P20: This Love toward God/Nature cannot be tainted by an affect of Envy or Jealousy: instead, the more men we imagine to be joined to God/Nature by the same bond of Love, the more it is encouraged.

Dem.: This Love toward God/Nature is the highest good which we can want from the dictate of reason (by IVP28), and is common to all men (by IVP36); we desire that all should enjoy it (by IVP37). And so (by Def. Aff. XXIII), it cannot be stained by an affect of Envy, nor (by P18 and the Def. of Jealousy, see IIIP35 S) by an affect of Jealousy. On the contrary (by IIIP31), the more men we imagine to enjoy it, the more it must be encouraged, q.e.d.

Schol.: Similarly we can show that there is no affect which is directly contrary to this Love and by which it can be destroyed. So we can conclude that this Love is the most constant of all the affects, and insofar as it is related to the Body, cannot be destroyed, unless it is destroyed with the Body itself. What the nature of this Love is insofar as it is related only to the Mind, we shall see later.

And with this, I have covered all the remedies for the affects, or all that the Mind, considered only in itself, can do against the affects. From this it is clear that the power of the Mind over the affects consists: I. In the knowledge itself of the affects (see P4 S); II. In the fact that it separates the affects from the thought of an external cause, which we imagine confusedly (see P2 and P4 S); III. In the time by which the affections related to things we understand surpass those related to things we conceive confusedly, or in a mutilated way (see P7); IV. In the multiplicity of causes by which affections related to common properties or to God/Nature are encouraged (see P9 and P11); V. Finally,12 in the order by which the Mind can order its affects and connect them to one another (see P10, and in addition, P12, P13, and P14).

But to understand better this power of the Mind over the affects, the most important thing to note is that we call affects great when we compare the affect of one man with that of another, and see that the same affect troubles one more than the other, or when we compare the affects of one and the same man with each other, and find that he is affected, or moved, more by one affect than by another. For (by IVP5) the force of each affect is defined by the power of the external cause compared with our own. But the power of the Mind is defined by knowledge alone, whereas lack of power, or passion, is judged solely by the privation of knowledge, i.e., by that through which ideas are called inadequate.

From this it follows that that Mind is most acted on, of which inadequate ideas constitute the greatest part, so that it is distinguished more by what it undergoes than by what it does. On the other hand, that Mind acts most, of which adequate ideas constitute the greatest part, so that though it may have as many inadequate ideas as the other, it is still distinguished more by those which are attributed to human virtue than by those which betray man’s lack of power.

Next, it should be noted that sickness of the mind and misfortunes take their origin especially from too much Love toward a thing which is liable to many variations and which we can never fully possess. For no one is disturbed or anxious concerning anything unless he loves it, nor do wrongs, suspicions, and enmities arise except from Love for a thing which no one can really fully possess.

From what we have said, we easily conceive what clear and distinct knowledge—and especially that third kind of knowledge (see IIP47 S), whose foundation is the knowledge of God/Nature itself—can accomplish against the affects. Insofar as the affects are passions, if clear and distinct knowledge does not absolutely remove them (see P3 and P4 S), at least it brings it about that they constitute the smallest part of the Mind (see P14). And then it begets a Love toward a thing immutable and eternal (see P15), which we really fully possess (see IIP45), and which therefore cannot be tainted by any of the vices which are in ordinary Love, but can always be greater and greater (by P15), and occupy the greatest part of the Mind (by P16), and affect it extensively.

With this I have completed everything which concerns this present life. Anyone who attends to what we have said in this Scholium, and at the same time, to the definitions of the Mind and its affects, and finally to IIIP1 and P3, will easily be able to see what I said at the beginning of this Scholium, viz. that in these few words I have covered all the remedies for the affects. So it is time now to pass to those things which pertain to the Mind’s duration without relation to the body.