Ethics and Self-Cultivation

A contrast that Spinoza only briefly mentions, thus leaving it undeveloped, is 'Nature Naturing' vs. 'Nature Natured', which, given the identity of God and Nature, can also be rendered 'Creating' vs. 'Created'.  One instructive application of the contrast is to his concept of Ethics.  Following Aristotle, he conceives Ethics to be a program of self-cultivation, thus entailing both a creating dimension and a created dimension.  In Aristotle's doctrine, the created dimension consists in the Virtues, whereas in Spinoza's it consists in behavior in accordance with Adequate Knowledge.  So, in Aristotle's doctrine, there is no systematic relation between the two dimensions, i. e. between Courage and the cultivation of Courage.  But in Spinoza's there is.  For, behavior on the basis of Adequate Knowledge is his corrective to unhealthful external influences, but so, too, is the methodical process of inculcating that behavior, i. e. while one is in the very process of cultivating oneself, one is overcoming the influence on one of external influences.  Thus, the Method by which one cultivates oneself, e. g. the Axiomatic Method, itself exemplifies the goal of the cultivation.  In other words, the Creating of the Ethics exemplifies the Created, thus establishing a paradigm for the concept of Ethics as self-cultivation that even Aristotle does not achieve.