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Ethics, Part III, Definition 3

By emotion I mean the modifications of the body, whereby the active power of the said body is increased or diminished, aided or constrained, and also the ideas of such modifications. N.B. If we can be the adequate cause of any of these modifications, I then call the emotion an activity, otherwise I call it a passion, or state wherein the mind is passive.

Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics (Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata), translated from the Latin by R. H. M. Elwes.

First published in The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza, vol. II (London: George Bell and Sons, 1884).

This translation is out of copyright in the United States, where it was published in 1884, and wherever the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or less; its translator died in 1892.

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Digital text: Project Gutenberg eBook #3800

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