Conatus
Conatus
The drive, force, or urge possessed by a thing which is directed towards the preservation of its own being. Since, for Spinoza, all things are animated, the term is used by him in a broader meaning than that accorded it, for example, in the Stoic philosophy. Spinoza maintains that there is no conatus for self-destruction (Ethica, III, 4; see also IV, 20 Schol., etc.); rather, the conatus relates to a thing’s “power of existence”, and he thus speaks of it as a kind of amour propre (natuurlyke Liefde) which characterizes a specific thing. See Short Tr., App. H. — W.S.W.