Spinoza

FIRST PART OF GOD DEFINmONS 1. By cause of itself, I understand that, whose essence involves existence; or that, whose nature cannot be conceived unless existing. 2. That tiring is called finite in its own kind (insu-o genere) which can be limited by another thing of the same nature. For example, a body is called finite, because we always conceive another which is greater. So a thought is limited… Read the rest of this passage →

ETHICS FIRST PART OF GOD DEFINmONS 1. By cause of itself, I understand that, whose essence involves existence; or that, whose nature cannot be conceived unless existing. 2. That tiring is called finite in its own kind (insu-o genere) which can be limited by another thing of the same nature. For example, a body is called finite, because we always conceive another which is greater. So a thought is… Read the rest of this passage →

FIFTH PART OF THE POWER OF THE INTELLECT, OR OF HUMAN LIBERTY PREFACE I pass at length to the other part of Ethics which concerns the method or way which leads to liberty. In this part, therefore, I shall treat of the power of reason, showing how' much reason itself can control the affects, and then what is freedom of mind or blessedness. Thence we shall see how much stronger the wdse man is than… Read the rest of this passage →

FOURTH PART OF HUMAN BONDAGE OR OF THE STRENGTH OF THE AFFECTS PREFACE seems to have been the first signification of these words; but afterwards men began to The impotence of man to govern or restrain form universal ideas, to think out for themthe affects I call bondage, for a man who is selves types of houses, buildings, castles, and under their control is not his own master, but to prefer some… Read the rest of this passage →

SECOND PART OF THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND I PASS on now to explain those things which must necessarily follow from the essence of God or the Being eternal and infinite; not indeed to explain all these things, for we have demonstrated (Prop. 16, pt. 1) that an infinitude of things must follow in an infimte number of ways,—but to consider those things only which may conduct us as it were by… Read the rest of this passage →