Will, Health, Exercise

In the Preface to Part V of the Ethics, Spinoza defines the method of perfecting physical performance as 'Medicine'. In contrast, Plato, in the Gorgias, proposes that two arts are devoted to physical well-being--Medicine and Gymnastics. The contrast emphasizes the incapacity of Spinoza's system to express that even simple physiological exercise, of which Gymnastics is a refinement, is of value beyond the recovery of health, and, furthermore, beyond the mere maintenance of health, as is demonstrated by strength-increasing physical exercise. The distinction between exercise, and the recovery/maintenance of health, illustrates Will, i. e. Motility, as an excess with respect to a given physical condition, an excess which, as is demonstrated by Gymnastic competitions, is nevertheless amenable, as such, to evaluation. In other words, the characterization 'beyond good and evil', with respect to Spinoza's system, corresponds primarily to the limitations of his perfectionism.