With regard to these two definitions, see the close of the preceding.

III. I call individual things contingent in so far as we discover
nothing, whilst we attend to their essence alone, which necessarily
posits their existence or which necessarily excludes it.

IV. I call these individual things possible, in so far as we are
ignorant, whilst we attend to the cause from which they must be
produced, whether these causes are determined to the production of these
things.

V. By contrary emotions, I understand in the following pages those
which, although they may be of the same kind, draw a man in different
directions; such as voluptuousness and avarice, which are both a species
of love, and are not contrary to one another by nature, but only by
accident.

VI. I here call a thing past or future in so far as we have been or
shall be affected by it; for example, in so far as we have seen a thing
or are about to see it, in so far as it has strengthened us or will
strengthen us, has injured or will injure us. For in so far as we thus
imagine it do we affirm its existence; that is to say, the body is
affected by no mode which excludes the existence of the thing, and
therefore the body is affected by the image of the thing in the same way
as if the thing itself were present. But because it generally happens
that those who possess much experience hesitate when they think of a
thing as past or future, and doubt greatly concerning its issue,
therefore the emotions which spring from such images of things are not
so constant, but are generally disturbed by the images of other things,
until men become more sure of the issue.

However, it is to be observed that it is the same with time as it is
with place; for as beyond a certain limit we can form no distinct
imagination of distance--that is to say, as we usually imagine all
objects to be equally distant from us, and as if they were on the same
plane, if their distance from us exceeds 200 feet, or if their distance
from the position we occupy is greater than we can distinctly
imagine--so we imagine all objects to be equally distant from the
present time, and refer them as if to one moment, if the period to which
their existence belongs is separated from the present by a longer
interval than we can usually imagine distinctly.

VII. By end for the sake of which we do anything, I understand appetite.

VIII. By virtue and power, I understand the same thing; that is to say,
virtue,