Salvation from Despair

I Introduction.- I. Contemporary Despair and its Antidote.- 1. Forebodings.- 2. Reactions against the Past.- 3. Groundspring of Philosophy.- 4. Spinoza's Scientific Attitude.- II. Geometrical Method.- 1. The Primacy of Knowledge.- 2. Critics of Spinoza's Method.- 3. Deduction.- 4. Geometry and Metaphysics.- II God.- III. The Absurdity of Atheism.- 1. Is Spinoza an Atheist?.- 2. The Conception of God.- 3. The Existence of God.- 4. Dismissal of the Indictment.- IV. God's Creativity.- 1. Natura Naturans and Natura Naturata.- 2. Attributes and Modes.- 3. Modes, Infinite and Finite.- 4. The Causality of God.- 5. Interpretations, Comment and Criticism.- 6. Solution of the Problem.- 7. Residual Difficulties.- III Man.- V. Body and Mind.- 1. The Material World.- 2. Mind as Felt Body.- 3. Substantial Identity.- 4. Rejection of Parallelism.- 5. Alleged Ambiguity of 'Idea'.- 6. Idea Ideae.- 7. Passivity and Activity.- 8. Imaginatio.- 9. The Common Order of Nature - Time, Measure and Number.- 10. Adequate Knowledge.- VI. Passion and Action.- 1. Affects.- 2. Conatus.- 3. Primary and Secondary Affects.- 4. Active Emotions.- 5. 'Human Nature'.- 6. Freedom.- 7. Teleology.- 8. The Will and Human Responsibility.- IV Human Welfare.- VII. Good and Evil.- 1. Aids to the Imagination.- 2. True Good and Supreme Good.- 3. Perfection.- 4. One coherent Doctrine.- 5. Spinoza and Plato on the Good and the Expedient.- 6. Moral Weakness.- 7. The Reality of Evil.- VIII. The Mastery of Fate.- 1. Of Human Bondage.- 2. The Mastery over the Passions.- 3. The Dictates of Reason.- 4. Selfishness and Self-sacrifice.- 5. Vice and Virtue.- IX. The State and Politics.- 1. Ethics, Politics and History.- 2. Philosophical Roots.- 3. Natural Law, Natural Rights and the State of Nature.- 4. Sovereignty and Law.- 5. The Rights and Powers of the Sovereign.- 6. Limitations on the Power and Action of the State.- 7. Political Freedom.- 8. Practical Considerations.- X. Religion.- 1. Philosophy and Religion.- 2. The Intellectual Love of God.- 3. The Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.- 4. Revealed Religion and Superstition.- 5. Biblical Criticism.- 6. Prophecy.- 7. The Election of the Jews.- 8. Miracles.- 9. The True and Universal Religion.- 10. Spinoza's Attitude to Christianity.- XI. Human Immortality.- 1. The final Problem.- 2. Traditional Ideas of Immortality.- 3. A Common Interpretation of Spinoza.- 4. Difficulties and Criticisms.- 5. Idea as Transcendent.- 6. Time and Eternity.- 7. Mind as Idea of Body.- 8. Misinterpretations and Misconceptions.- 9. Blessedness.- Epilogue.- XII Spinoza in Retrospect.- Bibliographical Appendix.