One of the main ideas of the Ethics is that nature includes all of reality, including human beings, within it. Man must be seen as part of nature and not as standing outside or above it. We must neither put humanity on a pedestal nor treat it with disdain. That we are a part of nature is obvious from the fact that we are subject to forces beyond our control, whether physical or emotional. We are under “bondage” to our emotions and passions, and must seek release from this through our reason, which is also part of nature. In examining human nature, including the way we act and feel, Spinoza implies that he is looking at man the way a scientist studies a specimen or a geometer looks at “lines and planes” (69).

Spinoza’s insistence that we consider man a specimen in nature was closely tied to the new scientific interests of the Age of Reason. The idea would in turn influence later scientific attitudes, like Charles Darwin’s biological theories, that tried to place man in the context of natural evolution. Some later Enlightenment thinkers would view man as something akin to a working machine.

For his part, Spinoza does not believe man is merely a material being.