e _Tractatus Brevis de Deo et
Homine ejusque Felicitate_, of which a Dutch translation in two copies was
discovered, though not the original Latin text. This treatise was published
by Boehmer, 1852, in excerpts, and complete by Van Vloten, 1862, and by
Schaarschmidt, 1869. It was not until our own century, and after Jacobi's
_Ueber die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an Moses Mendelssohn_ (1785)
had aroused the long slumbering interest in this much misunderstood
philosopher, who has been oftener despised than studied, that complete
editions of his works were prepared, by Paulus 1802-03; Gfroerer, 1830;
Bruder, 1843-46; Ginsberg (in Kirchmann's _Philosophische Bibliothek_,
4 vols.), 1875-82; and Van Vloten and Land,[2] 2 vols., 1882-83. B.
Auerbach has worked Spinoza's life into a romantic novel, _Spinoza, ein
Denkerleben_, 1837; 2d ed., 1855 [English translation by C.T. Brooks,
1882.]

[Footnote 1: See L. Stein in the _Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie_,
vol. i., 1888, p. 554 _seq_.]

[Footnote 2: For the literature on Spinoza the reader is referred to
Ueberweg and to Van der Linde's _B. Spinoza, Bibliografie_, 1871; while
among recent works we shall mention only Camerer's _Die Lehre Spinozas_,
Stuttgart, 1877. An English translation of _The Chief Works of Spinoza_ has
been given by Elwes, 1883-84; a translation of the _Ethics_ by White,
1883; and one of selections from the _Ethics_, with notes, by Fullerton in
Sneath's Modern Philosophers, 1892. Among the various works on Spinoza, the
reader may be referred to Pollock's _Spinoza, His Life and Times_, 1880
(with bibliography to same year); Martineau's _Study of Spinoza_, 1883; and
J. Caird's _Spinoza_, Blackwood's Philosophical Classics, 1888.--TR.]

We shall consider Spinoza's system as a completed whole as it is given in
the _Ethics_; for although it is interesting for the investigator to trace
out the development of his thinking by comparing this chief work with its
forerunner (that _Tractatus Brevis_ "concerning God, man, and the happiness
of the latter," whose dialogistical portions we may surmise to have been
the earliest sketch of the Spinozistic position, and which was followed by
the _Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione_) such a procedure is not equally
valuable for the student. In regard to Spinoza's relations to other
thinkers it cannot be doubted, since Freudenthal's[1] proof, that he was
dependent to a large degree on the predominant philosophy of the s