BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Annotations
the ability, while awake , to i mag in e s o me thing a s vividly a s if on e had
the o bje ct in fron t of on e. But if the re we re anyon e who p o s s e s s e d a
di¡e ren t me ans of p e rcepti on and a di¡e ren t bas is of c o g nit ion, he would
u ndoubte dly su r pa s s the li mits of human natu re.
[C hapte r 3 ]
A n notatio n 4 :(p.47) ‘to the patri archs’: Ge n e s is ch. 15 tells how Go d told
Ab raham that he wa s his defe nde r and would g ive hi m a ve r y g reat reward ;
to which Ab raham re pli e d, that he had nothing ve r y much to exp e ct s ince
in extre me old age he re maine d st ill childle s s.
A n notatio n 5 (p. 47) ‘s e cu r ity of life’: It is cle ar fro m Mark 10 .21 that to
win eternal life it is not enough to keep the commandments of the Old
Testament.
[C hapte r 6 ]
Annotation 6 (p. 84) ‘Since the existence of God is not known of itself ’:
as long as our idea of Him is confused, and not clear and distinct, we are
in doubt about the existence of God, and consequently about everything.
For just as someone who does not comprehend a triangle properly does
not know that its three angles are equal to two right angles, so anyone
with a confused conception of the divine nature does not see that it
belongs to the nature of God to exist. In order to conceive the nature of
253 God clearly and distinctly, we must take notice of certain very simple
ideas that are called common notions and connect the things that belong
to the divine nature with them. It will become evident to us, ¢rst, that
God necessarily exists and is everywhere, secondly, at the same time,
that all the things that we conceive involve the nature of God in themselves
and are conceived by means of it, and, ¢nally, that everything that
we adequately conceive is true. On this point, see the Introduction to the
book entitled The Principles of Philosophy Demonstrated by the Geometrical
Method. 6
6 That is, Benedict de Spinoza, Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy Demonstrated by the Geometrical
Method (Amsterdam, 1663).
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