The Book of Sand in the Geometrical Manner

The opening of "El Libro de Arena" seems like a false start on the part of the narrator:

"The line consists of an infinite number of points; the plane of an infinite number of lines; the volume of an infinite number of planes; the hypervolume of an infinite number of volumes...No, this more geometrico is decidedly not the best way to begin my tale.  To affirm this [story] is true is now a convention of all fantastic tales; mine, however, is true."

Not knowing whether to begin with a geometrical explanation that may or may not help the reader understand the infinite nature of the Book of Sand, the narrator opts for a narrative convention instead—the convention of affirming the truth of a fictive tale.

I think the narrator's choice of narrative convention over mathematical explanation is interesting.  Jorge Luis Borges had read his Baruch Spinoza and was familiar with Ethica More Geometrico Demonstrata (or more simply knows as Ethics), Spinoza's most famous work in which he explains the universe and existence "in the manner of geometry" (more geometrico) by offering propositions, definitions, scholia, and corollaries.  (Need I say that Baruch Spinoza had borrowed the geometric method from Rene Descartes, the father of rationalism?)  In this way, Spinoza sought to write a philosophy that necessarily follows from axioms to propositions to inevitable conclusions, very much in the imitation of proofs in mathematics.

But more importantly, Spinoza sought to write and deduce an ethical system from his geometrical philosophizing.  After discovering the principle that everything that exists can be called God or Nature, Spinoza goes on to formulate several propositions and he argues that "intellectual love," understanding things as they are, not weeping or laughing at them, brings happiness, which is its own virtue.  This is his ethical position.

Now, I only bring up Spinoza to ask the following question: If the narrator abandoned the more geometrico in favor of a narrative convention, did the narrator also abandon questions of ethics?  Or has he merely repositioned ethics in the realm of fiction?  Has the narrator missed an opportunity for intellectual love, to understand the universe and its objects, the Book of Sand in particular, as they are?  Did the narrator demonize the Book of Sand by abandoning it?  And could the narrator have partaken of the infinity of the Book of Sand by dedicating himself wholly to it?  I have no answers to this at the moment, but I may seek answers in a separate blog.

This is all I can give for now.