 After the Renaissance and Reformation, the modern concept of social justice, as developing human potential, began to emerge through the work of a series of authors.Baruch Spinoza in "On the Improvement of the Understanding" (1677) contended that the one true aim of life should be to acquire "a human character much more stable than [one's] own", and to achieve this "pitch of perfection...The chief good is that he should arrive, together with other individuals if possible, at the possession of the aforesaid character."