Abstract

This essay explores Spinoza’s early work, Metaphysical Thoughts, which was published as an appendix to his commentary on Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy. It discusses four topics that illustrate the difference between Metaphysical Thoughts and both Descartes’s philosophy and Spinoza’s later philosophy: the identity of the will and intellect in God, the necessity of all things, God’s moral character, and the relation of creatures to God. These topics shed light on some aspects of Spinoza’s mature philosophy.