Desire Is The Very Essence Of

From Part III of the Ethics (1677), Proposition 57 and its surrounding scholium. For Baruch Spinoza, conatus — the drive of each thing to persist and expand in its own being — is the fundamental law of nature. In humans this universal striving expresses itself as desire (cupiditas), making desire not a corruption to be suppressed but the very engine of human life. This view placed Spinoza in sharp contrast with ascetic traditions in both Christianity and Neoplatonism.