The Remaining Works of Benedictus de Spinoza

He had perceived that the knowledge of the union which the mind has with the whole of nature was necessary for himself to understand the true good. But I wish the philosopher had begun his science from the very knowledge of this mind, indeed by separating those things which he discovered in his own mind to be subject to variations from the necessary and universal ideas which shine forth as a beacon to a man investigating the true good—that is, to one about to follow the dictates of practical reason and its absolutes, and who would most gladly embrace not that prudence accommodated to vain and fleeting circumstances, but sanctity, not to be changed for eternity, as the Apostle says (1 John 2:17). But the method of that age was different. The inveterate custom was that a beginning must always be made from establishing metaphysics, that the Being of things must always be explained before all else, a habit almost transferred to Spinoza from Descartes. The knowledge of our mind leads to God through necessary arguments. But mortals who have the power to ascend from the former to the latter do not descend from the infinite to the finite with equal success. They make their start from that which, because it is more remote from our cognition, human imagination thinks it can grasp more easily than reason can. Once this is done, if an error has been admitted in the metaphysical treatment of the Infinite, it is both detected with great difficulty and yet insinuates itself subtly into all the remaining articles of the system. Therefore, having become more cautious from the earlier perils of those who philosophize, they have taught more correctly and happily that all moral doctrine should be independent of metaphysical dogmas, deduced from that which