The Works of Benedictus de Spinoza

A large, bold initial letter P begins the first paragraph.

The second volume of the Works of Spinoza, which we now share with the learned, contains the posthumous remains, first published under the title B. d. S. Opera Posthuma (the series of which is exhibited after the preface), in the year 1677 (614 pages in quarto), edited in such a way that, after the index of subjects, there follows a Compendium of Hebrew Grammar of 112 pages. Our first volume anticipated the collection of letters, which in that first edition fills pages 395 through 614, so that the volumes might be made sufficiently equal. The rest that remained has now been carefully reprinted and brought to light anew.

Among these is the Ethics, a more extensive and purer interpreter of the philosophy which, against the author's will, is called Spinozistic, and which is to be weighed especially through the repeated meditations of wiser men. The way by which the author progressed toward discovering this Ethics is perceived from the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, although it was not brought to a conclusion. When this is considered, even if one were very far removed from the principles of the author