Further, the soul's appetite is intemperate when it alone is active;
for then, in the absence of the principles that ought to command or
direct her, it alone does everything. Besides, the rational part,
whose function it is to see (by considering the notions it receives
from intelligence), is occupied with something else, for it does not
do everything simultaneously, being busy with some other action; it
considers other than corporeal things, so far as it can.[37] Perhaps
also the virtue or vice of the appetite depend considerably on the
good or evil condition of the organs; so that, in either case, nothing
is added to the soul.
THE SOUL ORIGINATES MOVEMENTS, BUT IS NOT ALTERED (AGAINST STOICS).
POLEMIC AGAINST THE STOIC THEORY OF PASSIONS.
3. There are desires and aversions in the soul, which demand
consideration. It is impossible to deny that pain, anger, joy, appetite
and fear are changes and affections which occur in the soul, and that
move her.[38] We must here draw a distinction, for it would be denying
the evidence to insist that there are in us no changes or perception
of these changes. We cannot attribute them to the soul, which would
amount to the admission[39] that she blushes, or grows pale, without
reflecting that these "passions," though produced by the soul, occur
in a different substance. For the soul, shame consists in the opinion
that something is improper; and, as the soul contains the body, or,
to speak more exactly, as the body is a dependency of the animating
soul, the blood, which is very mobile, rushes to the face. Likewise,
the principle of fear is in the soul; paleness occurs in the body
because the blood concentrates within the interior parts. In joy, the
noticeable dilation belongs to the body also; what the body feels is
not a "passion." Likewise with pain and appetite; their principle is
in the soul, where it remains in a latent condition; what proceeds
therefrom is perceived by sensation. When we call desires, opinions
and reasonings "movements of the soul," we do not mean that the soul
becomes excited in the production of these movements,[40] but that they
originate within her. When we call life a movement, we do not by this
word mean an alteration; for to act according to one's nature is the
simple and indivisible life of each part of the soul.