P36: The Mind’s intellectual Love of God/Nature is the very Love of God/Nature by which God/Nature loves himself, not insofar as he is infinite, but insofar as he can be explained by the human Mind’s essence, considered under a species of eternity; i.e., the Mind’s intellectual Love of God/Nature is part of the infinite Love by which God/Nature loves himself.

Dem.: This Love the Mind has must be related to its actions (by P32 C and IIIP3); it is, then, an action by which the Mind contemplates itself, with the accompanying idea of God/Nature as its cause (by P32 and P32 C), i.e. (by IP25 C and IIP11 C), an action by which God/Nature, insofar as he can be explained through the human Mind, contemplates himself, with the accompanying idea of himself {as the cause}; so (by P35), this Love the Mind has is part of the infinite love by which God/Nature loves himself, q.e.d.

Cor.: From this it follows that insofar as God/Nature loves himself, he loves men, and consequently that God/Nature’s love of men and the Mind’s intellectual Love of God/Nature are one and the same.

Schol.: From this we clearly understand wherein our salvation/freedom, or blessedness/flourishing, or Freedom, consists, viz. in a constant and eternal Love of God/Nature, or in God/Nature’s Love for men. And this Love, or blessedness/flourishing, is called Glory in the Sacred Scriptures—not without reason.

For whether this Love is related to God/Nature or to the Mind, it can rightly be called satisfaction of mind, which is really not distinguished from Glory (by Defs. Aff. XXV and XXX). For insofar as it is related to God/Nature (by P35), it is Joy (if I may still be permitted to use this term), accompanied by the idea of himself {as its cause}. And similarly insofar as it is related to the Mind (by P27).

Again, because the essence of our Mind consists only in knowledge, of which God/Nature is the beginning and foundation (by IP15 and IIP47 S), it is clear to us how our Mind, with respect both to essence and existence, follows from the divine/universal nature, and continually depends on God/Nature.

I thought this worth the trouble of noting here, in order to show by this example how much the knowledge of singular things I have called intuitive, or knowledge of the third kind (see IIP40 S2), can accomplish, and how much more powerful it is than the universal knowledge I have called knowledge of the second kind. For although I have shown generally in Part I that all things (and consequently the human Mind also) depend on God/Nature both for their essence and their existence, nevertheless, that demonstration, though legitimate and put beyond all chance of doubt, still does not affect our Mind as much as when this is inferred from the very essence of any singular thing which we say depends on God/Nature.