However, we are not best served by attempting to recreate the chain of reasoning that would lead us to act nobly when someone insults or harms us, but rather by having that maxim firmly committed to memory. The interpretation of this principle is the source of much scholarly disagreement, but a few things are clear. Spinoza appeals to both of these pieces of theoretical machinery, along with a few interesting additions, when he presents his five remedies for overcoming or restraining the passions.

The first published Dutch translations were by the poet Herman Gorter (1895) [29] and by Willem Meyer (1896).

In some cases, a passion not only has an external cause, but is such that it represents that cause (or purported cause).

Spinoza holds that everything that exists is part of nature, and everything in nature follows the same basic laws.

Something is active insofar as it produces various effects through its striving; conversely, it is passive insofar as it and its states are produced by external causes (E3d1–3). Although Spinoza’s treatment of many of the virtues is in keeping with traditional conceptions of virtue, he often parts ways with these traditional conceptions. So far, Spinoza’s moral theory might not appear to be capable of answering the practical questions it is ordinarily hoped such a theory will answer. His frequent use of geometrical illustrations affords no evidence at all in support of a purely logico- mathematical interpretation of his philosophy; for Spinoza regarded geometrical figures, not in a Platonic or static manner, but as things traced out by moving particles or lines, etc.