Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/200

192 but the other, by which it sees things beyond itself by a certain intuition and reception (of the objects of its vision).&emsp;*&emsp;*&emsp;*&emsp;And the former, indeed, is the vision of intellect replete with wisdom; but the latter of intellect inflamed with love;” Notice that it is intellect that has the quality of love that is the power by which it soars as upon wings into ecstatic union with the good, the highest blessedness according to the Neoplatonists and Mrs. Eddy as we shall see. He works the subject out carefully and at length, comparing and contrasting this intellectual love of the beautiful and the good with the earthly love or passion of lovers.

Spinoza speaks often of “intellectual love,” which, he says, is “a love towards a thing immutable and eternal,” “springs from the third kind of knowledge” or understanding and “must be referred to the mind in so far as the latter is active,” or in so far as the mind is non-passive; that is, it is a love that must be considered not as affection but as intellectuality.

We now turn our attention to certain applications of the psychological principles that we have discovered in Christian Science and Neoplatonism. Their value in the argument we are making lies in the fact that they are logical applications and