Passion

Passion (Gr. πάσχω, to suffer) expresses really the contrary of action. But first in the plural form, and now even in the singular, the word is used to describe a violent commotioi or agitation of the mind — emotion, zeal, ardor. In its widest sense it denotes all the states or manifestations of the sensibility — every form and degree of feeling. In a more restricted psychological sense it is confined to those states of the sensibility which are turbulent, and weaken our power of self-command. This is also the popular use of the phrase, in which passion is opposed to reason.

(a.) Plato arranged the passions in two classes, the concupiscible and irascible — ἐπιθυμία and θῦμος; the former springing from the body and perishing with it, the latter connected with the rational and immortal part of our nature, and stimulating to the pursuit of good aid the avoiding of excess and evil. Aristotle included all man's active principles under one general designation of oretic, and distinguished them into the appetite irascible, the appetite concupiscible, which had their origin in the body, and the body rational (βούλησις), which is in the will, under the guidance of reason. Descartes and Malebranche have each given a theory and classification of the passions, also Dr. Isaac Watts, Dr. Cogan, and Dr. Hutcheson and Le Brun. The last named makes the number of passions about twenty:

1. attention; 2. admiration; 3. astonishment; 4. veneration; 5. rapture; 6. joy, with tranquillity; 7. desire; 8. laughter; 9. acute pain; 10. pains, simply bodily; 11. sadness; 12. weeping; 13. compassion; 14. scorn; 15. horror; 16. terror or fright; 17. anger; 18. hatred; 19. jealousy; 20. despair.