Ethics opens with a chain of proofs about “substance”—and, before long, Benedictus de Spinoza is arguing that there can be only one. What kind of universe follows from that startling beginning? Written between 1661 and 1675, Spinoza’s treatise borrows the spare machinery of geometry: definitions, axioms, propositions, and proofs. Its first pages pursue existence itself, step by step, insisting that what exists in its own nature must be infinite. From this austere starting point, Spinoza builds a vision in which God and nature are one, mind and body belong together, and human feelings and choices have causes. The stakes reach from the structure of the universe to the way we understand ourselves: if everything follows necessarily, what room remains for freedom—and what would it mean to live wisely? With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world. Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.
