Ética, Parte III, Proposição 42
He who has conferred a benefit on anyone from motives of love or honour will feel pain, if he sees that the benefit is received without gratitude.
Demonstração
When a man loves something similar to himself, he endeavours, as far as he can, to bring it about that he should be loved thereby in return (III. xxxiii.). Therefore he who has conferred a benefit confers it in obedience to the desire, which he feels of being loved in return; that is (III. xxxiv.) from the hope of honour or (III. xxx. note) pleasure; hence he will endeavour, as far as he can, to conceive this cause of honour, or to regard it as actually existing. But, by the hypothesis, he conceives something else, which excludes the existence of the said cause of honour: wherefore he will thereat feel pain (III. xix.). Q.E.D.
Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics (Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata), traduzido do latim por R. H. M. Elwes.
Primeira publicação em The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza, vol. II (London: George Bell and Sons, 1884).
Esta tradução está em domínio público nos Estados Unidos, onde foi publicada em 1884, e em todos os lugares onde o prazo de direitos autorais é a vida do autor mais 100 anos ou menos; seu tradutor morreu em 1892.
As divisões das unidades, os títulos e a colocação das notas são deste site.
Texto digital: Project Gutenberg eBook #3800