Moral Philosophy

prehension of good or evil The soul is made up of intellect, will, and sensibly appetite. The first two are rational, the third irrational: the third is the seat of the passionr. In a disembodied spirit, or an angel, there are no senses, no sensible appetite, no passions. Tho angel, or the departed soul, can love and hate, feai and desire, rejoice and grieve, but these are not passions in the pure spirit, they are acts of intellect and will alone. So man also often loves and hates, and does other acts that are synonymous with corresponding passions, and yet no passion is there. The man is working with his calm reason: his irrational soul is not stirred. To an author, when he is in the humour for it, it is a delight to be writing, but not a passionate delight. The will finds satisfaction in the act: the irrational soul is not affected by it. Or a penitent is sorry for his sin: he sincerely regrets it before God: his will is heartily turned away, and wishes that that sin hadnever been: at the same time his eye is dry, his features unmoved, not a sigh does he utter, and yet he is truly sorry. It is important tc bear these facts in mind: else we shall be continually mistaking for passions what are pure acts of will, or vice versa, misled by the identity of name. 2. The great mark of a passion is its sensible working of itself out upon the body,?what Dr. Bain calls " the diffusive wave of emotion." Without this mark there is no passion, but with it are other m...