ent constitution of
the human body rather than the nature of the external object. An
emotion, therefore (by the general definition of the Emotions), is an
imagination in so far as it indicates the present constitution of the
body, and therefore the mind, only so long as the body exists, is
subject to emotions which are related to passions.

Hence it follows that no love except intellectual love is eternal.

If we look at the common opinion of men, we shall see that they are
indeed conscious of the eternity of their minds, but they confound it
with duration, and attribute it to imagination or memory, which they
believe remain after death.

God is not only the cause of the existence of this or that human body,
but also of its essence, which therefore must necessarily be conceived
through the essence of God itself and by a certain eternal necessity.
This conception, moreover, must necessarily exist in God. In God there
necessarily exists an idea which expresses the essence of this or that
human body under the form of eternity.

In God there necessarily exists a conception or idea which expresses the
essence of the human body. This conception or idea is therefore
necessarily something which pertains to the essence of the human mind.
But we ascribe to the human mind no duration which can be limited by
time, unless in so far as it expresses the actual existence of the body,
which is manifested through duration, and which can be limited by time,
that is to say, we cannot ascribe duration to the mind except while the
body exists.

But, nevertheless, since this something is that which is conceived by a
certain eternal necessity through the essence itself of God, this
something which pertains to the essence of the mind will necessarily be
eternal.

This idea which expresses the essence of the body under the form of
eternity is, as we have said, a certain mode of thought which pertains
to the essence of the mind, and is necessarily eternal. It is
impossible, nevertheless, that we should recollect that we existed
before the body, because there are no traces of any such existence in
the body, and also because eternity cannot be defined by time, or have
any relationship to it. Nevertheless we feel and know by experience that
we are eternal. For the mind is no less sensible of those things which
it conceives through intelligence than of those which it remembers, for
demonstrations are the eyes of the mind by which it sees and o