Que l'amour domine sur toutes les affections et passions et que mesme il gouverne la volonté,bien que la volonté ait aussi domination sur luy
Love as the Root of All Passions
Love is the fundamental affection that precedes and gives rise to all other passions, such as desire, joy, hope, and hatred.
Love, being the first delight we take in what is good—as we'll mention shortly—certainly comes before desire; and in fact, what does anyone desire except what they love?1 It comes before delight; for how could anyone rejoice in the enjoyment of a thing if they didn't love it? It comes before hope, for we hope only for the good we love; it comes before hatred, for we hate evil only because of the love we have for the good—indeed, evil is not evil except because it is contrary to the good; and it's the same, Theotime, with all the other passions or affections, for they all spring from love as from their source and root.2
The Will and the Quality of Love
The moral quality of our passions depends on the nature of the love that governs them, as the will takes on the character of the love it embraces.
That is why other passions and affections are good or bad, vicious or virtuous, depending on whether the love they spring from is good or bad; it spreads its qualities over them so thoroughly that they seem to be nothing but that same love. Saint Augustine, reducing all passions and affections to four, as Boethius, Cicero, Virgil, and most of antiquity have done, says: "Love, when it aims to possess what it loves, is called desire; when it has and possesses it, it is called joy; when it flees what is contrary to it, it is called fear; and if that happens and it feels it, it is called sadness. So these passions are bad if the love is bad, and good if the love is good."3 The citizens of the City of God fear, desire, grieve, and rejoice; and because their love is right, all these affections are right as well. Christian teaching subjects the mind to God so that He may guide and help it, and subjects all these passions to the mind so that it may bridle and moderate them, turning them to the service of justice and virtue.4 "An upright will is good love; a bad will is bad love"—which is to say, Theotimus, that love so dominates the will that it makes the will entirely what love itself is. As a rule, a woman takes on her husband's standing and becomes noble if he is noble, queen if he is king, duchess if he is a duke: the will likewise changes in quality according to the love it marries; if that love is carnal, the will is carnal; spiritual, if it is spiritual; and all the affections of desire, joy, hope, fear, and sadness, like children born of the marriage of love with the will, consequently take their qualities from love as well. In short, Theotimus, the will is moved only by its affections. Among these, love acts as the first mover and the primary affection, setting everything else in motion and producing every other movement of the soul.5
The Sovereignty and Responsibility of the Will
While the will is subject to the love it chooses, it retains the sovereign power to reject that love and turn toward a new object, such as the love of God.
But for all that, it doesn't follow that the will is no longer sovereign over love, since the will loves only by willing to love, and of the many loves that present themselves to it, it can attach itself to whichever one seems good to it: otherwise there would be no love either forbidden or commanded. She is therefore mistress over the loves, like a young lady over the suitors who pursue her, among whom she can choose the one she wants. But just as after marriage she loses her freedom and from mistress becomes subject to her husband's power, remaining held by the one she has taken, so too the will that chooses love as it pleases, once it has embraced one of them, remains enslaved under it; and just as the wife remains subject to the husband she has chosen while he lives, and if he dies she recovers her former freedom to remarry another, so while a love lives in the will it reigns there, and the will remains subject to its movements; and if that love comes to die, she can afterward take up another. Yet the will possesses a freedom not found in a married woman: it can reject its love whenever it chooses by focusing the mind on reasons to turn against that love and resolving to change its object. In this way, so that the love of God may live and reign in us, we put self-love to death; if we cannot destroy it entirely, we at least weaken it so that, even if it still lives in us, it no longer reigns. Conversely, by abandoning sacred love, we can cling to the love of creatures, which is the shameful adultery the heavenly Bridegroom so often reproaches in sinners.6
Read the original Latin
L'amour estant la premiere complaisance que nous avons au bien, ainsy que nous dirons tantost, certes il precede le désir;et d'effect, qu'est-ce que l'on desire, sinon ce que l'on ayme? Il precede la delectation; car, comme pourroit-on se res-jouir en la jouissance d'une chose,si on ne l'aymoit pas? Il precede l'esperance, car on n'espere que le bien qu'on ayme; il precede la hayne, car nous ne haïssons le mal que pour l'amour que nous avons envers le bien, ains le mal n'est pas mal sinon parce qu'il est contraire au bien; et c'en est de mesme,Theotime, de toutes les autres passions ou affections, car elles proviennent toutes de l'amour comme de leur source et racine.
C'est pourquoy les autres passions et affections sont bonnes ou mauvaises, vicieuses ou vertueuses, selon que l'amour duquel elles procedent est bon ou mauvais; car il respand tellement ses qualités sur elles,qu'elles ne semblent estre que le mesme amour. Saint Augustin, reduisant toutes les passions et affections a quatre, comme ont fait Boëce, Ciceron, Virgile et la pluspart de l'antiquité:" L'amour", dit-il," tendant a posseder ce qu'il ayme s'appelle convoitise " ou desir; "l'ayant et possedant,il s'appelle joye; fuyant ce qui luy est contraire,il s'appelle crainte: que si cela luy arrive et qu'il le sente,il s'appelle tristesse;et partant, ces passions sont mauvaises si l'amour est mauvais, bonnes, s'il est bon. Les citoyens de la Cité de Dieu craignent, desirent, se deulent, se res-jouissent, et parce que leur amour est droit, toutes ces affections sont aussi droites." " La doctrine chrestienne assujettit l'esprit à Dieu, affin qu'il le guide et secoure, et assujettit à l'esprit toutes ces passions, affin qu'il les bride et les modère en sorte qu'elles soyent converties au service de la justice et vertu." " La droite volonté est l'amour bon, la volonté mauvaise est l'amour mauvais;" c'est a dire en un mot, Theotime, que l'amour domine tellement en la volonté, qu'il la rend toute telle qu'il est.
La femme, pour l'ordinaire, change sa condition en celle de son mari, et devient noble s'il est noble, reyne s'il est roy, duchesse s'il est duc: la volonté change aussi de qualité selon l'amour qu'elle espouse; s'il est charnel elle est charnelle; spirituelle,s'il est spirituel; et toutes les affections de desir, de joye, d'esperance, de crainte, de tristesse, comme enfans nés du mariage de l'amour avec la volonté, reçoivent aussi par consequent leurs qualités de l'amour. Bref, Theotime, la volonté n'est esmeüe que par ses affections, entre lesquelles l'amour, comme le premier mobile et la premiere affection, donne le bransle a tout le reste, et fait tous les autres mouvemens de l'ame.
Mays pour tout cela il ne s'ensuit pas que la volonté ne soit encor regente sur l'amour, d'autant que la volonté n'ayme qu'en voulant aymer, et, de plusieurs amours qui se presentent a elle, elle peut s'attacher a celuy que bon luy semble: autrement il n'y auroit point d'amour ni prohibé ni commandé. Elle est donq maistresse sur les amours, comme une damoiselle sur les amans qui la recherchent, parmi lesquelz elle peut eslire celuy qu'elle veut. Mays tout ainsy qu'apres le mariage elle perd sa liberté, et de maistresse devient sujette a la puissance du mari, demeurant prise par celuy qu'elle a pris, de mesme la volonté qui choisit l'amour a son gré, apres qu'elle en a embrassé quelqu'un elle demeure asservie sous luy; et comme la femme demeure sujette au mari qu'elle a choisi tandis qu'il vit, et que s'il meurt elle reprend sa precedente liberté, pour se remarier a un autre, ainsy pendant qu'un amour vit en la volonté il y regne, et elle demeure sousmise a ses mouvements; que si cet amour vient a mourir, elle pourra par apres en reprendre un autre. Mais il y a une liberté en la volonté qui ne se treuve pas en la femme marié; c'est que la volonté peut rejetter son amour quand elle veut, appliquant l'entendement aux motifz qui l'en peuvent desgouster et prenant resolution de changer d'objet: car ainsy, pour faire vivre et regner l'amour de Dieu en nous, nous amortissons l'amour propre, et, si nous ne pouvons l'aneantir du tout, au moins nous l'affoiblissons, en sorte que,s'il vit en nous, il n'y regne plus; comme au contraire,nous pouvons en quittant l'amour sacré, adherer a celuy des creatures, qui est l'infame adultere que le celeste Espoux reproche si souvent aux pecheurs.
Notes
- 1 ↩French complaisance is Sales’s technical term for the will’s first pleasing rest in a known good (complacency/delight), not modern self-satisfaction. Rendered here as “delight.”
- 2 ↩French ains here is adversative-explanatory (“rather/indeed”); rendered as “indeed” to keep the force that evil is evil only by opposition to the good.
- 3 ↩convoitise is rendered "coveting" (with "or desire") to keep Augustine's range without forcing modern "lust" alone; Sales adds "ou desir" as gloss.
- 4 ↩esprit rendered "mind" for the rational power that rules the passions under God; not the Holy Spirit in this sentence.
- 5 ↩"premier mobile" echoes the Aristotelian/cosmological primum mobile: love as the primary mover that starts the rest of the soul's motions, not merely "first among equals."
- 6 ↩amour propre is rendered as self-love (self-regard opposed to the love of God), not modern vanity or mere self-esteem.
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