Key Ideas
1. Reality is one substance
Everything exists in and through God or Nature.
2. God is immanent
Divine reality is not a separate creator standing outside nature.
3. All things follow necessarily
Nature’s order is not the result of arbitrary choice.
4. Finite things are modes
Individuals are determinate expressions of infinite substance.
5. Final causes reflect human projection
People mistake their purposes for purposes built into nature.
6. Thought and extension are attributes
They are different ways of understanding the same reality.
7. The mind is the idea of the body
Human mentality and embodiment form one individual under different attributes.
8. Ideas vary in adequacy
Partial causal understanding produces confusion; fuller understanding produces activity.
9. Free will is rejected
Acts of willing belong to nature’s causal order.
10. Every thing strives to persist
Conatus is the active essence of each finite being.
11. Desire is conscious striving
Human motivation expresses the effort to persevere and increase power.
12. Joy and sadness track changes in power
They mark movement towards greater or lesser capacity for action.
13. Emotions have causes
They should be understood rather than treated as supernatural defects.
14. Bondage is passive determination
People are unfree when external causes and inadequate ideas govern them.
15. Reason supports cooperation
Other rational people are among the greatest sources of human benefit.
16. Freedom grows through understanding
Adequate knowledge makes the mind a more active cause of its life.
17. Eternity is not endless duration
It concerns understanding things through necessary reality rather than temporal succession alone.
18. Blessedness is virtue itself
Freedom and intellectual love are not rewards added after rational living.