A6 Whether love is cause of all that the lover does?

[a] Objection 1:
It would seem that the lover does not do everything from love. For love is a passion, as stated above ([1242] Q [26], A [2]). But man does not do everything from passion: but some things he does from choice, and some things from ignorance, as stated in Ethic. v, 8. Therefore not everything that a man does, is done from love.

[b] Objection 2:
Further, the appetite is a principle of movement and action in all animals, as stated in De Anima iii, 10. If, therefore, whatever a man does is done from love, the other passions of the appetitive faculty are superfluous.

[c] Objection 3:
Further, nothing is produced at one and the same time by contrary causes. But some things are done from hatred. Therefore all things are not done from love.

[d] On the contrary,
Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that "all things, whatever they do, they do for the love of good."

[e] I answer that,
Every agent acts for an end, as stated above ([1243] Q [1], A [2]). Now the end is the good desired and loved by each one. Wherefore it is evident that every agent, whatever it be, does every action from love of some kind.

[f] Reply to Objection 1:
This objection takes love as a passion existing in the sensitive appetite. But here we are speaking of love in a general sense, inasmuch as it includes intellectual, rational, animal, and natural love: for it is in this sense that Dionysius speaks of love in chapter iv of De Divinis Nominibus.

[g] Reply to Objection 2:
As stated above [1244] (A [5]; Q [27], A [4]) desire, sadness and pleasure, and consequently all the other passions of the soul, result from love. Wherefore every act proceeds from any passion, proceeds also from love as from a first cause: and so the other passions, which are proximate causes, are not superfluous.

[h] Reply to Objection 3:
Hatred also is a result of love, as we shall state further on ([1245] Q [29], A [2]).