Ethik, Teil II, Lehrsatz 45
Every idea of every body, or of every particular thing actually existing, necessarily involves the eternal and infinite essence of God.
Beweis
The idea of a particular thing actually existing necessarily involves both the existence and the essence of the said thing (II. viii.). Now particular things cannot be conceived without God (I. xv.); but, inasmuch as (II. vi.) they have God for their cause, in so far as he is regarded under the attribute of which the things in question are modes, their ideas must necessarily involve (I. Ax. iv.) the conception of the attributes of those ideas--that is (I. vi.), the eternal and infinite essence of God. Q.E.D.
Anmerkung
By existence I do not here mean duration--that is, existence in so far as it is conceived abstractedly, and as a certain form of quantity. I am speaking of the very nature of existence, which is assigned to particular things, because they follow in infinite numbers and in infinite ways from the eternal necessity of God's nature (I. xvi.). I am speaking, I repeat, of the very existence of particular things, in so far as they are in God. For although each particular thing be conditioned by another particular thing to exist in a given way, yet the force whereby each particular thing perseveres in existing follows from the eternal necessity of God's nature (cf. I. xxiv. Coroll.).
Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics (Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata), aus dem Lateinischen übersetzt von R. H. M. Elwes.
Erstmals veröffentlicht in The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza, Bd. II (London: George Bell and Sons, 1884).
Diese Übersetzung ist gemeinfrei in den Vereinigten Staaten, wo sie im Jahr 1884 erschienen ist, und überall dort, wo die Schutzfrist des Urheberrechts die Lebenszeit des Urhebers plus 100 Jahre oder weniger beträgt; ihr Übersetzer starb im Jahr 1892.
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Digitaler Text: Project Gutenberg eBook #3800