Tractatus Politicus
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~39,200 words · 186 passages
Cite this work
- APABaruch Spinoza. (n.d.). Tractatus Politicus. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/tractatus-politicus
- MLABaruch Spinoza. "Tractatus Politicus." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/tractatus-politicus.
- ChicagoBaruch Spinoza. Tractatus Politicus. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/tractatus-politicus.
What it is about
Spinoza's last piece of writing, cut short by his death in 1677 just as it reached democracy.
Context and history
It is a politics written without any indignation: it begins by saying that philosophers conceive men not as they are but as they would like them to be, and that their theories are therefore fit only for a golden age. Spinoza wants something else: institutions so calculated that they work even if those who fill them are bad, because what is asked of a state is not virtue but stability. From this comes his analysis of monarchy and of aristocracy, with councils, numbers and offices set out in detail. The chapter on democracy, which was where the whole thing was going, breaks off on its second page: Spinoza died writing it, and the book ends in the middle of a sentence about who has the right to vote. This is the text Rousseau read and the one modern republicanism took up again.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Amice dilecte, Grata tua mihi heri tradita est. Gratias pro cura tam diligenti, quam pro me geris, ex animo ago. Hanc occasionem, etc. non praetermitterem, nisi in quadam re essem occupatus, quam utiliorem judico, quaeque tibi, ut credo, magis arridebit, nempe in Tractatu Politico concinnando, quem ante aliquod tempus, te auctore, inchoavi. Hujus Tractatus Capita sex jam sunt absoluta. Primum ad ipsum opus Introductionem quasi continet: secundum tractat de Jure naturali: tertium de Jure Summarum Potestatum: quartum quaenam Negotia Politica a Summarum Potestatum gubernatione pendeant: quintum, quidnam sit illud extremum, et summum, quod Societas potest considerare; et sextum, qua ratione Imperium Monarchicum debeat institui, ne in Tyrannidem labatur. Impraesentiarum caput septimum tracto, in quo omnia praecedentis sexti capitis membra, ordinem bene ordinatae Monarchiae concernentia, Methodice demonstro. Postea ad Aristocraticum et Populare Imperium, denique ad Leges, aliasque particulares Quaestiones, Politicam spectantes, transibo. Hisce vale, etc. Patet hinc Auctoris Scopus; sed morbo impeditus, et morte abreptus hoc opus non ulterius, quam ad finem Aristocratiae, perducere valuit, quemadmodum Lector ipse experietur. CAPUT I. I. Affectus, quibus conflictamur, concipiunt Philosophi veluti vitia, in quae homines sua culpa labuntur; quos propterea ridere, flere, carpere, vel (qui sanctiores videri volunt) detestari solent. Sic ergo se rem divinam facere, et sapientiae culmen attingere credunt, quando humanam naturam, quae nullibi est, multis modis laudare, et eam, quae revera est, dictis lacessere norunt. Homines namque, non ut sunt, sed