of nature the inadequate ideas inevitably follow, and from these the passive states or emotions; the passions thus belong to human nature, as one subject to limitation and negation.—­The destruction of contingent and perishable things is effected by external causes; no one is destroyed by itself; so far as in it lies everything strives to persist in its being (III. prop. 4 and 6).  The fundamental endeavor after self-preservation constitutes the essence of each thing (III. prop. 7).  This endeavor (conatus) is termed will (voluntas) or desire (cupiditas) when it is referred to the mind alone, and appetite (appetitus) when referred to the mind and body together; desire or volition is conscious appetite (III. prop. 9, schol.).  We call a thing good because we desire it, not desire a thing because we hold it good (cf.  Hobbes, p. 75).  To desire two further fundamental forms of the emotions are added, pleasure and pain.  If a thing increases the power of our body to act, the idea of it increases the power of our soul to think, and is gladly imagined by it.  Pleasure (laetitia) is the transition of a man to a greater, and pain (tristitia) his transition to a lesser perfection.

All other emotions are modifications or combinations of the three original ones, to which Spinoza reduces the six of Descartes (cf. p. 105).  In the deduction and description of them his procedure is sometimes aridly systematic, sometimes even forced and artificial, but for the most part ingenious, appropriate, and psychologically acute.  Whatever gives us pleasure augments our being, and whatever pains us diminishes it; hence we seek to preserve the causes of pleasurable emotions, and love them, to do away with the causes of painful ones, and hate them.  “Love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause; hate is pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause.”  Since all that furthers or diminishes the being of (the cause of our pleasure) the object of our love, exercises at the same time a like influence on us, we love that which rejoices the object of our love and hate that which disturbs it; its happiness and suffering become ours also.  The converse is true of the object of our hate:  its good fortune provokes us and its ill fortune pleases us.  If we are filled with no emotion toward things like ourselves, we sympathize in their sad or joyous feelings by involuntary imitation.  Pity, from which we strive to free ourselves as from every painful affection, inclines us to benevolence or to assistance in the removal of the cause of the misery of others.  Envy of those who are fortunate, and commiseration of those who are in trouble, are alike rooted in emulation.  Man is by nature inclined to envy and malevolence.  Hate easily leads to underestimation, love to overestimation, of the object, and self-love to pride or self-satisfaction, which are much more frequently met with than unfeigned