Spinoza; a handbook to the Ethics / by J. Allanson Picton.

  • James Allanson Picton
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Spinoza; a handbook to the Ethics / by J. Allanson Picton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE - < The aim of this work is practical; that is to say, I have endeavoured to avoid discussing the philosophy of Spinoza more than is absolutely necessary to an understanding of his moral code. For ever since I became a humble student of his works I have had a growing impression that a rich vein of common-sense and sound morality runs through all his speculations, though it has often to be digged for as hidden treasure. But the fashion of his writing was determined in large measure by the customs of seventeenth-century philo¬ sophy, and he addressed himself only to those who were familiar with them. The result is that in our time, when the decay of old traditions makes a clearer view of the foundation of morals a matter of supreme im¬ portance, we lose the immense benefit of his moral and religious teaching because we are perplexed both by his use of familiar words, such as ‘ God ’ and c eternity ’ and ‘mind’ and 'body/ in senses to which we are not accustomed; and we are also repelled by his artificial method of so-called ‘mathematical proof/ I have en¬ deavoured to relieve these difficulties by a plain
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