Éthique, Partie II, Proposition 30
We can only have a very inadequate knowledge of the duration of our body.
Démonstration
The duration of our body does not depend on its essence (II. Ax. i.), nor on the absolute nature of God (I. xxi.). But (I. xxviii.) it is conditioned to exist and operate by causes, which in their turn are conditioned to exist and operate in a fixed and definite relation by other causes, these last again being conditioned by others, and so on to infinity. The duration of our body therefore depends on the common order of nature, or the constitution of things. Now, however a thing may be constituted, the adequate knowledge of that thing is in God, in so far as he has the ideas of all things, and not in so far as he has the idea of the human body only. (II. ix. Coroll.) Wherefore the knowledge of the duration of our body is in God very inadequate, in so far as he is only regarded as constituting the nature of the human mind; that is (II. xi. Coroll.), this knowledge is very inadequate to our mind. Q.E.D.
Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics (Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata), traduit du latin par R. H. M. Elwes.
Publié pour la première fois dans The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza, vol. II (London : George Bell and Sons, 1884).
Cette traduction est tombée dans le domaine public aux États-Unis, où elle a été publiée en 1884, ainsi que partout où la durée du droit d'auteur est la vie de l'auteur plus 100 ans ou moins ; son traducteur est décédé en 1892.
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