"This love to God cannot be defiled either by the effect of envy or
jealousy, but is the more strengthened the more people we imagine to be
connected with God by the same bond of love."

The proof of the first of these propositions, using language somewhat
different from that of the text, is as follows:- There is no affection
of the body of which the mind cannot form some clear and distinct
conception, that is to say, of everything perceived it is capable of
forming a clear and adequate idea, not exhaustive, as Spinoza is careful
to warn us, but an idea not distorted by our personality, and one which
is in accordance with the thing itself, adequate as far as it goes.
Newton's perception that the moon perpetually falls to the earth by the
same numerical law under which a stone falls to it was an adequate
perception. "Therefore," continues the demonstration (quoting the
fifteenth proposition of the first part--"Whatever is, is in God, and
nothing can either be or be conceived without God"), "the mind can cause
all the affections of the body to be related to the idea of God."
Spinoza, having arrived at his adequate idea thus takes a further step
to the idea of God. What is perceived is not an isolated external
phenomenon. It is a reality in God: it IS God: there is nothing more
to be thought or said of God than the affirmation of such realities as
these. The "relation to the idea of God" means that in the affirmation
He is affirmed. "Nothing," that is to say, no reality "can be conceived
without God."

But it is possible for the word "love" to be applied to the relationship
between man and God. He who has a clear and adequate perception passes
to greater perfection, and therefore rejoices. Joy, accompanied with
the idea of a cause, is love. By the fourteenth proposition this joy is
accompanied by the idea of God as its cause, and therefore love to God