ABSTRACT
The full title of the book is Ethics Demonstrated in a Geometrical Manner. Why, you might ask, would anyone attempt to write a philosophical treatise in the form of a geometry textbook? One answer is that Spinoza was impressed by the way in which Euclid deduced his conclusions logically from the various explicit assumptions that he made. The conclusions followed inexorably from the premises and were derived with transparency and elegance. Spinoza’s conclusions spell out what the true implications of various definitions are. If you accept his premises, then you must accept his conclusions, provided that his reasoning is good.
