The other internal sense, which embraces all the emotions
(COMMOTIONES) of the mind or passions, and affections, as joy,
sadness, love, hate, and the like, depends upon the nerves which
extend to the heart and the parts about the heart, and are
exceedingly small; for, by way of example, when the blood happens to
be pure and well tempered, so that it dilates in the heart more
readily and strongly than usual, this so enlarges and moves the
small nerves scattered around the orifices, that there is thence a
corresponding movement in the brain, which affects the mind with a
certain natural feeling of joy; and as often as these same nerves
are moved in the same way, although this is by other causes, they
excite in our mind the same feeling (sensus, sentiment). Thus, the
imagination of the enjoyment of a good does not contain in itself
the feeling of joy, but it causes the animal spirits to pass from
the brain to the muscles in which these nerves are inserted; and
thus dilating the orifices of the heart, it also causes these small
nerves to move in the way appointed by nature to afford the
sensation of joy.
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