PASSION, 
turning happiness, the calmness and tran- 
quillity of which cannot be described ; but 
it is nearly allied to humility, or a sen,se 
that no exertion will avail to restore the 
loss occasioned by death, and that it is little 
short of presumption to oppose the weak- 
ness of human nature to the dispensations 
of Providence. Humility, however, bears 
another character, and becomes in this 
view a melancholy resignation or acquies- 
cence in the consciousness of some defect 
of person or intellect. 
Enthusiasm, or vehemence, in any pursuit 
may be called a passion of the soul, which 
exhibits its effects with the greatest violence 
when generated by religion. To describe 
its consequences would require a volume. 
It has led, and will hereafter lead, mankind 
into a thousand extravagancies, which can 
only be compared with the inconsistencies 
of madness. This cause will impel him to 
flagellate the body till blood follows, immure 
himself within a voluntary prison, and to 
meet death in any shape it may present it- 
self. The consequences of this passion can- 
not well be described, as they belong al- 
most decidedly to disease. Enthusiasm is 
the parent of despair, which it frequently 
produces in the minds of those who con- 
ceive that their sins in this life exceed the 
possibility of future forgiveness. The 
wretch thus situated displays all the ges- 
tures and actions of grief united with ter- 
ror, a compound which is fortunately gene- 
rally concealed from view by the asylums 
for lunatics. 
We have now noticed the principal emo- 
tions of the soul, and stated our opinion 
that the causes of them are studiously kept 
from us by the great Author of that ethe- 
real spirit ; and without attempting to rea- 
son upon the probability or improbability 
of the opinions of others, we shall conclude 
this article with a slight summary of some 
of them. 
Writers on the passions have indulged in 
a variety of speculations and conjectures 
as to the precise situation of their impetus, 
in hopes of ascertaining whether that is in 
the material animated part of man, or in 
the spiritual. Des Cartes and other philo- 
sophers will have their seat to be wholly in 
the corporeal system ; and Mr. Grove, of a 
totally opposite opinion, concludes the pas- 
sions to be “ the affections attended with 
peculiar and extraordinary motions of the 
animal spirits and adds, that he inclines 
to “ think that a sensation of the soul gene- 
rally precedes a change in the spirits, ex- 
ternal objects not being able to raise a fer- 
ment in the spirits till they have first struck 
the mind with an idea of something noble, 
frightful, amiable,” &e. Mallebranche de- 
fines the passions as being all those agita- 
tions of the soul naturally proceeding from 
uncommon influence and motion in the 
blood and animal spirits ; those he contrasts 
with others which are usual with decided 
intelligences, and which he terms natural 
inclinations. 
Ur. Cheyne considered the passions in 
two points of view, spiritual and animal ; 
the former he, supposes to be the emotion 
produced in the soul by external objects, 
which become compounded and material by 
the intervention of the organs of life. The 
animal he defines by those effects produced 
by bodies or spirits immediately on the 
body. Ur. Morgan, by indefatigable ob- 
servation, drew the following conclusion : 
“ That all the grateful or pleasurable pas- 
sions raise the vital tide, strengthen and 
quicken the pulse, diffuse the natural heat, 
and take off any antecedent stimulus or 
pressure upon the abdomen and inferior or- 
gans. And, on the contrary, the painful 
passions sink and depress tlie Irlood, weaken 
the pulse, recal and concenter the natural 
heat, and fix a stimulus, or compression, 
on the inferior organs. All the passions im- 
press their characteristic sensations or modi- 
fications on the muscles of the larynx, and 
thus discover themselves by the different 
modulation and tone of the voice.” From 
which be concludes, that the nerves of the 
eighth conjugation, or pai' vagiim, are the 
principal instruments of the passions. 
Ur. Reid doubts whether the “ principle 
of esteem as v/ell as gratitude ought to be 
reckoned in the order of animal principles, 
or if they ought not rather to be placed in 
a higher order.” The same author, treating 
on resentment, has considered it as a sud- 
den and instinctive animal principle, com- 
mon to the brute creation and mankind, at 
the same time he calls deliberate resentment 
a rational principle. 
To pursue theories further would be use- 
less, w e shall therefore conclude with the 
opinion of Ur. Cogan, one of the latest 
writers on the subject : “ Without entering 
therefore into enquiries of this nature, which 
for want of data must be conjectural and 
unsatisfactory, it will be more consistent 
with my plan, simply to state interesting 
facts, and leave it to the metaphysician to 
draw such consequences as he may deem 
piost legitimate. It must be admitted that 
