Page:Short Treatise on God, Man and His Wellbeing.djvu/234

92 same is very great, we call it timidity. Lastly, jealousness or jalousie is the anxiety which we feel that we may have the sole enjoyment and possession of something already acquired.

Since we know now whence these passions originate, it will be very easy for us to show which of them are good, and which are bad.

As regards Hope, Fear, Confidence, Despair, and Jealousy, it is certain that they arise from a wrong opinion. For, as we have already shown above, all things have their necessary causes, and must necessarily happen just as they do happen. And although Confidence and Despair seem to have a place in the inviolable order and sequence of causes *or to confirm the same,* yet (when the truth of the matter is rightly looked into) that is far from being the case. For Confidence and Despair never arise, unless Hope and Fear (from which they derive their being) have preceded them. For example, if any one thinks that something, for which he still has to wait, is good, then he receives that form in his soul which we call Hope; and when he is confident about *the aquisition of* the supposed good, his soul gains that repose which we call Confidence. What we are now saying about confidence, the same must also be said about Despair. But, according to that which we have said about Love, this also can have no place in a perfect man: because they presuppose things which, owing to the mutability to which they are subject (as remarked in our account of Love), we must not become attached to; nor (as shown in our account of Hatred) may we even have an aversion to them. The man, however, who persists in these passions is at all times subject to such attachment and aversion.

As regards Vacillation, Pusillanimity, and Timidity, these betray their imperfection through their very character and nature: for whatsoever they do to our advantage comes