y. Those who pretend
otherwise and invent locations of the soul, usually excite derision and
disgust.

When we look at the sun and imagine it to be immensely nearer to us than
it really is, the error arises from the manner in which the essence of
the sun affects the body, not merely from the exercise of the
imagination.

_Mutual Influences_

The more things the body possesses in common with other bodies, the more
things will the mind be adapted to perceive. The human mind possesses
an adequate knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God. But
the reason why men have not a knowledge of God as clear as that which
they have of common notions is that they cannot imagine God as they can
imagine bodies, and because they have attached the name of God to the
images of things they are accustomed to see. This they can hardly avoid,
because they are constantly affected by external bodies. And, indeed
most errors arise from our application to the wrong names of things.

For if some one says that the lines drawn from the centre to the
circumference of a circle are unequal, it is because he understands by a
circle something different from what we understand by the
mathematicians. I did not reckon a man to be in error whom I recently
heard complaining that his court has flown into one of his neighbour's
fowls for I understand what he meant.

In the mind there is no absolutely free will. The mind is determined to
this or that volition by a cause, which is determined by another cause,
and so on _ad infinitum_. The will and intellect are one and the same.
We are partakers of the divine nature in proportion as we more and more
understand God and conform our actions to his will. Our highest
happiness consists in this conformity, by which alone the soul finds
repose. Those greatly err from the true estimate of virtue who expect to
be rewarded for it, as though virtue and the service of God were our
felicity itself and the highest liberty.

_III.--Concerning Mental Affections_

The actions of the mind arise from adequate ideas alone; but the
passions depend on those alone which are inadequate. The essence of the
mind is composed of adequate and inadequate ideas. Joy is a passion by
which the mind passes to a greater degree of perfection; sorrow is a
passion by which it passes to a lesser degree.

Accidentally anything may be the cause of joy, sorrow, or desire. We
love or hate certain things not from any known cause, bu