If we conceive that anyone loves, desires, or hates anything which we ourselves love, desire, or hate, we shall thereupon regard the thing in question with more steadfast love, &c.

On the contrary, if we think that anyone shrinks from something that we love, we shall undergo vacillations of soul.
Proof .-- From the mere fact of conceiving that anyone loves anything we shall ourselves love that thing (III.

xxvii.): but we are assumed to love it already; there is, therefore, a new cause of love, whereby our former emotion is fostered; hence we shall thereupon love it more steadfastly.

Again, from the mere fact of conceiving that anyone shrinks from anything, we shall ourselves shrink from that thing (III.

xxvii.).