Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (ed. 2)
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~14,100 words · 67 passages
Cite this work
- APABaruch Spinoza. (n.d.). Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (ed. 2). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/tractatus-de-intellectus-emendatione-et-de-via-qua-optime-in-veram-rerum-cognit
- MLABaruch Spinoza. "Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (ed. 2)." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/tractatus-de-intellectus-emendatione-et-de-via-qua-optime-in-veram-rerum-cognit.
- ChicagoBaruch Spinoza. Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (ed. 2). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/tractatus-de-intellectus-emendatione-et-de-via-qua-optime-in-veram-rerum-cognit.
What it is about
The Latin original of Spinoza's unfinished treatise on the emendation of the understanding, published posthumously in 1677.
Context and history
It opens with a page unlike anything else in Spinoza: a first-person confession of having seen that riches, honour and pleasure give nothing that lasts, and of having resolved to look for a good that does. What follows is enough to show the method: to distinguish the ways in which we know — by hearsay, by vague experience, by reasoning, and the fourth, the perception of a thing through its essence — and to show that only the last is worth anything. The treatise was left unfinished; Spinoza abandoned it to write the 'Ethics', which applies the method instead of explaining it. That is why it is the best way in: one sees what he was after, before the geometry covered everything over.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
1. Postquam me experientia docuit, omnia, quae in communi vita frequenter occurrunt, vana et futilia esse ; cum viderem omnia, a quibus et quae timebam, nihil neque boni neque mali in se habere, nisi quatenus ab iis animus movebatur ; constitui tandem inquirere, an aliquid daretur, quod verum bonum et sui communicabile esset, et a quo solo reiectis ceteris omnibus animus afficeretur ; imo an aliquid daretur, quo invento et acquisito continua ac summa in aeternum fruerer laetitia. 2. Dico me tandem constituisse. Primo enim intuitu inconsultum videbatur, propter rem tunc incertam certam amittere velle. Videbam nimirum commoda, quae ex honore ac divitiis acquiruntur, et quod ab iis quaerendis cogebar abstinere, si seriam rei alii novae operam dare vellem, et si forte summa felicitas in iis esset sita, perspiciebam me ea debere carere ; si vero in iis non esset sita eisque tantum darem operam, tum etiam summa carerem felicitate. 3. Volvebam igitur animo, an forte esset possibile ad novum institutum, aut saltem ad ipsius certitudinem pervenire, licet ordo et commune vitae meae institutum non mutaretur, quod saepe frustra tentavi. Nam quae plerumque in vita occurrunt, et apud homines, ut ex eorum operibus colligere licet, tamquam summum bonum aestimantur, ad haec tria rediguntur : divitias scilicet, honorem atque libidinem. His tribus adeo distrahitur mens, ut minime possit de alio aliquo bono cogitare. 4. Nam quod ad libidinem attinet, ea adeo suspenditur animus, ac si in aliquo bono quiesceret ; quo maxime impeditur, ne de alio cogitet. Sed post illius fruitionem summa sequitur tristitia, quae si non suspendit mentem, tamen perturbat et hebetat. Honores ac divitias prosequendo non parum etiam distrahitur mens, praesertim ubi hae non nisi propter se quaeruntur , quia tum supponuntur summum esse bonum. 5. Honore vero multo adhuc magis mens distrahitur ; supponitur enim semper bonum esse per se et tamquam finis