This book is intended for the use of the candid student, devised as a monitory preparation for deeper study of the philosophy of Spinoza. By its means it is hoped that the student may avoid the chief pitfalls of Spinoza-interpretation, and be carried past many of the difficulties encountered by the modern mind in the study of his writings. To this end perhaps the greatest hindrance to be met by the beginner is the ''popular'' exposition that attempts to expound the thought of one age in terms of the favoured categories of another. By providing the necessary safeguards against misinterpretations arising from such causes, the author has sought to awaken interest in the closely knit fabric of Spinoza''s doctrine of man and nature and God, and its practical import - and thus to revivify a specimen too long deprived of its native air.

This book is intended for the use of the candid student, devised as a monitory preparation for deeper study of the philosophy of Spinoza. By its means it is hoped that the student may avoid the chief pitfalls of Spinoza-interpretation, and be carried past many of the difficulties encountered by the modern mind in the study of his writings. To this end perhaps the greatest hindrance to be met by the beginner is the ''popular'' exposition that attempts to expound the thought of one age in terms of the favoured categories of another. By providing the necessary safeguards against misinterpretations arising from such causes, the author has sought to awaken interest in the closely knit fabric of Spinoza''s doctrine of man and nature and God, and its practical import - and thus to revivify a specimen too long deprived of its native air.