that the body is affected
with another modification, which excludes the existence of that object.
The emotion, therefore, which is related to an object which we
contemplate as absent, is not of such a nature as to overcome the other
actions and power of man, but, on the contrary, is of such a nature that
it can in some way be restrained by those modifications which exclude
the existence of its external cause. But the emotion which arises from
reason is necessarily related to the common properties of things, which
we always contemplate as present for nothing can exist which excludes
their present existence, and which we always imagine in the same way.
This emotion, therefore, always remains the same, and consequently the
emotions which are contrary to it, and which are not maintained by their
external cause, must more and more accommodate themselves to it until
they are no longer contrary to it. So far, therefore, the emotion which
springs from reason is the stronger.

A number of simultaneous causes can do more than if they were fewer, and
therefore the greater the number of the simultaneous causes by which an
emotion is excited, the greater it is.

An emotion is bad or injurious only in so far as it hinders the mind
from thinking and therefore that emotion by which the mind is determined
to the contemplation of a number of objects at the same time is less
injurious than another emotion equally great which holds the mind in the
contemplation of one object alone or of a few objects, so that it cannot
think of others. Again, since the essence of the mind, that is to say,
its power, consists in thought alone, the mind suffers less through an
emotion by which it is determined to the contemplation of a number of
objects at the same time than through an emotion equally great which
holds it occupied in the contemplation of one object alone or of a few
objects. Finally, this emotion, in so far as it is related to a number
of external causes, is therefore less towards each.

_The Power of the Intellect Over the Emotions_

I

_General Principles_

The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and
connection of things, and _vice versa_, the order and connection of
things is the same as the order and connection of ideas. Therefore, as
the order and connection of ideas in the mind is according to the order
and connection of the modifications of the body it follows _vice versa_,
that the order and connection of