Perfection
perfectio (latin scolastique)
Spinoza strips the word of all moral judgment: *"by reality and by perfection I mean the same thing."* To be more perfect is not to conform to a model, but to have more reality, more being, more power. Perfection is not a standard to reach—it is a degree of existence.
Par réalité et par perfection j'entends la même chose.
Here’s the translation, preserving all Markdown, links, italics, and symbols while staying faithful to the original tone:
The definition is stark and upends all common usage. For common sense, “perfect” means conforming to a model: a house is perfect when it fulfills the architect’s plan. In the preface to Book IV, Spinoza dismantles this prejudice: perfection and imperfection “are, in reality, nothing but modes of thought”—notions we forge by comparing individuals to a general model that nature itself ignores.
All that remains is the sole real perfection: the quantity of being. “To the extent that we find some things possess more entity or reality than others, we say they are more perfect.” The more a thing is, the more perfect it is—full stop.
This is what makes the definitions of joy and sadness as passages from one perfection to another intelligible: it’s not a shift in moral value, but a shift in degree of reality.