Context

This Section concludes Book II on the passions. It considers the passion for truth-seeking, particularly as it applies to philosophy. As the author notes in the first paragraph, the treatment of this passion does not fall neatly into that of the other passions. It is not love per se, as that passion has as its objects only other persons, as noted in Part II, Section 1, paragraph 3. It most closely resembles desire, which is aimed at a perceived good, described briefly in the previous Section, paragraph 7. As the author will explain below, although truth itself may be desired as a good, the process of attaining the truth is also desirable in certain ways.

Background

Some of the issues discussed by the author are treated in writings of Erasmus, Pascal and Malebranche. Erasmus’s book The Praise of Folly describes a kind of madness that “not only clears the mind of its troublesome cares but renders it more jocund” (Oration: Madness). It is praised by Plato, among others. An example of this class of mad person is those philosophers who hunt in vain for a fifth essence. Other members of this class are hunters and gamers. The latter are described as being willing to sacrifice everything for gain. In his Pensées, Pascal discusses the nature of diversion (Part II, 139). He finds it natural that people engage in activities which distract them from the woes of ordinary life, though he thinks that this will not produce true happiness. One feature that makes such activities entertaining is having a small stake in the outcome, which will produce excitement, but winning is not the real objective. Malebranche in The Search After Truth described curiosity to be natural, a consequence of our search for a good higher than that which we have been able to attain (Book IV, Chapter III).

The Treatise

1. The love of truth is “the first source of all our enquiries,” yet it has not been investigated thus far. So before leaving the subject of the passions, it is proper “to bestow a few reflections on that passion, and show its origins in human nature.” The peculiar nature of this passion is such that to have brought it under the previous headings would have threatened “obscurity and confusion.”

2. Discovery of the truth leads to pleasure or satisfaction. The author argues that it is not the attainment of truth per se that gives the satisfaction. He begins with a distinction between two kinds of truths, those which concern only relations of ideas, and those which consist in “the conformity of our ideas of objects to their real existence.” [This distinction is made in Book I, Part III, Section 1, though there it is couched in terms of relations of ideas and objects, not in terms of truth.] Discovery of relations of ideas through reasoning is not sufficient to give satisfaction, either because of the discovered truth or because of the soundness of the reasoning that leads to it. We may attain the truth about some geometrical proportions, for example, either by reasoning or by sensible measurement. Yet the former gives a pleasure that the latter does not. Further, we get a great pleasure from solving a complicated algebraic problem. Yet there is little pleasure, and perhaps even pain, accompanying arithmetic calculation. But the results are equally true, and the reasoning is equally sound. The satisfaction we gain from non-trivial rational demonstration thus is not to be explained in terms of the truth of the conclusion or the “justness” of the reasoning used.

3. The author now describes the distinguishing “quality” implicit in the examples in the previous paragraph: “The first and most considerable circumstance to render truth agreeable, is the genius and capacity, which is employ’d in its invention and discovery.” We place little value on the discovery of truths that are “easy and obvious,” and even if a truth is in itself difficult to find, its discovery brings little satisfaction when it does not require any “stretch of thought or judgment” on the part of the discoverer. Our pleasure in making discoveries which stretch our minds to reach a conclusion is not matched when we are merely informed of it by a trusted source. “We are never oblig’d to fix our attention or exert our genius; which of all other exercises of the mind is the most pleasant and agreeable.”

4. Although the vigorous exercise of one”s capacities gives relatively more pleasure than easy discovery, this quality does not explain all, or even most, of the pleasure we get from finding the truth. “The truth we discover must also be of some importance.” Mathematicians could spend all of their time solving difficult equations, but in fact they turn their attention to “what is more useful and important.” It remains to be explained why usefulness and important play a role in producing satisfaction. The author finds an apparent “contradiction” in the behavior of philosophers. There are many philosophers who try to discover truths that they think are important and useful, and in so doing, they “have consum’d their time, have destroy’d their health, and neglected their futures.” The would not do this if they did not regard their projects as important. The problem is that it seems that these philosophers seem to have no public spirit or regard for the interests of mankind. So the “contradiction” might best be understood as an explanatory gap: why are utility and importance the source of satisfaction for philosophers, when they have not interest in the actual consequences of their discoveries?

5. One possible way to fill the gap is that usefulness and importance to others is pleasurable because of sympathy for them. The author supplies an example to illustrate the point. Someone examines the fortifications of a city and finds them to be very suitable for its defense. His sympathy with the security of the inhabitants brings him pleasure, and this even if he is a stranger and has “in his heart no kindness for them, or may even entertain a hatred against them.” The desires such as for the well-being of the inhabitants go “no farther than the imagination,” and are to be regarded not as a real passions, but rather as “the faint shadows and images of passions.”

6. This “remote sympathy” that is the image of a passion seems to slender a foundation for a real passion. In particular, it seems unable to account for “so much industry and application, as we frequently observe in philosophers.” However, it must be kept in kind that a fundamental factor in the satisfaction of the discovery of the truth is the exercise of genius. The role of the utility and importance of the truth, which is the second factor, when it is not to increase our enjoyment, is to “fix our attention” to some extent. On the other hand, “When we are careless and inattentive, the same action of the understanding has no effect upon us, nor is able to convey any of that satisfaction, which arises from it, when we are in another disposition” [i.e., when we are careful and attentive, due to the perceived importance of the discovery of the truth].

7. Although the focused employment of our reasoning is “the principal foundation of the pleasure” we get from it, “there is likewise requir’d a degree of success in the attainment of the end, or the discovery of that truth we examine.” It is not the activity alone which gives us satisfaction. He author here makes “a general remark, which may be useful on many occasions.” Even if we begin a pursuit merely from the enjoyment of the activity, we naturally “acquire a concern for the end itself, and are uneasy under any disappointment we meet with in the pursuit of it.” The author explains this transition in terms of “the relation and parallel direction of the passions above-mentioned.” [The general principle to which the author refers is that one cause of a transition in passions is “a conformity in the tendency and direction of any two desires, which arise from different principles” (Part II, Section 9, paragraph 12). In the present case, there is a transition from the desire for pleasure in engaging in the activity to the desire for the pleasure of its successful completion. Both have the same “tendency and direction,” and it is this that explains the transition.]

8. The author will now illustrate this transition “by a familiar instance.” He compares the activities of the hunter and the philosopher. Although they seem quite disproportionate to each other, “there can be no two passions more nearly resembling.” The pleasure of hunting is evidently found in “the action of the mind and body, the motion, the attention, the difficulty, and the uncertainty.” Yet utility must still be a factor, as the hunter finds no value in bagging birds that he would not bring to the table. If we suppose that the hunter is wealthy and can easily afford to buy the birds in the market, there is no real value in himself killing the bird for food. The only role for utility is “to support the imagination.” Similarly, someone might incur the cost of giving up the opportunity to make money in favor of spending a few hours in the procurement of a few birds. [The same considerations hold for the philosopher, who is in no need of his discoveries per se and will sacrifice other gains to get his relatively unimportant results.] The author completes the comparison by nothing that although “in both cases the end of our action may be despis’d, yet in the heat of the action we acquire such an attention to this end, that we are very uneasy under any disappointments, and are sorry when we either miss our game, or fall into any error in our reasoning.”

9. A similar comparison can be made between gaming and philosophizing. The satisfaction of gaming requires that there be something at stake, and the stakes may not be in themselves worth what has to be given up in order to play. So the satisfaction from playing a game requires both an interest in the outcome and enjoyment of the game itself. The two factors are ineffective separately but effective when united. The author compares this to the production of an opaque and colored fluid in some cases when two fluids transparent and colorless fluids are mixed.

10. The role of our interest in the outcome of a game is to engage our attention and is necessary for the play to be satisfying. Once our attention is engaged, the satisfaction is derived from “the difficulty, variety, and sudden reverses of fortune.” It is not hard to get this satisfaction, given the tiresomeness of life and the laziness of people in general. Any activity which brings us amusement, even if it is a passion mixed with some pain, will give a sensible pleasure. If the activity is sensible, of narrow scope, entered into easily and agreeable to the imagination, the pleasure derived from it will be increased.

11. Mathematical reasoning concerns the relation of ideas, but the “theory” that explains our pleasure in its engagement extends to “morals, politics, natural philosophy, and other studies, where we consider not the abstract relations of ideas, but their real connexions and existence.” Together, these constitute “the sciences.” But the theory that explains the love of truth in the sciences in terms of the pleasure of scientific activity does not explain every pleasure we get from the discovery of the truth. Some of it stems from “a certain curiosity implanted in human nature, which is a passion deriv’d from a quite different principle.” In many cases, there is no interest at all in the content of the discovery but only in the mere possession of the truth. An example given by the author is that of someone who wants to know all about his neighbors, though their activities do not affect his interests at all. Moreover, his curiosity can be satisfied by the testimony of others, so that he does not have to search for the information he wants. In such a case, “there is no room for study and application.” This phenomenon should be explained.

12. The explanation begins with a recapitulation of the author’s account in Book I, Part III, Section 10 of the influence of belief. Belief raises the mere idea of an object in the imagination to a level of vivacity similar to that of an impression, which in turn allows the idea to influence the passions. A belief is also stable, bringing an end to hesitation and uncertainty. “Both these circumstances are advantageous.” The increased vivacity of an idea interests the imagination and produces a pleasure analogous to one that “arises from a moderate passion.” The stability of belief puts an end to the unpleasant wavering of the mind from the idea of one object to that of another [as explained in the previous Section]. Even if the objects are indifferent to us, it is “a quality of human nature” that moving to and fro between them causes uneasiness. The pain chiefly arises when we are interested in an event due to its consequences for us, its relation to us, or its “greatness and novelty.” We are not curious about every matter of fact, but we are curious about some that we do not have an interest to know. What is sufficient for the stimulation of curiosity is that we have an idea of an object that strikes us forcefully enough that we are unsettled by its “instability and inconstancy.” The author gives an example of a stranger who first arrives in town. Nothing there strikes him enough to stimulate his curiosity about its inhabitants and their history. But as he becomes familiar with them, “he acquires the same curiosity as the natives.” When we are engaged in the reading of the history of some nation, our curiosity may be stimulated to the extent that we wish to remove any uncertainty about its events from our minds. On the other hand, if the events are very obscure, we lose interest and become “careless in such researches.”

Dissertation II: Of the Passions

There is no parallel treatment in Of the Passions of curiosity and the love of truth.

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