ue of his being a thinking thing, and not by virtue of his
being displayed under any other attribute (II. vi.). That,
therefore, which determines the mind to thought is a mode of
thought, and not a mode of extension; that is (II. Def. i.), it
is not body. This was our first point. Again, the motion and
rest of a body must arise from another body, which has also been
determined to a state of motion or rest by a third body, and
absolutely everything which takes place in a body must spring
from God, in so far as he is regarded as affected by some mode of
extension, and not by some mode of thought (II. vi.); that is,
it cannot spring from the mind, which is a mode of thought. This
was our second point. Therefore body cannot determine mind, &c.
Q.E.D.
Note.--This is made more clear by what was said in the note to
II. vii., namely, that mind and body are one and the same thing,
conceived first under the attribute of thought, secondly, under
the attribute of extension. Thus it follows that the order or
concatenation of things is identical, whether nature be conceived
under the one attribute or the other; consequently the order of
states of activity and passivity in our body is simultaneous in
nature with the order of states of activity and passivity in the
mind. The same conclusion is evident from the manner in which we
proved II. xii.
Nevertheless, though such is the case, and though there be no
further room for doubt, I can scarcely believe, until the fact is
proved by experience, that men can be induced to consider the
question calmly and fairly, so firmly are they convinced that it
is merely at the bidding of the mind, that the body is set in
motion or at rest, or performs a variety of actions depending
solely on the mind's will or the exercise of thought. However,
no one has hitherto laid down the limits to the powers of the
body, that is, no one has as yet been taught by experience what
the body can accomplish solely by the laws of nature, in so far
as she is regarded as extension. No one hitherto has gained such
an accurate knowledge of the bodily mechanism, that he can
explain all its functions; nor need I call attention to the fact
that many actions are observed in the lower animals, which far
transcend human sagacity, and that somnambulists do many things
in their sleep, which they would not venture to do when awake:
these instances are enough to show, that the body can by the sole
laws of its nature d
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