Download or read book On the Improvement of Understanding written by Benedict de Spinoza and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-10 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.