Those whom he
conquers yield gladly, not from defect of strength, but from an increase
of it." {45a}
"Joy is the passion by which the mind passes to a greater perfection:
sorrow, on the other hand, is the passion by which it passes to a less
perfection." {45b} "No God and no human being, except an envious one,
is delighted by my impotence or my trouble, or esteems as any virtue in
us tears, sighs, fears, and other things of this kind, which are signs
of mental impotence; on the contrary, the greater the joy with which we
are affected, the greater the perfection to which we pass thereby; that
is to say, the more do we necessarily partake of the divine nature."
{46} It would be difficult to find an account of joy and sorrow which
is closer to the facts than that which Spinoza gives. He lived amongst
people Roman Catholic and Protestant who worshipped sorrow. Sorrow was
the divinely decreed law of life and joy was merely a permitted
exception. He reversed this order and his claim to be considered in
this respect as one of the great revolutionary religious and moral
reformers has not been sufficiently recognised.
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