Key Arguments

• From any given essence necessary consequences follow, and a thing has no power beyond what follows from its determined nature; thus its endeavor to persist just is its essence in act.
• Links I.xxxvi and I.xxix to III.vi: the power or endeavor whereby a thing acts or strives to persist equals its given or actual essence.

Source Quotes

Therefore, in so far as it can, and in so far as it is in itself, it endeavours to persist in its own being. Q.E.D. PROP. VII. The endeavour, wherewith everything endeavours to persist in its own being, is nothing else but the actual essence of the thing in question. Proof.—From the given essence of any thing certain consequences necessarily follow (I. xxxvi.), nor have things any power save such as necessarily follows from their nature as determined (I. xxix.); wherefore the power of any given thing, or the endeavour whereby, either alone or with other things, it acts, or endeavours to act, that is (III. vi.), the power or endeavour, wherewith it endeavours to persist in its own being, is nothing else but the given or actual essence of the thing in question.

The endeavour, wherewith everything endeavours to persist in its own being, is nothing else but the actual essence of the thing in question. Proof.—From the given essence of any thing certain consequences necessarily follow (I. xxxvi.), nor have things any power save such as necessarily follows from their nature as determined (I. xxix.); wherefore the power of any given thing, or the endeavour whereby, either alone or with other things, it acts, or endeavours to act, that is (III. vi.), the power or endeavour, wherewith it endeavours to persist in its own being, is nothing else but the given or actual essence of the thing in question. Q.E.D. PROP.

Key Concepts

• PROP. VII. The endeavour, wherewith everything endeavours to persist in its own being, is nothing else but the actual essence of the thing in question.
• the power of any given thing, or the endeavour whereby, either alone or with other things, it acts, or endeavours to act, that is (III. vi.), the power or endeavour, wherewith it endeavours to persist in its own being, is nothing else but the given or actual essence of the thing in question.

Context

Ethics, Part III, Proposition VII with Proof (lines 1877–2008); identification of conatus with essence