  But what exactly does it mean to deduce the foundations of the state from the nature of men? In the TP Spinoza tells us that men, who are individually weak and effectively powerless compared to the aggregated powers of others (2/15; Cf. EIVP5dem.), come together as a result of “some common emotion...a common hope, or common fear, or desire to avenge some common injury” (6/1; see Matheron 1969 and 1990). The state is thus an unintended, but salutary, outcome of the natural interplay of human passions. In this sense, the civil condition is a natural condition.  Because, on this view, stable patterns of behavior emerge from blind interplay of the passions, thereby overcoming coordination problems, some have regarded Spinoza’s account as “evolutionary,” anticipating the theory of unintended consequences found in Mandeville, Smith, and Hayek (Den Uyl 1985 and 1983). However, Spinoza says precious little about the process of civil formation itself in the TP, making such an interpretation deeply underdetermined, at best. While one can, like Den Uyl (ibid.) or Matheron (1969, 1990), construct a genetic story on the basis of Spinozistic psychology, the account that Spinoza himself offers is quite thin.