1 Spinoza describes his opusculum as being devoted to the question “how things began to be and by what connection they depend on the first cause … and also on the emendation of the intellect.” This strongly suggests that our TdIE was part of the opusculum. But Mignini has cast doubt on this. See the annotation at IV/36/13.
2 I would be inclined to say earlier than Letter 2 at least, i.e., before September 1661, for reasons suggested in the annotation at II/9/12. Cf. Mignini 2, 106. If, as Mignini thinks, the TdIE is earlier than the KV, and if, as he also thinks, the first draft of the KV was written around the middle of 1660 (see Mignini 1, 239), then the TdIE would have been written a good deal earlier than the spring of 1662.
3 Notably II/29, n. z. On the other hand, some of the things promised in the forward references do not appear in our version of the KV any more than they do in E, e.g., the extended discussion of wealth foreshadowed in II/6, n. a.
4 Mignini contends that the teaching of the KV is closer to that of E than is the teaching of the TdIE in regard to the following topics: the nature of the intellect and the doctrine of method, the theory of the kinds of knowledge, the nature of fictions, the will, final causation and perfection. This is not the place for a discussion of his arguments, but I will observe that my own attempt to study the development of Spinoza’s thought about truth (Curley 9), an attempt made before I was aware of Mignini’s work, would have proceeded more smoothly had I adopted his chronology.
5 This, essentially, is the judgment of M. Matheron, in a recent review of Mignini’s work (Bulletin de l’Association des Amis de Spinoza, no. 10, 1983): “Si les arguments positifs avancés par Mignini, bien qu’ils donnent beaucoup à penser, ne sont peut-être tout à fait convaincants (personellement j’avoue hésiter encore sur ce point), ses arguments négatifs, en revanche, sont décisifs: nous admettions tous comme allant de soi, parce qu’on nous l’avait enseigné, que le C.T.[i.e., KV] était antérieur au TRE [i.e., TdIE], et Mignini démontre qu’il n’y avait à cela absolument aucune raison!”
6 See Joachim 2, 59, and cf. Mignini 2, 140. Joachim construes this as a survival of Cartesian doctrines advocated in the KV. Mignini, it seems, regards it as evidence of the priority of the TdIE to the KV. I myself am not satisfied with the evidence that Spinoza adopts the Cartesian distinction between will and intellect either in the TdIE or in the KV. For example, it seems to me that § 78 of the TdIE effectively anticipates Spinoza’s critique of the Cartesian doctrine of suspense of judgment in E IIP49S. And I take it that KV II, xiv, also criticizes the Cartesian distinction, though on different grounds.
7 See the annotation at II/9/12.
8 See Curley 2; cf. Joachim 2, 24-33.
9 Cf. Joachim 2, 89-90.
10 So Joachim argues at any rate. Cf. Joachim 2, 102-111.
1 By the editors of the Opera posthuma.
2 The translation of this title is disputed. The Latin for the main title is Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, the Dutch Handeling van de Verbetering van’t Verstant. Joachim (2, 1) argued that no English term could reproduce the exact implications of the Latin, but recommended “Purification of the Intellect” as rightly suggesting a project of restoring the intellect to its “natural perfection, by eliminating from it … ideas which are not its own but have come to it from an external source.” DeDeugd’s criticism of Joachim (1, 50-57), while rightly pointing out that the Dutch version cannot plausibly bear that meaning, gives insufficient weight to § 16. Eisenberg (3) argues that no term can reproduce the exact implications of the Latin, since Spinoza’s phrase has no exact implications. At the time of writing this work Spinoza inconsistently conceived of the intellect both as inherently pure and as needing purification. He did not clearly distinguish between the mind, which cannot be entirely freed of external influences, and the intellect, which has no need to be. No translation will solve such difficulties.
The subtitle in the NS reads: “and at the same time of the means of making it perfect.”
a I could explain this more fully and distinctly, by distinguishing wealth that is sought for its own sake, or for the sake of honor, or for the sake of sensual pleasure or for the sake of health and the advancement of the arts and sciences. But I reserve this for its own place; such an exact investigation is not appropriate here.
3 The choice of this particular trinity is probably influenced by Aristotle. Cf. the Nicomachean Ethics I, 4, and the Short Treatise II, v, 6.
4 “Modò possem penitùs deliberare.” Deliberare can mean ‘to deliberate’ and most translators have given us something like “If only I could reflect thoroughly [on the matter].” But deliberare can also mean ‘to decide as a consequence of deliberation’ and I follow Koyré in thinking that to be the meaning here. When Spinoza comments on this phrase in § 10 it seems clear that he thinks of his difficulty as more volitional than intellectual. Cf. E IVP14.
b These things are to be demonstrated more accurately.
5 The NS has: “often cause the destruction of those who possess them (if one may speak thus), and always of those who are possessed by wealth.” It seems likely that the parenthesis is an addition by the translator and bears on the notion of being possessed by wealth.
6 OP: “Sed amor erga rem aeternam, & infinitam solâ laetitiâ pascit animum, ipsaque omnis tristitiae est expers”; NS: “Maar de liefde tot d’eeuwige en oneindige zaak voed de geest [margin: mens] met blÿschap alleen, en is van alle droefheit uitgesloten.” The translation of this important passage is disputed. Joachim (2, 18, n.4) notes that various translators have rendered it as if it were the love that was exempt from sadness (which makes the Latin ungrammatical, but is what the Dutch implies). He, however, sees here a foreshadowing of the doctrine that God is exempt from sadness. (I.e., ipsa refers not to amor, but the eternal and infinite thing.) This is possible, both grammatically and philosophically, but Joachim surely goes too far when he contends that this interpretation is necessary to explain why love for God feeds the mind with unmixed joy. Appuhn, Koyré, and Caillois all take ipsa to refer to laetitia, an alternative Joachim does not discuss, and to my mind the one most likely.
7 “Modò possem seriò deliberare.” In referring back to II/6/21 Spinoza does not in fact quote himself exactly.
8 Wendel and Cassirer thought it necessary to emend this passage so that it would read: “man conceives a nature much stronger than his own human nature.” But I find Gebhardt’s arguments against this conclusive (II/322-323). The text as it stands is supported by the NS and paralleled by passages both in the Short Treatise (II,4; I/60/21ff.) and the Ethics (IV, Pref., II/208). Koyré (2, 98-99) is right to remark that the passage is a difficult one on any reading, but his comments do not seem to me to stress sufficiently the necessity both of man’s conceiving such a stronger nature and of his striving to attain it.
c These things will be explained more fully in their place.
d Note that here I take the trouble only to enumerate the sciences necessary for our purpose, without attending to their order.
e In the sciences there is only one end, toward which they must all be directed.
9 If this is taken, as it may be, to mean “knowledge that man is a part of nature, and subject to its universal laws,” then the doctrine is very Stoic. Cf. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VII, 9-13; X,6. But the passage is also one which, more than any other perhaps, encourages the interpretation of Spinoza as a mystic.
10 That the intellect requires purification (expurgatio) is a Baconian doctrine. Cf. the Novum Organum (Bacon, I, 139 = IV, 27). For healing (medendi) the NS has simply “improving” (verbeteren). Eisenberg (3, 175) argues that passages like this one are symptomatic of a tendency to confuse the intellect with the mind “at least during much of the time that he wrote the treatise.” And since, in Letter 2 (IV/8-9), Spinoza is quite critical of Bacon for not distinguishing the intellect from the mind, and for supposing that the intellect is deceived by its own nature, it seems likely that, by the time of writing that letter (September 1661), Spinoza would have regarded passages like this as unsatisfactory. Note that in that letter Spinoza criticizes Bacon for comparing the intellect to an uneven mirror (cf. Bacon, I, 164). A similar comparison occurs in the purification of the intellect passage cited above, except that there it is the mind that is compared to an uneven mirror. See also Mignini 2, 106.
11 Latin: “intellectum … redigamus.” NS: “het verstant … te brengen.” But the language of purification in the preceding paragraph seems to justify the suggestion of returning to an original state of rectitude.
12 NS: “zuiveren,” purify.
13 NS: “three”; but it goes on to enumerate four kinds, as the OP does. Gebhardt thought this might naturally be explained on the assumption that in an earlier draft of the Treatise Spinoza had divided the kinds of ‘knowledge’ into three (as in the Short Treatise and the Ethics) rather than four. He also took it as evidence that the Dutch translation was made, not from the text of the Opera posthuma, but from an independent, earlier manuscript, in which revisions were not consistently carried out. For counter-argument see Mignini 2, 126-127.
14 On the translation here, and on the classification generally, see Joachim 2, 24-33, and Curley 2, 25-59.
15 As Joachim notes, this passage echoes one in Bacon, Novum Organum I, 100 (Bacon, I,203 [= IV, 95]). He also calls attention to aphorisms 25, 70, and 105. Perhaps Bacon’s influence is also to be seen in Descartes’ Regulae, AT X, 427.
f When this happens, we understand nothing about the cause except what we consider in the effect. This is sufficiently evident from the fact that then the cause is explained only in very general terms, e.g., Therefore there is something, Therefore there is some power, etc. Or also from the fact that the terms express the cause negatively, Therefore it is not this, or that, etc. In the second case something clearly conceived is attributed to the cause on account of the effect, as we shall show in an example; but nothing is attributed to it except propria, not the essence of a particular thing.16
16 OP: “In secundo casu aliquid causae tribuitur propter effectum, quod clarè conciptur, ut in exemplo ostendimus; verùm nihil praeter propria, non verò rei essentia particularis.” This note has more than its share of difficulties. (1) What does in secundo casu refer to? Eisenberg suggests that it could be translated “in a (more) favorable case,” adding a third case to the two already mentioned in the note, but neither he nor I thinks it very likely. Or it could be translated as I have it and refer to the case described in the immediately preceding sentence. But this does not make much sense of the note. Or it could refer to the second case mentioned in the text, in spite of the fact that the note as a whole is attached to the first disjunct. I opt for the third alternative. (2) What is the antecedent of quod clare concipitur? Eisenberg thinks it is obviously effectus, in spite of the gender difficulties. I follow Joachim in taking it to be aliquid. (3) What does particularis modify? Most translators have favored essentia. I follow the NS (along with Joachim and Eisenberg) in making it modify rei, though grammar is neutral on the question. See also the note on proprium in the English-Latin-Dutch section of the Glossary-Index.
17 OP: “vel cùm concluditur ab aliquo universali, quod semper aliqua proprietas concomitatur”; the NS in effect supplies causa as the subject of concluditur: “when one infers the cause from some universal which is always accompanied by some property.” Elwes takes the quod clause as subject: “when it is inferred from some general proposition that some property is always present.” Koyré has: “when one draws a conclusion from the fact that a universal is always accompanied by a certain property.” Interpreting Spinoza’s note f as I do, I would say that the something which is inferred is a clearly conceived property of a cause, though this is inconsistent with the general description of this kind of knowledge at II/10/16. I am not much moved by the latter consideration, since the second example given in § 21 is also inconsistent with the general description. See the discussions in Joachim 2, 30-32, and Curley 2, 40-49.
g We see clearly from this example what I have just noted. For we understand nothing through that union except the sensation itself, that is, the effect,19 from which we inferred the cause, concerning which we understand nothing.
h Although such a conclusion is certain, it is still not sufficiently safe, unless we take the greatest care. For those who do not take such care will immediately fall into errors. When things are conceived so abstractly, and not through their true essence, they are immediately confused by the imagination. What in itself is one, men imagine to be many. For to the things they conceive abstractly, separately, and confusedly, they give names which they use to signify other more familiar things. Hence they imagine these things in the same way as they are accustomed to imagine the things to which the names were first given.
18 I follow Appuhn, Koyré et al., in supplying “one thing” here; parallelism with II/10/16 would require the “essence of a thing,” but the strict accuracy of that description is put in some doubt both by the second example Spinoza gives and by his note to II/10/17.
19 OP: effectus, which is ungrammatical, given seventeenth-century conventions about the use of accents. Gebhardt emends to: effectûs, “of the effect.” But most translators have preferred to emend to effectum, which is supported by the NS, and which I take to be correct.
20 Cf. § 78.
21 OP: “quales,” ‘what kind of;’ but NS: welke. Cf. Joachim 2, 31, n. 2.
22 Here I adopt Joachim’s emendation of the numbering and punctuation. Joachim 2, 34, n 2.
23 OP: “singularis existentia alicujus rei.” As at II/10/34, this is ambiguous. Here the NS take singularis to modify existentia, but wrongly, I think.
i Here I shall discuss experience somewhat more fully, and examine the Method of proceeding of the Empiricists and of the new Philosophers [NS: … the Empiricists, who want to do everything through experience …].
24 OP: “illius,” NS: “enige.” Perhaps we should read: ullius, ‘any’.
25 The comparison which follows may have been suggested by any of various passages in Bacon [e.g., I, 126 (= IV, 14); I, 152 (= IV, 40); I, 157 (= IV, 47)]. But as Joachim notes (2, 53), Spinoza makes a rather different use of the comparison. Similar remarks apply to a passage in Descartes’ Regulae (AT X, 397). Neither Bacon nor Descartes uses the analogy to counter a threatened regress.
k By inborn power I understand what is not caused in us by external causes. I shall explain this afterwards in my Philosophy.
l Here they are called works. In my Philosophy, I shall explain what they are.
m Note that here we shall take care to show not only what we have just said, but also that we have so far proceeded rightly, and at the same time other things that it is quite necessary to know.
26 Spinoza does seem to mean that these inborn tools are needed only provisionally, until better ones can be made with them, though as Joachim remarks (2, 54, n. 1) this is obscure. Other translators (e.g., Appuhn, Koyré) take Spinoza to mean that these inborn tools are all the intellect requires to make more advanced ones.
27 NS: “The true idea.” But I take it that this must be a generalizing use of the definite article, since no basis has been laid for reference to any particular true idea (or for any assumption that, ultimately, there is only one true idea).
28 Joachim (2, 54, n. 2, 80, n. 1) contends that by a “true idea of Peter” Spinoza here means the true idea which someone else may have of Peter. The example Spinoza gives at the end of this paragraph seems to confirm this.
n Note that here we are not asking how the first objective essence is inborn in us. For that pertains to the investigation of nature, where we explain these things more fully, and at the same time show that apart from the idea there is neither affirmation, nor negation, nor any will.
o In my Philosophy, I shall explain what seeking is in the soul.
29 OP: “modus, quo sentimus essentiam formalem.” It is unclear whether modus should be taken as a technical term here.
30 Perhaps, as Joachim suggests (2, 162, n. 4), we should read et for aut here: “Reasoning and intellection.”
31 OP: “datae verae ideae”; NS: “ ’t gestelde ware denkbeelt.” Koyré argues that the term datae in this kind of expression is best suppressed, since it does not imply what it is likely to suggest, viz. that the true idea is given to us. All that is implied is that there is a true idea. Gueroult (1, 1:30, n. 42) argues against this that the qualification implies that the true idea is an actual eternal essence in the infinite or finite intellect, and hence produced by God, not by the intellect. Man finds the Idea “en lui sans lui.” Although uncertain of the correctness of Gueroult’s interpretation, I find it impossible to follow Koyré’s policy, which seems to lead to serious difficulty in contexts like § 43.
p To interact with other things is to produce, or be produced by, other things.
32 The NS version of this sentence runs: “If there were something in nature that did not interact with other things, then its objective essence, which would have to agree completely with the formal essence, would also not interact with other ideas, i.e., we would not be able to understand or infer anything about it.” I have translated the Latin (as emended by Gebhardt to correct a grammatical mistake); Gebhardt thinks it obvious that the conditionalization of the reference to the objective essence is a change made by Spinoza after the Dutch translation was done. But I share Joachim’s feeling (2, 100, n. 2) that the Dutch makes better sense. Gebhardt also adds a phrase in l. 31 from the Dutch, so that the conclusion of the sentence might be translated: “we could neither understand nor infer.…” But it is very unlikely that this indicates an earlier and fuller version of the text. Probably it represents nothing more than the use of two Dutch verbs to render one Latin one.
33 OP: “ut mens nostra omninò referat Naturae exemplar.” It is difficult to be confident about the translation of this clause. Joachim (2, 100) offers: “that our mind may reflect ideally in all respects its real Original—i.e., may reflect the formal essence of Nature in its totality and in all its parts,” drawing on § 91 for the gloss. As Joachim points out later (215, n. 1) this passage is prima facie incompatible with his interpretation of Spinoza’s conception of truth.
q As we also do not here doubt the truth we possess.
34 I believe § 104 provides a helpful gloss on this passage.
35 There is no negation in either the OP or the NS, but most editors have felt the need to supply one. If one is supplied, then it seems we must also assume a gap in the text after “I reply to him.” Koyré understands the text in this fashion, and conjectures that Spinoza eventually came to regard the objection as well-founded, so that he concentrated on the Ethics and put the Treatise to one side (cf. his note to this passage, and the Avant-propos).
Gebhardt at one stage thought likewise, but by the time he produced his edition of the Works had come to the conclusion that the text must be defended, not emended (II/326-327). He takes Spinoza to be replying not to an objection to his procedure here, but to an objection to his procedure in his projected Philosophy. Eisenberg (1, 45-49, n. 82) joins Gebhardt in defending the text.
I prefer Koyré’s reading. I cannot deal fully here with the arguments offered by Gebhardt and Eisenberg, but I will make the following observations: (1) the text of the OP is supported by the NS, but if the conjectured omissions were in Spinoza’s ms., this confirmation does not amount to much; quite possibly the ms. contained a passage which Spinoza struck out and never replaced; (2) I do not see why the emendation would make § 46 a mere duplication of II/17/8-34; (3) if Spinoza were switching suddenly from a defense of his procedure in the TdIE to a defense of his procedure in his Philosophy, I would expect a more explicit indication of it; (4) Eisenberg construes ostenderim in II/18/2 as a future perfect (indicative): “If anyone should seek [perhaps] to know why I shall have shown the truths of Nature in that order at once, before everything.…” But both morphology and syntax require us to construe it as present perfect subjunctive. And the concluding line of the paragraph (in which Eisenberg construes praemiserim as present perfect subjunctive) makes it clear that Spinoza intends to defend what he has already done.
r See further what we shall note concerning hypotheses that we clearly understand; but the fiction consists in our saying that such as these exist in the heavenly bodies.
36 OP: “somnum,” but NS: “dromen.” So probably we should read: somnium.
37 NS: “eerste/prima.” So perhaps Spinoza originally wrote: “first cause.”
38 Gebhardt adds the phrase “in existing” from the NS, but I agree with Joachim (2, 116, n. 2) that this is at least unnecessary, if not wrong. Similarly Gebhardt’s addition at II/19/1 seems wrong given that Spinoza goes on (both in the OP and in the NS) to enumerate a fourth task of the method. His text would be translated: “Third [NS: and finally]”.…
s Because the thing makes itself evident, provided it is understood, we require only an example, without other proof. The same is true of its contradictory—it need only be examined for its falsity to be clear. This will be plain immediately, when we speak of fictions concerning essence.
t Note. Although many say that they doubt whether God exists, nevertheless they have nothing but the name, or they feign something which they call God; this does not agree with the nature of God, as I shall show later in the proper place.
u By an eternal truth I mean one, which, if it is affirmative, will never be able to be negative. Thus it is a first and eternal truth that God is; but that Adam thinks is not an eternal truth. That there is no Chimera is an eternal truth; but not that Adam does not think.
39 Joachim (ibid.) suggests reading essentia, though the OP’s existentia is supported by the NS. If it were not for the immediately following phrase (ipsâ suâ naturâ), I would think this almost certainly correct. I have translated the Latin as it stands, but (with Eisenberg) I feel certain that what Spinoza means is that the essence of the thing by itself does not entail either that the thing cannot, or that it must, exist.
40 The text of the OP would be translated: “From this it follows that, if there is a God, or something omniscient, we (nos) can feign nothing at all.” Since this makes very little sense, earlier editors and translators often supplied a phrase to fill it out: “we can feign nothing at all about it.” Gebhardt’s text, which I have translated, reads eum for nos, following the NS. Slightly preferable, perhaps, would be van Vloten and Land’s hoc (= this being) for nos. Textual emendation is a dangerous game, but if anything in this area is certain, we can be sure that the text of the OP is corrupt. For a full discussion see Gebhardt (II/328-330) or Eisenberg 2, 56-60. Eisenberg gives a clear explanation of the thought: since hypotheses concern only the possible (i.e., things whose existence or nonexistence depends on causes unknown to us), a being to whom nothing was unknown would not be able to regard anything as merely possible, hence would not be able to form hypotheses about anything.
41 The clause “when (ubi) we do not attend to the order of Nature” is puzzling enough to have prompted attempts at emendation. Gebhardt is probably right to reject Elbogen’s suggestion that it has simply been misplaced, but might have considered more seriously Stern’s suggestion that we should read etsi for ubi: “even if we do not attend …” It would not take a great deal of carelessness in the writing or the reading for a handwritten etsi to be taken for an ubi and etsi would not require a subjunctive (pace Gebhardt). Koyré (2, 106) has a plausible gloss: for Spinoza there are as many modes and degrees of existence as there are modes and degrees of essence; the existence of a man is different from that of an animal or an inanimate object; even when we do not attend to the order of nature (which is a necessary, but not sufficient condition of all feigning), we cannot attribute to a man an animal’s mode of existence unless we think in general terms.
x Afterwards, when we speak of fiction that concerns essences, it will be clear that the fiction never makes, or presents to the mind, anything new, but that only things which are in the brain or the imagination are recalled to memory, and that the mind attends confusedly to all of them at once. Speech and a tree, for example, are recalled to memory, and since the mind attends confusedly, without distinction, it allows that the tree speaks. The same is understood concerning existence, especially, as we have said, when it is conceived so generally, as being. Then it is easily applied to all things which occur in the mind together. This is very much worth noting.
y The same must also be understood concerning the hypotheses that are made to explain certain motions, which agree with the phenomena of the heavens; except that when people apply them to the celestial motions, they infer the nature of the heavens from them. But that nature can be different, especially since many other causes can be conceived to explain such motions.
42 Koyré suggests glossing “done something” by “uttered some words.”
43 Joachim (2, 120 n.) suggests that Spinoza has in mind Descartes’ Principles IV, 95-101, though it is not clear that Descartes is there involved in either of the suppositions Spinoza here discusses.
44 I have translated the text of the OP (“verae ac merae assertiones”) as it stands, but in spite of the support of the NS and Joachim’s defense (2, 121, n. 2), I question whether verae (‘true’) is correct. Appuhn has: “assertions pure and simple,” which seems more in keeping with parallel passages (II/21/20-21, 21/27-28, 22/20-21).
z It often happens that a man recalls this term soul to his memory, and at the same time forms some corporeal image. But since these two things are represented together, he easily allows that he imagines and feigns a corporeal soul: because he does not distinguish the name from the thing itself. Here I ask my readers not to hasten to refute this, which, as I hope, they will not do, provided that they attend as accurately as possible to the examples, and at the same time, to the things that follow.
45 Elbogen points out that most of Spinoza’s examples come from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. But note that there seem to be references also to the Judaeo-Christian doctrine of creation and the Christian doctrine of the incarnation. Cf. Parkinson, 101-102, and E IP8S2, II/49/35.
46 Koyré sees an allusion both to theologians who hold a voluntarist theory of belief and to Hobbes’ De Corpore I, iii, 8.
47 Wolfson (1, 2:110-111) thought that this passage was undoubtedly directed against Descartes, citing The Passions of the Soul III, 152. He might, with equal justice, have cited the Fourth Meditation’s claim that it is principally our free will that justifies our thinking of ourselves as made in God’s image (AT VII, 57). De Deugd (90-91) countered that Descartes nevertheless does not ascribe to man a power to create ideas ex nihilo (which is what is in question here in § 60). Still, I do not think that would be a terribly implausible reading of certain passages in the Third Meditation (AT VII, 43-44). Descartes may be the target.
a Although I seem to infer this from experience, and someone may say that this is nothing, because a demonstration is lacking, he may have one, if he wishes; since there can be nothing in nature that is contrary to its laws, but since all things happen according to certain laws of nature, so that they produce their certain effects, by certain laws, in an unbreakable connection, it follows from this that when the soul conceives a thing truly, it proceeds to form the same effects objectively. See below, where I speak of the false idea. [In the OP this note is attached to the last sentence in § 60. Gebhardt places it here, following the NS. De Deugd has defended the placement of the OP (88, n. 1). But Eisenberg (2, 69) argues persuasively that the note is intended, not to disprove the view discussed in § 60, but to support the view presented in § 61.]
b Note that the fiction, considered in itself, does not differ much from the dream, except that the causes which appear to the waking by the aid of the senses, and from which they infer that those presentations are not presented at that time by things placed outside them, do not appear in dreams. But error, as will be evident immediately, is dreaming while awake. And if it is very obvious, it is called madness.
48 This sentence occurs only in the OP, which may indicate either an oversight on the part of the translator (as Leopold thought) or a later addition (as Gebhardt thought). This paragraph and the following are very strongly reminiscent of Descartes’ teaching in the Regulae, Rules 10 and 12, AT X, 399, 418, and 420. But even here there is nothing Spinoza could have derived only from Descartes. As Koyré points out, a similar doctrine is taught by St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, Ia. 17, 3.
49 OP: “primam” NS: “het eerste denkbeelt” (= ideam). But parallelism with 1. 12 requires: fictionem.
50 OP: “sed quòd necessitas.” Joachim (2, 153, n. 2) suggests emending by deleting sed. That still leaves a somewhat awkward construction. What Spinoza means, I think, is that the second clause is a consequence of the first, not a separate condition.
51 As Joachim notes (2, 91-98), there are two passages in Descartes that Spinoza may have in mind here, one in the Fifth Meditation and one in the Second Replies (AT VII, 64, 103-104). Spinoza’s examples are awkward for those interpreters who emphasize other passages in which Spinoza apparently adopts a correspondence theory of truth (e.g., myself, in Curley 3, 52-56, 122-126, 134-137, 142). But the examples are awkward in any case, since apparently incompatible with the general proposition they are supposed to illustrate, which is not so awkward. For further discussion see Curley 9.
52 Koyré is probably right to see an allusion to Hobbes here. Cf. De Corpore I, i, 8.
53 OP: “cogitationis”, NS: “kennis/cognitio.” Gebhardt thinks the OP represents Spinoza’s correction of a mistake he made in the ms. from which the NS translation was done.
54 OP: “uti primâ fronte videtur.” Most translators (including the NS) have taken this to be presented as no more than a plausible hypothesis. But Joachim suggests (2, 91) that it is presented as a self-evident principle: “as is apparent at first glance.” Cf. § 106.
55 Joachim (2, 159, n. 1) suggests following the NS, which reads: “… that was such a most subtle body.…”
56 Gueroult (1, 1:169 n.) identifies the “first elements of the whole of Nature,” which constitute the source and origin of Nature, with the attributes that constitute God or substance. I agree (Curley 3, 42) and infer that God is not to be identified with the whole of Nature, but only with Natura naturans.
z These are not attributes of God that show his essence, as I shall show in [my] Philosophy. [Since this topic is one taken up in the Short Treatise (KV I, ii-vii), but not in the Ethics, this note is evidence that the work referred to in the TdIE as “my Philosophy” was more like the Short Treatise than the Ethics.]
a This has already been demonstrated above. For if such a being did not exist, it could never be produced; and therefore the mind would be able to understand more things than Nature could bring about—which we have shown above to be false.
57 Koyré refers us here to E IIP38 and Hobbes, De Corpore I, vi, 4-13.
58 In the OP this sentence is printed as a footnote annexed to the Latin phrase here represented by “But in thinking.…” Gebhardt (following a suggestion of Leopold’s) adopts the reading of the NS, which brings it into the text. Joachim (2, 182 n.) thinks this a mistake.
59 OP: “quomodò quaestiones sint determinandae.” I adopt Joachim’s paraphrase (2, 183).
d But if the duration is indeterminate, the memory of the thing is imperfect, as each of us also seems to have learned from nature. For often, to believe someone better in what he says, we ask when and where it happened. Although the ideas themselves also have their own duration in the mind, nevertheless, since we have become accustomed to determine duration with the aid of some measure of motion, which is also done with the aid of the imagination, we still observe no memory that belongs to the pure mind.61
60 OP: “Fabulam amatoriam,” NS: “tooneelspel van liefde.” Literally, love story or romantic play. But the marginal note in the NS suggests that Spinoza may originally have written Comoedia. The change (if there was one) was presumably made only for stylistic reasons and was not made consistently (cf. 1. 29).
61 OP: “sit purae mentis” NS: “gantschelijk tot de ziel behoort” (= belongs entirely to the mind).
62 The NS at this point gives (instead of “etc.”) a version of the lines occurring above 12-14. But they add that the imagination is not only random, but also unconscious, and that the soul is entirely acted on.
e The principal Rule of this part (as follows from the first part) is to review all the ideas we discover in us from the pure intellect, so that they are distinguished from those we imagine. This will have to be elicited from the properties of each, i.e., of the imagination and the intellection.
f Note that it is evident from this that we cannot [NS: legitimately or properly] understand anything of Nature without at the same time rendering our knowledge of the first cause, or God, more ample.
63 Cf. Hobbes, De Corpore I, i, 5, and his Examinatio et emendatio mathematicae hodiernae, second dialogue. See also Cassirer 2:98ff.
64 According to Gueroult (1, 1:172-173), Spinoza later modified this requirement and came to regard his definition of God (E ID6) as a genetic, causal definition. It would still be true that God requires nothing else except his own being (i.e., the elements of his being, the attributes) for his explanation. But it would not be correct to say that a definition in terms of those elements excludes every cause. Whereas the notion of being causa sui is here treated as if equivalent to being without a cause, later it will be treated more positively. The key passage is in Letter 60 (IV/270-271).
65 OP: “concludantur” NS: “verklaart worden” (literally: ‘be explained’).
66 Accepting Leopold’s emendation of the text. Cf. Joachim 2, 214 n.
67 Cf. §§ 42, 91, and 95.
68 Various scholars (Leopold, Appuhn, Joachim) have seen in this sentence a digression, probably added by Spinoza as a marginal note. Gebhardt, following both the OP and the NS, retains it in the text, rightly, I think.
69 I take the reference to be to § 61, as Gebhardt apparently does at II/337. But at II/338 he apparently takes it to be to § 70, as part of his case for his emendation of II/38/1-2.
70 OP: “Nam ex nullo fundamento cogitationes nostrae terminari queunt.” Elwes’ translation of that text is as reasonable as any: “For our thoughts may be brought to a close by the absence of a foundation.” Gebhardt (following the NS) emends to: “Nam ex nullo alio fundamento cogitationes nostrae determinari queunt,” which is what I have translated. But Appuhn’s conjecture is also plausible: “Nam ex nullo fundamento cogitationes nostrae determinari nequeunt” (= “for without a foundation our thoughts cannot be determined”). For a fuller discussion see Eisenberg 1, 103-105, or Gebhardt II/337-339. Cf. Aristotle, NE, 1098 b1-12.
71 The text is evidently corrupt here. Gebhardt emends along lines suggested by the NS. I believe his version of the text makes sense if understood as I have translated it. For an alternative version and full discussion, see Eisenberg 1, 107-109.