Superphysics
Propositions 21 to 30
2 minutes • 417 words
Table of contents
21. This idea of the mind is united to the mind in the same way as the mind is united to the body.
Proof: The body is the object of the mind (2.12 and 2.13). This is why it is united to the body. Q.E.D.
Note: This proposition is comprehended much more clearly from what we have said in the note to 2.7.
We there showed that the idea of body and body, that is, mind and body (2.13), are one and the same individual conceived now under the attribute of thought, now under the attribute of extension.
Wherefore the idea of the mind and the mind itself are one and the same thing, which is conceived under one and the same attribute, namely, thought.
The idea of the mind, I repeat, and the mind itself are in God by the same necessity and follow from him from the same power of thinking.
Strictly speaking, the idea of the mind, that is, the idea of an idea, is nothing but the distinctive quality (forma) of the idea in so far as it is conceived as a mode of thought without reference to the object; if a man knows anything, he, by that very fact, knows that he knows it, and at the same time knows that he knows that he knows it, and so on to infinity. But I will treat of this hereafter. –>
22. The human mind perceives not only the modifications of the body, but also the ideas of such modifications.
- The mind does not know itself, except in so far as it perceives the ideas of the modifications of the body.
- The human mind does not involve an adequate knowledge of the parts composing the human body.
- The idea of each modification of the human body does not involve an adequate knowledge of the external body.
- The human mind does not perceive any external body as actually existing, except through the ideas of the modifications of its own body.
- The idea of each modification of the human body does not involve an adequate knowledge of the human body itself.
- The ideas of the modifications of the human body, in so far as they have reference only to the human mind, are not clear and distinct, but confused.
- The idea of the idea of each modification of the human body does not involve an adequate knowledge of the human mind.
- We can only have a very inadequate knowledge of the duration of our body.
