rather that there are none but
these three, which pass under names varying as their relations and
external signs vary. If, therefore, we attend to these primitive
emotions and to what has been said above about the nature of the mind,
we shall be able here to define the emotions in so far as they are
related to the mind alone.

_General definition of the emotions._--Emotion, which is called _animi
pathema_, is a confused idea by which the mind affirms of its body, or
any part of it, a greater or less power of existence than before; and
this increase of power being given, the mind itself is determined to one
particular thought rather than to another.

_Explanation._--I say, in the first place, that an emotion or passion of
the mind _is a confused idea_. For we have shown that the mind suffers
only in so far as it has inadequate or confused ideas. I say again, _by
which the mind affirms of its body, or any part of it, a greater or less
power of existence than before_. For all ideas which we possess of
bodies indicate the actual constitution of our body rather than the
nature of the external body; but this idea, which constitutes the form
of an emotion, must indicate or express the constitution of the body, or
of some part of it; which constitution the body or any part of it
possesses from the fact that its power of action or force of existence
is increased or diminished, helped or limited. But it is to be observed,
that when I say _a greater or less power of existence than before_, I do
not mean that the mind compares the present with the past constitution
of the body, but that the idea which constitutes the form of emotion
affirms something of the body which actually involves more or less
reality than before. Moreover, since the essence of the mind consists in
its affirmation of the actual existence of its body, and since we
understand by perfection the essence itself of the thing, it follows
that the mind passes to a greater or less perfection when it is able to
affirm of its body, or some part of it, something which involves a
greater or less reality than before. When, therefore, I have said that
the mind's power of thought is increased or diminished, I have wished to
be understood as meaning nothing else than that the mind has formed an
idea of its body, or some part of its body, which expresses more or less
reality than it had hitherto affirmed of the body. For the value of
ideas and the actual power of thought are m