The Remaining Works of Benedict de Spinoza

The second volume of Spinoza’s works, which we now share with the learned, contains posthumous remnants. It was first published under the title B. d. S. Opera Posthuma (Amsterdam, 1677, 614 pages in quarto), arranged such that the Compendium of Hebrew Grammar (112 pages) followed the index of subjects. Our previous volume anticipated the collection of letters, which in that first edition occupied pages 395 to 614, so that the volumes might be sufficiently equal. All other remaining works now appear, carefully re-edited and brought to light.

Among these is the Ethics, a more copious and pure interpreter of the philosophy which, against the author’s will, is called Spinozism the philosophy of Spinoza. It is especially to be weighed by the repeated meditations of wise men. The path by which the author progressed toward discovering this Ethics is discerned from the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, although it was not brought to a conclusion. Having considered this, if anyone is even very far from the author's principles...