SOURCE: “From Democracy to Aristocracy: Spinoza, Reason and Politics,” in History of European Ideas, Vol. XXIII, Nos. 2-4, 1997, pp. 105-15.

[In the essay that follows, Prokhovnik claims that, while Spinoza celebrates democracy in the Theologico-Political Treatise of 1670, the traditional focus on this early text fails to consider Spinoza's preference for aristocracy in the Political Treatise of 1677.]

THE RECEIVED VIEW OF SPINOZA ON DEMOCRACY

Several commentators on Spinoza take his famous pronouncements in the Theologico-Political Treatise¹ of 1670, that, democracy is ‘the most natural form of government’ (TTP 263), and ‘of all forms of government the most natural, and the most consonant with individual liberty’ (TTP 207), along with his statement in the Political Treatise of 1677 that democracy is ‘the perfectly absolute dominion’ (TP 385) as the only evidence that is needed to form an assessment of Spinoza's estimation of democracy. On the strength of these pronouncements, such commentators assume that Spinoza was an uncomplicated advocate of democracy.² Even those writers that look more closely at both of the political treatises written by Spinoza in the 1660s and 1670s, tend to present a confused account of his view of democracy.³

This paper seeks to understand Spinoza's conception of democracy more fully within the context provided by the two texts. This involves highlighting the crucial roles played by the concepts of reason, liberty and equality in his political theory, and observing how these concepts affect the character of his complex notion of democracy. But first it involves correcting the neglect of serious attention often given to the second of the two political treatises. While the Political Treatise is often regarded as the less philosophically important of the two political treatises,⁴ there is a strong case for arguing that it is precisely in the Political Treatise that Spinoza develops the insights of the Ethics (explicitly invoked TP289ns, 291ns, 300); whereas as Deleuze rightly suggests⁵ the Theologico-Political Treatise primarily represents Spinoza's response to the problem of religion.

THE POLITICAL TREATISE

Spinoza's estimation of democracy undergoes a marked change between the two treatises⁶ which is often unacknowledged by Spinoza scholars. When Spinoza says in the Political Treatise that democracy is the ‘perfectly absolute dominion’ (TP 385), he is not simply reiterating his praise of democracy in the earlier political treatise.

There are four main components sustaining this argument. First there is Spinoza's evident preference, in the Political Treatise, for aristocracy⁷ (particularly for aristocratic dominion in more than one city) over democracy. Secondly there is Spinoza's greater articulation in the Political Treatise of the roles played in a particular dominion of its political and cultural traditions and its specific definition of liberty. These two arguments establish the basis of Spinoza's own preference for aristocracy over democracy. Two further factors frame the non-dichotomous character of the discussion in which this preference is placed. Thus thirdly it is clear that Spinoza's praise of democracy is not opposed to equal praise of other political forms. And fourthly in the Political Treatise Spinoza regards all three types of government as presenting genuine alternatives.

In the course of the three chapters devoted to the analysis of aristocracy in the Political Treatise, Spinoza establishes a clear preference for this form of government, especially for aristocratic dominion in several cities. The heart of the argument is that aristocratic government acknowledges, according to Spinoza, the greatest power of that council which is most important in political life, to govern and also to choose its own members. In addition, it is clear from Spinoza's argument throughout the Political Treatise that his central concern is to promote the power of this supreme council and that, as aristocratic dominion does this most effectively, that Spinoza's own preference is for this type of government. And an aristocracy of more than one city governs most effectively of all.

However in an interesting way Spinoza's definitions of eligibility confound our (though not Aristotle's) expectations of democracy and aristocracy. For Spinoza democracy means that those included as rulers are ‘destined by the law’ to rule, that is have a birthright to rule which is guaranteed by law. In a democracy, which for Spinoza must be direct and not representative, all citizens as defined by the law of the dominion, ‘have a right to demand … the right to vote in the supreme council and to fill public offices’ (TP 385). However, Spinoza envisages that the law may set out conditions, based on age, being the first-born or a certain money contribution, which can legitimately restrict these democratic rights. Such dominions are still technically democracies, says Spinoza, even though they may result in the supreme council being composed of fewer citizens than that in an aristocracy. For in democracies, Spinoza continues, there is an element of ‘destiny’ involved; dominions ‘of this kind should be called democracies, because in them the citizens, who are destined to manage affairs of state, are not chosen as the best by the supreme council, but are destined to it by a law’. (TP 385)

According to Spinoza, in an aristocracy, rulers are chosen on merit, and are accountable for their actions to those that chose them. Thus some of his conditions for aristocratic and democratic government are exactly the opposite of what we would consider usual, with aristocracy by right of birth and democracy through choice on merit (though for Spinoza neither democracy nor aristocracy need involve the electoral process which is a defining feature of modern liberal democracy; choice can be conducted by nominated appointment). According to Spinoza's definition, modern representative democracy would be regarded as an aristocracy, because our legislative bodies are, like his definition of aristocracy, ‘composed of certain chosen persons’.

The second significant factor in the change in Spinoza's view of democracy between the two political treatises, follows from his greater articulation in the second political treatise of his understanding of the roles played in a free dominion of its political and cultural traditions and by its particular definition of liberty (the manner in which Spinoza's awareness of the communitarian embeddedness of politics is underpinned by his conceptions of reason and liberty, is considered later in the paper). Which type of government a particular dominion should have, for Spinoza, depends upon which is appropriate to its political traditions, and so will best ensure the traditional liberties of that dominion. According to Spinoza, attention to practice and to specific political customs, will lead subjects to ‘do their duty rather spontaneously than under pressure of the law’. (TP 382) For Spinoza, states are good or bad according to the ability of their constitutions, that is their institutional arrangements, traditional rights and settled codes of law, whatever these may be, to promote and protect liberty, toleration, privileges and self-government.⁸ On this basis Spinoza provides abundant praise for the suitability of an aristocracy in more than one city to dominion in the United Provinces.

The third point concerns the way in which, in the Political Treatise the praise of democracy is not opposed to praise of other political forms, as it would be today. Spinoza's praise of democracy as ‘absolute’ in the Political Treatise is followed by equal praise for aristocracy as ‘absolute’. In order to understand the absence of a dichotomy between democracy and aristocracy in Spinoza's political thought, it is important to consider what Spinoza means by an ‘absolute’ dominion.

While Spinoza maintains, in the Political Treatise, that democracy is the ‘perfectly absolute dominion’ (TP 385), yet, he says,

in so far as … aristocratic dominion never … reverts to the multitude, and there is under it no consultation with the multitude, but, without qualification, every will of the council is law, it must be considered as quite absolute, and therefore its foundations ought to rest only on the will and judgment of the said council, and not on the watchfulness of the multitude, since the latter is excluded from giving its advice or its vote.

(TP 347)

‘Absolute dominion’ then, the object of Spinoza's greatest admiration, means both independent to rule (independent of accountability to the multitude) and establishing a balance which is both dynamic and everlasting. In practice the ‘absolute’ character of most aristocracies is modified by the rulers' fear of the multitude, which enables the multitude to therefore retain some liberty. But Spinoza maintains that aristocratic dominion,

will be in the best possible condition, if its institutions are such that it most nearly approaches the absolute—that is, that the multitude is as little as possible a cause of fear, and retains no liberty, but such as must necessarily be assigned it by the law of the dominion itself, and is therefore not so much a right of the multitude as of the whole dominion asserted and maintained by the aristocrats only on their own. For thus practice agrees best with theory. …

(TP 347)

However, Spinoza hastens to add, ‘the commons need not apprehend any danger of a hateful slavery from this form of dominion, merely because it is conferred on the council absolutely. For the will of so large a council cannot be so much determined by lust as by reason. …’ (TP 348).

The fourth point, which follows from the third, is that in the Political Treatise Spinoza regards all three types of government—monarchy, aristocracy, democracy—as presenting genuine alternatives; all capable, if properly constituted, of resulting in a civil state, a free dominion.⁹ In the Political Treatise, democracy does not have normative pre-eminence. As Spinoza says in the subtitle to the Political Treatise, he aims to demonstrate how both monarchy and aristocracy (and presumably democracy if he had finished the work) should be organised, in order so as ‘not to lapse into a tyranny, but to preserve inviolate the peace and freedom of the citizens’. (TP 279)¹⁰ This point is demonstrated by the manner in which, in the Political Treatise, Spinoza first lays down the true ‘foundations’ of monarchy, and then adapts only what is necessary, when he comes to aristocracy. Thus he does not start afresh with each form of government, but sees them all as sharing a strong and common foundational basis.

According to Spinoza, the three alternatives differ essentially only in the institutional balance by which they organise the polity. The rights and liberties of subjects are the same under any of the three forms of government. For Spinoza, individuals retain the same natural rights, liberty and freedom of worship, whichever of the three types of free dominion they live in. Democracy does not extend and develop rights and liberties more than other forms of government.

According to Spinoza, the continuity, persistence and stability of government is the primary aim of a free dominion. The key to a free dominion being able to weather the condition of conflict and discord that inevitably characterises political life,¹¹ and to being able to endure over time, does not lie in only one form of government. This end can in theory be met by any of the three forms of government through maintaining secure institutional foundations, and following the political traditions appropriate to that country, which will therefore ensure the liberty of citizens best. According to Spinoza, ‘seditions, wars, and contempt or breach of the laws are not so much to be imputed to the wickedness of the subjects, as to the bad state of a dominion’ (TP 313). Secure institutional foundations, rather than the particular form of the relationship between ruler and ruled, is the factor to which Spinoza attributes the success of states. For Spinoza, a free dominion is sustained by its respect for the compelling values of personal freedom to pursue the intellectual love of God, and self-government in the sense of legitimate government free from interference. The liberties of subjects and the relationship between ruler and ruled do not depend upon the form of government. The institutional form in which these values are embedded or situated, is secondary for Spinoza.

LIBERTY

In this way then, while there is a marked shift in the course of Spinoza's political writings, away from democracy and towards a reasoned preference for aristocratic government in the Political Treatise, this shift does not represent for Spinoza the inversion of a dualism. There is no hierarchical order which is being reversed. Furthermore, the significance of this change is not fully appreciated on its own. Spinoza's conception of democracy can only be understood fully in the light of several other general aspects of his political theory, namely liberty, reason and equality.

Spinoza's conception of liberty contains four elements—personal freedom to explore the love of God, religious toleration, the recognition of the traditional privileges of specific cities,¹² and self-government or the liberty of the state to govern itself.

But Spinoza's view of liberty demonstrates furthermore a relationship between these four elements which is characterised by both a continuum and a correspondence¹³. The continuum runs from focusing on the possibility of human freedom in the Ethics, through the relationship between God and man; on this possibility realised in a necessarily political (civil, secular) setting in the Theologico-Political Treatise, with the emphasis on freedom of religion and debate; and on the possibility of the political liberty of the state in the Political Treatise. The correspondence between individual and state is crucial to Spinoza, for where there is the liberty of the free state, there is the opportunity for personal freedom. His understanding of liberty sees as interdependent the freedom to love God and the notion of the political liberty of the free state.

In this light it is clear how the praise of democracy, and indeed the later preference for aristocracy is a secondary matter. Thus even in the Theologico-Political Treatise, where the praise of democracy is strongest, there is strong evidence that what matters to Spinoza most, is not the institutional form of democracy as such, but the correspondence which allows for the capacity of government (whatever government) to facilitate the ‘power of free judgment’ of citizens. And in the first five chapters of the Political Treatise, Spinoza outlines the substantial common ground that is shared by all kinds of free governments. It is in this light that we need to understand Spinoza's statements towards the end of the Theologico-Political Treatise, that ‘the true aim of government is liberty’ (TTP 259), and ‘In proportion as the power of free judgment is withheld we depart from the natural condition of mankind, and consequently the government becomes more tyrannical’. (TTP 263-264)

A second point about the character of democracy also emerges from this discussion of Spinoza's view of liberty. For what is absent from Spinoza's view of liberty is the emphasis which characterises modern notions, of the personal political liberty of the citizen to participate, and of individual autonomy and rights as goods which democracy is designed to promote.¹⁴ For Spinoza democracy is neither justified nor abjured by securing participation, autonomy or (as we shall see) equality. In his first definition of democracy, Spinoza identifies this kind of body politic as that in which all ‘men either tacitly or expressly handed over … all their right’. (TTP 205) Democracy, he says, ‘may be defined as a society which wields all its power as a whole. The sovereign power is not restrained by any laws, but everyone is bound to obey it in all things’. (TTP 205) Democracy is therefore equated not with universal participation, but with the universal transfer of individual rights to the sovereign. For Spinoza members of a dominion are citizens insofar as they share the benefits of life in that country, and are subjects insofar as they are subject to its laws (TP 301). It is not participation but the opportunity for personal freedom as described above, which defines citizenship. Political participation in government is a duty, not a right, which falls on some or all citizens. The extent of participation is therefore, morally and logically, a secondary matter. Furthermore participation is a duty whose aim is to preserve the liberty of self-government of the dominion, not to ‘represent’ the citizenry or make government accountable to them.

Thus just as personal freedom requires religious liberty and toleration on the part of the state, so political freedom requires self-government by the state. Political liberty characterises states, not individuals. For Spinoza the liberty of subjects in civil society is guaranteed by the state, by its being self-governing, which ensures peace and, by having ‘proper foundations’ which protect it against internal corruption.

The third point about democracy that arises from Spinoza's conception of liberty, derives from Spinoza's commitment to an understanding of political liberty based on the pluralism provided by the cities and provinces of the United Provinces. For even if we take Spinoza to be an uncomplicated advocate of democracy, it is only democracy in one city or town that is established. It is plain from Spinoza's political theory that the political relationship he envisages between cities and between provinces is necessarily based upon independence and self-government.

REASON

The correspondence between the individual and the state in terms of liberty, is extended by Spinoza through the connection between liberty and reason. He argues explicitly that just as ‘man is then most independent, when he is most led by reason, … in consequence … that commonwealth is most powerful and most independent, which is founded and guided by reason’. (TP 313)¹⁵

For Spinoza, it is the relationship between freedom and reason which defines man's natural right¹⁶. All of nature is determined to act to preserve its independence. Man is part of nature, and is determined by having a nature according to which he must operate. Man's nature comprises both passions which lead to ‘passive affections’, and reason which leads to ‘action’. Both passions and the understanding which is the outcome of reason, are equally ‘effects of nature’ (TP 292), and Spinoza pours scorn on those who ‘maintain, that the human mind is produced by no natural causes, but created directly by God, and is so independent of other things, that it has an absolute power to determine itself, and make a right use of reason’. (TP 293)¹⁷ And for Spinoza reason operates not against the passions, but with them, by transforming passive affects into understanding and action.

Man does not have free will to operate against his nature. Man is not free, not to exist or not to use his reason. The more free a man is, the more he will use reason and choose good over evil. (TP 294) Human rights are thus given by a human nature which is necessitated. A man is independent and so free, inasmuch as he is led by reason (TP 295). As Spinoza says, liberty ‘does not take away the necessity of acting, but supposes it’ (TTP 296). Thus man is most free when most led by reason, because reason is consonant with his nature and freedom is identified with what is most necessitated (TP Chap. 2, Sections 7, 8, 11, 20). It follows that ‘the more a man is guided by reason, that is the more he is free, the more constantly he will keep the laws of the commonwealth’ (TP 303). Political commonwealths are also part of nature (TP 310), and so it follows by correspondence, ‘that state is the freest whose laws are founded on sound reason, so that every member of it may, if he wills, be free’ (TTP 206).

Spinoza argues in the earlier political treatise that men are most bound in democracy, where the direct link between being ruled and ruling is most fully realised, and so are for that reason most free in a democracy. And if the conception of democracy as the body politic in which men are most bound, in the universal handing over of rights, should seem to turn subjects into slaves, Spinoza argues that it is a misconception that ‘slaves obey commands and free men live as they like’. For the true slave, he says, ‘is he who is led away by his pleasures and can neither see what is good for him nor act accordingly: he alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.’ (TTP 206) In a democracy, he says later, ‘men with one consent agree to live according to the dictates of reason’ (TTP 247). The key to the value of democracy for Spinoza in the first political treatise is thus its capacity to promote reason. The aim of democracy, he says, is ‘to bring men as far as possible under the control of reason, so that they may live in peace and harmony.’ (TTP 206)

Furthermore a commonwealth guided by reason will be one which recognises and acts in harmony with, in accordance with its own nature, its own customs and laws. In this way there is a communitarian element in Spinoza's notion of reason, as well as in his conception of liberty (in the recognition of the importance of local privileges), which prevents his conceptions of reason and freedom from being purely abstract.

Spinoza makes it clearer in the second political treatise that the communitarian element does not necessarily lead to either conservative or repressive consequences (TP 311). It binds the correspondence and concurrence between individual freedom and reason, and state freedom and reason in the following way. The individual's ‘natural right of free reason and judgment’ (TTP 257) (which does not mean that every man may live as he please (TTP 260), for liberty does not mean licence (TP 298)) requires a free dominion in order to be expressed (TP 298). A free dominion acts with the grain of local social and cultural practices, and allows the free reason and judgment of individuals to flourish. The aim of a free dominion is peace, security and stability (TP 313) and this is why secure constitutional and institutional foundations are so crucial to Spinoza. Furthermore, free reason and judgment enable reforms to be suggested and implemented where necessary.¹⁸ As Spinoza says, again reinforcing the correspondence, as with ‘every man, so a commonwealth is the less independent, the greater reason it has to fear’. (TP305)

Whereas in the first political treatise Spinoza derives the praise of democracy from the connection between reason and personal liberty, the focus of Spinoza's interest in the second treatise is the connection between reason and the political liberty of the state. The free dominion which comes closest to ‘absolute’ self-government is that which best promotes the power of the supreme council¹⁹—most effectively accomplished in an aristocracy—and which recognises local political practices, customary law and the ancient privileges of particular cities.

EQUALITY

Along with the shift in Spinoza's interest from deriving politics from a notion of personal liberty to deriving politics from a notion of political liberty, goes a change in Spinoza's view of equality. In the earlier political treatise the metaphysical equality of men is translated directly into their political equality, whereas in the later treatise Spinoza is much more wary about equality and much more prepared to accept inequality between men.

In the earlier political treatise Spinoza outlines a theory of democracy which attempts to marry a Hobbesian view of sovereign right with a confident belief that political equality results in the maximum political liberty of the individual to pursue his personal freedom. Spinoza regards democracy here as ‘of all forms of government the most natural, and the most consonant with individual liberty’ (TTP 207), for ‘in a democracy … men with one consent agree to live according to the dictates of reason’. (TTP 247) In a democracy, ‘all men remain, as they were in the state of nature, equals’ (TTP 207), and because they are, as equals, most fully bound, they are by consent, as part of the sovereign, most free. As Spinoza says,

in a state or kingdom where the weal of the whole people, and not that of the ruler, is the supreme law, obedience to the sovereign power does not make a man a slave, of no use to himself, but a subject. Therefore, that state is the freest whose laws are founded on sound reason, so that every member of it may, if he will, be free; that is, live with full consent under the entire guidance of reason.

(TTP 206)

By the time Spinoza wrote the Political Treatise, the equality of citizens has become merely formal and there are no fewer citizens in an aristocracy than in a democracy. Moreover, in that treatise, proportion and balance (partly because they maintain stability between unequals) are the virtues of the political system which Spinoza regards as more important than equality. Whereas the modern conception of democracy holds that inequality is unfair, Spinoza sees no such link.

CONCLUSION

This paper began by noting that most commentators on Spinoza's political theory either regard his view of democracy as unproblematically celebratory, or do not fully explore its complex character or the shift that occurs between Spinoza's two political treatises. The paper has sought to examine the change towards Spinoza's preference for aristocracy, to outline some of the features of Spinoza's particular understanding of democracy, and to explore the complex understanding of his view of democracy that is afforded through consideration of his understandings of reason, liberty and equality.

The outcomes of this research are that the complexity of the meaning of democracy for Spinoza is disclosed, and that it is clear that Spinoza did indeed change his mind about democracy. Two interesting points which have emerged from this discussion are Spinoza's acknowledgement that reason is a concept which is not purely abstract, and the idea that in preferring aristocracy to democracy Spinoza is not inverting a dualism. But the most important feature has been the recognition of the transformation effected by Spinoza in the notion of politics, that comes from deriving government from the idea of the political liberty of the free dominion rather than from the personal liberty of the individual to pursue the love of God.

The recognition of politics as an independent activity and discipline, has triumphed over a politics merely derived and applied from a metaphysics. Furthermore, Spinoza's conception of reason also offers a bridge between metaphysics and politics, for a commonwealth which acts according to reason, acts in harmony with its own nature, expressed in local customs and laws. While many commentators on Spinoza see his political theory simply as an adjunct to the Ethics, the shift from the Theologico-Political Treatise to the Political Treatise that Spinoza's changing view of democracy has identified, marks a significant point in Spinoza's development as a distinctively political theorist.

Notes

1. All references to Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise (TTP) and Political Treatise (TP) are to Benedict de Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise and A Political Treatise, transl. R.H.M. Elwes (New York: Dover, 1951).

2. For the staggeringly uncomplicated assertion of Spinoza's simple advocacy of democracy, see for instance, A.G. Wernham (ed. and transl.), Benedict de Spinoza. The Political Works (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), ‘General Introduction’, p.28n.; Emilia Giancotti Boscherini, ‘Necessity and freedom—reflections on texts by Spinoza’, in Siegried Hessing (ed.), Speculum Spinozanum 1677-1977 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), pp. 101-102; Robert Misrahi, ‘Spinoza and Christian thought: a challenge’, in Hessing, Speculum Spinozanum, p. 395; Stuart Hampshire, Spinoza (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962), p.208; Sylvain Zac, ‘Spinoza et l’etat des Hebreux’, in Hessing, Speculum Spinozanum, p. 554; Leon Roth, Spinoza (London: Ernest Benn Ltd, 1929), p. 138; Edwin Curley, ‘Kissinger, Spinoza, and Genghis Khan’, in Don Garrett (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 317; Hilail Gildin, ‘Spinoza and the Political Problem’, in Marjorie Grene (ed.), Spinoza. A Collection of Critical Essays (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), p. 377; Errol Harris, Spinoza's Philosophy: An Outline (NJ: Humanities Press, 1992), p. 104; Wolfgang Bartuschat, ‘The Ontological Basis of Spinoza's Theory of Politics’, p. 34; Antonio Negri, The Savage Anomaly. The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics, transl. Michael Hardt (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1991), p. xviii; Douglas J Den Uyl and Stuart D Warner, ‘Liberalism and Hobbes and Spinoza’, Studia Spinozana 3 (1987) p. 292.

   Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza. Practical Philosophy, transl. Robert Hurley (San Fransisco: City Lights Books, 1988), pp. 4, 108, and Moira Gatens (despite the otherwise important arguments she develops in Chaps 4, 7, 8 and 9), Imaginary Bodies. Ethics, Power and Corporeality (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 133, both imply a simple advocacy of democracy by Spinoza.

3. Robert Duff, Spinoza's Political and Ethical Philosophy (Glasgow: James Maclehose, 1903), pp. 329, 502-504; Jon Wetlesen, The Sage and the Way (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1979), pp. 376, 383, 385; Roger Scruton, Spinoza (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 98-99, 103; Georg Geismann, ‘Spinoza—beyond Hobbes and Rousseau’, Journal of the History of Ideas 52 (1991) p. 51; M.J. Petry, ‘Hobbes and the Early Dutch Spinozists’, in C. De Deugd, Spinoza's Political and Theological Thought (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1984), p. 15; Noel Malcolm, ‘Hobbes and Spinoza’, in J.H. Burns (ed.), Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 553; Alan Donagan, Spinoza, p. 182; Alexandre Matheron, ‘Femmes et serviteurs dans la Democratie spinoziste’, in Hessing, Speculum Spinozanum, pp. 368-386; Henry Allison, Benedict de Spinoza: An Introduction (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), pp. 177, 192-193, 202-204; Frederick Pollock, Spinoza. His Life and Philosophy (London: Kegan Paul, 1880), p. 314.

   Lewis Feuer, ‘Spinoza's Thought and Modern perplexities: Its American Career’, in Barry S. Kogan, Spinoza: A Tercentenary Perspective (Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 1978), pp. 65-66, argues that the Political Treatise remained incomplete because Spinoza lost confidence in democracy.

4. Hampshire, Spinoza, pp. 191, 197, has led the way in the establishment of this view. See also Hilail Gildin, ‘Spinoza and the Political Problem’, for the undervaluing of the Political Treatise in relation to the Theologico-Political Treatise, p. 378.

5. Deleuze, Spinoza. Practical Philosophy, p. 10.

6. There are both historical and conceptual factors involved here. The change was undoubtedly not unrelated to the murder of de Witt, but the Political Treatise also demonstrates a more sophisticated understanding of the political realm and of the political liberty of the free state.

7. The reputation of aristocracy as a form of government must now have sunk to an all-time low, especially in the light of the hegemony of ‘democratic’ discourse and the near equation of democracy with politics itself, in contemporary political theory. Even the promisingly entitled An Aristocracy for Everyone. The Politics and Education of the Future of America, by Benjamin Barber (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), reveals itself to be a plea for democracy.

8. This approach is markedly different from the modern liberal conception, according to which the normative value of democracy is universally applicable.

9. Notwithstanding Hampshire's tirade (Spinoza, pp. 191-197) against Spinoza's adherence to this classical division of political constitutions, the argument of this paper seeks to indicate the value of taking Spinoza's chosen structure of political analysis in the Political Treatise seriously.

10. Nevertheless it is clear from Spinoza's discussion of monarchy, which very severely limits and constrains the monarch's powers in favour of the council's, that what Spinoza is keen to exclude from serious consideration, and what his argument is designed to lead to a rejection of, is any mixed government formula which could be seen to benefit or recommend the monarchical ambitions of William of Orange.

11. While Spinoza is against factions and political parties, he is very keen on political debate and the airing of conflicting opinions in public.

12. The significance of the local political context to Spinoza's political theory is clearly indicated by his inclusion in the primary meanings of liberty, the freedom of the state to protect the ancient liberties and customary privileges belonging to the towns and provinces of the United Provinces.

13. For the role of correspondence in Spinoza's philosophy, see Deleuze, Spinoza. Practical Philosophy, p. 87. H.A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1958), Vol. 2, pp. 245-246 also discusses the ‘analogy between the individual and society’ in Spinoza's philosophy.

14. Indeed Spinoza's democracy sometimes sounds the epitome of authoritarianism. See TTP 205.

15. Spinoza uses the term ‘man’ throughout his political theory rather than something gender-neutral, and had definite views on the inferiority of women in political life. Since I am not at this point attempting to challenge or account for this practice, to use gender-neutral language would simply be to mask the discriminatory practice. Retaining Spinoza's use highlights the discrepancy we now recognise, and so Spinoza's usage is reproduced here.

16. While Spinoza avoids one problem that besets political theorists, in the form of one of the relations between theory and practice (‘inasmuch as all men, whether barbarous or civilised, everywhere frame customs, and form some kind of civil state, we must not, therefore, look to proofs of reason for the causes of natural bases of dominion, but derive them from the general nature or position of mankind’ (TP 290)), he does not avoid the problem which follows from positing an essentialist definition of man. Specifically, by starting with the notion of natural right, Spinoza's theory is open to a range of social constructionist criticisms, developed in general terms so ably for instance by writers such as Moira Gatens and Elizabeth Grosz.

17. This is the point brought out so well by Genevieve Lloyd in Part of Nature. Self-Knowledge in Spinoza's Ethics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). On reason see the insightful remarks by Susan James, ‘Spinoza the Stoic’, in Tom Sorell (ed.), The Rise of Modern Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). On reason in Spinoza's political theory see Georg Geismann, ‘Spinoza—beyond Hobbes and Rousseau’, p. 40.

18. For Spinoza, just as God has no ‘power (potestas) analogous to that of a tyrant, or even an enlightened prince’ (Deleuze, Spinoza. Practical Philosophy, p. 97) so, especially in the Political Treatise, the ruler of a free state (whatever the type of government) operates in line with man's nature.

19. The crucial importance of this supreme council to Spinoza is demonstrated throughout the chapters on monarchy and aristocracy in the Political Treatise, and highlighted in Chap. 2 (TP 297).