  IIIp9 admits of various interpretations. However, the weight of the textual evidence supports the view that he is a predominant, not an orthodox, egoist. Any particular human desire, even a desire that is not a desire for perseverance in being or its means, must on Spinoza’s view be related to perseverance in being in some way (by IIIp6 and IIIp9s). Spinoza’s discussion of desires for things other than perseverance in being in passages such as IVp44s and IVp20 suggests moreover that such desires are part or product of confusion. So passionate desires, for Spinoza, are often desires for things other than perseverance in being, although they may be confused desires for perseverance as well (see IVp63s2 and other discussions of fear). Recent debates about whether the ends of human desire are really important to his psychological theory and about how Spinoza understands human consciousness are likely to lend further support to this view by showing how these passages and others like them may be reconciled with Spinoza’s more basic commitments in metaphysics and mind.