| E3: PROP. 48. Love or hatred towards, for instance, Peter is destroyed, if the pleasure involved in the former, or the pain involved in the latter emotion, be associated with the idea of another cause: and will be diminished in proportion as we conceive Peter not to have been the sole cause of either emotion. |
| Proof.--This Prop. is evident from the mere definition of love and hatred (E3P13CN). 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. |
| Referenced in: E3P49,- E5P6,- E5P9 |
| E3: PROP. 49. Love or hatred towards a thing, which we conceive to be free, must, other conditions being similar, be greater than if it were felt towards a thing acting by necessity. |
| Proof.--A thing which we conceive as free must (E1D7) be perceived through itself without anything else. If, therefore, we conceive it as the cause of pleasure or pain, we shall therefore (E3P13CN) love it or hate it, and shall do so with the utmost love or hatred that can arise from the given emotion [by E3P48]. But if the thing which causes the emotion be conceived as acting by necessity, we shall then (by the same Def. 7. Part 1 E1D7) 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. |
| Referenced in: E3P51N,- E5P5 |
| E3: PROP. 49, Note. --Hence it follows, that men, thinking themselves to be free, feel more love or hatred towards one another than towards anything else: to this consideration we must add the imitation of emotions treated of in E3P27, E3P34, E3P40, and E3P43. |
| E3: PROP. 50. Anything whatever can be, accidentally, a cause of hope or fear. |
| Proof.--This proposition is proved in the same way as E3P15, which see, together with the note E3P18N2. |
| E3: PROP. 50, Note.
--Things which are accidentally the causes of
hope or
fear are called
good or evil omens. Now, in so far as such omens are the cause of
hope or
fear, they are
(by the definitions of
hope and
fear given in
E3P18N2)
the causes also of pleasure
and pain; consequently
[by E3P15C] we,
to this extent,
regard them with love
or hatred,
and endeavour [by E3P28]
either to invoke them as means towards that which we
hope for, or to
remove them as obstacles, or
causes of that which we fear.
It follows, further, from E3P25, that we are naturally so constituted as to believe readily in that which we hope for, and with difficulty in that which we fear; moreover, we are apt to estimate such objects above or below their true value. Hence there have arisen superstitions, whereby men are everywhere assailed. However, I do not think it worth while to point out here the vacillations springing 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 will duly explain in the proper place. Further, in so far as we hope for or fear anything, we regard it with love or hatred; thus everyone can apply by himself to hope and fear what we have said concerning love and hatred. |
| E3: PROP. 51. Different men may be differently affected by the same object, and the same man may be differently affected at different times by the same object. |
| Proof.--The human body is
affected by external bodies in a variety of
ways (E2POST3). Two men may
therefore be differently affected at the
same time, and therefore (by
E2P13Ab1) may be
differently affected by one
and the same object.
Further (by the same Post. E2POST3) the human body can be affected sometimes in one way, sometimes in another; consequently (by the same Axiom E2P13Ab1) it may be differently affected at different times by one and the same object. Q.E.D. |
| Referenced in: E4P33 |
| E3: PROP. 51, Note.
--We thus see that it is possible, that what one man
loves another may
hate, and that what one man
fears another may not fear;
or, again, that
one and the same man may love
what he once
hated, or may be bold where he
once was
timid,
and so on.
Again, as everyone judges according to his emotions what is good, what bad, what better, and what worse (E3P39N), it follows that men's judgments may vary no less than their emotions [This is possible, though the human mind is part of the divine intellect, as I have shown in E2P13CN], hence when we compare some with others, we distinguish them solely by the diversity of their emotions, and style some intrepid, others timid, others by some other epithet. For instance, I shall call a man intrepid, if he despises an evil which I am accustomed to fear; if I further take into consideration, that, in his desire to injure his enemies and to benefit those whom he loves, he is not restrained by the fear of an evil which is sufficient to restrain me, I shall call him daring. Again, a man will appear timid to me, if he fears an evil which I am accustomed to despise; and if I further take into consideration that his desire is restrained by the fear of an evil, which is not sufficient to restrain me I shall say that he is cowardly; and in like manner will everyone pass judgment. Lastly, from this inconstancy in the nature of human judgment, inasmuch as a man often judges of things solely by his emotions, and inasmuch as the things which he believes cause pleasure or pain, and therefore endeavours to promote or prevent, are often purely imaginary, not to speak of the uncertainty of things alluded to in E3P28; we may readily conceive that a man may be at one time affected with pleasure, and at another with pain, accompanied by the idea of himself as cause. Thus we can easily understand what are Repentance and Self-complacency. Repentance is pain, accompanied by the idea of one's self as cause; Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of one's self as cause, and these emotions are most intense because men believe themselves to be free (E3P49). |
| Referenced in: E3DOE27,- E3DOE42 |
| E3: PROP. 52. An object which we have formerly seen in conjunction with others, and which we do not conceive to have any property that is not common to many, will not be regarded by us for so long, as an object which we conceive to have some property peculiar to itself. |
| Proof.--As soon as we
conceive an object which we have seen in
conjunction with others, we at once remember those others
(E2P18 and
E2P18N), 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 in 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, etc. Q.E.D. |
| Referenced in: E3DOE4,- E3DOE10 |
| E3: PROP. 52, Note.
--This mental modification, or
imagination
of a particular thing,
in so far as it is alone in the
mind, is called
Wonder; but if it be excited by
an object of fear, it is called
Consternation, because
wonder at an evil
keeps a man so engrossed in the simple contemplation thereof, that he has
no power to think of anything else whereby he might avoid the evil. If,
however, the object of wonder
be a man's prudence, industry, or anything
of that sort, inasmuch as the said man is thereby regarded as far
surpassing ourselves, wonder is called
Veneration;
otherwise, if a man's
anger,
envy, etc.,
be what we wonder
at, the emotion is called
Horror.
Again, if it be the prudence, industry, or what not, of a man we love, that we wonder at, our love will on this account be the greater (E3P12), and when joined to wonder or veneration is called Devotion. We may in like manner conceive hatred, hope, confidence, and the other emotions, as associated with wonder; and we should thus be able to deduce more emotions than those which have obtained names in ordinary speech. Whence it is evident, that the names of the emotions have been applied in accordance rather with their ordinary manifestations than with an accurate knowledge of their nature. 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, etc., we are, in consequence ([byE3P15], E3P15C, and E3P27), 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, etc., 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, etc., in association with contempt, and can thence deduce other emotions, which are not distinguished one from another by any recognized name. |
| Referenced in: E3P55C2N,- E3DOE4,- E3DOE5,- E3DOE11,- E3DOE42 |
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