Those affections and perceptions are
rendered substantial; for substances are their subjects. Since therefore
the human form is compounded of these, it is evident that, if the love
is assaulted, this universal form also, with everything therein, is
assaulted at the same instant, or together with it. And as the desire to
continue in its form is implanted from creation in all living things,
therefore this principle operates in every general compound by
derivation from the singulars of which it is compounded, and in the
singulars by derivation from the general compound: hence when the love
is assaulted, it defends itself by its understanding, and the
understanding (defends itself) by rational and imaginative principles,
whereby it represents to itself the event; especially by such as act in
unity with the love which is assaulted: and unless this was the case the
above form would wholly fall to pieces, in consequence of the privation
of that love. Hence then it is that love, in order to resist assaults,
hardens the substance of its form, and sets them erect, as it were in
crests, like so many sharp prickles, that is, crisps itself; such is the
provoking of love which is called zeal: wherefore if there is no
opportunity of resistance, there arise anxiety and grief, because it
foresees the extinction of interior life with its delights.
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