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 had never 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 to 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 mental
states besides passions, as we define them. All strong emotion affects
the body sensibly, but not all emotions are passions. There are
emotions that arise from and appertain to the rational portion of the
soul.
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