THE PASSIONS

ACCORDING TO ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

Fr. William Kimball | February 13, 2018

Introduction1
The passions. They are important to our life as men; they have a crucial part to play in the
attainment of our goal, and it is therefore vital to understand them well. Their importance is not
over-arching, of course, since in themselves they are neither good nor bad of their nature. Yet
precisely in this lies many a misunderstanding about the passions. If we are to use well and not
be used by, the passions, there is no way around it – we must know them.

They are shared by the animals, the passions are. But in beasts they have no moral value: animals
have not the intellect and will which determine morality in man. For us men, who have these
faculties, the passions have a moral value inasmuch as they are subject to them. They can
therefore help us – or hurt us – in gaining our eternal reward. They can be immensely powerful
factors in man’s everyday life, and as such they merit an in-depth study.

To guide us in this study, who would be a better master than the great St. Thomas Aquinas? His
profound grasp of the philosophical sciences make him most qualified for the human side of this
study, while his centuries-old reputation as the chief theologian of the Catholic Church make him
more than adequate for the study of the passions in their relation to our salvation.

The Passions in General

THE MEANING OF PASSION
For the medievals, the word “passion” had a broader meaning than it does today. Considering
the word pati means “to suffer”, they used it to mean anything that bore, supported or suffered
something.2 Yet St. Thomas generally uses the word to refer to the emotions.

A passion is an actual movement or change experienced, received, or supported by the soul—

the soul in its appetite for the agreeable. This appetite is the sensitive appetite; not the desire for
something spiritual and abstract, but sensible and concrete (St. Thomas would say that a
passion is “an act of the sensitive appetite”—actualized, rather than awaiting a stimulus). The

1Pegues, p. 65.
2“The passions…are set in motion by the apprehension of good or evil. From this point of view men or animals are
passive under the action of good or evil objects distinct from themselves. It is this passivity which accounts for the
name of passion.” (Farrell. My Way of Life p. 191)

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change in the soul is accompanied by a change in the body (this physical change is part of the
definition of a passion).

Passion is not merely a passive thing but it is a tendency toward some sensible thing, a positive
aspiration to possess a sensible good. A passion may be defined as “an operation of the
sensitive appetite, consequent on sense knowledge and necessarily accompanied by some
bodily transformation, in virtue of which a man tends towards some recognized sensible good
which, having first stimulated his organism, now draws him to itself.”3

ENUMERATION OF THE PASSIONS

The passions are eleven as counted by St. Thomas. We list them paired with their opposites:
love and hate, desire and aversion, pleasure and sadness, hope and despair, audacity and fear,
and anger.4

THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THE PASSIONS

Some sensible things that man comes into contact with are simply good (agreeable), while
others are simply evil (or disagreeable). These are simply sought or shunned, without
admixture of the opposite movement. The sense appetite that deals with these is the
concupisible appetite (See diagram) and the passions involved have the technical name of
concupiscible passions.

Some goods we seek are not easily attainable because of an obstacle, while some evils are hard
to escape from. This is a bit complicated, because the sense appetite is reacting not only to the
original stimulation of the good or evil, but also to the circumstances that interfere with the
movement towards or away. Nonetheless these are given the term irascible passions.

The concupiscible passions are the basic ones, and the others build on them and eventually give
way to them. For instance, a man hopes for something only if he has desired it beforehand
(desire is a simple passion); and he only desires something if he loves that thing (love is a
simple passion). In this paper we will call them the “simple passions.”

On the other hand, the irascible passions we may call the “aggressive passions”. They arise as a
strong reaction to an emergency situation and last only as long as the situation lasts (for this
reason they are also called by some writers the “emergency passions”).

3Lalor, §2
4Cf. Farrell in My Way of Life (p. 189) for an excellent illustration of all the passions (By means of a man’s steak
dinner).

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OPPOSITION ACCORDING TO MOVEMENT
We can bring to mind two different types of opposition in movement. Opposition according to
“the contrariety of terms” is a first type. It refers to the opposition that comes from the presence
of two different terms which are in opposition. (Think of two trains, one of which is going to
Chicago, the other of which is going to New York) A second type is “the contrariety according
to the movement with respect to the same term.” This has to do with the opposition between
movements to and away from some certain term.

With regard to the concupiscible appetites, they have not the second type of opposition, but
only the first; the terms are what are opposite. For instance: desire and aversion are not
opposites simply speaking, since they regard different terms, not the same. Desire and aversion
cannot both be had with regard to the same thing as it is in itself; desire seeks the good,
aversion avoids evil.

However, when we look at the irascible appetites, they involve both types of opposition. They
regard the same term. For example, hope and despair both regard the same difficult goal, but
they have opposite reactions to it.

OPPOSITION ACCORDING TO OBJECTS

The passions may also be differentiated according to presence or absence of their objects. Love
cannot be differentiated in this way; it operates regardless of whether the object is near or far.
Love is the driving force behind all the passions. St. Thomas says it is a certain aptitude or
connaturalness with the good, set in motion by a sensing of the good. It is the first act of the
concupiscible appetite.

DIAGRAMS ILLUSTRATING THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THE PASSIONS:

a. Opposition of the Passions according to “the contrariety of terms”

CONCUPISCIBLE PASSIONS IRASCIBLE PASSIONS

(“SIMPLE PASSIONS”) (“AGGRESSIVE PASSIONS”)
GOOD EVIL DIFFICULT GOOD DIFFICULT EVIL
(SIMPLY) (SIMPLY)
Love Hate Hope Daring
Desire Aversion Despair Fear
Pleasure Sadness Anger

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 b. Opposition according to “the contrariety of movement (with respect to the same term)”

DIFFICULT GOOD DIFFICULT EVIL

AS “TERM TO WHICH” AS “TERM FROM WHICH” AS “TERM TO WHICH” AS “TERM FROM WHICH”
Hope Despair Daring Fear
Anger

c. Opposition according as the object is present or absent:

OBJECT ABSENT OBJECT PRESENT

Love Love
GOOD (SIMPLY)
Desire Pleasure
CONCUPISCIBLE
Hate Hate
EVIL (SIMPLY)
Aversion Sadness
Hope
DIFFICULT GOOD
Despair
IRASCIBLE Daring
DIFFICULT EVIL Fear
Anger

THE ORDER OF THE PASSIONS

As mentioned above, the simple (concupiscible) passions are prior to the aggressive (irascible).
The latter occupy a middle place, coming before a resolution of an emergency situation.

Any passion reacting to a good is always prior to one that reacts to an evil.

The three positive simple passions are prior to the three negative ones. Out of these positive
passions, love is primary. “Love is the first principle of [man’s] affective life.”5 However, strictly
speaking there is something prior to love – this is the object outside of man that provokes the
passion; a sensible good as the final cause.

Though desire is the first in the order of intention, love is first in the order of execution.

THE MORALITY OF THE PASSIONS

Buddhists believe that desire, to them the cause of all suffering, should be uprooted from man’s
heart. The ideal of the Stoics was apathy, an acquired paralysis of the passions. Jansenists and
Puritans practiced a strict ethical purity that outlawed the passions and emotions as evil.

5 Ibid., §3.

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On the other hand, the world today extolls the passions with the implication that they are good
in themselves.

In themselves, however, they are neither good nor bad. They only receive a certain morality
insofar as they are voluntary. As St. Augustine says, the passions “are evil if our love is evil,
good if our love is good.”6

The extent of their subjection to the higher powers of the soul is fairly difficult to determine. The
reason does not control them as a tyrant does his subjects but rather as a statesman does his
freemen. The bodily reactions of our passions are not always subject to the command of the will,
while the reactions of the sensible appetite of the soul usually are (although this last may follow
so quickly on the bodily reactions that the mind and will are taken by surprise; in this case, the
action is considered involuntary unless foreseen). But insofar as we are able to control the
passions by our will, we are responsible for them and they thus take on a moral value.

All the powers of the soul exist to work in proper subordination for the good of the whole man.
The lower powers, such as the sense appetite, are occupied with their own good (seeking sense
goods) but must be directed to operate for the higher good. When a passion is ordered to a
higher moral good, it is morally good; when directed to a moral evil, it is morally evil.7

The passions properly ordered can assist and contribute to a moral act (e.g. pleasure can help
study). If a passion precedes the willing or the judgment of the reason, it lessens the moral value
of the act. If the working of the higher powers are followed by the movement of passion, this is
a sign of the intensity of the will and add to or detracts from morality according to the morality
of the act.

In a nutshell we can say that the morality of the passions is determined by the morality of their
object. In other words, the passions are used well when they are used virtuously. If they are
used to do something good, they have a good moral value; if used to do something evil, they
have an evil one.

The Passions in Particular

LOVE
We use the word love in many different ways, with many different meanings; but in all cases
we refer to an appetitive movement. In the order of appetite, love comes first; in order to want

6 St. Thomas, I-II q. 24, a. 1

7 “The passions are all ordered, whether directly or indirectly, to the good of man. If they lead man to
evil, whether physical or moral, it will be due to some defect in man’s perception of what is good or evil
from him or to some defect in his will which leads him to choose what is physically or morally evil.”
(Farrell. My Way of Life p. 193)

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any sort of good thing, it must be loved beforehand. (The passion of love is “the source of all the
other passions.”8)

We can distinguish three types of “love”:

1. Natural appetite: A “built-in” appetite for the good independent of any kind of
knowledge. The “love” of a flower for the sunshine. (When we call this the passion of
love it is only metaphorical).
2. Sensitive appetite: Appetite dependent on sense knowledge. The love of a child for ice
cream, or a dog for food. This is the passion of love strictly speaking.
3. Rational appetite: The appetite for that which is known intellectually; the will inasmuch as
it seeks the good. (Improperly called the passion of love, this is love properly speaking –
the good-wishing of a rational being.)

If the reader will allow a parenthesis, we will make an interesting digression. St. Thomas
distinguishes between two more types of love that man can have. One he calls the love of desire,
which is the love of something that must be destroyed in order to please the one loving it (e.g.
food). This is distinguished from the love of friendship which seeks to “destroy itself” to please
the one loved. We are not to love humans merely with a love of desire; if we do so, we are
simply exploiting them for our own good alone.

What makes the passion of love come alive in a man or woman? St. Thomas gives three causes
of love: goodness, knowledge and similarity9:

1. Goodness, because the proper object of love is the good. Good is the object of love
because love implies a complacency towards the beloved, a fittingness or proportion to
it – and obviously this can be present only if the object is good.
2. Knowledge is a cause of love because no one can love what they do not know. However,
we do not have to know the object perfectly to love. For knowledge to be perfect, it must
be complete and thorough; but for love to be perfect, since it does not love distinct parts
but the thing in itself, perfect knowledge is not required. The more we know about a
good thing, the more we love it.
3. Similarity causes love either by an actual likeness or a likeness in potency. Like-minded
people easily become friends.

If these three things are the cause of love, love in itself is a cause. It is the cause of all the other
passions, since they all are based on attraction or repulsion. St. Thomas says that

Love has four effects on the lover10:

8 Farrell, p. 194
9 I-II q. 27. Cf. A Companion to the Summa, vol. 2, p. 97.
10 Ibid., q. 28.

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 1. Union between the lover and loved may seem to be love itself, but it is in fact a result of
love. Dionysius says that love is a unitive force, while Aristotle says that union is the work
of love.11 Union of lover and beloved is two-fold: real when a local union, and affective
when in the heart (a union caused formally by love).12
2. Mutual indwelling. This refers to both the mind and heart13. The one loved is in the mind,
since the lover strives to gain an intimate knowledge of the beloved.14 The one loved is
in the heart of the lover by a certain complacency – affection when present and longing
when absent. On the contrary, the lover is in the beloved by wanting to take possession
perfectly, by penetrating into the heart (love of desire); also by wanting to have the same
desire that is in the beloved, to make the beloved’s will his own (love of friendship).
Lastly, there is mutual indwelling by the mutual returning of love.15
3. Ecstasy, or being moved outside oneself.16 This may happen in regards to knowledge,
when man knows something above the knowledge that is proper to him (When the lover
dwells intently on the beloved, forgetting all else). Or in regard to the appetitive power,
when he is attracted very strongly to something (in the love of desire, but more perfectly
in the love of friendship (he loves for friend’s sake, not his own).
4. Zeal, a vigorous resistance to opposition which arises from the intensity of love.

HATE
Hate is the opposite of love. Love is attracted by a perceived good, while hate is repelled by a
perceived evil. Corresponding to natural love there is natural hate, and corresponding to
passion of love, there is the passion of hate.

Since evil is the negation of good, the object of hate is always the opposite of the object of love.
Consequently, if there were no love, there would be no hate. “All hate is caused through love”
says St. Thomas. Therefore, love is stronger than hate, since any cause is greater than the effect.
The hating of evil is only a means to the end, which is the object loved; and since any movement
to the end is stronger than the means, love is stronger. It is hard to see that this is true, but this
is because hate expresses itself more visibly; it comes with a certain sensible commotion, while
love brings a certain peace.

This sensible passion of hate leads to intellective hate, when the passion is consented to and
willed.

11 Ibid., q. 26, a. 2
12 Ibid., q. 28, a. 1
13 Cf. the divine indwelling: He that abideth in charity abideth in God, and God in Him. (I Jn 4:16)

14 The Holy Ghost, the Love of God, searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God. (I Cor 2:10)

15 I-II q. 28, a. 2

16 All love produces ecstasy because God Himself suffered ecstasy through love. (Dionysius. Cf. I-II 28, 3 sc)

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DESIRE AND AVERSION
The object of desire17 is the delectable good (the good that affords delight) which is sensible.
This good is not present, or else it would be the object of pleasure. Rather, it is an absent good
which the subject knows of and loves; therefore, his concupiscible appetite strives for it.

While natural desire cannot be infinite (since it follows on sense knowledge, which is limited),
the desire of the will can be infinite (because, of course, it is made for God). “You have made us
for Yourself,” addresses St. Augustine to the good God, “And our hearts are restless until they
rest in Thee.”

The opposite of this passion of desire is aversion. St. Thomas says that it has no name. It is the
feeling of displeasure when considering an absent evil.

PLEASURE
Pleasure, or delight (“delectatio”) is an act of the concupiscible appetite in the attainment of a
delectable good that is sensible. We can distinguish from this joy. Joy can be used to refer to
pleasure, but more properly it refers to that which follows on the attainment of intellectual
knowledge, or truth18. This spiritual (or intellectual) pleasure is better and on a higher plane
than the pleasure of the body. For instance, a man takes delight in driving a car; but he derives
greater delight from knowing what a car is.19

The pleasures of the body seem to us, however, much stronger – and thus are more attractive –
than the spiritual pleasure of joy. This is because sense pleasures are better known to man and
produce feelings of well-being much easier than intellectual pleasures do.

We can distinguish between unnatural pleasures and natural physical pleasures. Unnatural
pleasures are those not in consonance with human nature; they are not only against reason but
militate against the preservation of the race (eating dirt, cannibalism, homosexuality, etc.).
These are “consonant” with a certain individual human nature, but only insofar as that nature is
corrupt (in body or soul).

The union with a sensible object can either be real or by intentional (union in the mind with the
thing). The former brings about greater sense pleasure, obviously. But intentional union can
bring pleasure, even sensible pleasure to a man, since we are composed of not only a body but
also a soul. The union that exists between those who love each other but are thousands of miles

17 The word in Latin is “concupiscentia”.

18 “These higher pleasures, since they involve a greater good, a more stable and more intimate union, and a further
separation from corporeal matter with its changeability and its grounds for disappointment, greatly surpass the
pleasures of sense. They are a closer approximation to pure joy or beatitude.” (Lalor, The Passions. II. 4. Cf. I-II 31, 3.)
Cf. Farrell, My Way of Life, p. 203.
19 Farrell, p. 204

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away – a union that is in the mind – can bring great happiness, and yes, pleasure to the ones
who love.

As he does continuously, St. Thomas makes an illuminating distinction – he notes that while
intellectual pleasure cannot hinder the use of the mind, sensible pleasure is able to do so in
certain circumstances.

However, the Angelic Doctor is very clear in assuring us that not all pleasure is evil. In fact, he
states that no one is able to live without some sensible pleasure. It is one of the gifts God gave
man, in that it helps to bring us a measure of happiness in this world. As with all sensible good,
pleasure is not to be what we primarily seek in this world – it is not an essential cause of
happiness – but it certainly is something that God meant us to have in our lives according to the
order He has established.

Although the objects of pleasure are very varied, and depend much on the individual, the
general causes of pleasure20 can be reduced to a relatively small number. Some of them are
surprising.

• The union of love - the most obvious and least surprising cause; this refers to, of course,
real union (as opposed to in the mind).
• Likeness or similarity. We are happiest when we are with those who share the same
tastes and virtues as ourselves.
• The senses, especially those of sight and touch (The sense of sight is higher from the
point of view that it leads more immediately to knowledge).
• Activity, since this is necessary to achieve our desires.
• Change or movement. What is pleasant to man at one time is often not pleasant later on.
• Hope and memory, by which good things are present to us not in reality but in the
mind.
• Sadness. When a man is sad for a present evil, he receives a certain pleasure bringing to
mind the absent good; though he mourns for it, his love is aroused in the thought of it.
Also, St. Thomas says, a past evil may bring sadness but there is joy in the knowledge of
being delivered from it.
• Wonder or curiosity. We are pleased in the anticipation of the gaining of knowledge.
• The actions of others, whether it be because it brings a good to us, or it helps us to
appreciate our own good, or if the action is of a friend, it is considered as our own.
• Doing good to others - we are happy when we are able to do good to those we love, or
when we do good because we love God.
• The passion of love is the universal cause of pleasure, as it is with all the other passions.

Before finishing up our discussion of pleasure, it is helpful to note that the receiving of pleasure
(sensible joy) always brings about a desire for more pleasure. Sense pleasures are not perfectly

20 St. Thomas, I-II q. 32

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possessed and so it is always possible to seek more or seek a more perfect possession. However,
experience tells us that in this life no amount of pleasure can bring us to a perfect state of
happiness. There is always something missing in our pleasure here on earth – length of time,
intensity, sadness in other parts of our life.

Our faith tells us, thankfully, that our need for joy can be fully satisfied, but only after this life,
in the beatific vision of God Himself. The pleasures God gave us to enjoy in this world, rather
than being continual disappointments (when we set our hearts on them alone), should be
reminders that there is something greater in store – unending happiness, and of a much higher
order, for those who love God.

SADNESS
The passion of sadness (“tristitia” or “dolor”) is the opposite of pleasure or joy; it is the reaction
of the sensitive appetite when an evil is present to us. “Resting in an evil that is neither loved
nor desired but hated and shunned, is sadness.”21

Let us make a distinction. The present evil might be either a physical one, or an evil repugnant
to the human appetite in general. If it is the first, the consequence is pain; if the second, the
consequence is sadness or sorrow. For instance, if a football player breaks his leg and thereby
fails to score the winning touchdown for his team, he is sad, but on two accounts. Because of the
broken leg, he suffers pain, not only in his body but even as a passion in his soul; but because of
the loss of the game he is sorrowful. For purposes of simplification, we here refer to both of
these under the common name of sadness.22

St. Thomas speaks of a number of kinds23 of sadness; these kinds are based on various external
circumstances. When the passion of sadness is felt for another, such that their evil is considered
as one’s own, this is called pity. A man might feel sadness at the good of another, considering it
as an evil for himself; this we call envy. A person who is sad normally has the desire to flee the
cause of sadness; when he sees the avenue of escape made impassible and is in a perplexed

21Lalor.
22St. Thomas does make the distinction between pain and sadness, just as he does in some of the passions seen above.
A chart will simplify this for us. In two columns we present, opposite each other, two names for the same passion,
distinguished by slight nuances:

Coming from external senses (baser) Following intellect/imagination (more noble)

Concupiscence Desire
Pleasure Joy
Pain Sadness

In this article, however, we don’t make the distinction in the above chart. We use the general terms of desire,
pleasure, and sadness to refer to the human passions; these terms include both columns of the above diagram,
thereby simplifying things.
23 These are the quasi-species of sadness; St. Thomas explains that they are not true species or kinds, but sadness

which is had in different circumstances.

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state, he undergoes a sort of sadness called anxiety. If this urge to flee is accompanied by a
certain immobility coming from the weight of the sadness, this is termed by St. Thomas torpor
(or acedia).

There are four causes of pain, according to the Angelic Doctor: 1) loss of good (or presence of
evil); 2) desire, when the good sought is not able to be had easily, or when the desire is
disordered; 3) craving for unity, since perfect unity is not possible here on earth; 4) an
irresistible power.

What are the effects of sadness? We normally wouldn’t stop to enumerate these; St. Thomas
does! Sadness has the following effects:

1. Deprivation of the power to learn – because pain takes at least some of our attention, of
which we are in need in order to learn. However, moderate sorrow can actually help us
to learn, when we wish to find out what would free us from this sadness.24
2. Burdening of the soul – Sadness can easily depress man’s spirit, hindering his normal
activity; this may lead to the above-mentioned acedia.
3. Weakening of all our activity – Aristotle states that “pleasure perfects action, sorrow
hinders it,”25

While the melancholic among us might disagree, according to the Summa sadness is the passion
most harmful to our body. “A joyful mind makes age flourishing: a sorrowful spirit dries up the
bones,”26 says St. Thomas, borrowing from Holy Writ.

But let the same melancholics take hope: there are remedies to sadness, and St. Thomas lists
many. The universal remedy is the passion that is its opposite, pleasure or delight. Pleasure is to
sadness what, for our bodies, rest is to tiredness.27 Let us present a complete list of the remedies
afforded by the Angelic Doctor.

1. Pleasure, the opposite of sadness. The more intense the delight, the more it is able to
remedy our sadness.
2. Tears. “A hurtful thing hurts yet more if we keep it shut up.”28 Tears allows the soul’s
attention on an evil to be “dispersed.”
3. The sympathy of friends. A friend is one’s other self, and when we see him sharing in
our grief, we know that the burden of our sadness is borne by someone else besides
ourselves.

24 I-II q. 37, a. 1 reply obj 1

25 Ibid., q. 37, a. 3 sed contra
26 Prov. 17:22

27 I-II q. 38, a. 1

28 Ibid., q. 38, a. 2

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 4. The contemplation of truth. The greatest of all pleasures consists in this, and we know
from remedy number one that pleasure heals sadness. “In the powers of the soul there is an
overflow from the higher to the lower powers.”29
5. Sleep and hot baths. Very surprising coming from a serious scholastic like St. Thomas!
yet very convincing of his genuine humanity. The soul and the body are united; the state
of one effects the other, and so when we bring new energy or relaxation to the body, it
helps the soul in a positive way.

Having finished with our exposé of the simple (or concupiscible) passions, we now turn to the
aggressive (irascible) passions. At this point, after a fairly extensive study of the other passions,
not very much need be said about these latter.

HOPE AND DESPAIR

Hope is the passion that reacts to the knowledge of a future good that is difficult, but not
impossible to attain. Despair, on the other hand, regards a future good that is seen as impossible
to attain. It is not merely an absence of hope, but rather a withdrawal of hope.30

All aggressive passions presuppose the simple passions; the passion of hope presupposes the
simple passion of desire.31 Nothing undesired is ever hoped for!

What encourages the passion of hope? Anything that makes a goal either really or apparently
attainable. St. Thomas lists the following. Remember, these are things that help the passion of
hope, not necessarily the virtue.

• Wealth.
• Strength.
• Removal of obstacles.
• Education.
• Persuasion.
• Experience. This may be the cause of either hope or despair, in fact.32
• Memory of past successes.
• Youth.
• Drunkenness. A drunk is likely to be expansive, self-confident, and free of the fear of
danger or risks.33
• Foolhardiness. This brings to a person an imprudent hope.
• Thoughtlessness. Hope on account of a lack of vision, a failure to see the whole picture.

29 Ibid., q. 38, a. 4
30 Glenn, p. 131
31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 Glenn, p. 132.

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 • Love. We hope for only what we love and desire. In turn, hope can engender love, since
when we hope to possess the love of someone, we come to love that person.34

FEAR
Reverend Lalor says that “next to sadness, fear is more truly a passion than any of the others;
for the bodily disturbance is the sign of the passion in the strict sense, and the greatest bodily
disturbances occur with sadness and fear.”35

Fear was placed by God as a passion in our nature to help us to avoid that which is harmful to
us. However, if it is not controlled it can immobilize us, preventing us from counteracting or
fleeing the evil. Not all fear immobilizes, however; a moderate amount of fear urges us to
action.36

There are various forms of fear. Laziness is a sort of fear that dreads work; shamefacedness
fears doing some dishonest thing in the future; shame fears the disgrace of an evil deed already
accomplished. When one is faced with an enormous evil that approaches, he shrinks from its
enormity in amazement. What we call stupefaction dreads evil that is out of the ordinary;
anxiety fears evils that are possible, but not distinctly foreseen. 37

The object of fear is an evil that is imminent and which one longs to avoid. We fear something
in the future, so this evil is something we hold in our imagination. Therefore, the object of our
fear is subject to the transformation that our imagination is so good at effecting. For example,
our imagination may put at a distance an evil that is actually close, such as death for a dying
person. Or we may imagine some evil to be larger than it actually is; or vice versa.38

The evil of sin, properly speaking, is not something we can fear; we fear things that are not
subject to our free choice, and sin only enters when we have the freedom to choose. But we may
fear those external things that could lead us into sin, which are outside of the control of our free
will. 39

Parenthetically, let us state that we may be afraid of fear itself, as F. D. Roosevelt once famously
indicated, speaking within the circumstances of the Second World War: “The only thing we
have to fear is fear itself.”40

34 Ibid.
35 Lalor, §7.
36 Glenn, p. 134

37 Ibid., p. 132

38 Ibid., p. 133

39 Ibid.

40 http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057

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St. Thomas gives two causes of fear41:

1. Love is the first. He says that fear may be caused by an imminent loss of what we love;
or a looming failure to gain what we love.
2. Lack of power is another. When we see that we lack the power necessary to repel an
approaching evil, we fear.

What does fear do to us? There are a number of effects, according to St. Thomas42:

1. It makes a person to shrink into himself.

2. It causes a man to seek counsel; dread takes away self-confidence.
3. It makes the body tremble, get pale and tense.
4. It may deprive man of the use of reason for a while; however, a person’s responsibility
for his actions is not thereby taken away.

BOLDNESS
Fear is the reaction of our sensitive appetite away from an evil; what we call boldness is the
direct opposite of this, an advancement towards evil in order to destroy it. We must remember
this is a passion we are speaking of; therefore, this is not a movement commanded by reason. It
is not a calm, rational movement but a quick estimate somewhat similar to the instinct we see in
animals.

Now this movement towards an evil will only be taken if there is hope. We don’t move towards
an evil unless we have some hope of overcoming it. A cause of the passion of boldness,
therefore, is hope.

This hope in turn is roused by certain circumstances; here it would be well to quote St. Thomas
directly, who can tell us of these circumstances: “Hope that leads to daring is roused by those
things that make us reckon victory as possible. Such things regard either our own power, as
bodily strength, experience of dangers, abundance of wealth, and the like; or they regard the
powers of others, such as having a great number of friends or any other means of help,
especially if a man trust in the greatest help, that of the Divine assistance: wherefore ‘those are
more daring, with whom it is well in regard to godlike things,’ as the Philosopher says.” This
last factor, dependence on God, is a very encouraging one. It helps us to see how helpful this
boldness can be for a Christian. It is something he needs, in fact; he needs to go beyond
avoidance of evil and rise even to the very onslaught of it.

We should also see that it is, of course, a very important thing to use this boldness well. Which
means, naturally, to use it at the service of virtue. The passion of boldness is not good on its

41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.

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own, but must be subject to the reason and be used to assist us in the virtuous pursuit of good
and destruction of evil.

ANGER
Anger is the passion that strikes back at an evil inflicted upon it. It is unique among the
passions in being a mixed passion, meaning that it has two movements included in it. Anger
both seeks a good and reacts against an evil. A man in anger seeks the good of satisfaction that
comes from revenge and reacts against the evil inflicted upon him, seeking to be rid of it.
Because it both seeks a good and avoids an evil, it has no opposite passion, as all the others do.43

From a slightly different point of view, we can say that it is composed of the characteristics of
two other passions, sadness and hope.44 Anger is “sad” on account of the presence of some evil;
but it also hopes to settle the injury by inflicting one in return. We know, of course, that this
may be justified or not. On the one hand a person may have the authority to inflict punishment
on a wrongdoer – in this case anger is a good thing and justified; on the other, a person may be
held on account of Christian charity to bear the wrong done – in this case anger is not justified
but actually sinful.

It is interesting to note that Our Lord himself had anger, when he drove the buyers and sellers
out of the temple. In the proper context, and when it is in control, it is a very noble and even
useful passion. St. Thomas makes a very interesting observation in this regard. He states that
anger can be described as more natural to man than desire, from the point of view that it
follows upon an act of reason (Since reason needs to judge that a wrong has been done; reason
is not needed to judge that some sensible thing is desirable).45

It is a very important passion, in the sense that many of the passions can lead up to anger. All
the other aggressive passions tend to turn into anger, and it forms a sort of pinnacle to them.
The scholastic name of these kind of passions, irascible, even takes its name from the passion of
anger, in Latin “ira.”

There are three types of anger. These are wrath, which is an angry outburst; ill will, which is
the continuing effect of the outburst; and rancor, which is the determination to have revenge.46

What is it that causes anger? In general – and this is obvious – it has an outside cause. It is
always brought about by something other than us that brings about pain or difficulty. In
particular, we can specify and say that the cause of anger is some insult that we receive. This
insult may be contempt, frustration of our will, or insolence.

43 Farrell, p. 211. Also cf. Glenn, p. 134.

44 Lalor.
45 Glenn, p. 135.

46 Glenn, p. 135.

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Why are we angry at an insult? It could be for one of two reasons. First, we excel at something;
if someone were to put down the skill we had, we would be insulted. This might be due to our
pride, but it might also be a just anger for a truly unjust insult. Second, we might have a defect;
if we are aware of our weakness, we are sensitive to negative remarks made about that defect.

If an insult is merited, and we are at fault, it should not lead to anger (but often does, on
account of our pride!); but in the case when an insult is unmerited, it causes anger very easily.

What are the effects of anger? They are manifold, but we can reduce them to a few.47

• “Inflammation of the heart,” in the terms of St. Thomas. Anger affects the body more
than the other passions, exciting it to force, impetuosity, and vehemence in action. It gets
the blood going – obvious in the red face of the angry man – which gives a special
intensity to what an angry person does. According to the terms of ancient physiology,
St. Thomas says it “inflames” the heart.
• Pleasure. One who is angry takes pleasure in thinking of the revenge he plans.
• Obstruction of reason. Because of the intensity of the passion of anger, it can easily
control us, challenging the guidance of the intellect. Like all the passions, but with this
passion particularly, if it is not dominated by the reason, it will do the dominating. More
than any other passion, it has the potential to replace reason in guiding our actions.
• Excitation of the external expressions of the movements of the heart. No man can see
the inner movements of our hearts. Yet they can see or hear what outwardly indicates
these movements. When we are angry, our eyes, body language, and words easily
become exaggerated in expression of what is going on in our heart. It is stereotypical
that the angry man’s eyes flash with his passion. And after the words that they speak,
how often do the angry have regrets!

Conclusion
The passions. If we use them well, we will reach our eternal home. If not, our life will be in vain.
In themselves, these passions are neither good nor evil, but they are certainly determining
factors in our lives. How important is this today in particular, when so many let themselves be
guided by their emotions and controlled by their base desires.

Let us be grateful that St. Thomas clarifies the confusion that can so easily be had, presenting
our human nature as it is. He helps us to know ourselves and the passions within us, these
tremendous gifts that God has given us. Tremendous in their potential for good, tremendous in
their potential for evil. Let us use them well and receive the reward that awaits those who do so!

47 Cf. Lalor, Glenn (p. 136)

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References
Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Theologica. I-II q. 22-48

Lalor, Rev. Juvenal. The Passions. Article in Benziger’s 1947 Summa, vol. 3 (Generally, this is the source if there is no
reference).

Pegues. A Catechism of the Summa Theologica. RCB.

Farrell/Healy. My Way of Life. (Part II, chapter IV; pp. 188-212)

Farrell. A Companion to the Summa. Vol. II. (pp. 83-154)

Glenn. A Tour of the Summa.

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