37 On Passion
37: On Passion We have yet to consider a term which logicians frequently employ in dealing with demonstration, that is, 'passion'. It should be noted that although this term can be used in a variety of senses, as I have indicated in my commentary on the Categories, nevertheless, as logicians usually use the term a passion is not something outside the mind inhering in that whose passion it is said to be. On the contrary a passion is something mental, spoken, or written that is predicable in the second mode of perseity of the subject whose passion it is said to be. Actually, only what is mental and not what is spoken or written is a passion in the strict and proper sense; but in a secondary, extended sense, we call both spoken and written words passions, as when we say that in the spoken proposition
'Every man is risible' a passion is predicated ofits subject.
It is clear that a passion is not something outside the soul, something over and above a predicable sign. According to philosophers a passion is predicated in the second mode of perseity of its subject, but only that which is a concept, a spoken word, or a written word can function as predicate. Propositions are composed only of these things and not of objects outside the soul. Thus passions cannot be objects outside the soul.
Again, being has passions; but clearly they cannot inhere in that general notion; therefore...
Again, according to philosophers every passion is the passion of some universal; but nothing extrinsic to the soul inheres first and foremost in some universal; therefore...
Again, we predicate of God the passions proper to Him; but nothing can be said to inhere in God; therefore, passions are not the kinds of things that inhere in their subjects.
It should be said then that a passion is simply something predicable in the second mode of perseity ofits subject; and since every such thing is a part ofa proposition, we must conclude that a passion is not the sort of thing that exists outside the soul. It follows that it is not impossible for a subject to exist in nature without its passion and, similarly, that it is not impossible for a passion to exist without its subject. Thus, when writers say that the subject cannot exist without its passion, we should understand them to mean that a passion cannot be truly denied of its subject, provided that 'exists' is truly predicated of that subject. Thus, the proposition 'God is not creative' is impossible, even though God can exist and once did when the predicate in question was not an actual existent.
It should further be noted that a passion always supposits for the same thing