Body: | A Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man
Edward Reynolds
1640 AD
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Introduction:
In 1640 AD, Edward Reynolds, a preacher for a church, correctly
rejected the quack medical opinions and practices of his day: that mental
illness was of physical origin. He correctly saw that "melancholy blood"
did not cause mental illness. Today chemical psychiatrists continue this
deception by prescribing drugs to the mentally ill because of a "chemical
imbalance" in the brain. Doctors of the 17th century and the chemical
psychiatrists of today are both wrong in saying the body makes one insane.
Instead, they should listen to Edward Reynolds, who correctly showed the
etiology of insanity to be entirely the result of spiritual choices and how
the guilt from sinful conduct affected both the mind and the body. He
illustrates in several ways how a man must exercise self control to keep
his sex drive and other passions under control. This has nothing in common
with Freud, since Reynolds believed that the conscious freewill of a man
choosing to overcome sin, is the best way to cure mental illness. "as
Husbandmen use to do those Trees which are crooked . . . or else it is
done, by scattering and distracting of them; and that not only by the power
of Reason, but sometimes also by a cautelous admixture of Passions amongst
themselves, thereby interrupting their free current". To Reynolds, a man
who is mentally ill is like a crooked tree that needs to be corrected by
pruning and staking of the farmer. Of course the primary one to do this
staking and pruning was the person themselves, to themselves! To Reynolds,
the Bible command to "flee fornication" was achieved by power of will and
self control. He also recommended people avoid such sinful sexual activity
and to replace such thoughts with positive wholesome things as a kind of
"minds decoy" to get your thoughts off of sex. When your mother told you to
take cold shower and read the Bible because you were "horny", this is
exactly the kind of thing Reynolds would advise. (A Treatise of the
Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man, Edward Reynolds, 1640 AD)
"While many physicians believed that mental illness was due to
bodily disease, non-medical writers like Reynolds blamed excess of one or
other passion or affection. In line with this he described a type of
psychotherapy by 'opposing contrary Passions . . . or . . . scattering and
distracting of them' which was often recommended in the seventeenth century
and later, and is the rationale which underlies in some measure adjunct
therapies (occupational, music and art) of today. Reynolds's 'Passions'
have their modern counterpart in instinctual drives and his 'Affections' in
the emotional states accompanying them. His was therefore an instinct
theory of mental illness much like Freud's libido theory, and in fact his
instincts of 'conservation of themselves' and of 'propagation of their
kind' correspond directly with Freud's ego and sex instincts, conflict
between which is the basis of the Freudian theory of mental illness." (300
years of Psychiatry, Richard Hunter, 1963, p119)
A Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man, Edward
Reynolds, 1640 AD
Edward Reynolds (1599-1676)
M A, D D Oxon, King's Chaplain, Bishop of Norwich, Warden of Merton
College, Oxford
A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soule of man. With the
severall dignities and corruptions thereunto belonging, 1640 London,
Bostock pp. 31-2, 35, 52-5
Reissued six times by 1658
PASSIONS OR INSTINCTS
Passions are nothing else, but those natural, perfective, and unstrained
motions of the Creatures unto that advancement of their Natures, which they
are by the Wisdom, Power, and Providence of their Creator, in their own
several Spheres, and according to the proportion of their Capacities,
ordained to receive, by a regular inclination to those objects, whose
goodness beareth a natural convenience or virtue of satisfaction unto them;
or by an antipathy and aversion from those, which bearing a contrariety to
the good they desire, must needs be noxious and destructive, and by
consequent, odious to their natures ...
Now, this natural Passion which I speak of, is called by sundry Names
amongst Philosophers, the Law, the Equity, the Weight, the Instinct, the
Bond, the Love, the Covenant and League of natural things in order, to the
conservation of themselves, propagation of their kind, perfection, and
order of the Universe, service of Man, and glory of the Creator; which are
the alone ends of all natural Agents ...
We wil here a little observe, what course may be taken for the allaying of
this vehemencie of our Affections, whereby they disturb the quiet, and
darken the serenity of mans Mind. And this is done, either by opposing
contrary Passions to contrary; which is Aristotles rule, who adviseth, in
the bringing of Passions from an extreame to a mediocritie, to incline &
bend them towards the other extreame, as Husbandmen use to doe those Trees
which are crooked . . . or else it is done, by scattering and distracting
of them; and that not only by the power of Reason, but sometimes also by a
cautelous admixture of Passions amongst themselves, thereby interrupting
their free current : For, as usually the Affections of the Mind are bred
one of another . . . as Griefe by Anger . . . and Fear by Love . . . and
Desire by Fear . . . So likewise are some Passions stopped, or at least
bridled & moderated by others; Amor foras mittit timorem, Perfect Love
casteth out Feare ... Thus, as we see in the Body Military . . . That one
tumult is the cure of another; and in the Body Naturall, some Diseases are
expelled by others : so likewise in the Mind, Passions, as they mutually
generate, so they mutually weaken each other. It often falleth out, that
the voluntarie admission of one loss, is the prevention of a greater : as
when a Merchant casteth out his ware, to prevent a shipwreck; and in a
public Fire, men pull down some houses untoucht, to prevent the spreading
of the flame: Thus is it in the Passions of the Mind; when any of them are
excessive, the way to remit them, is by admitting of some further
perturbation from others, and so distracting the forces of the former :
Whether the Passions we admit, be contrarie; as when a dead Palsie is cured
with a burning Feaver, and Souldiers suppresse the feare of Death, by the
shame of Basenesse .. .
Or whether they be Passions of a different, but not of a repugnant nature;
and then the effect is wrought, by revoking some of the spirits, which were
otherwise all imployed in the service of one Passion, to attend on them;
and by that meanes also, by diverting the intention of the Mind from one
deep Channell into many crosse and broken Streames ; as men are wont to
stop one flux of blood, by making of another; and to use frictions to the
feet, to call away and divert the humours which pain the head.
Which dissipation and scattering of Passion, as it is wrought principally
by this mutuall confounding of them amongst themselves, so in some
particular cases likewise, two other ways ; namely, by communion in diverse
subjects, and extension on diverse objects. For the first, we see in matter
of Griefe, the Mind doth receive (as it were) some lightnesse and comfort,
when it finds it self generative unto others, and produces sympathie in
them : For hereby it is (as it were) disburthened, and cannot but find that
easier, to the sustaining whereof, it hath the assistance of anothers
shoulders.
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