21. How may we define the fact of "reaction"? We do not approve of
the definition that it is the passing of the actualization from one
being into another, if its receiver appropriate it. Shall we say that
a (being) reacts when there is no actualization, but only an effective
experience? But is it not possible that the being that reacts becomes
better; while, on the contrary, the one who acts, loses? A (being)
may also act in an evil manner, and exercise on another a harmful
influence; and the actualization may be shameful, and the affective
experience be honorable. What distinction shall we then establish
(between action and reaction)? Shall we say that an action is to cause
(an actualization) to pass from self into others, and that reaction
is to receive in oneself (an action) from someone else? But then what
about the (actualizations) produced in oneself which do not pass into
others, such as thought and opinion? One can even excite oneself by a
reflection or opinion of emotive value, without this emotion having
been aroused by anybody else. We shall therefore define an action as
a spontaneous movement, whether this movement remain in the being who
produces it, or whether it pass into somebody else.
What then are the faculty of desire, and desire in general? If desire
be excited by the desired thing (it is an experience, or passion), even
if we should not take into consideration the cause of its excitement,
and even if we only noticed that it arose later than the object; for
this desire does not differ from an impression or an impulsion.
Shall we then, among desires, distinguish actions when they proceed
from intelligence, and experiences when they invoke and draw (on the
soul), so that the being be less passive by what it receives from
others, than by what it receives from itself? Doubtless a being can
act upon itself. (We can then define) an affective experience, and a
being's experience, as follows. They consist of undergoing, without any
contribution from oneself, a modification which does not contribute
to "being," and which, on the contrary, alters, or at least, does not
improve.
To this (definition) it may be objected that if warming oneself consist
in receiving such heat as partially contributes to the subject's being,
and partly does not do so, then we have here one and the same thing
which both is, and is not an experience. To this it may be answered
that there are two ways of warming oneself. Besides, even when the
heating contributes to the being, it does so only in the degree that
some other object experiences. For instance, the metal will have
to be heated, and undergo an experience, for the production of the
being called statue, although this statue itself be heated only
incidentally. If then the metal become more beautiful by the effect
of that which heats it, or by the effect of the heating itself, it
undergoes an experience; for there are two manners of (undergoing an
experience, or) suffering: the one consists in becoming worse, and the
other in becoming better--or at least, in not altering.