Late seventeenth- an d eigh- t eenth-century empiricism ina ugurated a fundamental shift in the way mo d ern E ur opean culture co nce ptu alized emo ti on . In ea rly mo d ern thought, all emotional experien ce falls under the heading of " th e pas- sions," which are tr eated n ot only as i nna t e, natural forces tied closely to the body but also as the essence of volition.