Ethik, Teil III, Lehrsatz 12
The mind, as far as it can, endeavours to conceive those things, which increase or help the power of activity in the body.
Beweis
So long as the human body is affected in a mode, which involves the nature of any external body, the human mind will regard that external body as present (II. xvii.), and consequently (II. vii.), so long as the human mind regards an external body as present, that is (II. xvii. note), conceives it, the human body is affected in a mode, which involves the nature of the said external body; thus so long as the mind conceives things, which increase or help the power of activity in our body, the body is affected in modes which increase or help its power of activity (III. Post. i.); consequently (III. xi.) the mind's power of thinking is for that period increased or helped. Thus (III. vi., ix.) the mind, as far as it can, endeavours to imagine such things. Q.E.D.
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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