Synopses & Reviews
Ethics Preceded by On the Improvement of the Understanding by BENEDICT DE SPINOZA Edited with an Introduction by JAMES GUTMANN Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University 1954 HAFNER PUBLISHING COMPANY NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1949 HAFNER PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC, Published at 31 East Tenth Street, New York 3, N. Y Printed in the United States of America NOBLE OFFSET PRINTING CO. NEW YORK 3, NEW YORK CONTENTS PAGE NOTE ON THE EDITION .-vii EDITORS INTRODUCTION Ix SPINOZA, BY FREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE . xxlli SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY xxxv ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE UNDERSTANDING 3 ETHICS P H A A I. OF GOD . Sk 3 V-. k - l p. X 41 II. OF THE NATUKE AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND . . g III. ON THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE EMOTIONS . 127 IV. OF HUMAN BONDAGE OR OF THE STRENGTH OF THE EMOTIONS 187 V. OF THE POWER OF THE INTELLECT OR OF HUMAN FREEDOM 252 INDEX 281 NOTE ON THE EDITION This edition of Spinozas works has been prepared on the basis of many years experience reading the texts not only with classes in ethics but also with beginning students in philosophy including students in the general Humanities course in Columbia College during the last decade. That Spinoza can be read by beginners in philosophy and that, despite technical difficulties, he can be approached directly in the context of the humanistic tradition of Western literature may seem surprising to those who have not made the attempt, There are, of course, difficulties. But we can without triviality paraphrase the conclusion of the Ethics If the way seem difficult it can nevertheless be found. ... But all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare. Of Spinoza it is probably more true than of any other philosopher that his thoughtcannot be divorced from his life and character without grave risks of total misapprehension. So wrote Professor A. Wolf in his edition of The Oldest Biography of Spinoza 7 and the Intro duction to this volume was written with this conviction in mind. One of the satisfactions of planning this volume was provided by the opportunity to include in it Woodbridges brief essay on Spinoza. Originally delivered as an address at Columbia University for the Spinoza tercentenary in 1932 it was subsequently published in the Columbia University Quarterly and reprinted in a pamphlet. But it has long since been out of print and to make it available is a service to the memory of two philosophers as well as to students who find it here. The text of the Ethics in this volume is based on the translation by William Hale White 1883 as revised by Amelia Hutchinson Stirling 1894, 1899 and the text of the Improvement of the Under standing is the translation by R. H. M. Elwes 1884. Anyone who has himself performed the task of translation must hesitate before tampering with the work of another translator when scholarship and literary art have been combined as in the case of both these texts. To amend them is almost like changing an original. Almost but not vili THE ETHICS quite, for in this case the original is available as a check. Wherever changes have been made in the basic versions this check has been used and counterchecked by reference to other translations. The chief changes follow the suggestion of Dr. Joseph Ratner, in his Selections from the Philosophy of Spinoza in the Modern Library 1926, that Whites translation is clarified by substituting the word emotion for affect in rendering the originalafectus, and modifications or modes for Spinozas affectiones, where White uses affections. No matter how much of a Latinist a reader may be nor how often he be reminded that affects are emotions and that affections have nothing in common with what the word currently means to everyone, constant confusion results from continu ing to use the White-Sterling text unamended in this regard. Virtually all other changes in the text of the Ethics incorporate some felicitous phrases of Elwes in the White-Sterling version...