Ethics

According to Spinoza God is Nature and Nature is God. First published by his friends after his death the Ethics uses the methods of Euclid to describe a single entity properly called both God and Nature of which mind and matter are two manifestations. Spinoza regarded ethics as a rational system corresponding to the rational nature of the universe and employed a deductive method derived from Euclidean geometry to show that the validity of ethical ideas can be demonstrated by a mathematical style argument. His conclusion: to be guided by reason is to live freely motivated by love and goodwill rather than fear or hatred. Ethics is undoubtedly Spinozas greatest work - an elegant fully cohesive cosmology derived from first principles providing a coherent picture of reality and a guide to the meaning of an ethical life it defines in turn the nature of God the mind the emotions human bondage to the emotions and the power of understanding - moving from a consideration of the eternal to speculate upon humanitys place in the natural order the nature of freedom and the path to attainable happiness. A powerful work of elegant simplicity the Ethics is a brilliantly insightful consideration of the possibility of redemption through intense thought and philosophical reflection.