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Benedict de Spinoza lived a life of blameless simplicity as a lens-grinder in Holland. And yet in his lifetime, he was expelled from the Jewish community in Amsterdam as a heretic, and after his death his words were first banned by the Christian authorities as atheistic, then hailed by humanists as the gospel of Pantheism. His "Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order" shows us the reality behind this enigmatic figure. First published by his friends after his premature death at the age of 44, the "Ethics" uses the methods of Euclid to describe a single entity, properly called both "God" and "Nature", of which mind and matter are two manifestations. From this follow, in ways that are strikingly modern, the identity of mind and body, the necessary causation of events and actions, and the illusory nature of free will.

斯宾诺莎（163—1677），十七世纪“典型资本主义国家”——荷兰的伟大哲学家，唯物主义者和战斗的无神论者，同时又是一位理性主义的先驱。斯宾诺莎的世界观是在尼德兰资本主义生产关系急剧发展的时期形成的，反映了新兴资产阶级的利益和要求，他的哲学思想应该看作是对资产阶级自由的论证。