s
referred to things, which we distinctly understand, surpass those
referred to what we conceive in a confused and fragmentary manner
(V. vii.).

IV. In the number of causes whereby those modifications[17]
are fostered, which have regard to the common properties of
things or to God (V. ix. xi.).

[17] Affectiones. Camerer reads affectus----emotions.

V. Lastly, in the order wherein the mind can arrange and
associate, one with another, its own emotions (V. x. note and
xii. xiii. xiv.).

But, in order that this power of the mind over the emotions
may be better understood, it should be specially observed that
the emotions are called by us strong, when we compare the emotion
of one man with the emotion of another, and see that one man is
more troubled than another by the same emotion; or when we are
comparing the various emotions of the same man one with another,
and find that he is more affected or stirred by one emotion than
by another. For the strength of every emotion is defined by a
comparison of our own power with the power of an external cause.
Now the power of the mind is defined by knowledge only, and its
infirmity or passion is defined by the privation of knowledge
only: it therefore follows, that that mind is most passive,
whose greatest part is made up of inadequate ideas, so that it
may be characterized more readily by its passive states than by
its activities: on the other hand, that mind is most active,
whose greatest part is made up of adequate ideas, so that,
although it may contain as many inadequate ideas as the former
mind, it may yet be more easily characterized by ideas
attributable to human virtue, than by ideas which tell of human
infirmity. Again, it must be observed, that spiritual
unhealthiness and misfortunes can generally be traced to
excessive love for something which is subject to many variations,
and which we can never become masters of. For no one is
solicitous or anxious about anything, unless he loves it;
neither do wrongs, suspicions, enmities, &c. arise, except in
regard to things whereof no one can be really master.

We may thus readily conceive the power which clear and
distinct knowledge, and especially that third kind of knowledge
(II. xlvii. note), founded on the actual knowledge of God,
possesses over the emotions: if it does not absolutely destroy
them, in so far as they are passions (V. iii. and iv. note); at
any rate, it causes them to occupy a very small part