{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "spinoza.ethics_fr",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/spinoza/ethics-fr/reference-section-0108/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Ethics, Émile Saisset’s French Translation",
    "author": "Baruch Spinoza",
    "date": "composed c. 1661-1675; published in 1677",
    "summary": "Émile Saisset’s translation gives the demonstrative architecture of Spinoza’s Ethics in French. God identified with Nature, mind-body parallelism, analysis of passions, and intellectual blessedness unfold through nineteenth-century terminology.",
    "learning": "Understand the Ethics’ five movements, recognize Saisset’s lexical mediation, and compare a proposition with its proof and scholium.",
    "long_summary": "Definitions, propositions, proofs, and scholia construct a system in which everything follows from divine and natural necessity. The individual strives to persist, encounters other powers, forms more or less adequate ideas, and can convert some passive affects into rational activity.\n\nThis manifestation is not a separate work composed in French by Spinoza. Saisset interprets the Latin through choices concerning substance, soul, understanding, and freedom. Comparing representations reveals mediation without assigning demonstrated claims to the translator.",
    "historical_context": "The corpus manifests do not yet establish the precise place and circumstances of composition. The images below document the author’s world or the text’s transmission. They do not claim to show the exact scene of writing.",
    "material_world_label": "Europe and the Atlantic, 15th-17th centuries",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Printing, artillery, clocks, ocean-going sail, and navigational instruments change the scale of states, trade, and travel.",
        "science": "Instrumented observation, calculation, anatomy, and astronomy gradually challenge inherited frameworks. Practice remains mixed with ancient authority.",
        "medicine": "Dissection, surgery, plants, and pharmacopoeias expand, but infection, pain, and epidemics remain poorly controlled.",
        "transport": "Walking, horses, coaches, river boats, and great sailing ships. Crossing an ocean takes weeks or months and remains dangerous.",
        "agriculture": "Grain, livestock, and gardens predominate; Atlantic exchange moves maize, potatoes, tomatoes, sugar, and animals with major consequences.",
        "communication": "Printed books, broadsheets, letters, and regular posts speed circulation without making it instant.",
        "clothing": "Doublets, breeches, structured dresses, caps, ruffs, and cloaks use wool, linen, silk, and lace; rank strongly controls silhouette."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/19-1610-ce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Printing, artillery, clocks, ocean-going sail, and navigational instruments change the scale of states, trade, and travel. Instrumented observation, calculation, anatomy, and astronomy gradually challenge inherited frameworks. Practice remains mixed with ancient authority. Dissection, surgery, plants, and pharmacopoeias expand, but infection, pain, and epidemics remain poorly controlled."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/19-1610-ce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "Walking, horses, coaches, river boats, and great sailing ships. Crossing an ocean takes weeks or months and remains dangerous. Printed books, broadsheets, letters, and regular posts speed circulation without making it instant."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/19-1610-ce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Grain, livestock, and gardens predominate; Atlantic exchange moves maize, potatoes, tomatoes, sugar, and animals with major consequences."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/19-1610-ce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Doublets, breeches, structured dresses, caps, ruffs, and cloaks use wool, linen, silk, and lace; rank strongly controls silhouette."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "modern-philosophy",
        "label": "Modern and contemporary philosophy"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "modern",
        "label": "Modern era"
    },
    "languages": [
        "fr",
        "en"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/spinoza/ethics_fr/representations/fr.ndjson",
            "language": "fr",
            "records": 300,
            "role": "complete_source_selection",
            "sha256": "b7ea7c38a17ad498de6a5c1b70e08a735f3f8355aa8401b67550b5c0b693dfbf",
            "source_id": "ethics_fr"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/spinoza/ethics_fr/representations/ai-generated/en-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "en",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 300,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "f4550f8b900e11b7c2e4e9204c8448d5010d66f8dbd78f621ef9c58a44728caa",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "adequate_idea",
            "label": "Adequate idea"
        },
        {
            "id": "affects",
            "label": "Affects"
        },
        {
            "id": "anger",
            "label": "Anger"
        },
        {
            "id": "attribute",
            "label": "Attribute"
        },
        {
            "id": "care_of_soul",
            "label": "Care of the soul"
        },
        {
            "id": "conatus",
            "label": "Conatus"
        },
        {
            "id": "family",
            "label": "Family"
        },
        {
            "id": "fortune",
            "label": "Fortune"
        },
        {
            "id": "freedom",
            "label": "Freedom"
        },
        {
            "id": "god",
            "label": "God"
        },
        {
            "id": "honestum_and_utility",
            "label": "Moral rightness and utility"
        },
        {
            "id": "intellectual_love",
            "label": "Intellectual love of God"
        },
        {
            "id": "knowledge",
            "label": "Knowledge"
        },
        {
            "id": "love",
            "label": "Love"
        },
        {
            "id": "messiah",
            "label": "Messiah"
        },
        {
            "id": "mode",
            "label": "Mode"
        },
        {
            "id": "nature",
            "label": "Nature"
        },
        {
            "id": "necessity",
            "label": "Necessity"
        },
        {
            "id": "perspectival_inquiry",
            "label": "Perspectival inquiry"
        },
        {
            "id": "power_to_act",
            "label": "Power to act"
        },
        {
            "id": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        },
        {
            "id": "slavery",
            "label": "Slavery"
        },
        {
            "id": "spirit",
            "label": "Spirit"
        },
        {
            "id": "substance",
            "label": "Substance"
        },
        {
            "id": "suffering",
            "label": "Suffering"
        },
        {
            "id": "time",
            "label": "Time"
        },
        {
            "id": "tranquillity",
            "label": "Tranquillity"
        },
        {
            "id": "virtue",
            "label": "Virtue"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "spinoza.ethics_fr"
    ],
    "passages": 300,
    "word_count": 92036,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 92036,
        "fr": 96231
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "source-section-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "section",
                "label_fr": "Section",
                "label_en": "Section"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Section",
        "leaf_en": "Section"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:spinoza.ethics_fr:section-0108",
    "canonical_ref": "section-0108",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "Il ne me reste plus qu’à montrer combien la connaissance de cette théorie de l’âme humaine doit être utile pour la pratique de la vie. Il suffit pour cela des quelques observations que voici : 1° suivant cette théorie, nous n’agissons que par la volonté de Dieu, nous participons de la nature divine, et cette participation est d’autant plus grande que nos actions sont plus parfaites et que nous comprenons Dieu davantage ; or, une telle doctrine, outre qu’elle porte dans l’esprit une tranquillité parfaite, a cet avantage encore qu’elle nous apprend en quoi consiste notre souveraine félicité, savoir, dans la connaissance de Dieu, laquelle ne nous porte à accomplir d’autres actions que celles que nous conseillent l’amour et la piété. Par où il est aisé de comprendre combien s’abusent sur le véritable prix de la vertu ceux qui, ne voyant en elle que le plus haut degré de l’esclavage, attendent de Dieu de grandes récompenses pour salaire de leurs actions les plus excellentes ; comme si la vertu et l’esclavage en Dieu n’étaient pas la félicité même et la souveraine liberté. 2° Notre système enseigne aussi comment il faut se comporter à l’égard des choses de la fortune, je veux dire de celles qui ne sont pas en notre pouvoir, en d’autres termes, qui ne résultent pas de notre nature ; il nous apprend à attendre et à supporter d’une âme égale l’une et l’autre fortune ; toutes choses en effet résultent de l’éternel décret de Dieu avec une absolue nécessité, comme il résulte de l’essence d’un triangle que ses trois angles soient égaux en somme à deux droits. 3° Un autre point de vue sous lequel notre système est encore utile à la vie sociale, c’est qu’il apprend à être exempt de haine et de mépris, à n’avoir pour personne ni moquerie, ni envie, ni colère. Il apprend aussi à chacun à se contenter de ce qu’il a et à venir au secours des autres, non par une vaine pitié de femme par préférence, par superstition, mais par l’ordre seul de la raison, et en gardant l’exacte mesure que le temps et la chose même prescrivent. 4° Voici enfin un dernier avantage de notre système, et qui se rapporte à la société politique ; nous faisons profession de croire que l’objet du gouvernement n’est pas de rendre les citoyens esclaves, mais de leur faire accomplir librement les actions qui sont les meilleures.",
            "translator": "Émile Saisset or Paul Janet",
            "source_id": "source-1",
            "translation_type": "historical_translation"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "It remains only for me to show how useful knowledge of this theory of the human mind must be for the conduct of life. For this purpose, the following few observations suffice: 1. According to this theory, we act only by God's will, we participate in the divine nature, and this participation is all the greater as our actions are more perfect and as we understand God more. Now, such a doctrine, besides bringing perfect tranquility to the mind, also has the advantage of teaching us wherein our highest happiness consists, namely, in the knowledge of God, which leads us to perform no actions other than those advised by love and piety. From this it is easy to understand how greatly those are mistaken about the true value of virtue who, seeing in it only the highest degree of servitude, expect great rewards from God as wages for their most excellent actions, as though virtue and service to God were not happiness itself and the highest freedom. 2. Our system also teaches how we must behave toward the things of fortune, by which I mean those that are not in our power, in other words, that do not result from our nature; it teaches us to await and bear with an even mind either kind of fortune. For all things result from God's eternal decree with absolute necessity, just as it follows from the essence of a triangle that its three angles are together equal to two right angles. 3. Another respect in which our system is useful to social life is that it teaches us to be free from hatred and contempt, and to feel mockery, envy, or anger toward no one. It also teaches each person to be content with what he has and to come to the aid of others, not from vain, womanish pity, partiality, or superstition, but solely at the command of reason, while observing the exact measure prescribed by the time and the matter itself. 4. Finally, here is one last advantage of our system, relating to political society: we profess the belief that the purpose of government is not to make citizens slaves, but to make them freely perform the actions that are best.",
            "translator": "Codex gpt-5.6-sol",
            "edition": "Prokopton42 non-official AI translation, 2026-09-11",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "generation_model": "gpt-5.6-sol"
        }
    ],
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}