  Having established in the preceding chapters that anything that can be done is done by right, Spinoza turns directly the question of how the sovereign should exercise its power in Chapter Five, noting that there is an important distinction between doing something by right and doing it in the best way (5/1). Here his concern is just to delineate the general aim of the state on the basis of which he can give more fine-grained recommendations relative to regime forms (see 4.3). The fundamental aim of the state, according to Spinoza, is “peace and security of life” [pax vitaeque securitas] (5/2). To grasp what Spinoza means here we must try to understand what he means by peace. Spinoza rejects Hobbes’ definition of peace as the “absence of war” (De Cive 1, 12), calling it instead “a virtue which comes from strength of mind” (5/4), or a “union or harmony of minds” (6/4). It is one thing for a state to persist or to avoid the ravages of war, it is quite another for the state to flourish. Spinoza makes this point by way of an organic metaphor: