2. On Sadness

a. On the First Mode or Way of being Sad, that is, on Sadness as it Arises from an Object that is not Wanted

47. Further, the like things must to some extent be said about sadness and to some extent not. Sense appetite, indeed, has something absolute that is of its nature agreeable to it (as an extrinsic perfective thing) and something disagreeable to it (as an extrinsic corruptive thing); and in this respect the like holds true of the will. But in another respect there is a difference, because the sense appetite is drawn naturally to its object (hence, according to Damascene, ch. 38, 2.22, “[sense appetite] is led and does not lead”), whereas the same is not true of an object taken in relation to the will, which is free. Still, there is an object that is of its nature agreeable to the will, namely the ultimate end, since this end is in ultimate agreement with the will through an act of the will accepting it and being pleased with it. And such agreement occurs through wanting the object, or disagreement occurs through not wanting the object; and thus the relations of agreement and disagreement (which accompany the ideas of the willed and the unwanted object) are followed by coming close to this object, namely the apprehension that the thing wanted or not wanted really exists; and from this last fact there seems to follow in the will a passion caused by the object by its very presence, namely joy and sadness.

48. Now the fact that sadness properly taken is a passion of the will seems to be because sadness is not an action or operation of the will; for that it is not an act of willing is plain, and the proof that it is not a not wanting or a not willing is that God and the blessed can supremely not want and not will something, but they cannot be saddened, for that with respect to which they have a not wanting or a not willing cannot come about; “but sadness is about things that happen to us against our will,” according to Augustine [n.25]. The point is clear from the fact that God, when he supremely does not want something, prohibits it from ever happening; but when such a not wanting something exists in a wayfarer and the thing happens, the wayfarer will be saddened, and he will be the more saddened the more his will is against it (from Augustine’s definition of sadness). There will then be something in the wayfarer that was not there before, because he was not saddened before. But there is no operation in the wayfarer, either simply so or to any degree that it was not present before. Nor again does the passion exist in the will as something brought about by the will, for then the will would have immediate power over it, just as it has power over willing and not willing. But the will does not have such power; for when something unwanted happens to someone who does not will it, he seems not to have the resulting sadness in his immediate power. Further, if the sadness were from the will as from an active power, it would be an operation of the will, just as ‘willing’ is, which is an operation from the will and in the will.

49. If it be objected that then the object is necessarily acting on the will by imposing passion on it (which seems to be against the will’s freedom), my response is that the will is not simply necessitated by the object, but rather that, between the things that are shown to it, there can be a necessity of consequence, as with ‘if I will, I will’. Thus, if there is a not wanting some object and that not wanted object comes about, then it necessarily follows, by the necessity of consequence, that there can be sadness in the will. An example is a free man who voluntarily holds land burdened by a duty of service. It is not immediately in this man’s power not to fulfill the service but on the contrary to fulfill it - or it is immediately in his power to give up holding the land and, thereby, not to be bound to service, or not to serve. So in the issue at hand, it is immediately in the will’s power not to will against the object and, thereby, not to be saddened by the object if it comes about, for then the object would not be something he does not want; but if there is something he does not want and that something comes about, then, as long as his not wanting it remains, sadness follows necessarily by the necessity of consequence.

50. And if it be asked ‘why then can the will not receive a passion from the object as it receives the volition itself from the willed object?’ - I reply that the will as will is free but as not wanting it is not free formally, because it then has a form determined to one particular thing, which form is that very not wanting. But although what is free does not, as free, immediately receive a passion from the object, yet as determined to one of the opposites (which determination is a natural form for it) it can be determinately disposed by that form to one of the objects and not be open to both, and so it can suffer.

b. On the Second Mode or Way of being Said, that is, on Sadness as it Arises from an Object naturally Disagreeable or from an Object Disagreeable to Sense Appetite

51. Apart from the first mode of being sad, namely when the object is disagreeable through the will’s not wanting it [nn.47-50], there seems to be a doubt whether any other disagreeableness of an object is sufficient to cause sadness, namely when the object is disagreeable naturally (and is not something freely willed) - or alternatively whether, when the object is disagreeable to and saddens sense appetite, it is sufficiently disagreeable to the will (provided however it is shown to the will by the intellect) because of the connection of the will with the sensitive appetite.

52. As to the first alternative [n.50], one could say that a natural object’s disagreeableness to the will (as the will is a natural power) suffices for causing sadness in the will, quite apart from the object’s being not wanted because of an elicited act of will against it.

53. The point can be made clear from Augustine in his Enchiridion [ch.28 n.105, or ch.105 n.28] that “the will so wills happiness that it cannot will misery.” Now this willing of happiness is natural, as was said in Ord.1 d.1 n.152; therefore the natural willing of something suffices for not being able naturally to will the opposite of it, and consequently for not being able naturally to enjoy the opposite and to being necessarily saddened by it, just as the willing of natural happiness suffices for being saddened by natural misery.

54. And if it be objected against this that virtue and nature are distinguished against each other and nevertheless acting virtuously is without sadness, therefore, notwithstanding the natural disagreement of the object to the power, there can be an agreement more truly through the virtue and so the disagreement alone does not suffice [sc. for sadness] - I reply: natural inclination is double, and one is toward the advantageous and the other toward the just, each of which is a perfection of the free will; however the former inclination is said to be natural more than the latter, because the advantageous more immediately follows nature (as nature is distinguished from freedom) than the just does; and so there cannot be a natural inclination to the advantageous without this inclination being sufficient for not wanting the opposite and being saddened because of it, but there can be a natural inclination to the just that is not sufficient for a free not willing of the opposite and for accordingly being saddened because of it.

55. As to the second alternative [n.51], one can say that the connection of the will with sense appetite (provided however that a thing desirable to appetite be understood and be able to be presented by the intellect to the will) also suffices for the agreeable to sense appetite to be agreeable to the will and for the disagreeable to sense to be disagreeable and sad to the will; for it is in this way that a surrepticious pleasure is supposed to be in the will before any free act of the will.

56. And what happens in the case of surrepticious pleasures can also happen in the case of sadnesses or pains as regard sad things. Just as the intellect (when it is not distracted by something) is necessarily affected by the senses when these are strongly moved, so one could suppose that the will does not cooperate necessarily but rather is affected along with the affected sense appetite, and is so about the same object, provided the will is not impeded by the intellect’s nonconsideration of the affection or by some other impediment that overcomes it.

57. In this way is it said that a virgin who is forcefully violated does not sin, even if in her will she feels delight along with the delight of her sense appetite, because delight and the delightful can be against one’s will as far as every elicited act of will is concerned. According to the other way [the first alternative, nn.52-53], one should say that although she delights as to her sense of touch yet she does not do so as to her will - unless, that is, she freely wills the delightful object.

c. On the Third Mode or Way of being Sad, that is, because of a Conditioned not-Wanting

58. Besides the two preceding ways of being sad (or three ways, if the second way is divided into two) [nn.47-57], there seems to be a third (or fourth) way of being sad that can be posited. This way is according to conditioned not-wanting, namely when someone would not want a thing as it would be in itself but does want it in a certain case. An example is that of a merchant in peril on the sea who would not want to throw his merchandise overboard if he could avoid it; but this not wanting is conditioned, namely in that he would not want to do it as it is in itself but yet he does simply want to do it, because he throws the merchandise overboard without being extrinsically forced to do so. For although he throws it overboard because of something he does not want, namely the peril, yet he is not coerced into doing it unwillingly. His absolute volition would be expressed by ‘I will it’, but the conditioned not wanting by ‘I would not will it if I could do something else.’ This sort of conditioned not wanting seems to suffice for being saddened by the unwanted event (the way the merchant is saddened when he throws the merchandise overboard); nor does the willing there of the opposite cause as much joy as the conditioned not wanting causes sadness.

59. Such willing and conditioned not wanting suffices for the sort of mortal sin that was in the angels perhaps, and those who were not deceived before they sinned, for they did not, as far as was in themselves, want to be equal to God, but their not wanting it was simply because they saw it to be impossible [sc. and not because they saw it to be unjust?]. The same willing and conditioned not wanting also suffices for the sort of merit that is in someone who pities his neighbor in his heart but is not able to aid him in deed; just as it also suffices for the passions that follow willing and not wanting, especially when the willing and not wanting, that is, the conditioned act of will, is intense. Therefore it suffices for being saddened.

d. Conclusion

60. Bringing together this point [the second member of the first article, nn.47, 26] in this way, then, it seems that being sad properly concerns a fourfold disagreeableness to the will: in one way [nn.47-48], the habit simply and the not wanted act that comes about; in a second way [nn.58-59], what is habitually not wanted and the conditioned act, even though this act against habitual inclination is wanted in an absolute sense; in a third way [nn.52-53], because of what is disagreeable to the will as it is a nature; in a fourth way [nn.55-56], because of what is disagreeable to the sense appetite, with which disagreeable thing a ‘will not inclined to the [agreeable] opposite’ is conjoined more strongly than is its inclination to sense appetite.