The Philosophy of Spinoza Part 19

I

The images of things are modifications of the human body, and the ideas of these modifications represent to us external bodies as if they were present, that is to say, these ideas involve both the nature of our own body and at the same time the present nature of the external body. If, therefore, the nature of the external body be like that of our body, then the idea of the external body which we imagine will involve a modification of our body like that of the external body. Therefore, if we imagine any one who is like ourselves to be affected by a modification, this imagination will express a modification of our body like that modification, and therefore we shall be modified with a similar modification ourselves, because we imagine something like us to be modified with the same. If, on the other hand, we hate a thing which is like ourselves, we shall so far be modified by a modification contrary and not similar to that with which it is modified.

If we imagine that a person enjoys a thing, that will be a sufficient reason for making us love the thing and desiring to enjoy it. If we imagine that a person enjoys a thing which only one can possess, we do all we can to prevent his possessing it. His enjoyment of the thing is an obstacle to our joy, and we endeavor to bring into existence everything which we imagine conduces to joy, and to remove or destroy everything opposed to it, or which we imagine conduces to sorrow.

We see, therefore, that the nature of man is generally const.i.tuted so as to pity those who are in adversity and envy those who are in prosperity, and he envies with a hatred which is the greater in proportion as he loves what he imagines another possesses. We see also that from the same property of human nature from which it follows that men pity one another it also follows that they are envious and ambitious. If we will consult experience, we shall find that she teaches the same doctrine, especially if we consider the first years of our life. For we find that children, because their body is, as it were, continually in equilibrium, laugh and cry merely because they see others do the same; whatever else they see others do they immediately wish to imitate; everything which they think is pleasing to other people they want. And the reason is, as we have said, that the images of things are the modifications themselves of the human body, or the ways in which it is modified by external causes and disposed to this or that action.

II

If we imagine that we are hated by another without having given him any cause for it, we shall hate him in return. If we imagine that we have given just cause for the hatred, we shall then be affected with shame.

This, however, rarely happens; we endeavor to affirm everything, both concerning ourselves and concerning the beloved object which we imagine will affect us or the object with joy, and, on the contrary, we endeavor to deny everything that will affect either it or ourselves with sorrow.

This reciprocity of hatred may also arise from the fact that hatred is followed by an attempt to bring evil upon him who is hated. If, therefore, we imagine that we are hated by any one else, we shall imagine him as the cause of some evil or sorrow, and thus we shall be affected with sorrow or apprehension accompanied with the idea of the person who hates us as a cause; that is to say, we shall hate him in return, as we have said above.

If we imagine that the person we love is affected with hatred towards us, we shall be agitated at the same time both with love and hatred. For in so far as we imagine that we are hated are we determined to hate him in return. But (by hypothesis) we love him notwithstanding, and therefore we shall be agitated both by love and hatred.

If we imagine that an evil has been brought upon us through the hatred of some person towards whom we have hitherto been moved by no emotion, we shall immediately endeavor to return that evil upon him.

If we imagine that any one like ourselves is affected with hatred towards an object like ourselves which we love, we shall hate him. If we imagine that we are beloved by a person without having given any cause for the love we shall love him in return.

If we imagine that we have given just cause for love, we shall pride ourselves upon it. This frequently occurs, and we have said that the contrary takes place when we believe that we are hated by another person. This reciprocal love, and consequently this attempt to do good to the person who loves us, and who endeavors to do good to us, is called _thankfulness_ or _grat.i.tude_, and from this we can see how much readier men are to revenge themselves than to return a benefit.

If we imagine that we are loved by a person we hate, we shall at the same time be agitated both by love and hatred. If the hatred prevail, we shall endeavor to bring evil upon the person by whom we are loved. This emotion is called Cruelty, especially if it is believed that the person who loves has not given any ordinary reason for hatred.

_The "Herd Instinct"_

If we imagine men to love or hate a thing, we shall therefore love or hate it; that is to say, we shall therefore rejoice or be sad at the presence of the thing, and therefore we shall endeavor to do everything which we imagine men[28] will look upon with joy, and, on the contrary, we shall be averse to doing anything to which we imagine men are averse.

He who imagines that he affects others with joy or sorrow will necessarily be affected with joy or sorrow. But since man is conscious of himself by means of the emotions by which he is determined to act; therefore if a person has done anything which he imagines will affect others with joy, he also will be affected with joy, accompanied with an idea of himself as its cause; that is to say, he will look upon himself with joy. If, on the other hand, he has done anything which he imagines will affect others with sorrow, he will look upon himself with sorrow.

If we imagine that a person loves, desires, or hates a thing which we ourselves love, desire, or hate, we shall on that account love, desire, or hate the thing more steadily. If, on the other hand, we imagine that he is averse to the thing we love or loves the thing to which we are averse, we shall then suffer vacillation of mind.

It follows from this proposition that every one endeavors as much as possible to make others love what he loves, and to hate what he hates.

Hence the poet says:

Speremus pariter, pariter metuamus amantes; Ferreus est, si quis, quod sinit alter, amat.

This effort to make every one approve what we love or hate is in truth ambition, and so we see that each person by nature desires that other persons should live according to his way of thinking; but if every one does this, then all are a hindrance to one another, and if every one wishes to be praised or beloved by the rest, then they all hate one another.

_The Varieties of Emotion_

Joy and sorrow, and consequently the emotions which are compounded of these or derived from them, are pa.s.sions. But we necessarily suffer in so far as we have inadequate ideas, and only in so far as we have them; that is to say, we necessarily suffer only in so far as we imagine, or in so far as we are affected by a modification which involves the nature of our body and that of an external body. The nature, therefore, of each pa.s.sion must necessarily be explained in such a manner, that the nature of the object by which we are affected is expressed. The joy, for example, which springs from an object _A_ involves the nature of that object _A_, and the joy which springs from _B_ involves the nature of that object _B_, and therefore these two emotions of joy are of a different nature, because they arise from causes of a different nature.

In like manner the emotion of sorrow which arises from one object is of a different kind from that which arises from another cause, and the same thing is to be understood of love, hatred, hope, fear, vacillation of mind, etc.; so that there are necessarily just as many kinds of joy, sorrow, love, hatred, etc., as there are kinds of objects by which we are affected. But desire is the essence itself or nature of a person in so far as this nature is conceived from its given const.i.tution as determined towards any action, and therefore as a person is affected by external causes with this or that kind of joy, sorrow, love, hatred, etc., that is to say, as his nature is const.i.tuted in this or that way, so must his desire vary and the nature of one desire differ from that of another, just as the emotions from which each desire arises differ.

There are as many kinds of desires, therefore, as there are kinds of joy, sorrow, love, etc., and, consequently (as we have just shown), as there are kinds of objects by which we are affected.

All emotions are related to desire, joy, or sorrow, as the definitions show which we have given of those emotions. But desire is the very nature or essence of a person and therefore the desire of one person differs from the desire of another as much as the nature or essence of the one differs from that of the other. Again, joy and sorrow are pa.s.sions by which the power of a person or his effort to persevere in his own being is increased or diminished, helped, or limited. But by the effort to persevere in his own being, in so far as it is related at the same time to the mind and the body, we understand appet.i.te and desire, and therefore joy and sorrow are desire or appet.i.te in so far as the latter is increased, diminished, helped, or limited by external causes; that is to say they are the nature itself of each person.

The joy or sorrow of one person therefore differs from the joy or sorrow of another as much as the nature or essence of one person differs from that of the other, and consequently the emotion of one person differs from the corresponding emotion of another.

Hence it follows that the emotions of animals which are called irrational (for after we have learned the origin of the mind we can in no way doubt that brutes feel) differ from human emotions as much as the nature of a brute differs from that of a man. Both the man and the horse, for example, are swayed by the l.u.s.t to propagate, but the horse is swayed by equine l.u.s.t and the man by that which is human. The l.u.s.ts and appet.i.tes of insects, fishes, and birds must vary in the same way; and so, although each individual lives contented with its own nature and delights in it, nevertheless the life with which it is contented and its joy are nothing but the idea or soul of that individual, and so the joy of one differs in character from the joy of the other as much as the essence of the one differs from the essence of the other. Finally, it follows from the preceding proposition that the joy by which the drunkard is enslaved is altogether different from the joy which is the portion of the philosopher,--a thing I wished just to hint in pa.s.sing.

_The Inconstancy of the Emotions_

The human body is affected by external bodies in a number of ways. Two men, therefore, may be affected in different ways at the same time, and therefore they can be affected by one and the same object in different ways. Again the human body may be affected now in this and now in that way, and consequently it may be affected by one and the same object in different ways at different times.

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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.ses 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 a.s.sisted, there being also present before us as the cause of our joy the idea of the person whom we hated.

Notwithstanding the truth of this proposition, no one will try to hate a thing or will wish to be affected with sorrow in order that he may rejoice the more; that is to say, no one will desire to inflict loss on himself in the hope of recovering the loss, or to become ill in the hope of getting well, inasmuch as every one will always try to preserve his being and to remove sorrow from himself as much as possible. Moreover, if it can be imagined that it is possible for us to desire to hate a person in order that we may love him afterwards the more, we must always desire to continue the hatred. For the love will be the greater as the hatred has been greater, and therefore we shall always desire the hatred to be more and more increased. Upon the same principle we shall desire that our sickness may continue and increase in order that we may afterwards enjoy the greater pleasure when we get well, and therefore we shall always desire sickness, which is absurd.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Both here and in what follows to whom we are moved by no emotion I understand by the word _men_, men (Sp.).

THIRD PART

ON MAN'S WELL-BEING

_All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love. Love for an object eternal and infinite feeds the mind with joy alone, a joy that is free from all sorrow_.

SPINOZA.