V-XXXIV. The mind is, only while the body endures, subject to those emotions which are attributable to passions.

The EthicsBenedict de Spinoza

PROP. XXXIV. The mind is, only while the body endures, subject to those emotions which are attributable to passions.

Proof.—Imagination is the idea wherewith the mind contemplates a thing as present (II. xvii. note); yet this idea indicates rather the present disposition of the human body than the nature of the external thing (II. xvi. Coroll. ii.). Therefore emotion (see general Def. of Emotions) is imagination, in so far as it indicates the present disposition of the body; therefore (V. xxi.) the mind is, only while the body endures, subject to emotions which are attributable to passions. Q.E.D.

Corollary.—Hence it follows that no love save intellectual love is eternal.

Note.—If we look to men’s general 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 to remain after death.



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