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As love tends towards the good of the thing beloved,
either by taking delight in it if the beloved have
it, or in desiring and procuring it for him if he
have it not; so it produces hatred, by which it flies
the evil which is contrary to the thing beloved,
either by desiring and seeking to remove it if it be
there, or by keeping it off and preventing its coming
if it be not there.
But if evil can neither be hindered from
approaching, nor be removed, love at least fails not
to have it hated and detested. When love therefore is
fervent, and is come to that height that it would
take away, remove and divert, what is opposite to the
thing beloved, it is termed zeal. So that, to
describe it properly, zeal is no other thing than
love in its ardour, or rather the ardour that is in
love. A
nd therefore, such as the love is, such is the
zeal, which is its ardour. If the love be good its
zeal is good, if the love be bad its zeal is bad. Now
when I speak of zeal, I mean to speak of jealousy
too: for jealousy is a species of zeal, and if I am
not mistaken, there is but this difference between
them, that zeal regards the whole good of the thing
beloved, with the intention of removing the contrary
evil from it, and jealousy regards the particular
good of the friendship, that it may repulse all that
opposes that.
When therefore we ardently love worldly and temporal
things, beauty, honours, riches, rank, - this zeal,
that is the ardour of this love, ends ordinarily in
envy: because these base and vile things are so
little, limited, particular, finite and imperfect,
that being possessed by one, another cannot entirely
possess them. So that being communicated to many,
each one in particular has a less perfect
communication of them.
But when, in particular, we ardently love to be
beloved, the zeal or ardour of this love turns into
jealousy ; because human friendship, though otherwise
a virtue, has this imperfection by reason of our
weakness, that being divided amongst many, each one's
part is less.
Whereupon our ardour or zeal to be beloved will
not permit rivals or companions; and if we imagine we
have any, we immediately enter into the passion of
jealousy, which indeed in some sort resembles envy,
but in reality is very different from it.
1. Envy is always unjust, but jealousy is
sometimes just, if it be moderate: for have not
married people good reason to hinder their friendship
from being diminished by being shared?
2. Envy makes us sorry that our neighbour enjoys a
greater good than, or a like good with, ourselves;
although he is taking from us nothing that we have;
and here envy is unreasonable, making us consider our
neighbour's good to be our ill. But jealousy is not
grieved at our neighbour's having some good provided
that it is not our good: for the jealous man does not
grieve at his fellow's being beloved by other women
so long as he is not loved by the jealous man's wife;
indeed, properly speaking, one is not jealous of a
rival until one belives that one has gained the
friendship of the person loved: if there be any
passion before that, it is not jealousy but envy.
3. We do not presuppose any imperfection in the
person we envy, but on the contrary we consider that
he has the good which we envy in him: but we
presuppose that the person of whom we are jealous is
imperfect, fickle, changeable and easily led away.
4. Jealousy proceeds from love, envy comes from
the defect of love.
5. Jealousy never happens but in matter of love,
but envy is extended to all kinds of goods - honours,
favours, beauty. And if at any time one be envious of
the affection which is borne to another, it is not
for love, but for the fruits that spring from it. The
envious man is little troubled to see his fellow in
favour with his prince, so that he be not on
occasions graced and preferred by him.
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