Introduction

Thermodynamicsis a phenomenological description of properties of macroscopic systems in thermal equilibrium.

Imagine yourself as a post-Newtonian physicist intent on understanding the behavior of such a simple system as a container of gas. How would you proceed? The prototype of a successful physical theory is classical mechanics, which describes the intricate motions of particles starting from simple basic laws and employing the mathematical machinery of calculus. By analogy, you may proceed as follows:

• Idealize the system under study as much as possible (as is the case of a point particle). The concept of mechanical work on the system is certainly familiar, yet there appear to be complications due to exchange of heat. The solution is first to examine closed systems, insulated by adiabatic walls that don't allow any exchange of heat with the surroundings. Of course, it is ultimately also necessary to study open systems, which may exchange heat with the outside world through diathermic walls.

• As the state of a point particle is quantified by its coordinates (and momenta), properties of the macroscopic system can also be described by a number of thermodynamic coordinates or state functions. The most familiar coordinates are those that relate to mechanical work, such as pressure and volume (for a fluid), surface tension and area (for a film), tension and length (for a wire), electric field and polarization (for a dielectric), etc.

• […]

Historically, the discipline of statistical physics originated in attempts to describe thermal properties of matter in terms of its constituent particles, but also played a fundamental role in the development of quantum mechanics. More generally, the formalism describes how new behavior emerges from interactions of many degrees of freedom, and as such has found applications in engineering, social sciences, and increasingly in biological sciences. This book introduces the central concepts and tools of this subject, and guides the reader to their applications through an integrated set of problems and solutions.

The material covered is directly based on my lectures for the first semester of an MIT graduate course on statistical mechanics, which I have been teaching on and off since 1988. (The material pertaining to the second semester is presented in a companion volume.) While the primary audience is physics graduate students in their first semester, the course has typically also attracted enterprising undergraduates. as well as students from a range of science and engineering departments. While the material is reasonably standard for books on statistical physics, students taking the course have found my exposition more useful, and have strongly encouraged me to publish this material. Aspects that make this book somewhat distinct are the chapters on probability and interacting particles. Probability is an integral part of statistical physics, which is not sufficiently emphasized in most textbooks.

We showed in the previous chapter that the divine law which makes men truly happy and teaches the true life, is universal to all men. We also deduced that law from human nature in such a way that it must itself be deemed innate to the human mind and, so to speak, inscribed upon it. As for ceremonies, or those at least which are narrated in the Old Testament, these were instituted for the Hebrews alone and were so closely accommodated to their state that in the main they could be practised not by individuals but only by the community as a whole. It is certain, therefore, that they do not belong to the divine law and hence contribute nothing to happiness and virtue. They are relevant only to the election of the Hebrews, that is (as we showed in chapter 3), to the temporal and material prosperity and peace of their state, and therefore could have relevance only so long as that state survived. If in the Old Testament they are ascribed to the law of God, that is only because they were instituted as the result of a revelation or on revealed foundations. But since reasoning, no matter how sound, carries little weight with ordinary theologians, I propose now to adduce the authority of the Bible to confirm what I have just proved. Then, for yet greater clarity, I will show why and how these ceremonies served to establish and preserve the Jewish state.

[1] In the previous chapter we dealt with the foundations and principles of knowledge of Scripture, and proved that these amount to nothing more than assembling an accurate history of it. We also showed that the ancients neglected this form of enquiry, essential though it is, or if they did write anything about it and handed it down, it has perished through the injury of time, and thus most of the foundations and principles of this knowledge have disappeared. Now we could live with this if later writers had kept within proper limits and faithfully passed on to their successors what little they had received or discovered and not contrived novelties out of their own heads. For this is how it has come about that the history of the Bible has remained not only incomplete but also rather unreliable, that is, the existing basis of our knowledge of the Scriptures is not just too sparse for us to construct an adequate history, it also teems with errors.

[2] My aim is to correct this situation and remove our prevailing theological prejudices. But my attempt, I am afraid, may be too late. For the situation has now almost reached the point that men will not allow themselves to be corrected on these questions but rather obstinately defend whatever position they have taken up, in the name of religion.

[1] Hitherto our concern has been to separate philosophy from theology and to establish the freedom to philosophize which this separation allows to everyone. The time has now come to enquire how far this freedom to think and to say what one thinks extends in the best kind of state. To consider this in an orderly fashion, we must first discuss the foundations of the state but, before we do that, we must explain, without reference to the state and religion, the natural right (jus) which everyone possesses.

[2] By the right and order of nature I merely mean the rules determining the nature of each individual thing by which we conceive it is determined naturally to exist and to behave in a certain way. For example fish are determined by nature to swim and big fish to eat little ones, and therefore it is by sovereign natural right that fish have possession of the water and that big fish eat small fish. For it is certain that nature, considered wholly in itself, has a sovereign right to do everything that it can do, i.e., the right of nature extends as far as its power extends. For the power of nature is the very power of God who has supreme right to [do] all things. However, since the universal power of the whole of nature is nothing but the power of all individual things together, it follows that each individual thing has the sovereign right to do everything that it can do, or the right of each thing extends so far as its determined power extends.

[1] We proved in chapter 2 of this treatise that the prophets possessed extraordinary powers of imagination but not of understanding, and that it was not the deeper points of philosophy that God revealed to them but only some very simple matters, adapting Himself to their preconceived beliefs. We then showed in chapter 5 that Scripture explains and teaches things in such a way that anyone may grasp them. It does not deduce and derive them from axioms and definitions, but speaks simply, and to secure belief in its pronouncements, it confirms them by experience alone, that is, by miracles and histories narrated in a language and style designed to influence the minds of the common people: on this see chapter 6 (point 3). Finally, we demonstrated in chapter 7 that the difficulty of comprehending the Bible lies solely in the language and not in the sublimity of its content. There is the further problem, though, that the prophets were not addressing the learned among the Jews but the entire people without exception, and the Apostles likewise were accustomed to proclaim the Gospel teaching in churches where there was a miscellaneous congregation of all types of people. From all this it follows that biblical teaching contains no elevated theories or philosophical doctrines but only the simplest matters comprehensible to even the very slowest.

[1] When I said above that only those who hold sovereign power have jurisdiction over everything, and that all authority depends on their decree alone, I had in mind not just civil jurisdiction but also that over sacred matters. For they must be both the interpreters and guardians of things sacred. I want to put a particular emphasis on this point concentrating on it in this chapter, because very many people vigorously deny that this right (i.e. jurisdiction over sacred matters) belongs to the sovereign authorities, and refuse to recognize them as interpreters of divine law. From this they also arrogate to themselves licence to accuse and condemn sovereigns and even to excommunicate them from the church (as Ambrose long ago excommunicated the emperor Theodosius). We shall see below in this present chapter that what they are in effect doing is dividing the sovereign power and attempting to devise a path to power for themselves.

[2] I intend first to show that religion has the power of law only by decree of those who exercise the right of government and that God has no special kingdom among men except through those who exercise sovereignty. I also wish to demonstrate that religious worship and pious conduct must be accommodated to the peace and interests of the state and consequently must be determined by the sovereign authorities alone.

[1] The word law (lex) in an absolute sense signifies that, in accordance with which, each individual thing, or all things, or all things of the same kind, behave in one and the same fixed and determined way, depending upon either natural necessity or a human decision. A law that depends upon natural necessity is one that necessarily follows from the very nature or definition of a thing. A law that depends upon a human decision, which is more properly called a decree (jus), is one that men prescribe to themselves and to others in order to achieve a better and safer life, or for other reasons. For example, the fact that when one body strikes a smaller body, it only loses as much of its own motion as it communicates to the other, is a universal law of all bodies which follows from natural necessity. So too the fact that when a man recalls one thing he immediately remembers another which is similar or which he had seen along with the first thing, is a law which necessarily follows from human nature.

But the fact that men give up their right which they receive from nature, or are compelled to give it up, and commit themselves to a particular rule of life depends on human decision. And while I entirely agree that all things are determined by the universal laws of nature to exist and act in a fixed and determined manner, I insist that these decrees depend on willed human decision, and I do so for two reasons.

[1] Prophecy or revelation is certain knowledge about something revealed to men by God. A prophet is someone who interprets things revealed by God to those who cannot themselves achieve certain knowledge of them and can therefore only grasp by simple faith what has been revealed. The Hebrew for ‘prophet’ is nabi, which means ‘orator’ or ‘interpreter’, but is always used in Scripture to mean an interpreter of God. We may infer this from Exodus 7.1, where God says to Moses, ‘Behold, I make you Pharaoh's God, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet’. It is as if God were saying that, since Aaron acts as a prophet by interpreting your words to Pharaoh, you will be like Pharaoh's God, i.e., someone who performs the role of God.

[2] We will discuss prophets in the next chapter; here we will discuss prophecy. From the definition of prophecy just given, it follows that the word ‘prophecy’ could be applied to natural knowledge. For what we know by the natural light of reason depends on knowledge of God and his eternal decrees alone. But the common people do not place a high value on natural knowledge, because it is available to everyone, resting as it does on foundations that are available to all. For they are always eager to discover uncommon things, things that are strange and alien to their own nature, and they despise their natural gifts. Hence when they speak of prophetic knowledge, they mean to exclude natural knowledge.

The present translation was first made by Michael Silverthorne and scrutinized by Desmond Clarke, then extensively revised by Jonathan Israel in close collaboration with the translator.

Spinozawrote his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus in Latin, and although some scholars regard it as quite likely that he also had some hand in the subsequent French (1678) translation, it is not certain that he did. Hence the Latin version, anonymously and clandestinely published and distributed in Amsterdamby Jan Rieuwertsz, ostensibly in 1670 (but in fact in 1669), is the original and only defnitely authentic version of the text. Despite its clandestine nature and the fact that it was widely banned, copies of the book surviving in libraries today are surprisingly numerous. This seems to have been mainly due to the brisk demand for copies all over Europe during the late seventeenth century and Rieuwertsz's ruse of issuing several unnoticed new editions through the 1670s, retaining what looked like the original title-page bearing the original false date and place of publication “Hamburg, 1670”

Until quite recently the best modern critical edition of the original text was that prepared by Carl Gebhardt and published atHeidelberg in 1925, in the third volume of his complete edition of Spinoza's works. An improved critical edition prepared by the expert Dutch Latinist, Fokke Akkerman, was published in a bilingual Latin–French version by the PressesUniversitaires de France, in Paris, in 1999.

[1] Those who do not know how to distinguish philosophy from theology dispute as to whether Scripture should be subject to reason or whether, on the contrary, reason should be the servant of Scripture: that is to say, whether the sense of Scripture should be accommodated to reason or whether reason should be subordinated to Scripture. The latter position is adopted by sceptics who deny the certainty of reason, and the former defended by dogmatists. But from what we have previously said it is obvious that both are absolutely wrong. For whichever position we adopt, we would have to distort either reason or Scripture since we have demonstrated that the Bible does not teach philosophical matters but only piety, and everything in Scripture is adapted to the understanding and preconceptions of the common people. Hence, anyone who tries to accommodate the Bible to philosophy will undoubtedly ascribe to the prophets many things that they did not imagine even in their dreams and will construe their meaning wrongly. On the other hand, anyone who makes reason and philosophy the servant of theology will be obliged to accept as divinely inspired the prejudices of the common people of antiquity and let his mind be taken over and clouded by them. Thus both will proceed senselessly, albeit the latter without reason and the former with it.