 The very vocabulary available to early modern theorists is marked by their historical legacy. The terms ‘passion,’ ‘perturbation,’ and ‘affect’ are all rooted in choices made by Latin authors such as Augustine, Cicero and Seneca for translating the Greek pathos used by Aristotle. In contrast, ‘sentiment,’ which came to be used with increasing frequency by eighteenth century British and French authors, seems distinctively modern. Debates about whether to classify emotions among appetites, judgments, or volitions originated in the models of Aristotle, the Stoics and Augustine, while Descartes inaugurated the trend of counting them among perceptions. Early modern associations between the emotions and the body also owed an enormous amount to ancient and medieval sources, as did views connecting emotions with motives for action. Such connections often underlay the long-running debate inherited by the early moderns about the epistemic, eudaimonistic and ethical value of the emotions, a central issue of which is the degree to which we can manage and control our emotions. Although the assessments of pre-modern theorists varied enormously, there was a generally positive view of pleasurable emotions. This evaluation was shared by many seventeenth and eighteenth-century philosophers, who often played up the holistic functionality of such emotions. At the same time, the early moderns seem to have inherited a strong sense of the value of various forms of emotional tranquility – something worth bearing in mind for understanding the changing uses of ‘passion.’