Propositions 21 to 28

21. The mind can only imagine anything, or remember what is past, while the body endures.

22. Nevertheless in God there is necessarily an idea, which expresses the essence of this or that human body under the form of eternity. Proof= God is the cause of the existence of this or that human body and also of its essence (1.25.).

Therefore, this essence must necessarily=

• be conceived through the very essence of God (1. Ax. 4), and
• be thus conceived by a certain eternal necessity (1. 16.).

This conception must necessarily exist in God (2.3.). Q.E.D.

23. The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but there remains of it something which is eternal.

Note: This idea, which expresses the essence of the body under the form of eternity, is, as we have said, a certain mode of thinking, which belongs to the essence of the mind, and is necessarily eternal. Yet it is not possible that we should remember that we existed before our body, for our body can bear no trace of such existence, neither can eternity be defined in terms of time, or have any relation to time. But, notwithstanding, we feel and know that we are eternal. For the mind feels those things that it conceives by understanding, no less than those things that it remembers.

For the eyes of the mind, whereby it sees and observes things, are none other than proofs. Thus, although we do not remember that we existed before the body, yet 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 thus its existence cannot be defined in terms of time, or explained through duration. Thus our mind can only be said to endure, and its existence can only be defined by a fixed time, in so far as it involves the actual existence of the body. Thus far only has it the power of determining the existence of things by time, and conceiving them under the category of duration.

24. The more we understand particular things, the more do we understand God.

25. The highest endeavour of the mind, and the highest virtue is to understand things by the third kind of knowledge.

26. In proportion as the mind is more capable of understanding things by the third kind of knowledge, it desires more to understand things by that kind.

27. From this third kind of knowledge arises the highest possible mental acquiescence.

28. The desire to know things by intuition cannot arise from the imagination, but from reason. Proof= This proposition is self-evident.

Whatsoever we understand clearly and distinctly, we understand=

• through itself, or
• through that which is conceived through itself.

Ideas which are clear and distinct in us, or which are referred to intuition (2.40. note. 2.) cannot follow from ideas that are fragmentary and confused, and are referred to imagination, but must follow from adequate ideas, or ideas of reason and intuition.

Therefore (Def. of the Emotions, 1), the desire of knowing things by intuition cannot arise from the imagination, but from reason.