Ethics

'The Ethics' is a philosophical book written by Benedictus de Spinoza. Although published after Spinoza's death, in 1677, it is considered his greatest and most famous work. In it, Spinoza tries to set out a "e;fully cohesive philosophical system that strives to provide a coherent picture of reality and to comprehend the meaning of ethical life. Following a logical step-by-step format, it defines in turn the nature of God, the mind, human bondage to emotions, and the power of understanding -- moving from a consideration of the eternal, to speculate upon humanity's place in the natural order, freedom, and the path to attainable happiness."e;The book is perhaps the most ambitious attempt to apply this method of Euclid in philosophy. Spinoza puts forward a small number of definitions and axioms from which he attempts to derive hundreds of propositions and corollaries, such as "e;When the Mind imagines its lack of power, it is saddened by it"e;, "e;A free man thinks of nothing less than of death"e;, and "e;The human Mind cannot be destroyed with the Body, but something of it remains which is eternal."e; The Euclidean style is larded with stretches of informal and at times pugnacious prose.