18/03/2011

Quotable Henry: Will is to the Affection of Love as a Horse is to the Health of Its Body

"The will is a principle agent and its affection of love is an instrument, since the will has it in [its] use and its power for the purpose of being expedited and efficacious (or intense) for an action to be performed. This is like a horse, having health throughout its body, that may use it [i.e. health] for running quickly. It would be an instrument of the horse with regard to velocity in a race. And affection is like this, that insofar as it is an instrument of the will, it is love. Love is a certain health of the will, but insofar as it stimulates by its healthy temperance for the intended motion, it has the nature of an inhabitant of the principle agent, and the will an instrument to the instrument. This is like a horse who runs quickly, having been furiously agitated. The fury itself is like an inhabitant of the horse and the horse itself is an instrument [of the fury]."

02/03/2011

Dispositions and Habits of Mind, Part 2

Here is what Henry says about the connection between a disposition of mind and a habit of mind:
"A habit and a disposition are in the very same thing, and they differ only as complete and incomplete, such that what began in an incomplete and imperfect manner is called a disposition. When, through a received augmentation, it will reach a perfection [that is] determined and complete, the name 'disposition' no longer applies, and it is called a 'habit'. In this way, the disposition itself becomes a habit in the way that a child is to an adult, and when one becomes an adult the name 'child' no longer applies."