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upon another. Can it be that the fact of motion existing elsewhere creates the Passion, which was not Passion in the agent?,
If the whiteness of the swan, produced by its Reason-Principle, is given at its birth, are we to affirm Passion of the swan on its passing into being? If, on the contrary, the swan grows white after birth, and if there is (as before) a cause of that growth and the corresponding result, are we to say that the growth is a Passion? Or must we confine Passion. to purely qualitative change?
One thing confers beauty and another takes it: is that which takes beauty to be regarded as patient? If then the source of beauty—tin, suppose—should deteriorate or actually disappear, while the recipient—copper—improves, are we to think of the copper as passive and the tin active?
Take the learner: how can he be regarded as passive, seeing that the Act of the agent passes into him (and becomes his Act)? How can the Act, necessarily a simple entity, be both Act and Passion? No. doubt the Act is not in itself a Passion; nonetheless, the learner coming to possess it will be a patient by the fact of his appropriation of an experience from outside: he will not, of course, be a patient in the sense of having himself performed no Act; learning—like seeing—is not analogous to being struck, since it involves the acts of apprehension and recognition.
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How then are we to recognise Passivity, since clearly it is not to be found in the Act from outside which the recipient in turn makes his own? Surely we must look for it in cases where the patient remains without Act, the passivity pure.
Imagine a case where an agent improves, though its Act tends towards deterioration. Or, say, a man's activity is guided by evil and is allowed to dominate another's without restraint. In these cases the Act is clearly wrong, the Passion blameless.
What then is the real distinction between Action and Passion? Is it that Action starts from within and is directed upon an outside