(33:4) If pleasure
consists in the transition to a greater perfection, assuredly blessedness
must consist in the mind being endowed with perfection itself.
Prop. [XXXIV] The mind is, only while the
body endures, subject to those
emotions which are attributable
to passions.
Proof. (34:1) 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.). (2) Therefore emotion (see
III:[GENERAL DEFINITION OF THE EMOTIONS] ) is imagination, in so far as it
indicates the present disposition of the body; therefore ([xxi] ) the
mind is, only while the body endures, subject to emotions which are
attributable to passions. Q.E.D.
Corollary.- (34:3) Hence it follows that no love save intellectual
love is eternal.
Note.- (34:4) 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.
Prop. [XXXV] God loves himself with an infinite intellectual love.
Proof.- (35:1) God is absolutely infinite (I:[D.vi] ), that is
(II:[D.vi] ), the nature of God rejoices in infinite perfection;
and such rejoicing is (II:[iii] ) accompanied by the idea of himself,
that is (I:[xi] and I:[D.
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