  Several points about this passage need comment. First, while by “representation” (Vorstellung) here Mendelssohn means a mental state that represents something other than itself and not an external object such as a painting or a poem that depicts or describes something, a mental representation can of course indirectly represent an external object that is not directly present to it but is indirectly presented to it by an external representation such as a painting or a poem which is its direct external object, and that is indeed how artistic representation typically works. Second, while Mendelssohn here refers to a mental representation as a “determination” (Bestimmung) or property of the mind, his further discussion suggests that he is actually thinking of representation as a kind of mental activity, an activity involving our capacities for both knowing and desiring, and that we enjoy representation because we enjoy mental activity. Thus he continues that while “elements of perfection” in a thing are “satisfying and comfortable to us” while “elements of imperfection…are perceived with dissatisfaction,”