Representations of things exhibited as good or bad for us are more extensively clear than representations of things not exhibited as good or bad for us.

The same can be demonstrated by this reasoning also: we represent more in those things which we represent as good and bad for us than if we do not so represent them; therefore representations of things which are confusedly exhibited as good or bad for us are extensively clearer than if they were not so displayed, hence they are more poetic. Now such representations are motions of the affects, hence to arouse affects is poetic. (Meditationes, §XXVI, pp. 24–6)