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Book II Chapter 7

Contrary to Nature and the Tyranny of Passions

“Contrary to nature” too is used in the description of passion because passion occurs contrary to reason that is right and in accordance with nature. All who are in the grip of passions turn away from reason, but in a distinctive manner, unlike people mistaken about just anything. For those who are mistaken, for example about ⟨the claim⟩ that atoms are principles, abandon their judgment when taught that they are not.³⁶³ But those in the grip of passions, even if they learn, even if they are taught otherwise—that they ought not to feel distress or fear, or in general to be subject to the soul’s passions—still do not abandon these. Rather, the passions lead them into subjection to their tyranny.³⁶⁴

Craving and the Opinion of a Good

They say, then, that craving is desire disobedient to reason. Its cause is the opinion that a good is approaching, in whose presence we shall fare well, the opinion itself possessing a ⟨freshness arising from the belief that it really is to be desired⟩ that stirs one in a disorderly way.³⁶⁵

Fear and the Opinion of an Evil

Fear is aversion disobedient to reason. Its cause is the opinion that an evil is approaching, the opinion possessing the stimulating freshness of the belief that it really is to be avoided.³⁶⁶

Distress and Pleasure

Distress is a contraction of the soul disobedient to reason. Its cause is the fresh opinion that an evil is present, at which it is appropriate ⟨to contract. Pleasure is an uplift of the soul disobedient to reason. Its cause is the fresh opinion that a good is present, at which it is appropriate⟩ to be uplifted.³⁶⁷

Forms under the Four Passions

Under craving, then, fall such things as anger and its species (wrath, rage, rancor, grudge, bitterness, and the like), intense loves, longings, yearnings, loves of pleasure, wealth, and reputation, and similar things. Under pleasure fall malicious joys, delights, enchantments, and the like. Under fear fall hesitations, anxieties, consternations, shames, alarms, superstitions, dread, and frights. Under distress fall envy, rivalry, jealousy, pity, mourning, heaviness, anguish, vexation, pain, and disquiet.³⁶⁸

Anger and Its Species

Anger, then, is a craving to punish someone thought to have done an injury contrary to what is fitting. Wrath is anger beginning; rage is anger swelling; rancor is anger laid aside to grow old, or stored within; a grudge is anger watching for an opportunity for revenge; bitterness is anger erupting immediately.³⁶⁹

Love and Related Cravings

Love is an initiative toward forming friendship because of manifest beauty.³⁷⁰ Longing is a craving for someone absent, in the context of love; yearning is a craving for the company of an absent friend. Love of pleasure is a craving for pleasures; love of wealth, for wealth; love of reputation, for reputation.³⁷¹

The Species of Pleasure

Malicious joy is pleasure at the evils of others; delight is pleasure at unexpected things; enchantment is pleasure through sight involving deception.³⁷²

The Species of Fear

Hesitation is fear of an impending activity; anxiety is fear of failure, or, in another formulation, fear of defeat; consternation is fear arising from an unfamiliar impression; shame is fear of ill repute; alarm is pressing fear accompanied by an outcry; superstition is fear of gods or divine spirits; dread is fear of something terrible; fright is fear arising from a report.³⁷³

Envy, Rivalry, and Jealousy

Envy is distress at the goods of others; rivalry is distress at another’s attaining what one craves while one does not. “Rivalry” is also used in another sense for the admiration felt by someone in want, and in yet another for imitation of someone regarded as superior.³⁷⁴ Jealousy is distress at another’s ⟨also⟩ attaining what one oneself desired.³⁷⁵

Pity and the Remaining Forms of Distress

Pity is distress at someone who seems to suffer undeservedly; mourning is distress at an untimely death; heaviness is distress that weighs one down; anguish is distress that produces speechlessness; vexation is distress in reflection; pain is distress that penetrates and reaches deep; disquiet is distress accompanied by restless tossing.³⁷⁶

The Object and the Character of the Movement

Of these passions, some indicate what they arise in response to, such as pity, envy, malicious joy, and shame; others indicate the distinctive character of the movement, such as pain and fright.³⁷⁷

Susceptibility to Passion

Susceptibility is a ready tendency to fall into a passion, as one of the activities contrary to nature—for example proneness to distress, irascibility, enviousness, quick temper, and the like.³⁷⁸ There are also susceptibilities to other activities contrary to nature, such as thefts, adulteries, and acts of outrage; in accordance with these people are called thieves, adulterers, and perpetrators of outrage.³⁷⁹

363.The supplied τοῦ makes the following infinitival clause a noun phrase; ⟨the claim⟩ expresses its grammatical work in English. Atoms as principles are the example of a philosophical belief relinquished on instruction. The sentence is not a statement about modern atomic science.

364.The contrast concerns how people respond to correction: mistaken judgment yields to teaching in the example, whereas passion persists despite instruction. The text’s strong imagery of disobedience and tyranny is retained without adding a separate irrational part of the soul.

365.The final bracketed phrase is supplied in Wachsmuth’s Greek. It connects the opinion’s “freshness” with the conviction that its object really is to be desired. The English keeps the reconstruction visible. The cause specified is the person’s opinion about an approaching good; the passage does not affirm that the object actually is good.

366.Ἔκκλισις retains “aversion,” as at II.7.9.2. The parallel with craving concerns the supposed value of an approaching object and the opinion’s power to move us. Wachsmuth brackets καί, “and,” as rejected wording between “stimulating” and “fresh”; it remains visible in Greek and is omitted in English.

367.Wachsmuth’s supplement begins with the end of the distress definition and includes almost the whole pleasure definition; the English retains that single span across the sentence boundary. “Fresh” follows the functional explanation at II.7.10.3. The judgment that contraction or uplift is appropriate belongs within the opinion causing the passion, not to the narrator’s endorsement of it.

368.The English names are kept distinct to allow comparison with the definitions that immediately follow. Familiar English synonyms do not by themselves reproduce these technical differences. “Intense” qualifies loves in this list. The Greek mostly uses plurals for the forms under craving, pleasure, and fear, then singulars for those under distress; the English preserves that change.

369.These definitions distinguish the onset, swelling, persistence, timing, and eruption of anger. “Wrath” renders θυμός, “rage” χόλος, “rancor” μῆνις, “grudge” κότος, and “bitterness” πικρία. The apparent injury is qualified by “thought,” δοκοῦντα; the definition does not establish that the person truly committed it. Both descriptions joined by ἤ in the definition of μῆνις are retained.

370.Ἐπιβολή retains “initiative,” used in the preceding account of impulse. Compare II.7.5b9.3, where love is expressly said not to be appetite, and the very similar friendship-and-beauty formula occurs. Here love appears within the discussion of craving after the list of “intense loves.” The wording and its tension with the earlier account are preserved without inserting a distinction the present definition does not explicitly make.

371.Πόθος and ἵμερος receive separate definitions: the former relates absence to love, the latter specifies the company of an absent friend. Δόξα in φιλοδοξία means reputation, not the “opinion” involved in the definitions of the primary passions.

372.Ἀσμενισμός is defined through the unexpected, without an explicit “good” in the Greek. Γοητεία here specifies sight and deception. The auditory form of enchantment in the related classification at Diogenes Laertius VII.114 has not been substituted for this source’s visual definition.

373.The definition of anxiety gives two formulations joined by καὶ ἑτέρως, both retained. Φαντασία remains “impression.” Δαίμονες are divine spirits, without the necessarily evil sense of modern “demons.” Λόγος in the brief definition of fright is taken as a report or account; it need not mean the right reason which passion disobeys.

374.Ζῆλος can name both the distress defined first and other forms of admiration or emulation. The compressed μακαρισμὸν ἐνδεοῦς is understood here as pronouncing someone fortunate on the part of a person who lacks; “felt by someone in want” expresses that reading of the genitive. In the final alternative, ὡς ἂν κρείττονος presents the imitated person as superior.

375.The distinctions turn on another’s goods, another’s success without one’s own, and another’s also attaining the desired object. The supplied καί, ⟨also⟩, makes the last contrast explicit. The Greek changes from present ἐπιθυμεῖ in the rivalry definition to past ἐπεθύμει in the jealousy definition; the English follows it.

376.The definition of mourning specifies an untimely death, ἀώρῳ, rather than death without qualification. Ἄχθος and ἄχος are distinct despite their similar spelling: the first weighs down, the second produces speechlessness. Κατὰ διαλογισμόν connects vexation with reflection or reckoning. The final definitions describe how distress is felt and moves the sufferer, not further external objects of distress.

377.This comments on what the names disclose. Some identify an object or occasion, such as another’s undeserved suffering or one’s ill repute; others characterize the movement of the soul. Both examples in the second group, ὀδύνη and δεῖμα, are retained even though the preceding short definition of δεῖμα refers to a report.

378.Εὐεμπτωσία concerns readiness to fall into a passion, rather than the occurrence of a particular passion itself. The examples name tendencies: ἐπιλυπία, ὀργιλότης, φθονερία, and ἀκροχολία. The phrase ὥς τι τῶν παρὰ φύσιν ἔργων places passion among activities contrary to nature.

379.The account extends susceptibility beyond the named passions to habitual kinds of wrongdoing. Ὕβρις is rendered “outrage” here, covering abusive or insulting conduct; the English avoids reducing it to the inward feeling of pride.