Spinoza and His Environment: A Critical Essay with a Translation of the Ethics

clxxix, [3], 244, 12 pp. 8vo. A critique of Spinoza's Ethics, together with an English translation thereof. Smith, a professor at Lane Theological Seminary, examines Spinoza's ethical system in light of the writings of Rene Descartes and Nicholas Bacon. Spinoza's work includes fives parts: Of God; Of the Nature and Origin of Mind; Of the Origin and Nature of the Affections; Of Human Slavery; or, Concerning the Powers of the Affections; Of the Power of the Intellect; or, Concerning Human Liberty. Published posthumously in the year of his death, 1677, it was almost immediately banned along with Spinoza's other works. It remained so for over a hundred years, and was first translated into English by George Eliot in 1856, and the second translation by Hale White appeared in 1883. This translation, completed before White's was published, does not draw from Eliot's; the author states in his preface that "he has never seen an English translation of any portion of Spinoza's Ethics," though he was aware of a translation by E. Willis.