“ No individual thing, which is entirely different from our own nature, can help or check our power of activity, and absolutely nothing can do us good or harm, unless it has something in common with our nature. ”
Baruch Spinoza, Ethics (1677). copy citation
| Author | Baruch Spinoza |
|---|---|
| Source | Ethics |
| Topic | power activity |
| Date | 1677 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by R. H. M. Elwes |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm |
Context
“The mind's absolute virtue is therefore to understand. Now, as we have already shown, the highest that the mind can understand is God; therefore the highest virtue of the mind is to understand or to know God. Q.E.D.
PROP. XXIX. No individual thing, which is entirely different from our own nature, can help or check our power of activity, and absolutely nothing can do us good or harm, unless it has something in common with our nature.
Proof.—The power of every individual thing, and consequently the power of man, whereby he exists and operates, can only be determined by an individual thing (I. xxviii.) , whose nature (II. vi.) must be understood through the same nature as that, through which human nature is conceived.”
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