The Philosophy of Spinoza

by Benedictus de Spinoza

The emotion towards an object which we imagine to be free is greater than towards one which is necessary, and consequently still greater than towards one which we imagine as possible or contingent. But to imagine an object as free can be nothing else than to imagine it simply, while we know not the causes by which it was determined to action. An emotion, therefore, towards an object which we simply imagine is, other things being equal, greater than towards one which we imagine as necessary, possible, or contingent, and consequently greatest of all.

The mind understands all things to be necessary and determined by an infinite chain of causes to existence and action, and therefore so far enables itself to suffer less from the emotions which arise from these things, and to be less affected towards them.

The more this knowledge that things are necessary is applied to individual things which we imagine more distinctly and more vividly, the greater is this power of the mind over the emotions—a fact to which experience also testifies. For we see that sorrow for the loss of anything good is diminished if the person who has lost it considers that it could not by any possibility have been preserved. So also we see that nobody pities an infant because it does not know how to speak, walk, or reason, and lives so many years not conscious, as it were, of itself. But if a number of human beings were born adult, and only a few here and there were born infants, every one would pity the infants, because we should then consider infancy not as a thing natural and necessary, but as a defect or fault of Nature. Many other facts of a similar kind we might observe.

We do not contemplate an object as absent by reason of the emotion by which we imagine it, but by reason of the fact that the body is affected with another modification, which excludes the existence of that object. The emotion, therefore, which is related to an object which we contemplate as absent, is not of such a nature as to overcome the other actions and power of man, but, on the contrary, is of such a nature that it can in some way be restrained by those modifications which exclude the existence of its external cause. But the emotion which arises from reason is necessarily related to the common properties of things, which we always contemplate as present for nothing can exist which excludes their present existence, and which we always imagine in the same way. This emotion, therefore, always remains the same, and consequently the emotions which are contrary to it, and which are not maintained by their external cause, must more and more accommodate themselves to it until they are no longer contrary to it. So far, therefore, the emotion which springs from reason is the stronger.

A number of simultaneous causes can do more than if they were fewer, and therefore the greater the number of the simultaneous causes by which an emotion is excited, the greater it is.

An emotion is bad or injurious only in so far as it hinders the mind from thinking and therefore that emotion by which the mind is determined to the contemplation of a number of objects at the same time is less injurious than another emotion equally great which holds the mind in the contemplation of one object alone or of a few objects, so that it cannot think of others. Again, since the essence of the mind, that is to say, its power, consists in thought alone, the mind suffers less through an emotion by which it is determined to the contemplation of a number of objects at the same time than through an emotion equally great which holds it occupied in the contemplation of one object alone or of a few objects. Finally, this emotion, in so far as it is related to a number of external causes, is therefore less towards each.

The Power of the Intellect Over the Emotions

I

General Principles

The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things, and vice versa, the order and connection of things is the same as the order and connection of ideas. Therefore, as the order and connection of ideas in the mind is according to the order and connection of the modifications of the body it follows vice versa, that the order and connection of the modifications of the body is according to the order and connection in the mind of the thoughts and ideas of things.