Spinoza's famous saying is: "A free man thinks at least of death. His wisdom is not the meditation on death, but the contemplation of life."

Baruch· Spinoza (November 24, 1632 - February 21, 1677) was an important rationalist in the history of modern Western philosophy, as famous as Descartes and Leibniz. Spinoza was born in Amsterdam to a Jewish family who fled Spain to the Netherlands. His parents made a living by operating import and export trade and lived a relatively comfortable life. Therefore, Spinoza was able to enter the local Jewish theological school and study Hebrew, Talmud, and medieval Jewish philosophy. He was also trained in Latin, which gave Spinoza access to the works of Descartes and others. As a result, he gradually departed from the scope of so-called orthodox doctrine, and was eventually expelled from the synagogue at the age of 24. He eventually moved out of the Jewish ghetto and made a living grinding lenses while engaging in philosophical thinking. Spinoza lived a secluded life ever since. In 1673, he was offered a teaching position in the philosophy department of the University of Heidelberg on the condition that he could not mention religion, but Spinoza declined. He died at the age of 45. The greatest of Spinoza's works is the Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata (Ethics), which was not published until Spinoza's death. The book is written in the manner of Euclid's geometry, beginning with a set of axioms and various formulas from which propositions, proofs, inferences, and explanations are generated. His other two important works include Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and Tracta Atus Politicus'. The themes of "Theological and Political Tractatus" are biblical criticism and political theory, while the latter only talks about political theory. Philosophical Thoughts of Spinoza Philosophically, Spinoza was a monist or pantheist. He believed that there was only one entity in the universe, the universe itself as a whole, and that God and the universe were one and the same. His conclusion was derived through logical reasoning based on a set of definitions and axioms. Spinoza's God includes not only the material world, but also the spiritual world. He believed that human wisdom was an integral part of God's wisdom. Spinoza also believed that God is the "internal cause" of everything. God dominates the world through natural laws, so everything that happens in the material world has its inevitability; only God has complete freedom in the world. And although people can try to remove external constraints, they can never gain free will. The easier it is for us to become one with God if we can see things as inevitable. Therefore, Spinoza proposes that we should see things “sub specie aeternitatis” (sub specie aeternitatis). In ethics, Spinoza believed that as long as a person is subject to external influences, he is in a state of slavery, but as long as he agrees with God, people are no longer subject to such influences and can gain relative freedom. , and thus get rid of fear. Spinoza also believed that ignorance is the root of all evil. Regarding the issue of death, Spinoza's famous saying is: "A free man thinks least of death. His wisdom is not the meditation on death, but the contemplation of life." His life also thoroughly practiced this motto, Death has been faced with great calm. Spinoza was a thoroughgoing determinist. He believed that everything that happened was absolutely inevitable. He believed that even human behavior is completely determined, and that freedom is our ability to know that we have been determined and to know why we do what we do. So freedom is not the possibility of saying no to things that happen to us, but the possibility of saying yes and understanding why things have to happen that way. Spinoza's philosophy was very similar to that of the Stoics, but he sharply disagreed with the Stoics on one important point: he completely rejected their idea that motives could trump emotions. Instead, he contends that an emotion can only be replaced or overcome by another, stronger emotion. He believes that there is a crucial difference between active emotions and passive emotions, the former is relatively understandable and the latter is not. He also believed that knowledge of the true motivations of passive emotions could transform them into active emotions, thus anticipating a key idea in Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis.

The significance of Spinoza's philosophical system to the subsequent scientific movement in the 17th century lies in its deterministic explanation, which provided a blueprint for subsequent scientific integration. He had an influence on later philosophers, such as Schelling, Feuerbach, Marx and others. Spinoza's portrait was featured as a symbol on the old series of 1,000 guilder banknotes, which were legal tender in the Netherlands before the introduction of the euro in 2002.