1 On this process see Pollock, chap. 12, and Vernière.

2 E.g., Novalis, Heine, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, George Sand, George Eliot, Anatole France, and Somerset Maugham.

3 So I read Spinoza’s moral philosophy. See Curley 4. Others disagree. Cf. Mattern and Eisenberg 2.

4 For an interesting discussion of typical views, see Mark.

5 As Mark emphasizes, in Mark, 277-280. However, the qualification “very close” is essential. Cf., for example, the discussion of the definitions of “substance” and “mode” in Curley 3, 4-28.

6 Cf., for example, the first appendix to the Short Treatise, and the early correspondence with Oldenburg. This theme is emphasised both in Mark and Hubbeling. More recently Bennett (2, 20) has recommended viewing the Ethics as a hypothetico-deductive system (“something that starts with general hypotheses, deduces consequences from them, and checks those against the data”). Bennett would concede, of course, that Spinoza did not regard his axioms and definitions as mere hypotheses. “Spinoza could—and I think would—say that although his system must work on untutored minds in a hypothetico-deductive manner, when the tutoring is completed the reader will see the starting point to be certain” (21). That seems to me exactly right. Cf. IIP11S.

7 So I have argued, at any rate, in Curley 3, chap. 1. While much of what is offered in that book as an interpretation of Spinoza is admittedly quite speculative, the conclusion relevant here seems to me almost certain. I am happy to note that Gueroult reaches a very similar conclusion in the first volume of his commentary on the Ethics.

8 The most plausible example of this occurs at II/81/20, but as the annotation will suggest, Gebhardt is probably wrong in his interpretation of the significance of the variation.

9 But not usually, not on any principle that I can discern, and not, in my view, always correctly. The Latin additions he makes at 92/8, 10 seem to me to repose too much confidence in the accuracy of the marginalia.

10 Though Glazemaker may have made some revisions in Balling’s translation and probably added the marginalia. Akkerman also does not exclude the possibility that other friends in the Amsterdam Spinoza circle may have had some hand in Balling’s translation of E I-II.

1 The titles of the five parts are given differently in the NS: “I. Of God, II. Of the Human Mind, III. Of the Nature and Origin of the Affects, IV. Of Human Bondage, V. Of Human Freedom.” Akkerman (2, 263) suggests that the order of the title of Part III in the OP is wrong (by analogy with the title of Part II), though probably the order of Spinoza’s ms., and that the NS reflects Jelles’s emendation of the ms.

2 OP: “Per attributum intelligo id, quod intellectus de substantiâ percipit, tanquam ejusdem essentiam constituens.” The meaning of this definition is much disputed. One important question of translation is whether tanquam should be rendered ‘as if’ or ‘as.’ The former would favor those who hold the ‘subjective’ interpretation, according to which the differences between the attributes are illusory, all the attributes being identical in substance. Cf. Wolfson 1, 1: chap. 5. The latter would be more congenial to those who think the attributes are really distinct and not merely constructions of the intellect. I think Gueroult, 1 (1: app. 3) has provided us with a definitive refutation of the subjective interpretation. But it is unclear whether his own interpretation is acceptable. See Donagan 1 and Curley 6.

Arguably the intellect referred to in this definition is the infinite intellect, not the finite (see Haserot). Note also that the NS supplies a definite article for substantia. Practice among modern translators and commentators varies; but I agree with Gueroult (1, 1:52) that the indefinite article is to be preferred.

3 The NS have the indefinite article here. Cf. Gueroult 1, 1:51, 67.

4 The gloss Gebhardt adds from the NS may be the work of the translator, as Akkerman thinks is often true in such cases, or it may be an addition by Spinoza, as Akkerman (2, 161) thinks possible here. In any case, if the NS translation of E I-II was done by Balling in the period 1663-1665, then it seems likely that Spinoza would have seen it and had an opportunity to reject any alterations he did not approve of.

5 Parkinson (171n) suggests that while ‘the essence of a thing’ is possible, ‘the essence of the thing’ is preferable, so as to imply only that the essence of substance is eternal (anticipating E IP8S2), not that all essences are eternal. But the NS have the indefinite article. And Spinoza does not maintain that all essences are eternal only in suspect works like the Metaphysical Thoughts. Cf. for example, the Treatise (II/36-37). In any case the attributes seem to provide us with a plurality of eternal things (cf. P19).

6 NS: “expressed.”

7 NS: de zelfstandigheit, the substance, or simply, substance. But as Appuhn says, it does not emerge until later, after the properties of substances have been established, that there is only one substance. Spinoza will continue to speak as if there could be more than one substance until P14C1.

8 The punctuation in both the OP and the NS, which puts commas around the participial phrase, may suggest a claim that two substances, if they are indeed two, will have to have different attributes. It seems to me not to be Spinoza’s intention to claim this at this point (cf. P5). I take the force of the phrase to be conditional: “If two substances have different attributes.…” Leibniz’s objection (I, 141), that two substances might have some attributes in common and others which were distinctive of each one (e.g., substance A has attributes C and D, substance B has attributes C and E), rests on the assumption that a substance may have more than one attribute. But (in spite of D6 and P10S) I take it that Spinoza begins with the Cartesian assumption (cf. Principles I, 53) that each substance has one attribute that constitutes its nature or essence, and that anything else that might be called an attribute would be improperly, or only loosely, so-called.

9 Elwes, White and Shirley all omit the comma after “attributes,” thereby suggesting that substance is being identified with its attributes and affections. But the comma appears both in the OP and the NS. On the identity of substance and attribute see Gueroult 1, 1:47-50; Curley 3, 16-18.

10 Both the OP and the NS omit the bracketed phrase, but this is clearly only an ellipsis. Akkerman (2, 80) points out that one of the most common differences between the OP and the NS occurs at the end of demonstrations, particularly when the proof is indirect (e.g., E IIP10D) or given in two parts (e.g., E IP18D). He infers (2, 176) that, rather than constantly repeat the proposition to be demonstrated, Spinoza probably gave very summary indications of the conclusions in his mss., “which were worked out in various ways by the editors and translators.”

The OP and NS also read “D3 and D6” in l. 13, but Van Vloten-Land and Gebhardt emend to “D3 and A6.” Hubbeling (66) suggests that the reference may be to the principle that every definition, or clear and distinct idea, is true (cf. IV/13/12-13).

The proposition is an extremely important one, since it is the first truly radical theorem Spinoza derives from his first principles. Note the alternative demonstration in P8S2.

11 The NS reads: “This Proposition …” Gebhardt infers that the translation reflects an earlier draft. But Akkerman points out (2, 154) that the reference must be to the corollary, and concludes that the NS reading merely reflects the translator’s disposition to eliminate ambiguities, a disposition which in this case leads him astray.

12 From the perspective of Gueroult’s interpretation, this phrase is highly significant, as illustrating his contention that the early propositions of Part I of the Ethics (P1-P8) are concerned to demonstrate properties possessed by the elements of God’s essence, which are substances constituted by a single attribute, each unique in its kind, existing by itself and infinite. The problem, then, becomes one of seeing how these attributes are united in one being, i.e., how these distinct essences (P10S) can be the essences of one and the same thing.

13 Akkerman (2, 161) takes this to be clearly a translator’s addition.

14 Because this scholium relates more to P7 than to P8, some scholars have thought it a marginal note misplaced by the original editors. But both the NS and the OP put it here, and as Gebhardt notes, it is subsequently referred to by Spinoza as the second scholium to P8. Probably the reason for its placement here is that Spinoza conceives the first eight propositions to form a natural unit, and this scholium touches on a number of the themes of that unit.

15 Gebhardt notes that the NS has ‘wijzen’ with ‘modi’ in the margin, instead of ‘modificationes’ as in the OP text. There are many such variations in the NS marginalia (e.g., ‘affectio’ for ‘affectus’ in l. 36) and Gebhardt takes them as a sign that the NS translation was done from an earlier state of the text. But Akkerman (2, 66-67, 163) has advanced a more plausible hypothesis, that the translator (or rather, the author of the marginalia, who in this case may not have been the translator) may not always have preserved for the Dutch reader the exact Latin word Spinoza used. The author of the marginalia may not always have taken the time to look back from the translation to the text translated, and may have been misled by the translator’s (correct) treatment of ‘modus’ and ‘modificatio’ as synonyms. He may also have intended to indicate not so much the exact word, as simply a common Latin term for the Dutch term. The translation seems deliberately to avoid the use of words of foreign origin. The marginalia help to compensate for the loss entailed by that policy.

16 Wolfson (2, 242-243) suggests a number of possible targets here: the belief that trees may speak was held by the Sabians and ridiculed by Maimonides (1, 3:29); that men may be made from stones as well as seed is implied in the Greek legend of Deucalion and Pyrrha (Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, 411-413), but also in Matthew 3:9; and that a thing having any one form may be changed into one having any other is illustrated both by many of the legends in Ovid, but also by many Jewish and Christian miracles (cf. Maimonides 1, 2:29, and TdIE §58).

17 This passage is interesting partly because it provides a different gloss on the definition of substance from that offered in D3, but also because Spinoza shows clearly here that he does not take his definition of substance to be merely a report of what men ordinarily understand by that term. Cf. Curley 3, 14-16.

18 The NS here has an interesting variation that Gebhardt does not note: “But the object of a true idea of substances can be nothing other than the substances themselves.…” Akkerman (2, 166) suggests that the translator wished to eliminate the abstract term “veritas” in favor of “vera idea,” which had been discussed above (l. 8). A passage in the CM(I/247/4-6) would seem to license the transformation, and that passage would have been fresh in Balling’s mind if he did, as Akkerman thinks, translate E I-II around 1663. Akkerman has shown that this kind of a freedom is characteristic of Balling’s work as a translator, but not of Glazemaker’s.

19 NS: “If someone maintains that a substance which was not, now begins to be.”

20 Some translators have proposed emending the text so that it would be translated ‘a true idea has become false.’ Gebhardt rightly rejects the emendation, though his assumption that the NS translation shows that Spinoza twice wrote “a false idea has become true” is probably incorrect. The NS translator’s gloss on the beginning of the sentence helps to bring out Spinoza’s point. The idea that a substance is created implies that at one time it is false of the substance that it exists and that at a later time it has become true. This is absurd because it involves conceiving an eternal truth as a temporal one.

21 The remainder of this scholium closely parallels Letter 34, the main difference being that in the letter the argument is used to prove that there is only one God. The lost original was written in Dutch. Akkerman conjectures (2, 167-168), on the basis of a comparison of the OP version of P8S2, the NS version of P8S2, and the NS version of Letter 34, that Spinoza may have had Balling’s translation of E I-II available to him when he wrote Letter 34 in 1666, and that he may have used it to help draft the letter. If this is right, it is somewhat surprising that Spinoza did not, in writing the letter, correct the NS’s mistranslation of ‘quòd’ as ‘because’ in l. 32.

[NS: a by individuals are understood particulars which belong under a genus.]

22 NS: “een stellige oorzaak/causa positiva,” a positive cause. Perhaps, as Akkerman suggests (2, 163), this variation is to be accounted for as translator’s license (cf. above at II/49/29). But it is interesting that the same variation occurs in Letter 34 (IV/179/29). If Akkerman’s theory (cf. above at II/50/21) is correct, then Spinoza may have made the alteration in writing the letter, changed the NS version of P8S2 accordingly, but not taken the trouble (or remembered) to make the alteration in the Latin original.

23 NS: “at the beginning of this scholium.”

24 The usual way of rendering this into English was challenged by Bennett, who argued that constituere should be rendered, not by ‘constitute,’ but by ‘characterize.’ Donagan (2) replied, with reference to EID4, that ‘constitute’ was correct, since it might be understood as elliptical for ‘constitute the essence of.’ My own view is that ‘constitute’ is defensible without our needing to regard it as elliptical, because of the tendency in both Descartes and Spinoza to identify substance and attribute. Cf. here Spinoza’s note to IP7 of his Descartes’ Principles (I/163/5). It is true that even here Spinoza uses language apt to suggest that the attributes are properties of substance and distinct from it. But in the end I think that is only misleading.

25 NS: “a certain kind of essence, which is eternal and infinite.” Gebhardt conjectures that the variation reflects the existence of an earlier draft, Akkerman (2, 163), a free translation.

26 The NS omits “now” in both cases.

27 Gebhardt, following the OP, reads habere in l. 19, i.e.: ‘a substance of another nature could have nothing in common with God.’ But the NS suggests that we should read haberet.

28 OP: “Posse non existere impotentia est, & contra posse existere potentia est.” Some earlier translators thought this should read: “Non posse existere …” (e.g., White: “Inability to exist …,” Meijer: “Niet te kunnen bestaan …”). Gebhardt pointed out that the NS confirm the OP: “Te konnen niet zijn/Non existere/is warelijk onvermogen: in tegendeel, te konnen zijn/Existere/is vermogen.” But since some persist in emending the text (e.g., Caillois, “Ne pouvoir exister …”) it is worth observing that this makes nonsense of the following argument. Spinoza wishes to compare the power of what can exist (but cannot not exist) with the power of finite existents which (since they do in fact exist) must be able to exist, but which are also able not to exist.

Admittedly, Spinoza makes his point (that being able not to exist is not a sign of power) somewhat more difficult to grasp by speaking in the next sentence of “what … necessarily exists,” which may suggest that these finite beings are not able not to exist. But Spinoza does not mean that their existence is an eternal truth. Considered in themselves, they are able not to exist. It is only when they are considered in relation to an external cause that their existence is necessary. This is the force of speaking of “what now necessarily exists.” As at 53/9-10, the NS omits the “now.”

29 NS: “which are easily able to exist.”

30 NS: “are not so easily able to exist.”

31 Following Meijer. Both the OP and the NS have P6. But Gebhardt’s argument that this must be right is unconvincing.

32 The apparently gratuitous assumption that the parts would be equal has prompted various emendations. Gebhardt is probably right to suggest that Spinoza assumes that if substance can be conceived to be divided at all, then it can be conceived to be divided into equal parts. So the case of an equal division is the only one that need be considered.

33 NS: “insofar as one conceives it as substance.”

34 On the propriety of applying this term to God, see Gueroult 1, 1:156-158.

35 Wolfson’s discussion of the historical background of this scholium (1, 1:262-295) is instructive, provided it is read cautiously. It should be stressed that the main theme of the scholium is the defense of the doctrine that extended substance is an attribute of God; that extended substance is infinite is a subordinate theme, relating only to the first objection Spinoza discusses (sections II, IV, and V), not to the second (sections III and VI). See also Letter 12 and Gueroult’s discussion of it in Grene.

36 We do have ‘sive’ here, which is normally the ‘or’ of identity; but if corporeality implies finiteness (as the preceding paragraph says it does), then Spinoza ought not to identify extended substance with corporeal substance, since the latter involves a contradiction. Nevertheless, throughout this scholium Spinoza does use the terms as if they were interchangeable (e.g., at II/58/18 and at 58/34-35). Perhaps the explanation is that he adopts, for the time being, his opponents’ identification of the two concepts.

37 Gebhardt adds this from the NS. But this is not what that corollary says. As things stand, this proposition is not proven until E IIP2. Perhaps in an earlier state of the ms. the corollary did say that and perhaps the omission of this reference was deliberate, following a change in the corollary.

38 In fact Spinoza mentions three, numbered here [i], [ii], and [iii]. That corporeal substance could be infinite was certainly denied by Aristotle (cf. Physics III, 5; De Caelo I, 5-7), though his arguments seem to have evolved considerably before they reached the form in which Spinoza undertakes to refute them. For Descartes’ attempt at compromise, see Principles of Philosophy I, 26-27. On the whole issue, see Koyré 1.

39 This argument seems to require that the division be into two equal parts. Probably it is taken for granted that if any division is possible, division into equal parts is possible (cf. P12D).

40 Descartes is generally identified as the opponent here (cf. Principles I, 23). Wolfson’s argument to the contrary (1, 1:268) is unconvincing, but it is fair to say that Spinoza’s version of the Cartesian argument in Descartes’ Principles (IP16, I/176-177) is closer to what Descartes actually says than the argument given here. Descartes gives no reason for saying that divisibility involves imperfection. The objection Spinoza considers here makes it an imperfection because it entails the possibility of being acted on.

41 OP: de quo aliàs. This is not specific as to time, but Appuhn is probably right to see a reference here to Descartes’ Principles (I/188), since the topic is not mentioned again in the Ethics. Gueroult (1, 1:216) casts doubt on this, but on the inaccurate ground that Descartes’ Principles is nothing more than an exposition of a philosophy Spinoza rejects. Spinoza certainly regards some of the arguments of that work as sound. Cf. E IP19S.

42 NS: “abstracted from matter.” The phrases incorporated from the NS in this sentence are perhaps no more than examples of translator’s liberties.

43 It is unclear whether modus should be translated here as a technical term (Appuhn, Caillois), or as a nontechnical one (White, Elwes, Meijer, and Auerbach). The NS cannot resolve this since they use wijz both for technical and nontechnical uses of modus; but they do give the Latin in the margin, which suggests that they took it as a technical term. Gueroult (1, 1:260) suggests that it may be translated either way. For a context where the policy adopted here seems awkward, see IIP3S.

44 NS: “that can be conceived by an infinite intellect.” Similarly at II. 29-30, and 32-33. The NS’s indefinite article is confirmed by the OP when Spinoza refers back to this proposition at II/83/31-32.

45 On this corollary, cf. Wolfson 1, 1:307, with Gueroult 1, 1:253.

46 Instead of “except the perfection of his nature,” the NS have: “but he is only an efficient cause from the force of his perfection.” Gebhardt adds this to the text, creating a certain redundancy. This is probably a translator’s gloss, rather than a passage omitted in revision.

47 On the medieval background of this scholium see Wolfson 1, 1:308-319, and Gueroult 1, 1:272-295.

48 The NS here adds a gloss on “omnipotence”: “through which he is said to be able to do everything.”

49 It must be emphasized that Spinoza does not himself think that either intellect or will should be ascribed to the essence of God (cf. P31). He is only discussing here what follows from a common view. This has been widely misunderstood. See Gueroult 1, 1:277-282.

50 The NS has, for the final clause: “because God’s intellect has conceived [things] as they really are.” This is no doubt a translator’s gloss, and not a very happy one, since it seems to cancel the text’s claim that God’s intellect is prior to the things understood.

51 This passage is extremely puzzling, since it seems to contradict A5. Cf. Gueroult 1, 1:286-295.

52 For the last two sentences the NS has: “Therefore, God is not a cause of anything that is outside him. That is the second thing we proposed.” Cf. the note at I/48/15. Akkerman notes similar variations in IIIP1, P2, P28, P39, and P52.

53 It is sometimes suggested that it is inappropriate for Spinoza to characterize any mode (even an infinite one) as eternal, and so the use of temporal language here has been taken to show that the infinite modes exist at all times, but not (strictly speaking) eternally. Cf. for example, Appuhn, 3:347; Wolfson 1, 1:376-377; Curley 3, 107 and 116; and Donagan 3.

54 OP: idea Dei; NS: het denkbeelt van God (but at l.21, and subsequently, Gods denkbeelt). The idea of God referred to here is generally taken to be, not the idea of God existing as a finite mode of thought in, say, some human mind, but the (infinite) idea which God has (cf. IIP3 and P7), and hence an infinite mode. I use “God’s idea” and “the idea of God” to mark the distinction between the subjective and objective readings of idea Dei. But it must be understood that it is often very uncertain which meaning is intended.

There is disagreement as to whether God’s idea should be regarded as an immediate infinite mode (Wolfson 1, 1:238ff.; Gueroult 1, 1:314ff.) or a mediate infinite mode (Pollock, 176; Joachim 1, 94). It must be realized that any interpretation of Spinoza’s doctrine of infinite modes has very little evidence to work from. For example, it is usually thought that there will be one immediate infinite mode and one mediate infinite mode for each attribute. But in none of the scanty references in the Ethics (IP21-23), the Short Treatise (I, 8, 9) and the Correspondence (Letter 64) is this actually stated.

55 The NS has an indefinite article here, but deletes it in the errata. Two lines later it has “an absolute thought,” which is left unaltered.

56 NS: “It must be necessarily and eternally immutable.”

57 NS: “Whatever follows from one of God’s attributes, insofar as it is affected with a mode that by the power of that attribute is infinite and eternal, must also be necessarily eternal and infinite.” Akkerman thinks it possible that Spinoza altered the text slightly after it had been translated, but equally possible that Balling is being free with the text (licensed by the equation of eternity and necessary existence in ID8, cf. I/67/4). Backward references to IP22 vary, cf. 69/21-22 with 94/26.

58 Many commentators have wondered how the finite causality affirmed here could be consistent with the divine causality affirmed in P26 and P27. Idealist interpreters have tended to treat finite causality, and indeed, the very existence of the finite in Spinoza, as an illusion (cf. Joachim 1, 98-122), though Harris (1, 57-69) is an exception. For a realist interpretation see Curley 3, chap. 2. The criticism of this in Harris (2) seems to me to involve a confusion of epistemological issues with metaphysical ones.

59 The text of the OP is corrupt in this sentence. Gebhardt rightly emends on the basis of the NS (though it would be better Latin to supply et quaedam). Even with the emendation, however, this scholium is open to various interpretations. Some have taken “certain things” to refer to the immediate infinite modes of P21 and “others” to refer to the mediate infinite modes of P22 (Gebhardt, II/352-353; Wolfson I, 1:390). Others (Gueroult 1, 1:342; Curley 3, 70-71) take “certain things” to refer to all the infinite modes, and “others” to refer to the finite modes. In favor of the latter interpretation (which is certainly not the most natural without reflection) it may be pointed out that (a) Spinoza’s own gloss on “things produced immediately by God” is “things which follow from his absolute nature” (which applies to all the infinite modes), (b) at ll. 11-12 he apparently regards the latter phrase as more accurate, and (c) this reading is confirmed by the Short Treatise I/36, 118. The point of “nevertheless” (in l. 4) is that although the finite modes are produced by other finite modes, and do not follow from the absolute nature of God, they do still depend on him (i.e., he is not their remote cause in the sense given to that term at ll. 13-14).

60 Gueroult’s explanation (1, 1:255n) of Heereboord’s use of the terms “proximate” and “remote” seems helpful in understanding this passage. See the Glossary-Index.

61 OP, NS: P27. Gebhardt defends that reading against Meijer’s proposal to read P22, but Gueroult’s suggestion (1, 1:343) that we should read P28 seems right.

62 The text here has been variously translated, but a consensus seems to have developed in favor of this rendering. Cf. Gueroult 1, 1:354n.

63 I.e., though thought is an attribute of God, and he is a thinking thing (IIP1), he has neither intellect, nor will, desire nor love. This doctrine goes back to the Short Treatise (cf. I/45/21ff.).

64 This is only a provisional way of speaking. Cf. IIP49C. For the transition from “will” to “volition,” cf. IIP48.

65 Though the preceding sentence does not say explicitly that the will is there supposed to be a finite mode, this is implied by the reference to P28 and probably by the adjective “certain” as well. Cf. Gueroult 1, 1:362 (and contrast Wolfson 1, 1:407).

66 This is only provisional. Later (II/209) Spinoza will distinguish between the contingent and the possible.

67 Again it must be emphasized that (as in P17S) Spinoza is here discussing only what follows from an assumption of his opponents which he rejects. (Curley 3, 158, requires correction on this point, as De Dijn noted.) Apparent passages to the contrary in the Metaphysical Thoughts (e.g., I/261, 264) must be counted among those in which Spinoza is merely expounding Descartes. Cf. the note to II/71/32.

68 Cf. Aquinas 1, 1a, 3, 1, and Descartes, Third Meditation, AT VII, 47.

69 NS: “on account of which they are called perfect or imperfect, good or bad.”

70 Cf. Descartes, Sixth Replies, AT VII, 435-436, and the Short Treatise (I/38/11).

71 Wolfson’s discussion of medieval doctrines concerning final causes (1, 1:422-440) is useful background to this appendix. But Gueroult is surely right to argue (1, 1:398-400) that Spinoza’s antifinalism, while owing much to Descartes, is, in the end, directed against him as well as the scholastics.

72 What Gebhardt adds here from the NS, Akkerman (2, 161) regards as a translator’s gloss, though it seems to me to go beyond the sort of thing one would expect from Balling.

73 What Gebhardt adds here from the NS, Akkerman (2, 161) regards as a translator’s gloss.

74 What Gebhardt adds here from the NS, Akkerman (2, 161) suggests may be a comment by Balling, “who thinks most people stupid.” Akkerman is no doubt thinking of the gloss at 81/20, which probably is due to Balling. But the comment here seems to say no more than that few men are able to see common prejudices for what they are and rise above them, and that seems to be a genuinely Spinozistic view. Cf. the Preface to the TTP, III/5-6, 12. If we ascribe this line to Spinoza, we need not imagine that he deliberately omitted it in revising his first draft. If it was Spinoza’s own copy of Balling’s translation that Glazemaker used in compiling the NS, Spinoza may have added the line to the translation without adding it to the text, through some oversight.

75 As Wolfson points out (1, 1:432), the distinction is to be found (among other places) in Heereboord’s Meletemata where it is explained that in acting for the sake of an end of assimilation God acts for the benefit of other things which are outside him and are made to be like him. Heereboord does also concede there that God has done all things for his own sake.

76 As Wolfson points out (1, 1:434-436), the argument of this paragraph goes back at least as far as Cicero’s De Natura Deorum and was used in the Middle Ages by Maimonides (1, III, 19).

77 Gebhardt here adds a phrase from the NS which would be translated: “or rather, stupidity.” He takes it that Spinoza had omitted this phrase when revising his first draft, in order to avoid unnecessary offense. But as Akkerman (2, 97) points out, it is more likely that the translator was offering a double translation of a single Latin term, to heighten the effect of lines that strongly appealed to him. The translator uses other double translations in this passage without provoking Gebhardt to make the corresponding additions to the text (e.g., l. 19, interpretes/tolken en verklaarders, l. 20, stupor/verwondering of verbaasdheid). Is the addition consistent with Spinoza’s thought elsewhere? Akkerman notes that it is “familiar humanistic ground” that philosophers try to raise people out of their ignorance and that priests see their authority threatened by this. But does Spinoza think the people are not merely ignorant but stupid? Akkerman appeals to TTP, VII, 27 (III/319-20) to show that he does not.

78 Gebhardt here adds, as if it were something omitted in the Latin, what is surely (cf. Akkerman 2, 164) a translator’s gloss on this first clause: “But I leave it to them to judge what force there is in such reasoning.” Since Gebhardt also gives, as part of the text, the Latin which the Dutch glosses, his text is redundant.

79 NS: “the human mind.” Akkerman (2, 169) thinks that this variation may, in fact, stem from Spinoza’s altering the text after it had been translated, and that this may be a survival of the period in which Spinoza conceived the Ethics as having a tripartite structure (I. On God, II. On the mind, III. On human nature). The topics referred to are treated in IVP37S2 as things presently stand.

80 In the NS this passage is translated: “we say that they are in good order, or in order.” Gebhardt assumes that something has been omitted in revision, but probably this is no more than a double translation. Cf. Akkerman 2, 88.

81 This concluding formula, which Gebhardt adds from the NS, Akkerman (2, 161) attributes to the translator.

1 Spinoza’s conception of essence is stricter than the Cartesian conception he expounds in Descartes’ Principles IIA2 (I/183). His reason for not defining essence so broadly is given in P10CS (II/93/20-94/12).

2 What Gebhardt adds here from the NS (which might be translated: “or singulars”) is probably only a double translation.

3 What Gebhardt adds here from the NS (which may be translated: “or, to put it differently, we know that we think”) he regards as a gloss from the first draft which Spinoza later suppressed because it “limited” his teaching. But as Akkerman contends (2, 97-100, 145-146), it is hard to see what limitation is involved and it is clear that the gloss goes well beyond what we might expect of the translator. Akkerman ingeniously suggests that members of the Amsterdam Spinoza circle, some of whom probably studied a draft of EI-II in Balling’s Dutch translation in 1663-1664, may have added these words to their copy of the ms., as their own interpretation of the axiom, inspired perhaps by Glazemaker’s translation of Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy I, 8. Glazemaker ends that section with these very words, since he follows Picot’s French version of the Principles, which amplifies the Latin at this point. When Jelles and Rieuwertsz put Balling’s early translation of EI-II at Glazemaker’s disposal in compiling the NS, Glazemaker did not suspect that these words were not Spinoza’s, but his own (ultimately, Picot’s). Akkerman does allow that Spinoza may, at some stage, have seen and approved the gloss.

4 The NS adds: “or in the same man.” But this is probably only a double translation, as at 85/17.

5 NS: “our body.”

6 What Gebhardt adds from the NS, Akkerman (2, 161) regards as a translator’s gloss.

7 It is not, of course, only ‘ordinary people’ who make this comparison, but also philosophers like Descartes (cf. the letter to Mersenne, 15 April 1630).

8 Various editors have proposed emending this to read: “… only insofar.…” Gebhardt points out that the text of the OP is supported by the NS, and very probably Spinoza’s manuscript did read the way Gebhardt has it. But the emenders are probably true to the spirit of the text, if not its letter. Similarly at ll. 19 and 29.

9 Spinoza is not very explicit on this point in the Ethics, but it seems from other works that we are to assume a distinct idea in thought for every mode of every other attribute, with the result that the attribute of thought appears to be ‘more extensive’ than the other attributes. See Letter 66 and the Short Treatise (I/119). For comment, see Pollock, 159-163; Joachim 1, 134-138; Curley 3, 147-151; Gueroult 1, 2:45-46, 78-84, 91-92.

10 Most translators (e.g., Elwes, White, Auerbach, Meijer, and Caillois) supply a definite article here. But Appuhn’s use of the indefinite article deserves consideration at least. Cf. above at II/45/24-25. The NS use no article at all here.

11 Wolfson (1, 2:26) cites Maimonides 1, I, 68, and Gueroult (1, 2:85) adds that the doctrine was also held by Christian Aristotelians like Aquinas (1, 1a, 18, 14). But of course these philosophers would have understood the doctrine very differently from the way Spinoza does, as he himself implies.

12 The NS here adds: “in the same way.” But this is probably a translator’s gloss, as is what Gebhardt adds from the NS in the next line. The latter addition correctly refers back to P6, but the former is only dubiously correct (cf. 1. 9).

13 Gueroult (1, 2:87) suggests that IIP21S and IIIP2S should be viewed as offering the further explanation hinted at here, since they apply this scholium to the case of the relation between mind and body.

14 The NS translator renders illustrare (here translated by “illustrate”): “explain with an example.” Akkerman (2, 87) finds this an unhappy choice given the opening sentence of the scholium, and suggests “clarify.” I would take what follows as an example which explains the matter imperfectly, i.e., an analogy. In any case, Gebhardt’s assumption that a phrase has been omitted from the Latin text is clearly wrong.

15 This is theorem 35, Book III, of Euclid’s Elements, which is more easily stated if we add to Spinoza’s diagram some letters he does not use. If AC and FG are any two lines intersecting at a point B in a circle, then the rectangle with base AB and height BC is equal in area to that with base BG and height BF.

16 I think Baensch and Meijer have understood this passage more accurately than Gebhardt, whose appeal to the NS (cf. II/358-359) is indecisive.

17 Gueroult (1, 2:544-545) takes the phrase “God … insofar as he is infinite” to be ambiguous between “the attribute” (as opposed to its infinity of finite modes) and “the infinite mode” or “the infinite chain of singular things” (as opposed to a finite part of the infinite mode, or individual member of the infinite chain). But this seems to rest partly on a doubtful reading of IIP40D, q.v.

18 Gueroult (1, 2:135) suggests that the qualification “absolute,” applied to God’s thought (God as the Thinking Thing, or attribute of Thought) implies that it is thought without an object.

19 Here and in l. 10 the NS translation is more explicit than the OP. No doubt Akkerman is right (2, 165) to say, contrary to Gebhardt, that there is no question here of two drafts. But the translator’s gloss is clearly correct and helpful, as a comparison with IP28 will show. Gebhardt, contrary to his usual practice, translates his additions to the text into Latin, relying on the marginalia. But the variance from the wording of P28 seems to confirm that the author of the marginalia is working simply from the Dutch and not consulting a Latin original.

20 NS: “connection of things.” This corresponds more closely to the actual wording of P7.

21 Appuhn remarks that it is tempting to supply an indefinite article here, so as to conform better to the [presumed] requirements of Spinoza’s nominalism. He resists the temptation on the grounds that the scholium of this proposition and IP8S both imply that there is a nature common to all men, and that Part IV would be incomprehensible without that assumption. For what it may be worth, the NS confirm this, reading de mensch (the use of the definite article is normal in Dutch when nouns are used abstractly or collectively). Cf. Gueroult 1, 2:103n.

22 The NS add: “at the same time.” Probably a translator’s gloss, influenced by II/51/2, though it has less point here.

23 Cf. Descartes, Fifth Replies (AT VII, 369); Aquinas 1, Ia, 104, 1; and Gueroult 1, 1:333-334.

24 Descartes is among those aimed at here. Cf. I/183.

25 NS: “they did not keep to the right path to arrive at wisdom.” This is reminiscent of Spinoza’s criticism (through Meyer) of Descartes at I/132/31-33. But the immediate target must be the scholastics rather than Descartes, since for him the mind and God are prior to the objects of the senses in the order of knowledge.

26 NS: “For my intent is not so much to contradict them as to give a reason.…” Gebhardt incorporates this in the text (without, however, deleting tantùm, “only”). This seems a clear case where the text of the OP is to be preferred. The NS version is liable to suggest that it was, in part, Spinoza’s intention to contradict those whose errors he has just exposed. This is uncharacteristic, and no doubt Spinoza intended to avoid that suggestion. This seems to me a case in which it is more plausible to regard the NS as preserving a first draft which has subsequently been altered than as illustrating a translator’s gloss (pace Akkerman 2, 161).

27 The NS here reads: “the other modes … must constitute one and the same thing with the idea.” Akkerman (2, 165) comments: “The translation says that the idea and the modi necessarily following it form together an indivisible whole (an individuum). This is an interesting further specification of the Latin text, and certainly not the other way around, as Gebhardt implies!” Akkerman suggests that the NS variation reflects an explanation Spinoza gave his friends in the Amsterdam Spinoza circle. That they should have requested an explanation of this difficult demonstration “goes to show the high level of discussions” in the circle.

28 What Gebhardt adds here from the NS (which may be translated: “or without there being an idea of it in the mind.”) is probably, as Akkerman suggests (2, 161) only a translator’s gloss.

29 The NS have the indefinite article here and throughout the demonstration, but most modern translators agree in supplying a definite article, and the reference to A4 in the demonstration seems to require this.

30 OP: “& Corpus humanum, prout ipsum sentimus, existere”; NS: “en dat het menschelijk lighaam, gelijk wij het zelfde gewaarworden, wezentlijk is.” Gueroult (1, 2:137) renders this in French as “le Corps humain existe pour autant que nous le sentons,” “the human body exists insofar as we are aware of it,” and rejects “comme” and “tel que” (which would correspond to ‘as’) on the ground that it is evident that in itself the body is not as it is represented to us by (bodily) sensation. This may be true, but it does not seem to me that Gueroult’s rendering is justified by either the Latin or the Dutch.

31 This striking statement is open to very different interpretations. Cf. Wolfson 1, 2:58. Gueroult (1, 2:143-144, and 164-165) restricts its scope by understanding “individual” to apply only to the composite bodies of II/99/26ff.

32 There are three propositions designated as “Axiom 1” in this part of the Ethics. I shall distinguish this one from the others as A1′; and similarly for the “Axiom 2” which follows.

33 Spinoza’s version of the principle of inertia here seems to be stated in terms which put him in direct opposition to Descartes’ doctrine of continuous creation. In Principles I, 21, Descartes derives the need for God’s continuous conservation from the fact that (the parts of time being independent of one another) it does not follow from our existing now that we shall also exist at the next moment (in tempore proxime sequenti), unless the same cause which first produced us reproduces us. Spinoza does not make it quite explicit that it follows from A’s being at rest at one time that it will be at rest at a later time (unless some cause intervenes to initiate motion), since he puts it negatively—viz. nothing else follows. But cf. III P4-P8 and Gueroult 1, 2:152, on Spinoza’s relation here to Descartes and Hobbes.

34 Again I distinguish this “Axiom 1” from the others in this part by designating it A1″. Similarly for the following Axiom.

35 On the importance of this Cartesian principle for Hobbes and Spinoza, see Gueroult 1, 2:155n.

36 As Akkerman suggests (2, 161), this addition is probably to be ascribed to the translator.

37 On this, cf. Joachim 1, 83n, and Gueroult 1, 2:161-162.

38 As various commentators have noted, we have here Spinoza’s variation on the classic theme of macrocosm and microcosm. Cf. Wolfson 1, 2:7; Gueroult 1, 2:169; and Maimonides 1, I, Lxxii.

39 Gebhardt’s additions from the NS here are clearly no more than the translator’s work. Cf. Akkerman 2, 161.

40 The translator is filling out an abbreviated indication of the conclusion. Cf. II/48/15 and Akkerman 2, 161.

41 NS: “P3C.” As Gebhardt notes, this must be wrong (there is no P3C and in any case, the citation is corrected in the errata to the NS). But the reference might well be to P3.

42 Robinson (314) objected that Spinoza had gone further than his premises warrant by saying “more than.” Gueroult’s discussion is helpful (1, 2:196-197). He notes that in speaking of the “nature” of external bodies, Spinoza has in mind seventeenth-century mechanistic accounts of the physiology of perception, according to which a sensation like that of heat would be caused by the rapid motion of very small particles, a motion of which the sensation itself gives no indication.

43 Probably we should read “affection” here (as at l. 25). The NS have “mode.”

44 What Gebhardt adds from the NS is, as Akkerman observes (2, 187), not incorrect, but also not necessary, given the reference to P16C2 in l. 31. Gebhardt’s “dat deel,” however, is a misprint for “dit deel.”

45 Gueroult (1, 2:247) comments that this “or” marks neither an identity, nor an alternative or opposition, but is intended to limit and make more precise the preceding clause.

46 NS: “of things.”

47 Consistency with the proposition to be proven and the reference to P11C would both argue for adding “adequately” here.

48 Perhaps, as Meijer and Gebhardt suggested, we should read “P11C.”

49 NS: “of things.” On this alteration, see Gueroult 1, 2:246n.

50 What Gebhardt adds here from the NS (which may be translated: “i.e. [by P13], this Knowledge is not in God insofar as he constitutes the nature of the human Mind”) Akkerman (2, 151) rejects as the translator’s attempt to clarify a difficult passage for himself and his friends.

51 What Gebhardt here adds from the NS, Gueroult (1, 2:280, n. 16) regards as a deliberate omission from the OP. I see no good reason to regard it as incorrect, but Akkerman is probably right (2, 149) that it is only a translator’s clarification.

52 What Gebhardt adds here from the NS is almost certainly nothing more than an attempt by the translator to deal with the technical term ideatum by a double translation. Cf. Akkerman 2, 88.

53 What Gebhardt adds here from the NS (“of knowledge”), Parkinson (121n.) rejects as making the continuation-of the sentence pointless. Akkerman, who ascribes it to the translator (2, 161), also thinks it incorrect.

54 The phrases added here from the NS are almost certainly translator’s glosses (cf. Akkerman 2, 161), but helpful ones, I think.

55 As many commentators (e.g., Wolfson, Gueroult) have remarked, this last seems aimed at Descartes’ doctrine that the pineal gland is the principal seat of the soul (Passions of the Soul I, 31-32). Descartes, of course, was not the only previous philosopher to assign a particular location in the body to the soul. Others had favored the heart, as Descartes himself points (Passions I, 33). But the tone of Spinoza’s criticism in the Preface to EV suggests that this aspect of the Cartesian philosophy did tend to provoke both ridicule and disgust.

56 This example occurs frequently in Spinoza (cf. II/11, 30, 210, 211). It is quite traditional, going back (as Wolfson pointed out) to Aristotle’s De Anima 428b2-4. But Spinoza seems to be indebted to Descartes for his estimates of distance; the figure of (100-)200 feet for the imagined distance of the sun is given in La Dioptrique (AT VI, 144); that of 600(-700) diameters of the Earth for the true distance is given in the Principles III, 5.

57 This is the first explicit appearance in the Ethics of the doctrine of common notions (though there has been a suggestion of it in P29S). On its connection with similar doctrines of other authors (Aristotle, the Stoics, Hobbes, Descartes) see Gueroult 1, 2:332, 354, 358-362, 581-582, and Wolfson 1, 2:117-130.

58 NS: “not insofar as he is finite.” Gebhardt takes this to indicate the reading of the original manuscript. But “finite” is corrected in the errata. Gueroult (1, 2:544) takes the immediately following phrase—“nor insofar as he is affected with the ideas of a great many singular things”—to be a gloss on this phrase, i.e., to indicate one sense in which God may be said to be infinite. This has some plausibility if we paraphrase “a great many,” as Gueroult does, by “un ensemble infini.” But there does not seem to be any reason for that paraphrase, and it seems more natural to take Spinoza to be mentioning a separate condition.

59 No doubt what Gebhardt adds here from the NS is another instance of the translator’s making more explicit a conclusion that Spinoza’s ms. indicated in a more summary fashion (cf. Akkerman 2, 149).

60 This scholium is unnumbered both in the OP and NS. Gebhardt inferred from that, and from subsequent references to an unnumbered IIP40S (at 140/10 and 228/2), that originally these scholia were one, that Spinoza subsequently divided that scholium in two, and that the subsequent references are to both scholia. Akkerman (2, 82) takes the second scholium to be a later addition and the subsequent references to be to this first scholium.

61 So the OP read. The apparent variation in the NS seems to reflect the translator’s quandary when he encounters in the same phrase both axioma and notio, each of which he has previously translated by (gemene) kundigheid (cf. Akkerman 2, 166). Appuhn emended “notions” to “common notions,” an alteration which Akkerman considers unnecessary, but not, it seems, incorrect, appealing to l. 15. Gueroult (1, 2:362, n. 79) regards it as incorrect, appealing to 11. 18-21.

62 Gueroult (1, 2:364) cites Zabarella, De Natura Logicae, as an example of the usual scholastic explanation of this term: “Some terms signify the concept of a thing, like man, animal; but others signify the concept of a concept, like genus, species, word, statement, reasoning, and other things of that kind. The latter are called second notions.” Wolfson (1, 2:122) argues that Spinoza is not using “second notions” in its usual sense, but in one derived from Maimonides, where it is equivalent to “conclusion of a demonstrative syllogism.” For a rebuttal, see Gueroult 1, 2:587-589.

63 Or, perhaps: “at one time.” Cf. Joachim 2, 12, n. 3.

64 Of which the present Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect may be regarded as at least a draft.

65 Gebhardt (II/364) gives the following reading for the NS: “algemene kundigheden/Notiones universales,” “universal notions.” Algemene kundigheden is what we should expect if Notiones universales is correct. But the NS has gemene kundigheden (the usual translation for notiones communes), though it has Notiones universales in the margin.

66 For the clause beginning “because we infer …” the NS have: because we need to think only of the particular ratio of the first two numbers, and not of the universal property of proportional numbers.” Akkerman (2, 166) thinks this may be Spinoza’s attempt to clarify the Latin text, but may equally well stem from the translator.

67 Most of Gebhardt’s additions to this scholium from the NS seem to be simply translator’s glosses (cf. Akkerman 2, 149, 161). Where they appeared to me to be genuinely helpful, I have translated them. The phrases he introduces into the text at ll. 26-27, 35, and 37 represent no more than the translator’s attempt to deal with ideatum through a double translation and I have not translated them.

68 The idea, it seems, involves God’s essence only insofar as that essence is expressed through the attribute under which the idea’s object is conceived, not insofar as God’s essence is expressed in infinitely many attributes. Cf. Gueroult 1, 1:54.

69 Following Appuhn, whose translation here agrees with that of the NS.

70 Subsequently (IIIP9S) Spinoza distinguishes between will and desire in somewhat different terms; hence Meijer wanted to emend the text so that it would be translated: “… it should be noted that by will I here understand.…” Gebhardt points out the text of the OP is confirmed by the NS. But while the text is probably not corrupt, the emenders are right to emphasize the provisional character of this distinction. Cf. Gueroult 1, 2:492-493, and Appuhn, 3:358-359.

71 An allusion to Descartes’ doctrine of the pineal gland. Cf. the Passions of the Soul I, 31-32. Akkerman (2, 149) regards what Gebhardt adds to the text from the NS in the next line as the work of the translator, but “an intelligent addition” nonetheless.

72 I introduce essentially the division of this scholium suggested by Gueroult (1, 2:505). The “common doctrine” regarding the cause of error is the Cartesian doctrine of the Fourth Meditation, that error occurs because man’s will is distinct from, and more extensive than, his intellect. The phrases Gebhardt adds from the NS in these first two paragraphs are probably translator’s glosses.

73 What Gebhardt adds here from the NS (which might be translated: “and of the sciences”) is probably only the translator’s attempt to capture the connotations of speculatio through a double translation. Cf. Akkerman 2, 89. The variations which appear in the following paragraph, not all of which are mentioned by Gebhardt, are probably translator’s glosses.

74 We have, again, the same comparison as in P43S. Since Descartes generally insisted on drawing a sharp distinction between ideas and images (e.g., at the beginning of the Sixth Meditation, or in his reply to Hobbes’ fifth objection), it is curious to see a central tenet of his doctrine of judgment traced to a confusion of ideas with images. On this see Curley 5 and Gueroult 1, 2:509.

75 Gueroult (1, 2:509) suggests, with some plausibility, that Spinoza has Hobbes in mind here. However, Hobbes rejected Descartes’ doctrine of judgment, and criticized it on grounds which might have inspired Spinoza’s own criticisms here. In his thirteenth objection to the Meditations he distinguishes between the affirmation which is an act of the will—by which he seems to mean an act involving the use of words—and the internal assent which is not.

76 Buridan’s ass was supposed to be perishing of both hunger and thirst, and placed at an equal distance from food and drink. But it seems that neither the particular example nor the doctrine it is intended to support are rightly attributed to Buridan. See Wolfson 1, 2:178, and Gueroult 1, 2:513.

77 I.e., not a rational being, as the more explicit NS translation brings out.

78 Part of what Gebhardt adds here, the part I have translated, is probably just a translator’s elaboration. Part of it is misplaced, representing words which in fact occur in the NS as translating l. 29.

79 The NS, in a variation not mentioned by Gebhardt, gloss “embrace” as “be able to bring under a universal being.”

80 Gebhardt notes that the NS reads quite differently at this point: “Because they believe that this universal volition of everything, or this universal idea of the will, is a faculty of our mind.…” He conjectures that the NS represents the first draft and incorporates the phrase “of our mind” in his text on the basis of that conjecture. Akkerman (2, 149) more plausibly suggests that the divergence comes from the translator’s misreading volitionum as volitionem.

81 At this point the NS add an example which is absent from the OP: “as the definition of man must be attributed wholly and equally to each particular man.” Gebhardt incorporates the example in the text, but mislocates it, and consequently gives a misleading picture of the variation between the two texts. Cf. Akkerman 2, 81. In l. 4 I follow the punctuation of the OP rather than that of Gebhardt, who follows the NS.

82 The words Gebhardt incorporates from the NS would make this read: “If you consider only the mind and not the words.” Akkerman (2, 149) rejects this as a translator’s elaboration.

83 Cf. Wolfson 1, 2:178-179, on this phrase.

84 Both the OP and the NS read “Third Part” here. But as Gebhardt remarks this clearly comes from a time when the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Parts formed one part.

1 Akkerman (2, 69) suggests that the title should read “On the Nature and Origin of the Affects.” Cf. the title of Part II and II/186/9.

2 Akkerman (2, 70), appealing to the NS, suggests reading: “But so far no one, to my knowledge, has determined the true nature and powers of the Affects.”

3 Cf. PA I, 50.

4 Akkerman (2, 71) notes an allusion here to Micio’s monologue on moral education in Terence’s Adelphi (68ff.). Other allusions to this speech occur at 203/5ff., and 244/18ff. As Appuhn observes (3:370) Spinoza seems to have been much impressed with Micio’s contention that a father should accustom his son to do right from inclination rather than from fear (cf. E IVP18). From the frequency of references to Terence’s works in general, it appears that Spinoza knew them well. Van den Enden, from whom Spinoza learned his Latin, used student performances of classical plays as a means of instruction, and Spinoza may well have taken part in these. Cf. Meinsma, 185ff. and Akkerman 2, 9. Spinoza’s acquaintance with classical authors (not only Terence, but also Ovid, Tacitus, Sallust, Livy, Cicero and Seneca) seems to have greatly influenced his psychology, ethics and political theory.

5 See the note at I/120/15.

6 An addition suggested by Gueroult 1, 2:544. Cf. l.15.

7 White proposed to read “ideas” here (and at l. 27), pointing out that IIP11C reads that way. But both the OP and the NS support “Minds,” and it is not unusual for Spinoza to paraphrase previous statements when he cites them in proofs.

8 Wolfson (1, 2:190) plausibly suggests PA I, 7-17, as the target of this.

9 OP: iners. The NS glosses this: “without power or incapable.” Similarly at l. 27. If “inactive” were interpreted to mean “without motion,” then Descartes could not be the intended opponent, since he held the body to be capable of much movement without the aid of the soul (PA, I, 16).

10 According to Wolfson (1, 2:191) an argument like this may be found in Saadia.

11 Cf. Terence, Andria, 266, and the note at 138/11.

12 PA I, 42.

13 Wolfson (1, II, 192) opposes this to Descartes’ statement (PA I, 2) that what is a passion in the soul is generally an action in the body. He also suggests that by “singular things” here Spinoza means “bodies.”

14 Wolfson ((1), II, 192) contends that “thing” here means “our body,” appealing to P10D. But the statement there is surely better regarded as an instantiation of P5, rather than a paraphrase of it. If P5 were not fully general, then P6 could not have the generality Spinoza wants it to have.

15 It is unclear whether quantum in se est should be regarded as an occurrence of the technical phrase used in the definition of substance (as Elwes and White suggest by translating insofar as it is in itself) or merely as an occurrence of an ordinary Latin idiom, which might be rendered as far as it lies in itself or as far as it lies in its own power. Caillois (Pléiade, 1433) favors the latter alternative, referring us to Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy II, 37 and to Spinoza’s version of this at I/201. See also Cohen.

16 Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan vi. Descartes, on the other hand, classes desire among the passions born of the consideration of good and evil. Cf. PA II, 57, 86.

17 Gebhardt reads: “conatus,” which would require a translation like “the first and principal [sc. thing that constitutes the essence?] of our Mind is the striving to affirm the existence of our Body.” Akkerman (2, 65) argues persuasively for the reading of the OP and NS: “conatûs,” which yields what I have given in the text. Either reading seems to me to require the English translator to supply some noun for “first and principal” to modify. But “tendency” is only a suggestion.

18 Descartes (PA II, 69), by contrast, recognizes six primitive passions. In addition to desire, joy, and sadness: love, hate, and wonder. For a survey of other reductionist programs, see Bidney, 67-75.

19 It is difficult to see the relevance of IIP8 here, and some have thought this must be a mistake, though there is no agreement on what proposition should have been cited. IIP17, IIP18, and IIP6 have all been suggested. Gebhardt (II/369) defends the text of the OP, on obscure grounds. Bennett suggests (in correspondence) IIP7, which is said (at IIIP2S) to support IIIP2, which in turn supports the conclusion here.

20 Following Akkerman (2, 162) who proposes to read: “tanquam a sua vera causa” (cf. NS).

21 In the OP this scholium is not numbered and there are subsequent references (at 177/26 and 195/2) to P18S, without any numbering. Gebhardt inferred from this that originally the two scholia were one, and that the subsequent references were to SI and S2 collectively. But the NS number both scholia, and some subsequent references are to numbered scholia (e.g., at 177/31 and 210/5). Akkerman (2, 81-2) rejects Gebhardt’s theory and takes the unnumbered references both to be to S1. Cf. IIP40S1.

22 This means, I think, the affects that arise from the process of association described in P16.

23 Meijer plausibly proposed to emend the text to read: “… while that sadness which stems … is called scorn.” In favor of this it may be said that later (at I/195/28-196/7) scorn is so defined that it involves hate, which in turn involves sadness. Against the emendation it may be argued that in virtue of P20 any thought that involves the destruction (or diminution) of a hated object must involve joy. The text may well be correct, but the controversy underlines the complexity this affect must, in Spinoza’s psychology, possess.

24 NS: “an affection like this affection of our body.” This appears to reflect a mistranslation rather than a textual variation. For a discussion of inaccuracies in Glazemaker’s translations, see Akkerman 2, 137-145.

25 This last sentence is made part of the demonstration in both the OP and the NS. But the demonstration has reached its conclusion in the preceding sentence, and this takes up a different, though related point, which perhaps belongs in a scholium or corollary.

a N.B. Here and in what follows you should understand men toward whom we do not have any affect.

26 Here and in subsequent scholia the previous practice of italicizing new definitions has not been maintained in the text of the OP. I take the liberty of introducing italics as they seem appropriate.

27 OP: “external,” both here and in ll.27-28; NS: “internal,” in both places. Van Vloten and Land retained the OP readings, Appuhn and others, the NS. Gebhardt follows the OP in l. 24, the NS in ll. 27-28, a compromise vigorously rejected by Akkerman (2, 69-70, 188-189), who recommends following the NS, as I have done. It seems clear that the OP compositor, influenced by the appearance of “external” three times earlier in this scholium, misread the ms. and failed to see that Spinoza intended to draw a contrast between love and hate in their simplest forms and the four more complex forms enumerated in ll. 24-29. What lends plausibility to the OP reading is the fact that the joy and sadness whose origin is described in P30 are explicitly said to be species of love and hate (at ll. 21-22), from which it follows that they must involve the idea of an external cause. But this does not exclude the possibility of their involving also the idea of an internal cause (as Akkerman seems to assume, 189). I take it that this is Spinoza’s point: the four more complex forms of love and hate defined in ll. 24-29 arise from the fact that I believe myself (perhaps mistakenly) to have caused joy or sadness to another, thereby causing myself joy or sadness. In either case, I am the indirect cause of joy (or sadness) to myself. But the idea of the other as a subject of the joy (or sadness) I (take myself to) have caused is indispensable to this particular form of joy (or sadness). So my affect does involve the idea of something external as its partial and immediate cause, viz. the other’s affect. If the other praises (or blames) me for what I have done, my joy (or sadness) is love of esteem (or shame). If not—perhaps because he is not aware that I am the cause of his joy (or sadness), or perhaps because I am mistaken in my belief that I am the cause—then my joy (sadness) is self-esteem (repentance).

Spinoza might have made his point clearer had he written (at ll. 22-23): “But because Love and Hate, considered simply as such, involve only the idea of an external object as cause, we shall use other terms for these more complex affects which also involve the idea of ourselves as a cause of our joy or sadness.” Cf. 196/19-199/19. Although the account there is in some ways more refined than that given here (e.g., in the distinction drawn between humility and repentance), taken as a whole it supports the NS version of the text, and not, as Gebhardt thought, his compromise solution.

28 The verses are from Ovid’s Amores II, xix, 4, 5 (though Spinoza has transposed the lines). There is much room for difference of opinion about their translation. See, for example, Appuhn 3:362. The Spinozistic context virtually requires something like Elwes’ version: “As lovers, let us share every hope and fear: iron-hearted were he who should love what the other leaves.” The Ovidian context, however, seems to require something more like Lee’s free, but spirited version. The poet-lover addresses (in imagination) his mistress’ husband:

Guard your girl, stupid—if only to please me.

I want to want her more.

I’m bored by what’s allowed, what isn’t fascinates me.

Love by another man’s leave is too cold-blooded.

Lovers need a co-existence of hope and fear—

A few disappointments help us to dream.

(Ovid, Amores, trans. Guy Lee [London: John Murray, 1968], my italics to emphasize the lines Spinoza quotes.) Differences of literary style apart, the key question is whether sinit should be translated “leaves (alone)” or “allows.” If it is possible to suppose that Spinoza here understands the lines as Lee does, and if Gebhardt’s reading of II/271/21-22 is correct, then the reference there to this corollary would be more intelligible.

b This can happen (by P15C and P16).

29 Cf. Seneca, Epist. mor., ix, 6.

30 The OP read simply: “P18S,” which Gebhardt takes as a reference to both scholia (cf. my note at 154/24 and Gebhardt’s note to 177/26, at II/373-374). Leopold had taken the reference to be to P18S2. Akkerman (2, 81-82) argues that it should be to P18S1. I think Leopold is clearly right here. Granted that P18S2 by itself gives no foundation for P50, nevertheless, the definitions it gives of hope and fear as species of joy and sadness show how the demonstration of P15 can easily be modified to yield a proof of P50, by substituting the definiens for the definiendum.

31 Following Akkerman (2, 190) who reads “causae” for “causa” both in l. 30 and in l. 31.

c N.B. This can happen even though the human mind is part of the divine intellect, as we have shown in IIP17S.32

32 So the OP and NS both read. Most editors have had difficulty seeing the relevance of the reference to IIP17S and have suggested as alternatives either IIP11C or IIP13S or perhaps both. Without questioning the relevance of IIP13S (specifically II/97/7-14), I would suggest that there is no pressing need to emend the text, since the discussion of error at II/106/11-18 is equally relevant to explaining how men can vary in judgment.

33 Akkerman suggests reading “naturae” for “natura” in l. 14 (2, 68) and adding “ex eo” after the first ampersand in l. 15 (2, 162), both of which emendations are suggested by the NS and followed here.

34 The NS make “singular” modify “imagination” rather than “thing,” which is not impossible grammatically, perhaps, but nonetheless, clearly wrong in my view. In general, I mention translation errors in the NS only where they do not appear on Akkerman’s list (2, 137-145). There are many more of them in Parts III-V than in Parts I-II, which is an important part of Akkerman’s evidence for supposing that E I-II were translated by Balling and E III-V by Glazemaker.

35 The point seems to be simply that accidents of linguistic usage may leave the psychological system-builder without a natural way of referring to certain emotions.

36 Cf. PA II, 82, 84, 88.

37 Bidney (110) notes a similar doctrine in Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics 1176a).

38 Gebhardt emends the text of the OP, appealing to the NS and P11, but does not make all the changes required by grammar. On his construal we should read “potentiam” for “potentia” and translate: “By Sadness we understand what diminishes or restrains the Mind’s power of acting.” This is possible, as Akkerman (2, 67-68) points out, citing 168/20-21. But he argues persuasively for retaining the text of the OP, which is what I have translated, and regarding the NS translation as simply mistaken. On his construal, this passage would be more accurate than 168/20-21, since, strictly speaking, sadness is not a thing which diminishes another thing, but the process itself of the diminution of the mind’s power.

39 Nearly all of the terms that follow have been previously introduced in scholia. And as Wolfson has pointed out, most of the terms occur in the Latin translation of Descartes’ Passions of the Soul, published in Amsterdam in 1650. Wolfson (1, 2:209-210) gives a helpful table correlating Spinoza’s definitions with the relevant sections of Descartes’ work. Spinoza’s definitions of his three primitive affects are quite different from the corresponding Cartesian definitions, so that even where the definitions of derived affects seem to agree, this agreement is superficial. His definitions here also differ frequently from those which appear earlier in Part III in the Scholia.

40 Descartes gives wonder a very prominent (if somewhat anomalous) place among the passions of the soul. Cf. Alquié, 3:999n.

41 Spinoza may have in mind Descartes, PA 79. (Earlier, however, in PA 56, Descartes had given an account of love closer to Spinoza’s.) In any case, he need not have only one opponent in mind. The conception of love here objected to goes back as far as Plato’s Symposium (191-192), and Spinoza himself seems not to have been free of it in the Short Treatise (cf. I/62).

42 NS: “definitions.” Akkerman (2, 92) suggests that the NS translator has misread a final “m” as an “s.”

43 Cf. PA II, 80.

44 Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan I, 6.

45 Cf. Seneca, Epist. mor., v, 7: “Just as the same chain binds both the prisoner and his guardian, so these things, though so unlike, march together: fear follows hope.” Similarly Descartes, PA 165, 166.

46 So White, Appuhn et al., render Spe pendet. Elwes has “depends on hope,” which is supported by the NS. Cf. II/246/15.

47 The OP and NS have simply: “scholium.” Gebhardt emends to “scholia.” Cf. the note at 154/24. Akkerman (2, 82) seems clearly right to contend that P18S1 is intended.

48 OP: “praeter Spem evenit.” In his corrigenda (II/393) Gebhardt proposed emending to praeter Metum. No argument was offered, but unless the text is emended, we must give praeter a different translation here than we do in Def. XVII, where the same Latin phrase occurs (praeter Spem = “beyond our hope” in Def. XVI, but = “contrary to our hope” in Def. XVII). Against Gebhardt’s emendation is the fact that the text as it stands echoes a line in Terence (Andria, 436) and is supported by the NS. If a change must be made, I would prefer to make it in Def. XVII rather than in Def. XVI. But it is not clear that a change is necessary. While Bidney (197) may not be correct to say that the terms “hope” and “fear” are interchangeable, his interpretation of the definitions seems sensible otherwise.

49 It is clear from this and similar remarks (e.g., at II/180) that Spinoza does not intend to give an analysis of ordinary language. It may, therefore, seem churlish for a commentator to complain when translators are guided, in their choice of terms for the affects, more by Spinoza’s definitions than by the ordinary meaning of the terms defined (cf. Bidney, 2-4 and the glossary entry on remorse). The translators’ practice need not reflect a desire to make Spinoza always speak the truth, no matter what the possible cost in distortion of his meaning.

Still, though Spinoza’s definitions are not subject to the constraints analysis of ordinary language would impose, neither are they wholly stipulative. They are intended to have explanatory force, to give us insight into the nature of familiar emotions by indicating their cause. Cf. the theory of definitions in the TdIE, §§ 93-98. (Note that Spinoza’s definitions of the affects are developed gradually through the course of his deductive treatment of the affects. They do not precede it, as the axiomatic model would lead us to expect.)

If that is the intent, then the translator does not have a free hand in translating the terms for the affects. For example, Spinoza’s definition of amor may not be one which an analyst of ordinary language would give, since ordinary usage probably does not entail any theory about the cause of amor. It may also be the case that amor, as Spinoza defines it, does not have the same extension amor as ordinarily used has. The two terms may not pick out exactly the same class of emotions. But there must, at least, be considerable overlap in the extensions of the terms. Spinoza’s situation (to borrow an analogy from Hilary Putnam, “Dreaming and ‘Depth Grammar,’” in Analytical Philosophy, ed. R. J. Butler, 1st series [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966]) is like that of a chemist introducing a new theoretical definition of a term like acid. The chemist’s definition may lead to some reclassification of chemical substances. But if the term’s range of application, as newly defined, were not closely related to its former range of application, there would be no improvement of our understanding, there would only be confusion.

50 NS: “comes nearest to.”

51 The problem here is partly the etymological connection of misericordia with miser, ‘wretched, unhappy.’

52 In fact, as Appuhn notes, Spinoza never does return to the topic of shamelessness.

53 So the text of the OP runs, and it is supported by the NS. Meijer and Baensch proposed emending the text to read: “a Desire by which we are roused to do evil to one whom we love or pity.” The idea would be that P41CS implies that cruelty arises when one person hates another, finds his hate returned by love, and suffers a conflict of love and hate in which hate prevails (without, it seems, entirely extinguishing the love). I believe the sequence from Def. XXXVI to Def. XXXVIII makes better sense if we accept the emendation. Anger is the basic form of desire to do evil to someone. Vengeance is anger complicated by the fact that our hate is returned. And cruelty is anger complicated by emotions conflicting with our hate.

Gebhardt retains the OP reading, partly because the only love explicitly mentioned in P41CS is the victim’s love for the one who is cruel, but partly because he thinks the emended definition would imply an unfavorable judgment on the activities of jailers and hangmen. This doesn’t seem to follow, and the first reason seems insufficient. Akkerman (2, 191), while defending the OP reading of the text, suggests a way of interpreting it that would make it equivalent to the emendation. He notes that “aliquis” and “nos” are both used in the preceding and following definitions (34-40) to refer to the bearer of the affect defined, so “it may not after all be impossible that aliquis and nos in defin. 38 refer to the same person, the bearer of the affect.”

In favor of retaining the text of the OP, Jonathan Bennett suggests (in correspondence) that “the point of D38 may be that ‘cruel’ is a term which nobody uses without giving it a load of moral condemnation, and that emerges—given Spinoza’s meta-ethics—simply as the condition that the speaker loves or pities the victim of the so-called ‘cruelty.’” He draws attention to the fact that in P41CS Spinoza says that the affect is called cruelty especially when it is believed that the victim has given no ordinary cause for hatred. He takes this as indicating that “cruel” involves “a more than usually speaker-relative or subjective element.”

Bennett’s suggestion is quite plausible, but I still think the emendation has merit.

54 Pro Archia XI.

55 Again, both language and thought here are reminiscent of Terence, in this case, the Adelphi, 69-71. Cf. the note at 138/11.

56 Previously (II/139) Spinoza has defined an affect as a certain kind of affection of the body together with the idea of that affection.

1 An echo of a well-known line from Ovid, which will be quoted in P17S, and to which we have already had an allusion at II/143/22-23.

2 In Latin this is a patent tautology. See the Glossary-Index entry on perfection.

3 The NS have simply “God” here, and again at ll. 26-27.

4 See the note at II/117/30.

5 It would appear that Spinoza originally had at least three axioms in this Part. See Gebhardt II/377, and below, at II/215/5 and 230/2. Though only one remains, it will simplify subsequent references to give it a number.

6 The OP does have: “by A1.” This is corrected in the errata to: “by the Axiom.”

7 Reading “rem ut praesentem,” as suggested by Akkerman (2, 178).

8 Accepting Akkerman’s defense and interpretation of the OP text (2, 90-91).

9 Cf. Descartes, PA I, 47-79.

10 Some editors (e.g., Van Vloten and Land, Baensch, Appuhn, Caillois, and Akkerman) have thought that the reference here should be to IIIP1.

11 Ovid, Metamorphoses VII, 20-21: “I see and approve the better, but follow the worse.” (Medea is torn between reason’s demand that she obey her father and her passion for Jason.) These lines are often quoted, or alluded to, in seventeenth-century discussions of freedom of the will. Cf. Descartes, Letter to Mesland, 9 Feb. 1645; Hobbes, “Of Liberty and Necessity,” EW IV, p. 269; Locke, Essay, II, xxi. 35.

12 Eccles. 1:18.

13 An allusion to Terence’s Eunuch, 232, as Leopold pointed out.

14 “Cumbersome” renders “prolixus,” which might be translated “full” (White) or “detailed” (Elwes). But the same term is used in a similar context in the Prolegomenon to Descartes’ Principles (I/141/14), and I take it that Spinoza feels somewhat defensive about his preferred manner of writing, recognizing that it makes great demands on the reader’s patience and perseverance, and will inevitably encounter resistance. This is no doubt the reason for the summations at the end of Parts Three and Four.

15 Spinoza’s moral thought shows the influence of the Stoics in many ways. But as Appuhn notes, his treatment of suicide marks an important point of difference from the Stoics. It is true that Spinoza does not condemn suicide, but neither does he regard it as an act which could ever be virtuous, much less paradigmatically free. So Caillois is wrong to argue that even on this point Spinoza is a Stoic (Pléiade, 1439). For an excellent discussion of the various Stoic positions see Rist, 233-255.

16 Gebhardt takes the reference to indicate an earlier state of the ms., when the present two scholia to IIP40 were one. Akkerman (2, 82) takes IIP40S2 to be a later addition, and this reference to be to P40S1, which originally required no distinguishing number. But P40S2 (specifically ll. 11-14) seems more relevant than anything in P40S1. Appuhn, Baensch, Caillois, and Leopold all assume that reference.

17 NS: “the mind’s power.” Given the content of IIP10C, this is probably just a mistake.

18 So the OP read. The errata of the OP, followed by the NS, “correct” to “the axiom of this part.” Other emendations have been proposed: IA3(?), IVD1 (plausible), IVD2,3(?). Gebhardt is probably right to think that originally this part had at least three axioms of which two were later dropped. Akkerman, who points out additional evidence in favor of this theory (2, 192, alluding to the marginalia corresponding to 210/24), conjectures a reconstruction of the missing axiom: “From the nature of a singular thing which is neither good nor evil, nothing can follow which aids the preservation of our nature.” If this is correct, one can understand Spinoza’s thinking it sufficiently obvious, given his definitions of good and evil, that it would not need to appear as a separate assumption.

19 Ultimately this goes back to Aristotle’s Politics, 1253a3. But the formula is also Stoic. Cf. Seneca, De clementia, I, iii, 2.

20 Meijer thought that this remark should be placed at the end of the Scholium and put in the future tense, a plausible suggestion, since Scholium 2 is the first substantial account of Spinoza’s political philosophy. But the foundations of that philosophy in human nature have already been laid in the various propositions cited in Scholium 2. So Gebhardt is probably right to retain the text of the OP.

21 Here I translate Gebhardt’s text (firmari), which is that of the OP. But I think there is more plausibility than he would admit in Tönnies’ suggestion that we should read formari, ‘formed’ or ‘established.’ Tönnies appealed to a parallel passage in the Theological-Political Treatise (III/193/20). But for vindicet (l. 10) I accept Akkerman’s reinstatement of the OP: vendicet. Cf. Akkerman 2, 85 and the NS.

22 Gebhardt (1, 170) suggests that this was probably Góngora, whose works Spinoza possessed, and who lost his memory a year before his death. Why does Spinoza think that cases like this (and the one described in the following paragraph) might provide the superstitious with material for raising new questions (cf. ll. 31-33)? Perhaps because they encourage speculation about the possibility of transmigration of souls, or perhaps because they encourage the postulation of an immaterial spiritual substance to provide a principle of personal identity unaffected by radical changes in the constitution of the body. That Spinoza was concerned at an early stage about the latter of these issues, at least, seems clear from the long note to the Preface to Part II of the KV (I/51/16-52/41). For discussion of the controversy about personal identity as it was pursued by other figures in the period, see Curley 11.

23 Part of the point is that infans is connected etymologically with fari, ‘to speak,’ so that an infant is literally someone incapable of speech.

24 It is fitting that this defense of laughter, the theater, and amusement in general, contains one of many allusions in the Ethics to Terence, in this case, to the Adelphi, 68.

25 Appuhn (3:371) notes the affinity between Spinoza’s moral conclusions and those of Nietzsche. This appears also in his evaluations of humility and repentance (P53, P54) and in his sketch of the free man’s life (P67-P73). Though the differences of temperament and style are, of course, tremendous, the affinity is, I think, rooted in an anticipation of the idea of a will to power (cf. IIIP11, P12).

26 The OP have risu, ‘laughter,’ which is confirmed by the NS. But after P45C2S, this is very surprising. Gebhardt retains risu without comment, but Appuhn and Elwes both translate as if we had irrisione, and I follow their example.

27 Van der Tak suggests a number of possible sources for this motto, among them: Franciscus de le Boe (a professor at the University of Leiden), the Dutch poet Jacob Cats, and ultimately, Psalms 64:11 (63:11 in the Vulgate).

28 What Gebhardt adds here from the NS (which might be translated: “or to have stripped himself of all humanity”) is probably only a translator’s elaboration of the text, rather than an indication of something that has been omitted in the OP. Cf. Akkerman 2, 89.

29 Here begins a whole sequence of classical allusions: in ll. 12-13 to Terence’s Adelphi, 174; in 11. 14-16, to the Adelphi, 84; and in l. 16 to Tacitus, Annales, I, 29. Cf. Leopold and Akkerman, 2, 27. The comment about the mob will be discussed more critically in the Political Treatise VII, 27, but Spinoza’s experience of the assassination of the de Witts no doubt confirmed it.

30 As Appuhn notes, the parasite or flatterer was a stock figure in Latin comedy, like the braggart soldier. Cf. Terence’s Eunuch, which is alluded to at ll.14-15 in the scholium.

31 OP: conservetur, ‘preserved.’ But as Leopold pointed out, the NS have: waargenomen, which suggests that they read: observetur. Gebhardt rejects the emendation without offering a satisfactory reason. Cf. Akkerman 2, 94.

32 The OP has tantum, ‘only,’ here, a reading which is supported by the NS. Meijer proposed to suppress it. Baensch and Appuhn followed him in this, and in the related suggestion that the reference should be to P43 and P44, rather than P41 and P43. Gebhardt accepts the suppression of tantum, but then produces a convincing argument for retaining the reference to P41. This seems an illogical compromise, and I see no difficulty in following the OP. Cf. Akkerman 2, 182.

33 Here and below (II/260/1) the OP has “by the Corollary of the preceding Proposition.” But clearly P63C is intended. So P64 and its corollary appear to be later additions.

34 Appuhn contrasts this with Plato’s dictum in the Phaedo, 67e: “The true philosophers practice dying, and death is less terrible to them than to any other men.” But it seems more likely that Spinoza has in mind Seneca, who contended that to relieve oneself of the fear of death one must meditate regularly on its inevitability. Cf. his Epistulae morales IV, 5, 9. Russell, in his well-known essay, “A Free Man’s Worship,” seems closer to Seneca than to Spinoza. Cf. Russell, 112-115.

35 OP: historiâ, NS: historie. Both the Latin and the Dutch terms can mean either ‘history’ or ‘story.’ But Spinoza’s tone here seems slightly skeptical and ironic, particularly if we keep in mind what has been said about divine teleology in the Appendix to Part I (II/79) and what is said about allegorical interpretations of Scripture in the Theological-Political Treatise. Spinoza’s version of the fall points up certain problems in the story (Gen. 2:15-3:24), e.g., that God expected Adam to be restrained by the fear of death before he ate of the tree, and similarly, that Eve saw that the tree was good for food before she was supposed to know good and evil. Some commentators, however, seem to take this scholium at face value. Cf. Bidney, 76, 150-151.

36 What Gebhardt adds here from the NS represents only the translator’s attempt to deal with a difficult term through a double translation. Cf. Akkerman 2, 133.

37 The Kantian rigor of this passage seems difficult to reconcile with the spirit of other passages (e.g., II/268/10-18).

38 The situation is that of Clinia, in Terence’s Heautontimorumenos.

39 The OP read: “Unius praeterea viri facultas ingenii limitatior est,” and though the errata called for the deletion of ingenii, some modern editors (e.g., Land) have reinstated it. Elwes’ translation of that text is reasonable: “Again, an individual man’s resources of character are too limited.…” Gebhardt thinks Spinoza probably first wrote: “Unius viri ingenium limitatius est,” “the character of one man is too limited …,” and then replaced ingenium by facultas. In any case, it seems likely that by capacity here we should understand something more than financial resources.

40 More literally: “love of a courtesan.” But I agree with Matheron (2, 444) that meretricius is not meant to refer strictly to prostitution. See also the Glossary-Index entry: courtesan. Matheron’s discussion of Spinoza’s attitude toward sexuality is very helpful.

41 The OP read: “atque tum magis discordiâ, quam concordia fovetur. Vid. Coroll., Prop. 31, p. 3.” This is what I have translated, but the text is in doubt. Van Vloten and Land make discordia and concordia nominatives: “and then discord is encouraged more than harmony is.” The question, I take it, is whether Spinoza is saying that a purely sensual love which is a species of madness encourages, or is encouraged by, discord. In favor of the proposed emendation is the fact that throughout these sections of the appendix Spinoza seems concerned more with the causes of harmony and discord than with their effects. In favor of retaining the text is the fact that it makes nice sense of the reference to IIIP31C—or at least it does if the lines quoted there are taken in their original context. (Ovid’s poet-lover goes on to say that he loves nothing which never injures him and that his mistress exploits this weakness of his by pretending to deceive him, thereby reviving (refovere) his passion.) Strangely, Gebhardt defends the text by appealing to the NS (though Spinoza’s ms. would not have contained accent marks anyway) and then emends the reference from IIIP3IC to IIIP31CS on the ground that only in the scholium does Spinoza discuss the transition from love to hate. Cf. Akkerman 2, 92.

42 This passage (an allusion, incidentally, to Terence’s Eunuch, 263) is appealed to by the editors of the OP to explain Spinoza’s request that he not be identified as the author on the title page. Cf. also II/202/16-18. There is no serious attempt at concealment, of course, since the editors make it plain that B.D.S. was also the author of Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy and the Metaphysical Thoughts, which were published under Spinoza’s name. Cf. also IP19S.

43 Echoing 220/26, 31, 258/2, and ultimately, perhaps, Terence’s Heautontimorumenos, 962. Cf. Leopold 62.

1 “Ad alteram Ethices Partem.” Perhaps this should mean “to the second Part of the Ethics,” and Gueroult (1, 1:14n) constructs an interesting hypothesis about the first stage of the composition of the Ethics on the assumption that it does. On this theory, the present Parts I and II formed an Introduction, the present Parts III and IV were Part I and the present Part V was Part II. But this seems contrary to other indications of early stages of the text (cf. the note at II/136/18). It also seems unlikely that if Spinoza had written the present Parts I and II as an introduction he would have written them ordine geometrico. But the Correspondence makes it clear that early in the 1660s Spinoza was working on geometric versions of the material in Part I. Most translators (including those of the NS) have preferred to translate alteram in a way which would not suggest Gueroult’s hypothesis. The use of alter in TdIE 33-34 makes it clear that it is not always used to refer to one of two.

2 Cf. the Treatise on the Intellect, §§ 14-16.

3 Spinoza quotes from the Latin translation of Descartes’ Passions of the Soul which was first published in Amsterdam in 1650. From subsequent explanations (in §§ 28, 29) it seems clear that Descartes regards perceptiones (Fr. perceptions), sensus (sentiments) and commotiones animae (émotions de l’âme) as alternative designations of one and the same kind of thoughts, rather than different kinds of passion. The “NB” is Spinoza’s comment.

4 Cf. PA 44-50.

5 Cf. Descartes’ Letter to Elisabeth, 28 June 1643.

6 Cf. PA 31-32.

7 On this Stoic theme, see Wolfson 1, 2:263.

8 Reading “commotiones, seu affectus,” with Akkerman 2, 93.

9 I give the citation as it is given in the OP and NS. Gebhardt prints a conjecture of Schmidt’s (IIIP31C), though he rejects that conjecture in his notes. Cf. Akkerman 2, 83.

10 It is surprising to see “imagine” used in connection with knowledge which is necessarily adequate.

11 A reminiscence of Terence’s Eunuch, 56ff., as pointed out by Akkerman 2, 7-8.

12 As Wolfson (1, 2:266) notes, this list is incomplete, omitting any reference to P6.

13 Meijer (followed by Appuhn) emended this to read: “without relation to the body’s existence,” thereby bringing it closer to the formula of P40S. Gebhardt retains the text of the OP, because it is supported by the NS. But whether we emend or not, the text is troublesome, partly because it is difficult to see how Spinoza can, consistently with his general account of the relation of mind and body, conceive of the mind’s having any kind of existence apart from the body, partly because here he ascribes duration to the mind, whereas he will soon argue that it (or the part of it which exists without the body) is eternal. The whole section which this scholium introduces (Props. 21-40) is generally regarded as more than usually obscure. Among the older commentators, see Pollock, 260-288; Joachim 1, 292-306. Three interesting recent struggles with this topic are Harris 3, Kneale, and Donagan 3.

14 This sentence illustrates well the kind of difficulty characteristic of this part of the Ethics. On the face of it, Spinoza implies that we (who are here identified with parts of our minds; cf. IIP13C) not only will exist after the body, but did exist before it (though he denies the Platonic doctrine that we can come to recollect our preexistence). But in the same breath he asserts that we are eternal (cf. IIA1 and ID8) and that the eternal has no relation to time.

15 Gebhardt here adds a phrase from the NS which might very literally be translated: “or the more we have God’s intellect.” He takes this to be the key to understanding this “much debated and obscure proposition.” However, as Parkinson pointed out (179, n. 2), it is more natural to take the Dutch as an idiomatic paraphrase of ‘the more we understand God.’ Cf. also Akkerman 2, 100. Even if Gebhardt were right to conjecture a missing phrase in the Latin text, it is hard to see how it would help us understand this proposition.

16 Adopting a suggestion of Meijer, which Gebhardt rejects for no clear reason.

17 Wolfson (1, 2:311-317) considers a number of scriptural passages Spinoza may have had in mind, among them Psalms 16:9 and 73:24. See also the Glossary-Index on esteem.

18 Cf. P17 and P33S.

19 Cf. II/302/24.

20 This, of course, is not only the creed of the multitude, but a belief often encouraged by Scripture, as Spinoza well knows. These concluding portions of the Ethics can be read as a secular sermon against (a very natural reading of) the Sermon on the Mount. Cf. Matt. 5-7. For an interpretation more favorable to the Judaeo-Christian tradition, see Wolfson 1, 2:326-329.