The Remaining Works of Benedictus de Spinoza

The second volume of Spinoza’s works, which we now communicate to the learned, contains the posthumous remains, first published under the title B. d. S. Opera Posthuma (the sequence of which is exhibited after the preface), 1677 (614 pages in quarto). It was published in such a way that, after the index of contents, there followed a Compendium of Hebrew Grammar of 112 pages. Our first volume anticipated the collection of letters, which in that first edition filled pages 395 through 614, so that the volumes might become quite equal. Everything else that remained is now carefully reprinted and brought to light anew.

Among these is the Ethics, a more copious and pure interpreter of the philosophy which, against the author’s will, is called Spinozistic, and which is to be pondered especially by the repeated meditations of wise men. The path by which the author progressed to discover this Ethics is discerned from the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, although it was not brought to an end. Having considered this, if anyone were to even very far abstain or shrink from the author’s principles, he would nevertheless not be able to fail to love the spirit...