In The Passions of the Soul Descartes proclaims his intention to explain the passions only as a Physicist, and titles Part I About the passions in general, and incidentally about the whole nature of man not an incidental item. Two questions orient the present inquiry: What does Descartes mean by the whole nature of man, and how does a general theory of the human emotions based on his physics account for it? Not surprisingly, Descartes does not fulfill the letter of his intention; rather, he explains the passions only partly