EMOLLIENTS, in Medicine and Pharmacy, are such remedies as soften the asperity of the humours, and at the same time relax the rigidity of the solids.
EMOLUMENT is properly applied to the profits arising daily from an office or employment. The word is formed from the Latin emolumentum, which, according to some, primarily signifies the profits redounding to the miller from his mill. The patent, or other instrument, by which a person is preferred to an office, gives him a right to enjoy all the duties, honours, profits, and emoluments belonging thereto. Emolument is also used, with somewhat greater latitude, to signify profit or advantage in general.
EMOTION and PASSION are thus distinguished by Lord Kames, in his Elements of Criticism. "An internal motion or agitation of the mind, when it passeth away without desire, is denominated an emotion; when desire follows, the motion or agitation is denominated a passion. A fine face, for example, raiseth in me a pleasant feeling; if that feeling vanish without producing any effect, it is in proper language an emotion; but if the feeling, by reiterated views of the object, become sufficiently strong to occasion desire, it loses its name of emotion, and acquires that of passion. The same holds in all the other passions. The painful feeling raised in a spectator by a slight injury done to a stranger, being accompanied with no desire of revenge, is termed an emotion; but that injury raiseth in the stranger a stronger emotion, which being accompanied with desire of revenge, is a passion. External expressions of distress produce in the spectator a painful feeling, which being sometimes so slight as to pass away without any effect, is an emotion; but if the feeling be so strong as to prompt desire of affording relief, it is a passion, and is termed a pity. Envy is emulation in excess; if the exaltation of a competitor be barely disagreeable, the painful feeling is an emotion; if it produce desire to depress him, it is a passion."