The Philosophy of Spinoza

by Benedictus de Spinoza

We thus see that it is possible for one man to love a thing and for another man to hate it; for this man to fear what this man does not fear, and for the same man to love what before he hated, and to dare to do what before he feared. Again, since each judges according to his own emotion what is good and what is evil, what is better and what is worse, it follows that men may change in their judgment as they do in their emotions, and hence it comes to pass that when we compare men, we distinguish them solely by the difference in their emotions, calling some brave, others timid, and others by other names.

For example, I shall call a man brave who despises an evil which I usually fear, and if, besides this, I consider the fact that his desire of doing evil to a person whom he hates or doing good to one whom he loves is not restrained by that fear of evil by which I am usually restrained, I call him audacious. On the other hand, the man who fears an evil which I usually despise will appear timid, and if, besides this, I consider that his desire is restrained by the fear of an evil which has no power to restrain me, I call him pusillanimous; and in this way everybody will pass judgment.

Finally, from this nature of man and the inconstancy of his judgment, in consequence of which he often judges things from mere emotion, and the things which he believes contribute to his joy or his sorrow, and which, therefore, he endeavors to bring to pass or remove, are often only imaginary—to say nothing about the uncertainty of things—it is easy to see that a man may often be himself the cause of his sorrow or his joy, or of being affected with sorrow or joy accompanied with the idea of himself as its cause, so that we can easily understand what repentance and what self-approval are.

Love and hatred towards any object, for example, towards Peter, are destroyed if the joy and the sorrow which they respectively involve be joined to the idea of another cause; and they are respectively diminished in proportion as we imagine that Peter has not been their sole cause.

For the same reason, love or hatred towards an object we imagine to be free must be greater than towards an object which is under necessity.

An object which we imagine to be free must be perceived through itself and without others. If, therefore, we imagine it to be the cause of joy or sorrow, we shall for that reason alone love or hate it, and that too with the greatest love or the greatest hatred which can spring from the given emotion. But if we imagine that the object which is the cause of that emotion is necessary, then we shall imagine it as the cause of that emotion, not alone, but together with other causes, and so our love or hatred towards it will be less.

Hence it follows that our hatred or love towards one another is greater than towards other things, because we think we are free.

The Power of Love Over Hate

If we imagine that the person we hate is affected with hatred towards us, a new hatred is thereby produced, the old hatred still remaining (by hypothesis). If, on the other hand, we imagine him to be affected with love towards us, in so far as we imagine it shall we look upon ourselves with joy, and endeavor to please him; that is to say, in so far shall we endeavor not to hate him nor to affect him with sorrow. This effort will be greater or less as the emotion from which it arises is greater or less, and, therefore, should it be greater than that which springs from hatred, and by which we endeavor to affect with sorrow the object we hate, then it will prevail and banish hatred from the mind. Hatred is increased through return of hatred, but may be destroyed by love.

Hatred which is altogether overcome by love passes into love, and the love is therefore greater than if hatred had not preceded it. For if we begin to love a thing which we hated, or upon which we were in the habit of looking with sorrow, we shall rejoice for the very reason that we love, and to this joy which love involves a new joy is added, which springs from the fact that the effort to remove the sorrow which hatred involves, is so much assisted, there being also present before us as the cause of our joy the idea of the person whom we hated.