 Descartes distinguishes six primitive passions: wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness. All the rest are either composed from these or species of them (art. 69). The passions operate in a common manner: “the principal effect of all the human passions is that they move and dispose the soul to want the things for which they prepare the body.” Thus, the passsions are in the first place motivational states that dispose the soul to will specific actions: “the feeling of fear moves the soul to want to flee, that of courage to want to fight, and similarly with the others” (art. 40; CSM I 343). Different passions result from the effects of different motions on the pineal gland; and these, Descartes assumes, have been ordained by God for the sake of preserving the human body: “The function of all the passions consists solely in this, that they dispose our soul to want the things which nature deems useful for us, and to persist in this volition; and the same agitation of the spirits which normally causes the passions also disposes the body to make movements which help to attain these things” (art. 52; CSM I 349). (Exactly how to characterize the passions as mental states remains controversial. In addition to the works already cited, see Brassfield 2012; Greenberg 2009; Hoffman 1991; Kisner 2018; Schmitter 2008.)