Ethics is a philosophical book written by Baruch Spinoza. It was written in Latin. Although it was published posthumously in 1677, it is his most famous work, and is considered his magnum opus.
The style and system of the book is, as Spinoza says, "demonstrated in geometrical order", with axioms and definitions followed by propositions.
The first part of the book addresses the relationship between God and the universe. Tradition held that God exists outside of the universe, created it for a reason, and could have created a different universe if he so chose. According to Spinoza, God is the natural world. Spinoza claims that the things that make up the universe, including human beings, are God's "modes". This means that we and everything else are, in some sense, dependent upon God. Some scholars say that the modes are properties of God in the traditional sense. Others say that modes are effects of God. Either way, the modes are also logically dependent on God's essence, in this sense: everything that happens follows from the nature of God. (Wikipedia.org)
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