Whether Love Is Cause of All That the Lover Does?
Objection 1: It would seem that the lover does not do everything from
love. For love is a passion, as stated above (Q. 26, A. 2). But man
does not do everything from passion: but some things he does from
choice, and some things from ignorance, as stated in _Ethic._ v, 8.
Therefore not everything that a man does, is done from love.
Obj. 2: Further, the appetite is a principle of movement and action
in all animals, as stated in _De Anima_ iii, 10. If, therefore,
whatever a man does is done from love, the other passions of the
appetitive faculty are superfluous.
Obj. 3: Further, nothing is produced at one and the same time by
contrary causes. But some things are done from hatred. Therefore all
things are not done from love.
_On the contrary,_ Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that "all things,
whatever they do, they do for the love of good."
_I answer that,_ Every agent acts for an end, as stated above (Q. 1,
A. 2). Now the end is the good desired and loved by each one.
Wherefore it is evident that every agent, whatever it be, does every
action from love of some kind.
Reply Obj. 1: This objection takes love as a passion existing in the
sensitive appetite. But here we are speaking of love in a general
sense, inasmuch as it includes intellectual, rational, animal, and
natural love: for it is in this sense that Dionysius speaks of love
in chapter iv of _De Divinis Nominibus._
Reply Obj. 2: As stated above (A. 5; Q. 27, A. 4) desire, sadness and
pleasure, and consequently all the other passions of the soul, result
from love. Wherefore every act that proceeds from any passion,
proceeds also from love as from a first cause: and so the other
passions, which are proximate causes, are not superfluous.
Reply Obj. 3: Hatred also is a result of love, as we shall state
further on (Q. 29, A. 2).
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