On the Improvement of the Understanding (Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect) by Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza] Translated by R. H. M. Elwes TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1 On the Improvement of the Understanding 3 Of the ordinary objects of men's desires 12 Of the true and final good 17 Certain rules of life 19 Of the four modes of perception 25 Of the best mode of perception 33 Of the instruments of the intellect, or true ideas 43 Answers to objections First part of method: 50 Distinction of true ideas from fictitious ideas 64 And from false ideas 77 Of doubt 81 Of memory and forgetfulness 86 Mental hindrances from words--and from the popular confusion of ready imagination with distinct understanding. Second part of method: 91 Its object, the acquisition of clear and distinct ideas 94 Its means, good definitions Conditions of definition 107 How to define understanding ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [Notice to the Reader.] (This notice to the reader was written by the editors of the Opera Postuma in 1677. Taken from Curley, Note 3, at end) *This Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect etc., which we give you here, kind reader, in its unfinished [that is, defective] state, was written by the author many years ago now. He always intended to finish it. But hindered by other occupations, and finally snatched away by death, he was unable to bring it to the desired conclusion. But since it contains many excellent and useful things, which--we have no doubt--will be of great benefit to anyone sincerely seeking the truth, we did not wish to deprive you of them. And so that you would be aware of, and find less difficult to excuse, the many things that are still obscure, rough, and unpolished, we wished to warn you of them. Farewell.* [1] (1) After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.