Spinoza's Political Treatise constitutes the very last stage in the development of his thought, as he left the manuscript incomplete at the time of his death in 1677. On several crucial issues - for example, the new conception of the 'free multitude' - the work goes well beyond his Theological Political Treatise (1670), and arguably presents ideas that were not fully developed even in his Ethics. This volume of newly commissioned essays on the Political Treatise is the first collection in English to be dedicated specifically to the work, ranging over topics including political explanation, national religion, the civil state, vengeance, aristocratic government, and political luck. It will be a major resource for scholars who are interested in this important but still neglected work, and in Spinoza's political philosophy more generally.

Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise (1670) is one of the most important philosophical works of the early modern period. In it Spinoza discusses at length the historical circumstances of the composition and transmission of the Bible, demonstrating the fallibility of both its authors and its interpreters. He argues that free enquiry is not only consistent with the security and prosperity of a state but actually essential to them, and that such freedom flourishes best in a democratic and republican state in which individuals are left free while religious organizations are subordinated to the secular power. His Treatise has profoundly influenced the subsequent history of political thought, Enlightenment 'clandestine' or radical philosophy, Bible hermeneutics, and textual criticism more generally. It is presented here in a translation of great clarity and accuracy by Michael Silverthorne and Jonathan Israel, with a substantial historical and philosophical introduction by Jonathan Israel.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

The Politics of Aristotle is the second part of a treatise of which the Ethics is the first. It looks back to the Ethics as the Ethics looks forward to the Politics, as Aristotle did not separate the spheres of the statesman and the moralist. In the Ethics he has described the character necessary for the good life, but that life is for him essentially to be lived in society, and when in the last chapters of the Ethics he comes to the practical application of his inquiries, that finds expression not in moral exhortations addressed to the individual but in a description of the legislative opportunities of the statesman. The state is "a community of well-being in families and aggregations of families for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life" and the legislator is a craftsman whose material is society and whose aim is the good life.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 edition. Excerpt: ... and the same, and consequently the King be one, and of the same sex and the government be indivisible. What however T have said that the eldest son of the king succeeds by right to the father or (if there be no children) the nearest by blood to the king is evident from the thirteenth section of the preceding chapter and also from the circumstance that the election of the king which is made by the community must if possible be eternal; for in the contrary case, it would necessarily happen that the highest power of the government would often pass over to the community, which is the greatest, and consequently the most dangerous change. Those certainly err however who maintain, that the king, J becaujj!_jie"Ts""master of the government and holds it byr absoluteright, can deliver it over to whom he chooses, and' appuiiu as his successor whom he likes, and that thus by right, the son of the king is the heir of the government. For the will of the king has only so long force as he holds I the awoffl of the state; for the right of government is determined by might alone. The king is therefore at; liberty to abdicate; but he cannot transfer the government to another, except the community or the stronger portion thereof consent. That this may be more clearly understood it is to be observed, that children are not by natural but by civil right the heirs of the parents; for it is through the might of the state alone that any one is master of certain property; wherefore by the same might or right, through which it happens, that the will of any one, as expressed in the determination which he comes to about his property is ratified, precisely by that same right or might it happens that his will remains ratified after his death, as long as the state...