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This is an AI modernization of Ethics into contemporary English. The original is available from Project Gutenberg. Also available as an epub.
Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632, into a family of Portuguese Jews who had come there to escape the Inquisition. At twenty-three his own community expelled him, with a curse read out against him, and never took him back. He ground lenses for optical instruments for a living, turned down a professorship at Heidelberg because it came with a condition about not disturbing the established religion, and died in 1677 at forty-four. This book was published a few months later by his friends, some of them anonymously, because printing it while he was alive would have been dangerous. The States of Holland banned his entire works the following year, for containing profane, blasphemous and atheistic propositions.
The form is the first obstacle and it is best met head on. The Ethics is laid out like a geometry textbook. Each of the five Parts opens with definitions and axioms, and then comes a numbered sequence of propositions, each followed by a proof, and often by corollaries and notes. There are two hundred and fifty-nine propositions in all. Spinoza is not decorating an argument with the appearance of rigour; he means the reader to be able to check every step, and the notes — where he drops the geometry and talks — are where most people find the book.
Those steps are held together by more than a thousand cross-references, and in the seventeenth-century printing they are shorthand: a Roman numeral, a lower-case numeral, an abbreviation. In this edition every one of them has been resolved and written out in plain modern form, saying which Part, which proposition, and which piece of it. That is the main thing this edition does, and it is what makes it possible to follow a proof without counting on your fingers.
The claim the fuss was about is in Part One. There is only one substance, and God and Nature are two names for it. Not a person who made the world and watches it, but the world itself, taken as the single system that everything follows from by necessity. There are no miracles in it and no purposes. The Appendix to Part One traces the belief that Nature has goals to the fact that people know what they want and not why they want it, and it is the angriest and best-written thing in the book.
From there it turns to us. Mind and body are one thing described two ways. Free will is an illusion of the same kind as purposes in Nature. Forty-eight emotions are defined in order, jealousy and ambition and hatred among them, with no more moralising than a geometer gives a triangle. The flatness is deliberate: he says in the Preface to Part Three that he will treat human desires exactly as if he were dealing with lines, planes and solids, and then he does. Freedom, when it arrives in Part Five, turns out to be understanding, and nothing else.
Part One: Concerning God
Part Two: On the Nature and Origin of the Mind
Part Three: On the Origin and Nature of the Emotions
Part Four: Of Human Bondage, or the Strength of the Emotions
Part Five: Of the Power of the Understanding, or of Human Freedom
1. By self-caused I mean that whose essence involves existence: that whose nature cannot be conceived except as existing.
2. A thing is called finite after its kind when it can be limited by another thing of the same nature. A body, for instance, is called finite because we can always conceive a greater body. In the same way a thought is limited by another thought. But a body is not limited by a thought, nor a thought by a body.
3. By substance I mean that which is in itself and is conceived through itself: that whose conception can be formed without needing the conception of anything else.
4. By attribute I mean that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance.
5. By mode I mean the modifications of substance: that which exists in, and is conceived through, something other than itself.
Footnote: "Affectiones"
6. By God I mean a being absolutely infinite—that is, a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence.
Explanation. I say absolutely infinite, not infinite after its kind. Of a thing infinite only after its kind, infinite attributes may be denied; but that which is absolutely infinite contains in its essence everything that expresses reality, and involves no negation.
7. A thing is called free when it exists solely by the necessity of its own nature and its action is determined by itself alone. A thing is called necessary, or rather constrained, when something outside it determines it to exist and act in a fixed and definite way.
8. By eternity I mean existence itself, insofar as it is conceived to follow necessarily from the definition of the eternal thing alone.
Explanation. Existence of this kind is conceived as an eternal truth, like the essence of a thing, and so cannot be explained by duration or time—even though duration may be conceived as having no beginning and no end.
1. Everything that exists, exists either in itself or in something else.
2. That which cannot be conceived through anything else must be conceived through itself.
3. From a given definite cause an effect necessarily follows; and conversely, if there is no definite cause, no effect can follow.
4. Knowledge of an effect depends on, and involves, knowledge of the cause.
5. Things that have nothing in common cannot be understood one through the other: the conception of one does not involve the conception of the other.
6. A true idea must agree with the thing it is an idea of.
7. If a thing can be conceived as not existing, its essence does not involve existence.
Substance is by nature prior to its modifications.
Proof. This is clear from Definition 3 of this Part and Definition 5 of this Part.
Two substances with different attributes have nothing in common.
Proof. Also evident from Definition 3 of this Part. Each must exist in itself and be conceived through itself; in other words, the conception of one does not imply the conception of the other.
Things that have nothing in common cannot be one the cause of the other.
Proof. If they have nothing in common, then one cannot be understood by means of the other (Axiom 5 of this Part), and therefore one cannot be the cause of the other (Axiom 4 of this Part). Q.E.D.
Two or more distinct things are distinguished from one another either by a difference in the attributes of their substances or by a difference in their modifications.
Proof. Everything that exists, exists either in itself or in something else (Axiom 1 of this Part)—that is (by Definition 3 of this Part; Definition 5 of this Part), there is nothing outside the understanding except substance and its modifications. So there is nothing besides the understanding by which several things could be distinguished from one another except substances, or, what comes to the same thing (see Axiom 4 of this Part), their attributes and modifications. Q.E.D.
There cannot exist in the universe two or more substances having the same nature or attribute.
Proof. If there were several distinct substances, they would have to be distinguished from one another either by a difference in their attributes or by a difference in their modifications (Proposition 4 of this Part). If only by their attributes, then it must be granted that there cannot be more than one substance with any given attribute. If by their modifications—since substance is by nature prior to its modifications (Proposition 1 of this Part)—then, setting the modifications aside and considering substance in itself, that is, truly (Definition 3 of this Part; Definition 6 of this Part), one substance cannot be conceived as different from another—that is (by Proposition 4 of this Part), there cannot be several substances, but one substance only. Q.E.D.
One substance cannot be produced by another substance.
Proof. There cannot be in the universe two substances with the same attribute, that is, two substances with anything in common (Proposition 2 of this Part), and therefore (Proposition 3 of this Part) one cannot be the cause of the other, nor can one be produced by the other. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that a substance cannot be produced by anything outside itself. For in the universe there is nothing but substances and their modifications (as appears from Axiom 1 of this Part; Definition 3 of this Part; Definition 5 of this Part). Now (by Proposition 6 of this Part) substance cannot be produced by another substance; therefore it cannot be produced by anything outside itself. Q.E.D. This is shown still more readily by the absurdity of the opposite. For if substance were produced by an external cause, knowledge of it would depend on knowledge of that cause (Axiom 4 of this Part), and (by Definition 3 of this Part) it would not then be substance at all.
Existence belongs to the nature of substance.
Proof. Substance cannot be produced by anything outside itself (Proposition 6 of this Part, Corollary), so it must be its own cause—that is, its essence necessarily involves existence, or existence belongs to its nature.
Every substance is necessarily infinite.
Proof. There can be only one substance with any given attribute, and existence follows from its nature (Proposition 7 of this Part); its nature therefore involves existence, either as finite or as infinite. It does not exist as finite, for (by Definition 2 of this Part) it would then be limited by something else of the same kind, which would also necessarily exist (Proposition 7 of this Part), and there would be two substances with the same attribute, which is absurd (Proposition 5 of this Part). It therefore exists as infinite. Q.E.D.
Note 1. Since finite existence involves a partial negation, and infinite existence is the absolute affirmation of a thing's nature, it follows (solely from Proposition 7 of this Part) that every substance is necessarily infinite.
Note 2. No doubt those who think loosely about things, and are not used to knowing them through their first causes, will find the demonstration of Proposition 7 of this Part hard to follow. Such people make no distinction between the modifications of substances and the substances themselves, and do not know how things are produced; so they attribute to substances the beginning they observe in natural objects. People ignorant of true causes confuse everything—they think trees might talk as well as men, that men might be formed from stones as easily as from seed, and imagine that any form might change into any other. In the same way, those who confuse the two natures, divine and human, readily attribute human passions to God, especially while they do not know how passions arise in the mind. But if people would only consider the nature of substance, they would have no doubt about the truth of Proposition 7 of this Part. In fact this proposition would be a universal axiom and counted a truism. For by substance they would understand that which is in itself and is conceived through itself—that is, something whose conception does not require the conception of anything else—whereas modifications exist in something outside themselves, and are conceived by means of a conception of the thing they exist in. This is why we can have true ideas of modifications that do not exist: although they may have no actual existence apart from the intellect conceiving them, their essence is so bound up in something outside themselves that they can be conceived through it. Substances, on the other hand, can have no truth outside the intellect except their existence, because they are conceived through themselves. So for a person to say that he has a clear and distinct—that is, a true—idea of a substance, but is not sure whether that substance exists, would be the same as saying that he had a true idea but was not sure whether it was false (a little thought will make this plain); and for anyone to claim that substance is created would be to say that a false idea is true—the height of absurdity. It must therefore be admitted that the existence of substance, like its essence, is an eternal truth. And from this we can conclude by another line of reasoning that there is only one such substance. I think it worth doing at once; and to proceed in order, we must first lay down:
1. The true definition of a thing neither involves nor expresses anything beyond the nature of the thing defined. From which it follows:
2. No definition implies or expresses any particular number of individuals, since it expresses nothing beyond the nature of the thing defined. The definition of a triangle, for instance, expresses nothing beyond the nature of a triangle: it does not imply any fixed number of triangles.
3. For each existing thing there must necessarily be a cause why it exists.
4. This cause of existence must either be contained in the nature and definition of the thing, or lie outside it.
It follows that if a given number of individual things exist in nature, there must be a cause why exactly that number exists, neither more nor fewer. For example, if twenty men exist in the universe (for simplicity I will suppose them existing at the same time, with no predecessors), and we want to account for the existence of these twenty, it will not be enough to give the cause of human existence in general; we must also show why there are exactly twenty, neither more nor fewer, since a cause must be assigned for the existence of each one. Now this cause cannot lie in the nature of man, for the true definition of man involves no consideration of the number twenty. So the cause of the existence of these twenty men, and therefore of each of them, must be sought outside each individual. Hence we may lay down the absolute rule that everything which can consist of several individuals must have an external cause. And since it has already been shown that existence belongs to the nature of substance, existence must be included in its definition, and must be deducible from that definition alone. But from its definition (Proposition 2 of this Part, Note; Proposition 3 of this Part, Note) we cannot infer the existence of several substances; therefore there is only one substance of any given nature. Q.E.D.
The more reality or being a thing has, the more attributes it has (Definition 4 of this Part).
Each attribute of the one substance must be conceived through itself.
Proof. An attribute is what the intellect perceives of substance as constituting its essence (Definition 4 of this Part), and therefore must be conceived through itself (Definition 3 of this Part). Q.E.D.
Note. It is clear from this that although two attributes are in fact conceived as distinct—that is, one without the help of the other—we cannot conclude from that that they constitute two entities, or two different substances. For it is the nature of substance that each of its attributes is conceived through itself, since all the attributes it has have always existed in it together, and none could have been produced by any other; each simply expresses the reality or being of substance. So it is far from absurd to ascribe several attributes to one substance. Nothing in nature is clearer than that every entity must be conceived under some attribute, and that its reality or being is in proportion to the number of its attributes expressing necessity, or eternity and infinity. It is therefore perfectly clear that an absolutely infinite being must be defined as consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses a certain eternal and infinite essence.
If anyone now asks by what sign he can tell one substance from another, let him read the following propositions, which show that there is only one substance in the universe, and that it is absolutely infinite. He would be looking for such a sign in vain.
God, or substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence, necessarily exists.
Proof. Deny it if you can, and conceive that God does not exist. Then his essence does not involve existence. But that (Proposition 7 of this Part) is absurd. Therefore God necessarily exists.
Another proof. For everything whatever a cause or reason must be assigned, either for its existence or for its non-existence. If a triangle exists, a reason or cause must be given for its existence; if it does not exist, a cause must also be given, one that prevents it from existing or annuls its existence. This reason or cause must either be contained in the nature of the thing or lie outside it. The reason for the non-existence of a square circle, for instance, is indicated in its own nature: it would involve a contradiction. And the existence of substance likewise follows from its nature alone, since its nature involves existence (see Proposition 7 of this Part).
But the reason why a triangle or a circle exists does not follow from the nature of those figures; it follows from the order of nature as a whole, in extension. From that order it must follow either that a triangle necessarily exists or that it is impossible for it to exist. So much is self-evident. And it follows from all this that a thing necessarily exists if there is no cause or reason to prevent it.
If, then, no cause or reason can be given that prevents God from existing, or that destroys his existence, we must conclude that he necessarily does exist. And if such a reason or cause could be given, it would have to be drawn either from God's own nature or from outside it—that is, from another substance of another nature. For if it were of the same nature, that would be to admit that God exists. But a substance of another nature could have nothing in common with God (by Proposition 2 of this Part), and so could neither cause nor destroy his existence.
Since, then, a reason or cause that would annul the divine existence cannot be drawn from anything outside the divine nature, it must, if God does not exist, be drawn from God's own nature, which would involve a contradiction. To make such a claim about a being absolutely infinite and supremely perfect is absurd. Therefore neither within God's nature nor outside it can any cause or reason be assigned that would annul his existence. Therefore God necessarily exists. Q.E.D.
Another proof. The power of not existing is a lack of power, and conversely the power of existing is a power, as is obvious. If, then, the only things that necessarily exist are finite beings, finite beings are more powerful than a being absolutely infinite, which is plainly absurd. So either nothing exists, or a being absolutely infinite necessarily exists as well. Now we do exist, either in ourselves or in something else that necessarily exists (see Axiom 1 of this Part; Proposition 7 of this Part). Therefore a being absolutely infinite—that is, God (Definition 6 of this Part)—necessarily exists. Q.E.D.
Note. In this last proof I deliberately showed God's existence a posteriori, so that the proof would be easier to follow, not because God's existence does not follow a priori from the same premises. For since the power of existing is a power, it follows that the more reality there is in a thing's nature, the more strength it has for existing. So a being absolutely infinite, such as God, has from himself an absolutely infinite power of existing, and therefore absolutely exists. Perhaps many will not see the force of this proof, being accustomed to consider only things that arise from external causes. Of such things they observe that those which come quickly into existence also quickly disappear, whereas they regard as harder to bring about—that is, not so easily brought into existence—those they conceive as more complicated.
To clear up this misconception I need not discuss how much truth there is in the proverb "what comes quickly, goes quickly," nor whether, from the point of view of nature as a whole, all things are equally easy. I need only point out that I am not speaking here of things that come about through causes outside themselves, but of substances, which (by Proposition 6 of this Part) cannot be produced by any external cause. Things produced by external causes, whether they have many parts or few, owe whatever perfection or reality they possess entirely to the power of that external cause; their existence arises from the perfection of their cause, not from their own. But whatever perfection substance possesses is due to no external cause, so the existence of substance must arise from its own nature alone, which is nothing but its essence. The perfection of a thing, then, does not annul its existence but asserts it; imperfection does annul it. So we can be more certain of the existence of a being absolutely infinite or perfect—that is, of God—than of the existence of anything else. For since his essence excludes all imperfection and involves absolute perfection, every ground for doubting his existence is removed, and we are given the utmost certainty on the question. This, I think, will be clear to any reasonably attentive reader.
No attribute of substance can be truly conceived from which it would follow that substance can be divided.
Proof. The parts into which substance so conceived would be divided will either keep the nature of substance or they will not. If the former, then (by Proposition 8 of this Part) each part will be infinite, and (by Proposition 6 of this Part) self-caused, and (by Proposition 5 of this Part) must consist of a different attribute—so that several substances could be formed out of one, which (by Proposition 6 of this Part) is absurd. Moreover, the parts (by Proposition 2 of this Part) would have nothing in common with their whole, and the whole (by Definition 4 of this Part; Proposition 10 of this Part) could exist and be conceived without its parts, which everyone will admit is absurd. If we take the second alternative—that the parts will not keep the nature of substance—then, if the whole substance were divided into equal parts, it would lose the nature of substance and cease to exist, which (by Proposition 7 of this Part) is absurd.
Substance absolutely infinite is indivisible.
Proof. If it could be divided, the parts into which it was divided would either keep the nature of absolutely infinite substance or not. If the former, we should have several substances of the same nature, which (by Proposition 5 of this Part) is absurd. If the latter, then (by Proposition 7 of this Part) substance absolutely infinite could cease to exist, which (by Proposition 11 of this Part) is also absurd.
Corollary. It follows that no substance, and consequently no extended substance, insofar as it is substance, is divisible.
Note. The indivisibility of substance can be understood more easily like this. The nature of substance can only be conceived as infinite, and by a part of substance nothing can be understood but finite substance, which (by Proposition 8 of this Part) involves an obvious contradiction.
Besides God no substance can exist or be conceived.
Proof. God is a being absolutely infinite, of whom no attribute expressing the essence of substance can be denied (by Definition 6 of this Part), and he necessarily exists (by Proposition 11 of this Part). If any substance besides God existed, it would have to be explained by some attribute of God, and then two substances with the same attribute would exist, which (by Proposition 5 of this Part) is absurd. Therefore no substance besides God can exist, or consequently be conceived. And if it could be conceived, it would have to be conceived as existing; but that (by the first part of this proof) is absurd. Therefore besides God no substance can exist or be conceived. Q.E.D.
Corollary 1. It follows clearly, first, that God is one: that is (by Definition 6 of this Part), there is only one substance in the universe, and it is absolutely infinite, as we have already indicated (in Proposition 10 of this Part, Note).
Corollary 2. It follows, second, that extension and thought are either attributes of God or (by Axiom 1 of this Part) modifications of the attributes of God.
Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.
Proof. Besides God no substance exists or can be conceived (by Proposition 14 of this Part), that is (by Definition 3 of this Part), nothing that is in itself and is conceived through itself. But modes (by Definition 5 of this Part) can neither be nor be conceived without substance, so they can only be in the divine nature and can only be conceived through it. And substances and modes are the whole of what exists (by Axiom 1 of this Part). Therefore without God nothing can be, or be conceived. Q.E.D.
Note. Some assert that God, like a man, consists of body and mind and is subject to passions. How far such people have strayed from the truth is clear enough from what has been said. But I pass them over. For everyone who has reflected at all on the divine nature denies that God has a body, and finds excellent proof of it in the fact that by body we understand a definite quantity, so long, so broad, so deep, bounded by a certain shape—and it is the height of absurdity to say such a thing of God, a being absolutely infinite. But meanwhile, in the other arguments they use to prove their point, they show that they think of corporeal or extended substance as wholly apart from the divine nature, and say it was created by God. By what power it could have been created they have no idea; which shows plainly that they do not know the meaning of their own words. I have proved clearly enough, at least in my own judgment (Proposition 6 of this Part, Corollary, Note 2; Proposition 8 of this Part, Corollary), that no substance can be produced or created by anything other than itself. And I showed (in Proposition 14 of this Part) that besides God no substance can exist or be conceived. From which we concluded that extended substance is one of the infinite attributes of God. But to explain this more fully, I will refute my opponents' arguments, which all start from the following points.
Extended substance, insofar as it is substance, consists (they think) of parts; and so they deny that it can be infinite, or consequently that it can belong to God. They illustrate this with many examples, of which I will take one or two. If extended substance is infinite, they say, conceive it divided into two parts. Each part will be either finite or infinite. If finite, then an infinite is composed of two finite parts, which is absurd. If infinite, then one infinite is twice as large as another infinite, which is also absurd.
Again, if an infinite line is measured out in feet, it will consist of an infinite number of such parts; and it would equally consist of an infinite number of parts if each part measured only an inch—so one infinity would be twelve times as great as another.
Lastly, if from a single point two diverging lines are drawn, at first a definite distance apart but produced to infinity, it is certain that the distance between them will keep increasing until at length it changes from definite to indefinable. Since these absurdities follow, they say, from considering quantity as infinite, the conclusion is drawn that extended substance must be finite and cannot belong to the nature of God.
The second argument is also drawn from God's supreme perfection. God, they say, being a supremely perfect being, cannot be passive; but extended substance, insofar as it is divisible, is passive. It follows that extended substance does not belong to the essence of God.
Such are the arguments I find on the subject in writers who use them to prove that extended substance is unworthy of the divine nature and cannot possibly belong to it. But an attentive reader will see that I have already answered them, since all their arguments rest on the assumption that extended substance is composed of parts, and I have shown that assumption to be absurd (Proposition 12 of this Part, Corollary; Proposition 13 of this Part). Moreover, anyone who reflects will see that all these absurdities—if absurdities they are, which I am not now discussing—do not follow at all from the notion of an infinite quantity, but only from the notion that an infinite quantity is measurable and composed of finite parts. The only fair conclusion to draw, therefore, is that infinite quantity is not measurable and cannot be composed of finite parts. Which is exactly what we have already proved (in Proposition 12 of this Part). So the weapon they aimed at us has in fact recoiled on themselves. If they still insist on concluding from their own absurdity that extended substance must be finite, they are behaving like a man who asserts that circles have the properties of squares, finds himself landed in absurdities, and then denies that circles have a centre from which all lines drawn to the circumference are equal. For they take extended substance, which can only be conceived as infinite, one and indivisible (Proposition 8 of this Part; Proposition 5 of this Part; Proposition 12 of this Part), and then assert, in order to prove it finite, that it is composed of finite parts and can be multiplied and divided.
Others, likewise, after asserting that a line is composed of points, can produce plenty of arguments to prove that a line cannot be infinitely divided. It is no less absurd to assert that extended substance is made up of bodies or parts than it would be to assert that a solid is made up of surfaces, a surface of lines, and a line of points. This must be admitted by everyone who knows clear reason to be infallible, and most of all by those who deny that a vacuum is possible. For if extended substance could be divided so that its parts were really separate, why should one part not be destroyed while the others stayed joined together as before? And why should they all be fitted into one another so as to leave no vacuum? Surely, of things really distinct from one another, one can exist without the other and remain in its original condition. Since, then, there is no vacuum in nature (of which more later), and all the parts must come together to prevent one, it follows that the parts cannot really be distinguished, and that extended substance, insofar as it is substance, cannot be divided.
If anyone asks me the further question why we are naturally so prone to divide quantity, I answer that we conceive quantity in two ways: abstractly and superficially, as we imagine it, or as substance, as we conceive it by the intellect alone. If we regard quantity as it is represented in our imagination, which we do often and more easily, we shall find it finite, divisible and made up of parts. But if we regard it as it is represented in our intellect, and conceive it as substance—which is very difficult to do—we shall find, as I have sufficiently proved, that it is infinite, one and indivisible. This will be plain enough to anyone who distinguishes between the intellect and the imagination, especially if he remembers that matter is everywhere the same, and that its parts are distinguishable only insofar as we conceive matter as modified in different ways—so that its parts are distinguished not really but modally. Water, for instance, insofar as it is water, we conceive to be divided, and its parts to be separated one from another; but not insofar as it is extended substance, for from that point of view it is neither separated nor divisible. Again, water, insofar as it is water, is produced and destroyed; but insofar as it is substance, it is neither produced nor destroyed.
I think I have now answered the second argument as well; it rests on the same assumption as the first, that matter, insofar as it is substance, is divisible and composed of parts. And even if it were, I do not see why it should be thought unworthy of the divine nature, since besides God (by Proposition 14 of this Part) there is no substance from which it could receive its modifications. All things, I repeat, are in God; and everything that comes to pass comes to pass solely through the laws of God's infinite nature, and follows (as I shall shortly show) from the necessity of his essence. So it can in no way be said that God is passive with respect to anything other than himself, or that extended substance is unworthy of the divine nature, even supposing it divisible, so long as it is granted to be infinite and eternal. But enough of this for the present.
From the necessity of the divine nature there must follow an infinite number of things in infinite ways—that is, everything that can fall within the sphere of an infinite intellect.
Proof. This proposition will be clear to anyone who remembers that from the given definition of any thing the intellect infers several properties which really do follow necessarily from it (that is, from the actual essence of the thing defined), and that it infers more properties the more reality the definition of the thing expresses—that is, the more reality the essence of the thing defined involves. Now since the divine nature has absolutely infinite attributes (by Definition 6 of this Part), each of which expresses infinite essence after its kind, it follows that from the necessity of its nature an infinite number of things—that is, everything that can fall within the sphere of an infinite intellect—must necessarily follow. Q.E.D.
Corollary 1. It follows that God is the efficient cause of everything that can fall within the sphere of an infinite intellect.
Corollary 2. It also follows that God is a cause in himself, and not through an accident of his nature.
Corollary 3. It follows, thirdly, that God is the absolutely first cause.
God acts solely by the laws of his own nature, and is constrained by no one.
Proof. We have just shown (in Proposition 16 of this Part) that from the necessity of the divine nature alone—or, what comes to the same thing, from the laws of his nature alone—an infinite number of things follow absolutely, in an infinite number of ways. And we proved (in Proposition 15 of this Part) that without God nothing can be or be conceived, but that all things are in God. So there can be nothing outside him by which he could be conditioned or constrained to act. Therefore God acts solely by the laws of his own nature, and is constrained by no one. Q.E.D.
Corollary 1. It follows, first, that there is no cause, either outside God or within him, besides the perfection of his own nature, that moves him to act.
Corollary 2. It follows, second, that God is the sole free cause. For God alone exists by the sole necessity of his nature (by Proposition 11 of this Part; Proposition 14 of this Part, Corollary 1) and acts by the sole necessity of his own nature; therefore God is (by Definition 7 of this Part) the sole free cause. Q.E.D.
Note. Others think God is a free cause because he can, as they suppose, bring it about that the things we have said follow from his nature—the things in his power—should not come to pass, or should not be produced by him. But this is the same as saying that God could bring it about that it should follow from the nature of a triangle that its three interior angles are not equal to two right angles; or that from a given cause no effect should follow, which is absurd.
I shall also show below, without the help of this proposition, that neither intellect nor will belongs to God's nature. I know there are many who think they can show that supreme intellect and free will do belong to God's nature, on the ground that they know of nothing more perfect to attribute to God than what is the highest perfection in ourselves. And although they conceive God as actually supremely intelligent, they do not believe he can bring into existence everything he actually understands, since they think that would destroy his power. If God had created everything in his intellect, they argue, he could not create anything more, and this they think would clash with his omnipotence. So they prefer to assert that God is indifferent to all things, and creates nothing except what he has decided, by some absolute act of will, to create. But I think I have shown clearly enough (by Proposition 16 of this Part) that from God's supreme power, or infinite nature, an infinite number of things—that is, all things—have necessarily flowed forth in an infinite number of ways, and always flow from the same necessity, in the same way as it follows from the nature of a triangle, from eternity and for eternity, that its three interior angles are equal to two right angles. So the omnipotence of God has been in act from all eternity, and will remain in act for all eternity. This way of treating the question attributes to God, in my opinion, a far more perfect omnipotence. For on the other view we are forced to confess that God understands an infinite number of creatable things which he will never be able to create; for if he created everything he understands, he would, on their showing, exhaust his omnipotence and make himself imperfect. So to establish that God is perfect they would be reduced to establishing at the same time that he cannot bring about everything his power extends to—a hypothesis that seems to me utterly absurd, and utterly at odds with God's omnipotence.
Further, to say a word here about the intellect and the will that we attribute to God: if intellect and will do belong to God's eternal essence, we must take these words in a sense quite different from the one they usually bear. For the intellect and will that would constitute God's essence would have to be as far apart as the poles from the human intellect and will, and would in fact have nothing in common with them but the name—about as much correspondence as there is between the Dog, the constellation in the sky, and a dog, the animal that barks. I prove it as follows. If intellect belongs to the divine nature, it cannot, as ours is generally thought to be, come after the things understood or exist alongside them, since God is prior to all things by reason of his causality (Proposition 16 of this Part, Corollary 1). On the contrary, the truth and formal essence of things is what it is because it exists as such, by representation, in the intellect of God. So the intellect of God, insofar as it is conceived to constitute God's essence, is in reality the cause of things, both of their essence and of their existence. This seems to have been recognised by those who have asserted that God's intellect, God's will and God's power are one and the same. Since, then, God's intellect is the sole cause of things, both of their essence and of their existence, it must differ from them in respect of its essence and in respect of its existence. For a cause differs from the thing it causes precisely in what the latter gains from the former.
For example, a man is the cause of another man's existence but not of his essence (for the essence is an eternal truth), and so the two men may be entirely alike in essence but must differ in existence; and hence if one of them ceases to exist, the other does not necessarily cease with him. But if the essence of one could be destroyed and made false, the essence of the other would be destroyed too. So a thing which is the cause both of the essence and of the existence of a given effect must differ from that effect both in essence and in existence. Now the intellect of God is the cause both of the essence and of the existence of our intellect; therefore God's intellect, insofar as it is conceived to constitute the divine essence, differs from our intellect both in essence and in existence, and can agree with it in nothing but the name, as we said before. The reasoning would be exactly the same for the will, as anyone can easily see.
God is the indwelling cause of all things, and not a cause standing outside them.
Proof. All things that are, are in God and must be conceived through God (by Proposition 15 of this Part); therefore (by Proposition 16 of this Part, Corollary 1) God is the cause of the things that are in him. That is our first point. Further, besides God there can be no substance (by Proposition 14 of this Part), that is, nothing existing in itself outside God. That is our second point. God, therefore, is the indwelling cause of all things, and not a cause standing outside them. Q.E.D.
God, and all the attributes of God, are eternal.
Proof. God (by Definition 6 of this Part) is substance, which (by Proposition 11 of this Part) necessarily exists, that is (by Proposition 7 of this Part) existence belongs to its nature, or, what comes to the same thing, follows from its definition. Therefore God is eternal (by Definition 8 of this Part). Further, by the attributes of God we must understand what (by Definition 4 of this Part) expresses the essence of the divine substance—in other words, what belongs to substance; that, I say, must be involved in the attributes of substance. Now eternity belongs to the nature of substance (as I have already shown in Proposition 7 of this Part); therefore eternity must belong to each of the attributes, and so all are eternal. Q.E.D.
Note. This proposition is also evident from the way in which (in Proposition 11 of this Part) I demonstrated the existence of God. It is evident, I repeat, from that proof, that the existence of God, like his essence, is an eternal truth. Further (in Proposition 19 of my Principles of the Cartesian Philosophy) I have proved the eternity of God in another way, which I need not repeat here.
The existence of God and his essence are one and the same.
Proof. God (by Proposition 19 of this Part) and all his attributes are eternal, that is (by Definition 8 of this Part), each of his attributes expresses existence. So the same attributes of God that explain his eternal essence explain at the same time his eternal existence—in other words, what constitutes God's essence constitutes at the same time his existence. Therefore God's existence and God's essence are one and the same. Q.E.D.
Corollary 1. It follows that God's existence, like his essence, is an eternal truth.
Corollary 2. It follows, second, that God and all the attributes of God are unchangeable. For if they could change in respect of existence, they would also have to be able to change in respect of essence—that is, plainly, to change from true to false, which is absurd.
All things that follow from the absolute nature of any attribute of God must always exist and be infinite; in other words, they are eternal and infinite through that attribute.
Proof. Conceive, if you can (supposing the proposition to be denied), that something in some attribute of God can follow from the absolute nature of that attribute and yet be finite, with an existence or duration that is determined: for instance, the idea of God expressed in the attribute of thought. Now thought, insofar as it is supposed to be an attribute of God, is necessarily (by Proposition 11 of this Part) infinite in its nature. But insofar as it possesses the idea of God, it is supposed finite. It cannot, however, be conceived as finite unless it is limited by thought (by Definition 2 of this Part); and it is not limited by thought insofar as thought has constituted the idea of God, for so far it is supposed to be finite. Therefore it is limited by thought insofar as thought has not constituted the idea of God—which nevertheless (by Proposition 11 of this Part) must necessarily exist.
We have therefore granted a thought that does not constitute the idea of God; and so the idea of God does not follow naturally from thought's nature insofar as it is absolute thought, since thought is conceived both as constituting and as not constituting the idea of God. This is against our hypothesis. Therefore, if the idea of God expressed in the attribute of thought—or indeed anything else in any attribute of God, for we may take any example, since the proof holds universally—follows from the necessity of the absolute nature of that attribute, the thing in question must be infinite. That was our first point.
Furthermore, a thing that follows in this way from the necessity of the nature of any attribute cannot have a limited duration. For suppose it can. Suppose something that follows from the necessity of the nature of some attribute exists in some attribute of God—the idea of God expressed in the attribute of thought, for instance—and suppose that at some time it did not exist, or is about to cease to exist.
Now thought, being an attribute of God, must necessarily exist unchanged (by Proposition 11 of this Part; Proposition 20 of this Part, Corollary 2); and beyond the limits of the duration of the idea of God—supposing it at some time not to have existed, or not to be going to exist—thought would have had to exist without the idea of God, which is contrary to our hypothesis, since we supposed that, thought being given, the idea of God necessarily flowed from it. Therefore the idea of God expressed in thought, or anything that necessarily follows from the absolute nature of some attribute of God, cannot have a limited duration, but is eternal through that attribute. That is our second point. And note that the same proposition may be affirmed of anything that in any attribute follows necessarily from God's absolute nature.
Whatever follows from any attribute of God, insofar as that attribute is modified by a modification which exists necessarily and as infinite through it, must also exist necessarily and as infinite.
Proof. The proof of this proposition is like that of the one before it.
Every mode that exists both necessarily and as infinite must follow either from the absolute nature of some attribute of God, or from an attribute modified by a modification which exists necessarily and as infinite.
Proof. A mode exists in something else, through which it must be conceived (Definition 5 of this Part), that is (Proposition 15 of this Part), it exists solely in God and can be conceived only through God. If, therefore, a mode is conceived as existing necessarily and as infinite, it must be inferred or perceived through some attribute of God, insofar as that attribute is conceived as expressing infinity and necessity of existence—in other words (Definition 8 of this Part), eternity; that is, insofar as it is considered absolutely. A mode, then, which exists necessarily and as infinite, must follow from the absolute nature of some attribute of God, either directly (Proposition 21 of this Part) or through some modification which follows from the absolute nature of that attribute; that is (by Proposition 22 of this Part), one which exists necessarily and as infinite.
The essence of things produced by God does not involve existence.
Proof. This proposition is evident from Definition 1 of this Part. For that whose nature, considered in itself, involves existence is self-caused, and exists by the sole necessity of its own nature.
Corollary. It follows that God is the cause not only of things coming into existence but of their continuing in existence—or, in the language of the schools, God is the cause of the being of things (essendi rerum). For whether things exist or do not exist, whenever we consider their essence we see that it involves neither existence nor duration; so their essence cannot be the cause of either. God must be the sole cause, since to him alone does existence belong (Proposition 14 of this Part, Corollary 1). Q.E.D.
God is the efficient cause not only of the existence of things but also of their essence.
Proof. Deny it, and God is not the cause of the essence of things; and then the essence of things can (by Axiom 4 of this Part) be conceived without God. That (by Proposition 15 of this Part) is absurd. Therefore God is the cause of the essence of things. Q.E.D.
Note. This proposition follows more clearly from Proposition 16 of this Part. For it is evident from that proposition that, given the divine nature, the essence of things must be inferred from it no less than their existence. In a word, God must be called the cause of all things in the same sense in which he is called the cause of himself. The following corollary will make this clearer still.
Corollary. Individual things are nothing but modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and definite way. The proof appears from Proposition 15 of this Part and Definition 5 of this Part.
A thing determined to act in a particular way has necessarily been so determined by God; and a thing that has not been so determined by God cannot determine itself to act.
Proof. That by which things are said to be determined to act in a particular way is necessarily something positive; this is obvious. Therefore God, by the necessity of his nature, is the efficient cause both of its essence and of its existence (Proposition 25 of this Part; Proposition 16 of this Part). That is our first point. Our second point plainly follows from it. For if a thing that had not been determined by God could determine itself, the first part of our proof would be false, and that, as we have shown, is absurd.
A thing that has been determined by God to act in a particular way cannot make itself undetermined.
Proof. This proposition is evident from the third axiom.
No individual thing—nothing finite, that is, and having a determined existence—can exist or be determined to act unless it is determined for existence and action by another cause, which is also finite and has a determined existence; and this cause in its turn cannot exist or be determined to act unless it is determined for existence and action by another cause, which is also finite and has a determined existence; and so on to infinity.
Proof. Whatever is determined to exist and act has been so determined by God (by Proposition 26 of this Part; Proposition 24 of this Part, Corollary).
But what is finite and has a determined existence cannot be produced by the absolute nature of any attribute of God, for whatever follows from the absolute nature of any attribute of God is infinite and eternal (by Proposition 21 of this Part). It must therefore follow from some attribute of God insofar as that attribute is considered as in some way modified; for substance and modes are the whole of what exists (by Axiom 1 of this Part; Definition 3 of this Part; Definition 5 of this Part), and modes are simply modifications of the attributes of God. But a determined thing cannot follow from God, or from any of his attributes, insofar as that attribute is modified by a modification which is infinite and eternal. Therefore it must follow from, or be determined for existence and action by, God or one of his attributes insofar as they are modified by some modification which is finite and has a determined existence. That is our first point. And this cause, or this modification, must in its turn be determined by another cause, also finite and with a determined existence, for the reason by which we established the first part of this proof; and that last by another, for the same reason; and so on, for the same reason, to infinity. Q.E.D.
Note. Since certain things must be produced immediately by God—namely those which follow necessarily from his absolute nature—and the rest through these primary things, which nevertheless can neither exist nor be conceived without God, it follows: first, that God is absolutely the proximate cause of the things immediately produced by him. I say absolutely, not "after his kind," as is usually stated. For the effects of God can neither exist nor be conceived without their cause (Proposition 15 of this Part; Proposition 24 of this Part, Corollary). Second, that God cannot properly be called the remote cause of individual things, except to distinguish them from what he produces immediately, or rather from what follows from his absolute nature. For by a remote cause we understand a cause in no way joined to its effect; and all things that are, are in God, and depend on God so entirely that without him they can neither be nor be conceived.
Nothing in the universe is contingent; all things are determined by the necessity of the divine nature to exist and to act in a particular way.
Proof. Whatever is, is in God (Proposition 15 of this Part). But God cannot be called contingent, for (by Proposition 11 of this Part) he exists necessarily and not contingently. Further, the modes of the divine nature follow from it necessarily and not contingently (Proposition 16 of this Part); and they follow so whether we consider the divine nature absolutely or as in some way determined to act (Proposition 27 of this Part). Further, God is the cause of these modes not only insofar as they simply exist (by Proposition 24 of this Part, Corollary) but also insofar as they are considered as determined to act in a particular way (Proposition 26 of this Part). If they are not determined by God (Proposition 26 of this Part), it is impossible, and not contingent, that they should determine themselves; and if they are determined by God, it is impossible, and not contingent, that they should make themselves undetermined. Therefore all things are determined by the necessity of the divine nature, not only to exist but to exist and act in a particular way, and there is nothing contingent. Q.E.D.
Note. Before going further, I want to explain here what we should understand by nature viewed as active (natura naturans) and nature viewed as passive (natura naturata). I say explain, or rather call attention to it, for I think it is already clear enough from what has been said. By nature viewed as active we should understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself, or those attributes of substance which express eternal and infinite essence—in other words (Proposition 14 of this Part, Corollary 1; Proposition 17 of this Part, Corollary 2), God, insofar as he is considered as a free cause.
By nature viewed as passive I understand everything that follows from the necessity of God's nature, or of any of God's attributes: that is, all the modes of the attributes of God, insofar as they are considered as things which are in God and which without God can neither exist nor be conceived.
The intellect in act, whether finite or infinite, must comprehend the attributes of God and the modifications of God, and nothing else.
Proof. A true idea must agree with its object (Axiom 6 of this Part); in other words, obviously, whatever is contained in the intellect by representation must exist in nature. But in nature (by Proposition 14 of this Part, Corollary 1) there is no substance but God, nor any modifications but those (Proposition 15 of this Part) which are in God and can neither be nor be conceived without God. Therefore the intellect in act, whether finite or infinite, must comprehend the attributes of God and the modifications of God, and nothing else. Q.E.D.
The intellect in act, whether finite or infinite, along with will, desire, love and the rest, must be referred to nature viewed as passive, not to nature viewed as active.
Proof. By the intellect we do not, obviously, mean absolute thought, but only a particular mode of thinking, different from other modes such as love and desire, and therefore (Definition 5 of this Part) requiring to be conceived through absolute thought. It must (by Proposition 15 of this Part; Definition 6 of this Part) be conceived through some attribute of God which expresses the eternal and infinite essence of thought, in such a way that without that attribute it could neither be nor be conceived. It must therefore be referred to nature viewed as passive rather than to nature viewed as active, as must the other modes of thinking. Q.E.D.
Note. In speaking of the intellect in act I am not admitting that there is such a thing as intellect in potentiality. Wishing to avoid all confusion, I want to speak only of what we perceive most clearly, namely the very act of understanding, than which nothing is perceived more clearly. For we cannot perceive anything without at the same time adding to our knowledge of the act of understanding.
Will cannot be called a free cause, but only a necessary one.
Proof. Will is only a particular mode of thinking, like intellect; therefore (by Proposition 28 of this Part) no act of will can exist or be determined to act unless it is determined by some cause other than itself, and that cause by a third, and so on to infinity. And if will is supposed infinite, it must still be determined to exist and act by God—not by virtue of his being substance absolutely infinite, but by virtue of his possessing an attribute which expresses the infinite and eternal essence of thought (by Proposition 23 of this Part). So however it is conceived, whether as finite or as infinite, it requires a cause by which it is determined to exist and act. Therefore (Definition 7 of this Part) it cannot be called a free cause, but only a necessary or constrained one. Q.E.D.
Corollary 1. It follows, first, that God does not act from freedom of the will.
Corollary 2. It follows, second, that will and intellect stand in the same relation to the nature of God as motion and rest do, and as absolutely all natural phenomena do, which must be determined by God (Proposition 29 of this Part) to exist and act in a particular way. For will, like the rest, needs a cause by which it is determined to exist and act in a particular way. And although, once will or intellect is granted, an infinite number of results may follow, God cannot on that account be said to act from freedom of the will, any more than the infinite number of results that follow from motion and rest would justify us in saying that motion and rest act by free will. So will belongs to God no more than anything else in nature does; it stands in the same relation to him as motion, rest and the like, which we have shown to follow from the necessity of the divine nature and to be determined by it to exist and act in a particular way.
Things could not have been produced by God in any other way, or in any other order, than the way and order in which they have in fact been produced.
Proof. All things follow necessarily from the nature of God (Proposition 16 of this Part), and are determined by the nature of God to exist and act in a particular way (Proposition 29 of this Part). If, then, things could have had a different nature, or could have been determined to act in a different way, so that the order of nature would have been different, God's nature would also have been able to be different from what it now is; and therefore (by Proposition 11 of this Part) that different nature would also have had to exist, and consequently there could have been two or more Gods. That (by Proposition 14 of this Part, Corollary 1) is absurd. Therefore things could not have been produced by God in any other way, and so on. Q.E.D.
Note 1. Having thus shown, more clearly than the noonday sun, that there is nothing to justify our calling things contingent, I want to explain briefly what we should mean by the word contingent. But first I will explain the words necessary and impossible.
A thing is called necessary either in respect of its essence or in respect of its cause; for the existence of a thing follows necessarily either from its essence and definition or from a given efficient cause. And a thing is called impossible for the same sorts of reason: either because its essence or definition involves a contradiction, or because there is no external cause determined to produce such an effect. But a thing can be called contingent in no respect except in relation to a defect in our knowledge.
A thing whose essence we do not know to involve a contradiction or not, or which we know involves no contradiction but whose existence we are still in doubt about because the order of causes escapes us—such a thing, I say, can appear to us neither necessary nor impossible. So we call it contingent, or possible.
Note 2. It clearly follows from what has been said that things have been produced by God in the highest perfection, since they have followed necessarily from a most perfect nature. Nor does this prove any imperfection in God; on the contrary, it is his perfection that has compelled us to affirm it. From the contrary proposition it would clearly follow, as I have just shown, that God is not supremely perfect; for if things had been produced in any other way, we should have to assign God a nature different from the one we are bound to attribute to him when we consider an absolutely perfect being.
I do not doubt that many will dismiss this idea as absurd and refuse to give their minds to it, simply because they are used to assigning God a freedom very different from the one we (Definition 7 of this Part) have deduced. They assign him, in short, absolute free will. But I am also convinced that if such people reflect on the matter and weigh our chain of propositions properly, they will reject the freedom they now attribute to God, not merely as worthless but as a serious obstacle to organised knowledge. There is no need for me to repeat what I said in the note to Proposition 17 of this Part. But for my opponents' sake I will show further that even if it were granted that will belongs to the essence of God, it would still follow from his perfection that things could not have been created by him other than they are, or in a different order. This is easily proved if we reflect on what my opponents themselves concede: that it depends solely on the decree and will of God that each thing is what it is—for otherwise God would not be the cause of all things—and that all God's decrees have been ratified from all eternity by God himself, for otherwise God would be convicted of imperfection or change. But in eternity there is no when, no before and no after; and so it follows solely from the perfection of God that God never can decree, and never could have decreed, anything but what is, and that God did not exist before his decrees and would not exist without them. But it will be said that even supposing God had made a different universe, or had ordained different decrees from all eternity concerning nature and her order, we could not conclude any imperfection in God. Those who say this must admit that God can change his decrees. For if God had ordained decrees about nature and her order different from those he has ordained—in other words, if he had willed and conceived something different about nature—he would have had to have a different intellect from the one he has, and a different will. And if we may assign God a different intellect and a different will without any change in his essence or his perfection, what would prevent him from changing the decrees he has made about created things and remaining perfect all the same? For his intellect and will concerning created things and their order are the same in respect of his essence and perfection, however they are conceived.
Further, all the philosophers I have read admit that in God there is no potential intellect, only actual; and since they also admit that God's intellect, God's will and God's essence are identical, it follows that if God had had a different actual intellect and a different will, his essence too would have been different. And so, as I concluded at the start, if things had been produced by God in a different way from the way they have been, God's intellect and will—that is, as they admit, his essence—would have had to be different, which is absurd.
Since, then, things could not have been produced by God in any but the actual way and order in which they have been, and since the truth of this proposition follows from God's supreme perfection, we can have no sound reason for persuading ourselves that God did not wish to create everything that was in his intellect, and to create it in the same perfection in which he understood it.
But it will be said that there is in things no perfection and no imperfection; that what is in them, and makes them called perfect or imperfect, good or bad, depends solely on the will of God, and that if God had so willed he might have brought it about that what is now perfection should be the extreme of imperfection, and the other way round. But what is such a claim except an open declaration that God, who necessarily understands what he wills, might bring it about by his will that he should understand things differently from the way he does understand them? That, as we have just shown, is the height of absurdity. So I may turn the argument back on those who use it: all things depend on the power of God. For things to be different from what they are, God's will would have to be different. But God's will cannot be different, as we have just demonstrated very clearly, from God's perfection. Therefore neither can things be different. I confess that the theory which subjects all things to the will of an indifferent deity, and makes them all depend on his decree, is less far from the truth than the theory of those who hold that God acts in all things with a view to promoting what is good. For these last seem to set up something outside God, which does not depend on God, and which God looks to in acting as a model, or aims at as a definite goal. This is only another name for subjecting God to the rule of fate—an utter absurdity in the case of God, whom we have shown to be the first and only free cause both of the essence of all things and of their existence. I need spend no more time refuting such wild theories.
God's power is identical with his essence.
Proof. From the sole necessity of God's essence it follows that God is the cause of himself (Proposition 11 of this Part) and of all things (Proposition 16 of this Part, Corollary). Therefore the power of God, by which he and all things are and act, is identical with his essence. Q.E.D.
Whatever we conceive to be in God's power necessarily exists.
Proof. Whatever is in God's power must (by Proposition 34 of this Part) be comprehended in his essence in such a way that it necessarily follows from it, and therefore necessarily exists. Q.E.D.
There is nothing from whose nature some effect does not follow.
Proof. Whatever exists expresses God's nature or essence in a definite and determined way (by Proposition 25 of this Part, Corollary); that is (by Proposition 34 of this Part), whatever exists expresses in a definite and determined way God's power, which is the cause of all things. Therefore an effect must (by Proposition 16 of this Part) necessarily follow. Q.E.D.
In what has gone before I have explained the nature and properties of God: that he necessarily exists; that he is one; that he is and acts solely by the necessity of his own nature; that he is the free cause of all things, and in what way; that all things are in God and depend on him so completely that without him they could neither exist nor be conceived; and lastly that all things are predetermined by God, not by his free will or absolute decree, but by the very nature of God, that is, by his infinite power. I have also taken care, where the occasion offered, to clear away the prejudices that might stand in the way of my demonstrations. But a good many misconceptions remain, and they might well prove serious obstacles to understanding the chain of things as I have set it out. I have therefore thought it worth while to bring them before the bar of reason.
All such opinions spring from one notion, commonly held: that everything in nature acts as men do, with an end in view. It is taken for certain that God himself directs all things to a definite goal—for it is said that God made all things for man, and man that he might worship God. So I shall consider this opinion, asking first why it is so widely believed, and why men are naturally so ready to adopt it; second, I shall show that it is false; and last, I shall show how it has given rise to prejudices about good and bad, right and wrong, praise and blame, order and confusion, beauty and ugliness, and the like. This is not the place to derive those misconceptions from the nature of the human mind. It will be enough here if I take as my starting point what everyone ought to admit: that all men are born ignorant of the causes of things; that all have a desire to seek what is useful to them; and that they are conscious of that desire. From this it follows, first, that men think themselves free, because they are conscious of their volitions and desires and never even dream, in their ignorance, of the causes that have disposed them to want and desire as they do. Second, that men do everything for an end, namely for what is useful to them and what they seek. So it happens that they look only for knowledge of the final causes of events, and when they have learned those they are satisfied, having no further ground for doubt. If they cannot learn such causes from outside, they are driven to turn to themselves and ask what end would have induced them personally to bring the event about; and so they necessarily judge other natures by their own. Further, since they find, in themselves and outside themselves, many things that help them considerably in the search for what is useful—eyes for seeing, teeth for chewing, plants and animals for food, the sun for light, the sea for breeding fish, and so on—they come to look on the whole of nature as a means for obtaining such conveniences. And since they are aware that they found these conveniences and did not make them, they think they have grounds for believing that some other being made them for their use. Looking on things as means, they cannot believe them to be self-created; and judging from the means they are used to preparing for themselves, they are bound to believe in some ruler or rulers of the universe, endowed with human freedom, who have arranged and adapted everything for human use. Having no information about such rulers, they are bound to estimate their nature by their own; and so they assert that the gods ordained everything for man's use in order to bind man to themselves and receive the highest honour from him. Hence it also follows that each man devised for himself, according to his abilities, a different way of worshipping God, so that God might love him more than the rest and direct the whole course of nature to satisfy his blind greed and insatiable avarice. Thus the prejudice grew into superstition and took deep root in the human mind; and this is why everyone laboured so hard to understand and explain the final causes of things. But in trying to show that nature does nothing in vain—that is, nothing useless to man—they seem only to have demonstrated that nature, the gods and men are all mad together. Consider, I beg you, the result. Among nature's many helps they were bound to find some hindrances too—storms, earthquakes, diseases and the like—so they declared that these things happen because the gods are angry at some wrong done them by men, or some fault in their worship. Experience protested day after day, and showed by countless examples that good and bad fortune fall alike to the pious and the impious; but they would not give up their inveterate prejudice. It was easier for them to file such contradictions among the other unknown things whose use they were ignorant of, and so keep their present and inborn ignorance intact, than to pull down the whole fabric of their reasoning and start again. So they laid it down as an axiom that God's judgments far surpass human understanding. That doctrine alone might well have kept the truth hidden from the human race for ever, if mathematics had not offered another standard of truth—concerned solely with the essences and properties of figures, and taking no account of final causes. There are other reasons besides mathematics, which I need not go into here, that might have turned men's minds towards these general prejudices and led them to a knowledge of the truth.
I have now said enough on my first point. There is no need to show at length that nature has no particular goal in view, and that final causes are mere human fictions. This is clear enough already, both from the causes and foundations on which I have shown the prejudice to rest, and from Proposition 16 of this Part and the Corollary of Proposition 32 of this Part, and in fact from all the propositions in which I have shown that everything in nature proceeds by a kind of necessity and with the utmost perfection. But I will add a few remarks to overthrow the doctrine of final causes altogether. What is really a cause it takes for an effect, and the other way round; it makes what is by nature first come last, and what is highest and most perfect the most imperfect. Passing over the questions of cause and priority as self-evident, it is plain from Proposition 21 of this Part, Proposition 22 of this Part and Proposition 23 of this Part that the effect produced immediately by God is the most perfect, and that an effect requiring several intermediate causes for its production is to that extent more imperfect. But if the things made immediately by God were made to enable him to reach his end, then the things that come after, for whose sake the first were made, are necessarily the most excellent of all.
Further, this doctrine does away with the perfection of God. For if God acts for an object, he necessarily desires something he lacks. Theologians and metaphysicians do, it is true, draw a distinction between an object of want and an object of assimilation; but they still confess that God made all things for his own sake and not for the sake of what he created. And since they can point to nothing before the creation, other than God himself, as an object for which God should act, they are driven to admit—as they plainly must—that God lacked the things for whose attainment he created the means, and that he desired them.
We should not fail to notice that the followers of this doctrine, eager to display their ingenuity in assigning final causes, have brought in a new method of proof: a reduction not to the impossible but to ignorance—which shows that they have no other way of exhibiting their doctrine. Take an example. If a stone falls from a roof onto someone's head and kills him, they will demonstrate by their new method that the stone fell in order to kill the man; for if it had not fallen with that object by God's will, how could so many circumstances have come together by chance, as they often do? Perhaps you will answer that it happened because the wind was blowing and the man was walking that way. "But why," they will press, "was the wind blowing, and why was the man walking that way at that very moment?" If you answer again that the wind had got up because the sea had begun to be rough the day before, the weather having been calm until then, and that the man had been invited out by a friend, they will press again: "But why was the sea rough, and why was the man invited just then?" And so they will pursue their questions from cause to cause until at last you take refuge in the will of God—the sanctuary of ignorance. In the same way, when they contemplate the structure of the human body they are amazed; and being ignorant of the causes of so great a work of art, they conclude that it was fashioned not mechanically but by divine and supernatural skill, and so put together that no one part injures another.
So anyone who looks for the true causes of miracles, and who tries to understand natural things as an intelligent being rather than gape at them like a fool, is set down and denounced as an impious heretic by those whom the masses worship as the interpreters of nature and of the gods. Such people know that if ignorance were removed, the wonder that is their only means of proving and preserving their authority would vanish with it. But I leave this subject and pass on to my third point.
Once men had persuaded themselves that everything created is created for their sake, they were bound to regard as the chief quality in everything whatever was most useful to themselves, and to reckon those things best that had the most beneficial effect on mankind. They were bound, too, to form abstract notions to explain the nature of things—goodness, badness, order, confusion, warmth, cold, beauty, deformity and so on. And from the belief that they are free agents came the further notions of praise and blame, sin and merit.
I shall speak of the second group later, when I treat of human nature; the first I will explain briefly here.
Whatever conduces to health and to the worship of God they have called good, and whatever hinders these they have called bad. And since people who do not understand the nature of things verify nothing, but merely imagine things after a fashion and mistake their imagination for understanding, they firmly believe that there is an order in things—being really ignorant both of things and of their own nature. When things are such that the impression they make on our senses costs the imagination little effort, and so can easily be remembered, we say they are well ordered; when the opposite, we say they are ill ordered or confused. And since what is easily imagined is more pleasing to us, men prefer order to confusion, as though there were any order in nature except in relation to our imagination; and they say that God has created all things in order, thus attributing imagination to God without knowing it—unless indeed they would have it that God foresaw human imagination and arranged everything so as to be most easily imagined. If that is their theory, they will perhaps not be troubled by the fact that we find countless things far surpassing our imagination, and a great many more that confound its weakness. But enough of this. The other abstract notions are nothing but ways of imagining, in which the imagination is affected differently; and yet the ignorant take them for the chief attributes of things, since they believe everything was created for their own sake, and call a thing good or bad, healthy or rotten and corrupt, according as it affects them. For instance, if the motion that visible objects communicate to our nerves is good for our health, the objects causing it are called beautiful; if the motion excited is the contrary, they are called ugly.
Things perceived by our sense of smell are called fragrant or foul; by taste, sweet or bitter, full-flavoured or insipid; by touch, hard or soft, rough or smooth, and so on.
Whatever affects our ears is said to produce noise, sound or harmony. In this last case there are men mad enough to believe that God himself takes pleasure in harmony, and philosophers are not wanting who have persuaded themselves that the motion of the heavenly bodies produces harmony. All of which sufficiently shows that everyone judges of things according to the state of his brain, or rather mistakes the forms of his imagination for the things themselves. We need no longer wonder that all the controversies we have seen have arisen, and scepticism at the end of them. For although human bodies agree in many respects, they differ in a great many others; so that what seems good to one seems bad to another, what seems well ordered to one seems confused to another, what pleases one displeases another, and so on. I need not go on, both because this is not the place to treat the subject at length and because the fact is well enough known. Everyone says: "So many men, so many minds; everyone is wise in his own way; brains differ as completely as palates." All of which proverbs show that men judge of things according to the disposition of their minds, and imagine rather than understand. For if they understood things, they would be convinced by what I have urged, even if they were not attracted by it—as mathematics bears witness.
We have now seen that all the explanations commonly given of nature are mere ways of imagining, and indicate not the true nature of anything but only the constitution of the imagination. And although they have names, as though they were entities existing outside the imagination, I call them imaginary entities rather than real ones. So all the arguments brought against us from such abstractions are easily rebutted.
Many argue like this. If all things follow from the necessity of God's absolutely perfect nature, why are there so many imperfections in nature—things corrupted to the point of stinking, loathsome deformity, confusion, evil, sin and the rest? But such reasoners are, as I have said, easily refuted. The perfection of things is to be reckoned from their own nature and power alone; things are not more or less perfect according as they please or offend human senses, or according as they serve mankind or go against it. And to those who ask why God did not create all men so that they should be governed by reason alone, I give no answer but this: because he did not lack the material for creating every degree of perfection from the highest to the lowest; or, to speak more strictly, because the laws of his nature are so vast that they suffice for the production of everything an infinite intelligence can conceive, as I have shown in Proposition 16 of this Part.
These are the misconceptions I undertook to note here. If there are any more of the same kind, anyone can easily dispel them for himself with a little reflection.
I now pass on to explaining what must necessarily follow from the essence of God, the eternal and infinite being—not all of it (for we proved in Part 1, Proposition 16, that an infinite number must follow in an infinite number of ways), but only what can lead us, as if by the hand, to knowledge of the human mind and its highest blessedness.
1. By body I mean a mode which expresses in a definite and determined way the essence of God insofar as he is considered as an extended thing (see Part 1, Proposition 25, Corollary).
2. I consider as belonging to the essence of a thing that which, being given, the thing is necessarily given also, and which, being taken away, the thing is necessarily taken away also; in other words, that without which the thing can neither be nor be conceived, and which itself can neither be nor be conceived without the thing.
3. By idea I mean the conception which the mind forms because it is a thinking thing.
Explanation. I say conception rather than perception, because the word perception seems to imply that the mind is passive towards its object, whereas conception seems to express an activity of the mind.
4. By an adequate idea I mean an idea which, considered in itself and without reference to its object, has all the properties or intrinsic marks of a true idea.
Explanation. I say intrinsic in order to exclude the mark that is extrinsic, namely the agreement between the idea and its object (ideatum).
5. Duration is the indefinite continuance of existing.
Explanation. I say indefinite because it cannot be determined by the existence of the existing thing itself, nor by its efficient cause, which necessarily gives the thing its existence but does not take it away.
6. Reality and perfection I use as meaning the same thing.
7. By particular things I mean things that are finite and have a determined existence. But if several individual things work together in one action, so as to be all at once the effect of one cause, I consider them all, so far, as one particular thing.
1. The essence of man does not involve necessary existence; that is, in the order of nature it may come about that this or that man exists, or does not exist.
2. Man thinks.
3. Modes of thinking, such as love and desire and the other passions, do not occur unless there is in the same individual an idea of the thing loved, desired, and so on. But an idea can exist without any other mode of thinking being present.
4. We perceive that a certain body is affected in many ways.
5. We feel and perceive no particular things except bodies and modes of thought.
Note. The Postulates are given after the conclusion of Proposition 13 of this Part.
Thought is an attribute of God, or God is a thinking thing.
Proof. Particular thoughts, this thought and that, are modes which express the nature of God in a definite and determined way (Part 1, Proposition 25, Corollary). God therefore possesses the attribute (Part 1, Definition 5) whose concept is involved in all particular thoughts, and through which they are conceived. Thought, then, is one of the infinite attributes of God which express God's eternal and infinite essence (Part 1, Definition 6). In other words, God is a thinking thing. Q.E.D.
Note. This proposition is also evident from the fact that we can conceive an infinite thinking being. For the more thoughts a thinking being is conceived as thinking, the more reality or perfection it is conceived as containing. Therefore a being which can think an infinite number of things in an infinite number of ways is, in respect of thinking, necessarily infinite. Since, then, from the consideration of thought alone we conceive an infinite being, thought is necessarily (Part 1, Definition 4; Part 1, Definition 6) one of the infinite attributes of God, which is what we wanted to show.
Extension is an attribute of God, or God is an extended thing.
Proof. The proof of this proposition is like that of the last.
In God there is necessarily the idea not only of his essence but also of everything that necessarily follows from his essence.
Proof. God (by Proposition 1 of this Part) can think an infinite number of things in infinite ways, or (what is the same thing, by Part 1, Proposition 16) can form the idea of his essence and of everything that necessarily follows from it. Now everything that is in God's power necessarily is (Part 1, Proposition 35). Therefore such an idea as we are considering necessarily is, and is in God alone (Part 1, Proposition 15). Q.E.D.
Note. Most people understand by the power of God the free will of God, and his right over everything that exists—which is why all existing things are generally reckoned contingent. For it is said that God has the power to destroy everything and reduce it to nothing. And the power of God is very often compared to the power of kings. But we have refuted this doctrine (Part 1, Proposition 32, Corollary 1; Part 1, Proposition 2), and we have shown (Part 1, Proposition 16) that God acts by the same necessity by which he understands himself: in other words, just as it follows from the necessity of the divine nature, as everyone admits, that God understands himself, so by the same necessity it follows that God performs infinite acts in infinite ways. We further showed (Part 1, Proposition 34) that God's power is identical with God's essence in action; so it is as impossible for us to conceive God as not acting as to conceive him as not existing. If I were to pursue the subject, I could point out that the power commonly attributed to God is not only human—showing that God is conceived by most people as a man, or in the likeness of a man—but actually involves a negation of power. But I am unwilling to go over the same ground so often. I only beg the reader, again and again, to turn over in his mind what I said in Part One from Proposition 16 of this Part to the end. No one will be able to follow my meaning unless he is scrupulously careful not to confuse the power of God with the human power and right of kings.
The idea of God, from which an infinite number of things follow in infinite ways, can only be one.
Proof. Infinite intellect comprehends nothing but the attributes of God and his modifications (Part 1, Proposition 30). Now God is one (Part 1, Proposition 14, Corollary). Therefore the idea of God, from which an infinite number of things follow in infinite ways, can only be one. Q.E.D.
The actual being of ideas has God for its cause only insofar as he is considered as a thinking thing, and not insofar as he is unfolded in any other attribute. That is, the ideas both of the attributes of God and of particular things have for their efficient cause not their objects (ideata), the things perceived, but God himself insofar as he is a thinking thing.
Proof. This proposition is evident from Proposition 3 of this Part. We there drew the conclusion that God can form the idea of his essence, and of everything that necessarily follows from it, solely because he is a thinking thing, and not because he is the object of his own idea. So the actual being of ideas has God for its cause insofar as he is a thinking thing. It may also be proved differently. The actual being of ideas is, obviously, a mode of thought—that is (Part 1, Proposition 25, Corollary), a mode which expresses the nature of God in a certain way insofar as he is a thinking thing—and therefore (Part 1, Proposition 10) involves the conception of no other attribute of God, and consequently (by Part 1, Axiom 4) is not the effect of any attribute but thought. Therefore the actual being of ideas has God for its cause insofar as he is considered as a thinking thing, and so on. Q.E.D.
The modes of any given attribute are caused by God insofar as he is considered through the attribute of which they are modes, and not insofar as he is considered through any other attribute.
Proof. Each attribute is conceived through itself, without any other (Part 1, Proposition 10), so the modes of each attribute involve the conception of that attribute and of no other. Thus (Part 1, Axiom 4) they are caused by God only insofar as he is considered through the attribute whose modes they are, and not insofar as he is considered through any other. Q.E.D.
Corollary. Hence the actual being of things which are not modes of thought does not follow from the divine nature because that nature has prior knowledge of the things. Things represented in ideas follow, and are derived from, their own attribute in the same way and by the same necessity as ideas follow, on our showing, from the attribute of thought.
The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.
Proof. This proposition is evident from Part 1, Axiom 4. For the idea of anything caused depends on knowledge of the cause of which it is an effect.
Corollary. Hence God's power of thinking is equal to his realised power of acting: that is, whatever follows from the infinite nature of God in the world of extension (formaliter) follows without exception, in the same order and connection, from the idea of God in the world of thought (objective).
Note. Before going any further, I want to recall what has been pointed out above: that whatever can be perceived by an infinite intellect as constituting the essence of substance belongs altogether to one substance only. Consequently thinking substance and extended substance are one and the same substance, comprehended now through one attribute and now through the other. So too a mode of extension and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing, expressed in two ways. This truth seems to have been dimly recognised by those Jews who held that God, God's intellect, and the things understood by God are identical. A circle existing in nature, for instance, and the idea of that circle, which is also in God, are one and the same thing displayed through different attributes. And so, whether we conceive nature under the attribute of extension, or under the attribute of thought, or under any other attribute, we shall find the same order, one and the same chain of causes—that is, the same things following in either case.
I said that God is the cause of an idea—of the idea of a circle, for instance—insofar as he is a thinking thing, and the cause of the circle insofar as he is an extended thing, simply because the actual being of the idea of a circle can only be perceived as having for its proximate cause another mode of thinking, and that another, and so on to infinity. So as long as we consider things as modes of thinking, we must explain the order of the whole of nature, the whole chain of causes, through the attribute of thought alone; and insofar as we consider things as modes of extension, we must explain the order of the whole of nature through the attribute of extension alone; and so with the other attributes. Therefore of things as they are in themselves God is really the cause, since he consists of infinite attributes. For the present I cannot explain my meaning more clearly.
The ideas of particular things, or of modes, that do not exist must be comprehended in the infinite idea of God in the same way as the formal essences of particular things or modes are contained in the attributes of God.
Proof. This proposition is evident from the last; it is understood more clearly from the note before it.
Corollary. Hence, so long as particular things do not exist except insofar as they are comprehended in the attributes of God, their representations in thought, that is their ideas, do not exist except insofar as the infinite idea of God exists. And when particular things are said to exist not only insofar as they are involved in the attributes of God but also insofar as they are said to endure, their ideas will also involve the existence through which they are said to endure.
Note. If anyone wants an example to throw more light on this, I am afraid I cannot give one that adequately explains what I am speaking of here, since it is unique; but I will try to illustrate it as far as I can. The nature of a circle is such that if any number of straight lines intersect within it, the rectangles formed by their segments will be equal to one another; so an infinite number of equal rectangles are contained in a circle. Yet none of these rectangles can be said to exist except insofar as the circle exists, nor can the idea of any of them be said to exist except insofar as it is comprehended in the idea of the circle. Now suppose that of this infinite number of rectangles two only exist. The ideas of those two exist not only insofar as they are contained in the idea of the circle, but also as involving the existence of those rectangles; and that is what distinguishes them from the ideas of the remaining rectangles.
The idea of an individual thing actually existing is caused by God not insofar as he is infinite, but insofar as he is considered as affected by another idea of a thing actually existing, of which he is the cause insofar as he is affected by a third idea, and so on to infinity.
Proof. The idea of an individual thing actually existing is an individual mode of thinking, and is distinct from other modes (by Proposition 8 of this Part, Corollary, Note); so (by Proposition 6 of this Part) it is caused by God only insofar as he is a thinking thing. But not (by Part 1, Proposition 28) insofar as he is a thing thinking absolutely: only insofar as he is considered as affected by another mode of thinking; and he is the cause of this second one as being affected by a third, and so on to infinity. Now the order and connection of ideas is (by Proposition 7 of this Part) the same as the order and connection of causes. Therefore the cause of a given individual idea is another individual idea, or God insofar as he is considered as modified by that idea; and of this second idea God is the cause insofar as he is affected by another idea, and so on to infinity. Q.E.D.
Corollary. Whatever takes place in the individual object of any idea, the knowledge of it is in God only insofar as he has the idea of that object.
Proof. Whatever takes place in the object of any idea, the idea of it is in God (by Proposition 3 of this Part), not insofar as he is infinite but insofar as he is considered as affected by another idea of an individual thing (by Proposition 8 of this Part); and (by Proposition 7 of this Part) the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things. Therefore the knowledge of what takes place in any individual object will be in God only insofar as he has the idea of that object. Q.E.D.
The being of substance does not belong to the essence of man; in other words, substance does not constitute the actual being of man.
Footnote: "Forma"
Proof. The being of substance involves necessary existence (Part 1, Proposition 7). If, therefore, the being of substance belonged to the essence of man, then substance being given, man would necessarily be given also (Definition 2 of this Part), and consequently man would necessarily exist, which is absurd (Axiom 1 of this Part). Therefore, and so on. Q.E.D.
Note. This proposition may also be proved from Part 1, Proposition 5, where it is shown that there cannot be two substances of the same nature; for since there can be many men, the being of substance is not what constitutes the actual being of man. The proposition is evident, too, from the other properties of substance—that substance is by nature infinite, unchangeable, indivisible, and so on—as anyone may see for himself.
Corollary. It follows that the essence of man is constituted by certain modifications of the attributes of God. For (by Proposition 10 of this Part) the being of substance does not belong to the essence of man. That essence, therefore (by Proposition 1 of this Part; Proposition 15 of this Part), is something which is in God, and which without God can neither be nor be conceived, whether it is a modification (Proposition 1 of this Part; Proposition 25 of this Part, Corollary) or a mode which expresses God's nature in a definite and determined way.
Note. Everyone must surely admit that nothing can be or be conceived without God. All agree that God is the one and only cause of all things, both of their essence and of their existence; that is, God is the cause of things not only in respect of their coming to be (secundum fieri) but also in respect of their being (secundum esse).
At the same time many assert that whatever a thing cannot be or be conceived without belongs to the essence of that thing; so they believe either that the nature of God belongs to the essence of created things, or that created things can be or be conceived without God—or, as is more likely, they hold inconsistent doctrines. The cause of such confusion is, I think, mainly that they do not keep to the proper order of philosophical thinking. The nature of God, which should be reflected on first, since it is prior both in the order of knowledge and in the order of nature, they have taken to be last in the order of knowledge, and have put first what they call the objects of sense. So while they are considering natural things they pay no attention at all to the divine nature; and when they afterwards turn their minds to studying the divine nature they cannot keep in view the first hypotheses with which they overlaid their knowledge of natural things, since those hypotheses are no help towards understanding the divine nature. It is hardly surprising, then, that such people contradict themselves freely.
But I pass over this. My only intention here was to give a reason for not saying that whatever a thing cannot be or be conceived without belongs to the essence of that thing. Individual things can neither be nor be conceived without God, and yet God does not belong to their essence. I said that "I consider as belonging to the essence of a thing that which, being given, the thing is necessarily given also, and which, being taken away, the thing is necessarily taken away also; or that without which the thing can neither be nor be conceived, and which itself can neither be nor be conceived without the thing" (Definition 2 of this Part).
The first element constituting the actual being of the human mind is the idea of some particular thing actually existing.
Proof. The essence of man (by Proposition 10 of this Part) is constituted by certain modes of the attributes of God, namely (by Axiom 2 of this Part) by modes of thinking, among all of which (by Axiom 3 of this Part) the idea is prior in nature; and when the idea is given, the other modes—those the idea is prior to—must be in the same individual (by Part 2, Axiom 3). Therefore an idea is the first element constituting the human mind. But not the idea of a non-existent thing, for then (Proposition 8 of this Part, Corollary) the idea itself could not be said to exist. It must therefore be the idea of something actually existing. But not of an infinite thing, for an infinite thing (Part 1, Proposition 21; Part 1, Proposition 22) must always necessarily exist, and this would (by Axiom 1 of this Part) be absurd. Therefore the first element constituting the actual being of the human mind is the idea of something actually existing. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that the human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God. So when we say that the human mind perceives this or that, we are saying that God has this or that idea—not insofar as he is infinite, but insofar as he is displayed through the nature of the human mind, or insofar as he constitutes the essence of the human mind. And when we say that God has this or that idea not only insofar as he constitutes the essence of the human mind but also insofar as he has, along with the human mind, the idea of another thing as well, then we are saying that the human mind perceives a thing partly, or inadequately.
Note. Here, I do not doubt, readers will come to a halt, and think of many things that will make them hesitate. I therefore beg them to go with me slowly, step by step, and to pass no judgment on what I say until they have read to the end.
Whatever takes place in the object of the idea constituting the human mind must be perceived by the human mind; that is, there will necessarily be an idea of it in the human mind. In other words, if the object of the idea constituting the human mind is a body, nothing can take place in that body without being perceived by the mind.
Proof. Whatever takes place in the object of any idea, the knowledge of it is necessarily in God (Proposition 9 of this Part, Corollary) insofar as he is considered as affected by the idea of that object—that is (Proposition 11 of this Part), insofar as he constitutes the mind of something. Therefore whatever takes place in the object constituting the idea of the human mind, the knowledge of it is necessarily in God insofar as he constitutes the essence of the human mind; that is (by Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary), the knowledge of that thing will necessarily be in the mind—in other words, the mind perceives it.
Note. This proposition is also evident, and is more clearly understood, from Proposition 7 of this Part, which see.
The object of the idea constituting the human mind is the body—that is, a certain mode of extension actually existing, and nothing else.
Proof. If the body were not the object of the human mind, the ideas of the modifications of the body would not be in God (Proposition 9 of this Part, Corollary) in virtue of his constituting our mind, but in virtue of his constituting the mind of something else; that is (Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary), the ideas of the modifications of the body would not be in our mind. But (by Axiom 4 of this Part) we do have the idea of the modifications of the body. Therefore the object of the idea constituting the human mind is the body, and the body as it actually exists (Proposition 11 of this Part). Further, if there were any other object of the idea constituting the mind besides the body, then, since nothing can exist from which some effect does not follow (Part 1, Proposition 36), there would necessarily have to be in our mind an idea which was the effect of that other object (Proposition 11 of this Part); but (Part 1, Axiom 5) there is no such idea. Therefore the object of our mind is the body as it exists, and nothing else. Q.E.D.
Note. We thus understand not only that the human mind is united to the body, but also what the union of mind and body consists in. Nobody, however, will be able to grasp it adequately or distinctly without first having adequate knowledge of the nature of our body. The propositions we have advanced so far have been entirely general, applying no more to men than to other individual things, all of which are animated, though in different degrees. For of everything there is necessarily an idea in God, of which God is the cause in just the same way as he is of the idea of the human body; so whatever we have asserted of the idea of the human body must necessarily be asserted of the idea of everything else. Yet on the other hand we cannot deny that ideas differ from one another as their objects do, one being more excellent than another and containing more reality, just as the object of one idea is more excellent than the object of another and contains more reality.
Footnote: "Animata"
So in order to determine what makes the human mind differ from other things, and in what it surpasses them, we need to know the nature of its object, that is, of the human body. What that nature is I cannot explain here, nor is it necessary for the proof of what I am advancing. I will only say in general that the more a given body is fitted, beyond others, for doing many things at once or undergoing many impressions at once, the more its mind is fitted, beyond others, for forming many perceptions at once; and the more the actions of a body depend on itself alone, and the fewer other bodies take part with it in acting, the more its mind is fitted for distinct understanding. We can thus recognise the superiority of one mind over another, and can further see why we have only a very confused knowledge of our own body, along with many related questions which I shall deduce in the following propositions from what has been said. It is therefore worth explaining and proving my present statements more strictly, and to do that I must first lay down a few propositions about the nature of bodies.
1. All bodies are either in motion or at rest.
2. Every body moves sometimes more slowly, sometimes more quickly.
Bodies are distinguished from one another in respect of motion and rest, quickness and slowness, and not in respect of substance.
Proof. The first part of this I take to be self-evident. That bodies are not distinguished in respect of substance is plain both from Part 1, Proposition 5 and from Part 1, Proposition 8. It comes out still more clearly from Part 1, Proposition 15, Note.
All bodies agree in certain respects.
Proof. All bodies agree in involving the conception of one and the same attribute (Definition 1 of this Part), and in being capable of moving more slowly or more quickly, and of being absolutely in motion or at rest.
A body in motion or at rest must be determined to motion or rest by another body, and that other body has been determined to motion or rest by a third, and that third by a fourth, and so on to infinity.
Proof. Bodies are individual things (Definition 1 of this Part) which (Lemma 1 of this Part) are distinguished from one another in respect of motion and rest; so (Part 1, Proposition 28) each must necessarily be determined to motion or rest by another individual thing, namely (Proposition 6 of this Part) by another body, which other body is also (Axiom 1 of this Part) in motion or at rest. And this body in turn can only have been set in motion or brought to rest by being determined to motion or rest by a third body; and that third by a fourth, and so on to infinity. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that a body in motion keeps moving until it is determined to rest by some other body, and a body at rest stays at rest until it is determined to motion by some other body. This is indeed self-evident. For when I suppose, say, that a body A is at rest, and take no account of other bodies in motion, I can affirm nothing about A except that it is at rest. If it afterwards comes about that A is in motion, that cannot have resulted from its having been at rest, since nothing could follow from that but its remaining at rest. If on the other hand A is given as in motion, then so long as we consider A alone we shall be unable to affirm anything about it except that it is in motion. If A is later found to be at rest, that rest cannot be the result of A's previous motion, since motion can only have led to continued motion; the state of rest must therefore have resulted from something that was not in A, namely from an external cause determining A to rest.
Axiom 1. All the ways in which one body is affected by another follow at once from the nature of the body affected and the nature of the body affecting; so that one and the same body may be moved in different ways according to the difference in the nature of the bodies moving it, and different bodies may be moved in different ways by one and the same body.
Axiom 2. When a body in motion strikes another body at rest which it cannot move, it rebounds so as to continue its motion, and the angle made by the line of the rebound with the plane of the body at rest will be equal to the angle made by the line of incidence with the same plane.
So far we have been speaking only of the simplest bodies, which are distinguished from one another only by motion and rest, quickness and slowness. We now pass on to compound bodies.
Definition. When a number of bodies, of the same or different size, are pressed together by other bodies so that they remain in contact, or if they move at the same or different speeds in such a way that they keep a fixed relation of movement among themselves, we say that those bodies are in union, and that together they compose one body, or individual, which is distinguished from other bodies by this union.
Axiom 3. According as the parts of an individual, or compound body, are in contact over a greater or smaller surface, they will be moved from their position with greater or less difficulty; and consequently the individual will be brought to take another form with greater or less difficulty. Bodies whose parts are in contact over large surfaces are called hard; those whose parts are in contact over small surfaces, soft; those whose parts are in motion among one another, fluid.
If certain bodies are separated from a body, or individual, composed of several bodies, and at the same time an equal number of other bodies of the same nature take their place, the individual will keep its nature as before, without any change in its actuality (forma).
Proof. Bodies (Lemma 1 of this Part) are not distinguished in respect of substance; what constitutes the actuality (formam) of an individual consists (by the Definition before Lemma 4) in a union of bodies; and this union, though there is a continual exchange of bodies, will by our hypothesis be maintained. The individual, therefore, will keep its nature as before, both in respect of substance and in respect of mode. Q.E.D.
If the parts composing an individual grow greater or smaller, but in such proportion that they all keep the same mutual relations of motion and rest, the individual will still keep its original nature, and its actuality will not be changed.
Proof. The same as for the last Lemma.
If certain bodies composing an individual are made to change the motion they have in one direction for motion in another, but in such a way that they can continue their motions and keep the same mutual relations as before, the individual will keep its own nature without any change of its actuality.
Proof. This proposition is self-evident, for the individual is supposed to keep everything that we spoke of in its definition as its actual being.
Furthermore, the individual so composed keeps its nature whether it is moving as a whole or at rest, and whether it moves in this direction or that, so long as each part keeps its own motion and preserves its communication with the other parts as before.
Proof. This proposition is evident from the definition of an individual prefixed to Lemma 4 of this Part.
Note. We thus see how a composite individual may be affected in many different ways and yet preserve its nature. So far we have conceived an individual as composed of bodies distinguished from one another only in respect of motion and rest, speed and slowness—that is, of bodies of the simplest kind. If we now conceive another individual composed of several individuals of different natures, we shall find that the number of ways in which it can be affected without losing its nature is greatly multiplied. Each of its parts would consist of several bodies, and therefore (by Lemma 6 of this Part) each part would admit, without any change of its nature, of quicker or slower motion, and would consequently be able to transmit its motions to the remaining parts more quickly or more slowly. And if we further conceive a third kind of individual, composed of individuals of this second kind, we shall find that it can be affected in a still greater number of ways without any change in its actuality. We may easily go on in this way to infinity, and conceive the whole of nature as one individual whose parts—that is, all bodies—vary in infinite ways without any change in the individual as a whole. I should feel bound to explain and demonstrate this at greater length if I were writing a treatise on body. But I have already said that this is not my object; I have touched on the question only because it lets me prove easily what I have in view.
1. The human body is composed of a number of individual parts, of different natures, each of which is in itself extremely complex.
2. Of the individual parts composing the human body, some are fluid, some soft, some hard.
3. The individual parts composing the human body, and consequently the human body itself, are affected in a great variety of ways by external bodies.
4. The human body needs, for its preservation, a great many other bodies by which it is, so to speak, continually regenerated.
5. When a fluid part of the human body is determined by an external body to strike often against a soft part, it changes the surface of that soft part, and leaves on it, as it were, the impression of the external body that drives it.
6. The human body can move external bodies, and arrange them in a variety of ways.
The human mind is capable of perceiving a great many things, and is so in proportion as its body is capable of receiving a great many impressions.
Proof. The human body (by Postulate 3 of this Part; Postulate 6 of this Part) is affected in very many ways by external bodies, and is capable of affecting external bodies in very many ways. But (Proposition 12 of this Part) the human mind must perceive everything that takes place in the human body. The human mind is therefore capable of perceiving a great many things, and is so in proportion, and so on. Q.E.D.
The idea constituting the actual being of the human mind is not simple, but composed of a great many ideas.
Proof. The idea constituting the actual being of the human mind is the idea of the body (Proposition 13 of this Part), which (Postulate 1 of this Part) is composed of a great many complex individual parts. But there is necessarily in God the idea of each individual part of which the body is composed (Proposition 8 of this Part, Corollary); therefore (Proposition 7 of this Part) the idea of the human body is composed of these many ideas of its component parts. Q.E.D.
The idea of every way in which the human body is affected by external bodies must involve the nature of the human body and also the nature of the external body.
Proof. All the ways in which any given body is affected follow from the nature of the body affected and also from the nature of the body affecting it (by Axiom 1, after the Corollary to Lemma 3), so their idea also necessarily (by Part 1, Axiom 4) involves the nature of both bodies. Therefore the idea of every way in which the human body is affected by external bodies involves the nature of the human body and of the external body. Q.E.D.
Corollary 1. It follows, first, that the human mind perceives the nature of a great many bodies along with the nature of its own.
Corollary 2. It follows, second, that the ideas we have of external bodies indicate the constitution of our own body rather than the nature of the external bodies. I have illustrated this at length in the Appendix to Part One.
If the human body is affected in a way that involves the nature of some external body, the human mind will regard that external body as actually existing, or as present to itself, until the human body is affected in a way that excludes the existence or presence of that external body.
Proof. This proposition is self-evident. For as long as the human body continues to be so affected, so long will the human mind (Proposition 12 of this Part) regard this modification of the body—that is (by Proposition 16 of this Part), it will have the idea of the mode as actually existing, and this idea involves the nature of the external body. In other words, it will have an idea that does not exclude but posits the existence or presence of the nature of the external body. Therefore the mind (by Proposition 16 of this Part, Corollary 1) will regard the external body as actually existing, until it is affected, and so on. Q.E.D.
Corollary. The mind is able to regard as present those external bodies by which the human body has once been affected, even though they no longer exist or are not present.
Proof. When external bodies so determine the fluid parts of the human body that they often strike against the softer parts, they change the surface of the softer parts (Postulate 5 of this Part); hence (Axiom 2, after the Corollary to Lemma 3) the fluid parts rebound from them differently than they did before that change. And afterwards, when they strike the new surfaces by their own spontaneous motion, they will rebound in the same way as when they were driven against those surfaces by external bodies. Consequently, so long as they go on rebounding in that way, they will affect the human body in the same way, and the mind (Proposition 12 of this Part) will again take note of it—that is (Proposition 17 of this Part), the mind will again regard the external body as present, and will do so as often as the fluid parts of the human body strike those surfaces by their own spontaneous motion. So although the external bodies by which the human body was once affected no longer exist, the mind will nevertheless regard them as present as often as this action of the body is repeated. Q.E.D.
Note. We thus see how it comes about, as often happens, that we regard as present many things that are not. It is possible that the same result may come about by other causes; but I think it is enough here to have indicated one possible explanation, as good as if I had pointed out the true cause. Indeed I do not think I am far from the truth, since all my assumptions rest on postulates that are based, almost without exception, on experience—experience that cannot be disputed by those who have shown, as we have, that the human body exists as we feel it (Proposition 13 of this Part, Corollary). Furthermore (Proposition 7 of this Part, Corollary; Proposition 16 of this Part, Corollary 2), we clearly understand the difference between, say, the idea of Peter that constitutes the essence of Peter's mind, and the idea of that same Peter which is in another man, say Paul. The first answers directly to the essence of Peter's own body, and implies existence only so long as Peter exists. The second indicates the disposition of Paul's body rather than the nature of Peter; and so, while that disposition of Paul's body lasts, Paul's mind will regard Peter as present to itself, even though Peter no longer exists. Further, to keep the usual terms, we will call the modifications of the human body whose ideas represent external bodies to us as present the images of things, though they do not reproduce the shapes of things. And when the mind regards bodies in this way, we say that it imagines. I want to draw attention here, in order to indicate where error lies, to the fact that the imaginations of the mind, looked at in themselves, contain no error. The mind does not err simply by imagining; it errs only insofar as it is considered to be without the idea that excludes the existence of the things it imagines to be present to it. If the mind, while imagining non-existent things as present to it, is at the same time aware that they do not really exist, this power of imagining must be set down to the strength of its nature and not to a fault—especially if this power of imagining depends on its own nature alone, that is (Part 1, Definition 7), if it is free.
If the human body has once been affected by two or more bodies at the same time, then when the mind afterwards imagines one of them it will at once remember the others too.
Proof. The mind (Proposition 17 of this Part, Corollary) imagines a given body because the human body is affected and disposed by the impressions of an external body in the same way as it was affected when certain of its parts were acted on by that external body. But by our hypothesis the body was then so disposed that the mind imagined two bodies at once; therefore it will in the second case also imagine two at once, and the mind, when it imagines one, will at once remember the other. Q.E.D.
Note. We now clearly see what memory is. It is simply a certain linking of ideas involving the nature of things outside the human body, a linking that occurs in the mind according to the order and linking of the modifications of the human body. I say, first, a linking of those ideas only which involve the nature of things outside the human body, not of ideas that express the nature of those things; for ideas of the modifications of the human body are, strictly speaking (Proposition 16 of this Part), ideas that involve the nature both of the human body and of external bodies. I say, second, that this linking occurs according to the order and linking of the modifications of the human body, in order to distinguish it from the linking of ideas that follows the order of the intellect, by which the mind perceives things through their first causes, and which is the same in all men. And from this we can further understand clearly why the mind should pass at once from the thought of one thing to the thought of another that has no likeness to it. For instance, a Roman would pass at once from the thought of the word pomum to the thought of the fruit, an apple, which has no likeness to that articulate sound and nothing in common with it, except that the man's body has often been affected by the two together—that is, the man has often heard the word pomum while looking at the fruit. In the same way every man will pass from one thought to another according as habit has arranged the images of things in his body. A soldier, for instance, seeing the tracks of a horse in sand, will pass at once from the thought of a horse to the thought of a horseman, and from that to the thought of war; while a countryman will pass from the thought of a horse to the thought of a plough, a field, and so on. Thus every man will follow one train of thought or another according as he has been in the habit of joining and linking the images of things in this way or that.
The human mind has no knowledge of the body, and does not know that it exists, except through the ideas of the modifications by which the body is affected.
Proof. The human mind is the very idea, or knowledge, of the human body (Proposition 13 of this Part), which (Proposition 9 of this Part) is in God insofar as he is regarded as affected by another idea of a particular thing actually existing—since (Postulate 4 of this Part) the human body needs a great many bodies by which it is, as it were, continually regenerated, and the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of causes (Proposition 7 of this Part). This idea will therefore be in God insofar as he is regarded as affected by the ideas of a great many particular things. Thus God has the idea of the human body, or knows the human body, insofar as he is affected by a great many other ideas, and not insofar as he constitutes the nature of the human mind; that is (by Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary), the human mind does not know the human body. But the ideas of the modifications of the body are in God insofar as he constitutes the nature of the human mind, that is, the human mind perceives those modifications (Proposition 12 of this Part), and consequently (Proposition 16 of this Part) perceives the human body itself, and as actually existing. So the mind perceives the human body only to that extent. Q.E.D.
The idea, or knowledge, of the human mind is also in God, following in God in the same way, and being referred to God in the same way, as the idea or knowledge of the human body.
Proof. Thought is an attribute of God (Proposition 1 of this Part); therefore (Proposition 3 of this Part) there must necessarily be in God the idea both of thought itself and of all its modifications, and consequently of the human mind as well (Proposition 11 of this Part). Further, this idea or knowledge of the mind does not follow from God insofar as he is infinite, but insofar as he is affected by another idea of an individual thing (Proposition 9 of this Part). But (Proposition 7 of this Part) the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of causes; therefore this idea or knowledge of the mind is in God, and is referred to God, in the same way as the idea or knowledge of the body. Q.E.D.
This idea of the mind is united to the mind in the same way as the mind is united to the body.
Proof. That the mind is united to the body we have shown from the fact that the body is the object of the mind (Proposition 12 of this Part; Proposition 13 of this Part); and so, for the same reason, the idea of the mind must be united with its object, that is, with the mind, in the same way as the mind is united to the body. Q.E.D.
Note. This proposition is understood much more clearly from what we said in the note to Proposition 7 of this Part. We there showed that the idea of the body and the body itself—that is, mind and body (Proposition 13 of this Part)—are one and the same individual, conceived now under the attribute of thought and now under the attribute of extension. So the idea of the mind and the mind itself are one and the same thing, conceived under one and the same attribute, namely thought. The idea of the mind, I repeat, and the mind itself are in God by the same necessity, and follow from him by the same power of thinking. Strictly speaking, the idea of the mind—that is, the idea of an idea—is nothing but the distinctive character (forma) of the idea insofar as it is conceived as a mode of thought without reference to its object. If a man knows anything, he by that very fact knows that he knows it, and at the same time knows that he knows that he knows it, and so on to infinity. But I will treat of this later.
The human mind perceives not only the modifications of the body but also the ideas of those modifications.
Proof. The ideas of the ideas of modifications follow in God in the same way, and are referred to God in the same way, as the ideas of those modifications; this is proved just as Proposition 20 of this Part was. But the ideas of the modifications of the body are in the human mind (Proposition 12 of this Part), that is, in God insofar as he constitutes the essence of the human mind; therefore the ideas of these ideas will be in God insofar as he has the knowledge, or idea, of the human mind—that is (Proposition 21 of this Part), they will be in the human mind itself, which therefore perceives not only the modifications of the body but also the ideas of those modifications. Q.E.D.
The mind does not know itself except insofar as it perceives the ideas of the modifications of the body.
Proof. The idea, or knowledge, of the mind (Proposition 20 of this Part) follows in God in the same way, and is referred to God in the same way, as the idea or knowledge of the body. But since (Proposition 19 of this Part) the human mind does not know the human body itself, that is (Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary), since the knowledge of the human body is not referred to God insofar as he constitutes the nature of the human mind, neither is the knowledge of the mind referred to God insofar as he constitutes the essence of the human mind. Therefore (by Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary) the human mind, so far, has no knowledge of itself. Further, the ideas of the modifications by which the body is affected involve the nature of the human body itself (Proposition 16 of this Part), that is (Proposition 13 of this Part), they agree with the nature of the mind; so the knowledge of these ideas necessarily involves knowledge of the mind. But (by Proposition 22 of this Part) the knowledge of these ideas is in the human mind itself; so the human mind, so far and no further, has knowledge of itself. Q.E.D.
The human mind does not involve an adequate knowledge of the parts composing the human body.
Proof. The parts composing the human body do not belong to the essence of that body except insofar as they communicate their motions to one another in a certain fixed relation (the Definition after Lemma 3), and not insofar as they can be regarded as individuals without reference to the human body. The parts of the human body are highly complex individuals (Postulate 1 of this Part), whose parts (Lemma 4 of this Part) can be separated from the human body without destroying its nature or distinctive character in any way, and can communicate their motions (Axiom 1, after Lemma 3) to other bodies in another relation. Therefore (Proposition 3 of this Part) the idea, or knowledge, of each part will be in God insofar (Proposition 9 of this Part) as he is regarded as affected by another idea of a particular thing, which particular thing is prior in the order of nature to that part (Proposition 7 of this Part). And we may say the same of every part of every individual composing the human body. So the knowledge of each part composing the human body is in God insofar as he is affected by a great many ideas of things, and not insofar as he has the idea of the human body alone—that is, the idea constituting the nature of the human mind (Proposition 13 of this Part). Therefore (Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary) the human mind does not involve an adequate knowledge of the human body. Q.E.D.
The idea of each modification of the human body does not involve an adequate knowledge of the external body.
Proof. We have shown that the idea of a modification of the human body involves the nature of an external body insofar as that external body determines the human body in a given way. But insofar as the external body is an individual with no reference to the human body, the knowledge or idea of it is in God (Proposition 9 of this Part) insofar as God is regarded as affected by the idea of a further thing which (Proposition 7 of this Part) is naturally prior to that external body. Therefore an adequate knowledge of the external body is not in God insofar as he has the idea of the modification of the human body; in other words, the idea of the modification of the human body does not involve an adequate knowledge of the external body. Q.E.D.
The human mind does not perceive any external body as actually existing except through the ideas of the modifications of its own body.
Proof. If the human body is in no way affected by a given external body, then (Proposition 7 of this Part) neither is the idea of the human body—in other words, the human mind—affected in any way by the idea of the existence of that external body, nor does it perceive its existence at all. But insofar as the human body is affected in some way by a given external body, to that extent (Proposition 16 of this Part, Corollary) the mind perceives that external body. Q.E.D.
Corollary. Insofar as the human mind imagines an external body, it does not have an adequate knowledge of it.
Proof. When the human mind regards external bodies through the ideas of the modifications of its own body, we say that it imagines (see Proposition 17 of this Part, Note); and the mind can only imagine external bodies as actually existing. Therefore (by Proposition 25 of this Part), insofar as the mind imagines external bodies, it does not have an adequate knowledge of them. Q.E.D.
The idea of each modification of the human body does not involve an adequate knowledge of the human body itself.
Proof. Every idea of a modification of the human body involves the nature of the human body insofar as the human body is regarded as affected in a given way (Proposition 16 of this Part). But since the human body is an individual that can be affected in a great many other ways, the idea of that modification, and so on. Q.E.D.
The ideas of the modifications of the human body, insofar as they are referred only to the human mind, are not clear and distinct but confused.
Proof. The ideas of the modifications of the human body involve the nature both of the human body and of external bodies (Proposition 16 of this Part); and they must involve the nature not only of the human body but of its parts as well, since the modifications are ways (Postulate 3 of this Part) in which the parts of the human body, and consequently the human body as a whole, are affected. But (by Proposition 24 of this Part; Proposition 25 of this Part) an adequate knowledge of external bodies, and of the parts composing the human body, is not in God insofar as he is regarded as affected by the human mind, but insofar as he is regarded as affected by other ideas. These ideas of modifications, insofar as they are referred to the human mind alone, are like conclusions without premisses—in other words, confused ideas. Q.E.D.
Note. The idea constituting the nature of the human mind is proved in the same way not to be clear and distinct when considered in itself alone; and so likewise is the idea of the human mind, and the ideas of the ideas of the modifications of the human body, insofar as they are referred to the mind only, as anyone may easily see.
The idea of the idea of each modification of the human body does not involve an adequate knowledge of the human mind.
Proof. The idea of a modification of the human body (Proposition 27 of this Part) does not involve an adequate knowledge of that body—in other words, does not adequately express its nature; that is (Proposition 13 of this Part), it does not adequately agree with the nature of the mind. Therefore (Part 1, Axiom 6) the idea of this idea does not adequately express the nature of the human mind, or involve an adequate knowledge of it.
Corollary. It follows that the human mind, when it perceives things in the common order of nature, has no adequate knowledge of itself, of its own body, or of external bodies, but only a confused and fragmentary knowledge. For the mind does not know itself except insofar as it perceives the ideas of the modifications of the body (Proposition 23 of this Part). It perceives its own body (Proposition 19 of this Part) only through the ideas of the modifications, and perceives external bodies only by the same means. So insofar as it has such ideas of modifications, it has no adequate knowledge of itself (Proposition 29 of this Part), nor of its own body (Proposition 27 of this Part), nor of external bodies (Proposition 25 of this Part), but only a fragmentary and confused knowledge of them (Proposition 28 of this Part, Note). Q.E.D.
Note. I say expressly that the mind has no adequate knowledge, but only a confused knowledge, of itself, of its own body and of external bodies, whenever it perceives things in the common order of nature—that is, whenever it is determined from outside, by the chance play of circumstance, to regard this or that; and not when it is determined from within, by regarding several things at once, to understand where they agree, differ and conflict. Whenever it is determined from within in any way, it regards things clearly and distinctly, as I will show below.
We can have only a very inadequate knowledge of the duration of our body.
Proof. The duration of our body does not depend on its essence (Axiom 1 of this Part), nor on the absolute nature of God (Part 1, Proposition 21). But (Part 1, Proposition 28) it is determined to exist and act by causes which are themselves determined to exist and act in a fixed and definite way by other causes, and those again by others, and so on to infinity. The duration of our body therefore depends on the common order of nature, on the constitution of things. Now however a thing is constituted, adequate knowledge of it is in God insofar as he has the ideas of all things, and not insofar as he has the idea of the human body only (Proposition 9 of this Part, Corollary). Therefore the knowledge of the duration of our body is very inadequate in God insofar as he is regarded only as constituting the nature of the human mind; that is (Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary), this knowledge is very inadequate in our mind. Q.E.D.
We can have only a very inadequate knowledge of the duration of particular things outside ourselves.
Proof. Every particular thing, like the human body, must be determined by another particular thing to exist and act in a fixed and definite way; and this other particular thing must likewise be determined by a third, and so on to infinity (Part 1, Proposition 28). And since, as we showed in the previous proposition, this common property of particular things means that we have only a very inadequate knowledge of the duration of our own body, we must draw the same conclusion about the duration of particular things: that we can have only a very inadequate knowledge of it. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that all particular things are contingent and perishable. For we can have no adequate idea of their duration (by Proposition 31 of this Part), and that is what we must understand by the contingency and perishableness of things (Part 1, Proposition 33, Note 1). For (Part 1, Proposition 29) nothing is contingent in any other sense.
All ideas, insofar as they are referred to God, are true.
Proof. All ideas that are in God agree in every respect with their objects (Proposition 7 of this Part, Corollary); therefore (Part 1, Axiom 6) they are all true. Q.E.D.
There is nothing positive in ideas that makes them be called false.
Proof. Deny it if you can, and conceive a positive mode of thinking that constitutes the distinctive character of falsehood. Such a mode of thinking cannot be in God (Proposition 32 of this Part), and outside God it can neither be nor be conceived (Part 1, Proposition 15). Therefore there is nothing positive in ideas that makes them be called false. Q.E.D.
Every idea which in us is absolute, or adequate and perfect, is true.
Proof. When we say that an idea in us is adequate and perfect, we are saying, in other words (Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary), that the idea is adequate and perfect in God insofar as he constitutes the essence of our mind; and consequently (Proposition 32 of this Part) we are saying that such an idea is true. Q.E.D.
Falsity consists in the privation of knowledge which inadequate, fragmentary or confused ideas involve.
Proof. There is nothing positive in ideas that makes them be called false (Proposition 33 of this Part). But falsity cannot consist in simple privation, since it is minds and not bodies that are said to err and be mistaken; nor can it consist in absolute ignorance, since ignorance and error are not the same. So it consists in the privation of knowledge which inadequate, fragmentary or confused ideas involve. Q.E.D.
Note. In the note to Proposition 17 of this Part I explained how error consists in the privation of knowledge; but to throw more light on the subject I will give an example. Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; their opinion is made up of consciousness of their own actions and ignorance of the causes by which those actions are determined. Their idea of freedom, therefore, is simply their not knowing any cause of their actions. As for their saying that human actions depend on the will, this is a mere phrase with no idea to answer to it. What the will is, and how it moves the body, none of them know; those who boast of such knowledge, and invent dwellings and lodgings for the soul, usually provoke either laughter or disgust. So too, when we look at the sun, we imagine it to be about two hundred feet away from us. The error does not lie simply in that fancy, but in the fact that while we imagine it so we do not know the sun's true distance, or the cause of the fancy. For although we afterwards learn that the sun is more than six hundred of the earth's diameters away from us, we shall still fancy it to be near; we imagine the sun as near us not because we are ignorant of its true distance, but because the modification of our body involves the essence of the sun insofar as our body is affected by it.
Inadequate and confused ideas follow by the same necessity as adequate, or clear and distinct, ideas.
Proof. All ideas are in God (Part 1, Proposition 15), and insofar as they are referred to God they are true (Proposition 32 of this Part) and (Proposition 7 of this Part, Corollary) adequate. So there are no confused or inadequate ideas except in respect of a particular mind (compare Proposition 24 of this Part; Proposition 28 of this Part). Therefore all ideas, adequate or inadequate, follow by the same necessity (Proposition 6 of this Part). Q.E.D.
That which is common to all things (compare Lemma 2 of this Part), and which is equally in a part and in the whole, does not constitute the essence of any particular thing.
Proof. Deny it if you can, and conceive that it constitutes the essence of some particular thing—say the essence of B. Then (Definition 2 of this Part) it can neither exist nor be conceived without B; but that is against our hypothesis. Therefore it does not belong to B's essence, nor does it constitute the essence of any particular thing. Q.E.D.
Those things which are common to all, and which are equally in a part and in the whole, cannot be conceived except adequately.
Proof. Let A be something common to all bodies and equally present in a part of any given body and in the whole. I say that A cannot be conceived except adequately. For the idea of it in God will necessarily be adequate (Proposition 7 of this Part, Corollary), both insofar as God has the idea of the human body and insofar as he has the idea of the modifications of the human body, which (Proposition 16 of this Part; Proposition 25 of this Part; Proposition 27 of this Part) involve in part the nature of the human body and the nature of external bodies; that is (Proposition 12 of this Part; Proposition 13 of this Part), the idea in God will necessarily be adequate both insofar as he constitutes the human mind and insofar as he has the ideas that are in the human mind. Therefore the mind (Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary) necessarily perceives A adequately, and perceives it adequately both insofar as it perceives itself and insofar as it perceives its own body or any external body; nor can A be conceived in any other way. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that there are certain ideas, or notions, common to all men; for (by Lemma 2 of this Part) all bodies agree in certain respects, which (by Proposition 38 of this Part) must be perceived by everyone adequately, that is, clearly and distinctly.
That which is common to, and a property of, the human body and those other bodies which usually affect the human body, and which is equally present in each part of either and in the whole, will be represented in the mind by an adequate idea.
Proof. Let A be that which is common to, and a property of, the human body and external bodies, and equally present in the human body and in those external bodies, in each part of each external body and in the whole. There will be an adequate idea of A in God (Proposition 7 of this Part, Corollary), both insofar as he has the idea of the human body and insofar as he has the ideas of those external bodies. Now suppose the human body is affected by an external body through what it has in common with it, namely A. The idea of this modification will involve the property A (Proposition 16 of this Part), and therefore (Proposition 7 of this Part, Corollary) the idea of this modification, insofar as it involves the property A, will be adequate in God insofar as God is affected by the idea of the human body; that is (Proposition 13 of this Part), insofar as he constitutes the nature of the human mind. Therefore (Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary) this idea is also adequate in the human mind. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that the mind is fitted to perceive more things adequately in proportion as its body has more in common with other bodies.
Whatever ideas in the mind follow from ideas that are adequate in it are themselves adequate too.
Proof. This proposition is self-evident. For when we say that an idea in the human mind follows from ideas that are adequate in it, we are saying, in other words (Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary), that there is an idea in the divine intellect of which God is the cause—not insofar as he is infinite, nor insofar as he is affected by the ideas of a great many particular things, but only insofar as he constitutes the essence of the human mind.
Note 1. I have now set out the cause of those notions which are common to all men and which form the basis of our reasoning. But there are other causes of certain axioms or notions which it would be worth setting out by this method of ours, for we should then see which notions are more useful than others and which have hardly any use at all; and further, which notions are common to all men, and which are clear and distinct only to those who are free of prejudice; and we should detect those which are ill founded. We should also see where the notions called secondary come from, and consequently the axioms founded on them, along with other points of interest connected with these questions. But I have decided to pass over the subject here, partly because I have set it aside for another treatise, and partly because I am afraid of wearying the reader at too great length. Still, so as not to leave out anything that needs to be known, I will briefly set down where the terms called transcendental come from—terms such as Being, Thing, Something. These arose from the fact that the human body, being limited, is only capable of forming a certain number of images distinctly within itself at the same time (Proposition 17 of this Part, Note). If that number is exceeded, the images begin to be confused; and if the number the body can form distinctly is greatly exceeded, they will all run together into total confusion. This being so, it is evident (from Proposition 17 of this Part, Corollary; Proposition 18 of this Part) that the human mind can distinctly imagine as many things at once as its body can form images at once. When the images become quite confused in the body, the mind also imagines all bodies confusedly, without distinction, and comprehends them as it were under one attribute, namely under the attribute of Being, Thing, and so on. The same conclusion can be drawn from the fact that images are not always equally vivid, and from other similar causes which there is no need to explain here; for our purpose it is enough to consider one. They all come down to this: that these terms stand for ideas confused in the highest degree. From similar causes arise the notions we call general, such as man, horse, dog. They arise from this, that so many images—of men, for instance—are formed at once in the human mind that the power of imagining breaks down, not entirely, but far enough for the mind to lose count of the small differences between individuals (their colour, their size, and so on) and of their exact number, and to imagine distinctly only that in which all the individuals agree insofar as the body is affected by them; for that is the point at which each of them chiefly affected the body. This the mind expresses by the name man, and predicates of an infinite number of particular individuals; for, as we have said, it cannot imagine their exact number. We must note, however, that these general notions are not formed by all men in the same way. They vary from one person to another according as the point varies by which the body has most often been affected, and which the mind most easily imagines or remembers. Those who have most often looked with admiration at the stature of a man will understand by the name man an animal of upright stature; those used to attending to some other feature will form a different general image of man—that man is an animal that laughs, a two-footed animal without feathers, a rational animal—and so in other cases, everyone will form general images of things according to the habit of his body.
It is not to be wondered at, then, that so many controversies have arisen among philosophers who try to explain natural things merely by the images they have formed of them.
Note 2. From all that has been said it is clear that we perceive things and form our general notions in several ways: first (Proposition 1 of this Part), from particular things presented to our intellect through the senses in a fragmentary, confused and unordered way (Proposition 29 of this Part, Corollary); I have settled on calling such perceptions knowledge from the mere suggestions of experience.
Footnote: A Baconian phrase. Nov. Org. Aph. 100. [Pollock, p. 126, n.]
Second (Proposition 2 of this Part), from symbols—from having read or heard certain words, for instance, we remember things and form ideas of them like those through which we imagine things (Proposition 18 of this Part, Note). I shall call both these ways of regarding things knowledge of the first kind, opinion, or imagination. Third (Proposition 3 of this Part), from having notions common to all men and adequate ideas of the properties of things (Proposition 38 of this Part, Corollary; Proposition 39 of this Part, Corollary; Proposition 40 of this Part); this I call reason, and knowledge of the second kind. Besides these two kinds of knowledge there is, as I shall show later, a third, which we will call intuition. This kind of knowledge proceeds from an adequate idea of the absolute essence of certain attributes of God to an adequate knowledge of the essence of things. I will illustrate all three kinds by a single example. Three numbers are given, and a fourth is to be found which is to the third as the second is to the first. Tradesmen multiply the second by the third and divide the product by the first without hesitating, either because they have not forgotten the rule they were given by a teacher without any proof, or because they have often tried it with simple numbers, or by virtue of the proof of the nineteenth proposition of the seventh book of Euclid, that is, by the general property of proportionals.
But with very simple numbers none of this is needed. Given one, two and three, everyone can see that the fourth proportional is six; and this is much clearer, because we infer the fourth number from an intuitive grasp of the ratio the first bears to the second.
Knowledge of the first kind is the only source of falsity; knowledge of the second and third kinds is necessarily true.
Proof. To knowledge of the first kind we assigned (in Proposition 40 of this Part, Note 2) all those ideas that are inadequate and confused; therefore this kind of knowledge is the only source of falsity (Proposition 35 of this Part). And we assigned to the second and third kinds those ideas that are adequate; therefore these kinds are necessarily true (Proposition 34 of this Part). Q.E.D.
Knowledge of the second and third kinds, and not of the first, teaches us to tell the true from the false.
Proof. This proposition is self-evident. Anyone who knows how to distinguish true from false must have an adequate idea of true and false; that is (Proposition 40 of this Part, Note 2), he must know the true and the false by the second or third kind of knowledge.
He who has a true idea knows at the same time that he has a true idea, and cannot doubt the truth of what he perceives.
Proof. A true idea in us is an idea which is adequate in God insofar as he is displayed through the nature of the human mind (Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary). Suppose there is in God, insofar as he is displayed through the human mind, an adequate idea A. The idea of this idea must also necessarily be in God, and be referred to him in the same way as the idea A (by Part 2, Proposition 20, the proof of which is of universal application). But the idea A is supposed to be referred to God insofar as he is displayed through the human mind; therefore the idea of the idea A must be referred to God in the same way. That is (by Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary), the adequate idea of the idea A will be in the mind that has the adequate idea A. Therefore he who has an adequate idea, or who knows a thing truly (Proposition 34 of this Part), must at the same time have an adequate idea, or true knowledge, of his own knowledge—that is, plainly, he must be certain of it. Q.E.D.
Note. I explained in the note to Proposition 21 of this Part what is meant by the idea of an idea; but the proposition above is plain enough in itself. No one who has a true idea is unaware that a true idea involves the highest certainty. To have a true idea is only another way of saying that one knows a thing perfectly, or as well as possible. Indeed no one can doubt this unless he thinks that an idea is something lifeless, like a picture on a panel, and not a mode of thinking—the very act of understanding. And who, I ask, can know that he understands something unless he first understands it? Who can know that he is certain of a thing unless he is first certain of it? And what can be clearer or more certain than a true idea, as a standard of truth? As light displays both itself and the dark, so truth is the standard both of itself and of falsity.
I think I have thus sufficiently answered these questions: if a true idea is distinguished from a false one only insofar as it is said to agree with its object, then a true idea has no more reality or perfection than a false one, since the two are distinguished only by an extrinsic mark; and consequently a man who has true ideas has no advantage over one who has only false ones. And further, how does it come about that men have false ideas? And last, how can anyone be sure that he has ideas which agree with their objects? These questions, I repeat, I have in my opinion sufficiently answered. The difference between a true and a false idea is plain: from what was said in Proposition 35 of this Part, the first is related to the second as being is to not-being. The causes of falsity I have set out very clearly in Proposition 19 of this Part and Proposition 35 of this Part with its note, and from what is said there the difference between a man who has true ideas and a man who has only false ones is clear. As for the last question—how a man can be sure that he has ideas which agree with their objects—I have just pointed out plainly enough that his knowledge arises from the simple fact that he has an idea which corresponds with its object; in other words, that truth is its own standard. We may add that our mind, insofar as it perceives things truly, is part of the infinite intellect of God (Proposition 11 of this Part, Corollary), and therefore the clear and distinct ideas of the mind are as necessarily true as the ideas of God.
It is not in the nature of reason to regard things as contingent, but as necessary.
Proof. It is in the nature of reason to perceive things truly (Proposition 41 of this Part), namely (Part 1, Axiom 6) as they are in themselves—that is (Part 1, Proposition 29), not as contingent but as necessary. Q.E.D.
Corollary 1. It follows that it is only through our imagination that we regard things, whether past or future, as contingent.
Note. I will briefly explain how this way of looking at things arises. We showed above (Proposition 17 of this Part, Corollary) that the mind always regards things as present to itself, even when they do not exist, until causes arise which exclude their existence and presence. And we showed (Proposition 18 of this Part) that if the human body has once been affected by two external bodies at the same time, then when the mind afterwards imagines one of them it will at once remember the other—that is, it will regard both as present to itself, unless causes arise which exclude their existence and presence. Further, no one doubts that we imagine time from imagining some bodies to move more slowly than others, some more quickly, and some at equal speed. Suppose, then, that a child saw Peter yesterday for the first time in the morning, Paul at noon and Simon in the evening, and that today he sees Peter again in the morning. It is evident, from Proposition 18 of this Part, that as soon as he sees the morning light he will imagine the sun travelling the same part of the sky as it did when he saw it the day before—in other words, he will imagine a whole day; and along with his imagining of the morning he will imagine Peter, with noon Paul, and with evening Simon. That is, he will imagine the existence of Paul and Simon in relation to a future time. If on the other hand he sees Simon in the evening, he will refer Peter and Paul to a past time, imagining them along with his imagining of a time past. And if it should happen that on some other evening he sees James instead of Simon, then on the following morning he will associate with his imagining of evening sometimes Simon and sometimes James, but not both together, since he is supposed to have seen one or the other in the evening, not both. So his imagination will waver, and with the imagining of future evenings he will associate first one and then the other—that is, he will imagine neither of them in the future as certain, but both as contingent. This wavering of the imagination will be the same if the imagination is concerned with things we regard in this way as standing in relation to past or present time. Consequently we may imagine things as contingent whether they are referred to the present, the past or the future.
Corollary 2. It is in the nature of reason to perceive things under a certain form of eternity (sub quâdam æternitatis specie).
Proof. It is in the nature of reason to regard things not as contingent but as necessary (Proposition 44 of this Part). Reason perceives this necessity of things truly (Proposition 41 of this Part)—that is (Part 1, Axiom 6), as it is in itself. But (Part 1, Proposition 16) this necessity of things is the very necessity of God's eternal nature; therefore it is in the nature of reason to regard things under this form of eternity. We may add that the foundations of reason are the notions (Proposition 38 of this Part) which answer to what is common to all things, and which (Proposition 37 of this Part) do not answer to the essence of any particular thing; and which must therefore be conceived without any relation to time, under a certain form of eternity.
Every idea of every body, or of every particular thing actually existing, necessarily involves the eternal and infinite essence of God.
Proof. The idea of a particular thing actually existing necessarily involves both the existence and the essence of that thing (Proposition 8 of this Part). Now particular things cannot be conceived without God (Part 1, Proposition 15); and since (Proposition 6 of this Part) they have God for their cause insofar as he is regarded under the attribute of which they are modes, their ideas must necessarily involve (Part 1, Axiom 4) the conception of that attribute—that is (Part 1, Proposition 6), the eternal and infinite essence of God. Q.E.D.
Note. By existence I do not here mean duration—that is, existence conceived abstractly, as a kind of quantity. I am speaking of the very nature of existence, which is assigned to particular things because they follow in infinite numbers and in infinite ways from the eternal necessity of God's nature (Part 1, Proposition 16). I am speaking, I repeat, of the very existence of particular things insofar as they are in God. For although each particular thing is determined by another particular thing to exist in a given way, the force by which each particular thing perseveres in existing follows from the eternal necessity of God's nature (compare Part 1, Proposition 24, Corollary).
The knowledge of God's eternal and infinite essence which every idea involves is adequate and perfect.
Proof. The proof of the last proposition is universal; and whether a thing is considered as a part or as a whole, the idea of it—whether of the whole or of the part (by Proposition 45 of this Part)—will involve God's eternal and infinite essence. So what gives knowledge of God's eternal and infinite essence is common to all things, and is equally in the part and in the whole; therefore (Proposition 38 of this Part) this knowledge will be adequate. Q.E.D.
The human mind has an adequate knowledge of God's eternal and infinite essence.
Proof. The human mind has ideas (Proposition 22 of this Part) by which (Proposition 23 of this Part) it perceives itself, and its own body (Proposition 19 of this Part), and external bodies (Proposition 16 of this Part, Corollary 1; Proposition 17 of this Part) as actually existing; therefore (Proposition 45 of this Part; Proposition 46 of this Part) it has an adequate knowledge of God's eternal and infinite essence. Q.E.D.
Note. We see from this that God's infinite essence and his eternity are known to all. And since all things are in God and are conceived through God, we can infer from this knowledge a great many things which we may know adequately, and can form that third kind of knowledge I spoke of in the note to Proposition 40 of this Part, whose excellence and use I shall have occasion to speak of in Part Five. Men do not have as clear a knowledge of God as they have of general notions, because they cannot imagine God as they imagine bodies, and because they have attached the name God to the images of things they are used to seeing—which they can hardly avoid, being men and continually affected by external bodies. Indeed, many errors can be traced to this one head: that we do not apply names to things correctly. When a man says that the lines drawn from the centre of a circle to its circumference are not equal, he is certainly attaching some other meaning to the word circle than the one mathematicians give it. So too, when men make mistakes in calculation, they have one set of figures in their minds and another on the paper. If we could see into their minds, they are not making a mistake; they seem to be, because we think they have the same numbers in their minds as they have on the paper. Otherwise we should not believe them to be in error, any more than I thought a man was in error whom I recently heard shouting that his hall had flown into his neighbour's hen—for his meaning seemed clear enough to me. A great many controversies have arisen from men not explaining their meaning properly, or not interpreting other people's meaning properly. For in fact, when they flatly contradict themselves, they are taking now one side of the argument and now the other, in order to oppose the opinions they think mistaken and absurd in their opponents.
In the mind there is no absolute or free will; the mind is determined to will this or that by a cause which has itself been determined by another cause, and that by another, and so on to infinity.
Proof. The mind is a fixed and definite mode of thought (Proposition 11 of this Part), and therefore cannot be the free cause of its own actions (Part 1, Proposition 17, Corollary 2); in other words, it cannot have an absolute faculty of willing or refusing. It must (by Part 1, Proposition 28) be determined by a cause which has itself been determined by another cause, and that by another, and so on. Q.E.D.
Note. It is proved in the same way that there is in the mind no absolute faculty of understanding, desiring, loving and so on. It follows that these and similar faculties are either entirely fictitious or merely abstract and general terms of the sort we habitually form from particular things. Intellect and will stand in the same relation to this or that idea, or this or that volition, as "stoniness" does to this or that stone, or "man" to Peter and Paul. The cause that leads men to think themselves free has been set out in the Appendix to Part One. But before going further I should remark that by the will to affirm and decide I mean the faculty, not the desire. I mean, I repeat, the faculty by which the mind affirms or denies what is true or false, not the desire by which the mind wants a thing or turns away from it. Having proved that these faculties of ours are general notions which cannot be distinguished from the particular instances they are drawn from, we must now ask whether volitions themselves are anything besides the ideas of things. We must ask, that is, whether there is in the mind any affirmation or negation beyond what the idea, insofar as it is an idea, involves. On this see the following proposition, and Definition 3 of this Part, so that the idea of pictures does not suggest itself. For by ideas I do not mean images such as are formed at the back of the eye, or in the middle of the brain, but conceptions of thought.
There is in the mind no volition, no affirmation and no negation, beyond what an idea, insofar as it is an idea, involves.
Proof. There is in the mind no absolute faculty of willing or refusing, but only particular volitions—this or that affirmation, this or that negation. Let us take a particular volition: the mode of thinking by which the mind affirms that the three interior angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. This affirmation involves the conception, or idea, of a triangle; that is, without the idea of a triangle it cannot be conceived. To say that the concept A must involve the concept B is the same as saying that A cannot be conceived without B. Further, this affirmation cannot be made (Axiom 3 of this Part) without the idea of a triangle. Therefore this affirmation can neither be nor be conceived without the idea of a triangle. And the idea of a triangle must itself involve this same affirmation, that its three interior angles are equal to two right angles. So conversely this idea of a triangle can neither be nor be conceived without this affirmation; and therefore this affirmation belongs to the essence of the idea of a triangle, and is nothing besides. What we have said of this volition—which we picked at random—may be said of any other: that it is nothing but an idea. Q.E.D.
Corollary. Will and understanding are one and the same.
Proof. Will and understanding are nothing beyond individual volitions and ideas (Proposition 48 of this Part, Note). But a particular volition and a particular idea are one and the same (by Proposition 48 of this Part); therefore will and understanding are one and the same. Q.E.D.
Note. We have thus removed the cause commonly assigned for error. For we showed above that falsity consists solely in the privation of knowledge involved in fragmentary and confused ideas. So a false idea, insofar as it is false, does not involve certainty. When we say that a man rests content in what is false and has no doubts about it, we are not saying that he is certain, only that he does not doubt, or that he rests content in what is false because there are no reasons to make his imagination waver (see Proposition 44 of this Part, Note). So although the man is supposed to rest content in what is false, we shall never say he is certain; for by certainty we mean something positive (Proposition 43 of this Part, Note), not merely the absence of doubt.
However, so that the foregoing proposition may be fully explained, I will draw attention to a few further points, and then answer the objections that may be brought against our doctrine. Last, in order to remove every scruple, I have thought it worth pointing out some of the advantages that follow from it. I say "some", for they will be better appreciated from what we shall set out in the fifth part.
I begin, then, with the first point, and warn my readers to make an accurate distinction between an idea, or conception of the mind, and the images of things that we imagine. And they must further distinguish between ideas and the words by which we signify things. These three—images, words and ideas—are by many people either run together entirely or not distinguished with sufficient care; and so people are generally ignorant of how absolutely necessary a knowledge of this doctrine of the will is, both for philosophy and for the wise ordering of life. Those who think ideas consist in images formed in us by contact with external bodies persuade themselves that the ideas of things we can form no mental picture of are not ideas at all, but only fictions we invent by the free decree of our will. They thus regard ideas as though they were lifeless pictures on a panel, and, full of this misconception, do not see that an idea, insofar as it is an idea, involves an affirmation or a negation. And those who confuse words with ideas, or with the affirmation an idea involves, think they can will something contrary to what they feel, affirm or deny. This misconception is easily laid aside by anyone who reflects on the nature of thought, which in no way involves the conception of extension; he will then clearly understand that an idea, being a mode of thinking, consists neither in the image of anything nor in words. The essence of words and images is made up of bodily motions, which in no way involve the conception of thought.
These few words will do on that subject; I pass on to the objections that may be raised against our doctrine. The first is advanced by those who think that the will has a wider scope than the understanding and is therefore different from it. Their reason for believing the will has a wider scope is that they claim they need no increase in their faculty of assent—that is, of affirming or denying—in order to assent to an infinity of things we do not perceive, but that they do need an increase in their faculty of understanding. The will is thus distinguished from the intellect, the latter being finite and the former infinite. Second, it may be objected that experience seems to teach us very plainly that we are able to suspend judgment before assenting to what we perceive; and this is confirmed by the fact that no one is said to be deceived insofar as he perceives something, but only insofar as he assents or dissents.
A man who imagines a winged horse, for instance, does not by that admit that a winged horse exists; that is, he is not deceived unless he also admits that a winged horse does exist. So nothing seems more clearly taught by experience than that the will, the faculty of assent, is free and different from the faculty of understanding. Third, it may be objected that one affirmation does not seem to contain more reality than another; in other words, that we do not seem to need any greater power to affirm that what is true is true than to affirm that what is false is true. Yet we have seen that one idea has more reality or perfection than another, for as some objects are more excellent than others, so are the ideas of them; and this too seems to point to a difference between the understanding and the will. Fourth, it may be objected: if man does not act from free will, what will happen when the incentives to action are equally balanced, as with Buridan's ass? Will he die of hunger and thirst? If I say he will, I shall seem to be thinking of an ass, or a statue of a man, rather than an actual man. If I say he will not, then he would be determining his own action, and would consequently have the power to go and do whatever he liked. Other objections might be raised too; but since I am not bound to set out everything anyone may dream up, I will only undertake to refute the ones I have mentioned, and that as briefly as I can.
To the first objection I answer that I admit the will has a wider scope than the understanding, if by understanding is meant only clear and distinct ideas; but I deny that the will has a wider scope than perception, than the faculty of forming conceptions. Nor do I see why the faculty of willing should be called infinite any more than the faculty of feeling. For just as by the same faculty of willing we can affirm an infinite number of things—one after another, since we cannot affirm an infinite number at once—so by the same faculty of feeling we can feel or perceive, in succession, an infinite number of bodies. If it is said that there is an infinite number of things we cannot perceive, I answer that we cannot reach such things by any thinking, and consequently not by any faculty of willing either. But it may still be urged that if God wished us to perceive them, he would have to endow us with a greater faculty of perception, though not with a greater faculty of willing than we already have. This is the same as saying that if God wished us to understand an infinite number of other entities, he would have to give us a greater understanding, but not a more universal idea of entity than the one we already have, in order to grasp those infinite entities. For we have shown that the will is a universal entity, or idea, by which we explain all particular volitions—that is, what is common to them all.
Since, then, our opponents hold that this idea, common or universal to all volitions, is a faculty, it is hardly surprising that they claim such a faculty extends into the infinite, beyond the limits of the understanding; for what is universal is predicated alike of one, of many and of an infinite number of individuals.
To the second objection I reply by denying that we have a free power of suspending judgment. When we say that someone suspends judgment, we mean simply that he sees he does not perceive the matter adequately. Suspension of judgment is therefore, strictly speaking, a perception and not an act of free will. To illustrate the point, suppose a boy imagining a horse and perceiving nothing else. Since this imagining involves the existence of the horse (Proposition 17 of this Part, Corollary), and the boy perceives nothing that would exclude its existence, he will necessarily regard the horse as present; he will not be able to doubt its existence, though he is not certain of it. We have daily experience of this in dreams; and I do not suppose anyone would maintain that while he is dreaming he has the free power of suspending judgment about the things in his dream, and of bringing it about that he should not dream what he dreams he sees. Yet it happens all the same that even in dreams we suspend judgment—namely, when we dream that we are dreaming.
Further, I grant that no one is deceived so far as actual perception goes; that is, I grant that the mind's imaginings, regarded in themselves, involve no error (Proposition 17 of this Part, Note). But I deny that a man makes no affirmation in the act of perceiving. For what is the perception of a winged horse but affirming that a horse has wings? If the mind could perceive nothing but the winged horse, it would regard the horse as present to itself; it would have no reason to doubt its existence and no power of dissent, unless the imagining of a winged horse were joined to an idea that ruled out the existence of such a horse, or unless the mind perceived that its idea of a winged horse was inadequate—in which case it will either necessarily deny the existence of such a horse or necessarily be in doubt about it.
I think I have already anticipated my answer to the third objection: that the will is something universal, predicated of all ideas, and signifies only what is common to them all, namely an affirmation. Its adequate essence must therefore, insofar as it is conceived in the abstract, be in every idea, and in that respect alone the same in all—not insofar as it is considered as constituting an idea's essence, for in that respect particular affirmations differ from one another as much as ideas do. The affirmation involving the idea of a circle, for instance, differs from the one involving the idea of a triangle as much as the idea of a circle differs from the idea of a triangle.
Further, I absolutely deny that we need an equal power of thinking to affirm that what is true is true and to affirm that what is false is true. These two affirmations, if we regard the mind, stand to one another as being to not-being; for there is nothing positive in ideas which constitutes the actual reality of falsehood (Proposition 35 of this Part, Note; Proposition 47 of this Part, Note).
We must therefore conclude that we are easily deceived when we confuse universals with singulars, and beings of reason and abstractions with real things. As for the fourth objection, I am quite ready to admit that a man placed in the balance described—perceiving nothing but hunger and thirst, a certain food and a certain drink, each equally far from him—would die of hunger and thirst. And if I am asked whether such a man should not be considered an ass rather than a man, I answer that I do not know; neither do I know how we should consider a man who hangs himself, or how we should consider children, fools and madmen.
It remains to point out the advantages of knowing this doctrine as it bears on conduct, and these may easily be gathered from what has been said. The doctrine is good:
1. Because it teaches us to act solely according to the decree of God, and to share in the divine nature, and the more so the more perfect the actions we perform and the more we understand God. Such a doctrine not only completely calms our spirit but also shows us where our highest happiness or blessedness lies, namely in the knowledge of God alone, by which we are led to act only as love and piety bid us. We may thus clearly see how far from a true estimate of virtue are those who expect to be decorated by God with high rewards for their virtue and their best actions, as though for having endured the direst slavery—as if virtue and the service of God were not in themselves happiness and perfect freedom.
2. Because it teaches us how we ought to conduct ourselves with respect to the gifts of fortune, or matters not in our power and not following from our own nature. For it shows us that we should await and endure fortune's smiles and frowns with an equal mind, seeing that everything follows from the eternal decree of God by the same necessity by which it follows from the essence of a triangle that its three angles are equal to two right angles.
3. This doctrine improves social life, since it teaches us to hate no one, to despise no one, to mock, envy or be angry with no one. Further, it tells us that each should be content with his own and helpful to his neighbour, not from any womanish pity, favour or superstition, but solely under the guidance of reason, as the time and occasion require, as I shall show in Part Three.
4. Last, this doctrine confers no small advantage on the commonwealth, for it teaches how citizens should be governed and led—not so as to become slaves, but so that they may freely do what is best.
I have now fulfilled the promise I made at the beginning of this note, and with it I bring the second part of my treatise to a close. I think I have explained the nature and properties of the human mind at sufficient length, and, considering the difficulty of the subject, with sufficient clearness. I have laid a foundation on which many excellent conclusions may be raised, of the highest use and most necessary to be known, as will in part be made plain in what follows.
Most writers on the emotions and on human conduct seem to be treating not of natural things that follow nature's general laws but of matters outside nature altogether. They appear to conceive man to be situated in nature as a kingdom within a kingdom: they believe that he disturbs rather than follows nature's order, that he has absolute control over his actions, and that he is determined by nothing but himself. They put human weakness and inconstancy down not to the power of nature in general but to some mysterious flaw in human nature, which they accordingly bewail, deride, despise or, as usually happens, abuse; and whoever succeeds in hitting off the weakness of the human mind more eloquently or more sharply than the rest is looked on as a seer. There has been no lack of very excellent men, to whose labour and industry I confess myself much indebted, who have written many admirable things about the right way of life and given mankind a great deal of wise advice. But no one, so far as I know, has defined the nature and strength of the emotions, or what the mind can do to restrain them.
I have not forgotten that the illustrious Descartes, though he believed the mind has absolute power over its own actions, tried to explain the human emotions by their first causes and at the same time to point out a way by which the mind might reach absolute dominion over them. But in my opinion he achieves nothing beyond a display of the sharpness of his own great intellect, as I shall show in the proper place. For the present I want to come back to those who would rather abuse or deride the human emotions than understand them. Such people will no doubt think it strange that I should undertake to treat of human vice and folly geometrically, and should want to set out by rigorous reasoning the very things they cry out against as contrary to reason, as trifling, absurd and horrifying. But this is my plan. Nothing happens in nature that can be set down to a flaw in nature; for nature is always the same, and everywhere one and the same in her power and capacity to act. That is, nature's laws and rules, by which everything happens and changes from one form to another, are everywhere and always the same; and so there must be one and the same way of understanding the nature of all things whatever, namely through nature's universal laws and rules. So the passions of hatred, anger and envy, considered in themselves, follow from this same necessity and power of nature; they answer to definite causes through which they are understood, and have properties as much worth knowing as the properties of anything else that gives us delight simply to contemplate. I shall therefore treat of the nature and strength of the emotions by the same method I used before in my investigations concerning God and the mind. I shall consider human actions and desires exactly as if I were concerned with lines, planes, and solids.
1. By an adequate cause I mean a cause through which its effect can be clearly and distinctly perceived. By an inadequate, or partial, cause I mean a cause through which, taken by itself, its effect cannot be understood.
2. I say that we act when something takes place, within us or outside us, of which we are the adequate cause; that is (by Definition 1 of this Part), when through our nature something takes place within us or outside us which can be clearly and distinctly understood through our nature alone. On the other hand, I say that we are passive when something takes place within us, or follows from our nature outside us, of which we are only the partial cause.
3. By emotion I mean the modifications of the body by which the body's power of acting is increased or diminished, helped or checked, together with the ideas of those modifications.
Note. If we can be the adequate cause of any of these modifications, I then call the emotion an activity; otherwise I call it a passion, a state in which the mind is passive.
1. The human body can be affected in many ways which increase or diminish its power of acting, and in other ways which make its power of acting neither greater nor less.
Note. This postulate, or axiom, rests on Postulate 1 of this Part and Part 2, Lemma 5 and Part 2, Lemma 7, which see after Part 2, Proposition 13.
2. The human body can undergo many changes and still retain the impressions, or traces, of objects (compare Part 2, Postulate 5), and consequently the same images of things (see Part 2, Proposition 17, Note).
Our mind is in some cases active and in some cases passive. Insofar as it has adequate ideas it is necessarily active, and insofar as it has inadequate ideas it is necessarily passive.
Proof. In every human mind there are some adequate ideas and some that are fragmentary and confused (Part 2, Proposition 40, Note). Those ideas which are adequate in the mind are adequate also in God, insofar as he constitutes the essence of that mind (Part 2, Proposition 40, Corollary); and those which are inadequate in the mind are likewise (by Part 2, Proposition 40, Corollary) adequate in God—not insofar as he contains in himself the essence of that mind alone, but insofar as he contains, at the same time, the minds of other things as well. Again, from any given idea some effect must necessarily follow (Part 1, Proposition 36); and of that effect God is the adequate cause (Definition 1 of this Part), not insofar as he is infinite but insofar as he is conceived as affected by the given idea (Part 2, Proposition 9). But of the effect of which God is the cause insofar as he is affected by an idea which is adequate in a given mind, of that effect, I say, the mind in question is the adequate cause (Part 2, Proposition 11, Corollary). Therefore our mind, insofar as it has adequate ideas (Definition 2 of this Part), is in some cases necessarily active; that was our first point. Again, whatever necessarily follows from an idea which is adequate in God not by virtue of his having in himself the mind of one man only, but by virtue of his containing, along with that man's mind, the minds of other things too—of such an effect (Part 2, Proposition 11, Corollary) that man's mind is not an adequate but only a partial cause. So (Definition 2 of this Part) the mind, insofar as it has inadequate ideas, is in some cases necessarily passive; that was our second point. Therefore our mind, and so on. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that the mind is the more liable to be acted upon the more inadequate ideas it has, and conversely is the more active the more adequate ideas it has.
Body cannot determine mind to think, nor can mind determine body to motion or rest, or to anything else, if there is anything else.
Proof. All modes of thinking have God for their cause by virtue of his being a thinking thing, and not by virtue of his being displayed under any other attribute (Part 2, Proposition 6). What determines the mind to thought, therefore, is a mode of thought and not a mode of extension; that is (Part 2, Definition 1), it is not body. That was our first point. Again, the motion and rest of a body must arise from another body, which has itself been determined to motion or rest by a third; and absolutely everything that takes place in a body must spring from God insofar as he is regarded as affected by some mode of extension, and not by some mode of thought (Part 2, Proposition 6). That is, it cannot spring from the mind, which is a mode of thought. That was our second point. Therefore body cannot determine mind, and so on. Q.E.D.
Note. This is made clearer by what was said in the note to Part 2, Proposition 7, namely that mind and body are one and the same thing, conceived first under the attribute of thought and second under the attribute of extension. It follows that the order, or chain, of things is the same whether nature is conceived under one attribute or the other; and consequently that the order of activity and passivity in our body runs together in nature with the order of activity and passivity in the mind. The same conclusion is evident from the way we proved Part 2, Proposition 12.
Nevertheless, though this is the case and there is no further room for doubt, I can scarcely believe—until the fact is proved by experience—that men can be brought to consider the question calmly and fairly, so firmly are they convinced that it is at the mind's bidding alone that the body is set in motion or brought to rest, or performs any number of actions depending solely on the mind's will or its exercise of thought. Yet no one has so far laid down the limits of the body's powers; that is, no one has yet been taught by experience what the body can do by the laws of nature alone, insofar as nature is regarded as extension. No one so far has gained such accurate knowledge of the mechanism of the body that he can explain all its functions. Nor need I point out that many actions are observed in animals which far surpass human ingenuity, and that sleepwalkers do many things in their sleep that they would not dare to do awake. These instances are enough to show that the body can, by the laws of its own nature alone, do many things at which its own mind is amazed.
Again, no one knows how, or by what means, the mind moves the body, nor how many degrees of motion it can give the body, nor how fast it can move it. So when men say that this or that bodily action has its origin in the mind, which has dominion over the body, they are using words without meaning, or confessing in fine language that they do not know the cause of the action and are not troubled by their ignorance.
But, they will say, whether or not we know the means by which the mind acts on the body, we do at least have experience of the fact that unless the mind is fit to think, the body remains inert. And we have experience that the mind alone decides whether we speak or stay silent, along with a variety of similar things which we accordingly say depend on the mind's decree. As to the first point, I ask such objectors whether experience does not also teach that if the body is inactive the mind is at the same time unfit for thinking. When the body is at rest in sleep, the mind is at the same time in a state of torpor and has no power of thinking such as it has when the body is awake. And I think everyone's experience will confirm that the mind is not at all times equally fit for thinking on a given subject: as the body is more or less fit to be stimulated by the image of this or that object, so the mind is more or less fit to contemplate that object.
But it will be urged that from the laws of nature considered simply as extended substance we could never deduce the causes of buildings, of paintings, and of things of that kind, which are produced by human art alone; and that the human body, unless it were determined and guided by the mind, would not be capable of building a single temple. But I have just pointed out that the objectors cannot fix the limits of the body's power, or say what can be concluded from its nature alone, while they have experience of many things being done by the laws of nature alone which they would never have believed possible except under the direction of a mind—such as the actions sleepwalkers perform in their sleep, and marvel at when awake. I would further call attention to the mechanism of the human body, which far surpasses in complexity anything human art has put together—not to repeat what I have already shown, that from nature, under whatever attribute she is considered, infinite results follow. As for the second objection, I suggest that the world would be much happier if men were as able to keep silence as they are to speak. Experience shows abundantly that men can govern anything more easily than their tongues, and restrain anything more easily than their appetites. Hence it comes about that many believe we are free only in respect of things we desire moderately, because our desire for such things can easily be checked by the thought of something else often remembered, but that we are not free at all in respect of what we seek with violent emotion, since our desire then cannot be quieted by the remembrance of anything else. Yet if such people had not learned from experience that we do many things we afterwards repent of, and that we often, when torn by conflicting emotions, see the better and follow the worse, there would be nothing to stop them believing we are free in everything. So an infant believes it freely desires milk, an angry child believes it freely desires revenge, a timid child believes it freely desires to run away; a drunken man believes he utters from the free decision of his mind words he would rather have kept back when sober; and so a raving man, a chattering woman, a child and others of the same sort believe they speak from the free decision of their minds, when in fact they cannot restrain their impulse to talk. Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason that men believe themselves free simply because they are conscious of their actions and unaware of the causes by which those actions are determined; and it is plain, further, that the mind's decrees are only another name for the appetites, and therefore vary as the state of the body varies. Everyone shapes his actions by his emotions; those torn between conflicting emotions do not know what they want; those under no emotion at all are easily swayed this way or that. All this clearly shows that a decision of the mind and an appetite, or determined state, of the body are simultaneous—or rather are one and the same thing, which we call a decision when it is regarded under the attribute of thought and explained through it, and a determined state when it is regarded under the attribute of extension and deduced from the laws of motion and rest. This will be plainer still in what follows. For now I want to call attention to another point: that we cannot act by a decision of the mind unless we remember having done so. We cannot say a word, for instance, without remembering that we have. Again, it is not in the mind's free power to remember or forget a thing at will. So the mind's freedom must in any case be limited to the power of uttering or not uttering what it remembers. But when we dream that we speak, we believe that we speak from a free decision of the mind—and yet we do not speak, or if we do, it is by a spontaneous motion of the body. Again, we dream that we are concealing something, and we seem to act by the same decision of the mind by which, awake, we keep silent about something we know. Last, we dream that by a free decision of our mind we do something we should not dare to do awake.
Now I should like to know whether there are two sorts of decisions in the mind, one sort illusory and the other free. If our folly does not carry us that far, we must admit that the decision of the mind which is believed to be free is not distinguishable from imagination or memory, and is nothing more than the affirmation which an idea, by virtue of being an idea, necessarily involves (Part 2, Proposition 49). So these decisions of the mind arise in the mind by the same necessity as the ideas of things actually existing. And therefore those who believe that they speak, or keep silent, or act in any way by the free decision of their minds are dreaming with their eyes open.
The activities of the mind arise solely from adequate ideas; its passive states depend solely on inadequate ideas.
Proof. The first element constituting the essence of the mind is nothing but the idea of the actually existing body (Part 2, Proposition 11; Part 2, Proposition 13), which (Part 2, Proposition 15) is composed of many other ideas, some of them adequate and some inadequate (Part 2, Proposition 29, Corollary; Part 2, Proposition 38, Corollary). Whatever therefore follows from the nature of the mind, and has the mind for its proximate cause through which it must be understood, must follow either from an adequate idea or from an inadequate one. But insofar as the mind (Proposition 1 of this Part) has inadequate ideas it is necessarily passive; so the activities of the mind follow solely from adequate ideas, and the mind is passive only insofar as it has inadequate ideas. Q.E.D.
Note. We see, then, that passive states are attributed to the mind only insofar as it contains something involving negation, or insofar as it is regarded as a part of nature which cannot be clearly and distinctly perceived through itself without the other parts. I could show in the same way that passive states are attributed to individual things just as they are to the mind, and cannot be perceived in any other way; but my purpose is only to treat of the human mind.
Nothing can be destroyed except by a cause outside itself.
Proof. This proposition is self-evident. The definition of anything affirms the essence of that thing and does not deny it; it posits the thing's essence and does not take it away. So as long as we consider only the thing itself, without taking external causes into account, we shall not be able to find in it anything that could destroy it. Q.E.D.
Things are naturally contrary—that is, cannot exist in the same subject—insofar as one is capable of destroying the other.
Proof. If they could agree together, or exist together in the same subject, then there would be in that subject something which could destroy it; but that, by the last proposition, is absurd. Therefore things, and so on. Q.E.D.
Everything, insofar as it is in itself, endeavours to persist in its own being.
Proof. Individual things are modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a definite and determined way (Part 1, Proposition 25, Corollary); that is (Part 1, Proposition 34), they are things which express in a definite and determined way the power of God, by which God is and acts. Now nothing contains in itself anything by which it can be destroyed, or which can take away its existence (Proposition 4 of this Part); on the contrary, it is opposed to everything that could take away its existence (Proposition 5 of this Part). Therefore, so far as it can and so far as it is in itself, it endeavours to persist in its own being. Q.E.D.
The endeavour by which each thing endeavours to persist in its own being is nothing but the actual essence of that thing.
Proof. From the given essence of anything certain consequences necessarily follow (Part 1, Proposition 36), and things have no power except what necessarily follows from their determined nature (Part 1, Proposition 29). So the power of any given thing, the endeavour by which it acts or tries to act, alone or with other things—that is (Proposition 6 of this Part), the power or endeavour by which it endeavours to persist in its own being—is nothing but the given, or actual, essence of the thing itself. Q.E.D.
The endeavour by which a thing endeavours to persist in its own being involves no finite time, but an indefinite time.
Proof. If it involved a limited time, which fixed the thing's duration, then it would follow from the very power by which the thing exists that the thing could not exist beyond the limits of that time but must be destroyed; and that (Proposition 4 of this Part) is absurd. So the endeavour by which a thing exists involves no definite time. On the contrary, since (Proposition 4 of this Part) by the same power by which it already exists it will always continue to exist unless destroyed by some external cause, this endeavour involves an indefinite time.
The mind, both insofar as it has clear and distinct ideas and insofar as it has confused ones, endeavours to persist in its being for an indefinite time, and is conscious of this endeavour.
Proof. The essence of the mind is constituted by adequate and inadequate ideas (Proposition 3 of this Part); therefore (Proposition 7 of this Part), both insofar as it has the one and insofar as it has the other, it endeavours to persist in its own being, and that for an indefinite time (Proposition 8 of this Part). And since the mind (Part 2, Proposition 23) is necessarily conscious of itself through the ideas of the modifications of the body, the mind is therefore (Proposition 7 of this Part) conscious of its own endeavour.
Note. This endeavour, when referred to the mind alone, is called will; when referred to mind and body together it is called appetite. Appetite is nothing but the very essence of man, from whose nature there necessarily follow the things that serve his preservation, and which he is determined by that nature to do.
Further, there is no difference between appetite and desire, except that desire is generally used of men insofar as they are conscious of their appetite, and may accordingly be defined thus: desire is appetite together with the consciousness of it. It is plain from all this that we do not strive for, wish for, long for or desire anything because we judge it to be good; on the contrary, we judge a thing to be good because we strive for it, wish for it, long for it, desire it.
An idea which excludes the existence of our body cannot be in our mind, but is contrary to it.
Proof. Whatever can destroy our body cannot be in it (Proposition 5 of this Part). So neither can the idea of such a thing be in God insofar as he has the idea of our body (Part 2, Proposition 9, Corollary); that is (Part 2, Proposition 11; Part 2, Proposition 13), the idea of that thing cannot be in our mind. On the contrary, since (Part 2, Proposition 11; Part 2, Proposition 13) the first element constituting the essence of the mind is the idea of the human body as actually existing, it follows that the first and chief endeavour of our mind is the endeavour to affirm the existence of our body. So an idea which denies the existence of our body is contrary to our mind, and so on. Q.E.D.
Whatever increases or diminishes, helps or hinders our body's power of acting, the idea of it increases or diminishes, helps or hinders our mind's power of thinking.
Proof. This proposition is evident from Part 2, Proposition 7 or from Part 2, Proposition 14.
Note. We see, then, that the mind can undergo great changes, passing sometimes to a greater and sometimes to a lesser perfection. These passive transitions explain to us the emotions of pleasure and pain. By pleasure, therefore, in what follows I shall mean a passive state in which the mind passes to a greater perfection; by pain, a passive state in which the mind passes to a lesser perfection. Further, the emotion of pleasure referred to mind and body together I shall call stimulation (titillatio) or merriment (hilaritas); the emotion of pain in the same relation I shall call suffering or melancholy. But we must bear in mind that stimulation and suffering are attributed to a man when one part of his nature is affected more than the rest, merriment and melancholy when all the parts are affected alike. What I mean by desire I have explained in the note to Proposition 9 of this Part. Beyond these three I recognise no other primary emotion; I shall show as I go on that all the rest arise from these three. But before going further I should like to explain Proposition 10 of this Part at greater length, so that we may clearly understand how one idea is contrary to another. In the note to Part 2, Proposition 17 we showed that the idea constituting the essence of the mind involves the existence of the body so long as the body exists. Again, it follows from what we pointed out in the Corollary to Part 2, Proposition 8 that the present existence of our mind depends solely on the fact that the mind involves the actual existence of the body. And last, we showed (Part 2, Proposition 17; Part 2, Proposition 18, Note) that the mind's power of imagining and remembering things also depends on its involving the actual existence of the body. From which it follows that the present existence of the mind and its power of imagining are removed as soon as the mind ceases to affirm the present existence of the body. Now the cause why the mind ceases to affirm this existence of the body cannot be the mind itself (Proposition 4 of this Part), nor can it be the fact that the body ceases to exist. For (by Part 2, Proposition 6) the cause why the mind affirms the existence of the body is not that the body began to exist; so, for the same reason, it does not cease to affirm the body's existence because the body ceases to exist. Rather (Part 2, Proposition 17) this follows from another idea which excludes the present existence of our body, and consequently of our mind, and which is therefore contrary to the idea constituting the essence of our mind.
The mind, as far as it can, endeavours to conceive those things which increase or help the body's power of acting.
Proof. So long as the human body is affected in a way that involves the nature of some external body, the human mind will regard that external body as present (Part 2, Proposition 17); and consequently (Part 2, Proposition 7), so long as the human mind regards an external body as present—that is (Part 2, Proposition 17, Note), conceives it—the human body is affected in a way that involves the nature of that external body. So, so long as the mind conceives things which increase or help our body's power of acting, the body is affected in ways which increase or help its power of acting (Postulate 1 of this Part); and consequently (Proposition 11 of this Part) the mind's power of thinking is for that time increased or helped. Therefore (Proposition 6 of this Part; Proposition 9 of this Part) the mind, as far as it can, endeavours to imagine such things. Q.E.D.
When the mind conceives things which diminish or hinder the body's power of acting, it endeavours as far as it can to remember things which exclude their existence.
Proof. So long as the mind conceives anything of that kind, the power of mind and body is diminished or checked (compare Proposition 12 of this Part, Proof); and it will go on conceiving it until the mind conceives something else which excludes its present existence (Part 2, Proposition 17). That is, as I have just shown, the power of mind and body is diminished or checked until the mind conceives something else which excludes the existence of the first thing conceived. Therefore the mind (Proposition 9 of this Part), as far as it can, will endeavour to conceive or remember that other thing. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that the mind shrinks from conceiving those things which diminish or check its own power and the body's.
Note. From what has been said we may clearly understand the nature of love and hate. Love is nothing but pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause; hate is nothing but pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause. We see, further, that a man who loves necessarily endeavours to have, and to keep with him, the object of his love, while a man who hates endeavours to remove and destroy the object of his hatred. But I shall treat of these matters at greater length later.
If the mind has once been affected by two emotions at the same time, then whenever it is afterwards affected by one of them it will be affected by the other too.
Proof. If the human body has once been affected by two bodies at once, then whenever the mind afterwards conceives one of them it will at once remember the other as well (Part 2, Proposition 18). But the mind's conceptions indicate the emotions of our body rather than the nature of external bodies (Part 2, Proposition 16, Corollary 2). Therefore, if the body, and consequently the mind (Definition 3 of this Part), has once been affected by two emotions at the same time, then whenever it is afterwards affected by one of them it will be affected by the other too.
Anything can accidentally be the cause of pleasure, pain or desire.
Proof. Suppose the mind is affected by two emotions at once, one of which neither increases nor diminishes its power of acting, while the other does increase or diminish it (Postulate 1 of this Part). It is evident from the last proposition that whenever the mind is afterwards affected by the first, through its true cause, which by hypothesis neither increases nor diminishes its power of acting, it will at the same time be affected by the second, which does increase or diminish that power—that is (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note), it will be affected with pleasure or pain. So the first of the two emotions will be the cause of pleasure or pain, not in itself, but accidentally. It can easily be shown in the same way that a thing may accidentally be the cause of desire. Q.E.D.
Corollary. Simply from having regarded a thing with the emotion of pleasure or pain, though that thing is not the efficient cause of the emotion, we can love it or hate it.
Proof. For from that fact alone it comes about (Proposition 14 of this Part) that the mind, afterwards conceiving that thing, is affected with the emotion of pleasure or pain—that is (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note), that the power of mind and body is increased or diminished, and so on; and consequently (Proposition 12 of this Part) that the mind desires or shrinks from conceiving it (Proposition 13 of this Part, Corollary); in other words (Proposition 13 of this Part, Note), that it loves or hates it. Q.E.D.
Note. From this we understand how it can happen that we love or hate a thing without knowing any cause for our emotion—merely, as the phrase is, from sympathy or antipathy. And we should put in the same class those objects which affect us pleasurably or painfully simply because they resemble other objects that affect us in the same way. This I will show in Proposition 16 of this Part. I am aware that the authors who first introduced the terms "sympathy" and "antipathy" meant by them certain occult qualities in things; but I think we may nevertheless use the same terms for known and manifest qualities.
Simply from conceiving that a given object has some point of resemblance with another object which usually affects the mind with pleasure or pain, we shall regard the first object with love or hate, even though the point of resemblance is not the efficient cause of those emotions.
Proof. The point of resemblance was in the object (by hypothesis) when we regarded it with pleasure or pain; so (Proposition 14 of this Part), when the mind is affected by the image of it, the mind will at once be affected by one emotion or the other; and consequently the thing which we perceive to have that same point of resemblance will accidentally (Proposition 15 of this Part) be a cause of pleasure or pain. So (by Proposition 15 of this Part, Corollary), although the point in which the two objects resemble one another is not the efficient cause of the emotion, we shall still regard the first object with love or hate. Q.E.D.
If we conceive that a thing which usually affects us with pain has some point of resemblance with another thing which usually affects us with an equally strong pleasure, we shall hate it and at the same time love it.
Proof. The thing in question is (by hypothesis) in itself a cause of pain, and (Proposition 13 of this Part, Note) insofar as we imagine it with that emotion we shall hate it. And insofar as we conceive that it has some point of resemblance to something else which usually affects us with an equally strong pleasure, we shall love it with an equally strong impulse of pleasure (Proposition 16 of this Part). So we shall both hate and love the same thing. Q.E.D.
Note. This state of mind, arising from two contrary emotions, is called vacillation. It stands to the emotions as doubt stands to the imagination (Part 2, Proposition 44, Note); vacillation and doubt differ only as the greater differs from the less. But we should bear in mind that I have deduced this vacillation from causes which give rise to one of the emotions through themselves and to the other accidentally. I have done so in order that they might be more easily deduced from what went before; but I do not deny that vacillation generally arises from an object which is the efficient cause of both emotions. The human body is composed (Part 2, Postulate 1) of a great many individual parts of different natures, and may therefore (Axiom 1, after Lemma 3, which follows Part 2, Proposition 13) be affected in a great many different ways by one and the same body; and conversely, since one and the same thing can be affected in many ways, it can also affect one and the same part of the body in many different ways. So we can easily conceive that one and the same object may be the cause of many and conflicting emotions.
A man is affected with pleasure or pain by the image of a thing past or future as much as by the image of a thing present.
Proof. So long as a man is affected by the image of anything, he will regard that thing as present even though it does not exist (Part 2, Proposition 17, Corollary), and will not conceive it as past or future except insofar as its image is joined to the image of time past or future (Part 2, Proposition 44, Note). So the image of a thing, regarded in itself alone, is the same whether it is referred to time past, time future or time present; that is (Part 2, Proposition 16, Corollary), the disposition, or emotion, of the body is the same whether the image is of a thing past, future or present. So the emotion of pleasure or pain is the same whether the image is of a thing past or future. Q.E.D.
Note 1. I call a thing past or future according as we have been or shall be affected by it: according as we have seen it or are about to see it, according as it has refreshed us or will refresh us, according as it has harmed us or will harm us. For in conceiving it so, we affirm its existence; that is, the body is affected by no emotion which excludes the thing's existence, and therefore (Part 2, Proposition 17) the body is affected by the image of the thing just as if the thing were actually present. However, since it generally happens that those who have had many experiences waver so long as they regard a thing as past or future, and are usually in doubt about the outcome (Part 2, Proposition 44, Note), it follows that the emotions arising from such images are not constant, but are generally disturbed by the images of other things until men become certain of the outcome.
Note 2. From what has just been said we understand what is meant by hope, fear, confidence, despair, joy and disappointment. Hope is nothing but an inconstant pleasure arising from the image of something past or future whose outcome we are unsure of. Fear is an inconstant pain, likewise arising from the image of something we are in doubt about. If the element of doubt is removed from these emotions, hope becomes confidence and fear becomes despair—in other words, the pleasure or pain arising from the image of something we had hoped for or feared. Joy, again, is the pleasure arising from the image of something past whose outcome we had doubted; disappointment is the pain opposed to joy.
Footnote: Conscientiæ morsus—thus rendered by Mr. Pollock.
He who conceives that the object of his love is destroyed will feel pain; if he conceives that it is preserved, he will feel pleasure.
Proof. The mind endeavours as far as it can to conceive those things which increase or help the body's power of acting (Proposition 12 of this Part); in other words (Proposition 12 of this Part, Note), the things it loves. But conception is helped by whatever posits the existence of a thing and hindered by whatever excludes it (Part 2, Proposition 17). Therefore the images of things which posit the existence of the object of love help the mind's endeavour to conceive that object—in other words (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note), affect the mind with pleasure; while those which exclude the existence of the object of love hinder that endeavour, and so affect the mind with pain. He, therefore, who conceives that the object of his love is destroyed will feel pain, and so on. Q.E.D.
He who conceives that the object of his hate is destroyed will feel pleasure.
Proof. The mind (Proposition 13 of this Part) endeavours to conceive those things which exclude the existence of whatever diminishes or checks the body's power of acting; that is (Proposition 13 of this Part, Note), it endeavours to conceive things which exclude the existence of what it hates. So the image of a thing which excludes the existence of what the mind hates helps that endeavour—in other words (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note), affects the mind with pleasure. Thus he who conceives that the object of his hate is destroyed will feel pleasure. Q.E.D.
He who conceives that the object of his love is affected with pleasure or pain will himself be affected with pleasure or pain; and the emotion will be greater or less in the lover according as it is greater or less in the thing loved.
Proof. The images of things which posit the existence of the object of love (as we showed in Proposition 19 of this Part) help the mind's endeavour to conceive that object. But pleasure posits the existence of the thing feeling it, and the more so the greater the pleasure, since it is (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note) a transition to a greater perfection. So the image of pleasure in the object of love helps the lover's mental endeavour—that is, affects the lover with pleasure, and the more so the greater that emotion was in the object of love. That was our first point. Further, insofar as a thing is affected with pain it is to that extent destroyed, the extent being proportional to the pain (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note); therefore (Proposition 19 of this Part) he who conceives that the object of his love is affected with pain will himself be affected with pain, in proportion as that emotion is greater or less in the object of his love. Q.E.D.
If we conceive that someone affects with pleasure an object of our love, we shall be affected with love towards him; if we conceive that he affects it with pain, we shall be affected with hatred towards him.
Proof. He who affects the object of our love with pleasure or pain affects us also with pleasure or pain—that is, if we conceive the loved object as affected with that pleasure or pain (Proposition 21 of this Part). But this pleasure or pain is supposed to come to us accompanied by the idea of an external cause; therefore (Proposition 13 of this Part, Note), if we conceive that someone affects an object of our love with pleasure or pain, we shall be affected with love or hatred towards him. Q.E.D.
Note. Proposition 21 of this Part explains the nature of pity, which we may define as pain arising from another's hurt. What term to use for pleasure arising from another's good, I do not know.
We will call the love towards someone who benefits another approval, and the hatred towards someone who injures another indignation. And we should note further that we feel pity not only for a thing we have loved (as shown in Proposition 21 of this Part) but also for one we have hitherto regarded without any emotion, provided we judge it to resemble ourselves. So we bestow approval on anyone who has benefited something resembling ourselves, and are indignant with anyone who has injured it.
He who conceives that an object of his hatred is affected with pain will feel pleasure; and if he thinks it is affected with pleasure, he will feel pain. Each of these emotions will be greater or less according as its contrary is greater or less in the object of hatred.
Proof. Insofar as an object of hatred is affected with pain it is destroyed, to an extent proportional to the pain (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note). Therefore he (Proposition 20 of this Part) who conceives that an object of his hatred is affected with pain will feel pleasure, to an extent proportional to the pain he conceives in that object. That was our first point. Again, pleasure posits the existence of the thing affected with it (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note), in proportion as the pleasure is greater or less. So if anyone imagines that an object of his hatred is affected with pleasure, this conception (Proposition 13 of this Part) will hinder his own endeavour to persist; in other words (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note), the hater will be affected with pain. Q.E.D.
Note. This pleasure can scarcely be felt unmixed, and without some conflict of mind. For (as I am about to show in Proposition 27 of this Part), insofar as a man conceives that something like himself is affected with pain, he will be affected in the same way himself; and he will have the contrary emotion in contrary circumstances. But here we are considering hatred only.
If we conceive that someone affects an object of our hate with pleasure, we shall feel hatred towards him too; if we conceive that he affects it with pain, we shall feel love towards him.
Proof. This proposition is proved in the same way as Proposition 22 of this Part, which see.
Note. These and similar emotions of hatred belong to envy, which accordingly is nothing but hatred insofar as it is regarded as disposing a man to rejoice in another's hurt and to grieve at another's good.
We endeavour to affirm, of ourselves and of what we love, everything we conceive to affect ourselves or the loved object with pleasure; and we endeavour to deny everything we conceive to affect ourselves or the loved object with pain.
Proof. What we conceive to affect an object of our love with pleasure or pain affects us also with pleasure or pain (Proposition 21 of this Part). But the mind (Proposition 12 of this Part) endeavours as far as it can to conceive the things which affect us with pleasure—in other words (Part 2, Proposition 17, Corollary), it endeavours to regard them as present; and conversely (Proposition 13 of this Part) it endeavours to exclude the existence of the things which affect us with pain. Therefore we endeavour to affirm of ourselves, and of the loved object, whatever we conceive to affect ourselves or the loved object with pleasure. Q.E.D.
We endeavour to affirm, of what we hate, everything we conceive to affect it with pain; and conversely to deny of it everything we conceive to affect it with pleasure.
Proof. This proposition follows from Proposition 23 of this Part as the previous one followed from Proposition 21 of this Part.
Note. We see from this that it can easily happen that a man thinks too highly of himself, or of an object he loves, and too meanly of an object he hates. This feeling, when a man thinks too highly of himself, is called pride, and is a kind of madness in which a man dreams with his eyes open, thinking he can do everything that falls within his imagination, and taking those things for real, and exulting in them, so long as he cannot conceive anything which excludes their existence and limits his own power of acting. Pride, then, is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself. The pleasure arising from thinking too highly of another is called over-esteem; and the pleasure arising from thinking too little of a man is called disdain.
By the very fact of conceiving that a thing like ourselves, which we have regarded with no emotion, is affected with some emotion, we are ourselves affected with a like emotion (affectus).
Proof. The images of things are modifications of the human body whose ideas represent external bodies to us as present (Part 2, Proposition 17); in other words (Part 2, Proposition 10), whose ideas involve the nature of our body and at the same time the nature of the external bodies as present. If, therefore, the nature of the external body is like the nature of our body, then the idea we form of that external body will involve a modification of our own body like the modification of the external body. Consequently, if we conceive someone like ourselves as affected by some emotion, this conception will express a modification of our body like that emotion. So by the very fact of conceiving a thing like ourselves to be affected with some emotion, we are affected with a like emotion ourselves. If, however, we hate that thing like ourselves, then to that extent we shall be affected by a contrary emotion, not a like one. Q.E.D.
Note 1. This imitation of the emotions, when it is referred to pain, is called compassion (compare Proposition 22 of this Part, Note); when it is referred to desire, it is called emulation, which is nothing but the desire of a thing engendered in us by our conceiving that others have the same desire.
Corollary 1. If we conceive that someone we have hitherto regarded with no emotion affects with pleasure something like ourselves, we shall be affected with love towards him. If, on the other hand, we conceive that he affects it with pain, we shall be affected with hatred towards him.
Proof. This is proved from the last proposition in the same way as Proposition 22 of this Part is proved from Proposition 21 of this Part.
Corollary 2. We cannot hate a thing we pity, because its misery affects us with pain.
Proof. If we could hate it for that reason, we should rejoice in its pain, which is contrary to the hypothesis.
Corollary 3. We seek to free from misery, as far as we can, a thing we pity.
Proof. What affects the object of our pity with pain affects us also with a like pain (by Proposition 26 of this Part). So we shall endeavour to recall everything which removes its existence, or destroys it (compare Proposition 13 of this Part); in other words (Proposition 9 of this Part, Note), we shall desire to destroy it, or shall be determined to destroy it. So we shall endeavour to free from misery a thing we pity. Q.E.D.
Note 2. This will, or appetite, for doing good, arising from pity for the thing we would benefit, is called benevolence, and is nothing but desire arising from compassion. As for love or hatred towards someone who has done good or harm to something we conceive to be like ourselves, see Proposition 22 of this Part, Note.
We endeavour to bring about whatever we conceive to conduce to pleasure; and we endeavour to remove or destroy whatever we conceive to be truly opposed to it, or to conduce to pain.
Proof. We endeavour as far as we can to conceive what we imagine conduces to pleasure (Proposition 12 of this Part); in other words (Part 2, Proposition 17), we shall endeavour as far as we can to conceive it as present, or actually existing. But the endeavour of the mind, its power of thinking, is equal to and simultaneous with the endeavour of the body, its power of acting (this is clear from Part 2, Proposition 7, Corollary, and Part 2, Proposition 11, Corollary). So we make an absolute endeavour for its existence—in other words (Proposition 9 of this Part, Note), we desire it and strive for it. That was our first point. Again, if we conceive that something we believed to be a cause of pain—that is (Proposition 13 of this Part, Note), something we hate—is destroyed, we shall rejoice (Proposition 20 of this Part). So we shall endeavour (by the first part of this proof) to destroy it, or (Proposition 13 of this Part) to remove it from us, so that we may not regard it as present. That was our second point. Therefore whatever conduces to pleasure, and so on. Q.E.D.
We shall also endeavour to do whatever we conceive men to regard with pleasure, and shall shrink from doing what we conceive men to shrink from.
Footnote: By "men" in this and the following propositions, I mean men whom we regard without any particular emotion.
Proof. From imagining that men love or hate something, we shall love or hate the same thing (Proposition 27 of this Part); that is (Proposition 13 of this Part, Note), from that fact alone we shall feel pleasure or pain at the thing's presence. And so we shall endeavour to do whatever we conceive men to love or regard with pleasure, and so on. Q.E.D.
Note. This endeavour to do a thing or leave it undone solely in order to please men we call ambition, especially when we try so eagerly to please the crowd that we do or leave undone certain things to our own or another's hurt; otherwise it is generally called kindliness. Further, I give the name of praise to the pleasure with which we conceive another's action by which he has tried to please us, and of blame to the pain with which we regard his action with aversion.
If a man has done something which he conceives affects other men with pleasure, he will be affected with pleasure accompanied by the idea of himself as its cause; in other words, he will regard himself with pleasure. If he has done something which he conceives affects others with pain, he will regard himself with pain.
Proof. He who conceives that he affects others with pleasure or pain will by that very fact be affected with pleasure or pain himself (Proposition 27 of this Part). And since a man (Part 2, Proposition 19; Part 2, Proposition 23) is conscious of himself through the modifications by which he is determined to act, it follows that he who conceives that he affects others with pleasure will be affected with pleasure accompanied by the idea of himself as cause—in other words, he will regard himself with pleasure. And so, with the necessary changes, in the case of pain. Q.E.D.
Note. Since love (Proposition 13 of this Part) is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause, and hatred is pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause, the pleasure and pain in question will be a kind of love and hatred. But since the terms love and hatred are used of external objects, we will use other names for the emotions now under discussion: pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause we will call honour, and the emotion contrary to it shame—I mean in cases where the pleasure or pain arises from a man's belief that he is being praised or blamed. Otherwise, pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause is called self-approval, and the pain contrary to it repentance. Again, since it may happen (Part 2, Proposition 17, Corollary) that the pleasure with which a man conceives that he affects others exists only in his own imagination, and since (Proposition 25 of this Part) everyone endeavours to conceive of himself whatever he conceives will affect him with pleasure, it may easily come about that a vain man is proud and imagines himself pleasing to everyone when in fact he is an annoyance to everyone.
Footnote: So Van Vloten and Bruder. The Dutch version and Camerer read, "an internal cause." "Honor" = Gloria.
Footnote: See previous footnote.
If we conceive that someone loves, desires or hates a thing which we ourselves love, desire or hate, we shall on that account regard the thing with a more settled love, and so on. If, on the other hand, we think that someone shrinks from what we love, we shall waver.
Proof. From merely conceiving that someone loves a thing, we shall ourselves love that thing (Proposition 27 of this Part); but we are supposed to love it already, so there is a new cause of love by which our former emotion is fed, and we shall therefore love it more steadily. Again, from merely conceiving that someone shrinks from a thing, we shall ourselves shrink from it (Proposition 27 of this Part); and if we suppose that at the same time we love it, we shall love it and shrink from it at once—in other words, we shall waver (Proposition 17 of this Part, Note). Q.E.D.
Corollary. From this, and from Proposition 28 of this Part, it follows that everyone endeavours as far as he can to make others love what he loves and hate what he hates; as the poet says: "As lovers let us share every hope and every fear: ironhearted were he who should love what the other leaves."
Footnote: Ovid, "Amores," II. xix. 4,5. Spinoza transposes the verses. "Speremus pariter, pariter metuamus amantes; Ferreus est, si quis, quod sinit alter, amat."
Speremus pariter, pariter metuamus amantes; Ferreus est, si quis, quod sinit alter, amat.
Note. This endeavour to make our own likes and dislikes meet with universal approval is really ambition (see Proposition 29 of this Part, Note). So we see that everyone by nature desires that the rest of mankind should live according to his own individual temper; and when such a desire is equally present in all, everyone stands in everyone else's way, and in wanting to be loved or praised by all, all become hateful to one another.
If we conceive that someone takes delight in something which only one person can possess, we shall endeavour to bring it about that he does not get possession of it.
Proof. From merely conceiving that another person takes delight in a thing (Proposition 27 of this Part, Corollary), we shall ourselves love that thing and desire to take delight in it. But we supposed that our pleasure in it would be prevented by his delight in it; so we shall endeavour to prevent his possessing it (Proposition 28 of this Part). Q.E.D.
Note. We see, then, that men are generally so constituted that they pity those who fare badly and envy those who fare well, with a hatred proportional to their own love of the goods those others possess. Further, we see that from the same property of human nature which makes men merciful it also follows that they are envious and ambitious. And last, if we appeal to experience, we shall find that she entirely confirms what we have said, especially if we turn our attention to the first years of our life. We find that children, whose bodies are continually as it were in equilibrium, laugh or cry simply because they see others laughing or crying; they want at once to imitate whatever they see others doing, and to have for themselves whatever they conceive as delighting others—since the images of things are, as we have said, modifications of the human body, ways in which the human body is affected and disposed by external causes to act in this way or that.
When we love a thing like ourselves, we endeavour as far as we can to make it love us in return.
Proof. What we love we endeavour as far as we can to conceive in preference to anything else (Proposition 12 of this Part). If the thing is like ourselves, we shall endeavour to affect it with pleasure in preference to anything else (Proposition 29 of this Part); in other words, we shall endeavour as far as we can to bring it about that the thing is affected with pleasure accompanied by the idea of ourselves—that is (Proposition 13 of this Part, Note), that it loves us in return. Q.E.D.
The greater the emotion with which we conceive a loved object to be affected towards us, the greater will be our self-approval.
Proof. We endeavour (Proposition 33 of this Part), as far as we can, to make what we love love us in return; in other words, to make what we love be affected with pleasure accompanied by the idea of ourselves as cause. So in proportion as the loved object is affected with more pleasure because of us, our endeavour will be helped—that is (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note), the greater will be our pleasure. But when we take pleasure in the fact that we affect something like ourselves with pleasure, we regard ourselves with pleasure (Proposition 30 of this Part). Therefore the greater the emotion with which we conceive a loved object to be affected, and so on. Q.E.D.
If anyone conceives that an object of his love is joining itself to another with closer bonds of friendship than he has himself attained, he will be affected with hatred towards the loved object and with envy towards his rival.
Proof. In proportion as a man thinks a loved object is well disposed towards him, so will be the strength of his self-approval (by Proposition 34 of this Part), that is (Proposition 30 of this Part, Note), of his pleasure. He will therefore (Proposition 28 of this Part) endeavour as far as he can to imagine the loved object as bound to him as closely as possible; and this endeavour, or desire, will be increased if he thinks someone else has a like desire (Proposition 31 of this Part). But this endeavour, or desire, is supposed to be checked by the image of the loved object together with the image of the man it has joined itself to; therefore (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note) he will for that reason be affected with pain accompanied by the idea of the loved object as cause together with the image of his rival. That is, he will be (Proposition 13 of this Part) affected with hatred towards the loved object and towards his rival too (Proposition 15 of this Part, Corollary), whom he will envy for enjoying the beloved object. Q.E.D.
Note. This hatred towards an object of love, joined with envy, is called jealousy, which accordingly is nothing but a wavering of temper arising from love and hatred together, accompanied by the idea of a rival who is envied. Further, this hatred towards the object of love will be greater in proportion to the pleasure the jealous man used to derive from that object's returned love, and also in proportion to the feelings he had previously had towards his rival. If he had hated him, he will at once hate the object of his love, because he conceives it as affected with pleasure by someone he himself hates, and also because he is forced to associate the image of the one he loves with the image of the one he hates. This generally comes into play in the case of love for a woman; for a man who thinks that a woman he loves gives herself to another will feel pain not only because his own desire is checked, but also because, being forced to associate the image of the woman he loves with the private parts and the excretions of another, he shrinks from her.
We must add that a jealous man is not greeted by his beloved with the same glad face as before, and this too gives him pain as a lover, as I shall now show.
He who remembers a thing in which he once took delight desires to possess it in the same circumstances as when he first took delight in it.
Proof. Everything a man has seen along with the object of his love will be to him accidentally a cause of pleasure (Proposition 15 of this Part); so he will desire to possess it together with the thing he took delight in—in other words, he will desire to possess the object of his love in the same circumstances as when he first took delight in it. Q.E.D.
Corollary. A lover will therefore feel pain if one of those attendant circumstances is missing.
Proof. Insofar as he finds a circumstance missing, he conceives something which excludes its existence; and since he is supposed to desire that thing or circumstance for love's sake (by Proposition 35 of this Part), he will, insofar as he conceives it to be missing, feel pain (Proposition 19 of this Part). Q.E.D.
Note. This pain, insofar as it has to do with the absence of the object of love, is called regret.
Desire arising from pain or pleasure, hatred or love, is greater in proportion as the emotion is greater.
Proof. Pain diminishes or checks a man's power of acting (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note); in other words (Proposition 7 of this Part), it diminishes or checks the endeavour by which he endeavours to persist in his own being. So (Proposition 5 of this Part) it is contrary to that endeavour, and all the endeavours of a man affected with pain are directed to removing that pain. But (by the definition of pain) in proportion as the pain is greater, so is it necessarily opposed to a greater part of a man's power of acting; therefore the greater the pain, the greater the power of acting employed to remove it—that is, the greater the desire or appetite to remove it. Again, since pleasure (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note) increases or helps a man's power of acting, it may easily be shown in the same way that a man affected with pleasure desires nothing but to keep it, and that his desire is proportional to the greatness of the pleasure.
And last, since hatred and love are themselves emotions of pain and pleasure, it follows in the same way that the endeavour, appetite or desire arising from hatred or love will be greater in proportion to the hatred or love. Q.E.D.
If a man has begun to hate an object of his love, so that his love is entirely destroyed, he will, other causes being equal, regard it with more hatred than if he had never loved it, and his hatred will be proportional to the strength of his former love.
Proof. If a man begins to hate what he had loved, more of his appetites are checked than if he had never loved it. For love is a pleasure (Proposition 13 of this Part, Note) which a man endeavours as far as he can to make lasting (Proposition 28 of this Part); he does so by regarding the object of his love as present and by affecting it with pleasure as far as he can. This endeavour is greater in proportion as the love is greater, and so is the endeavour to make the beloved return his affection (Proposition 33 of this Part). Now these endeavours are checked by hatred towards the object of love (Proposition 13 of this Part, Corollary; Proposition 23 of this Part); so the lover (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note) will for this reason also be affected with pain, the more so in proportion as his love was greater. That is, besides the pain caused by hatred there is a pain caused by his having loved the object; and so the lover will regard the beloved with greater pain—in other words, will hate it more than if he had never loved it, and the more intensely in proportion as his former love was greater. Q.E.D.
He who hates someone will endeavour to injure him, unless he fears a greater injury to himself as a result; and conversely he who loves someone will by the same law seek to benefit him.
Proof. To hate a man is (Proposition 13 of this Part, Note) to conceive him as a cause of pain; so he who hates a man will endeavour to remove or destroy him. But if something more painful—a greater evil, that is—would come to the hater as a result, and if he thinks he can avoid that evil by not carrying out the injury he had planned against the object of his hate, then he will desire to refrain from inflicting it (Proposition 28 of this Part); and the strength of this endeavour (Proposition 37 of this Part) will be greater than his earlier endeavour to injure, and will therefore prevail over it, as we said. The second part of the proof proceeds in the same way. Therefore he who hates another, and so on. Q.E.D.
Note. By good I mean here every kind of pleasure and everything that conduces to it, especially whatever satisfies our longings, of whatever kind. By evil I mean every kind of pain, especially whatever frustrates our longings. For I have shown (Proposition 9 of this Part, Note) that we never desire a thing because we judge it good; on the contrary, we judge a thing good because we desire it, and judge evil what we shrink from. So everyone, according to his own emotions, judges or estimates what is good, what is bad, what is better, what is worse, and last what is best and what is worst. A miser thinks abundance of money the best thing and want of money the worst; an ambitious man desires nothing so much as glory and fears nothing so much as shame; to an envious man nothing is more delightful than another's misfortune and nothing more painful than another's success. So every man, according to his emotions, judges a thing good or bad, useful or useless. The emotion which makes a man turn from what he wishes, or wish for what he turns from, is called timidity, which may accordingly be defined as the fear by which a man is led to avoid an evil he regards as coming by meeting a lesser evil (Proposition 28 of this Part). But if the evil he fears is shame, timidity becomes bashfulness. And last, if the desire to avoid a future evil is checked by the fear of another, so that the man does not know which to choose, fear becomes consternation, especially if both the evils feared are very great.
He who conceives himself to be hated by another, and believes he has given him no cause for hatred, will hate that other in return.
Proof. He who conceives another as affected with hatred will thereupon be affected with hatred himself (Proposition 27 of this Part)—that is, with pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause. But by hypothesis he conceives no cause for this pain except the man who is his enemy; so from conceiving that he is hated by someone, he will be affected with pain accompanied by the idea of his enemy—in other words, he will hate his enemy in return. Q.E.D.
Note. He who thinks he has given just cause for hatred will (Proposition 30 of this Part, Note) be affected with shame; but this (Proposition 25 of this Part) rarely happens. This return of hatred may also arise from the hatred which follows an endeavour to injure the object of our hate (Proposition 39 of this Part). So he who conceives that he is hated by another will conceive his enemy as the cause of some evil or pain; and so will be affected with pain, or fear, accompanied by the idea of his enemy as cause—in other words, he will be affected with hatred towards his enemy, as I said above.
Corollary 1. He who conceives that one he loves hates him will be torn between hatred and love. For insofar as he conceives himself to be an object of hatred, he is determined to hate his enemy in return; but by hypothesis he nevertheless loves him. So he will be torn between hatred and love.
Corollary 2. If a man conceives that someone he has hitherto regarded without emotion has done him some injury out of hatred, he will at once seek to repay the injury in kind.
Proof. He who conceives that another hates him will (by Proposition 39 of this Part) hate his enemy in return, and (Proposition 26 of this Part) will endeavour to recall everything which can affect him with pain; and he will further endeavour to injure him (Proposition 39 of this Part). Now the first thing of this kind he conceives is the injury done to himself; so he will at once endeavour to repay it in kind. Q.E.D.
Note. The endeavour to injure one we hate is called anger; the endeavour to repay in kind an injury done to ourselves is called revenge.
If anyone conceives that he is loved by another, and believes he has given no cause for such love, he will love that other in return (compare Proposition 15 of this Part, Corollary; Proposition 16 of this Part).
Proof. This proposition is proved in the same way as the one before it. See also the note added to it.
Note. If he believes he has given just cause for the love, he will take pride in it (Proposition 30 of this Part, Note); and this is what most often happens (Proposition 25 of this Part), whereas we said the contrary took place whenever a man conceives himself to be hated by another (see Proposition 41 of this Part). This returned love, and consequently the desire to benefit one who loves us (Proposition 39 of this Part) and who endeavours to benefit us, is called gratitude or thankfulness. From which it appears that men are far readier to take revenge than to return a benefit.
Corollary. He who imagines that he is loved by one he hates will be torn between hatred and love. This is proved in the same way as the first corollary of the previous proposition.
Note. If hatred is the stronger emotion, he will endeavour to injure the man who loves him; and this emotion is called cruelty, especially if the victim is believed to have given no ordinary cause for hatred.
He who has done someone a kindness out of love or the hope of honour will feel pain if he sees the kindness received ungratefully.
Proof. When a man loves something like himself, he endeavours as far as he can to make it love him in return (Proposition 33 of this Part). So a man who does a kindness does it out of the desire he feels to be loved in return—that is (Proposition 34 of this Part), out of the hope of honour, or (Proposition 30 of this Part, Note) of pleasure. He will therefore endeavour as far as he can to conceive this cause of honour, or to regard it as actually existing. But by hypothesis he conceives something else which excludes the existence of that cause of honour; so he will feel pain at it (Proposition 19 of this Part). Q.E.D.
Hatred is increased by being returned, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love.
Proof. He who conceives that an object of his hatred hates him in return will thereupon feel a new hatred, while the former hatred (by hypothesis) still remains (Proposition 40 of this Part). But if instead he conceives that the object of his hate loves him, he will to that extent (Proposition 38 of this Part) regard himself with pleasure, and (Proposition 29 of this Part) will endeavour to please the cause of that emotion—in other words, he will endeavour not to hate him (Proposition 41 of this Part) and not to affect him with pain. This endeavour (Proposition 37 of this Part) will be greater or less in proportion to the emotion it arises from; so if it is greater than the endeavour arising from hatred, by which he tries to affect with pain the thing he hates, it will get the better of it and drive the hatred from his mind. Q.E.D.
Hatred completely conquered by love passes into love; and the love is then greater than if hatred had not gone before it.
Proof. The proof runs as in Proposition 38 of this Part. For a man who begins to love a thing he used to hate, or to regard with pain, feels pleasure by the very act of loving; and to this pleasure involved in love is added the pleasure arising from the help given to his endeavour to remove the pain involved in hatred (Proposition 37 of this Part), accompanied by the idea of the former object of hatred as its cause.
Note. Even so, no one will endeavour to hate a thing, or to be affected with pain, for the sake of enjoying this greater pleasure. That is, no one will wish to be injured in the hope of recovering from the injury, or long to be ill for the sake of getting well. For everyone will always endeavour to persist in his being and to keep off pain as far as he can. If the contrary were conceivable—if a man could desire to hate someone in order to love him the more afterwards—he would always desire to go on hating him. For the strength of the love is proportional to the strength of the hatred, so the man would want the hatred to grow greater and greater; and for the same reason he would want to grow more and more ill in order to take a greater pleasure in being restored to health. So he would always endeavour to be ill, which (Proposition 6 of this Part) is absurd.
If a man conceives that someone like himself hates a thing like himself which he loves, he will hate that person.
Proof. The beloved object returns the hatred of the man who hates it (Proposition 40 of this Part). So the lover, in conceiving that someone hates the beloved object, conceives the beloved thing as affected with hatred—in other words (Proposition 13 of this Part), with pain. Consequently he is himself affected with pain accompanied by the idea of the one who hates the beloved thing as its cause; that is, he will hate the man who hates what he himself loves (Proposition 13 of this Part, Note). Q.E.D.
If a man has been affected with pleasure or pain by someone of a class or nation different from his own, and if the pleasure or pain was accompanied by the idea of that stranger as its cause under the general heading of his class or nation, the man will feel love or hatred not only towards that individual but towards the whole class or nation he belongs to.
Proof. This is evident from Proposition 16 of this Part.
The joy arising from the destruction or other injury of something we hate is never unmixed with a certain pain in ourselves.
Proof. This is evident from Proposition 27 of this Part. For insofar as we conceive a thing like ourselves to be affected with pain, we feel pain ourselves.
Note. This proposition can also be proved from the Corollary to Part 2, Proposition 17. Whenever we remember anything, even if it does not actually exist, we regard it only as present, and the body is affected in the same way. So insofar as the memory of the thing is strong, a man is determined to regard it with pain; and this determination, while the image of the thing lasts, is checked by the memory of other things which exclude that thing's existence, but is not destroyed. A man therefore feels pleasure only insofar as that determination is checked; and this is why the joy arising from an injury done to what we hate is repeated every time we remember the object of our hatred. For, as we have said, when the image of the thing is roused, it involves the thing's existence and so determines the man to regard it with the same pain as he used to when it did actually exist. But since he has joined to the image of the thing other images which exclude its existence, this determination to pain is at once checked, and the man rejoices afresh each time it happens. This is why men take pleasure in recalling past evils, and delight in telling of dangers they have escaped: when men conceive a danger, they conceive it as still to come and are determined to fear it, and this determination is checked afresh by the idea of the freedom that came to be associated with the idea of the danger when they escaped it. This makes them feel safe again, and so they rejoice again.
Love or hatred towards, say, Peter is destroyed if the pleasure involved in the one, or the pain involved in the other, comes to be associated with the idea of another cause; and it will be diminished in proportion as we conceive Peter not to have been the sole cause of the emotion.
Proof. This proposition is evident from the mere definition of love and hatred (Proposition 13 of this Part, Note). For pleasure is called love towards Peter, and pain is called hatred towards Peter, simply insofar as Peter is regarded as the cause of the one emotion or the other. When this relation of cause is wholly or partly removed, the emotion towards Peter wholly or partly vanishes too. Q.E.D.
Love or hatred towards a thing we conceive to be free must, other things being equal, be greater than towards a thing acting by necessity.
Proof. A thing we conceive as free must (Part 1, Definition 7) be perceived through itself, without anything else. So if we conceive it as the cause of pleasure or pain, we shall (Proposition 13 of this Part, Note) love it or hate it, and shall do so with the utmost love or hatred that can arise from the emotion in question. But if the thing that causes the emotion is conceived as acting by necessity, we shall (by Part 1, Definition 7) conceive it not as the sole cause but as one of the causes of the emotion, and our love or hatred towards it will therefore be less. Q.E.D.
Note. It follows that men, thinking themselves free, feel more love and hatred towards one another than towards anything else; and to this we must add the imitation of the emotions treated of in Proposition 27 of this Part, Proposition 34 of this Part, Proposition 40 of this Part and Proposition 43 of this Part.
Anything whatever can accidentally be a cause of hope or fear.
Proof. This proposition is proved in the same way as Proposition 15 of this Part, which see, together with the note to Proposition 18 of this Part.
Note. Things which are accidentally the causes of hope or fear are called good or bad omens. And insofar as such omens are the cause of hope or fear, they are (by Proposition 18 of this Part, Note) causes of pleasure and pain as well; so to that extent we regard them with love or hatred, and endeavour either to invoke them as means to what we hope for, or to remove them as obstacles, or as causes of what we fear. It further follows, from Proposition 25 of this Part, that we are naturally so constituted that we believe readily what we hope for and with difficulty what we fear, and that we are apt to value such things above or below their true worth. This is where the superstitions come from which harass men everywhere. However, I do not think it worth pointing out here the waverings that spring from hope and fear; it follows from the definition of these emotions that there can be no hope without fear and no fear without hope, as I shall explain in the proper place. Further, insofar as we hope for or fear anything, we regard it with love or hatred; so anyone can apply to hope and fear for himself what we have said about love and hatred.
Different men may be affected differently by the same object, and the same man may be affected differently at different times by the same object.
Proof. The human body is affected by external bodies in a great variety of ways (Part 2, Postulate 3). Two men may therefore be affected differently at the same time, and therefore (by Axiom 1, after Lemma 3, which follows Part 2, Proposition 13) may be affected differently by one and the same object. Further (by Part 2, Postulate 3), the human body can be affected sometimes in one way and sometimes in another; and consequently (by that same Axiom 1) it may be affected differently at different times by one and the same object. Q.E.D.
Note. We see, then, that it is possible for one man to love what another hates, and for one man to fear what another does not; and again, that one and the same man may love what he once hated, or be bold where he was once timid, and so on. And since everyone judges according to his own emotions what is good, what bad, what better and what worse (Proposition 39 of this Part, Note), it follows that men's judgments may vary as much as their emotions do. So when we compare one man with another, we distinguish them solely by the difference of their emotions, and call some intrepid, others timid, and others by some other name. I shall call a man intrepid, for instance, if he despises an evil I am used to fearing; and if I further take into account that in his desire to injure his enemies and benefit those he loves he is not held back by the fear of an evil which is enough to hold me back, I shall call him daring. Again, a man will seem timid to me if he fears an evil I am used to despising; and if I further take into account that his desire is held back by the fear of an evil which is not enough to hold me back, I shall say he is cowardly. And so everyone will pass judgment.
Footnote: This is possible, though the human mind is part of the divine intellect, as I have shown in Part 2, Proposition 13, Note.
Last, from this inconstancy in human judgment—since a man often judges things solely by his emotions, and since the things he believes cause pleasure or pain, and therefore tries to bring about or prevent, are often purely imaginary, quite apart from the uncertainty of things mentioned in Proposition 28 of this Part—we may readily conceive that a man may at one time be affected with pleasure and at another with pain, accompanied in each case by the idea of himself as cause. So we can easily understand what repentance and self-approval are. Repentance is pain accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause; self-approval is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause. And these emotions are the most intense of all, because men believe themselves free (Proposition 49 of this Part).
An object we have previously seen along with others, and which we do not conceive to have any property that is not common to many things, will not hold our attention as long as an object we conceive to have some property peculiar to itself.
Proof. As soon as we conceive an object we have seen along with others, we at once remember those others (Part 2, Proposition 18, Note), and so pass directly from contemplating the one object to contemplating another. And this is the case with an object we conceive to have no property that is not common to many, since we are then assuming that we see in it nothing we have not seen before along with other objects. But when we suppose we are conceiving something special in an object, something we have never seen before, we must say that while the mind regards that object it has nothing else in itself which it could fall to regarding instead; so it is determined to contemplate that object only. Therefore an object, and so on. Q.E.D.
Note. This modification of the mind, or imagining of a particular thing insofar as it is alone in the mind, is called wonder. If it is excited by an object of fear, it is called consternation, because wonder at an evil keeps a man so absorbed in simply contemplating it that he has no power to think of anything else by which he might avoid it. If what we wonder at is a man's prudence, or industry, or anything of that sort, then, since we regard him as far surpassing ourselves in it, the wonder is called veneration; but if it is a man's anger or envy that we wonder at, the emotion is called horror. Again, if it is the prudence or industry of a man we love that we wonder at, our love will be the greater for it (Proposition 12 of this Part), and love joined to wonder or veneration is called devotion. We may conceive hatred, hope, confidence and the other emotions as associated with wonder in the same way, and we should thus be able to deduce more emotions than have names in ordinary speech—which shows that the names of the emotions have been given according to how the emotions ordinarily show themselves, rather than from any accurate knowledge of their nature.
The opposite of wonder is contempt, which generally arises like this. Because we see someone wondering at, loving or fearing a thing, or because a thing at first sight seems like things we ourselves wonder at, love or fear, we are (Proposition 15 of this Part, Corollary; Proposition 27 of this Part) determined to wonder at, love or fear it. But if from its presence, or from contemplating it more accurately, we are forced to deny of it everything that could cause wonder, love or fear, then the mind, by the thing's very presence, remains determined to think of the qualities it does not have rather than of those it does—whereas normally the presence of an object would make the mind regard chiefly what is in it. As devotion springs from wonder at a thing we love, so derision springs from contempt for a thing we hate or fear, and scorn from contempt for folly, as veneration springs from wonder at prudence. And last, we can conceive love, hope, honour and the rest as associated with contempt, and can deduce from that still other emotions which have no recognised names to tell them apart.
When the mind regards itself and its own power of acting, it feels pleasure; and that pleasure is greater in proportion as it conceives itself and its power of acting more distinctly.
Proof. A man does not know himself except through the modifications of his body and the ideas of them (Part 2, Proposition 19; Part 2, Proposition 23). So when the mind is able to contemplate itself, it is by that very fact supposed to pass to a greater perfection—that is (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note), to feel pleasure; and the pleasure will be greater in proportion as it can conceive itself and its power of acting more distinctly. Q.E.D.
Corollary. This pleasure is fed more and more in proportion as a man conceives himself to be praised by others. For the more he conceives himself as praised, the more he will imagine them to be affected with pleasure accompanied by the idea of himself (Proposition 29 of this Part, Note); and so he is (Proposition 27 of this Part) himself affected with greater pleasure accompanied by the idea of himself. Q.E.D.
The mind endeavours to conceive only those things which assert its power of acting.
Proof. The endeavour, or power, of the mind is its actual essence (Proposition 7 of this Part); and the essence of the mind obviously affirms only what the mind is and can do, not what it is not and cannot do. Therefore the mind endeavours to conceive only those things which assert, or affirm, its power of acting. Q.E.D.
When the mind contemplates its own weakness, it feels pain.
Proof. The essence of the mind affirms only what the mind is, or can do; in other words, it is the mind's nature to conceive only such things as assert its power of acting (Proposition 54 of this Part). So when we say that the mind contemplates its own weakness, we are merely saying that while the mind is trying to conceive something which asserts its power of acting, it is checked in that endeavour—in other words (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note), it feels pain. Q.E.D.
Corollary. This pain is fed more and more if a man conceives that he is blamed by others; this may be proved in the same way as the corollary to Proposition 53 of this Part.
Note. This pain, accompanied by the idea of our own weakness, is called humility; the pleasure that springs from contemplating ourselves is called self-love, or self-approval. And since this feeling is renewed as often as a man contemplates his own virtues, or his own power of acting, it follows that everyone is fond of telling the story of his own exploits and displaying the strength of his body and mind—and that men are for this reason a trial to one another. It follows too that men are naturally envious (Proposition 24 of this Part, Note; Proposition 32 of this Part, Note), rejoicing in the shortcomings of their equals and feeling pain at their virtues. For whenever a man conceives his own actions, he is affected with pleasure (Proposition 53 of this Part) in proportion as those actions display more perfection and as he conceives them more distinctly—that is (Part 2, Proposition 40, Note), in proportion as he can tell them apart from other men's and regard them as something special. So a man takes most pleasure in contemplating himself when he contemplates some quality he denies to others. But if what he affirms of himself belongs to the idea of man, or of animals in general, he will not be nearly so pleased; and he will feel pain if he conceives his own actions to fall short of others'. This pain (Proposition 28 of this Part) he will endeavour to remove by putting a wrong construction on the actions of his equals, or by embellishing his own as far as he can.
It is plain, then, that men are naturally prone to hatred and envy, and that envy is fed by their upbringing. For parents are accustomed to spur their children to virtue solely by honour and envy. But perhaps some will hesitate to agree with what I have said, because we not seldom admire men's virtues and venerate those who have them. To remove such doubts, I add the following corollary.
Corollary. No one envies the virtue of anyone who is not his equal.
Proof. Envy is a kind of hatred (Proposition 24 of this Part, Note), or (Proposition 13 of this Part, Note) pain; that is (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note), a modification by which a man's power of acting, or his endeavour towards acting, is checked. But a man does not endeavour, or desire, to do anything which cannot follow from his nature as it is; therefore he will not desire to have attributed to him any power of acting, or virtue, which belongs to another's nature and is foreign to his own. So his desire cannot be checked, nor can he be pained, by contemplating virtue in someone unlike himself; and consequently he cannot envy such a person. But he can envy his equal, who is supposed to have the same nature as himself. Q.E.D.
Note. So when, as we said in the note to Proposition 52 of this Part, we venerate a man out of wonder at his prudence or fortitude, we do so because we conceive those qualities as peculiar to him and not as common to our own nature. We therefore no more envy him for them than we envy trees for being tall or lions for being brave.
There are as many kinds of pleasure, of pain, of desire, and of every emotion compounded of these (such as waverings of the mind) or derived from them (such as love, hatred, hope and fear), as there are kinds of objects by which we are affected.
Proof. Pleasure and pain, and consequently the emotions compounded of or derived from them, are passions, or passive states (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note). Now we are necessarily passive (Proposition 1 of this Part) insofar as we have inadequate ideas, and only insofar as we have such ideas are we passive (Proposition 3 of this Part); that is, we are necessarily passive (Part 2, Proposition 40, Note) only insofar as we conceive, or (Part 2, Proposition 17, Note) insofar as we are affected by an emotion which involves the nature of our own body and the nature of an external body. So the nature of every passive state must be explained in such a way that the nature of the object affecting us is expressed. The pleasure arising from, say, the object A involves the nature of A, and the pleasure arising from the object B involves the nature of B; so these two pleasures are by nature different, since the causes they arise from are by nature different. And so the pain arising from one object is by nature different from the pain arising from another, and likewise with love, hatred, hope, fear, wavering and the rest.
There are therefore necessarily as many kinds of pleasure, pain, love, hatred and so on as there are kinds of objects by which we are affected. Now desire is each man's essence, or nature, insofar as it is conceived as determined to a particular action by some given modification of itself (Proposition 9 of this Part, Note). So according as a man is affected through external causes by this or that kind of pleasure, pain, love, hatred and so on—in other words, according as his nature is disposed this way or that—his desire will be of one kind or another; and the nature of one desire must differ from the nature of another as widely as the emotions differ that each arose from. So there are as many kinds of desire as there are kinds of pleasure, pain, love and the rest; and consequently, by what has been shown, as many kinds of desire as there are kinds of objects by which we are affected. Q.E.D.
Note. Of the kinds of emotion, which by the last proposition must be very numerous, the chief are gluttony, drunkenness, lust, avarice and ambition. These are merely kinds of love or desire, displaying the nature of those emotions in ways that vary with the object they are concerned with. For by gluttony, drunkenness, lust, avarice and ambition we simply mean the immoderate love of feasting, of drinking, of sex, of riches and of fame. Furthermore, these emotions, insofar as we distinguish them from others merely by the objects they are concerned with, have no contraries. For temperance, sobriety and chastity, which we usually set against gluttony, drunkenness and lust, are not emotions or passive states at all, but indicate a power of the mind which moderates those emotions. I cannot explain the remaining kinds of emotion here, since they are as numerous as the kinds of objects; nor, if I could, would it be necessary. For our purpose—to determine the strength of the emotions and the mind's power over them—it is enough to have a general definition of each emotion. It is enough, I repeat, to understand the general properties of the emotions and of the mind, so as to determine the quality and extent of the mind's power in moderating and checking them. So although there is a great difference between one emotion of love, hatred or desire and another—between love felt towards children and love felt towards a wife, for instance—there is no need for us to take notice of such differences, or to track the nature and origin of the emotions any further.
Any emotion of a given individual differs from the emotion of another individual only insofar as the essence of the one differs from the essence of the other.
Proof. This proposition is evident from Ax. i. (which see after Lemma 3, following Part 2, Proposition 13). Nevertheless, we will prove it from the nature of the three primary emotions.
All emotions belong to desire, pleasure or pain, as the definitions given above show. But desire is each man's nature, or essence (Proposition 9 of this Part, Note); so desire in one individual differs from desire in another only insofar as the nature, or essence, of the one differs from that of the other. Again, pleasure and pain are passive states, or passions, by which every man's power or endeavour to persist in his being is increased or diminished, helped or hindered (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note). But by the endeavour to persist in its being, insofar as it belongs to mind and body together, we mean appetite and desire (Proposition 9 of this Part, Note). So pleasure and pain are the same as desire, or appetite, insofar as external causes increase or diminish, help or hinder it—in other words, they are every man's nature. So the pleasure and pain felt by one man differ from the pleasure and pain felt by another only insofar as the nature, or essence, of the one differs from that of the other; and consequently any emotion of one individual only differs, and so on. Q.E.D.
Note. It follows that the emotions of the animals called irrational—for after learning the origin of mind we cannot doubt that animals feel—differ from human emotions only to the extent that animal nature differs from human nature. Horse and man are alike carried away by the desire to breed; but the desire of the one is equine and the desire of the other human. And so the lusts and appetites of insects, fishes and birds must vary according to their several natures. So although each individual lives content and rejoices in the nature it has, the life in which each is content and rejoices is nothing but the idea, or soul, of that individual; and hence the joy of one differs in nature from the joy of another to the extent that the essence of one differs from the essence of the other. And last, it follows from the previous proposition that there is no small difference between the joy which moves, say, a drunkard and the joy possessed by a philosopher—which I mention here only in passing. So far I have treated of the emotions belonging to man insofar as he is passive. It remains to add a few words on those belonging to him insofar as he is active.
Besides the pleasure and desire which are passive states, there are other emotions of pleasure and desire which belong to us insofar as we are active.
Proof. When the mind conceives itself and its own power of acting, it feels pleasure (Proposition 53 of this Part); and the mind necessarily contemplates itself when it conceives a true, or adequate, idea (Part 2, Proposition 43). But the mind does conceive certain adequate ideas (Part 2, Proposition 40, Note 2). Therefore it feels pleasure insofar as it conceives adequate ideas—that is, insofar as it is active (Proposition 1 of this Part). Again, the mind, both insofar as it has clear and distinct ideas and insofar as it has confused ones, endeavours to persist in its own being (Proposition 9 of this Part); and by such an endeavour we mean desire (by Proposition 57 of this Part). So desire also belongs to us insofar as we understand—that is (Proposition 1 of this Part), insofar as we are active. Q.E.D.
Among all the emotions belonging to the mind as active, there are none that cannot be referred to pleasure or desire.
Proof. All emotions can be referred to desire, pleasure or pain, as the definitions already given show. Now by pain we mean that the mind's power of thinking is diminished or checked (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note); so insofar as the mind feels pain, its power of understanding—that is, of acting—is diminished or checked (Proposition 1 of this Part). Therefore no painful emotions can be attributed to the mind in virtue of its being active, but only emotions of pleasure and desire, which (by Proposition 58 of this Part) do belong to the mind in that condition. Q.E.D.
Note. All actions following from emotion which belong to the mind in virtue of its understanding I set down to strength of character (fortitudo), which I divide into courage (animositas) and high-mindedness (generositas). By courage I mean the desire by which every man strives to preserve his own being under the guidance of reason alone. By high-mindedness I mean the desire by which every man endeavours, under the guidance of reason alone, to help other men and to join them to himself in friendship. Actions which look solely to the good of the agent I therefore set down to courage, and those which aim at the good of others to high-mindedness. Temperance, sobriety and presence of mind in danger are kinds of courage; courtesy and mercy are kinds of high-mindedness.
I think I have now explained, and displayed through their first causes, the principal emotions and waverings of mind which arise from the combination of the three primary emotions—desire, pleasure and pain. It is evident from what I have said that we are driven about in many ways by external causes, and that like waves of the sea driven by contrary winds we are tossed to and fro, not knowing our outcome or our fate. But I have said that I have set out only the chief conflicting emotions, not all that might be given. For by proceeding in the same way we can easily show that love is united with repentance, with scorn, with shame, and so on. I think everyone will agree from what has been said that the emotions may be compounded with one another in so many ways, and that so many variations may arise from them, as to be beyond all counting. For my purpose, however, it is enough to have listed the most important; to reckon up the rest would be more curious than useful. It remains to remark, about love, that it very often happens that while we are enjoying a thing we longed for, the body acquires from the act of enjoyment a new disposition by which it is determined otherwise; other images of things are roused in it, and the mind begins to conceive and desire something fresh. For example, when we conceive something whose flavour generally delights us, we desire to enjoy it—that is, to eat it. But while we are enjoying it the stomach is filled and the body is otherwise disposed; and if, when the body is thus otherwise disposed, the image of the food that is present is stimulated, and consequently the endeavour or desire to eat it is stimulated too, the new disposition of the body will feel repugnance to that desire or attempt, and consequently the presence of the food we formerly longed for will become hateful. This revulsion of feeling is called satiety, or weariness. As for the rest, I have passed over the outward modifications of the body observable in the emotions—trembling, pallor, sobbing, laughter and the like—since these belong to the body only, with no reference to the mind. And last, the definitions of the emotions need supplementing on a few points; I will therefore repeat them, adding such observations as I think should be made here and there.
1. Desire is the actual essence of man, insofar as it is conceived as determined to a particular action by some given modification of itself.
Explanation. We said above, in the note to Proposition 9 of this Part, that desire is appetite together with the consciousness of it, and that appetite is the essence of man insofar as it is determined to act in ways that serve his own persistence. But in that same note I also remarked that, strictly speaking, I recognise no distinction between appetite and desire; for whether a man is conscious of his appetite or not, it remains one and the same appetite. So, to avoid the appearance of saying the same thing twice, I have refrained from explaining desire by appetite, and have taken care to define it in a way that brings under one head all those endeavours of human nature which we distinguish by the names appetite, will, desire and impulse. I might indeed have said that desire is the essence of man insofar as it is conceived as determined to a particular action; but from such a definition (compare Part 2, Proposition 23) it would not follow that the mind can be conscious of its desire or appetite. So, in order to imply the cause of that consciousness, it was necessary to add insofar as it is determined by some given modification, and so on. For by a modification of a man's essence we understand any disposition of that essence, whether inborn, or conceived under the attribute of thought alone, or under the attribute of extension alone, or referred to both attributes at once. By the term desire, then, I mean here all a man's endeavours, impulses, appetites and volitions, which vary with each man's disposition and are therefore not seldom opposed to one another, so that a man is drawn in different directions and does not know which way to turn.
2. Pleasure is a man's transition from a lesser to a greater perfection.
3. Pain is a man's transition from a greater to a lesser perfection.
Explanation. I say transition, for pleasure is not perfection itself. If a man were born with the perfection he passes to, he would possess it without the emotion of pleasure. This appears more clearly if we consider the contrary emotion, pain. No one can deny that pain consists in the transition to a lesser perfection and not in the lesser perfection itself, for a man cannot be pained insofar as he shares in perfection of any degree. Nor can we say that pain consists in the absence of a greater perfection, for absence is nothing, whereas the emotion of pain is an activity; and this activity can only be the activity of the transition from a greater to a lesser perfection—in other words, an activity by which a man's power of acting is lessened or checked (compare Proposition 11 of this Part, Note). I pass over the definitions of merriment, stimulation, melancholy and suffering, because these terms are generally used of the body and are merely kinds of pleasure or pain.
4. Wonder is the conceiving (imaginatio) of a thing at which the mind comes to a stand, because the particular idea in question has no connection with other ideas (compare Proposition 52 of this Part, Note).
Explanation. In the note to Part 2, Proposition 18 we showed why the mind passes at once from contemplating one thing to contemplating another: namely, because the images of the two things are so associated and arranged that one follows the other. Such association is impossible if the image of the thing is new, and the mind will then be at a stand in contemplating it until other causes determine it to think of something else.
So the conceiving of a new object, considered in itself, is of the same nature as any other conceiving; and this is why I do not count wonder among the emotions. Nor do I see why I should, since this arrest of the mind arises from no positive cause drawing it away from other objects, but merely from the absence of a cause to determine it to pass from contemplating one object to contemplating another.
I therefore recognise only three primitive, or primary, emotions (Proposition 11 of this Part, Note): pleasure, pain and desire. I have spoken of wonder simply because it is customary to give different names to certain emotions springing from the three primary ones when they are referred to objects we wonder at. The same reason leads me to add a definition of contempt.
5. Contempt is the conceiving of a thing which touches the mind so little that its presence leads the mind to imagine the qualities the thing does not have rather than those it does (compare Proposition 52 of this Part, Note).
The definitions of veneration and scorn I pass over here, since I am not aware of any emotions being named after them.
6. Love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause.
Explanation. This definition explains the essence of love clearly enough. The definition given by those who say that love is the lover's wish to unite himself to the loved object expresses a property of love but not its essence; and since those authors have not adequately grasped love's essence, they have been unable to form a true idea of its properties, so that their definition is on all hands admitted to be very obscure. It must be noted, however, that when I say it is a property of love that the lover should wish to unite himself to the beloved object, I do not mean by wish a consent, or a conclusion, or a free decision of the mind—for I have shown such things to be fictions in Part 2, Proposition 48—nor do I mean a desire to be united to the loved object when it is absent, or to remain in its presence when it is at hand, for love can be conceived without either of these desires. By wish I mean the contentment which is in the lover because of the presence of the beloved object, by which the lover's pleasure is strengthened, or at least maintained.
7. Hatred is pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause.
Explanation. These points are easily grasped after what has been said in the explanation of the previous definition (compare Proposition 13 of this Part, Note).
8. Inclination is pleasure accompanied by the idea of something which is accidentally a cause of pleasure.
9. Aversion is pain accompanied by the idea of something which is accidentally a cause of pain (compare Proposition 15 of this Part, Note).
10. Devotion is love towards someone we wonder at.
Explanation. Wonder (admiratio) arises, as we showed in Proposition 52 of this Part, from the novelty of a thing. So if it happens that we often conceive the object of our wonder, we shall cease to wonder at it; and so we see that the emotion of devotion readily degenerates into simple love.
11. Derision is pleasure arising from our conceiving that something we despise is present in a thing we hate.
Explanation. Insofar as we despise a thing we hate, we deny its existence (Proposition 52 of this Part, Note), and to that extent we rejoice (Proposition 20 of this Part). But since we are supposing that a man hates what he derides, it follows that the pleasure in question is not unmixed (compare Proposition 47 of this Part, Note).
12. Hope is an inconstant pleasure arising from the idea of something past or future whose outcome we to some extent doubt.
13. Fear is an inconstant pain arising from the idea of something past or future whose outcome we to some extent doubt (compare Proposition 18 of this Part, Note).
Explanation. It follows from these definitions that there is no hope unmixed with fear and no fear unmixed with hope. For he who lives in hope, and doubts the outcome of something, is supposed to conceive something which excludes that thing's future existence; so to that extent he feels pain (compare Proposition 19 of this Part), and consequently, while he lives in hope, he fears for the outcome. And conversely, he who fears—that is, doubts the outcome of something he hates—also conceives something which excludes that thing's existence; so to that extent he feels pleasure, and consequently to that extent hopes it will turn out as he wishes (Proposition 20 of this Part).
14. Confidence is pleasure arising from the idea of something past or future from which all cause of doubt has been removed.
15. Despair is pain arising from the idea of something past or future from which all cause of doubt has been removed.
Explanation. So confidence springs from hope, and despair from fear, when all cause for doubting the outcome of an event has been removed. This happens either because a man conceives something past or future as present and regards it so, or because he conceives other things which exclude the existence of the causes of his doubt. For although we can never be absolutely certain of the outcome of any particular event (Part 2, Proposition 31, Corollary), it may still happen that we feel no doubt about it; for we have shown that feeling no doubt about a thing is not the same as being certain of it (Part 2, Proposition 49, Note). So it may happen that we are affected with the same emotion of pleasure or pain about a thing past or future as about the conceiving of a thing present; this I have already shown in Proposition 18 of this Part, to which, with its note, I refer the reader.
16. Joy is pleasure accompanied by the idea of something past which has turned out beyond our hope.
17. Disappointment is pain accompanied by the idea of something past which has turned out contrary to our hope.
18. Pity is pain accompanied by the idea of an evil which has befallen someone else whom we conceive to be like ourselves (compare Proposition 22 of this Part, Note; Proposition 27 of this Part, Note).
Explanation. Between pity and compassion (misericordia) there seems to be no difference, unless perhaps that the first is used of a particular act and the second of a settled disposition.
19. Approval is love towards someone who has done good to another.
20. Indignation is hatred towards someone who has done evil to another.
Explanation. I am aware that these terms are used in senses rather different from those usually given them. But my purpose is to explain the nature of things, not the meaning of words; and I therefore use such terms as convey my meaning without any violent departure from their ordinary sense. One statement of my method will do. As for the cause of the emotions just named, see Proposition 27 of this Part, Corollary 1, and Proposition 22 of this Part, Note.
21. Partiality is thinking too highly of someone out of love for him.
22. Disparagement is thinking too meanly of someone because we hate him.
Explanation. Partiality, then, is an effect of love and disparagement an effect of hatred; so partiality may also be defined as love insofar as it leads a man to think too highly of a beloved object, and disparagement as hatred insofar as it leads a man to think too meanly of a hated object. Compare Proposition 26 of this Part, Note.
23. Envy is hatred insofar as it leads a man to be pained by another's good fortune and to rejoice in another's ill fortune.
Explanation. Envy is generally set against compassion, which, by doing some violence to the word, may therefore be defined thus:
24. Compassion (misericordia) is love insofar as it leads a man to feel pleasure at another's good fortune and pain at another's ill fortune.
Explanation. Concerning envy, see the notes to Proposition 24 of this Part and Proposition 32 of this Part. These emotions also arise from pleasure or pain accompanied by the idea of something external as their cause, either in itself or accidentally. I now pass on to other emotions which are accompanied by the idea of something within us as their cause.
25. Self-approval is pleasure arising from a man's contemplation of himself and of his own power of acting.
26. Humility is pain arising from a man's contemplation of his own weakness of body or mind.
Explanation. Self-approval is opposed to humility insofar as we mean by it the pleasure arising from contemplating our own power of acting; but insofar as we mean by it the pleasure accompanied by the idea of some action we believe we performed by the free decision of our mind, it is opposed to repentance, which we may define thus:
27. Repentance is pain accompanied by the idea of some action we believe we performed by the free decision of our mind.
Explanation. The causes of these emotions we have set out in Proposition 51 of this Part, Note, and in Proposition 53 of this Part, Proposition 54 of this Part and Proposition 55 of this Part, Note. As for the free decision of the mind, see Part 2, Proposition 35, Note. This is perhaps the place to point out that it is nothing to wonder at that all the actions commonly called wrong are followed by pain, and all those called right by pleasure. We can easily gather from what has been said that this depends in great measure on upbringing. Parents, by condemning the first kind of action and often scolding their children for it, and by urging and praising the second kind, have brought it about that the one is associated with pain and the other with pleasure. This is confirmed by experience. For custom and religion are not the same among all peoples: what some hold sacred others hold profane, and what some think honourable others think disgraceful. So each man, according to how he was brought up, either repents of a given action or glories in it.
28. Pride is thinking too highly of oneself out of self-love.
Explanation. Pride differs from partiality, then, in that the latter is used of an external object while pride is used of a man thinking too highly of himself. And as partiality is the effect of love, so pride is the effect, or property, of self-love, which may therefore be defined as love of self, or self-approval, insofar as it leads a man to think too highly of himself. To this emotion there is no contrary; for no one thinks too meanly of himself out of self-hatred. I say no one thinks too meanly of himself insofar as he conceives that he is incapable of doing this or that. For whatever a man imagines himself incapable of doing, he imagines it of necessity, and by that very idea he is so disposed that he really cannot do what he conceives he cannot do; for so long as he conceives that he cannot do it, he is not determined to do it, and so long as that is so, it is impossible for him to do it. However, if we consider matters that depend only on opinion, we shall find it conceivable that a man may think too meanly of himself. It may happen that a man, regarding his own weakness with sorrow, imagines that everyone despises him, while the rest of the world are thinking of nothing less. Again, a man may think too meanly of himself if he denies of himself in the present something in relation to a future time he is uncertain about—if he says, for instance, that he is unable to form any clear ideas, or that he can desire and do nothing but what is wicked and base. And we may also say that a man thinks too meanly of himself when we see him refusing, out of excessive fear of shame, to do things which others, his equals, venture. So we can set down as a contrary to pride an emotion I shall call self-abasement; for as pride springs from self-approval, so self-abasement springs from humility, and I define it accordingly:
29. Self-abasement is thinking too meanly of oneself by reason of pain.
Explanation. We are nevertheless generally accustomed to set pride against humility, but in doing so we attend more to the effect of either emotion than to its nature. We usually call proud the man who boasts too much (Proposition 30 of this Part, Note), who talks of nothing but his own virtues and other people's faults, who wants to come first, and who goes through life with a style and pomp that would suit men far above him in station. And we call humble the man who blushes too often, who confesses his faults, who sets out other men's virtues, and who walks with bent head and neglects his dress. However, these emotions, humility and self-abasement, are extremely rare, for human nature considered in itself strives against them as much as it can (see Proposition 13 of this Part; Proposition 54 of this Part). And so those who are believed to be the most self-abasing and humble are generally in fact the most ambitious and envious.
30. Honour is pleasure accompanied by the idea of some action of our own which we believe others praise.
Footnote: Gloria.
31. Shame is pain accompanied by the idea of some action of our own which we believe others blame.
Explanation. On this subject see the note to Proposition 30 of this Part. But we should note here the difference between shame and modesty. Shame is the pain that follows a deed we are ashamed of; modesty is the fear or dread of shame which keeps a man from committing a base action. Modesty is usually set against shamelessness, but shamelessness is not an emotion, as I shall show in due course; the names of the emotions, as I have remarked already, have to do with how they are exercised rather than with their nature.
I have now finished explaining the emotions arising from pleasure and pain. I therefore go on to treat of those I refer to desire.
32. Regret is the desire, or appetite, to possess something, kept alive by the memory of it and at the same time checked by the memory of other things which exclude its existence.
Explanation. When we remember a thing we are by that very fact, as I have said more than once, disposed to contemplate it with the same emotion as if it were present. But this disposition, or endeavour, is generally checked while we are awake by the images of things which exclude the existence of what we remember. So when we remember something that affected us with pleasure, we endeavour by that very fact to regard it with the same pleasure as though it were present, and this endeavour is at once checked by the memory of things which exclude its existence. Regret, then, is strictly speaking a pain opposed to the pleasure which arises from the absence of something we hate (compare Proposition 47 of this Part, Note). But since the name regret seems to refer to desire, I set this emotion down among those springing from desire.
33. Emulation is the desire of a thing engendered in us by our conceiving that others have the same desire.
Explanation. A man who runs away because he sees others running away, or who is afraid because he sees others afraid, or who, on seeing another burn his hand, draws back his own hand and moves his body as though his own were burnt—such a man can be said to imitate another's emotion, but not to emulate him. This is not because the causes of emulation and imitation are different, but because it has become customary to speak of emulation only in a man who imitates what we judge honourable, useful or pleasant. As for the cause of emulation, compare Proposition 27 of this Part, Note. Why this emotion is generally coupled with envy may be seen from Proposition 32 of this Part, Note.
34. Thankfulness, or gratitude, is the desire, or eagerness, springing from love, by which we endeavour to benefit someone who out of the same feeling of love has done us a kindness. Compare Proposition 39 of this Part, Note and Proposition 40 of this Part.
35. Benevolence is the desire to benefit someone we pity. Compare Proposition 27 of this Part, Note.
36. Anger is the desire by which hatred leads us to injure someone we hate. Proposition 39 of this Part.
37. Revenge is the desire by which mutual hatred leads us to injure someone who, out of the same feeling, has injured us (see Proposition 40 of this Part, Corollary 2, Note).
38. Cruelty, or savageness, is the desire by which a man is driven to injure someone he loves or pities.
Explanation. Against cruelty stands clemency, which is not a passive state of the mind but a power by which a man restrains his anger and his desire for revenge.
39. Timidity is the desire to avoid a greater evil we dread by undergoing a lesser one. Compare Proposition 39 of this Part, Note.
40. Daring is the desire by which a man is set on to do something dangerous which his equals are afraid to attempt.
41. Cowardice is attributed to a man whose desire is checked by the fear of a danger which his equals dare to face.
Explanation. Cowardice, then, is nothing but the fear of an evil which most men are not accustomed to fear; so I do not count it among the emotions springing from desire. I have chosen to explain it here nevertheless, because, so far as we look to the desire, it is truly the opposite of daring.
42. Consternation is attributed to a man whose desire to avoid an evil is checked by amazement at the evil he fears.
Explanation. Consternation is therefore a kind of cowardice. But since it arises from a double fear, it may be more conveniently defined as a fear which leaves a man so bewildered and wavering that he cannot remove the evil. I say bewildered insofar as we understand his desire to remove the evil to be checked by his amazement; I say wavering insofar as we understand that desire to be checked by the fear of another evil which torments him equally, so that he does not know which of the two to ward off. On this subject see Proposition 39 of this Part, Note, and Proposition 52 of this Part, Note. On cowardice and daring, see Proposition 51 of this Part, Note.
43. Courtesy, or deference (Humanitas seu modestia), is the desire to act in a way that pleases men and to refrain from what displeases them.
44. Ambition is the immoderate desire for honour.
Explanation. Ambition is the desire by which all the emotions (compare Proposition 27 of this Part; Proposition 31 of this Part) are fed and strengthened; and this is why it can hardly be overcome. For so long as a man is bound by any desire, he is at the same time necessarily bound by this one. "The best men," says Cicero, "are especially led by honour. Even philosophers, when they write a book condemning honour, sign their names to it," and so on.
45. Luxury is the excessive desire, or even love, of living sumptuously.
46. Intemperance is the excessive desire and love of drinking.
47. Avarice is the excessive desire and love of riches.
48. Lust is desire and love in the matter of sexual intercourse.
Explanation. Whether this desire is excessive or not, it is still called lust. These last five emotions (as I showed in Proposition 56 of this Part) have no contraries; for deference is a kind of ambition. Compare Proposition 29 of this Part, Note.
Again, I have already pointed out that temperance, sobriety and chastity indicate a power rather than a passivity of the mind. It may nevertheless happen that an avaricious, an ambitious or a timid man abstains from excess in eating, drinking or sex; yet avarice, ambition and fear are not the contraries of luxury, drunkenness and debauchery. For an avaricious man is often glad to gorge himself with food and drink at another man's expense. An ambitious man will restrain himself in nothing so long as he thinks his indulgences are secret, and if he lives among drunkards and debauchees he will, simply because he is ambitious, be the more prone to those vices. And last, a timid man does what he would rather not do: an avaricious man who throws his riches into the sea to avoid death remains avaricious all the same, and a lustful man who is downcast because he cannot follow his bent does not cease to be lustful on the ground of abstaining. In fact these emotions have less to do with the actual feasting and drinking than with the appetite and the love of them. So nothing can be set against these emotions but high-mindedness and courage, of which I shall speak presently.
The definitions of jealousy and the other waverings of the mind I pass over in silence, first because they arise from compounding the emotions already described, and second because many of them have no distinctive names, which shows that for practical purposes a general knowledge of them is enough. It is established, however, from the definitions of the emotions we have set out, that they all spring from desire, pleasure or pain—or rather that there is nothing besides these three, and that each is called by a variety of names according to its various relations and outward marks. If we now turn our attention to these primary emotions, and to what has been said about the nature of the mind, we shall be able to define the emotions as follows, insofar as they are referred to the mind only.
Emotion, which is called a passive state of the soul, is a confused idea by which the mind affirms of its body, or of some part of it, a force for existence (existendi vis) greater or less than before, and by whose presence the mind is determined to think of one thing rather than another.
Explanation. I say, first, that an emotion, or passion of the soul, is a confused idea. For we have shown that the mind is passive only insofar as it has inadequate or confused ideas (Proposition 3 of this Part). I say, further, by which the mind affirms of its body, or of some part of it, a force for existence greater than before. For all the ideas we have of bodies indicate the actual disposition of our own body (Part 2, Proposition 16, Corollary 2) rather than the nature of an external body; and the idea which constitutes the form of an emotion must indicate, or express, the disposition of the body, or of some part of it, because its power of acting, or force for existence, is increased or diminished, helped or hindered. But it should be noted that when I speak of a greater or lesser force for existence than before, I do not mean that the mind compares the body's present disposition with its past one, but that the idea which constitutes the form of the emotion affirms something of the body which in fact involves more or less reality than before.
And since the essence of the mind consists in this (Part 2, Proposition 11; Part 2, Proposition 13), that it affirms the actual existence of its own body, and since by perfection we understand the very essence of a thing, it follows that the mind passes to a greater or lesser perfection when it comes to affirm of its own body, or of some part of it, something involving more or less reality than before.
So when I said above that the mind's power is increased or diminished, I meant only that the mind had formed of its own body, or of some part of it, an idea involving more or less reality than it had previously affirmed of its body. For the excellence of ideas, and the actual power of thinking, are measured by the excellence of the object. And last, I added by whose presence the mind is determined to think of one thing rather than another, so that besides the nature of pleasure and pain, which the first part of the definition explains, I might also express the nature of desire.
Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage: for a man who is at the mercy of his emotions is not his own master but is at the mercy of fortune, so much so that he is often forced, while seeing the better course, to follow the worse. Why this is so, and what is good and what evil in the emotions, I propose to show in this part of my treatise. But before I begin it would be well to make a few prefatory remarks about perfection and imperfection, and about good and evil.
When a man has set out to make a given thing and has brought it to completion, his work will be pronounced perfect, not only by himself but by everyone who rightly knows, or thinks he knows, the intention and aim of its maker. Suppose someone sees a work—which I assume is not yet finished—and knows that its maker's aim is to build a house: he will call the work imperfect, and will call it perfect as soon as he sees it carried through to the end its maker intended. But if a man sees a work the like of which he has never seen before, and does not know the maker's intention, he plainly cannot know whether the work is perfect or imperfect. Such seems to be the original meaning of these terms.
But once men began to form general ideas, and to think out types of houses, buildings, towers and so on, and to prefer some types to others, it came about that each man called perfect whatever he saw agreeing with the general idea he had formed of the thing in question, and imperfect whatever he saw agreeing less with his own preconceived type—even when it had clearly been finished exactly as its maker intended. This seems to be the only reason for calling natural things, which are not made by human hands, perfect or imperfect. For men habitually form general ideas of natural things no less than of artificial ones, and hold those ideas as types, believing that Nature (who they think does nothing without a purpose) has them in view and has set them before herself as models. So when they see something in Nature which does not wholly conform to the type they have preconceived, they say that Nature has fallen short or blundered and has left her work incomplete. We see, then, that men are in the habit of calling natural things perfect or imperfect from their own prejudices rather than from any true knowledge of what they are pronouncing on.
Now we showed in the Appendix to Part One that Nature does not act with an end in view. For the eternal and infinite Being which we call God or Nature acts by the same necessity by which it exists; for we have shown that it acts by the same necessity of its nature by which it exists (Part 1, Proposition 16). The reason, or cause, why God or Nature exists and the reason why he acts are one and the same. Therefore, just as he does not exist for the sake of an end, so neither does he act for the sake of an end; his existence and his action have neither beginning nor end. So what is called a final cause is nothing but human desire, insofar as it is considered as the origin, or cause, of something. When we say that being lived in is the final cause of this or that house, we mean nothing more than that a man, conceiving the conveniences of household life, had a desire to build a house. So being lived in, insofar as it is regarded as a final cause, is nothing but this particular desire, which is really the efficient cause; and it is taken for the first cause because men are generally ignorant of the causes of their own desires. They are, as I have often said, conscious of their actions and appetites but unaware of the causes by which they are determined to any particular desire. So the common saying that Nature sometimes falls short, or blunders, and produces things that are imperfect, I set down among the fictions treated of in the Appendix to Part One. Perfection and imperfection, then, are in reality merely ways of thinking—notions we form by comparing individuals of the same species with one another. This is why I said above (Part 2, Definition 6) that by reality and perfection I mean the same thing. For we habitually refer all individual things in nature to one class, the highest of all, namely the category of Being, to which absolutely everything in nature belongs. So insofar as we refer individual things to this category and, comparing them with one another, find that some possess more being or reality than others, we say to that extent that some are more perfect than others. And insofar as we attribute to them anything implying negation—limit, end, weakness and so on—we call them to that extent imperfect, because they do not affect our mind as strongly as the things we call perfect, and not because they have any deficiency of their own, or because Nature has blundered. For nothing belongs to a thing's nature but what follows from the necessity of the nature of its efficient cause, and whatever follows from the necessity of the nature of its efficient cause necessarily comes to pass.
As for the terms good and bad, they indicate no positive quality in things considered in themselves, but are merely ways of thinking, notions we form by comparing things with one another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. Music is good for a man who is melancholy, bad for a man in mourning, and neither good nor bad for a man who is deaf.
Nevertheless, we should keep the terms. For since we desire to form an idea of man as a type of human nature to hold before us, it will be useful to keep them in the sense I have indicated.
In what follows, then, by "good" I shall mean what we certainly know to be a means of coming nearer to the type of human nature we set before ourselves, and by "bad" what we certainly know hinders us from coming nearer to it. And we shall say that men are more perfect or less perfect in proportion as they come nearer to that type or fall further from it. It must be particularly noted that when I say a man passes from a lesser to a greater perfection, or the other way round, I do not mean that he is changed from one essence, or reality, into another; for a horse would be as completely destroyed by being changed into a man as by being changed into an insect. What I mean is that we conceive the thing's power of acting, insofar as it is understood through its own nature, to be increased or diminished. And last, by perfection in general I shall, as I have said, mean reality—that is, each thing's essence insofar as it exists and acts in a particular way, with no regard at all to its duration. For no thing can be said to be more perfect because it has spent longer in existence. The duration of things cannot be determined by their essence, since the essence of things involves no fixed and definite period of existing; but every thing, whether more perfect or less, will always be able to persist in existing with the same force by which it began to exist. In this respect, therefore, all things are equal.
1. By good I mean what we certainly know to be useful to us.
2. By evil I mean what we certainly know hinders us from attaining some good.
(Concerning these terms see the Preface to this Part, towards the end.)
3. I call particular things contingent insofar as, in regarding their essence alone, we find nothing in it which necessarily asserts their existence or excludes it.
4. I call particular things possible insofar as, in regarding the causes by which they must be produced, we do not know whether those causes are determined to produce them.
5. By conflicting emotions I mean those which draw a man in different directions even though they are of the same kind—such as luxury and avarice, which are both kinds of love and are contraries not by nature but by accident.
6. What I mean by an emotion felt towards a thing future, present and past, I explained in Part 3, Proposition 18, Notes 1 and 2, which see.
(But I should also remark here that we can only distinctly conceive distance of space or time up to a certain fixed limit. All objects further from us than two hundred feet—or whose distance from where we stand is greater than we can distinctly conceive—seem to be equally far from us, and all in the same plane; and so too objects whose time of existing is conceived as further from the present than we can distinctly conceive seem to be all equally distant from the present, and are set down, as it were, to the same moment of time.)
7. By an end, for the sake of which we do something, I mean a desire.
8. By virtue (virtus) and power I mean the same thing; that is (Part 3, Proposition 7), virtue, insofar as it is referred to man, is a man's nature or essence insofar as it has the power of bringing about what can be understood through the laws of that nature alone.
There is no individual thing in nature than which there is not another more powerful and strong. Whatever thing is given, there is something stronger by which it can be destroyed.
No positive quality possessed by a false idea is removed by the presence of what is true, in virtue of its being true.
Proof. Falsity consists solely in the privation of knowledge which inadequate ideas involve (Part 2, Proposition 35), and inadequate ideas have no positive quality on account of which they are called false (Part 2, Proposition 33); on the contrary, insofar as they are referred to God they are true (Part 2, Proposition 32). So if the positive quality possessed by a false idea were removed by the presence of what is true, in virtue of its being true, a true idea would be removed by itself, which (Proposition 3 of this Part) is absurd. Therefore no positive quality possessed by a false idea, and so on. Q.E.D.
Note. This proposition is more clearly understood from Part 2, Proposition 16, Corollary 2. For imagination is an idea which indicates the present disposition of the human body rather than the nature of the external body, and does so not distinctly but confusedly; and this is why the mind is said to err. When we look at the sun, for instance, we conceive it to be about two hundred feet away from us; and in this judgment we err so long as we are ignorant of its true distance. When the true distance is known, the error is removed, but not the imagining—that is, not the idea of the sun, which explains the sun's nature only insofar as the body is affected by it. So although we know the real distance, we shall still imagine the sun to be near us. For, as we said in Part 2, Proposition 35, Note, we do not imagine the sun to be so near us because we are ignorant of its true distance, but because the mind conceives the size of the sun to the extent that the body is affected by it. So when the sun's rays, falling on the surface of water, are reflected into our eyes, we imagine the sun as though it were in the water, though we know where it really is. And other imaginings in which the mind is deceived are likewise not contrary to the truth and do not vanish at its presence, whether they indicate the natural disposition of the body or that its power of acting is increased or diminished. It does happen that when we fear an evil mistakenly, the fear vanishes when we hear the truth; but the contrary happens too, that we fear an evil which will certainly come, and our fear vanishes when we hear false news. So imaginings do not vanish at the presence of truth in virtue of its being true, but because other imaginings, stronger than the first, come in and exclude the present existence of what we imagined, as I showed in Part 2, Proposition 17.
We are passive only insofar as we are a part of Nature which cannot be conceived by itself, without the other parts.
Proof. We are said to be passive when something arises in us of which we are only a partial cause (Part 3, Definition 2)—that is (Part 3, Definition 1), something which cannot be deduced from the laws of our own nature alone. We are therefore passive insofar as we are a part of Nature which cannot be conceived by itself without the other parts. Q.E.D.
The force by which a man persists in existing is limited, and is infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes.
Proof. This is evident from the axiom of this Part. For given a man, there is something else—say A—more powerful; and given A, there is something else—say B—more powerful than A, and so on to infinity. So the power of man is limited by the power of some other thing, and is infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes. Q.E.D.
It is impossible that a man should not be a part of Nature, or that he should undergo no changes except those which can be understood through his own nature alone as their adequate cause.
Proof. The power by which each particular thing, and consequently man, preserves its being is the power of God, or of Nature (Part 1, Proposition 24, Corollary)—not insofar as it is infinite, but insofar as it can be explained through the actual essence of a man (Part 3, Proposition 7). So a man's power, insofar as it is explained through his own actual essence, is a part of the infinite power of God or Nature, that is, of its essence (Part 1, Proposition 34). That was our first point. Again, if it were possible that a man should undergo no changes except those which can be understood through his own nature alone, it would follow that he could not die but would always necessarily exist. And this would have to follow from a cause whose power was either finite or infinite: either from the man's own power alone, in that he would be able to keep off from himself all the changes that could spring from external causes; or from the infinite power of Nature, by which all individual things would be so ordered that a man could undergo no changes except those tending to his own preservation. But the first alternative is absurd (by Proposition 3 of this Part, the proof of which is universal, and can be applied to all individual things). Therefore, if it were possible that a man should undergo no changes except those explicable through his own nature alone—and consequently, as we have shown, that he must always necessarily exist—it would have to follow from the infinite power of God, and consequently (Part 1, Proposition 16) from the necessity of the divine nature, insofar as it is regarded as affected by the idea of some given man, that the whole order of nature as conceived under the attributes of extension and of thought could be deduced. It would follow therefore (Part 1, Proposition 21) that a man is infinite, which (by the first part of this proof) is absurd. It is therefore impossible that a man should undergo no changes except those of which he is the adequate cause. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that a man is necessarily always subject to his passions, that he follows and obeys the general order of nature, and that he accommodates himself to it as far as the nature of things requires.
The force and increase of any passion, and its persistence in existing, are defined not by the power by which we ourselves endeavour to persist in existing, but by the power of an external cause compared with our own.
Proof. The essence of a passion cannot be explained through our own essence alone (Part 3, Definition 1; Part 3, Definition 2); that is (Part 3, Proposition 7), the power of a passion cannot be defined by the power by which we ourselves endeavour to persist in existing, but must (as is shown in Part 2, Proposition 16) be defined by the power of an external cause compared with our own. Q.E.D.
The force of any passion, or emotion, can overcome the rest of a man's activity, or power, so that the emotion becomes obstinately fixed in him.
Proof. The force and increase of any passion, and its persistence in existing, are defined by the power of an external cause compared with our own (by Proposition 5 of this Part); therefore (Proposition 3 of this Part) it can overcome a man's power, and so on. Q.E.D.
An emotion can only be checked or destroyed by another emotion contrary to it, and stronger than it.
Proof. An emotion, insofar as it is referred to the mind, is an idea by which the mind affirms of its body a greater or lesser force of existing than before (compare the general Definition of the Emotions at the end of Part 3). So when the mind is assailed by an emotion, the body is at the same time affected with a modification by which its power of acting is increased or diminished. Now this modification of the body (Proposition 5 of this Part) receives from its cause the force to persist in its being, and that force can only be checked or destroyed by a bodily cause (Part 2, Proposition 6), in virtue of the body being affected with a modification contrary to it (Part 3, Proposition 5) and stronger than it (the Axiom of this Part). Therefore (Part 2, Proposition 12) the mind is affected by the idea of a modification contrary to and stronger than the first—in other words (by the general Definition of the Emotions), the mind will be affected by an emotion contrary to and stronger than the first, which will exclude or destroy the existence of the first. So an emotion can neither be destroyed nor checked except by a contrary and stronger emotion. Q.E.D.
Corollary. An emotion, insofar as it is referred to the mind, can only be checked or destroyed by the idea of a bodily modification contrary to and stronger than the one we are undergoing. For the emotion we undergo can only be checked or destroyed by an emotion contrary to and stronger than itself—in other words (by the general Definition of the Emotions), only by the idea of a bodily modification contrary to and stronger than the one we undergo.
The knowledge of good and evil is nothing but the emotion of pleasure or pain, insofar as we are conscious of it.
Proof. We call a thing good or evil when it serves or hinders the preservation of our being (Definition 1 of this Part; Definition 2 of this Part)—that is (Part 3, Proposition 7), when it increases or diminishes, helps or hinders our power of acting. So insofar as we perceive that a thing affects us with pleasure or pain, we call it good or evil; and therefore the knowledge of good and evil is nothing but the idea of the pleasure or pain which necessarily follows from that pleasurable or painful emotion (Part 2, Proposition 22). But this idea is united to the emotion in the same way as mind is united to body (Part 2, Proposition 21); that is, there is no real distinction between this idea and the emotion, or idea of the bodily modification, except in thought. Therefore the knowledge of good and evil is nothing but the emotion itself, insofar as we are conscious of it. Q.E.D.
An emotion whose cause we conceive to be with us at the present time is stronger than if we did not conceive the cause to be with us.
Proof. Imagining, or conceiving, is the idea by which the mind regards a thing as present (Part 2, Proposition 17, Note), but which indicates the disposition of the body rather than the nature of the external thing (Part 2, Proposition 16, Corollary 2). An emotion is therefore a conceiving, insofar as it indicates the disposition of the body. But a conceiving (by Part 2, Proposition 17) is stronger so long as we conceive nothing which excludes the present existence of the external object; so an emotion is also stronger, or more intense, when we conceive the cause to be with us at the present time than when we do not. Q.E.D.
Note. When I said above, in Part 3, Proposition 18, that we are affected by the image of a thing past or future with the same emotion as if the thing conceived were present, I expressly stated that this is true only insofar as we look solely to the image of the thing itself; for the thing's nature is unchanged whether we have conceived it or not. I did not deny that the image becomes weaker when we regard as present to us other things which exclude the present existence of the future object; I simply did not call attention to it, because I intended to treat of the strength of the emotions in this part of my work.
Corollary. The image of something past or future—that is, of a thing we regard in relation to time past or time future, to the exclusion of the present—is, other things being equal, weaker than the image of something present. Consequently an emotion felt towards something past or future is, other things being equal, less intense than an emotion felt towards something present.
Towards something future which we conceive as close at hand we are affected more intensely than if we conceive its time of existing to be separated from the present by a longer interval; and likewise we are affected more intensely by the memory of something we conceive to have passed away not long ago than of something we conceive to have passed away long since.
Proof. Insofar as we conceive a thing as close at hand, or as having passed away not long ago, we conceive less of what excludes the object's presence than if its time of future existence were more distant from the present, or if it had passed away long since—which is obvious. Therefore (by Proposition 9 of this Part) we are so far more intensely affected towards it. Q.E.D.
Corollary. From what was said in Definition 6 of this Part it follows that if objects are separated from the present by a longer period than we can define in thought, they all affect us equally faintly, however widely their dates may be separated from one another.
An emotion towards something we conceive as necessary is, other things being equal, more intense than an emotion towards something possible, or contingent, or not necessary.
Proof. Insofar as we conceive a thing to be necessary, we to that extent affirm its existence; and on the other hand we deny a thing's existence insofar as we conceive it not to be necessary (Part 1, Proposition 33, Note 1). So (Proposition 9 of this Part) an emotion towards what is necessary is, other things being equal, more intense than an emotion towards what is not necessary. Q.E.D.
An emotion towards a thing which we know not to exist at the present time, and which we conceive as possible, is more intense, other things being equal, than an emotion towards a thing contingent.
Proof. Insofar as we conceive a thing as contingent, we are affected by the conception of no further thing which would assert its existence (Definition 3 of this Part); on the contrary, we (by hypothesis) conceive certain things which exclude its present existence. But insofar as we conceive a thing to be possible in the future, we do conceive things which assert its existence (Proposition 4 of this Part)—that is (Part 3, Proposition 18), things which promote hope or fear. So an emotion towards something possible is the more vehement. Q.E.D.
Corollary. An emotion towards a thing which we know not to exist in the present, and which we conceive as contingent, is far fainter than if we conceived the thing to be present with us.
Proof. An emotion towards a thing we conceive to exist is more intense than it would be if we conceived the thing as future (Proposition 9 of this Part, Corollary), and much more vehement than if the future time were conceived as far distant from the present (Proposition 10 of this Part). So an emotion towards a thing whose time of existing we conceive to be far distant from the present is far fainter than if we conceived the thing as present; and it is nevertheless more intense than if we conceived the thing as contingent. Therefore an emotion towards a thing we regard as contingent will be far fainter than if we conceived the thing to be present with us. Q.E.D.
An emotion towards a thing contingent, which we know not to exist in the present, is, other things being equal, fainter than an emotion towards a thing past.
Proof. Insofar as we conceive a thing as contingent, we are not affected by the image of any other thing which asserts its existence (Definition 3 of this Part); on the contrary (by hypothesis), we conceive certain things which exclude its present existence. But insofar as we conceive it in relation to time past, we are supposed to conceive something which recalls it to memory, or rouses its image (Part 2, Proposition 18, Note), which so far comes to the same thing as regarding it as present (Part 2, Proposition 17, Corollary). Therefore (Proposition 9 of this Part) an emotion towards a thing contingent which we know does not exist in the present is, other things being equal, fainter than an emotion towards a thing past. Q.E.D.
A true knowledge of good and evil cannot check any emotion in virtue of being true, but only insofar as it is itself considered as an emotion.
Proof. An emotion is an idea by which the mind affirms of its body a greater or lesser force of existing than before (by the general Definition of the Emotions); so it has no positive quality which can be destroyed by the presence of what is true, and consequently the knowledge of good and evil cannot restrain any emotion in virtue of being true. But insofar as such knowledge is itself an emotion (Proposition 8 of this Part), if it has more strength for restraining emotion it will to that extent be able to restrain the emotion in question. Q.E.D.
Desire arising from the knowledge of good and evil can be quenched or checked by many of the other desires arising from the emotions that assail us.
Proof. From the true knowledge of good and evil, insofar as it is an emotion, there necessarily arises desire (Definition 1 of the Emotions), whose strength is proportional to the strength of the emotion it arises from (Part 3, Proposition 37). But since this desire arises (by hypothesis) from our truly understanding something, it follows that it is present in us insofar as we are active (Part 3, Proposition 1), and must therefore be understood through our essence alone (Part 3, Definition 2); consequently (Part 3, Proposition 7) its force and increase can be defined solely by human power. And the desires arising from the emotions that assail us are stronger in proportion as those emotions are more vehement; so their force and increase must be defined solely by the power of external causes, which, compared with our own power, indefinitely surpasses it (Proposition 3 of this Part). So the desires arising from such emotions may be more vehement than the desire arising from a true knowledge of good and evil, and may consequently check or quench it. Q.E.D.
Desire arising from the knowledge of good and evil, insofar as that knowledge concerns what is future, may be more easily checked or quenched than the desire for what is agreeable at the present moment.
Proof. An emotion towards a thing we conceive as future is fainter than an emotion towards a thing present (Proposition 9 of this Part, Corollary). But desire arising from the true knowledge of good and evil, even when it is concerned with things that are good at the moment, can be quenched or checked by any headstrong desire (by Proposition 16 of this Part, the proof of which is of universal application). Therefore desire arising from such knowledge, when it is concerned with the future, can be more easily checked or quenched, and so on. Q.E.D.
Desire arising from the true knowledge of good and evil, insofar as that knowledge concerns what is contingent, can be checked far more easily still than desire for things that are present.
Proof. This proposition is proved in the same way as Proposition 16 of this Part is proved from Proposition 12 of this Part, Corollary.
Note. I think I have now shown why men are moved by opinion more readily than by true reason, and why the true knowledge of good and evil stirs up conflicts in the soul and often gives way to every kind of passion. This is what gave rise to the poet's cry: "The better path I gaze at and approve, The worse—I follow."
Footnote: Ov. Met. vii.20, "Video meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor."
Ecclesiastes seems to have had the same thought in mind when he says, "He who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." I have not written all this in order to draw the conclusion that ignorance is better than knowledge, or that a wise man is no better than a fool at controlling his emotions, but because we need to know the power and the weakness of our nature before we can determine what reason can do in restraining the emotions and what is beyond her power. I said that in this part I should treat only of human weakness; the power of reason over the emotions I have decided to treat separately.
Desire arising from pleasure is, other things being equal, stronger than desire arising from pain.
Proof. Desire is the essence of a man (Definition 1 of the Emotions); that is, it is the endeavour by which a man endeavours to persist in his own being. So desire arising from pleasure is increased or helped by the very fact of pleasure being felt, while desire arising from pain is diminished or hindered by the very fact of pain being felt. So the force of desire arising from pleasure must be defined by human power together with the power of an external cause, whereas the force of desire arising from pain must be defined by human power alone. The former is therefore the stronger of the two. Q.E.D.
Note. In these few remarks I have explained the causes of human weakness and inconstancy, and shown why men do not abide by the precepts of reason. It remains for me to show what course reason marks out for us, which of the emotions agree with the rules of human reason, and which are contrary to them. But before I begin proving my propositions in detailed geometrical fashion, it is worth sketching them briefly in advance, so that everyone may grasp my meaning more readily.
Since reason demands nothing contrary to nature, it demands that every man should love himself, should seek what is useful to him—I mean what is really useful to him—should desire everything that really brings a man to greater perfection, and should, each for himself, endeavour as far as he can to preserve his own being. This is as necessarily true as that a whole is greater than its part (compare Part 3, Proposition 4).
Again, since virtue is nothing but acting according to the laws of one's own nature (Definition 8 of this Part), and since no one endeavours to preserve his own being except according to the laws of his own nature, it follows: first, that the foundation of virtue is the endeavour to preserve one's own being, and that happiness consists in a man's power of preserving his own being; second, that virtue is to be desired for its own sake, and that there is nothing more excellent or more useful to us for whose sake we should desire it; and third and last, that suicides are weak-minded, and are overcome by external causes contrary to their nature. Further, it follows from Part 2, Postulate 4 that we can never do wholly without external things for the preservation of our being, or live so as to have no dealings with what is outside us. And if we consider our mind, we see that our intellect would be more imperfect if the mind were alone and could understand nothing but itself. There are, then, many things outside us which are useful to us and are therefore to be desired. Of these none can be found more excellent than those which agree entirely with our own nature; for if two individuals of entirely the same nature are joined together, they make up a combination twice as powerful as either alone.
To man, therefore, there is nothing more useful than man. Nothing, I repeat, more excellent for the preservation of their being can be wished for by men than that all should so agree in all points that the minds and bodies of all should form, as it were, one single mind and one single body; that all should, with one consent, endeavour as far as they can to preserve their being; and that all should, with one consent, seek what is useful to them all. From which it follows that men who are governed by reason—that is, who seek what is useful to them under the guidance of reason—desire nothing for themselves which they do not also desire for the rest of mankind, and are consequently just, faithful and honourable in their conduct.
Such are the dictates of reason, which I meant to indicate thus briefly before beginning to prove them in more detail. I have taken this course in order, if possible, to gain the attention of those who believe that the principle that every man is bound to seek what is useful to himself is the foundation of impiety rather than of piety and virtue.
Having briefly shown that the contrary is the case, I go on to prove it by the same method I have used so far.
Every man, by the laws of his nature, necessarily desires or shrinks from what he judges to be good or bad.
Proof. The knowledge of good and evil is (Proposition 8 of this Part) the emotion of pleasure or pain insofar as we are conscious of it; therefore every man necessarily desires what he thinks good and shrinks from what he thinks bad. Now this appetite is nothing but a man's nature, or essence (compare Part 3, Proposition 9, Note; Definition 1 of the Emotions). Therefore every man, by the laws of his nature alone, desires the one and shrinks from the other, and so on. Q.E.D.
The more a man endeavours, and is able, to seek what is useful to him—that is, to preserve his own being—the more he is endowed with virtue; and conversely, insofar as a man neglects to seek what is useful to him, that is, to preserve his own being, he is lacking in power.
Proof. Virtue is human power, which is defined solely by a man's essence (Definition 8 of this Part)—that is, solely by the endeavour a man makes to persist in his own being. So the more a man endeavours, and is able, to preserve his own being, the more he is endowed with virtue; and consequently (Part 3, Proposition 4; Part 3, Proposition 6), insofar as a man neglects to preserve his own being, he is lacking in power. Q.E.D.
Note. No one, then, neglects to seek his own good, or to preserve his own being, unless he is overcome by causes external and foreign to his nature. No one, I say, refuses food or kills himself from the necessity of his own nature; it is always under compulsion from external causes, and it may happen in many ways. A man kills himself under compulsion from another who twists his right hand, in which he happens to be holding a sword, and forces him to turn the blade against his own heart. Or he may be compelled, like Seneca, by a tyrant's command, to open his own veins—that is, to escape a greater evil by incurring a lesser. Or, last, hidden external causes may so disorder his imagination, and so affect his body, that the body takes on a nature contrary to its former one, a nature whose idea cannot exist in the mind (Part 3, Proposition 10). But that a man should endeavour, from the necessity of his own nature, to cease to exist is as impossible as that something should be made out of nothing, as anyone will see after a little reflection.
No one can desire to be blessed, to act rightly and to live rightly without at the same time desiring to be, to act and to live—that is, actually to exist.
Proof. The proof of this proposition, or rather the proposition itself, is self-evident, and is also plain from the definition of desire. For the desire to live, to act and so on, blessedly or rightly, is (Definition 1 of the Emotions) the essence of man—that is (Part 3, Proposition 7), the endeavour everyone makes to preserve his own being. Therefore no one can desire, and so on. Q.E.D.
No virtue can be conceived as prior to this endeavour to preserve one's own being.
Proof. The endeavour for self-preservation is the essence of a thing (Part 3, Proposition 7); so if any virtue could be conceived as prior to it, the essence of a thing would have to be conceived as prior to itself, which is plainly absurd. Therefore no virtue, and so on. Q.E.D.
Corollary. The endeavour for self-preservation is the first and only foundation of virtue. For nothing can be conceived prior to this principle, and without it no virtue can be conceived at all.
A man, insofar as he is determined to a particular action because he has inadequate ideas, cannot absolutely be said to act from virtue; he can only be so described insofar as he is determined to the action because he understands.
Proof. Insofar as a man is determined to an action through having inadequate ideas, he is passive (Part 3, Proposition 1); that is (Part 3, Definition 1; Part 3, Definition 3), he does something which cannot be perceived through his essence alone—that is (by Definition 8 of this Part), which does not follow from his virtue. But insofar as he is determined to an action because he understands, he is active; that is, he does something which is perceived through his essence alone, and which follows adequately from his virtue. Q.E.D.
To act absolutely from virtue is in us the same as to act, to live, or to preserve one's being (these three mean the same thing) under the guidance of reason, on the basis of seeking what is useful to oneself.
Proof. To act absolutely from virtue is nothing but to act according to the laws of one's own nature. But we act only insofar as we understand (Part 3, Proposition 3). Therefore to act from virtue is in us nothing but to act, to live, or to preserve one's being under the guidance of reason, and that on the basis of seeking what is useful to us (Proposition 22 of this Part, Corollary). Q.E.D.
No one endeavours to preserve his own being for the sake of anything else.
Proof. The endeavour by which each thing endeavours to persist in its being is defined solely by the essence of the thing itself (Part 3, Proposition 7); and from that alone, and not from the essence of anything else, it necessarily follows (Part 3, Proposition 6) that everyone endeavours to preserve his being. The proposition is also plain from Proposition 22 of this Part, Corollary; for if a man endeavoured to preserve his being for the sake of something else, that other thing would obviously be the foundation of virtue, which by the corollary just cited is absurd. Therefore no one, and so on. Q.E.D.
Whatever we endeavour under the guidance of reason is nothing but to understand; nor does the mind, insofar as it uses reason, judge anything useful to itself except what conduces to understanding.
Proof. The endeavour for self-preservation is nothing but the essence of the thing in question (Part 3, Proposition 7), which, insofar as it exists as it is, is conceived to have force for continuing in existence (Part 3, Proposition 6) and for doing whatever necessarily follows from its given nature (see Part 3, Proposition 9, Note). But the essence of reason is nothing but our mind insofar as it understands clearly and distinctly (see Part 2, Proposition 40, Note 2). Therefore (Part 2, Proposition 40) whatever we endeavour under the guidance of reason is nothing but to understand. Again, since this endeavour of the mind, by which the mind, insofar as it reasons, endeavours to preserve its own being, is nothing but understanding, this endeavour at understanding is (Proposition 22 of this Part, Corollary) the first and only foundation of virtue; nor shall we endeavour to understand things for the sake of some further object (Proposition 25 of this Part). And on the other hand, the mind, insofar as it reasons, will not be able to conceive anything as good for itself except what conduces to understanding.
We know nothing to be certainly good or evil except what really conduces to understanding, or what can hinder us from understanding.
Proof. The mind, insofar as it reasons, desires nothing beyond understanding, and judges nothing useful to itself except what conduces to understanding (by Proposition 26 of this Part). But the mind (Part 2, Proposition 41; Part 2, Proposition 43, Note) can have certainty about nothing except insofar as it has adequate ideas—that is (Part 2, Proposition 40, Note), insofar as it reasons. Therefore we know nothing to be good or evil except what really conduces, and so on. Q.E.D.
The mind's highest good is the knowledge of God, and the mind's highest virtue is to know God.
Proof. The mind is not capable of understanding anything higher than God—that is (Part 1, Definition 6), than a Being absolutely infinite, without which (Part 1, Proposition 15) nothing can either be or be conceived. Therefore (Proposition 26 of this Part; Proposition 27 of this Part) the mind's highest usefulness, or (Definition 1 of this Part) good, is the knowledge of God. Again, the mind is active only insofar as it understands, and only to that extent can it absolutely be said to act from virtue. The mind's absolute virtue is therefore to understand; and since, as we have shown, the highest thing the mind can understand is God, the highest virtue of the mind is to understand, or to know, God. Q.E.D.
No individual thing whose nature is entirely different from our own can help or check our power of acting, and absolutely nothing can do us good or harm unless it has something in common with our nature.
Proof. The power of every individual thing, and consequently the power of a man, by which he exists and acts, can only be determined by another individual thing (Part 1, Proposition 28) whose nature (Part 2, Proposition 6) must be understood through the same attribute through which human nature is conceived. So our power of acting, however it is conceived, can be determined, and consequently helped or hindered, by the power of another individual thing which has something in common with us, but not by the power of anything whose nature is entirely different from our own. And since we call good or evil what is the cause of pleasure or pain (Proposition 8 of this Part)—that is (Part 3, Proposition 11, Note), what increases or diminishes, helps or hinders our power of acting—therefore what is entirely different from our nature can be neither good nor bad for us. Q.E.D.
A thing cannot be bad for us through what it has in common with our nature; it is bad for us insofar as it is contrary to our nature.
Proof. We call a thing bad when it is the cause of pain (Proposition 8 of this Part)—that is (by the Definition, which see in Part 3, Proposition 11, Note), when it diminishes or checks our power of acting. So if anything were bad for us through what it has in common with our nature, it would be able to diminish or check the very thing it has in common with our nature, which (Part 3, Proposition 4) is absurd. Therefore nothing can be bad for us through what it has in common with us; but on the contrary, insofar as it is bad for us—that is, as we have just shown, insofar as it can diminish or check our power of acting—it is contrary to our nature. Q.E.D.
Insofar as a thing agrees with our nature, it is necessarily good.
Proof. Insofar as a thing agrees with our nature, it cannot be bad for it; so it will necessarily be either good or indifferent. If we suppose it neither good nor bad, then nothing will follow from its nature (Definition 1 of this Part) which tends to preserve our nature—that is, by hypothesis, which tends to preserve the thing itself; and this (Part 3, Proposition 6) is absurd. Therefore, insofar as a thing agrees with our nature, it is necessarily good. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that the more a thing agrees with our nature, the more useful, or better, it is for us; and conversely, the more useful a thing is for us, the more it agrees with our nature. For insofar as it does not agree with our nature, it will necessarily be either different from it or contrary to it. If different, it can be neither good nor bad (Proposition 29 of this Part); if contrary, it will be contrary to what agrees with our nature—that is, contrary to what is good—in short, bad. Nothing, therefore, can be good except insofar as it agrees with our nature; and so a thing is useful in proportion as it agrees with our nature, and the other way round. Q.E.D.
Insofar as men are subject to passion, they cannot in that respect be said to agree in nature.
Proof. Things said to agree in nature are understood to agree in power (Part 3, Proposition 7), not in lack of power, or negation, and consequently not in passion (Part 3, Proposition 3, Note). So men, insofar as they are subject to their passions, cannot be said to agree in nature. Q.E.D.
Note. This is also self-evident. If we say that white and black agree only in that neither is red, we are absolutely affirming that they agree in no respect at all. And if we say that a man and a stone agree only in that both are finite, lacking in power, not existing by the necessity of their own nature, and indefinitely surpassed by the power of external causes, we should certainly be affirming that a man and a stone are alike in no respect whatever. So things which agree only in a negation, or in what neither of them possesses, really agree in nothing.
Men can differ in nature insofar as they are assailed by emotions which are passions, or passive states; and to that extent one and the same man is variable and inconstant.
Proof. The nature, or essence, of the emotions cannot be explained through our own essence, or nature, alone (Part 3, Definition 1; Part 3, Definition 2), but must be defined by the power—that is (Part 3, Proposition 7), by the nature—of external causes compared with our own. So it follows that there are as many kinds of each emotion as there are external objects by which we are affected (Part 3, Proposition 56); that men may be affected differently by one and the same object (Part 3, Proposition 51), and to that extent differ in nature; and last, that one and the same man may be affected differently towards the same object, and may therefore be variable and inconstant. Q.E.D.
Insofar as men are assailed by emotions which are passions, they can be contrary to one another.
Proof. A man—Peter, say—can be the cause of Paul's feeling pain, because he has something like what Paul hates (Part 3, Proposition 16), or because he alone possesses something Paul also loves (Part 3, Proposition 32, Note), or for other causes (Part 3, Proposition 55, Note). It may therefore happen that Paul hates Peter (Definition 7 of the Emotions), and consequently it may easily happen that Peter hates Paul in return, and that each endeavours to injure the other (Part 3, Proposition 39)—that is (Proposition 30 of this Part), that they are contrary to one another. But the emotion of pain is always a passion, or passive state (Part 3, Proposition 59); so men, insofar as they are assailed by emotions which are passions, can be contrary to one another. Q.E.D.
Note. I said that Paul may hate Peter because he conceives that Peter possesses something Paul also loves; and from this it seems at first sight to follow that these two men, by both loving the same thing and so by the agreement of their natures, stand in one another's way—in which case Proposition 30 of this Part and Proposition 31 of this Part would be untrue. But if we give the matter unbiased attention we shall see that the discrepancy vanishes. For the two men are not in one another's way in virtue of the agreement of their natures—that is, by both loving the same thing—but in virtue of the one differing from the other. Insofar as each loves the same thing, the love of each is fed by it (Part 3, Proposition 31)—that is (Definition 6 of the Emotions), the pleasure of each is fed by it. So it is far from being the case that they are at odds because they both love the same thing and so far agree in nature. The cause of their opposition lies, as I said, solely in the fact that they are supposed to differ; for we suppose that Peter has the idea of the loved object as already in his possession, while Paul has the idea of it as lost. Hence the one man is affected with pleasure and the other with pain, and so they are at odds with one another. And we can easily show in the same way that all the other causes of hatred depend solely on differences between men's natures, and not on their agreement.
Only insofar as men live under the guidance of reason do they always necessarily agree in nature.
Proof. Insofar as men are assailed by emotions which are passions, they can differ in nature (Proposition 33 of this Part) and be at odds with one another. But men are said to be active only insofar as they act under the guidance of reason (Part 3, Proposition 3); so whatever follows from human nature insofar as it is defined by reason must (Part 3, Definition 2) be understood through human nature alone as its proximate cause. And since every man by the laws of his nature desires what he judges good and endeavours to remove what he judges bad (Proposition 19 of this Part); and since what we judge good or bad in accordance with reason necessarily is good or bad (Part 2, Proposition 41); it follows that men, insofar as they live under the guidance of reason, necessarily do only such things as are necessarily good for human nature, and consequently for each individual man (Proposition 31 of this Part, Corollary)—in other words, such things as agree with each man's nature. Therefore men, insofar as they live under the guidance of reason, necessarily always live in harmony with one another. Q.E.D.
Corollary 1. There is no individual thing in nature more useful to a man than a man who lives under the guidance of reason. For the thing most useful to a man is what most agrees with his nature (Proposition 31 of this Part, Corollary), and that is obviously man. But a man acts absolutely according to the laws of his own nature when he lives under the guidance of reason (Part 3, Definition 2), and only to that extent is he always necessarily in agreement with the nature of another man (by Proposition 35 of this Part). Therefore among individual things nothing is more useful to a man than a man who lives under the guidance of reason. Q.E.D.
Corollary 2. The more each man seeks what is useful to him, the more useful men are to one another. For the more a man seeks what is useful to him and endeavours to preserve himself, the more he is endowed with virtue (Proposition 20 of this Part)—or, what comes to the same thing (Definition 8 of this Part), the more he is endowed with power to act according to the laws of his own nature, that is, to live under the guidance of reason. But men most agree in nature when they live under the guidance of reason (by Proposition 35 of this Part); therefore (by Corollary 1 above) men will be most useful to one another when each most seeks what is useful to him. Q.E.D.
Note. What we have just shown is confirmed by experience so plainly that it is in nearly everyone's mouth: "Man is to man a God." Yet it rarely happens that men live under the guidance of reason; things are so ordered among them that they are generally envious and troublesome to one another. Nevertheless they can hardly lead a solitary life, so that the definition of man as a social animal has met with general assent; and in fact men do get far more convenience than harm out of social life. So let satirists laugh their fill at human affairs, let theologians rail, and let misanthropes praise the life of untaught rusticity to the skies, heaping contempt on men and praise on beasts—when all is said, they will find that men can provide for their wants far more easily by mutual help, and that only by joining forces can they escape the dangers that beset them on every side. Not to mention how much more excellent, and more worth knowing, it is to study the actions of men than the actions of beasts. But I shall treat of this at greater length elsewhere.
The highest good of those who follow virtue is common to all, and all can equally rejoice in it.
Proof. To act from virtue is to act under the guidance of reason (Proposition 24 of this Part), and whatever we endeavour to do under the guidance of reason is to understand (Proposition 26 of this Part). Therefore (Proposition 28 of this Part) the highest good of those who follow virtue is to know God—that is (Part 2, Proposition 47, Note), a good common to all, which all men can possess equally insofar as they are of the same nature. Q.E.D.
Note. Someone may ask what would follow if the highest good of those who follow virtue were not common to all. Would it not then follow, as above (Proposition 34 of this Part), that men living under the guidance of reason—that is (Proposition 35 of this Part), men insofar as they agree in nature—would be at odds with one another? To this I answer that it follows not accidentally but from the very nature of reason that man's highest good is common to all, since it is deduced from the very essence of man insofar as that is defined by reason, and since a man could neither be nor be conceived without the power of taking pleasure in this highest good. For it belongs to the essence of the human mind (Part 2, Proposition 47) to have an adequate knowledge of God's eternal and infinite essence.
The good which every man who follows virtue desires for himself he will also desire for other men, and the more so the greater his knowledge of God.
Proof. Men, insofar as they live under the guidance of reason, are most useful to their fellow men (Proposition 35 of this Part, Corollary 1); therefore (Proposition 19 of this Part), under the guidance of reason we shall necessarily endeavour to bring it about that men live under the guidance of reason. But the good which every man, insofar as he is guided by reason—in other words, insofar as he follows virtue—desires for himself is to understand (Proposition 26 of this Part). So the good which each follower of virtue seeks for himself he will desire for others too. Again, desire, insofar as it is referred to the mind, is the very essence of the mind (Definition 1 of the Emotions); and the essence of the mind consists in knowledge (Part 2, Proposition 11), which involves the knowledge of God (Part 2, Proposition 47) and without which (Part 1, Proposition 15) it can neither be nor be conceived. Therefore, in proportion as the mind's essence involves a greater knowledge of God, so much the greater will be the follower of virtue's desire that other men should possess what he seeks as good for himself. Q.E.D.
Another Proof. The good which a man desires for himself and loves he will love the more constantly if he sees that others love it too (Part 3, Proposition 31); so he will endeavour to make others love it as well. And since the good in question is common to all, and all can therefore rejoice in it, he will endeavour, for the same reason, to bring it about that all should rejoice in it; and he will do so the more (Part 3, Proposition 37) in proportion as his own enjoyment of that good is greater.
Note 1. A man who, guided by emotion alone, endeavours to make others love what he loves and to make the rest of the world live according to his own fancy, acts by mere impulse and is therefore hateful—especially to those who take delight in something different, and who accordingly study, by the same impulse, to make men live as pleases them. And since the highest good men seek under the guidance of emotion is often such that only one person can possess it, those who love it are not consistent in their intentions: while they delight in singing its praises, they fear to be believed. But a man who endeavours to lead others by reason acts not by impulse but courteously and kindly, and his intention is always consistent. Again, whatever we desire and do of which we are the cause insofar as we have the idea of God, or know God, I set down to religion. The desire to do good which is engendered by a life according to reason I call piety. And the desire by which a man living according to reason is bound to join others to himself in friendship I call honour; by honourable I mean what is praised by men living according to reason, and by base what is contrary to the gaining of friendship. I have also shown in addition what the foundations of a state are; and the difference between true virtue and infirmity may readily be gathered from what I have said—namely, that true virtue is nothing but living under the guidance of reason, while infirmity is nothing but a man's allowing himself to be led by things outside himself, and to be determined by them to act as the general disposition of things requires rather than as his own nature, considered in itself alone, requires.
Footnote: Honestas
These are the matters I undertook to prove in Proposition 18 of this Part, from which it is plain that the law against slaughtering animals is founded on vain superstition and womanish pity rather than on sound reason. The rational search for what is useful to us further teaches us that we must join ourselves with our fellow men, but not with beasts, or with things whose nature is different from our own; we have the same right over them as they have over us. Indeed, since everyone's right is defined by his virtue, or power, men have far greater rights over beasts than beasts have over men. Still, I do not deny that beasts feel; what I deny is that we may not consider our own advantage and use them as we please, treating them in whatever way best suits us, since their nature is not like ours and their emotions are naturally different from human emotions (Part 3, Proposition 57, Note). It remains for me to explain what I mean by just and unjust, sin and merit. On these points see the following note.
Note 2. In the Appendix to Part One I undertook to explain praise and blame, merit and sin, justice and injustice.
Of praise and blame I have spoken in Part 3, Proposition 29, Note; the time has now come to treat of the rest. But first I must say a few words about man in the state of nature and in society.
Every man exists by sovereign natural right, and consequently by sovereign natural right performs the actions that follow from the necessity of his own nature. So by sovereign natural right every man judges what is good and what is bad, looks after his own advantage as his own disposition directs (Proposition 19 of this Part; Proposition 20 of this Part), avenges the wrongs done to him (Part 3, Proposition 40, Corollary 2), and endeavours to preserve what he loves and destroy what he hates (Part 3, Proposition 28). Now if men lived under the guidance of reason, everyone would keep this right of his without any injury to his neighbour (Proposition 35 of this Part, Corollary 1). But since they are subject to their emotions, which far surpass human power, or virtue (Proposition 6 of this Part), they are often drawn in different directions and are at odds with one another (Proposition 33 of this Part; Proposition 34 of this Part), while standing in need of mutual help (Proposition 35 of this Part, Note). So in order that men may live together in harmony and help one another, it is necessary that they give up their natural right and, for the sake of security, refrain from all actions that can injure their fellow men. How this end can be reached—so that men, who are necessarily subject to their emotions (Proposition 4 of this Part, Corollary), inconstant and various as they are, should be able to make one another secure and to feel mutual trust—is evident from Proposition 7 of this Part and Part 3, Proposition 39. It is shown there that an emotion can only be restrained by an emotion stronger than and contrary to itself, and that men refrain from inflicting injury through fear of incurring a greater injury themselves.
On this law a society can be established, so long as it keeps in its own hands the right, possessed by everyone, of avenging injury and of pronouncing on good and evil, and provided it also has the power to lay down a general rule of conduct and to pass laws sanctioned not by reason, which is powerless to restrain emotion, but by threats (Proposition 17 of this Part, Note). Such a society, established with laws and with the power of preserving itself, is called a state, and those who live under its protection are called citizens. We may readily see that in the state of nature there is nothing which by universal consent is pronounced good or bad; for in the state of nature everyone thinks solely of his own advantage and decides, according to his own disposition and with reference only to his own advantage, what is good and what bad, being bound by no law to anyone but himself.
In the state of nature, then, sin is inconceivable. It can only exist in a state where good and evil are pronounced on by common consent, and where everyone is bound to obey the authority of the state. Sin, therefore, is nothing but disobedience, and is punished by the right of the state alone. Obedience, on the other hand, is set down as merit, since a man is thought worthy of merit if he takes delight in the advantages a state provides.
Again, in the state of nature no one is by common consent master of anything, nor is there anything in nature which can be said to belong to one man rather than another: all things are common to all. So in the state of nature we can conceive no wish to render every man his own, or to deprive a man of what belongs to him; in other words, there is nothing in the state of nature answering to justice and injustice. Such ideas are only possible in a social state, when it is decreed by common consent what belongs to one man and what to another.
From all this it is evident that justice and injustice, sin and merit, are extrinsic notions, and not attributes which display the nature of the mind. But I have said enough.
Whatever disposes the human body so as to make it capable of being affected in more ways, or of affecting external bodies in more ways, is useful to man, and the more so the more it makes the body capable of being affected, or of affecting other bodies, in more ways; and conversely, whatever makes the body less capable in this respect is harmful.
Proof. Whatever increases the capabilities of the body increases the mind's capacity for perception too (Part 2, Proposition 14); so whatever disposes the body in this way, and makes it capable, is necessarily good, or useful (Proposition 26 of this Part; Proposition 27 of this Part), and is so in proportion to the extent to which it can make the body capable. And conversely (Part 2, Proposition 14; Proposition 26 of this Part; Proposition 27 of this Part), it is harmful if it makes the body less capable in this respect. Q.E.D.
Whatever preserves the proportion of motion and rest which the parts of the human body have to one another is good; and whatever brings about a change in that proportion is bad.
Proof. The human body needs many other bodies for its preservation (Part 2, Postulate 4). But what constitutes the specific character (forma) of a human body is that its parts communicate their several motions to one another in a certain fixed proportion (the Definition before Lemma 4, which follows Part 2, Proposition 13). Therefore whatever preserves the proportion between motion and rest which the parts of the human body have to one another preserves the specific character of the human body, and consequently makes the human body capable of being affected in many ways and of affecting external bodies in many ways; and so it is good (by Proposition 38 of this Part). And whatever brings about a change in that proportion makes the human body take on another specific character—in other words (see the Preface to this Part, towards the end, though the point is indeed self-evident), destroys it, so that it becomes wholly incapable of being affected in more ways; and so it is bad. Q.E.D.
Note. How far such causes can injure or help the mind will be explained in Part Five. But I would remark here that I consider a body to undergo death when the proportion of motion and rest which held among its several parts is changed. For I do not venture to deny that a human body, while keeping the circulation of the blood and the other properties in which the life of a body is thought to consist, may nonetheless be changed into another nature entirely different from its own. There is no reason compelling me to maintain that a body does not die unless it becomes a corpse; on the contrary, experience seems to point the other way. It sometimes happens that a man undergoes such changes that I should hardly call him the same man. I have heard tell of a Spanish poet who was seized with an illness, and though he recovered from it remained so forgetful of his past life that he would not believe the plays and tragedies he had written were his own; indeed he might have been taken for a grown-up child if he had forgotten his native language as well. And if this instance seems incredible, what shall we say of infants? A man of ripe age thinks their nature so unlike his own that he can only be persuaded he was ever an infant himself by the analogy of other men. However, I prefer to leave such questions undiscussed, in case I give the superstitious grounds for raising new ones.
Whatever conduces to men's social life, or makes them live together in harmony, is useful; and whatever brings discord into a state is bad.
Proof. For whatever makes men live together in harmony also makes them live according to reason (Proposition 35 of this Part), and is therefore (Proposition 26 of this Part; Proposition 27 of this Part) good; and for the same reason whatever brings about discord is bad. Q.E.D.
Pleasure in itself is not bad but good; pain, on the contrary, is in itself bad.
Proof. Pleasure (Part 3, Proposition 11, Note) is an emotion by which the body's power of acting is increased or helped; pain is an emotion by which the body's power of acting is diminished or checked. Therefore (Proposition 38 of this Part) pleasure in itself is good, and so on. Q.E.D.
Merriment cannot be excessive, but is always good; melancholy, on the contrary, is always bad.
Proof. Merriment (see Part 3, Proposition 11, Note) is a pleasure which, insofar as it is referred to the body, consists in all the parts of the body being affected equally; that is (Part 3, Proposition 11), the body's power of acting is increased or helped in such a way that its several parts keep their former proportion of motion and rest. So merriment is always good (Proposition 39 of this Part) and cannot be excessive. But melancholy (see Part 3, Proposition 11, Note) is a pain which, insofar as it is referred to the body, consists in the absolute decrease or checking of the body's power of acting; so (Proposition 38 of this Part) it is always bad. Q.E.D.
Stimulation may be excessive and bad; and suffering may be good, insofar as stimulation, or pleasure, is bad.
Proof. Localised pleasure, or stimulation (titillatio), is a pleasure which, insofar as it is referred to the body, consists in one or some of its parts being affected more than the rest (see Part 3, Proposition 11, Note). The force of this emotion may be enough to overcome the body's other actions (Proposition 6 of this Part) and may stay obstinately fixed in it, so making it incapable of being affected in a variety of other ways; and so (Proposition 38 of this Part) it may be bad. Again, suffering, which is a pain, cannot as such be good (Proposition 41 of this Part). But since its force and increase are defined by the power of an external cause compared with our own (Proposition 5 of this Part), we can conceive infinite degrees and kinds of strength in this emotion (Proposition 3 of this Part); we can therefore conceive it as able to restrain stimulation and to prevent it becoming excessive and hindering the body's capabilities. To that extent, then, it will be good. Q.E.D.
Love and desire may be excessive.
Proof. Love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause (Definition 6 of the Emotions); so stimulation accompanied by the idea of an external cause is love (Part 3, Proposition 11, Note), and love may therefore be excessive. Again, the strength of a desire varies with the emotion it arises from (Part 3, Proposition 37). Now an emotion may overcome all a man's other actions (Proposition 6 of this Part); so the desire arising from that emotion may likewise overcome all his other desires and become excessive, as we showed in the last proposition about stimulation.
Note. Merriment, which I have said is good, can be conceived more easily than it can be observed. For the emotions which assail us daily are generally referred to some part of the body which is affected more than the rest; and so the emotions are generally excessive, and fix the mind on one object so firmly that it cannot think of others. And although men are as a rule subject to many emotions, and very few are found who are always assailed by one and the same, there are cases where one and the same emotion stays obstinately fixed. We sometimes see men so absorbed in one object that, although it is not present, they think they have it before them; and when this happens to a man who is not asleep, we say he is delirious or mad. Nor are those thought any less mad who are inflamed with love, and dream night and day of nothing but their mistress, or some woman—they are made objects of ridicule. But when a miser thinks of nothing but gain, or money, or an ambitious man of nothing but glory, they are not reckoned mad, because they are generally harmful and are thought worthy of hatred. In fact, avarice, ambition, lust and the rest are kinds of madness, though they are not counted among the diseases.
Hatred can never be good.
Proof. When we hate a man we endeavour to destroy him (Part 3, Proposition 39)—that is (Proposition 37 of this Part), we endeavour to do something bad. Therefore, and so on. Q.E.D.
Note. Here, and in what follows, by hatred I mean only hatred towards men.
Corollary 1. Envy, derision, contempt, anger, revenge and the other emotions belonging to hatred, or arising from it, are bad; this is evident from Part 3, Proposition 39 and Proposition 37 of this Part.
Corollary 2. Whatever we desire out of hatred is base, and in a state unjust. This too is evident from Part 3, Proposition 39, and from the definitions of baseness and injustice in Proposition 37 of this Part, Note.
Note. Between derision (which I have in Corollary 1 stated to be bad) and laughter I recognise a great difference. Laughter, like jesting, is merely pleasure, and therefore, so long as it is not excessive, is in itself good (Proposition 41 of this Part). Nothing but a grim and gloomy superstition forbids a man to enjoy himself. For why is it more proper to relieve one's hunger and thirst than to drive away one's melancholy? My reasoning, and my conviction, is this. No deity, and no one else except the envious, takes pleasure in my weakness and my discomfort, or counts as virtue in me the tears, the sobs and the fear which are signs of a weak spirit. On the contrary, the greater the pleasure we are affected with, the greater the perfection we pass to—in other words, the more we necessarily share in the divine nature. So it is the part of a wise man to make use of what comes his way and to enjoy it as much as he can, though not to the point of surfeit, for that would not be enjoyment. It is the part of a wise man, I say, to refresh and restore himself with moderate and pleasant food and drink, with perfumes, with the soft beauty of growing plants, with dress, with music, with games, with the theatre, and with everything else of the kind that a man can use without injury to his neighbour. For the human body is made up of a great many parts of different natures, which continually need fresh and varied nourishment, so that the whole body may be equally capable of everything that follows from the necessity of its own nature, and consequently so that the mind may be equally capable of understanding many things at once. This way of life, then, agrees best with our principles and with common practice; so if any other plan is in question, this one is the best and is in every way to be commended. There is no need for me to set the matter out more clearly or in more detail.
He who lives under the guidance of reason endeavours, as far as he can, to repay other men's hatred, anger and contempt towards him with love, or kindness.
Proof. All emotions of hatred are bad (Proposition 45 of this Part, Corollary 1); so a man who lives under the guidance of reason will endeavour as far as he can to avoid being assailed by such emotions (Proposition 19 of this Part), and consequently will endeavour to prevent others being assailed by them too (Proposition 37 of this Part). But hatred is increased by being returned and can be quenched by love (Part 3, Proposition 43), so that hatred may pass into love (Part 3, Proposition 44). Therefore he who lives under the guidance of reason will endeavour to repay hatred with love, that is, with kindness. Q.E.D.
Note. He who chooses to avenge wrongs with hatred is certainly wretched. But he who strives to conquer hatred with love fights his battle in joy and confidence; he withstands many as easily as one, and has very little need of fortune's help. Those he defeats yield gladly, not because their strength failed but because it grew. All this follows so plainly from the mere definitions of love and of understanding that I need not prove it in detail.
The emotions of hope and fear cannot be good in themselves.
Proof. The emotions of hope and fear cannot exist without pain; for fear is pain (Definition 13 of the Emotions), and hope (Definition 12 of the Emotions, Explanation; Definition 13 of the Emotions, Explanation) cannot exist without fear. Therefore (Proposition 41 of this Part) these emotions cannot be good in themselves, but only insofar as they can restrain excessive pleasure (Proposition 43 of this Part). Q.E.D.
Note. We may add that these emotions show a defect of knowledge and a lack of power in the mind; and for the same reason confidence, despair, joy and disappointment are signs of a want of mental power. For although confidence and joy are pleasurable emotions, they nevertheless imply a preceding pain, namely hope and fear. So the more we endeavour to be guided by reason, the less we depend on hope; we endeavour to free ourselves from fear and, as far as we can, to master fortune, directing our actions by the sure counsels of wisdom.
The emotions of over-esteem and disparagement are always bad.
Proof. These emotions (see Definition 21 of the Emotions; Definition 22 of the Emotions) are contrary to reason, and are therefore (Proposition 26 of this Part; Proposition 27 of this Part) bad. Q.E.D.
Over-esteem is apt to make its object proud.
Proof. If we see that someone rates us too highly out of love, we are apt to become elated (Part 3, Proposition 41), or to be affected with pleasure (Definition 30 of the Emotions); the good we hear of ourselves we readily believe (Part 3, Proposition 25); and so out of love we rate ourselves too highly—in other words, we are apt to become proud. Q.E.D.
Pity, in a man who lives under the guidance of reason, is in itself bad and useless.
Proof. Pity (Definition 18 of the Emotions) is a pain, and therefore (Proposition 41 of this Part) in itself bad. The good effect which follows from it—our endeavour to free the object of our pity from misery—is an action we desire to do solely at the dictate of reason (Proposition 37 of this Part); and only at the dictate of reason can we perform any action we know for certain to be good (Proposition 27 of this Part). So in a man who lives under the guidance of reason, pity is in itself useless and bad. Q.E.D.
Note. A man who rightly grasps that all things follow from the necessity of the divine nature, and come to pass according to the eternal laws and rules of nature, will find nothing worth hating, deriding or despising, nor will he pity anyone; but so far as human virtue reaches, he will endeavour to do well, as the saying is, and to rejoice. We may add that a man who is easily touched with compassion, and moved by another's sorrow or tears, often does something he afterwards regrets—partly because we can never be sure that an action caused by an emotion is good, and partly because we are easily deceived by false tears. I am speaking here expressly of a man living under the guidance of reason. He who is moved to help others neither by reason nor by compassion is rightly called inhuman; for (Part 3, Proposition 27) he seems unlike a man.
Approval is not contrary to reason, but can agree with it and arise from it.
Proof. Approval is love towards someone who has done good to another (Definition 19 of the Emotions); so it may be referred to the mind insofar as the mind is active (Part 3, Proposition 59)—that is (Part 3, Proposition 3), insofar as it understands. So it agrees with reason, and so on. Q.E.D.
Another Proof. He who lives under the guidance of reason desires for others the good he seeks for himself (Proposition 37 of this Part); so when he sees someone doing good to his fellow, his own endeavour to do good is helped—in other words, he will feel pleasure (Part 3, Proposition 11, Note) accompanied by the idea of the benefactor. Therefore he approves of him. Q.E.D.
Note. Indignation, as we defined it (Definition 20 of the Emotions), is necessarily bad (Proposition 45 of this Part). We may remark, however, that when the sovereign power punishes a citizen who has injured another, for the sake of keeping the peace, it should not be said to be indignant with the criminal; for it is not driven by hatred to ruin him, but led by a sense of duty to punish him.
Self-approval may arise from reason, and the self-approval that arises from reason is the highest there can be.
Proof. Self-approval is pleasure arising from a man's contemplation of himself and of his own power of acting (Definition 25 of the Emotions). But a man's true power of acting, his virtue, is reason herself (Part 3, Proposition 3), which he contemplates clearly and distinctly (Part 2, Proposition 40; Part 2, Proposition 43); so self-approval arises from reason. Again, when a man contemplates himself, he perceives clearly and distinctly, that is adequately, only what follows from his power of acting (Part 3, Definition 2)—that is (Part 3, Proposition 3), from his power of understanding. So the highest self-approval there can be arises in that contemplation alone. Q.E.D.
Note. Self-approval is in reality the highest thing we can hope for. For (as we showed in Proposition 25 of this Part) no one endeavours to preserve his being for the sake of any further object; and since this approval is fed and strengthened more and more by praise (Part 3, Proposition 53, Corollary), and on the contrary (Part 3, Proposition 55, Corollary) is disturbed more and more by blame, fame becomes the most powerful of all incitements to action, and life under disgrace becomes almost unendurable.
Humility is not a virtue, and does not arise from reason.
Proof. Humility is pain arising from a man's contemplation of his own weakness (Definition 26 of the Emotions). But insofar as a man knows himself by true reason, he is supposed to understand his own essence, that is, his power (Part 3, Proposition 7). So if in contemplating himself a man perceives some weakness in himself, that is not in virtue of his understanding himself, but (Part 3, Proposition 55) in virtue of his power of acting being checked. And if we suppose that a man perceives his own weakness in virtue of understanding something stronger than himself, by whose knowledge he measures his own power of acting, this is the same as saying that we conceive him to understand himself distinctly (Proposition 26 of this Part), because his power of acting is helped. So humility, the pain arising from a man's contemplation of his own weakness, does not arise from contemplation or from reason, and is not a virtue but a passion. Q.E.D.
Footnote: Land reads: "Quod ipsius agendi potentia juvatur"—which I have translated above. He suggests as alternative readings to 'quod', 'quo' (= whereby) and 'quodque' (= and that).
Repentance is not a virtue, and does not arise from reason; a man who repents of an action is doubly wretched, or weak.
Proof. The first part of this proposition is proved like the one before it. The second part is proved from the mere definition of the emotion in question (Definition 27 of the Emotions); for the man lets himself be overcome, first by an evil desire and then by pain.
Note. Since men seldom live under the guidance of reason, these two emotions, humility and repentance, and hope and fear as well, bring more good than harm; so if we must sin, we had better sin in that direction. For if men who are subject to emotion were all equally proud, they would shrink from nothing and fear nothing, and how then could they be joined and bound together? The crowd plays the tyrant when it is not afraid; so we need not wonder that the prophets, who looked to the good not of a few but of all, so strenuously commended humility, repentance and reverence. Indeed those who are subject to these emotions may be led much more easily than others to live under the guidance of reason—that is, to become free and to enjoy the life of the blessed.
Extreme pride, or extreme dejection, indicates extreme ignorance of oneself.
Proof. This is evident from Definition 28 of the Emotions and Definition 29 of the Emotions.
Extreme pride, or extreme dejection, indicates extreme weakness of spirit.
Proof. The first foundation of virtue is self-preservation (Proposition 22 of this Part, Corollary) under the guidance of reason (Proposition 24 of this Part). So a man who is ignorant of himself is ignorant of the foundation of all the virtues, and consequently of all the virtues themselves. Again, to act from virtue is simply to act under the guidance of reason (Proposition 24 of this Part), and a man who acts under the guidance of reason must necessarily know that he does so (Part 2, Proposition 43). Therefore a man who is in extreme ignorance of himself, and consequently of all the virtues, acts least of all from virtue—in other words (Definition 8 of this Part), is most weak of spirit. So extreme pride, or extreme dejection, indicates extreme weakness of spirit. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows very clearly that the proud and the dejected are especially prey to the emotions.
Note. Yet dejection can be corrected more easily than pride; for pride is a pleasurable emotion and dejection a painful one, and the pleasurable is the stronger of the two (Proposition 18 of this Part).
The proud man delights in the company of flatterers and hangers-on, but hates the company of the high-minded.
Proof. Pride is pleasure arising from a man's over-estimation of himself (Definition 28 of the Emotions; Definition 6 of the Emotions); and the proud man will endeavour to feed this estimation by every means in his power (Part 3, Proposition 13, Note). So he will delight in the company of flatterers and hangers-on, whose character is too well known to need definition here, and will avoid the company of the high-minded, who value him at his deserts. Q.E.D.
Note. It would take too long to list here all the evil results of pride, since the proud are prey to every emotion, though to none less than to love and pity. I cannot, however, pass over in silence the fact that a man may be called proud for underestimating other people; and in this sense pride may be defined as pleasure arising from the false opinion by which a man thinks himself superior to his fellows. And dejection, the quality opposite to this kind of pride, may be defined as pain arising from the false opinion by which a man thinks himself inferior to his fellows. This being so, we can easily see that a proud man is necessarily envious (Part 3, Proposition 41, Note), and takes pleasure only in the company of those who humour his weak mind to the top of its bent, and make him mad instead of merely foolish.
Though dejection is the emotion contrary to pride, the dejected man is very near akin to the proud one. For since his pain arises from comparing his own weakness with other men's power, or virtue, it will be removed—in other words, he will feel pleasure—if his imagination is occupied in contemplating other men's faults. Hence the proverb, "The unhappy are comforted by finding fellow-sufferers." And conversely, he will be the more pained the more he thinks himself inferior to others; so none are so prone to envy as the dejected. They are especially sharp in watching men's actions, with a view to finding fault rather than to correcting it, and they reserve their praise for dejection itself, and glory in it—though all the while with a dejected air. These effects follow as necessarily from that emotion as it follows from the nature of a triangle that its three angles are equal to two right angles. I have already said that I call these and similar emotions bad solely in respect of what is useful to man. The laws of nature have regard to nature's general order, of which man is only a part. I mention this in passing, in case anyone should think I have meant to set out men's faults and irrational deeds rather than the nature and properties of things. For, as I said in the Preface to Part Three, I regard human emotions and their properties as on the same footing with all other natural things. Human emotions certainly show the power and the ingenuity of nature, if not of human nature, quite as fully as the other things we admire and delight to contemplate. But I go on to note the qualities in the emotions which bring men advantage or do them harm.
Honour (gloria) is not contrary to reason, but may arise from it.
Proof. This is evident from Definition 30 of the Emotions, and also from the definition of an honourable man (Proposition 37 of this Part, Note 1).
Note. Empty honour, as it is called, is self-approval fed only by the good opinion of the crowd; and when that good opinion ceases, so does the self-approval, which is the highest object of every man's love (Proposition 52 of this Part, Note). So a man whose honour is rooted in popular approval must strive and scheme and act anxiously, day after day, to keep his reputation; for the crowd is fickle and inconstant, and a reputation not kept up quickly withers away. Everyone wants to catch the applause of the crowd for himself, and readily suppresses the fame of others; and since the thing they are fighting over is reckoned the greatest of all goods, each combatant is seized with a fierce desire to put down his rivals by every possible means, until the one who comes out victorious at last is prouder of having harmed others than of having done himself good. This kind of honour, then, is really empty, being nothing at all.
What is to be noted about shame may easily be gathered from what was said about compassion and repentance. I will only add that shame, like compassion, though not a virtue, is nevertheless good insofar as it shows that the man who feels it really has a desire to live honourably—in the same way that pain is good, as showing that the injured part has not mortified. So although a man who feels shame is sorrowful, he is more perfect than a man who is shameless and has no desire to live honourably.
These are the points I undertook to make about the emotions of pleasure and pain. As for the desires, they are good or bad according as they spring from good or bad emotions. But all of them, insofar as they are engendered in us by emotions in which the mind is passive, are blind (Proposition 44 of this Part, Note), and would be useless if men could easily be brought to live under the guidance of reason alone, as I shall now briefly show.
To every action to which we are determined by an emotion in which the mind is passive, we can be determined by reason without any emotion.
Proof. To act rationally is nothing but (Part 3, Proposition 3; Part 3, Definition 2) to perform the actions which follow from the necessity of our own nature considered in itself alone. But pain is bad insofar as it diminishes or checks the power of acting (Proposition 41 of this Part); so pain cannot determine us to any action we could not perform under the guidance of reason. Again, pleasure is bad only insofar as it hinders a man's capacity for action (Proposition 41 of this Part; Proposition 43 of this Part); so to that extent it could not determine us to any action we could not perform under the guidance of reason. And last, pleasure insofar as it is good agrees with reason, since it consists in a man's capacity for action being increased or helped; nor is the mind passive in it, except insofar as a man's power of acting is not increased far enough to give him an adequate conception of himself and his actions (Part 3, Proposition 3, Note).
So if a man affected with pleasure is brought to such a state of perfection that he gains an adequate conception of himself and his own actions, he will be equally capable—indeed more capable—of the actions to which he is determined by emotions in which the mind is passive. But all emotions belong to pleasure, to pain or to desire (Definition 4 of the Emotions, Explanation), and desire (Definition 1 of the Emotions) is nothing but the attempt to act. Therefore, to every action, and so on. Q.E.D.
Another Proof. An action is called bad insofar as it arises from someone's being affected by hatred or some other bad emotion. But no action considered in itself alone is either good or bad, as we pointed out in the Preface to Part 4, one and the same action being sometimes good and sometimes bad. So to the action which is sometimes bad, or arises from some bad emotion, we may also be led by reason (Proposition 19 of this Part). Q.E.D.
Note. An example will make this clearer. The act of striking, considered physically, insofar as we look only at the fact that a man raises his arm, clenches his fist and moves the whole arm violently downwards, is a virtue, or excellence, conceived as proper to the structure of the human body. If, then, a man moved by anger or hatred is led to clench his fist and move his arm, this happens (as we showed in Part 2) because one and the same action can be associated with various mental images of things; so we may be determined to one and the same action by confused ideas, or by clear and distinct ones. From which it is evident that every desire springing from an emotion in which the mind is passive would become useless if men could be guided by reason. Let us now see why we call a desire arising from an emotion in which the mind is passive blind.
A desire arising from a pleasure or a pain which belongs not to the whole body but only to one or some of its parts is of no use in respect of a man as a whole.
Proof. Suppose, for instance, that A, a part of the body, is so strengthened by some external cause that it prevails over the remaining parts (Proposition 6 of this Part). This part will not endeavour to do away with its own powers in order that the other parts of the body may perform their office; for that it would need a force, or power, of doing away with its own powers, which (Part 3, Proposition 6) is absurd. That part, and consequently the mind too, will endeavour to preserve its condition. So a desire arising from a pleasure of that kind is of no use in respect of a man as a whole. And if we suppose instead that the part A is checked so that the remaining parts prevail, it may be proved in the same way that a desire arising from pain is of no use in respect of a man as a whole. Q.E.D.
Note. Since pleasure is generally (Proposition 44 of this Part, Note) referred to one part of the body, we generally desire to preserve our being without taking our health as a whole into account. To which we may add that the desires which have the strongest hold on us (Proposition 9 of this Part) take account of the present and not of the future.
A desire which springs from reason cannot be excessive.
Proof. Desire (Definition 1 of the Emotions), considered absolutely, is the actual essence of a man insofar as it is conceived as in some way determined to a particular action by some given modification of itself. So a desire arising from reason—that is (Part 3, Proposition 3), engendered in us insofar as we are active—is the actual essence, or nature, of a man insofar as it is conceived as determined to those actions which are adequately conceived through a man's essence alone (Part 3, Definition 2). If such a desire could be excessive, human nature considered in itself alone would be able to exceed itself, or to do more than it can, which is a plain contradiction. Therefore such a desire cannot be excessive. Q.E.D.
Insofar as the mind conceives a thing under the dictates of reason, it is affected equally whether the idea is of a thing future, past or present.
Proof. Whatever the mind conceives under the guidance of reason, it conceives under the form of eternity, or of necessity (Part 2, Proposition 44, Corollary 2), and is therefore affected with the same certainty (Part 2, Proposition 43, Note). So whether the thing is present, past or future, the mind conceives it under the same necessity and is affected with the same certainty; and whether the idea is of something present, past or future, it will in every case be equally true (Part 2, Proposition 41)—that is, it will always have the same properties of an adequate idea (Part 2, Definition 4). Therefore, insofar as the mind conceives things under the dictates of reason, it is affected in the same way whether the idea is of a thing future, past or present. Q.E.D.
Note. If we could have adequate knowledge of the duration of things, and could determine by reason how long they will exist, we should contemplate things future with the same emotion as things present; the mind would desire the good it conceived as future just as though it were present, and would consequently neglect a lesser present good for the sake of a greater future one, and would in no way desire what is good in the present but a source of evil in the future, as we shall shortly show. But we can have only a very inadequate knowledge of the duration of things (Part 2, Proposition 31), and we can determine how long they will exist (Part 2, Proposition 44, Note) only by imagination, which is not so powerfully affected by the future as by the present. So such true knowledge of good and evil as we have is merely abstract, or general, and the judgment we pass on the order of things and the connection of causes, with a view to determining what is good or bad for us in the present, is imaginary rather than real. It is therefore no wonder if the desire arising from such knowledge of good and evil, insofar as it looks into the future, is more readily checked than the desire for things which are agreeable at the present time (compare Proposition 16 of this Part).
He who is led by fear, and does good in order to escape evil, is not led by reason.
Proof. All the emotions belonging to the mind as active—in other words, to reason—are emotions of pleasure and of desire (Part 3, Proposition 59). Therefore he who is led by fear, and does good in order to escape evil, is not led by reason.
Note. Superstitious people, who know better how to rail at vice than how to teach virtue, and who strive not to guide men by reason but so to restrain them that they would rather escape evil than love virtue, have no other aim than to make others as wretched as themselves. It is therefore no wonder that they are generally troublesome and odious to their fellow men.
Corollary. Under a desire which springs from reason we seek good directly and shun evil indirectly.
Proof. A desire which springs from reason can only spring from a pleasurable emotion in which the mind is not passive (Part 3, Proposition 59)—in other words, from a pleasure which cannot be excessive (Proposition 61 of this Part)—and not from pain. So this desire springs from the knowledge of good, not of evil (Proposition 8 of this Part); and hence under the guidance of reason we seek good directly and shun evil only by implication. Q.E.D.
Note. This corollary may be illustrated by the example of a sick man and a healthy one. The sick man eats what he naturally shrinks from, through fear of death; the healthy man takes pleasure in his food and so gets more enjoyment out of life than he would if he were in fear of death and directly desiring to avoid it. So too a judge who condemns a criminal to death, not out of hatred or anger but out of love of the public good, is guided solely by reason.
The knowledge of evil is an inadequate knowledge.
Proof. The knowledge of evil (Proposition 8 of this Part) is pain, insofar as we are conscious of it. Now pain is the transition to a lesser perfection (Definition 3 of the Emotions) and therefore cannot be understood through a man's nature (Part 3, Proposition 6; Part 3, Proposition 7); so it is a passive state (Part 3, Definition 2) which (Part 3, Proposition 3) depends on inadequate ideas. Consequently the knowledge of it (Part 2, Proposition 29)—that is, the knowledge of evil—is inadequate. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that if the human mind had only adequate ideas, it would form no conception of evil.
Under the guidance of reason we should pursue the greater of two goods and the lesser of two evils.
Proof. A good which prevents our enjoying a greater good is in reality an evil; for we apply the terms good and bad to things insofar as we compare them with one another (see the Preface to this Part). So an evil is in reality a lesser good; and hence under the guidance of reason we seek, or pursue, only the greater good and the lesser evil. Q.E.D.
Corollary. Under the guidance of reason we may pursue the lesser evil as though it were the greater good, and may shun the lesser good which would be the cause of the greater evil. For the evil here called the lesser is really good, and the lesser good is really evil; so we may seek the one and shun the other. Q.E.D.
Under the guidance of reason we may seek a greater good in the future in preference to a lesser good in the present, and may seek a lesser evil in the present in preference to a greater evil in the future.
Footnote: "Maltim praesens minus prae majori futuro." (Van Vloten). Bruder reads: "Malum praesens minus, quod causa est faturi alicujus mali." The last word of the latter is an obvious misprint, and is corrected by the Dutch translator into "majoris boni." (Pollock, p. 268, note.)
Proof. If the mind could have adequate knowledge of things future, it would be affected towards what is future in the same way as towards what is present (Proposition 62 of this Part). So looking merely to reason, as in this proposition we are supposed to do, it makes no difference whether the greater good or evil is supposed present or future. Hence (Proposition 65 of this Part) we may seek a greater good in the future in preference to a lesser good in the present, and so on. Q.E.D.
Corollary. Under the guidance of reason we may seek a lesser evil in the present because it is the cause of a greater good in the future, and may shun a lesser good in the present because it is the cause of a greater evil in the future. This corollary stands to the foregoing proposition as the Corollary to Proposition 65 of this Part stands to Proposition 65 of this Part itself.
Note. If these statements are compared with what we have shown about the strength of the emotions, in this Part up to Proposition 18 of this Part, we shall readily see the difference between a man led solely by emotion, or opinion, and a man led by reason. The first, whether he will or no, performs actions of which he is entirely ignorant; the second is his own master, and performs only such actions as he knows to be of first importance in life, and therefore desires above all. So I call the first a slave and the second a free man, and it will be well to make a few observations about the free man's character and manner of life.
A free man thinks of death least of all things, and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.
Proof. A free man is one who lives under the guidance of reason, who is not led by fear (Proposition 63 of this Part) but directly desires what is good (Proposition 63 of this Part, Corollary)—in other words (Proposition 24 of this Part), who strives to act, to live and to preserve his being on the basis of seeking his own true advantage. Such a man thinks of nothing less than of death; his wisdom is a meditation of life. Q.E.D.
If men were born free, they would form no conception of good and evil so long as they remained free.
Proof. I call a man free who is led by reason alone. So a man born free, who remains free, has only adequate ideas; and therefore (Proposition 64 of this Part, Corollary) he has no conception of evil, and consequently, good and evil being correlative, none of good either. Q.E.D.
Note. It is evident from Proposition 4 of this Part that the hypothesis of this proposition is false, and inconceivable, except insofar as we look solely to the nature of man, or rather to God—not insofar as God is infinite, but only insofar as he is the cause of man's existence.
This, and other things we have already proved, seem to have been signified by Moses in the story of the first man. For in that narrative no power of God is conceived except the power by which he created man, that is, the power by which he provided solely for man's advantage. It is said that God forbade man, being free, to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that as soon as man ate of it he would fear death rather than desire to live. Further, it is written that when man had found a wife who agreed entirely with his nature, he knew that there could be nothing in nature more useful to him; but that after he came to believe the beasts were like himself, he at once began to imitate their emotions (Part 3, Proposition 27) and to lose his freedom. This freedom was afterwards recovered by the patriarchs, led by the spirit of Christ—that is, by the idea of God, on which alone it depends that a man can be free and can desire for others the good he desires for himself, as we showed above (Proposition 37 of this Part).
The virtue of a free man is seen to be as great in avoiding dangers as in overcoming them.
Proof. An emotion can only be checked or removed by an emotion contrary to it and stronger in restraining emotion (Proposition 7 of this Part). But blind daring and fear are emotions which can be conceived as equally great (Proposition 5 of this Part; Proposition 3 of this Part); so no less virtue, or firmness, is needed to check daring than to check fear (Part 3, Proposition 59, Note). In other words (Definition 40 of the Emotions; Definition 41 of the Emotions), the free man shows as much virtue when he avoids dangers as when he strives to overcome them. Q.E.D.
Corollary. The free man is as brave in a timely retreat as in combat; that is, a free man shows equal courage, or presence of mind, whether he chooses to give battle or to withdraw.
Note. What courage (animositas) is, and what I mean by it, I explained in Part 3, Proposition 59, Note. By danger I mean anything which can give rise to any evil, such as pain, hatred, discord and the like.
The free man who lives among the ignorant strives as far as he can to avoid accepting favours from them.
Proof. Everyone judges what is good according to his own disposition (Part 3, Proposition 39, Note); so an ignorant man who has done another a kindness puts his own value on it, and will feel pain if he sees the receiver valuing it less highly (Part 3, Proposition 42). But the free man desires only to join other men to himself in friendship (Proposition 37 of this Part)—not repaying their kindnesses with others reckoned to be of equal value, but guiding himself and others by the free decision of reason, and doing only what he knows to be of first importance. Therefore the free man, so as not to become hateful to the ignorant, or to follow their desires rather than reason, will endeavour as far as he can to avoid accepting their favours.
Note. I say as far as he can. For though men are ignorant, they are still men, and in case of need could give us human help, the most excellent thing there is. So it is often necessary to accept favours from them, and consequently to repay such favours in kind; and we must therefore be careful in declining them, in case we seem to despise those who offer them, or to be unwilling out of meanness to return them, and so give offence by the very act of trying to avoid giving it. In declining favours, then, we must look to what is useful and what is courteous.
Only free men are thoroughly grateful to one another.
Proof. Only free men are thoroughly useful to one another, and joined among themselves by the closest bond of friendship (Proposition 35 of this Part, Corollary 1); only such men endeavour, with a mutual eagerness of love, to do one another good (Proposition 37 of this Part); and therefore only they are thoroughly grateful to one another. Q.E.D.
Note. The goodwill which men led by blind desire have for one another is generally a bargain, or a bait, rather than pure goodwill. Moreover, ingratitude is not an emotion; yet it is base, since it generally shows that a man is affected by excessive hatred, anger, pride or avarice. A man who through mere folly does not know how to return kindnesses is not ungrateful; and much less so is a man who is not won over by a courtesan's gifts to serve her lust, or by a thief's to conceal his thefts, or by anything of the sort. On the contrary, such a man shows a constant mind, since no gifts can corrupt him to his own or the general harm.
The free man never acts deceitfully, but always in good faith.
Proof. Suppose it is asked what a man should do in a case where he could free himself from the danger of immediate death by breaking his word: would not his plan of self-preservation persuade him outright to deceive? The answer is that if reason persuaded him to act so, it would persuade all men to act likewise; and in that case reason would persuade men not to agree in good faith to unite their forces or to hold laws in common—that is, not to have any general laws at all, which is absurd.
A man guided by reason is more free in a state, where he lives under a common system of law, than in solitude, where he obeys no one.
Proof. A man guided by reason does not obey out of fear (Proposition 63 of this Part); but insofar as he endeavours to preserve his being according to the dictates of reason—that is (Proposition 66 of this Part, Note), insofar as he endeavours to live in freedom—he desires to order his life for the common good (Proposition 37 of this Part), and consequently, as we showed in Proposition 37 of this Part, Note 2, to live according to the laws of his country. Therefore the free man, in order to enjoy greater freedom, desires to hold the common rights of citizenship. Q.E.D.
Note. These and similar observations about man's true freedom may be referred to strength of character—that is, to courage and nobility of mind (Part 3, Proposition 59, Note). I do not think it worth while to prove separately all the properties of strength, still less to show that a man who is strong hates no one, is angry with no one, envies no one, is indignant with no one, despises no one, and least of all things is proud. These propositions, and all that concern the true way of life and religion, are easily proved from Proposition 37 of this Part and Proposition 46 of this Part—namely, that hatred should be overcome with love, and that every man should desire for others the good he seeks for himself. And we may repeat what we noted in the note to Proposition 50 of this Part, and elsewhere: that the strong man has always first in his thoughts that all things follow from the necessity of the divine nature, so that whatever he judges harmful and evil, and whatever accordingly seems to him impious, horrible, unjust and base, takes on that appearance from his own disordered, fragmentary and confused view of the universe. So before all things he strives to conceive things as they really are, and to remove the hindrances to true knowledge—hatred, anger, envy, derision, pride and the like, which I have mentioned above. And so he endeavours, as we said before, as far as he can, to do good and to go on his way rejoicing. How far human virtue can reach such a condition, and what its powers may be, I shall prove in the following Part.
What I have said in this Part about the right way of life has not been arranged so as to be taken in at a glance, but has been set out piecemeal, as I thought each proposition could most readily be deduced from what came before it. I propose, therefore, to rearrange my remarks and bring them under leading heads.
1. All our endeavours, or desires, follow from the necessity of our nature in such a way that they can be understood either through it alone, as their proximate cause, or in virtue of our being a part of nature, which cannot be adequately conceived through itself without other individuals.
2. The desires which follow from our nature in such a way that they can be understood through it alone are those referred to the mind insofar as the mind is conceived as consisting of adequate ideas. The remaining desires are referred to the mind only insofar as it conceives things inadequately, and their force and increase are generally defined not by human power but by the power of things outside us. So the first are rightly called actions and the second passions; for the first always indicate our power, while the second show our weakness and our fragmentary knowledge.
3. Our actions—that is, the desires defined by a man's power, or reason—are always good; the rest may be either good or bad.
4. In life, then, it is before all things useful to perfect the understanding, or reason, as far as we can, and in this alone a man's highest happiness, or blessedness, consists. Indeed blessedness is nothing but the contentment of spirit which arises from the intuitive knowledge of God. And to perfect the understanding is nothing but to understand God, God's attributes, and the actions which follow from the necessity of his nature. So the ultimate aim of a man led by reason, his highest desire, by which he seeks to govern all the rest, is the one that brings him to an adequate conception of himself and of everything within the reach of his understanding.
5. Therefore without understanding there is no rational life; and things are good only insofar as they help a man to enjoy the life of the mind, which is defined by understanding. Conversely, whatever hinders a man from perfecting his reason and enjoying the rational life is alone called evil.
6. Since everything of which a man is the efficient cause is necessarily good, no evil can befall him except through external causes—namely, in virtue of his being a part of the whole of nature, whose laws human nature is compelled to obey and to conform to in almost infinite ways.
7. It is impossible that a man should not be a part of nature, or should not follow her general order. But if he finds himself among individuals whose nature agrees with his own, his power of acting will be helped and fed by them; whereas if he finds himself among those who agree with his nature very little, he will hardly be able to accommodate himself to them without undergoing a great change himself.
8. Whatever in nature we judge to be evil, or capable of injuring our capacity for existing and enjoying the rational life, we may endeavour to remove in whatever way seems safest to us; and conversely, whatever we judge good, or useful for preserving our being and enabling us to enjoy the rational life, we may take for our own use and employ as we think best. Everyone without exception may, by the sovereign right of nature, do whatever he thinks will further his own interest.
9. Nothing can agree more with the nature of a given thing than other individuals of the same species; therefore (compare Proposition 7 of this Part) there is nothing more useful to a man, for preserving his being and enjoying the rational life, than a fellow man who is led by reason. And since we know of nothing among individual things more excellent than a man led by reason, no one can better display the power of his skill and character than by so training men that they come at last to live under the rule of their own reason.
10. Insofar as men are moved by envy, or by any kind of hatred towards one another, they are at odds, and are to be feared in proportion as they are more powerful than their fellows.
11. Yet minds are conquered not by force but by love and high-mindedness.
12. It is before all things useful to men to join their ways of life, to bind themselves together with whatever bonds they think best fitted to gather them into one, and generally to do whatever serves to strengthen friendship.
13. But this needs skill and watchfulness. For men are various—since those who live under the guidance of reason are few—and are generally envious, and readier to take revenge than to feel compassion. So no small strength of character is needed to take every man as he is and to restrain oneself from imitating the emotions of others. But those who carp at mankind, who are more skilled in railing at vice than in instilling virtue, and who break men's characters rather than strengthen them, are harmful both to themselves and to others. So many, out of too great an impatience of spirit, or out of a misguided religious zeal, have preferred to live among beasts rather than among men—as boys and young men who cannot peaceably endure their parents' scolding will enlist as soldiers and choose the hardships of war and the despotism of discipline over the comforts of home and a father's advice, and will let any burden be laid on them so long as they can spite their parents.
14. So although men are generally governed in everything by their own appetites, their living together brings far more advantages than drawbacks. It is better, then, to bear patiently the wrongs they may do us, and to strive to promote whatever serves to bring about harmony and friendship.
15. The things which beget harmony are those which have to do with justice, fairness and honourable living. For men resent not only what is unjust or unfair but also what is thought disgraceful, and any slighting of the accepted customs of their society. And for winning love, those qualities are especially necessary which have to do with religion and piety (compare Proposition 37 of this Part, Note 1; Proposition 2 of this Part; Proposition 46 of this Part, Note; Proposition 73 of this Part, Note).
16. Harmony is also often the result of fear, but such harmony is insecure. Besides, fear arises from weakness of spirit and has nothing to do with the exercise of reason; and the same is true of compassion, though compassion seems to bear a certain likeness to piety.
17. Men are also won over by generosity, especially those who have not the means of buying what they need to live. But to give help to every poor man is far beyond the power and the advantage of any private person, whose wealth is wholly inadequate to meet such a call; and an individual man's resources of character are too limited for him to make all men his friends. So providing for the poor is a duty which falls on the state as a whole, and which looks only to the general advantage.
18. In accepting favours, and in returning gratitude, our duty must be wholly different (compare Proposition 70 of this Part, Note; Proposition 71 of this Part, Note).
19. Again, mercenary love—the lust of generation arising from bodily beauty—and in general every kind of love which has any cause but freedom of soul, readily passes into hatred; unless, what is worse, it is a kind of madness, in which case it promotes discord rather than harmony (compare Part 3, Proposition 31, Corollary).
20. As for marriage, it is certain that it agrees with reason if the desire for physical union is engendered not solely by bodily beauty but also by the desire to have children and to bring them up wisely, and if the love of both the man and the woman is caused not by bodily beauty alone but also by freedom of soul.
21. Furthermore, flattery begets harmony—but only by way of the vile fault of servility, or treachery. None are more readily caught by flattery than the proud, who wish to be first and are not.
22. In self-abasement there is a false show of piety and religion; and although self-abasement is the opposite of pride, a man who abases himself is very near akin to the proud (Proposition 57 of this Part, Note).
23. Shame too brings about harmony, but only in matters that cannot be hidden. And since shame is a kind of pain, it has nothing to do with the exercise of reason.
24. The remaining emotions of pain towards men are directly opposed to justice, fairness, honour, piety and religion; and although indignation seems to bear a certain likeness to fairness, life is lawless where every man may pass judgment on another's deeds and take it on himself to vindicate his own rights or another's.
25. Correctness of conduct (modestia)—the desire to please men which is determined by reason—belongs to piety (Proposition 37 of this Part, Note 1). But if it springs from emotion, it is ambition, the desire by which men, under a false cloak of piety, generally stir up discord and sedition. For a man who desires to help his fellows, in word or in deed, so that they may together enjoy the highest good, will before all things strive to win them over with love; not to draw them into admiration, so that a system may be called after his name, nor to give any cause for envy. And in conversation he will avoid talking of men's faults and will be careful to speak sparingly of human weakness, while dwelling at length on human virtue, or power, and on the way it may be perfected. So men will be stirred, not by fear or aversion, but only by the emotion of joy, to endeavour as far as they can to live under the guidance of reason.
26. Besides men, we know of no particular thing in nature whose mind we can take pleasure in, and which we can join to ourselves in friendship or any kind of fellowship. So a regard for our own advantage does not require us to preserve whatever else there is in nature besides man, but to preserve or destroy it according to its various uses, and to adapt it to our own use as best we can.
27. The advantage we get from things outside us—besides the experience and knowledge we acquire from observing them and from recombining their elements in different forms—is chiefly the preservation of the body. From this point of view, the most useful things are those which can feed and nourish the body so that all its parts may properly perform their functions; for the more the body is capable of being affected in a variety of ways, and of affecting external bodies in many ways, the more the mind is capable of thinking (Proposition 38 of this Part; Proposition 39 of this Part). But there seem to be very few things of this kind in nature, so for the proper nourishment of the body we must use many foods of different natures. For the human body is composed of a great many parts of different natures, which continually need varied nourishment, so that the whole body may be equally capable of everything that can follow from its own nature, and consequently so that the mind too may be equally capable of forming many perceptions.
28. Now for providing such nourishment the strength of each individual would hardly be enough if men did not help one another. But money has given us a token for everything; and so it is the idea of money that chiefly engrosses the mind of the multitude, which can hardly conceive any kind of pleasure that is not accompanied by the idea of money as its cause.
29. This is the fault only of those who seek money not out of poverty or to supply their necessary wants, but because they have learnt the arts of gain, by which they bring themselves to great splendour. They do feed their bodies, as custom requires, but sparingly, believing that they lose as much of their wealth as they spend on preserving their bodies. But those who know the true use of money, and who set the measure of wealth solely by their actual needs, live content with little.
30. Since, then, those things are good which help the various parts of the body to perform their functions, and since pleasure consists in an increase of, or help to, a man's power insofar as he is composed of mind and body, it follows that everything which brings pleasure is good. But since things do not act with the object of giving us pleasure, and their power of acting is not adjusted to suit our advantage, and since pleasure is generally referred to one part of the body more than to the rest, most emotions of pleasure—unless reason and watchfulness are at hand—and consequently the desires arising from them, may become excessive. We may add that emotion leads us to attend chiefly to what is agreeable in the present, and that we cannot estimate what is future with emotions equally vivid (Proposition 44 of this Part, Note; Proposition 60 of this Part, Note).
31. Superstition, on the other hand, seems to count as good everything that brings pain and as bad everything that brings pleasure. But as we said above (Proposition 45 of this Part, Note), none but the envious take delight in my weakness and my trouble. For the greater the pleasure we are affected with, the greater the perfection we pass to, and consequently the more we share in the divine nature; and no pleasure can ever be evil which is governed by a true regard for our own advantage. But conversely, a man who is led by fear and does good only to avoid evil is not guided by reason.
32. But human power is extremely limited and is infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes, so we have no absolute power of shaping the things outside us to our use. Nevertheless we shall bear with an equal mind everything that happens to us contrary to what our own advantage requires, so long as we are conscious that we have done our duty, and that the power we have was not enough to protect us completely, and so long as we remember that we are a part of the whole of nature and follow her order. If we understand this clearly and distinctly, that part of our nature which is defined by understanding—in other words, the better part of ourselves—will assuredly rest content in what befalls us, and will endeavour to persist in that contentment. For insofar as we are intelligent beings, we cannot desire anything but what is necessary, nor rest absolutely content in anything but what is true. So insofar as we understand these things rightly, the endeavour of the better part of ourselves is in harmony with the order of nature as a whole.
At last I come to the remaining part of my Ethics, which concerns the way that leads to freedom. Here I shall treat of the power of reason, showing how far reason can control the emotions, and what mental freedom, or blessedness, is; and we shall then be able to see how much more powerful the wise man is than the ignorant one. It is no part of my plan to point out the method and the means by which the understanding may be perfected, nor to show how the body may be tended so as to be capable of performing its functions properly. The second belongs to medicine, the first to logic. Here, I repeat, I shall treat only of the power of the mind, or of reason, and shall chiefly show the extent and nature of its dominion over the emotions, for their control and moderation. That we do not have absolute dominion over them I have already shown.
The Stoics, however, thought the emotions depended absolutely on our will and that we could govern them absolutely; yet the protest of experience, not their own principles, forced them to confess that no small practice and effort is needed to control and moderate them. Someone tried to illustrate this, if I remember rightly, by the example of two dogs, one a house-dog and the other a hunting-dog: by long training the house-dog could be brought to hunt, and the hunting-dog to stop chasing hares.
Descartes inclines strongly to this opinion. He held that the soul, or mind, is specially united to a particular part of the brain, the pineal gland, by whose help the mind can feel all the movements set going in the body, and external objects too, and which the mind can move in various ways by a simple act of will. He asserted that this gland is so suspended in the middle of the brain that it can be moved by the slightest motion of the animal spirits; that it is suspended there in as many different ways as the animal spirits can strike against it; and that as many different marks are impressed on it as there are external objects driving the animal spirits towards it. From which it follows that if the will of the soul suspends the gland in a position in which it has already been suspended once before by the animal spirits driven one way or another, the gland in its turn reacts on those spirits, driving and determining them to the state they were in when the gland was in that position before. He further asserted that every act of the will is united by nature to a particular motion of the gland. Whenever anyone wishes to look at a distant object, for instance, the act of will makes the pupil of the eye dilate; whereas if the person had merely thought of dilating the pupil, the wish to dilate it would not have brought the result about, since the motion of the gland which drives the animal spirits towards the optic nerve in a way that dilates or contracts the pupil is joined by nature not to the wish to dilate or contract the pupil but to the wish to look at distant or very near objects. And last, he held that although every motion of that gland seems to have been united by nature to one particular thought out of all our thoughts from the very beginning of our life, it can nevertheless become associated with other thoughts through habit; and this he tries to prove in the Passions de l'âme, I.50. From which he concludes that there is no soul so weak that it cannot, under proper direction, acquire absolute power over its passions. For passions, as he defines them, are "perceptions, or feelings, or disturbances of the soul, which are referred to the soul as species, and which"—mark the expression—"are produced, preserved, and strengthened through some movement of the spirits" (Passions de l'âme, I.27). And since we can join any motion of the gland, and consequently of the spirits, to any act of will, the determination of the will depends entirely on our own powers. So if we determine our will with sure and firm decisions in the direction we wish our actions to take, and associate the motions of the passions we wish to acquire with those decisions, we shall acquire absolute dominion over our passions.
Such is the doctrine of this illustrious philosopher, so far as I gather it from his own words; and if it were less ingenious I could hardly believe it came from so great a man. Indeed I am lost in wonder that a philosopher who had firmly asserted that he would draw no conclusions which do not follow from self-evident premisses, and would affirm nothing he did not clearly and distinctly perceive, and who had so often taken the schoolmen to task for trying to explain obscurities by occult qualities, could hold a hypothesis beside which occult qualities are commonplace. What does he understand, I ask, by the union of the mind and the body? What clear and distinct conception has he of thought in the most intimate union with a particle of extended matter? I should really like him to explain this union through its proximate cause. But he had so distinct a conception of mind as distinct from body that he could assign no particular cause of the union between them, or of the mind itself, and was obliged to fall back on the cause of the whole universe, that is, on God.
Further, I should much like to know what degree of motion the mind can impart to this pineal gland, and with what force it can hold it suspended. For I do not know whether the gland can be moved more slowly or more quickly by the mind than by the animal spirits, or whether the motions of the passions which we have closely united with firm decisions cannot be disjoined from them again by physical causes—in which case it would follow that although the mind firmly intended to face a given danger, and had united the motions of boldness to that decision, yet at the sight of the danger the gland might be suspended in a way which would leave the mind unable to think of anything but running away. In truth, as there is no common standard between will and motion, so there is no comparison possible between the powers of the mind and the power, or strength, of the body; and consequently the strength of the one cannot in any way be measured by the strength of the other. We may add that no gland is to be found in the middle of the brain so placed that it can be set in motion so easily and in so many ways, and that not all the nerves reach as far as the cavities of the brain. And last, I pass over everything he says about the will and its freedom, since I have abundantly proved that his premisses are false.
Therefore, since the power of the mind, as I have shown above, is defined by the understanding alone, we shall determine the remedies against the emotions solely by the knowledge of the mind—remedies which I believe everyone has experienced, though without observing them accurately or seeing them distinctly—and from the same foundation we shall deduce everything that concerns the mind's blessedness.
1. If two contrary actions are started in the same subject, a change must necessarily take place in both, or in one of the two, and must continue until they cease to be contrary.
2. The power of an effect is defined by the power of its cause, insofar as its essence is explained, or defined, by the essence of its cause.
(Part 3, Proposition 7)
Just as thoughts and the ideas of things are arranged and associated in the mind, so are the modifications of the body, or the images of things, arranged and associated in exactly the same way in the body.
Proof. The order and connection of ideas is the same (Part 2, Proposition 7) as the order and connection of things, and conversely the order and connection of things is the same (Part 2, Proposition 6, Corollary; Part 2, Proposition 7) as the order and connection of ideas. So just as the order and connection of ideas in the mind takes place according to the order and association of the modifications of the body (Part 2, Proposition 18), so conversely (Part 3, Proposition 2) the order and connection of the modifications of the body takes place according to the way in which thoughts and the ideas of things are arranged and associated in the mind. Q.E.D.
If we detach a disturbance of the spirit, or emotion, from the thought of an external cause and join it to other thoughts, then the love or hatred towards that external cause, and the waverings of spirit that arise from those emotions, will be destroyed.
Proof. What constitutes the form of love or hatred is pleasure or pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause (Definition 6 of the Emotions; Definition 7 of the Emotions). So when this cause is removed, the form of love or hatred is removed with it, and these emotions, and those arising from them, are destroyed. Q.E.D.
An emotion which is a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it.
Proof. An emotion which is a passion is a confused idea (by the general Definition of the Emotions). So if we form a clear and distinct idea of a given emotion, that idea will be distinguished from the emotion only in thought, insofar as the emotion is referred to the mind alone (Part 2, Proposition 21, Note). Therefore (Part 3, Proposition 3) the emotion will cease to be a passion. Q.E.D.
Corollary. An emotion therefore comes more under our control, and the mind is less passive towards it, the better we know it.
There is no modification of the body of which we cannot form some clear and distinct conception.
Proof. Properties common to all things can only be conceived adequately (Part 2, Proposition 38); therefore (Part 2, Proposition 12, and Lemma 2, which follows Part 2, Proposition 13) there is no modification of the body of which we cannot form some clear and distinct conception. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that there is no emotion of which we cannot form some clear and distinct conception. For an emotion is the idea of a modification of the body (by the general Definition of the Emotions), and must therefore (by Proposition 4 of this Part) involve some clear and distinct conception.
Note. Since there is nothing from which some effect does not follow (Part 1, Proposition 36), and since we understand clearly and distinctly whatever follows from an idea which is adequate in us (Part 2, Proposition 40), it follows that everyone has the power of understanding himself and his emotions clearly and distinctly, if not absolutely then at least in part, and consequently of bringing it about that he is less subject to them. To reach this result, then, we must chiefly direct our efforts to acquiring, as far as we can, a clear and distinct knowledge of every emotion, so that the mind may through the emotion be determined to think of the things it clearly and distinctly perceives and rests fully content in; and so that the emotion itself may be separated from the thought of an external cause and associated with true thoughts. In this way not only will love, hatred and the rest be destroyed (Proposition 2 of this Part), but the appetites, or desires, which usually arise from such emotions will become incapable of being excessive (Part 4, Proposition 61). For it must be especially noted that the appetite through which a man is said to be active and the appetite through which he is said to be passive are one and the same. We have shown, for instance, that human nature is so constituted that everyone desires his fellow men to live as he does (Part 3, Proposition 31, Note); in a man who is not guided by reason this appetite is a passion called ambition, and does not differ much from pride, whereas in a man who lives by the dictates of reason it is an activity, or virtue, called piety (Part 4, Proposition 37, Note 1). In the same way all appetites, or desires, are passions only insofar as they spring from inadequate ideas, and the same results are credited to virtue when they are roused or generated by adequate ideas. For all the desires by which we are determined to a given action may arise from adequate ideas as much as from inadequate ones (Part 4, Proposition 59). And than this remedy for the emotions—to return to the point I started from—which consists in a true knowledge of them, no more excellent remedy within our power can be devised. For the mind has no power but that of thinking and of forming adequate ideas, as we showed above (Part 3, Proposition 3).
An emotion towards a thing which we conceive simply, and not as necessary, or contingent, or possible, is, other things being equal, the greatest of all.
Proof. An emotion towards a thing we conceive to be free is greater than one towards a thing we conceive to be necessary (Part 3, Proposition 49), and consequently greater still than one towards what we conceive as possible or contingent (Part 4, Proposition 11). But to conceive a thing as free can be nothing but to conceive it simply, while we are ignorant of the causes by which it has been determined to act (Part 2, Proposition 35, Note). Therefore an emotion towards a thing we conceive simply is, other things being equal, greater than one we feel towards what is necessary, possible or contingent, and consequently is the greatest of all. Q.E.D.
The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject to them, insofar as it understands all things as necessary.
Proof. The mind understands all things to be necessary (Part 1, Proposition 29) and to be determined to exist and act by an infinite chain of causes. Therefore (by Proposition 5 of this Part) it so far brings it about that it is less subject to the emotions arising from those things, and (Part 3, Proposition 48) feels less emotion towards the things themselves. Q.E.D.
Note. The more this knowledge, that things are necessary, is applied to particular things, which we conceive more distinctly and vividly, the greater the mind's power over the emotions—as experience also bears witness. For we see that the pain arising from the loss of some good is eased as soon as the man who has lost it sees that it could not by any means have been kept. And we see too that no one pities an infant because it cannot speak, or walk, or reason, or because it passes so many years, as it were, unconscious; whereas if most people were born full-grown, and only one here and there an infant, everyone would pity the infants, because infancy would then be regarded not as a natural and necessary state but as a fault, or failing, in nature. And we may note several other instances of the same kind.
Emotions which are roused by, or spring from, reason are, if we take account of time, stronger than those which have to do with particular objects we regard as absent.
Proof. We do not regard a thing as absent by reason of the emotion with which we conceive it, but by reason of the body being affected by another emotion which excludes that thing's existence (Part 2, Proposition 17). So the emotion referred to a thing we regard as absent is not of a kind to overcome the rest of a man's activity and power (Part 4, Proposition 6), but on the contrary is of a kind to be in some degree controlled by the emotions which exclude the existence of its external cause (Part 4, Proposition 9). But an emotion springing from reason is necessarily referred to the common properties of things (see Part 2, Proposition 40, Note 2), which we always regard as present—for there can be nothing to exclude their present existence—and which we always conceive in the same way (Part 2, Proposition 38). So an emotion of this kind always stays the same; and consequently (Axiom 1 of this Part) emotions contrary to it, which are not kept going by their external causes, will have to adapt themselves to it more and more until they are no longer contrary to it. To that extent the emotion springing from reason is the more powerful. Q.E.D.
An emotion is stronger in proportion to the number of simultaneous causes which rouse it.
Proof. Many simultaneous causes are more powerful than a few (Part 3, Proposition 7); therefore (Part 4, Proposition 5), the more simultaneous causes rouse an emotion, the stronger it becomes. Q.E.D.
Note. This proposition is also evident from Axiom 2 of this Part.
An emotion which has many and various causes, which the mind regards as simultaneous with the emotion itself, is less harmful; we are less subject to it, and less affected towards each of its causes, than we should be by a different and equally powerful emotion having fewer causes, or a single one.
Proof. An emotion is bad, or harmful, only insofar as it hinders the mind from thinking (Part 4, Proposition 26; Part 4, Proposition 27). So an emotion which determines the mind to contemplate several things at once is less harmful than an equally powerful emotion which so engrosses the mind in contemplating a few objects, or one, that it cannot think of anything else. That was our first point. Again, since the mind's essence—in other words, its power (Part 3, Proposition 7)—consists solely in thought (Part 2, Proposition 11), the mind is less passive towards an emotion which makes it think of several things at once than towards an equally strong emotion which keeps it engrossed in contemplating a few objects, or one. That was our second point. And last, this emotion (Part 3, Proposition 48), insofar as it has several causes, is less powerful in respect of each of them. Q.E.D.
So long as we are not assailed by emotions contrary to our nature, we have the power of arranging and associating the modifications of our body according to the order of the intellect.
Proof. The emotions contrary to our nature—that is (Part 4, Proposition 30), the bad ones—are bad insofar as they hinder the mind from understanding (Part 4, Proposition 27). So long, therefore, as we are not assailed by emotions contrary to our nature, the mind's power of endeavouring to understand things (Part 4, Proposition 26) is not hindered, and so it is able to form clear and distinct ideas and to deduce them one from another (Part 2, Proposition 40, Note 2; Part 2, Proposition 47, Note). Consequently we have in such cases the power of arranging and associating the modifications of the body according to the order of the intellect. Q.E.D.
Note. By this power of rightly arranging and associating the modifications of the body we can keep ourselves from being easily affected by bad emotions. For (Proposition 7 of this Part) a greater force is needed to control the emotions when they are arranged and associated according to the order of the intellect than when they are uncertain and unsettled. The best we can do, then, so long as we do not have a perfect knowledge of our emotions, is to frame a rule of right conduct, or fixed practical precepts, to commit it to memory, and to apply it at once to the particular circumstances that meet us in life, so that our imagination may be thoroughly filled with it and it may always be ready to hand. For instance, we laid down among the rules of life (Part 4, Proposition 46, Note) that hatred should be overcome with love, or high-mindedness, and not repaid with hatred in return. Now for this precept of reason to be always ready to hand when we need it, we should often think over the wrongs men commonly commit, and consider how and by what means they may best be warded off by high-mindedness; and so we shall associate the idea of a wrong with the idea of this precept, which will then always be at hand when a wrong is done to us (Part 2, Proposition 18). And if we also keep in readiness the idea of our true advantage, and of the good which follows from mutual friendship and common fellowship, and if we remember that complete contentment is the result of the right way of life (Part 4, Proposition 52), and that men, no less than everything else, act by the necessity of their nature—then, I say, the wrong, and the hatred which commonly arises from it, will take up a very small part of our imagination and will easily be overcome. Or if the anger springing from a grievous wrong is not easily overcome, it will nevertheless be overcome, though not without a struggle, far sooner than if we had not reflected on the matter beforehand—as is evident from Proposition 6 of this Part, Proposition 7 of this Part and Proposition 8 of this Part. In the same way we should reflect on courage as a means of overcoming fear: the ordinary dangers of life should often be brought to mind and imagined, together with the means by which presence of mind and strength of character can avoid and overcome them.
But we must note that in arranging our thoughts and ideas we should always keep in view what is good in every individual thing (Part 4, Proposition 63, Corollary; Part 3, Proposition 59), so that we may always be determined to act by an emotion of pleasure. If a man sees, for instance, that he pursues honour too keenly, let him think of its right use, of the end for which it should be pursued, and of the means of attaining it. Let him not think of its misuse, and its emptiness, and the fickleness of mankind, and the like—which no man thinks of except from a sickness of disposition. It is with thoughts like these that the most ambitious torment themselves most, when they despair of gaining the distinctions they hanker after, and in venting their anger would like to appear wise. So it is certain that those who cry out loudest against the misuse of honour and the vanity of the world are the very men who covet it most greedily. This is not peculiar to the ambitious but is common to all who are ill used by fortune and weak in spirit. A poor man who is miserly will talk endlessly about the misuse of wealth and the vices of the rich, and by doing so merely torments himself and shows the world that he cannot bear his own poverty, nor other people's riches either. And so too those who have been ill received by a woman they love think of nothing but the inconstancy and treachery and other stock faults of women—all of which they forget the moment their sweetheart takes them into favour again. So a man who wishes to govern his emotions and appetites by the love of freedom alone will strive as far as he can to gain a knowledge of the virtues and their causes, and to fill his spirit with the joy that arises from truly knowing them. He will not wish to dwell on men's faults, or to carp at his fellows, or to revel in a false show of freedom. And whoever diligently observes and practises these precepts—which are not difficult—will in a short time be able, for the most part, to direct his actions by the commands of reason.
Footnote: Continuo. Rendered "constantly" by Mr. Pollock on the ground that the classical meaning of the word does not suit the context. I venture to think, however, that a tolerable sense may be obtained without doing violence to Spinoza's scholarship.
The more objects a mental image is referred to, the more frequent it is, or the more often vivid, and the more it occupies the mind.
Proof. The more objects a mental image, or an emotion, is referred to, the more causes there are by which it can be roused and fed, all of which (by hypothesis) the mind contemplates at once along with the emotion. So the emotion is the more frequent, or is more often in full vigour, and (Proposition 8 of this Part) occupies the mind the more. Q.E.D.
The mental images of things are more easily associated with images referred to things we clearly and distinctly understand than with others.
Proof. The things we clearly and distinctly understand are either the common properties of things or deductions from them (see Part 2, Proposition 40, Note 2), and are consequently (by Proposition 11 of this Part) more often roused in us. So it may more readily happen that we contemplate other things along with these than along with something else, and consequently (Part 2, Proposition 18) that the images of those things are more often associated with the images of these than with the images of something else. Q.E.D.
A mental image is more often vivid the more other images it is associated with.
Proof. The more other images an image is associated with, the more causes there are (Part 2, Proposition 18) by which it can be roused. Q.E.D.
The mind can bring it about that all the modifications of the body, or images of things, are referred to the idea of God.
Proof. There is no modification of the body of which the mind cannot form some clear and distinct conception (Proposition 4 of this Part); so it can bring it about that they are all referred to the idea of God (Part 1, Proposition 15). Q.E.D.
He who clearly and distinctly understands himself and his emotions loves God, and the more so the more he understands himself and his emotions.
Proof. He who clearly and distinctly understands himself and his emotions feels pleasure (Part 3, Proposition 53), and this pleasure is (by Proposition 14 of this Part) accompanied by the idea of God. Therefore (Definition 6 of the Emotions) such a man loves God, and for the same reason loves him the more the more he understands himself and his emotions. Q.E.D.
This love towards God must hold the chief place in the mind.
Proof. For this love is associated with all the modifications of the body (Proposition 14 of this Part) and is fed by them all (Proposition 15 of this Part); therefore (Proposition 11 of this Part) it must hold the chief place in the mind. Q.E.D.
God is without passions, and is not affected by any emotion of pleasure or pain.
Proof. All ideas, insofar as they are referred to God, are true (Part 2, Proposition 32)—that is (Part 2, Definition 4), adequate; and therefore (by the general Definition of the Emotions) God is without passions. Again, God cannot pass to a greater or a lesser perfection (Part 1, Proposition 20, Corollary 2); therefore (by Definition 2 of the Emotions; Definition 3 of the Emotions) he is not affected by any emotion of pleasure or pain.
Corollary. Strictly speaking, God neither loves nor hates anyone. For God (by Proposition 17 of this Part) is not affected by any emotion of pleasure or pain, and consequently (Definition 6 of the Emotions; Definition 7 of the Emotions) neither loves nor hates anyone.
No one can hate God.
Proof. The idea of God which is in us is adequate and perfect (Part 2, Proposition 46; Part 2, Proposition 47); so insofar as we contemplate God we are active (Part 3, Proposition 3), and consequently (Part 3, Proposition 59) there can be no pain accompanied by the idea of God—in other words (Definition 7 of the Emotions), no one can hate God. Q.E.D.
Corollary. Love towards God cannot be turned into hatred.
Note. It may be objected that since we understand God as the cause of all things, we are for that very reason regarding God as the cause of pain. But I answer that insofar as we understand the causes of pain, pain to that extent (Proposition 3 of this Part) ceases to be a passion—that is, it ceases to be pain (Part 3, Proposition 59). So insofar as we understand God to be the cause of pain, we to that extent feel pleasure.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return.
Proof. If a man endeavoured that, he would be desiring (Proposition 17 of this Part, Corollary) that God, whom he loves, should not be God, and consequently would be desiring to feel pain (Part 3, Proposition 19), which is absurd (Part 3, Proposition 28). Therefore he who loves God, and so on. Q.E.D.
This love towards God cannot be spoiled by the emotion of envy or of jealousy; on the contrary, it is fed the more the more men we conceive to be joined to God by the same bond of love.
Proof. This love towards God is the highest good we can seek under the guidance of reason (Part 4, Proposition 28); it is common to all men (Part 4, Proposition 36); and we desire that all should rejoice in it (Part 4, Proposition 37). Therefore (Definition 23 of the Emotions) it cannot be spoiled by the emotion of envy, nor by the emotion of jealousy (Proposition 18 of this Part; Part 3, Proposition 35, Note); but on the contrary must be fed the more, the more men we conceive to rejoice in it. Q.E.D.
Note. We can show in the same way that there is no emotion directly contrary to this love by which it could be destroyed. So we may conclude that this love towards God is the most constant of all the emotions, and that insofar as it is referred to the body it cannot be destroyed unless the body is destroyed too. What its nature is insofar as it is referred to the mind alone, we shall inquire presently.
I have now gone through all the remedies against the emotions—all that the mind, considered in itself alone, can do against them. From which it appears that the mind's power over the emotions consists:
1. In the actual knowledge of the emotions (Proposition 4 of this Part, Note).
2. In its separating the emotions from the thought of an external cause, which we conceive confusedly (Proposition 2 of this Part; Proposition 4 of this Part, Note).
3. In the fact that, in respect of time, the emotions referred to things we distinctly understand surpass those referred to what we conceive confusedly and in a fragmentary way (Proposition 7 of this Part).
4. In the number of causes by which the modifications are fed that have to do with the common properties of things, or with God (Proposition 9 of this Part; Proposition 11 of this Part).
Footnote: Affectiones. Camerer reads affectus—emotions.
5. And last, in the order in which the mind can arrange and associate its own emotions one with another (Proposition 10 of this Part, Note; Proposition 12 of this Part; Proposition 13 of this Part; Proposition 14 of this Part).
But so that this power of the mind over the emotions may be better understood, it should be specially noted that we call emotions strong when we compare one man's emotion with another's and see that one man is more troubled than another by the same emotion, or when we compare the various emotions of the same man and find that he is more affected, or stirred, by one than by another. For the strength of every emotion is defined by a comparison of our own power with the power of an external cause. Now the power of the mind is defined by knowledge alone, and its weakness, or passivity, by the privation of knowledge alone. It follows, then, that the most passive mind is the one whose greatest part is made up of inadequate ideas, so that it may be characterised more readily by its passive states than by its activities; while the most active mind is the one whose greatest part is made up of adequate ideas, so that although it may contain as many inadequate ideas as the first, it can still be more easily characterised by the ideas that belong to human virtue than by those that tell of human weakness. Again, it must be noted that unhealthiness of spirit, and misfortunes, can generally be traced to an excessive love for something subject to many changes, which we can never become masters of. For no one is anxious or worried about anything unless he loves it, and wrongs, suspicions and enmities arise only in regard to things no one can really be master of.
We may thus readily conceive the power that clear and distinct knowledge has over the emotions, and especially that third kind of knowledge (Part 2, Proposition 47, Note) which is founded on the actual knowledge of God. If it does not absolutely destroy them insofar as they are passions (Proposition 3 of this Part; Proposition 4 of this Part, Note), it at any rate makes them occupy a very small part of the mind (Proposition 14 of this Part). And further, it begets a love towards a thing unchangeable and eternal (Proposition 15 of this Part), which we may really come into possession of (Part 2, Proposition 45), and which cannot be defiled with the faults inherent in ordinary love, but may grow from strength to strength, and may take up the greater part of the mind and penetrate it deeply.
And now I have finished with everything that concerns this present life. For, as I said at the beginning of this note, I have briefly described all the remedies against the emotions; and anyone may readily have seen this for himself, if he has attended to what has been advanced in this note, and to the definitions of the mind and its emotions, and lastly, to Part 3, Proposition 1 and Part 3, Proposition 3. It is now time, therefore, to pass on to what concerns the duration of the mind, without relation to the body.
The mind can imagine nothing, and can remember nothing past, except while the body endures.
Proof. The mind does not express the actual existence of its body, nor does it imagine the modifications of the body as actual, except while the body endures (Part 2, Proposition 8, Corollary); and consequently (Part 2, Proposition 26) it does not imagine any body as actually existing except while its own body endures. So it cannot imagine anything (Part 2, Proposition 17, Note), or remember things past, except while the body endures (see Part 2, Proposition 18, Note). Q.E.D.
Nevertheless there is necessarily in God an idea which expresses the essence of this or that human body under the form of eternity.
Proof. God is the cause not only of the existence of this or that human body but of its essence too (Part 1, Proposition 25). That essence must therefore be conceived through the very essence of God (Part 1, Axiom 4), and be so conceived by a certain eternal necessity (Part 1, Proposition 16); and this conception must necessarily exist in God (Part 2, Proposition 3). Q.E.D.
The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body; something of it remains which is eternal.
Proof. There is necessarily in God a concept, or idea, which expresses the essence of the human body (Proposition 22 of this Part), and which is therefore necessarily something belonging to the essence of the human mind (Part 2, Proposition 13). But we have not assigned to the human mind any duration definable by time, except insofar as it expresses the actual existence of the body, which is explained through duration and can be defined by time—that is (Part 2, Proposition 8, Corollary), we assign it duration only while the body endures. Yet there is nevertheless something which is conceived by a certain eternal necessity through the very essence of God (Proposition 22 of this Part); and this something, which belongs to the essence of the mind, will necessarily be eternal. Q.E.D.
Note. This idea, which expresses the essence of the body under the form of eternity, is, as we have said, a certain mode of thinking which belongs to the essence of the mind and is necessarily eternal. Yet it is not possible for us to remember that we existed before our body, since our body can bear no trace of such an existence, and since eternity cannot be defined in terms of time or have any relation to time. But, notwithstanding, we feel and know that we are eternal. For the mind feels the things it conceives by understanding no less than the things it remembers; the eyes of the mind, by which it sees and observes things, are proofs. So although we do not remember that we existed before the body, we feel that our mind, insofar as it involves the essence of the body under the form of eternity, is eternal, and that its existence therefore cannot be defined in terms of time or explained through duration. Our mind can be said to endure, and its existence can be defined by a fixed time, only insofar as it involves the actual existence of the body; and only to that extent has it the power of determining the existence of things by time and conceiving them under the head of duration.
The more we understand particular things, the more we understand God.
Proof. This is evident from Part 1, Proposition 25, Corollary.
The highest endeavour of the mind, and its highest virtue, is to understand things by the third kind of knowledge.
Proof. The third kind of knowledge proceeds from an adequate idea of certain attributes of God to an adequate knowledge of the essence of things (see Part 2, Proposition 40, Note 2); and the more we understand things in this way, the better we understand God (by Proposition 24 of this Part). Therefore (Part 4, Proposition 28) the highest virtue of the mind—that is (Part 4, Definition 8), its power, or nature, or (Part 3, Proposition 7) its highest endeavour—is to understand things by the third kind of knowledge. Q.E.D.
The more capable the mind is of understanding things by the third kind of knowledge, the more it desires to understand things by that kind.
Proof. This is evident. For insofar as we conceive the mind to be capable of conceiving things by this kind of knowledge, we conceive it to that extent as determined so to conceive them; and consequently (Definition 1 of the Emotions) the mind desires to do so in proportion as it is more capable of it. Q.E.D.
From this third kind of knowledge arises the highest contentment of mind there can be.
Proof. The highest virtue of the mind is to know God (Part 4, Proposition 28), or to understand things by the third kind of knowledge (Proposition 25 of this Part); and this virtue is the greater the more the mind knows things by that kind of knowledge (Proposition 24 of this Part). So a man who knows things by this kind of knowledge passes to the summit of human perfection, and is therefore (Definition 2 of the Emotions) affected with the highest pleasure, accompanied by the idea of himself and of his own virtue. Thus (Definition 25 of the Emotions) from this kind of knowledge arises the highest contentment there can be. Q.E.D.
The endeavour, or desire, to know things by the third kind of knowledge cannot arise from the first kind, but from the second.
Proof. This proposition is self-evident. For whatever we understand clearly and distinctly, we understand either through itself or through something conceived through itself. That is, ideas which are clear and distinct in us, or which are referred to the third kind of knowledge (Part 2, Proposition 40, Note 2), cannot follow from ideas that are fragmentary and confused and belong to the first kind, but must follow from adequate ideas, that is, from ideas of the second and third kinds. Therefore (Definition 1 of the Emotions) the desire to know things by the third kind of knowledge cannot arise from the first kind, but from the second. Q.E.D.
Whatever the mind understands under the form of eternity, it understands not by conceiving the present actual existence of the body, but by conceiving the essence of the body under the form of eternity.
Proof. Insofar as the mind conceives the present existence of its body, it conceives to that extent a duration which can be determined by time, and only to that extent has it the power of conceiving things in relation to time (Proposition 21 of this Part; Part 2, Proposition 26). But eternity cannot be explained in terms of duration (Part 1, Definition 8, Explanation). So to that extent the mind has not the power of conceiving things under the form of eternity. It does have that power, however, because it is of the nature of reason to conceive things under the form of eternity (Part 2, Proposition 44, Corollary 2), and because it is of the nature of the mind to conceive the essence of the body under the form of eternity (Proposition 23 of this Part); and besides these two there is nothing belonging to the essence of the mind (Part 2, Proposition 13). Therefore this power of conceiving things under the form of eternity belongs to the mind only in virtue of its conceiving the essence of the body under the form of eternity. Q.E.D.
Note. We conceive things as actual in two ways: either as existing in relation to a given time and place, or as contained in God and following from the necessity of the divine nature. Whatever we conceive in this second way as true, or real, we conceive under the form of eternity, and its ideas involve the eternal and infinite essence of God, as we showed in Part 2, Proposition 45, Note, which see.
Our mind, insofar as it knows itself and the body under the form of eternity, necessarily has to that extent a knowledge of God, and knows that it is in God and is conceived through God.
Proof. Eternity is the very essence of God, insofar as that essence involves necessary existence (Part 1, Definition 8). So to conceive things under the form of eternity is to conceive them insofar as they are conceived through the essence of God as real beings, or insofar as they involve existence through the essence of God. Therefore our mind, insofar as it conceives itself and the body under the form of eternity, necessarily has to that extent a knowledge of God, and knows, and so on. Q.E.D.
The third kind of knowledge depends on the mind as its formal cause, insofar as the mind is itself eternal.
Proof. The mind conceives nothing under the form of eternity except insofar as it conceives its own body under the form of eternity (Proposition 29 of this Part)—that is, except insofar as it is itself eternal (Proposition 21 of this Part; Proposition 23 of this Part). Therefore (by Proposition 30 of this Part), insofar as it is eternal, it has the knowledge of God, which is necessarily adequate (Part 2, Proposition 46); and so the mind, insofar as it is eternal, is capable of knowing everything that can follow from this given knowledge of God (Part 2, Proposition 40)—in other words, of knowing things by the third kind of knowledge (see Part 2, Proposition 40, Note 2), of which accordingly the mind (Part 3, Definition 1), insofar as it is eternal, is the adequate, or formal, cause. Q.E.D.
Note. The more powerful a man is in this kind of knowledge, then, the more fully conscious he is of himself and of God—in other words, the more perfect and blessed he is, as will appear more clearly in what follows. But we must note here that although we are already certain that the mind is eternal insofar as it conceives things under the form of eternity, yet, so that what we wish to show may be more easily explained and better understood, we shall consider the mind as though it had just begun to exist and to understand things under the form of eternity, as indeed we have done so far. We may do this without any danger of error, so long as we are careful to draw no conclusion unless our premisses are plain.
Whatever we understand by the third kind of knowledge we take delight in, and our delight is accompanied by the idea of God as its cause.
Proof. From this kind of knowledge arises the highest contentment of mind there can be, that is (Definition 25 of the Emotions), pleasure; and this contentment is accompanied by the idea of the mind itself (Proposition 27 of this Part), and consequently (Proposition 30 of this Part) by the idea of God as its cause too. Q.E.D.
Corollary. From the third kind of knowledge there necessarily arises the intellectual love of God. From this kind of knowledge arises pleasure accompanied by the idea of God as its cause—that is (Definition 6 of the Emotions), the love of God; not insofar as we imagine him as present (Proposition 29 of this Part), but insofar as we understand him to be eternal. This is what I call the intellectual love of God.
The intellectual love of God which arises from the third kind of knowledge is eternal.
Proof. The third kind of knowledge is eternal (Proposition 31 of this Part; Part 1, Axiom 3); therefore (by Part 1, Axiom 3) the love which arises from it is also necessarily eternal. Q.E.D.
Note. Although this love towards God has (by Proposition 33 of this Part) no beginning, it nevertheless has all the perfections of love, just as if it had arisen as we supposed in Proposition 32 of this Part, Corollary. There is no difference here, except that the mind possesses as eternal the very perfections we imagined accruing to it, and that they are accompanied by the idea of God as their eternal cause. If pleasure consists in the transition to a greater perfection, then blessedness must certainly consist in the mind's being endowed with perfection itself.
The mind is subject to the emotions which belong to the passions only while the body endures.
Proof. Imagining is the idea by which the mind contemplates a thing as present (Part 2, Proposition 17, Note), and this idea indicates the present disposition of the human body rather than the nature of the external thing (Part 2, Proposition 16, Corollary 2). So an emotion (see the general Definition of the Emotions) is an act of imagining, insofar as it indicates the present disposition of the body; and therefore (Proposition 21 of this Part) the mind is subject to the emotions belonging to the passions only while the body endures. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that no love is eternal except intellectual love.
Note. If we look at men's common opinion, we shall see that they are indeed conscious of the eternity of their mind, but that they confuse eternity with duration, and ascribe it to the imagination, or the memory, which they believe remains after death.
God loves himself with an infinite intellectual love.
Proof. God is absolutely infinite (Part 1, Definition 6); that is (Part 2, Definition 6), the nature of God rejoices in infinite perfection, and such rejoicing is (Part 2, Proposition 3) accompanied by the idea of himself—that is (Part 1, Proposition 11; Part 1, Definition 1), by the idea of his own cause. And this is what we have (in Proposition 32 of this Part, Corollary) described as intellectual love.
The mind's intellectual love towards God is that very love of God by which God loves himself—not insofar as he is infinite, but insofar as he can be explained through the essence of the human mind regarded under the form of eternity. In other words, the mind's intellectual love towards God is part of the infinite love with which God loves himself.
Proof. This love of the mind must be referred to the mind's activities (Proposition 32 of this Part, Corollary; Part 3, Proposition 3); it is indeed itself an activity by which the mind regards itself, accompanied by the idea of God as cause (Proposition 32 of this Part, Corollary)—that is (Part 1, Proposition 25, Corollary; Part 2, Proposition 11, Corollary), an activity by which God, insofar as he can be explained through the human mind, regards himself accompanied by the idea of himself. Therefore (by Proposition 35 of this Part) this love of the mind is part of the infinite love with which God loves himself. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that God, insofar as he loves himself, loves men; and consequently that God's love towards men and the mind's intellectual love towards God are one and the same.
Note. From this we clearly understand what our salvation, or blessedness, or freedom consists in: namely, in a constant and eternal love towards God, or in God's love towards men. This love, or blessedness, is called Glory in the Bible, and not undeservedly. For whether it is referred to God or to the mind, it may rightly be called contentment of spirit, which (Definition 25 of the Emotions; Definition 30 of the Emotions) is not really distinct from glory. Insofar as it is referred to God, it is (Proposition 35 of this Part) pleasure, if we may still use that word, accompanied by the idea of itself; and insofar as it is referred to the mind, it is the same (Proposition 27 of this Part).
Again, since the essence of our mind consists solely in knowledge, whose beginning and foundation is God (Part 1, Proposition 15; Part 2, Proposition 47, Note), it becomes clear to us how and in what way our mind follows from the divine nature as to its essence and existence, and constantly depends on God. I have thought it worth calling attention to this here in order to show by an example how potent is the knowledge of particular things which I have called intuitive, or of the third kind (Part 2, Proposition 40, Note 2), and how much more powerful it is than the universal knowledge I have called knowledge of the second kind. For although in Part One I showed in general terms that all things—and consequently the human mind too—depend on God as to their essence and existence, that demonstration, legitimate and beyond doubt as it is, does not affect our mind as strongly as when the same conclusion is drawn from the actual essence of some particular thing which we say depends on God.
There is nothing in nature which is contrary to this intellectual love, or which can take it away.
Proof. This intellectual love follows necessarily from the nature of the mind, insofar as the mind is regarded through the nature of God as an eternal truth (Proposition 33 of this Part; Proposition 29 of this Part). So if there were anything contrary to this love, it would be contrary to what is true; and consequently whatever could take this love away would make what is true false, which is plainly absurd. Therefore there is nothing in nature which, and so on. Q.E.D.
Note. The Axiom of Part Four has to do with particular things insofar as they are regarded in relation to a given time and place; of this, I think, no one can doubt.
The more things the mind understands by the second and third kinds of knowledge, the less it is subject to the emotions which are evil, and the less it fears death.
Proof. The mind's essence consists in knowledge (Part 2, Proposition 11); so the more things the mind understands by the second and third kinds of knowledge, the greater will be the part of it that endures (Proposition 29 of this Part; Proposition 23 of this Part), and consequently (by Proposition 37 of this Part) the greater the part of it untouched by the emotions which are contrary to our nature—in other words, evil (Part 4, Proposition 30). So the more things the mind understands by the second and third kinds of knowledge, the greater the part of it that remains unimpaired, and consequently the less it is subject to the emotions, and so on. Q.E.D.
Note. From this we understand the point I touched on in Part 4, Proposition 39, Note, and promised to explain in this Part: namely, that death is the less harmful the greater the mind's clear and distinct knowledge, and consequently the more the mind loves God. And since from the third kind of knowledge arises the highest contentment there can be (Proposition 27 of this Part), it follows that the human mind can come to be of such a nature that the part of it which we have shown perishes with the body (Proposition 21 of this Part) is of little importance compared with the part which endures. But I shall treat of this at greater length shortly.
He who has a body capable of a great many things has a mind of which the greatest part is eternal.
Proof. A man who has a body capable of a great many things is least troubled by the emotions which are evil (Part 4, Proposition 38)—that is (Part 4, Proposition 30), by the emotions contrary to our nature. He therefore (Proposition 10 of this Part) has the power of arranging and associating the modifications of the body according to the order of the intellect, and consequently of bringing it about that all the modifications of the body are referred to the idea of God. From this it will come about that (Proposition 15 of this Part) he is affected with love towards God, which (Proposition 16 of this Part) must occupy, or constitute, the chief part of his mind. Therefore (Proposition 33 of this Part) such a man will have a mind of which the chief part is eternal. Q.E.D.
Note. Since human bodies are capable of a great many things, there is no doubt that they may be of such a nature as to belong to minds which have a great knowledge of themselves and of God, and of which the greatest, or chief, part is eternal, so that they scarcely fear death. But to understand this more clearly we must recall that we live in a state of perpetual change, and that as we change for the better or the worse we are called happy or unhappy.
A man who passes from being an infant, or a child, to being a corpse is called unhappy; whereas it is counted happiness to have lived through the whole span of life with a sound mind in a sound body. And in reality a man who, like an infant or a child, has a body capable of very few things, and depending for the most part on external causes, has a mind which, considered in itself alone, is scarcely conscious of itself, or of God, or of things; whereas a man who has a body capable of a great many things has a mind which, considered in itself alone, is highly conscious of itself, of God and of things. In this life, therefore, we endeavour above all that the body of a child, so far as its nature allows and helps, may be changed into something capable of a great many things and belonging to a mind highly conscious of itself, of God and of things; and we desire so to change it that what belongs to its imagination and memory becomes insignificant beside its intellect, as I said in the note to the last proposition.
The more perfection each thing has, the more active it is and the less passive; and conversely, the more active it is, the more perfect.
Proof. The more perfect a thing is, the more reality it has (Part 2, Definition 6), and consequently (Part 3, Proposition 3, Note) the more active and the less passive it is. This demonstration may be reversed, and so proves that the more active a thing is, the more perfect it is. Q.E.D.
Corollary. It follows that the part of the mind which endures, great or small, is more perfect than the rest. For the eternal part of the mind (Proposition 23 of this Part; Proposition 29 of this Part) is the understanding, through which alone we are said to be active (Part 3, Proposition 3); while the part we have shown to perish is the imagination (Proposition 21 of this Part), through which alone we are said to be passive (Part 3, Proposition 3, and the general Definition of the Emotions). Therefore the first, great or small, is more perfect than the second. Q.E.D.
Note. Such are the doctrines I meant to set out concerning the mind insofar as it is regarded without relation to the body. From them, and from Part 1, Proposition 21 and other places, it is plain that our mind, insofar as it understands, is an eternal mode of thinking, determined by another eternal mode of thinking, and that one by a third, and so on to infinity; so that all of them taken together at once constitute the eternal and infinite intellect of God.
Even if we did not know that our mind is eternal, we should still hold piety and religion, and generally everything we showed in Part Four to belong to courage and high-mindedness, to be of first importance.
Proof. The first and only foundation of virtue, the rule of right living, is (Part 4, Proposition 22, Corollary; Part 4, Proposition 24) seeking one's own true advantage. Now in determining what reason prescribes as useful, we took no account of the mind's eternity, which has only become known to us in this Fifth Part. So although we were then ignorant that the mind is eternal, we nevertheless held that the qualities belonging to courage and high-mindedness are of first importance. Therefore, even if we were still ignorant of this doctrine, we should still put those precepts of reason first. Q.E.D.
Note. The general belief of most people seems to be different. They seem to believe that they are free insofar as they may obey their appetites, and that they give up their rights insofar as they are bound to live according to the commandments of the divine law. So they believe that piety and religion, and generally everything belonging to firmness of mind, are burdens which they hope to lay aside after death, receiving the reward of their bondage—that is, of their piety and religion. And it is not only by this hope but chiefly by the fear of being horribly punished after death that they are led to live according to the divine commandments, so far as their feeble and infirm spirit will carry them.
If men did not have this hope and this fear, but believed that the mind perishes with the body and that no hope of a longer life remains for the wretches worn out with the burden of piety, they would go back to their own inclinations, governing everything by their appetites and preferring to obey fortune rather than themselves. This seems to me no less absurd than if a man, because he does not believe he can sustain his body for ever on wholesome food, should choose to cram himself with poisons and deadly fare; or if, because he sees that the mind is not eternal or immortal, he should prefer to be out of his mind altogether and to live without the use of reason. Such ideas are too absurd to be worth refuting.
Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; nor do we rejoice in it because we control our lusts—on the contrary, it is because we rejoice in it that we are able to control our lusts.
Proof. Blessedness consists in love towards God (Proposition 36 of this Part, Note), and this love springs from the third kind of knowledge (Proposition 32 of this Part, Corollary). So this love (Part 3, Proposition 3; Part 3, Proposition 59) must be referred to the mind insofar as the mind is active; and therefore (Part 4, Definition 8) it is virtue itself. That was our first point. Again, the more the mind rejoices in this divine love, or blessedness, the more it understands (Proposition 32 of this Part)—that is (Proposition 3 of this Part, Corollary), the more power it has over the emotions, and (Proposition 38 of this Part) the less it is subject to the emotions which are evil. So the more the mind rejoices in this divine love, or blessedness, the more power it has to control its lusts. And since human power in controlling the emotions consists solely in the understanding, it follows that no one rejoices in blessedness because he has controlled his lusts; on the contrary, his power of controlling his lusts arises from blessedness itself. Q.E.D.
Note. I have now completed everything I wished to set out concerning the mind's power over the emotions and the mind's freedom. From it we can see how strong the wise man is, and how far he surpasses the ignorant man who is driven only by his appetites. For the ignorant man is not only distracted in various ways by external causes, never gaining true contentment of spirit, but lives besides as though unaware of himself, and of God, and of things; and as soon as he ceases to be acted upon, he ceases to be at all.
The wise man, on the other hand, insofar as he is considered as such, is scarcely disturbed in spirit at all; being conscious, by a certain eternal necessity, of himself, and of God, and of things, he never ceases to be, and always possesses true contentment of spirit.
If the way I have pointed out as leading to this result seems extremely hard, it can nevertheless be found. And hard it must be, since it is so seldom found. How could it be, if salvation lay ready to hand and could be found without great labour, that almost everyone should neglect it? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.