timelets

“IV. (9) 

The understanding 
                   forms positive ideas 
              before 
                  forming negative ideas.

V. (108:10) 

It perceives things not so much under the condition
   of duration as under a certain form of eternity, and in an
   infinite number; or rather in perceiving things it does not
   consider either their number or duration, whereas, in imagining
   them, it perceives them in a determinate number, duration, and quantity.”

[30:2]
...we must first take care  not to commit ourselves to a search, going back to infinity - that is, 

in order to discover 
                     the best method 
of finding truth, there is
               no need of another method 
               to discover such method; 
nor of a third method 
for discovering the second, 
                and so on to infinity. 

(3) By such proceedings, we should never arrive at the knowledge of the truth, or, indeed, at any knowledge at all.

An emotion, 
          which is a passion, 
                      is a confused idea 

(by the general Def. of the Emotions). 

If, therefore, 
             we form a clear 
                     and distinct idea 
                             of a given emotion, 
that idea 
         will only be distinguished 
                                from the emotion, 
in so far as 
          it is referred 
                       to the mind only, 
                                       by reason 
(II. xxi., and note); 

therefore (III. iii.), 
                   the emotion will cease to be 
                                           a passion. Q.E.D.

Corollary—

An emotion therefore becomes 
more under our control, 
and the mind 
is less passive 
in respect to it, 
in proportion 
as it is more 
known to us.

We may easily proceed
               thus to infinity, 
                                  and conceive 
             
the whole of nature 
                     as one individual,

whose parts,
that is, 
            all bodies, 
                        vary in infinite ways, 
without any change 
                     in the individual 
                                      as a whole. 

Hence it follows, 
             that the human mind 
is part of the infinite 
             intellect of God; 

thus when we say, that 
           the human mind perceives this or that, 
                     we make the assertion, that 
God has this or that idea, 

not in so far as he is infinite, 
                           but 
in so far as he is 
              displayed through the nature of the human mind, 
or in so far as 

he constitutes the essence 
                 of the human mind; 

and when we say that 
             God has this or that idea, 
not only in so far as 
           he constitutes the essence of the human mind, 

but also in so far as 
           he, simultaneously with the human mind, 
                       has the further idea of another thing, 

we assert that 
the human mind perceives a thing 
           in part or inadequately.


--- Spinoza, The Ethics. Part II, Prop XI, Corollary. 

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm#chap02

A thing is called necessary either in respect to its essence or in respect to its cause; for the existence of a thing necessarily follows, either from its essence and definition, or from a given efficient cause. For similar reasons a thing is said to be impossible; namely, inasmuch as its essence or definition involves a contradiction, or because no external cause is granted, which is conditioned to produce such an effect; but a thing can in no respect be called contingent, save in relation to the imperfection of our knowledge.

A thing of which we do not know whether the essence does or does not involve a contradiction, or of which, knowing that it does not involve a contradiction, we are still in doubt concerning the existence, because the order of causes escapes us,—such a thing, I say, cannot appear to us either necessary or impossible. Wherefore we call it contingent or possible.

-- Benedict de Spinoza. Ethics, Part I, PROP. XXXIII.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm#chap01