as they are rooted in the essence of the soul, since the soul is the body's form according to its own essence, and so it pertains to the soul's essence first of all.

Nevertheless, this passion is able to be attributed to some other power in three ways: in one way inasmuch as they are rooted in the soul's essence; thus, since all the powers are rooted in the soul's essence, the previously mentioned passion pertains to all the powers. In another way, inasmuch as the activity of the powers is impeded from a wounding of the body; and thus the previously mentioned passion pertains to all the powers that use bodily organs, all of whose acts are impeded when the organs have been damaged, though indirectly; this way also pertains to the powers that do not use bodily organs, namely the intellectual ones, inasmuch as they receive from powers using organs; thus it happens that when the organ of the imaginative power has been damaged, (Cf. Avicenna, On the Soul, bk. 4, ch. 1.) even the intellect's activity is impeded, since the intellect needs phantasms in its activity. In a third way it pertains to a power inasmuch it is apprehending it; and thus it properly pertains to the sense of touch, for touch is the sensation of those things out of which an animal is composed, and likewise of those things by which an animal is corrupted. (cf. Aristotle, On the Soul 3.18, 435b4.)

But since the body is altered by the soul's activity from animal passion, then it ought to be in the power that is joined to a bodily organ, and to which it belongs to change the body. And thus a passion of such a kind is not in the intellectual part, which is not the actuality of any bodily organ; nor again is it in the sensitive apprehension, since motion in the body does not follow from sense's apprehension except by means of the appetitive power, which moves without an intermediary. Thus, the bodily organ is immediately disposed with regard to its mode of activity, as for example the heart, from which is the beginning of motion, is disposed by such a disposition as is suitable for carrying out that to which the sensible appetite is inclined. (Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals 3.3, 665a11.) Hence, it burns in anger, and it becomes cold and is contracted in some way when in fear. (Cf. Averroes, On the Soul, bk. 1, comm. 63.) Thus, only animal passion is properly found to exist in the sensitive appetite. For it is the case that the powers of the vegetative soul, although they use an organ, are not passive but active. Passion also belongs more properly to the appetitive power than to the apprehensive, as was said at the beginning. (Above: a. 1.) This is one reason why the sensitive appetite is more properly the subject of passion than sensitive apprehension; in the same that the higher affections themselves draw closer to the proper notion of passion than do the intellectual.

But in a third way passion is said metaphorically, inasmuch as anything is impeded in any way way from what is appropriate to itself. The soul's powers suffer in this way when they are prevented from their own activities, which happens in some way in all the soul's powers, as has been said. However, now we are speaking of animal passion properly so called, which, as has been shown, is only found in the sensitive appetite.

Reply Obj. 1: To the first it must be said that Christ's entire soul suffered from bodily passion, and so that passion pertained to all the powers, at least insofar as they are rooted in the soul's essence; but not such that an animal passion would exist in any power of his soul as in a subject.

Reply Obj. 2: To the second it must be said that Augustine is speaking against certain Platonists (Cf. Augustine, City of God, bk. 14, ch. 5 (PL 41:408).) who said that the beginning of all these passion was from the flesh. But Augustine shows that even if flesh were not corrupted in any way, the beginning of these passions could still be from the soul. Thus, he does not say that such passions could be perfected without flesh, but that the soul is not affected by these passions from the flesh alone.

Reply Obj. 3: To the third it must be said that Augustine is either taking the name of will broadly for any appetite, or else he also takes fear, joy, and others for acts of the will, similar to the passions existing in the sensitive appetite. For, as has been said in the question on sensuality, (Above: q. 25, a. 3.) joy, sadness, and other such things are in the will itself in a certain way, but not such that they are passions, properly speaking. Or it can be said that Augustine called these passions "wills" inasmuch as man is led to these passion from an act of the will, insofar as the act of the lower appetite follows upon the inclination of the higher appetite, as has been said in the question on sensuality. (Above: q. 25, a. 4.) Hence, Augustine himself later adds: just as man's will is enticed or offended, so also is it changed or turned to these or to those affections. (Augustine, City of God, bk. 14, ch. 6 (PL 41:409).)

Reply Obj. 4: To the fourth it must be said that sensation is not an active powers but a passive one. For a power is not called active because it has an actuality that is an act, for then every power of the soul would be active; but a power is called active which is compared to its object as an agent is to a patient, but passive which is compared to its own object as a patient to an agent. However, sensation is compared to the sensible as a patient is to an agent, inasmuch as the sensible transforms the sense; however, that the sensible should at some time be transformed by sensation happens incidentally, inasmuch as the very organ of sensation possesses a quality by which it is naturally able to change another body.

Thus, the stain by which a menstruating woman infects a mirror, or that by which the basilisk kills a man when seen, does not cause anything to effect vision; but vision is perfected by the visible form being received into sight, which is a certain suffering; and thus sensation is a passive power. Even granting that sensation does something actively, it does not follow from this that no passion is able to exist in sensation; for nothing prevents the same thing being active and passive with respect to different things. Again, granting that sensation, which denotes an apprehensive power, is capable of no passion, it is not excluded because of this that passion is able to exist in the sensible appetite.

Reply Obj. 5: To the fifth it must be said that although the active is more noble simply than the passive, even with respect to the same thing, nevertheless, nothing prevents something passive from being more noble than something active, insofar as what is passive undergoes a more noble passion than the action which by the active things acts; such as the passion, by which the potential intellect is called a passive power, and likewise sensation receiving something immaterially, are nobler than the action by which the vegetative power acts materially, that is by means of elementary qualities.

Reply Obj. 6: To the sixth it must be said that there is nothing contrary to that delight which is in the intellectual part because of union with a suitable intelligible; for something contrary to that suitable intelligible would have to exist that was the cause of its contrary. But this cannot be, insofar as there is nothing contrary to the intelligible form; for the form of contraries in the soul are not contrary, as it says in the Metaphysics. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 7.6, 1032b2.) Thus, a man takes delight not only in the fact that he understands good things, but that he understands bad things, insofar as he understands; for the understanding itself of bad things is a good for the intellect; and thus intellectual delight does not have a contrary. Nevertheless, sadness or pain are said to be in the intellectual part, speaking commonly, inasmuch as the intellect understands that something is harmful for man, which the will flees. Yet, since that harmful thing is not harmful to the intellect insofar as it is understanding, thus that sadness or pain is not contrary to intellectual delight, which concerns what is suitable to the intellect insofar as it understands.

Reply Obj. 7: To the seventh it must be said that the rational power is related to contraries in a way proper to itself, and in a way that is common to itself and everything else. For, it is common to the rational power and to other things to be the subject of contrary accidents, for the same thing is the subject of all contraries; but that it should be so related to contrary actions is proper to itself; for natural powers are determined to one thing. (Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics 9.2, 1046b4–5.) And the Philosopher is speaking in this way when he says that rational powers are related to opposites.

Reply Obj. 8: To the eighth it must be said that the absence of the pilot is not the cause of the sinking of the ship, except incidentally, namely, inasmuch as it removes the pilot's foresight by which the ship's sinking is prevented; and likewise the removal or absence of an intelligible is not the cause of sadness, but rather of not taking delight. For effects are proportioned according to the proportion of their causes; thus understanding and not understanding, which are opposed in a contradictory manner, are the causes of taking delight and of not taking delight, which are likewise contradictories; but not of taking delight and being sad, which are contraries. However, if one takes what is contrary to the understanding of truth, namely error, it cannot be the cause of sadness; for either error is held to be truth, and then error causes delight just like truth, or it is known to be error, which does not happen except by knowing truth, and so error causes delight in understanding.

Reply Obj. 9: To the ninth it must be said that sadness and pain differ in this way, that sadness is a certain animal passion, beginning from the apprehension of harm and ending in the appetite's activity, and yet further in the body's alteration; but pain happens with regard to a bodily passion. Thus, Augustine says in the City of God (Augustine, City of God, bk. 14, ch. 7 (PL 41:411).) that pain is more ordinarily said to be in bodies; and thus it begins in the body's being harmed and ends in the apprehension of the sense of touch, on account of which pain is in the sense of touch as in the one apprehending, as has been said.

Reply Obj. 10: To the tenth it must be said that joy and sadness are said to follow upon passion by both Damascene and the Philosopher, but under different understandings. For Damascene and Gregory of Nyssa speak of bodily passion using the same words, namely, it is that which when apprehended causes joy or sadness and when experienced by sensation causes pain. However, without a doubt, the Philosopher is speaking in the Nichomachean Ethics 2 about animal passions, (Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 2.3, 1104b14; 2.5, 1105b21.) intending that joy and sadness follow upon all the soul's passions. The reason for this is that among all the passions of the concupiscible power, joy and sadness, which are caused by the attainment of anything suitable or harmful, hold the last place; however, all the passions of the irascible power terminate in the passions of the concupiscible power, as was said in the question on sensuality. (Above: q. 25, a. 2.)

Thus it follows that all the soul's passions terminate in joy and sadness. However, with regard to neither understanding does it follow that the passions are in the apprehensive faculty, for bodily passion is in the very nature of the body, whereas some of the animal passions are in the same part as are joy and sadness, but with respect to their prior activities. However, if there were not an order in the acts of the appetitive power, it would follow from the Philosopher's words that the animal passions are not in the appetitive power, where are joy and sadness, but rather in the apprehensive.

Reply Obj. 11: To the eleventh it must be said that neither sense nor any other apprehensive power causes motion immediately, but only by means of the appetite; and therefore the body is not altered by the activity of the sensitive apprehensive power with respect to material dispositions, unless there should occur a movement of the appetitive power, upon which there immediately follows an alteration of the body disposing itself to obey. Thus, although the sensitive apprehensive power changes together with the bodily organ, passion does not exist there properly speaking, for speaking essentially, the bodily organ is not altered in the activity of sensation except by a spiritual change, inasmuch as the forms of sensible things are received without matter into the organs of the one sensing, as is said in On the Soul. (Aristotle, On the Soul 2.24, 424a17.)

Reply Obj. 12: To the twelfth if must be said that although one thing is cast off and another received in the intellectual part, yet this does not happen by way of transmutation, such that the reception and casting off happen continuously, but it happens by a simple influx with respect to the infused habits; for grace, by which guilt is instantly expelled, is infused in an instant.

Also, the alteration which happens from vice to virtue or from ignorance to knowledge attains to the intellectual part incidentally, existing essentially in the sensitive part by transmutation, as is clear in the Nicomachean Ethics. (It is actually Aristotle, Physics 7.6, 248b27.) For by the fact that a certain change happens with regard to the sensitive part, from this there immediately results a certain perfection in the intellectual part, such that what is in the intellectual part is the term of the alteration that is in the sensitive part; as for example, illumination is the term of local motion, and generation is simply the term of alteration. (See Averroes, Physics, bk. 6, comm. 32; cf. Aquinas, In II Sent., d. 13, a. 3, ad 9; Averroes, Physics, bk. 4, comm. 129, according to Albert the Great, In II Sent., d. 13, a. 2.) And this ought to be understood with regard to acquired habits.

Reply Obj. 13: To the thirteenth it must be said that a passion in the lower appetite can follow from any apprehension of the intellect in two ways: in one way inasmuch as what is understood universally by the intellect is formed as a particular in the imagination; and in this way the lower appetite is moved, as when the intellect of the believer perceives future sufferings intellectually and it forms their phantasms by imagining the burning fire, the gnawing worm, and other such things, (cf. Augustine, City of God, bk. 21, ch. 9 (PL 41:723).) from which there follows the passion of fear in the sensitive appetite. In another way, inasmuch as the lower appetite is moved from the intellect's apprehension, from which the lower appetite is also moved by a certain command or else an overflowing.

Reply Obj. 14: To the fourteenth it must be said that the hope which remains in the separated soul is not a passion, but either a habit or an act of the will, as is clear from the aforesaid. (Above: q.. 25, a. 3.)

Reply Obj. 15: To the fifteenth it must be said that from the intellect becoming blessed or perfect, nothing else can be maintained except that there is a passion in the intellectual part, inasmuch as every reception is called a passion.

Reply Obj. 16: To the sixteenth it must be said that passion is called a motion received from one thing into another, however, it is not enacted from one thing into another; but motion in the intellect from one thing into another exists in this way.

Reply Obj. 17: To the seventeenth it must be said that to understand is called suffering when speaking of suffering commonly, inasmuch as every receiving is a suffering.

Reply Obj. 18: To the eighteenth it must be said that the passion about which Dionysius speak is nothing else than an affection for the divine, which has more the notion of passion than does simple apprehension, as is clear from the what was said. For from the affection itself for divine things comes forth their selfsame manifestation, according to John. 14:21, (textus conflatus ex Ioh. 14:23 et 14:21) if someone loves me, he will be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and will manifest myself to him.