Note 17 — APHORISMS—BOOK I ON THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE AND THE EMPIRE OF MAN

Spinoza, in his letter to Oldenberg (Op. Posth. p. 398), considers this aphorism based on a wrong conception of the origin of error, and, believing it to be fundamental, was led to reject Bacon’s method altogether. Spinoza refused to acknowledge in man any such thing as a will, and resolved all his volitions into particular acts, which he considered to be as fatally determined by a chain of physical causes as any effects in nature.—Ed.