Francis Hutcheson by McHugh John;

Author:McHugh, John;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adam Smith, David Hume, common sense, morality, philosophy, laughter, beauty, harmony, perception, sensation, wisdom, fable of the bees, evil, virtue, vice, passions, moral philosophy, God, religion, truth, political philosophy, natural law
ISBN: 1822918
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2014-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

Sect. II. Of the affections and passions: the natural laws of pure affection: the confused sensations of the passions, with their final causes

I. After the general account of sensations, we may consider other modifications of our minds, consequent upon these perceptions, whether grateful, or uneasy. The first which occur to anyone are desire of the grateful perceptions, and aversion to the uneasy, either for ourselves or others. If we would confine the word affection to these two, which are entirely distinct from all sensation, and directly incline the mind to action or volition of motion, we should have less debate about the number or division of affections. But since, by universal custom, this name is applied to other modifications of the mind, such as joy, sorrow, despair, we may consider what universal distinction can be assigned between these modifications, and the several sensations above-mentioned; and we shall scarce find any other than this, that we call ‘the direct immediate perception of pleasure or pain from the present object or event, the sensation’: but we denote by the affection or passion some other ‘perceptions of pleasure or pain, not directly raised by the presence or operation the event or object, but by our reflection upon, or apprehension of their present or future existence; so that we expect or judge that the object or event will raise the direct sensations in us.’ In beholding a regular building we have the sensation of beauty; but upon our apprehending ourselves possessed of it, or that we can procure this pleasant sensation when we please, we feel the affection of joy. When a man has a fit of the gout, he has the painful sensation; when he is not at present pained, yet apprehends a sudden return of it, he has the affection of sorrow, which might be called a sort of sensation: as the physicians call many of our passions internal senses.

When the word passion is imagined to denote anything different from the affections, it includes a strong brutal impulse of the will, sometimes without any distinct notions of good, public or private, attended with ‘a confused sensation either of pleasure or pain, occasioned or attended by some violent bodily motions, which keeps the mind much employed upon the present affair, to the exclusion of everything else, and prolongs or strengthens the affection sometimes to such a degree, as to prevent all deliberate reasoning about our conduct’ [...see Malebranche’s Search after Truth, Book V, Chapter 3; also see T3.III.ii, not included here].

II. We have little reason to imagine, that all other agents have such confused sensations accompanying their desires as we often have. Let us abstract from them, and consider in what manner we should act upon the several occasions which now excite our passions, if we had none of these sensations whence our desires become passionate.

There is a distinction to be observed on this subject, between ‘the calm desire of good, and aversion to evil, either selfish or public, as they appear to

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