Think Least of Death

The work of Baruch Spinoza (1623-1677) is becoming more popular with the rise of panpsychism and dual aspect theories of consciousness, but this book focuses more on his ethics, and highlights his interesting connections with Stoicism characterised by his paragon of the free person, motivated by reason and mastering the passions, living from the inside on the basis of 'adequate ideas' without being determined by or reacting to outer circumstances. In this way, virtuous action leads to happiness. To be free 'is essentially to be self-determining: to think, to desire, and act on the basis of one's own nature– that is, one's conatus.' Interestingly, Spinoza's documented multilingual library contained Aristotle but not Plato, no copy of Lucretius, but works from the Stoics Seneca and Cicero. There are chapters on self-esteem, fortitude, honesty, benevolence and friendship, suicide, death and the right way of living. These explain the development of his ethical system and its practical implications.

The chapter on death explains how Spinoza lived through the plague in Amsterdam in 1663-4 (he himself denied immortality, feeling that it 'leads inexorably to a life governed by the passions of hope and fear'), and the one on suicide contains a moving account by Tacitus of the forced suicide of Seneca, with interesting parallels to Socrates. His last words to his friends were: 'being forbidden to show gratitude for your services, I leave you my one remaining possession, and my best: the pattern of my life.' Spinoza's message is a noble one, championing freedom of thought, autonomy and virtue guided by reason and knowledge, well worth remembering in our own time.