Introduction

The full title of the Ethics is Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order: like Euclid, Spinoza begins from definitions and axioms and derives proposition after proposition, with proofs and scholia. It has five parts: on God; on the nature and origin of the mind; on the origin and nature of the emotions; on human bondage, or the strength of the emotions; and on the power of the intellect, or human freedom. God, he argues, is Nature, the one substance, of which thought and extension are two attributes; everything happens of necessity, with neither chance nor divine will; we are slaves while ruled by the emotions, but by understanding the necessity of all things through reason we can attain freedom and 'the intellectual love of God'. It could not be published in his lifetime and was brought out anonymously by friends after his death.