Wednesday 10 January 2018

Spinoza vol 1 ebook: concluding remarks, preview of vol 2 and bibliography





In this blog ebook, I have put forward my interpretation of Spinoza, given my reasons and provided textual evidence from both his TTP and Ethics to support my view. I hope I have shown how and why I suggest he remained an orthodox Jew throughout his life and how this informed his philosophy. This ebook has dealt with some of the topics and arguments in Spinoza’s philosophy, however others remain. In my next volume on Spinoza, I shall go on to examine his philosophical thoughts on life and death.

Preview of Research Thoughts on…Spinoza - volume 2:

‘Spinoza on how to live well and die well’  

In this book, I explore how, in his two major works, Ethics and TTP, Spinoza may have approached the theme of life and death through his concept of the intellect (Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise, Elwes translation 2004, cited as TTP and Spinoza, Ethics, White and Sterling translation 2001 cited as Ethics). I start with Spinoza’s view of living well then show how he relates this to dying well and the eternal through the intellect in his Ethics and TTP. So, on Spinoza’s account in these texts, we can almost simultaneously examine the ways in which we live collectively and why and how the way we live as an individual during our lifetime impacts on how we survive death. In this way, I hope to explore the under-researched topic of Spinoza on death in these two texts and show that it plays a more important role in his philosophical system of thought than is usually claimed. Also, I try to show how his views on death, eternity and how they impact on how we live and die span across his metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics.  

I shall begin by examining the topic of life and death in Spinoza’s Ethics. For Spinoza, living well during our lifetime entails honing our intellect and reasoning capacity. For him, this is achieved by increasing our knowledge and understanding of necessity, the nature of God and God’s actions and attributes, as far as the human mind is capable of doing so. This is because Spinoza sees God as the basis that supports knowledge and knowledge is important as it is the essence of our mind. This principle has the following two main implications. Firstly, it informs us about how to live well. As an individual, a key part of our true happiness lies in using our intellect to gain intuitive knowledge of God. Moreover, by increasing this third kind of knowledge, according to Spinoza, we decrease our level of fear of death. For Spinoza a free, virtuous, wise man focuses on life not death and so lives better and enjoys, for instance, eating well. Similarly, he goes towards what is good rather than avoiding things in life out of a fear of death. A developed intellect also helps us see the reasoning behind why living collectively by helping each other means we live better than living as isolated individuals. Secondly, the intellect, unlike the imagination, survives bodily death and is eternal. So, the more we develop Spinoza’s second and third kinds of knowledge during our lifetime, the more we increase the eternal part of our mind. This is because, Spinoza reasons, these types of knowledge protects us from the negative affects, including a fear of death since intellectual love of God increases the eternal part of our mind and in so doing, prevents it from dying. 

Spinoza carries on the above concepts about the intellect, life and death into his TTP. In this text, he brings out the tensions between developing our intellect, which survives our death, and some oppressive forms of political states. On the one hand, Biblical Solomon states that we should develop our intellect and be wise in order to attain blessedness, which amounts to the knowledge of God gained through the intellect. Despite this, it is not in human nature for everybody to always act according to reason so political states create social order via laws. On the other hand, laws created for social order have led some forms of government to punish those with a developed intellect with death sentences. This means that, although it is rational to live collectively in a political state, if, however, this is within an oppressive form of government, it prevents us from living well and dying well in accordance with our nature. Thus, Spinoza concludes that, since our rational capacity to judge is part of our human nature, a democratic form of government is the most in accordance with our nature. This is because it recognizes that we do not all naturally think in the same way so living well collectively in harmony consists in mutually agreeing on and voting for a particular action that holds until a better possible solution arises later from our further reasoning.                

In this volume, I try to show that by analysing Spinoza’s concept of the intellect, we can unlock the key factor underpinning and explaining Spinoza’s approach to philosophizing about death and its impact on life throughout his metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics. Furthermore, I endeavour to show how Spinoza has attempted to have a philosophically cohesive, rather than theologically structured, account of living well and dying well by making the intellect his focal point.






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Spinoza vol 1 ebook Chapter 12: How Spinoza’s Conatus Fares Against Darwin’s Theory, the Pizzly Bear Example



Further to the previous chapters, I suggest that Spinoza’s reworking of divine teleology also informs his views on whether human behaviour and events in nature are also teleological or not. I think Spinoza is claiming that both human behaviour and nature are not teleological. This is because, as I mentioned earlier, firstly, they arise from all that flows from God’s nature[i] and secondly, because these phenomenon can be better described by his account of how things in the world strive to persevere in their being[ii]. By not restricting his account to specific, teleological goals to explain human behaviour and the natural world around us, he builds in a flexibility into his account that Aristotle and Maimonides didn’t have. In contrast to Della Rocca's view, I think this flexibility of telos means we can read Spinoza as being consistent in his rejection of all types of teleology, including in relation to human behavioural psychology[iii].

I think this also means that Spinoza is a ‘forerunner’, for want of a better word, to Darwin’s theory of evolution. This is because his account of striving to persevere in one’s being describes our conatus in a flexible, adaptive way which flows from our nature and relates to our instinctive desires. Thus his account matches up with Darwin’s theory of survival instincts, survival of the fittest and generational evolutionary adaptation to one’s environment, for both individuals and perhaps passed epistemically and socially down the generations. I think Spinoza’s account of the conatus also compares interestingly with Darwin because Darwin’s theory is not only a scientific one but has a societal aspect to it as well. This may be because Darwin writes that he was, in part, inspired by Malthus’ social theory and applied it to his theory of evolution, especially in his chapter ‘Struggle for Existence’ in his ‘Origin of the Species’ (originally published 1859)[iv]. There is good textual evidence for this because Darwin summarises his use of Malthus’ theory thus in his preface to this book:

“This is the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected.”[v]

I would also suggest that what is often interpreted as egoism in Spinoza’s writings[vi], may instead be an observational account of the natural world and society that is trying to capture the problem of survival rather than egoism. Thus the Spinozian concepts I examined earlier of striving and struggling for continued existence may be somewhat along the lines of what Darwin describes in his preface to his ‘Origin of the Species’:

“As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts the inhabitants of each country only in relation to the degree of perfection of their associates; so that we need feel no surprise at the inhabitants of any one country, although on the ordinary view supposed to have been specially created and adapted for that country, being beaten and supplanted by the naturalised productions from another land. Nor ought we to marvel if all the contrivances in nature be not, as far as we can judge, absolutely perfect; and if some of them be abhorrent to our ideas of fitness.”[vii]

Darwin’s theory can be seen as, inadvertently or otherwise, supporting Spinoza’s dissatisfaction with notions of fitness with biological examples such as use and disuse. For instance, a calf pre-birth has teeth in its gums that will not grow into functioning teeth when it matures because such teeth have fallen into disuse over the generations[viii]. This refutes Aristotle’s notion of usefulness and his argument for a teleological, fixed, immutable final cause that explains why things are as they are in the world[ix]. Indeed, in his preface to his ‘Origin of the Species’, Darwin explicitly rejects Aristotle’s explanation of the purpose of teeth, when writing “We here see the principle of natural selection shadowed forth, but how little Aristotle fully comprehended the principle, is shown by his remarks on the formation of the teeth.”[x]

Hence, Spinoza’s psychological-biological account of human striving without a fixed, teleological end allows for organisms to change, adapt and mutate. This, as well as the aim of dispelling prejudiced notions, are also key features of Darwin’s theory:

“A few naturalists, endowed with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt on the immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; ....Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed.”[xi]

“Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation.”[xii]

Furthermore, I suggest that Spinoza’s account of our conatus, striving to persevere/continue in one’s being/existence and increasing one’s mental powers could be seen as being not only in line with Darwin’s theory of evolution but also, and to a greater extent, being a ‘forerunner’, as it were, to modern-day scientific theories, especially in the field of genomics. Until relatively recently, Darwin’s theories had only been supported by patchy fossil records and other evidence which was not very conclusive[xiii]. However, more recently, studies on DNA and genomic make-up are considered to support Darwin’s theory of evolution and provide the scientific evidence for his theory by looking at, for instance, genetic variation and how our genomic make-up also helps to give explanations of our nature, features, tendencies and behaviour[xiv]. Indeed, this can even inform our knowledge of emotion, including the emotion of fear[xv], which is an emotion that Spinoza gives a vital role to both in his Ethics and TTP. Our DNA may also impact on our survival instincts, how we adapt and react to our environment and so, in Spinozian terms, how we persevere in our being and strive to survive in the world. If this is the case, then this modern-day genomic account of human beings, I suggest, would suit Spinoza’s account of a non-teleological way of striving since the telos of our striving is not for a static, fixed, unchanging end goal or telos but rather a striving for whatever helps us survive and adapt, which are factors that drive the evolution of the species. This both fits with Darwin’s theory of evolution as well as modern day scientific accounts of evolution.

So, how would the various theories explored in this chapter apply to a practical example, such as the genetic hybrid animal the pizzly bear? Which would win out as the most plausible and successful at providing explanations of the world around us? I shall try to imagine how each of the views may respond to an example I found which I think works as a test case for my hypothesis.

Example: Due to global warming, the polar bear has become maladapted to its environment. So, it has migrated south and mixed, both socially and sexually with grizzly bears who are better adapted to the warmer climate. They have offspring together which are known as pizzly bears. They are genetically a hybrid of the polar and grizzly bear.  

An Aristotelian-style explanation for the pizzly bear:

The purpose of the polar bear’s coat is for keeping it warm despite the freezing weather in its habitat (purpose/telos of its coat). Just as the eye is for seeing, so the polar bear’s coat is for keeping it warm in its habitat.

This is not a satisfactory explanation: Global warming has changed the polar bears’ environment and their behaviours, aims, purposes, what they strive for and how they attempt to persevere in their being including what purpose their coat is for. Now it is not as useful for the polar bear to have an arctic coat of fur given global warming. This account doesn’t take into consideration that future generations of bears will socialise and interbreed together so the telos of their design will change accordingly over time.  So Aristotle struggles to explain the pizzly because he can’t keep pace with natural changes in the world.

A Maimonidean-style explanation for the pizzly bear: 

The polar bear has a white warm coat of fur because God in His infinite wisdom thinks this best for the well-being of the bear so has designed the polar bear this way and wills it to be the case. 

This is not a satisfactory explanation: This may undermine God’s infinite wisdom and omnipotence. Why did God design the animal in such a way that it cannot adapt to its future environments that He should have foreseen? Such apparent short-sightedness ruins God’s perfection. Also, if God is the only cause, then He both causes the global warming and the design of the bear yet the two will be in conflict with one another during some eras. Does this make God contradict Himself? Another Spinozian concern may be that it would be impossible to comprehend why God willed this since divine will and intellect do not resemble anything human-like (such as the Dog example in E. I. p17s[xvi]).   

A Darwinian explanation for the pizzly bear

Through natural selection, the polar bear is now struggling to survive more than the grizzly so gradually the polar bear may become extinct and adapt by mating with the grizzly. 

This explanation can only explain some of the phenomenon of the pizzly and not others. For instance, why did the pizzly not evolve and mutate over many generations gradually rather than appearing immediately as a result of interbreeding? So, Darwin’s theory of evolution can be too incremental and so explains certain modern theories, for example, mitochondrial Eve but can’t explain all cases, especially where there’s a more sudden discrepancy or development, for example, skull findings.

Genetic explanation of the pizzly bear:

The evolution of species is propelled by genetic variation. Beneficial characteristics such as the grizzly’s fur coat will be genetically selected and overall will out-live less beneficial features such as the polar bear’s fur coat and will be inherited by future generations ie the pizzly in the process of natural selection.

This is purely a scientific account and so wouldn’t help resolve the tension between science and religion which was an important issue in the seventeenth century and sometimes continues to be so today. Some genetic explanations still cite random chance and brute luck in their explanations of why people inherit some genetic traits and not others or have relatively broad-brush explanations of how environmental factors impact on genetic changes. I suggest it would be better to put such apparently inexplicable or difficult to explain phenomenon down to a current lack of knowledge rather than resorting to randomness and chance. There perhaps is some necessity involved which is merely difficult to explain until we discover, for instance, the relevant natural law for it and gain a better understanding of how that law behaves.   

Spinoza’s explanation of the pizzly bear in terms of their conatus striving to persevere in their being in a non-teleological way:

God is the cause of the polar bear coming into existence and how it continues to exist and act

Polar bear strives to persevere in its being

Polar bear struggles to persevere in its being (eg due to global warming, climate change). It will only go out of existence due to external causes (eg global warming) not internal causes (eg losing the will to live)

Polar bear needs to adapt, strive differently in a different way for different ends (conatus)

Polar bear needs different survival skills/knowledge/habitat and starts to socialize with grizzly bears who are now better adapted/persevere in their being more successfully in the polar bears’ environment than they do

Polar bears mate with grizzly bears and have offspring -pizzly bears- that are a genetic combination of the two bears which means they are better adapted to this new environment and they can persevere in their being and strive more successfully than their polar bear parent and their generation. The polar bear also has a better chance of survival because it has teamed up with grizzlies who strive successfully in warmer climates.

From this, I think Spinoza’s theory wins out as being the most all-rounded theory which encompasses all the issues and facts that need to be factored into a cohesive theory which aims at explaining various aspects of the world and God. So Spinoza is not just a forerunner to Darwin but, in addition, we can use his account to understand modern science because his theory predicts genetic explanations. I don’t think that Spinoza felt the same concerns or conflict between science and religion that many other thinkers have felt. Indeed, this may be partly because Maimonides himself thought that science and religion should always go hand in hand and so not diverge in their thought that much. In this way, I think Spinoza may have thought it was not heretical of him to provide an account that takes both religion and scientific thought into consideration simultaneously. Unlike Maimonides, however, he does not need to change his science or religion to make them coincide with each other. They merely function together interdependently and compatibly. If I am right in thinking that Spinoza may have believed in the possibility of constant creation, then even the theory of evolution and laws of nature would not pose a theological threat to him. For some it does, because they struggle with (seemingly random) evolution taking place without God’s will whereas for Spinoza, this is resolved by seeing the laws of nature and all that exists and happens in the world as flowing from God. Hence, in this way, we can study pure science without Aristotelian teleology and without clashing with the belief that God exists and is the first cause, which is a view with which Maimonides would agree.  

So, I suggest that Spinoza not only provides an alternative account to an ancient Greek and medieval one but also, in some ways, anticipates the structure of Darwin’s views. For, both Spinoza and Darwin claim that:

One, there are observable laws of nature to study

Two, humans and things in the world strive, adapt and change

Three, this striving, adapting and changing does not entail a fixed, static purpose they are suited to or involve an end goal or telos.

Therefore, I advocate that Spinoza attempts to circumvent the need for explanations in terms of final causes by:

Firstly, providing differently reasoned answers to questions about humans and the world

Secondly, by his type of axiomatic argumentation

Thirdly, by substituting the linear, futuristic, goal orientated final cause account with his interrelated accounts of eternity, God, nature, necessity, human desire, superstition, the intellect and the passions.




[i] Spinoza, Opera: Ethics, I:E. I. p17; p17s.
[ii] Spinoza, I:E. IV. p26d.
[iii] Michael Della Rocca, “Spinoza’s Metaphysical Psychology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, ed. Don Garrett, 12th printing, paperback, Cambridge Companions to Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
[iv] Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species, e-book (literature.org, 1859), chap. Struggle for Existence, http://literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/.
[v] Darwin, sec. preface.
[vi] See Della Rocca, “Spinoza’s Metaphysical Psychology.” on egoism in Spinoza
[vii] Darwin, The Origin of the Species, chap. 14.
[viii] Darwin, chap. 14.
[ix] Darwin, sec. preface.
[x] Darwin, sec. preface.
[xi] Darwin, chap. 14.
[xii] Darwin, chap. 14.
[xiii] Gorham, “Philosophy of Science” A Beginner’s Guide.
[xiv] “The Genomics Era: The Future of Genetics in Medicine.”
[xv] “The Genomics Era: The Future of Genetics in Medicine.”
[xvi] Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White, Stirling), E. I. p17s, 20.
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Spinoza vol 1 ebook Chapter 11: Spinoza and the Pantheism Debate





As I explained when answering a follow-up question after I presented my paper ‘Was Spinoza a Forerunner to Darwin’ at Groningen University 2016, I have a reading of Spinoza’s metaphysics and writings on God and nature which shows that he was not a pantheist, although he may have agreed with a type of panentheism which is compatible with Judaism[i]. Although the term Panentheism was not around in Spinoza’s era, panentheistic concepts were around well before his time and have been held by many people down the ages. Culp excellently summarises the background to the emergence of panentheism thus:

“Although Karl Krause (1781–1832) appears to be the first to use the explicit label of “panentheism” (Gregersen 2004, 28), Schelling used the phrase “Pan+en+theism” in his Essay on Freedom in 1809 before Krause used “panentheism” in 1829 (Clayton 2010, 183). However, various advocates and critics of panentheism find evidence of incipient or implicit forms of panentheism present in religious thought as early as 1300 BCE.” [ii]  …….“From Plato to Schelling (1775–1854 CE), various theologians and philosophers developed ideas that are similar to themes in contemporary panentheism. These ideas developed as expressions of traditional theism.”[iii]

So I wish to make use of this more precise term for referring to features of Spinoza's thought but using a non-teleological methodology in my interpretation because although the term is relatively contemporary, the beliefs and concepts it refers to pre-date Spinoza’s era.

A reason for this is proposition 15 in the first part of his Ethics which states “Whatever is, is in God…”[iv]. 

“Quicquid est in Deo est, et nihil sine Deo esse neque concipi potest.”[v]

In other words, everything is in God and God is in everything because everything only exists as a result of God. Moreover, in White’s translator’s note to E. I. p29s, he states that the expressions natura naturata and natura naturans “signify by the same verb the oneness of God and the world, and yet at the same time to mark by a difference of inflexion that there was not absolute identity.”[vi]

Indeed, Spinoza wrote to Oldenburg[vii] (letter 73) affirming that he did not equate God with nature in his terminology. This would mean that Spinoza cannot be a pantheist because pantheism sees God and the world as being identical. Furthermore, the Panentheistic description of God inhering in things in the world, as opposed to pantheism which would see things in the world as being identical to God, resembles Spinoza’s description of things being a mode of God and godliness inhering in things. An example of this difference: the Pantheist would think this tree in front of me is one and the same thing as God. Whereas the Panentheist would think that the tree is a tree but that it has the property of God in it and that its existence comes from God.  

Martial Guéroult (1891-1976) suggested Spinoza may have been more panentheistic than pantheistic. However, I shall be connecting panentheistic elements in Spinoza’s writings with Judaism especially since it appears around the same passages where Spinoza emphasizes that God is one and that “nothing can either be or be conceived without God”[viii].

I wonder whether the concept of conceiving belies the Jewish notion of Tzimtzum, the idea that God contracted Himself and partially withdrew Himself to provide a conceptual space within which the world could exist. Although it is a kabbalistic explanation for the final stages when God created the world, I don’t interpret Spinoza as a Kabbalist because it is a type of Jewish mysticism and Spinoza is very much into reason so I think is more generally in line with Jewish Rationalism. However, it is possible he may have drawn some metaphysical inspiration from such descriptions, given that the notion of Tzimtzum predates Spinoza’s era and his Rabbi, Menasseh ben Israel was very interested in kabbalah. So, although he mostly chose not to include them in his writings, he may have thought them metaphysically relevant at times. So I would like to explore the possibility of and the extent to which the concept of Tzimtzum in Judaism can be found in Spinoza’s passages on God conceiving.     

On this picture, God is transcendent in the sense that God is different, unique, perfect with a different quality of attributes, a bit like Spinoza’s analogy of the difference between the “celestial constellation of the Dog and the animal which barks”[ix]. However, God is not transcendent in the sense of being outside of the world. This can be seen explicitly in E. I. p18 and 18d when Spinoza states God abides/endures (immanens) in everything, everything is conceived (concipi which encompasses conceive/be the mother of/understand) and caused by God and that God is the only substance (meaning substance but can carry implications of resources, nature and be used to refer to every living thing) and that there is nothing beyond/outside of/without (extra) God. This perhaps lends support to my suggestion of Spinoza seeing God as having provided a conceptual space within which He conceived the world. 

To illustrate this, I think of Spinoza’s claim that everything is in God yet not identical to God to be a bit like an Eulerian circle (see figure 1) which shows a smaller circle, call it x and think of it as the world, within a larger circle, call it y and think of it as God. In this way, x and y are not identical, and the world, represented by the smaller circle x, is within God, represented by the larger circle y. And there is nothing outside of God since God is the main circle, y, but God is not strictly speaking outside of the world because that would be like being outside of Himself since God is the larger circle and is encompassing the whole world rather than being outside of it in the sense of being an external circle, z, which doesn’t overlap with the world, circle x.

Or, the visual representation of this would look something like this (drawing on the Euler diagram):

Figure 2 Pantheism: God and the world are identical to each other
 




 


Figure 1 Panentheism, Tzimtzum
 



Figure 1 Panentheism, Tzimtzum


Figure 2 Pantheism: God and the world are identical to each other


Figure 3 God is outside of the world
 


Figure 3 God is outside of the world











So, for panentheism and tzimtzum (figure 1), God would be like the black circle and the world would be like the white circle. For pantheism (figure 2), the world and God are identical so completely combine into the one grey circle. For the standard theist account (figure 3), God would be like the black circle outside of the white circle representing the world which, according to Spinoza, is the mistaken notion of God being outside of the world. The adjustment to this mathematical representation is that the white circle representing the world only exists through and because of the black circle representing God and everything in the white circle is a mode (property) of the black circle (see figure 1). And perhaps, if it were to fit with tzimtzum, then the white circle exists because it has been created in the sense of it being conceived out of and by the black circle (see figure 1), rather than it being created in the sense of figure 3, where the black circle is bringing the white circle, representing the world, into existence from outside of itself. In this way, God (see figure 1) can be the only substance (substance monism), whereas if God were like the black circle in figure 3, this would lead to substance dualism, which Spinoza rejects. Another Spinozian adjustment (to figure 1) would be that the black circle representing God causes everything that happens in the white circle, representing the world, by acting in it through the laws of nature (not through emotion or willing).


Also, this style of Euler diagram suits panentheism because it clearly retains the different identities between God and the world and reflects the language of the world being in God. It also avoids the possible panentheist language describing the world as a part of God which would be a problem for Spinoza given that he rejects breaking up wholes into parts yet it retains the underlying panentheist view. So it shows where Spinoza coincides with and deviates from panentheism. As can be seen in figure 2, I imagine that the pantheist diagram would look like the black circle and the white circle in figure 1 but, unlike in figure 1, they are the same size and completely overlapping, making it impossible to refer to one as x and the other as y because they would be identical. Therefore, I have represented the circle in figure 2 as grey to reflect this complete and combined identity and reference found in pantheism.

[i] Liba Kaucky, “Panentheism and Spinoza,” My Spinoza Research Diary (blog), September 18, 2017, http://myspinozaresearchdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/panentheism-and-spinoza.html. This chapter was first written for my blog post available at: http://myspinozaresearchdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/panentheism-and-spinoza.html but figures 1 to 3 which appear in this book were created by me for this chapter and are based on Euler’s diagrams and other diagrams found in maths and set theory.   
[ii] John Culp, “Panentheism,” ed. Edward N. Zalta, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, June 3, 2017), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/panentheism/.
[iii] Culp.
[iv] Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White, Stirling), E. I. P15, 14.
[v] Spinoza, Opera: Ethics, I:E. I. p15, 197.
[vi] Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White, Stirling), footnote 4 on p28. about E. I. p29s (full Latin sentence which appears in Spinoza, Opera: Ethics, I:E. I. p29s, 210-11: “SCHOL. Antequam ulterius pergam, hic quid nobis per na turam natur ante m et quid per naturam natura tam intel ligendum sit, explicare volo, vel potius monere. Nam ex antecedentibus iam constare existimo, nempe, quod per naturam naturantem nobis intelligendum est id quod in se est et per se concipitur, sive talia substantiae attributa quae aeternam et infinitam essentiam exprimunt, hoc est (per coroll. 1. prop. 14. Et coroll. 2. prop. 17.) Deus, quatenus ut causa libera consideratur. Per naturata m autem intelligo id omne quod ex necessitate Dei naturae sive uniuscuiusque Dei attributorum sequitur, hoc est, omnes Dei ttributorum modos, quatenus considerantur ut res, quae in Deo sunt et quae sine Deo nec esse nec concipi possunt.”   
[vii] Benedict de Spinoza, “Correspondence,” trans. Edwin Curley, Early Modern Philosophy Texts, 2017, 104–5, http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/spinoza1661.pdf.
[viii] Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White, Stirling), E. I. p15,14.
[ix] Spinoza, E. I. p17s, 20.
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