By BENEDICTUS DE SPINOZA (THE PHILOSOPHER’S EARLIEST WORK) TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN, WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HALBERT HAINS BRITAN, Ph.D.
Publication Information : Book Title : The Principles of Descartes’ Philosophy. Contributors : Halbert Hains Britan – transltr, Benedictus de Spinoza – author. Publisher : Open Court Publishing. Place of Publication : La Salle, IL. Publication Year : 1943.
PREFACE
This translation, undertaken at the suggestion of Professor George M. Duncan of Yale University, has been made from the Latin text of Vloten’s and Land’s Benedict de Spinoza Opera, 1895. A careful study of this work such as a translator must needs make has convinced me that more attention should be given to the early writings of Spinoza for the help they give in understanding his Pantheism. By this means, by seeing how his ideas followed naturally if not always quite logically, from personal factors, and from Descartes’ philosophy, some of the most obscure points in his system of philosophy are materially elucidated and explained. But a historical or genetic study of any subject today needs no apology. The only remarkable thing about this is that so little attention has been given to this method of clearing up the obscurities of Spinoza’s thought.