bserves
things.

Although, therefore, we do not recollect that we existed before the
body, we feel that our mind, in so far as it involves the essence of the
body under the form of eternity, is eternal, and that this existence of
the mind cannot be limited by time nor manifested through duration. Only
in so far, therefore, as it involves the actual existence of the body
can the mind be said to possess duration, and its existence be limited
by a fixed time, and so far only has it the power of determining the
existence of things in time, and of conceiving them under the form of
duration.

II

In so far as the mind conceives the present existence of its body does
it conceive duration which can be determined in time, and so far only
has it the power of conceiving things in relation to time. But eternity
cannot be manifested through duration, therefore the mind so far has not
the power of conceiving things under the form of eternity: but because
it is the nature of reason to conceive things under the form of
eternity, and because it also pertains to the nature of the mind to
conceive the essence of the body under the form of eternity, and
excepting these two things nothing else pertains to the nature of the
mind, therefore this power of conceiving things under the form of
eternity does not pertain to the mind except in so far as it conceives
the essence of the body under the form of eternity.

Things are conceived by us as actual in two ways; either in so far as we
conceive them to exist with relation to a fixed time and place, or in so
far as we conceive them to be contained in God, and to follow from the
necessity of the divine nature. But those things which are conceived in
this second way as true or real we conceive under the form of eternity,
and their ideas involve the eternal and infinite essence of God.

The mind conceives nothing under the form of eternity, unless in so far
as it conceives the essence of its body under the form of eternity, that
is to say, unless in so far as it is eternal. Therefore in so far as the
mind is eternal it has a knowledge of God, which is necessarily
adequate, and therefore in so far as it is eternal it is fitted to know
all those things which can follow from this knowledge of God, that is to
say, it is fitted to know things by the third kind of knowledge of
which, in so far as the mind is eternal, it is the adequate or formal
cause.

As each person therefore becomes stronger