Plotino - Tratado 26,3 (III, 6, 3) — Discussão sobre as paixões: qual é a parte do corpo? da alma?

3. ¿Cómo clasificar, pues, las inclinaciones familiares y las disposiciones hostiles? ¿No significan distintos modos de ser, o estados pasivos, o movimientos del alma, tanto la pena como la cólera, el placer como el deseo o el temor? Acerca de esto convendría señalar algunas distinciones. Porque decir que no se producen alteraciones o que su percepción no es muy clara, es ir contra toda evidencia. Conviene aceptarlas y buscar en ese caso cuál es el sujeto que sufre los cambios. Decir que es el alma equivale a suponer en cierto modo que el alma enrojece o empalidece, sin pensar para nada que, aunque estos estados se manifiestan a, través del alma, tienen lugar en un ser compuesto distinto de ella. Es claro que la vergüenza se da en el alma cuando se juzga una acción vergonzosa; ahora bien, como el’ alma contiene el cuerpo y, para no dejarse engañar por las palabras, como el cuerpo está inmediato al alma y no es algo inanimado, se altera según el movimiento de la sangre, que es fácilmente movible. En cuanto a lo que llamamos el temor, su principio se halla en el alma; la palidez, sin embargo, proviene de un retroceso de la sangre hacia adentro. La difusión propia del placer, percibida claramente por la sensación, ha de situarse en el cuerpo, aunque lo que entonces se da en el alma no sea ya una pasión. Lo mismo acontece con la pena, Y, en cuanto al deseo, su principio se encuentra también en el alma, pero pasa inadvertido; no obstante, sus resultados los conoce la percepción. Cuando decimos que el ¡ilma se mueve por efecto del deseo, o del razonamiento, o de la acción de juzgar, no queremos decir con ello que se vea sacudida para producir estos movimientos, sino más bien que estos movimientos son originados por ella. Y al decir igualmente que la vida es movimiento no afirmamos por esto la alteración del alma, puesto que el acto de cada parte tlcl alma es la vida misma conforme a la naturaleza, una vida que no se aleja para nada de sí.

Digamos como resumen: admitimos que los actos, la vida y las inclinaciones no son alteraciones de ninguna clase; admitimos asimismo que los recuerdos no son improntas que se impriman en el alma, ni representaciones que se fijen como en la cera. Aceptamos absolutamente que en todas las pasiones y movimientos de que se ha hablado, el alma permanece tal cual es en su sustancia y en su ser, y que la virtud y el vicio no se dan aquí como se dan en el cuerpo lo negro y lo blanco, lo cálido y lo frío. El alma, según se lia dicho, va hacia uno u otro de estos dos extremos, que son totalmente contrarios.

III. Que dire des désirs et des aversions de l’âme ? Comment admettre que la douleur, la colère, la joie, la concupiscence et la crainte ne soient pas des changements et des passions qui se trouvent dans l’âme et qui l’émeuvent (24) ?

Il faut encore ici établir une distinction : car prétendre qu’il n’y a pas en nous de changements ni de perception de ces changements, c’est nier l’évidence. Cela admis, reste à chercher qui subit ces changements. Nous ne pouvons les attribuer à l’âme : car ce serait admettre qu’elle rougit, par exemple, ou qu’elle pâlit (26), sans réfléchir que ces passions, bien que produites par l’âme, sont dans une autre substance. La honte consiste pour l’âme dans l’opinion qu’une chose est inconvenante, et comme lame contient le corps, ou, pour parler plus exactement, l’a sous sa dépendance et l’anime, le sang, qui est très-mobile, se porte au visage. De même, la crainte a son principe dans l’âme ; la pâleur se produit dans le corps parce que le sang se concentre dans les parties intérieures (26). Dans la joie, c’est aussi au corps qu’appartient la dilatation qui s’y fait sentir ; ce que l’âme éprouve n’est pas une passion. Il en est de même de la douleur et de la concupiscence : le principe en est dans l’âme, où il reste à l’état latent ; ce qui en procède est perçu par la sensation. Quand, nous disons que les désirs, les opinions, les raisonnements sont des mouvements de l’âme, nous n’entendons pas que l’âme s’agite pour produire ces mouvements (27), mais qu’ils ont leur origine en elle (28). Quand nous appelons la vie un mouvement, nous n’attachons pas à ce mot le sens d’altération: car agir selon sa nature est la vie simple et indivisible de chaque partie de l’âme.

En résumé, nous affirmons que l’action, la vie, le désir ne sont pas des altérations, que les souvenirs ne sont pas des formes imprimées dans l’âme, ni les actes de l’imagination des empreintes semblables à celles qu’un cachet produit sur la cire (29). Il en résulte que, dans tous les faits qu’on nomme des passions ou des mouvements, l’âme n’éprouve aucun changement dans sa substance et son essence ; que la vertu et le vice ne sont pas en elle ce que la chaleur, le froid, la blancheur, la noirceur sont dans le corps, mais qu’elle est avec la vertu et le vice dans un rapport tout différent, comme nous venons de l’expliquer.

THE SOUL ORIGINATES MOVEMENTS, BUT IS NOT ALTERED (AGAINST STOICS). POLEMIC AGAINST THE STOIC THEORY OF PASSIONS.

3. There are desires and aversions in the soul, which demand consideration. It is impossible to deny that pain, anger, joy, appetite and fear are changes and affections which occur in the soul, and that move her. We must here draw a distinction, for it would be denying the evidence to insist that there are in us no changes or perception of these changes. We cannot attribute them to the soul, which would amount to the admission that she blushes, or grows pale, without reflecting that these "passions," though produced by the soul, occur in a different substance. For the soul, shame consists in the opinion that something is improper; andas the soul contains the body, or, to speak more exactly, as the body is a dependency of the animating soul, the blood, which is very mobile, rushes to the face. Likewise, the principle of fear is in the soul; paleness occurs in the body because the blood concentrates within the interior parts. In joy, the noticeable dilation belongs to the body also; what the body feels is not a "passion." Likewise with pain and appetite; their principle is in the soul, where it remains in a latent condition; what proceeds therefrom is perceived by sensation. When we call desires, opinions and reasonings "movements of the soul," we do not mean that the soul becomes excited in the production of these movements, but that they originate within her. When we call life a movement, we do not by this word mean an alteration; for to act according to one’s nature is the simple and indivisible life of each part of the soul.

VIRTUE AND VICE AFFECT THE SOUL DIFFERENTLY FROM ALL THE OTHER PASSIONS.

In short, we insist that action, life and desire are not alterations, that memories are not forms impressed on the soul, and that actualizations of the imagination are not impressions similar to those of a seal on wax. Consequently in all that we call "passions" or "movements," the soul undergoes no change in her substance (substrate) or "being" (nature); virtue and vice in the soul are not similar to what heat, cold, whiteness or blackness are in bodies; and the soul’s relation to vice and virtue is entirely different, as has been explained.

III. But how is it that familiarities and alienations, pains, anger, and pleasures, desires and fears, are not mutations and passions inherent and exciting ? It is necessary, therefore, thus to distinguish concerning these. For not to acknowledge that changes in quality are ingenerated in us, and also vehement sensations of these, is the province of one who denies things that are evident. It is requisite, therefore, admitting the subsistence of these, that we should investigate what that is which is changed. For by asserting that these things take place about the soul, we are in danger of falling into the same absurdity as if we should admit that the soul is red. or becomes pale, not considering that these passions are produced indeed on account of the soul, but subsist about another composition [than that of the soul]. And shame, indeed, in the soul, arises from an opinion of baseness; the body (that we may not err in our conceptions) being as it were contained in the soul, and not being the same with that which is inanimate. The animated body, therefore, when it is moved with facility, undergoes a change in the blood, from the shame which subsists in the soul. And with respect to what is called fear, the principle of it, indeed, is in the soul; but the paleness produced by it, arises from the blood retreating inwardly. In pleasure, also, the sensible diffusion of it subsists about the body, but that which takes place about the soul is no longer passion. The like also must be asserted with respect to pain. For the principle of desire latently subsisting in the soul, that which proceeds from thence is recognized by sense. For when we say that the soul is moved in desires, in reasonings, and in opinions, we do not say that it produces these in consequence of being agitated, but that motions are generated from it; since also, when we assert that life is motion, we do not conceive that it is a change of quality. But the natural energy of each part of the soul, is life not departing from itself. In short, it will be sufficient if we do not admit that energies, lives, and appetites, are mutations in quality; that recollections are not types impressed in the soul; and that imaginations are not configurations described as it were in wax. For every where, in all passions and motions, the soul must be acknowledged to subsist with invariable sameness in its subject and essence ; and that virtue and vice are not produced in it after the same manner as black and white, or heat and cold about the body. But it must be admitted that the soul subsists with reference to both these, and in short, about all contraries, according to the above mentioned mode.

3. But how do we explain likings and aversions? Sorrow, too, and anger and pleasure, desire and fear - are these not changes, affectings, present and stirring within the Soul?

This question cannot be ignored. To deny that changes take place and are intensely felt is in sharp contradiction to obvious facts. But, while we recognize this, we must make very sure what it is that changes. To represent the Soul or Mind as being the seat of these emotions is not far removed from making it blush or turn pale; it is to forget that while the Soul or Mind is the means, the effect takes place in the distinct organism, the animated body.

At the idea of disgrace, the shame is in the Soul; but the body is occupied by the Soul - not to trouble about words - is, at any rate, close to it and very different from soulless matter; and so, is affected in the blood, mobile in its nature. Fear begins in the mind; the pallor is simply the withdrawal of the blood inwards. So in pleasure, the elation is mental, but makes itself felt in the body; the purely mental phase has not reached the point of sensation: the same is true of pain. So desire is ignored in the Soul where the impulse takes its rise; what comes outward thence, the Sensibility knows.

When we speak of the Soul or Mind being moved - as in desire, reasoning, judging - we do not mean that it is driven into its act; these movements are its own acts.

In the same way when we call Life a movement we have no idea of a changing substance; the naturally appropriate act of each member of the living thing makes up the Life, which is, therefore, not a shifting thing.

To bring the matter to the point: put it that life, tendency, are no changements; that memories are not forms stamped upon the mind, that notions are not of the nature of impressions on sealing-wax; we thence draw the general conclusion that in all such states and movements the Soul, or Mind, is unchanged in substance and in essence, that virtue and vice are not something imported into the Soul - as heat and cold, blackness or whiteness are importations into body - but that, in all this relation, matter and spirit are exactly and comprehensively contraries.