The Remaining Works of Benedictus de Spinoza

This seems to happen, rather, only if those who use the intellect theoretically hold the law of the intellect, or the formal law of thinking, to be the unique law that also constitutes the existence indicated by thought. In this matter, therefore, it seems that it is not Philosophy that is to be blamed, but the Philosophers; let me be allowed to profess this freely, however much I am conscious of my own insignificance in philosophizing. Nor do I foresee that those who are less friends to themselves than they are to philosophy itself will be able to take this ill.

Regarding the literary history of the writings of Spinoza which are presented in this volume, far fewer things occur to be noted than for the previous part.

They were published only once under the title already mentioned. In the same form exists a portrait of the Philosopher engraved on copper, which is therefore not infrequently found prefixed to copies of this edition. Often, however, it is also absent, nor is it signified in the preface that it belongs to it. Enclosed in a double circle on a square base, it bears the name: BENEDICTUS DE SPINOZA, with three distichs, worthy neither of a Poet nor of a Philosopher:

To whom Nature, God, to whom the order of things was known,
In this state Spinoza was to be beheld.
Artists expressed the face of the man, but to paint the mind,
The hands of Zeuxis were not able.
That flourishes in his writings: there he treats of the sublime.
Whoever wishes to know him, read his writings.