Whether Anger Is in the Concupiscible Faculty?
Objection 1: It would seem that anger is in the concupiscible
faculty. For Cicero says (De Quaest. Tusc. iv, 9) that anger is a
kind of "desire." But desire is in the concupiscible faculty.
Therefore anger is too.
Obj. 2: Further, Augustine says in his Rule, that "anger grows into
hatred": and Cicero says (De Quaest. Tusc. iv, 9) that "hatred is
inveterate anger." But hatred, like love, is a concupiscible passion.
Therefore anger is in the concupiscible faculty.
Obj. 3: Further, Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii, 16) and Gregory of
Nyssa [*Nemesius, De Nat. Hom. xxi.] say that "anger is made up of
sorrow and desire." Both of these are in the concupiscible faculty.
Therefore anger is a concupiscible passion.
_On the contrary,_ The concupiscible is distinct from the irascible
faculty. If, therefore, anger were in the concupiscible power, the
irascible would not take its name from it.
_I answer that,_ As stated above (Q. 23, A. 1), the passions of the
irascible part differ from the passions of the concupiscible faculty,
in that the objects of the concupiscible passions are good and evil
absolutely considered, whereas the objects of the irascible passions
are good and evil in a certain elevation or arduousness. Now it has
been stated (A. 2) that anger regards two objects: viz. the vengeance
that it seeks; and the person on whom it seeks vengeance; and in
respect of both, anger requires a certain arduousness: for the
movement of anger does not arise, unless there be some magnitude
about both these objects; since "we make no ado about things that are
naught or very minute," as the Philosopher observes (Rhet. ii, 2). It
is therefore evident that anger is not in the concupiscible, but in
the irascible faculty.
Reply Obj. 1: Cicero gives the name of desire to any kind of craving
for a future good, without discriminating between that which is
arduous and that which is not. Accordingly he reckons anger as a kind
of desire, inasmuch as it is a desire of vengeance. In this sense,
however, desire is common to the irascible and concupiscible
faculties.
Reply Obj. 2: Anger is said to grow into hatred, not as though the
same passion which at first was anger, afterwards becomes hatred by
becoming inveterate; but by a process of causality. For anger when it
lasts a long time engenders hatred.
Reply Obj. 3: Anger is said to be composed of sorrow and desire, not
as though they were its parts, but because they are its causes: and
it has been said above (Q. 25, A. 2) that the concupiscible passions
are the causes of the irascible passions.
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