The Passions of the Soul

Summary

Les Passions de l'âme, published in Amsterdam and Paris in November 1649, was Descartes's last book and his fullest account of how mind and body interact in emotional life. It grew out of his correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, who in 1643 had asked him how an immaterial thinking soul could move a body, and who later pressed him on the regulation of grief and the good life. The work is organised in 212 short numbered articles divided into three parts and is preceded by an exchange of prefatory letters in which Descartes says he writes not as an orator or moral philosopher but as a physicist, a natural philosopher explaining the passions through the body. Part One sets out the machinery. The body is a self-moving machine heated by the fire in the heart, with blood circulating through the vessels and its finest parts, the animal spirits, flowing from the brain through the nerves to inflate the muscles. Functions that belong to the body must be distinguished from those of the soul, whose only proper activity is thought. Thoughts are either actions of the soul, chiefly volitions, or passions in the broad sense, perceptions received. Passions in the strict sense are perceptions, feelings or emotions of the soul referred to the soul itself and caused, maintained and strengthened by some movement of the spirits. Although the soul is joined to the whole body, its principal seat is a small gland in the middle of the brain, the pineal gland, where the movements of the spirits and the soul's volitions meet. The will cannot command passions directly, but can control them indirectly by representing things associated with other passions, and habit can join new movements of the gland to thoughts, as hunters train dogs. Part Two identifies six primitive passions, wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness, from which all others are compounded. For each Descartes describes the movements of blood and spirits, the changes in pulse, heat, digestion and colour, and the outward signs such as blushing, pallor, trembling, languor, fainting, laughter and tears. He explains why passions are naturally useful, since they dispose the soul to will what nature tells us is useful, and why they become injurious when excessive. Part Three treats particular passions: esteem and contempt, pride and humility, hope, fear, jealousy, irresolution, courage, remorse, mockery, envy, pity, gratitude, anger, shame and regret. Its centre is generosity, the rightful self-esteem of one who knows that only the free disposition of the will truly belongs to him and resolves always to use it well; generosity is the key to all the virtues and the remedy for disorder in the passions. The book ends with a general remedy: when a passion is aroused, one should wait until the agitation in the blood has calmed before acting, and recognise that the wise person can draw joy even from the passions.

Top Lessons

• Emotions have a physiology

  Descartes insists on treating passions as a natural philosopher, tracing each to movements of blood and spirits and to changes in pulse, warmth and digestion. Although his mechanism is obsolete, the project of correlating feelings with bodily states is the ancestor of psychophysiology and affective neuroscience.

• Indirect mastery of the passions

  The will cannot simply order fear to stop, but it can redirect attention, call up opposing considerations, and build habits that link new responses to old stimuli. Descartes's comparison with training animals anticipates later ideas of conditioning and the cognitive strategies of modern therapy.

• Generosity as the key to the virtues

  Part Three makes generosity, a well-founded self-esteem based only on the good use of one's free will, the master virtue. It frees a person from envy, contempt and excessive fear because it locates worth in what lies within one's power. The idea combines Stoic themes with a distinctly Cartesian emphasis on the will.

• Wonder as the first passion

  Descartes places wonder first among the passions because it arises before we know whether something is good or bad, and he notes that it alone involves no change in the heart and blood. Useful for learning, it becomes harmful in excess as astonishment. The ordering makes curiosity foundational to emotional life.

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Medical Lens

The Passions of the Soul is a landmark in the history of psychosomatic thinking and of neurophysiology. Descartes, who dissected animals extensively, describes reflex-like movements of animal spirits through the nerves, the heart and circulation, and the pineal gland as the point of mind-body interaction, a localisation that became notorious. His physiological descriptions of fear, sadness, joy and love, with their effects on pulse, appetite, digestion and complexion, and his claim that passions can cause or cure illness, reflect his correspondence with Elisabeth about her low fever and sadness, for which he prescribed cheerful thoughts and diversion. His account of indirect control of passions through habit and association, and his explanation of strange aversions by early impressions, foreshadow conditioning theories and cognitive approaches to anxiety. The common charge that Descartes split body from mind in medicine should be weighed against this book's insistence on their close union.

• Part One, opening articles (c. Art. 7–16)

  Brief description of the body's parts: the heat in the heart, circulation of the blood, the animal spirits formed in the brain and travelling through the nerves to move the muscles.

• Part One (c. Art. 30–34)

  The soul joined to the whole body but exercising its functions chiefly in a small gland in the middle of the brain, which the spirits move and which in turn moves the spirits.

• Part One, final articles (c. Art. 45–50)

  The soul's indirect power over the passions; habits that join movements of the gland to thoughts; the example of training animals; the claim that no soul is so weak that it cannot acquire mastery.

• Part Two (c. Art. 96–111)

  Movements of blood and spirits, and changes of pulse, heat and digestion, in love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness; why love is good for health and sadness weakens the appetite.

• Part Two (c. Art. 112–135)

  External signs of the passions: changes of colour, trembling, languor, fainting, laughter, tears, groans and sighs, each explained by the motion of blood and spirits.

• Part Two (c. Art. 136)

  Strange aversions in some people, such as an inability to bear the smell of roses or the presence of a cat, explained by impressions received in infancy.

• Part Three, closing articles (c. Art. 211–212)

  A general remedy: in a strong passion, recall that the imagination exaggerates and wait for the agitation of the blood to calm before acting.