Read Ebook: Ethics — Part 3 by Spinoza Benedictus De Elwes R H M Robert Harvey Monro Translator

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>>>>>Proof--From the mere fact of our conceiving that another person takes delight in a thing we shall ourselves love that thing and desire to take delight therein. But we assumed that the pleasure in question would be prevented by another's delight in its object; we shall, therefore, endeavour to prevent his possession thereof . Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--That which we love we endeavour, as far as we can, to conceive in preference to anything else . If the thing be similar to ourselves, we shall endeavour to affect it pleasurably in preference to anything else . In other words, we shall endeavour, as far as we can, to bring it about, that the thing should be affected with pleasure accompanied by the idea of ourselves, that is , that it should love us in return. Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--We endeavour , as far as we can, to bring about, that what we love should love us in return: in other words, that what we love should be affected with pleasure accompanied by the idea of ourself as cause. Therefore, in proportion as the loved object is more pleasurably affected because of us, our endeavour will be assisted. --that is the greater will be our pleasure. But when we take pleasure in the fact, that we pleasurably affect something similar to ourselves, we regard ourselves with pleasure ; therefore the greater the emotion with which we conceive a loved object to be affected, &c. Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--In proportion as a man thinks, that a loved object is well affected towards him, will be the strength of his self-approval , that is , of his pleasure; he will, therefore , endeavour, as far as he can, to imagine the loved object as most closely bound to him: this endeavour or desire will be increased, if he thinks that someone else has a similar desire . But this endeavour or desire is assumed to be checked by the image of the loved object in conjunction with the image of him whom the loved object has joined to itself; therefore he will for that reason be affected with pain, accompanied by the idea of the loved object as a cause in conjunction with the image of his rival; that is, he will be affected with hatred towards the loved object and also towards his rival , which latter he will envy as enjoying the beloved object. Q.E.D.

We must add, that a jealous man is not greeted by his beloved with the same joyful countenance as before, and this also gives him pain as a lover, as I will now show.

>>>>>Proof--Everything, which a man has seen in conjunction with the object of his love, will be to him accidentally a cause of pleasure ; he will, therefore, desire to possess it, in conjunction with that wherein he has taken delight; in other words, he will desire to possess the object of his love under the same circumstances as when he first took delight therein. Q.E.D.

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>>>>>Proof--For, in so far as he finds some circumstance to be missing, he conceives something which excludes its existence. As he is assumed to be desirous for love's sake of that thing or circumstance , he will, in so far as he conceives it to be missing, feel pain . Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--Pain diminishes or constrains a man's power of activity , in other words , diminishes or constrains the effort, wherewith he endeavours to persist in his own being; therefore it is contrary to the said endeavour: thus all the endeavours of a man affected by pain are directed to removing that pain. But , in proportion as the pain is greater, so also is it necessarily opposed to a greater part of man's power of activity; therefore the greater the pain, the greater the power of activity employed to remove it; that is, the greater will be the desire or appetite in endeavouring to remove it. Again, since pleasure increases or aids a man's power of activity, it may easily be shown in like manner, that a man affected by pleasure has no desire further than to preserve it, and his desire will be in proportion to the magnitude of the pleasure.

Lastly, since hatred and love are themselves emotions of pain and pleasure, it follows in like manner that the endeavour, appetite, or desire, which arises through hatred or love, will be greater in proportion to the hatred or love. Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--If a man begins to hate that which he had loved, more of his appetites are put under restraint than if he had never loved it. For love is a pleasure which a man endeavours as far as he can to render permanent ; he does so by regarding the object of his love as present, and by affecting it as far as he can pleasurably; this endeavour is greater in proportion as the love is greater, and so also is the endeavour to bring about that the beloved should return his affection . Now these endeavours are constrained by hatred towards the object of love ; wherefore the love will for this cause also be affected with pain, the more so in proportion as his love has been greater; that is, in addition to the pain caused by hatred, there is a pain caused by the fact that he has loved the object; wherefore the lover will regard the beloved with greater pain, or in other words, will hate it more than if he had never loved it, and with the more intensity in proportion as his former love was greater. Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--To hate a man is to conceive him as a cause of pain; therefore he who hates a man will endeavour to remove or destroy him. But if anything more painful, or, in other words, a greater evil, should accrue to the hater thereby --and if the hater thinks he can avoid such evil by not carrying out the injury, which he planned against the object of his hatred --he will desire to abstain from inflicting that injury , and the strength of his endeavour will be greater than his former endeavour to do injury, and will therefore prevail over it, as we asserted. The second part of this proof proceeds in the same manner. Wherefore he who hates another, etc. Q.E.D.

XL. He, who conceives himself to be hated by another, and believes that 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 himself with hatred , that is, with pain, accompanied by the idea of an external cause. But, by the hypothesis, he conceives no cause for this pain except him who is his enemy; therefore, from conceiving that he is hated by some one, 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.

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>>>>>Proof--He who conceives, that another hates him, will hate his enemy in return, and will endeavour to recall everything which can affect him painfully; he will moreover endeavour to do him an injury . Now the first thing of this sort which he conceives is the injury done to himself; he will, therefore, forthwith endeavour to repay it in kind. Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--This proposition is proved in the same way as the preceding one. See also the note appended thereto.

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>>>>>Proof--When a man loves something similar to himself, he endeavours, as far as he can, to bring it about that he should be loved thereby in return . Therefore he who has conferred a benefit confers it in obedience to the desire, which he feels of being loved in return; that is from the hope of honour or pleasure; hence he will endeavour, as far as he can, to conceive this cause of honour, or to regard it as actually existing. But, by the hypothesis, he conceives something else, which excludes the existence of the said cause of honour: wherefore he will thereat feel pain . Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--He who conceives, that an object of his hatred hates him in return, will thereupon feel a new hatred, while the former hatred still remains . But if, on the other hand, he conceives that the object of hate loves him, he will to this extent regard himself with pleasure, and will endeavour to please the cause of his emotion. In other words, he will endeavour not to hate him , and not to affect him painfully; this endeavour will be greater or less in proportion to the emotion from which it arises. Therefore, if it be greater than that which arises from hatred, and through which the man endeavours to affect painfully the thing which he hates, it will get the better of it and banish the hatred from his mind. Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--The proof proceeds in the same way as Prop. xxxviii. of this Part: for he who begins to love a thing, which he was wont to hate or regard with pain, from the very fact of loving feels pleasure. To this pleasure involved in love is added the pleasure arising from aid given to the endeavour to remove the pain involved in hatred , accompanied by the idea of the former object of hatred as cause.

>>>>>Proof--The beloved object feels reciprocal hatred towards him who hates it ; therefore the lover, in conceiving that anyone hates the beloved object, conceives the beloved thing as affected by hatred, in other words , by pain; consequently he is himself affected by pain accompanied by the idea of the hater of the beloved thing as cause; that is, he will hate him who hates anything which he himself loves . Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--This Prop. is evident from the mere definition of love and hatred . For pleasure is called love towards Peter, and pain is called hatred towards Peter, simply in so far as Peter is regarded as the cause of one emotion or the other. When this condition of causality is either wholly or partly removed, the emotion towards Peter also wholly or in part vanishes. Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--A thing which we conceive as free must be perceived through itself without anything else. If, therefore, we conceive it as the cause of pleasure or pain, we shall therefore love it or hate it, and shall do so with the utmost love or hatred that can arise from the given emotion. But if the thing which causes the emotion be conceived as acting by necessity, we shall then conceive it not as the sole cause, but as one of the causes of the emotion, and therefore our love or hatred towards it will be less. Q.E.D.

L. Anything whatever can be, accidentally, a cause of hope or fear.

>>>>>Proof--The human body is affected by external bodies in a variety of ways . Two men may therefore be differently affected at the same time, and therefore may be differently affected by one and the same object. Further the human body can be affected sometimes in one way, sometimes in another; consequently it may be differently affected at different times by one and the same object. Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--As soon as we conceive an object which we have seen in conjunction with others, we at once remember those others , and thus we pass forthwith from the contemplation of one object to the contemplation of another object. And this is the case with the object, which we conceive to have no property that is not common to many. For we thereupon assume that we are regarding therein nothing, which we have not before seen in conjunction with other objects. But when we suppose that we conceive an object something special, which we have never seen before, we must needs say that the mind, while regarding that object, has in itself nothing which it can fall to regarding instead thereof; therefore it is determined to the contemplation of that object only. Therefore an object, &c. Q.E.D.

To wonder is opposed "Contempt," which generally arises from the fact that, because we see someone wondering at, loving, or fearing something, or because something, at first sight, appears to be like things, which we ourselves wonder at, love, fear, &c., we are, in consequence , determined to wonder at, love, or fear that thing. But if from the presence, or more accurate contemplation of the said thing, we are compelled to deny concerning it all that can be the cause of wonder, love, fear, &c., the mind then, by the presence of the thing, remains determined to think rather of those qualities which are not in it, than of those which are in it; whereas, on the other hand, the presence of the object would cause it more particularly to regard that which is therein. As devotion springs from wonder at a thing which we love, so does "Derision" spring from contempt of a thing which we hate or fear, and "Scorn" from contempt of folly, as veneration from wonder at prudence. Lastly, we can conceive the emotions of love, hope, honour, &c., in association with contempt, and can thence deduce other emotions, which are not distinguished one from another by any recognized name.

>>>>>Proof--A man does not know himself except through the modifications of his body, and the ideas thereof . When, therefore, the mind is able to contemplate itself, it is thereby assumed to pass to a greater perfection, or to feel pleasure; and the pleasure will be greater in proportion to the distinctness, wherewith it is able to conceive itself and its own power of activity. Q.E.D.

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>>>>>Proof--The endeavour or power of the mind is the actual essence thereof ; but the essence of the mind obviously only affirms that which the mind is and can do; not that which it neither is nor can do; therefore the mind endeavours to conceive only such things as assert or affirm its power of activity. Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--The essence of the mind only affirms that which 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 activity . Thus, when we say that the mind contemplates its own weakness, we are merely saying that while the mind is attempting to conceive something which asserts its power of activity, it is checked in its endeavour -- in other words , it feels pain. Q.E.D.

It is thus apparent that men are naturally prone to hatred and envy, which latter is fostered by their education. For parents are accustomed to incite their children to virtue solely by the spur of honour and envy. But, perhaps, some will scruple to assent to what I have said, because we not seldom admire men's virtues, and venerate their possessors. In order to remove such doubts, I append the following corollary.

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>>>>>Proof--Envy is a species of hatred or pain, that is , a modification whereby a man's power of activity, or endeavour towards activity, is checked. But a man does not endeavour or desire to do anything, which cannot follow from his nature as it is given; therefore a man will not desire any power of activity or virtue to be attributed to him, that is appropriate to another's nature and foreign to his own; hence his desire cannot be checked, nor he himself pained by the contemplation of virtue in some one unlike himself, consequently he cannot envy such an one. But he can envy his equal, who is assumed to have the same nature as himself. Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--Pleasure and pain, and consequently the emotions compounded thereof, or derived therefrom, are passions, or passive states ; now we are necessarily passive , in so far as we have inadequate ideas; and only in so far as we have such ideas are we passive ; that is, we are only necessarily passive , in so far as we conceive, or in so far as we are affected by an emotion, which involves the nature of our own body, and the nature of an external body. Wherefore the nature of every passive state must necessarily be so explained, that the nature of the object whereby we are affected be expressed. Namely, the pleasure, which arises from, say, the object A, involves the nature of that object A, and the pleasure, which arises from the object B, involves the nature of the object B; different, inasmuch as the causes whence they arise are by nature different. So again the emotion of pain, which arises from one object, is by nature different from the pain arising from another object, and, similarly, in the case of love, hatred, hope, fear, vacillation, &c.

Thus, there are necessarily as many kinds of pleasure, pain, love, hatred, &c., as there are kinds of objects whereby we are affected. Now desire is each man's essence or nature, in so far as it is conceived as determined to a particular action by any given modification of itself ; therefore, according as a man is affected through external causes by this or that kind of pleasure, pain, love, hatred, &c., in other words, according as his nature is disposed in this or that manner, so will his desire be of one kind or another, and the nature of one desire must necessarily differ from the nature of another desire, as widely as the emotions differ, wherefrom each desire arose. Thus there are as many kinds of desire, as there are kinds of pleasure, pain, love, &c., consequently there are as many kinds of desire, as there are kinds of objects whereby we are affected. Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--This proposition is evident from Ax. i. . Nevertheless, we will prove it from the nature of the three primary emotions.

All emotions are attributable to desire, pleasure, or pain, as their definitions above given show. But desire is each man's nature or essence ; therefore desire in one individual differs from desire in another individual, only in so far as the nature or essence of the one differs from the nature or essence of the other. Again, pleasure and pain are passive states or passions, whereby every man's power or endeavour to persist in his being is increased or diminished, helped or hindered . But by the endeavour to persist in its being, in so far as it is attributable to mind and body in conjunction, we mean appetite and desire ; therefore pleasure and pain are identical with desire or appetite, in so far as by external causes they are increased or diminished, helped or hindered, in other words, they are every man's nature; wherefore the pleasure and pain felt by one man differ from the pleasure and pain felt by another man, only in so far as the nature or essence of the one man differs from the essence of the other; consequently, any emotion of one individual only differs, &c. Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--When the mind conceives itself and its power of activity, it feels pleasure : now the mind necessarily contemplates itself, when it conceives a true or adequate idea . But the mind does conceive certain adequate ideas . Therefore it feels pleasure in so far as it is active . Again, the mind, both in so far as it has clear and distinct ideas, and in so far as it has confused ideas, endeavours to persist in its own being ; but by such an endeavour we mean desire ; therefore, desire is also attributable to us, in so far as we understand, or in so far as we are active. Q.E.D.

>>>>>Proof--All emotions can be referred to desire, pleasure, or pain, as their definitions, already given, show. Now by pain we mean that the mind's power of thinking is diminished or checked ; therefore, in so far as the mind feels pain, its power of understanding, that is, of activity, is diminished or checked ; therefore, no painful emotions can be attributed to the mind in virtue of its being active, but only emotions of pleasure and desire, which are attributable to the mind in that condition. Q.E.D.

I think I have thus explained, and displayed through their primary causes the principal emotions and vacillations of spirit, which arise from the combination of the three primary emotions, to wit, desire, pleasure, and pain. It is evident from what I have said, that we are in many ways driven about by external causes, and that like waves of the sea driven by contrary winds we toss to and fro unwitting of the issue and of our fate. But I have said, that I have only set forth the chief conflicting emotions, not all that might be given. For, by proceeding in the same way as above, we can easily show that love is united to repentance, scorn, shame, &c. I think everyone will agree from what has been said, that the emotions may be compounded one with another in so many ways, and so many variations may arise therefrom, as to exceed all possibility of computation. However, for my purpose, it is enough to have enumerated the most important; to reckon up the rest which I have omitted would be more curious than profitable. It remains to remark concerning love, that it very often happens that while we are enjoying a thing which we longed for, the body, from the act of enjoyment, acquires a new disposition, whereby it is determined in another way, other images of things are aroused in it, and the mind begins to conceive and desire something fresh. For example, when we conceive something which generally delights us with its flavour, we desire to enjoy, that is, to eat it. But whilst we are thus enjoying it, the stomach is filled and the body is otherwise disposed. If, therefore, when the body is thus otherwise disposed, the image of the food which is present be stimulated, and consequently the endeavour or desire to eat it be stimulated also, the new disposition of the body will feel repugnance to the desire or attempt, and consequently the presence of the food which we formerly longed for will become odious. This revulsion of feeling is called "satiety" or weariness. For the rest, I have neglected the outward modifications of the body observable in emotions, such, for instance, as trembling, pallor, sobbing, laughter, &c., for these are attributable to the body only, without any reference to the mind. Lastly, the definitions of the emotions require to be supplemented in a few points; I will therefore repeat them, interpolating such observations as I think should here and there be added.

DEFINITIONS OF THE EMOTIONS

^^^^^Explanation--I say transition: for pleasure is not perfection itself. For, if man were born with the perfection to which he passes, he would possess the same, without the emotion of pleasure. This appears more clearly from the consideration of the contrary emotion, pain. No one can deny, that pain consists in the transition to a less perfection, and not in the less perfection itself: for a man cannot be pained, in so far as he partakes of perfection of any degree. Neither 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; wherefore this activity can only be the activity of transition from a greater to a less perfection--in other words, it is an activity whereby a man's power of action is lessened or constrained . I pass over the definitions of merriment, stimulation, melancholy, and grief, because these terms are generally used in reference to the body, and are merely kinds of pleasure or pain.

Thus the conception of a new object, considered in itself, is of the same nature as other conceptions; hence, I do not include wonder among the emotions, nor do I see why I should so include it, inasmuch as this distraction of the mind arises from no positive cause drawing away the mind from other objects, but merely from the absence of a cause, which should determine the mind to pass from the contemplation of one object to the contemplation of another.

I, therefore, recognize only three primitive or primary emotions , namely, pleasure, pain, and desire. I have spoken of wonder simply because it is customary to speak of certain emotions springing from the three primitive ones by different names, when they are referred to the objects of our wonder. I am led by the same motive to add a definition of contempt.

The definitions of veneration and scorn I here pass over, for I am not aware that any emotions are named after them.

^^^^^Explanation--This definition explains sufficiently clearly the essence of love; the definition given by those authors who say that love is "the lover's wish to unite himself to the loved object" expresses a property, but not the essence of love; and, as such authors have not sufficiently discerned love's essence, they have been unable to acquire a true conception of its properties, accordingly their definition is on all hands admitted to be very obscure. It must, however, be noted, that when I say that it is a property of love, that the lover should wish to unite himself to the beloved object, I do not here mean by "wish" consent, or conclusion, or a free decision of the mind ; neither do I mean a desire of being united to the loved object when it is absent, or of continuing in its presence when it is at hand; for love can be conceived without either of these desires; but by "wish" I mean the contentment, which is in the lover, on account of the presence of the beloved object, whereby the pleasure of the lover is strengthened, or at least maintained.

^^^^^Explanation--These observations are easily grasped after what has been said in the explanation of the preceding definition .

^^^^^Explanation--Wonder arises from the novelty of a thing. If, therefore, it happens that the object of our wonder is often conceived by us, we shall cease to wonder at it; thus we see, that the emotion of devotion readily degenerates into simple love.

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