The Ethics, Benedictus de Spinoza [best reads txt] 📗
- Author: Benedictus de Spinoza
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him they could neither exist nor be conceived ; lastly, that all
things are predetermined by God, not through his free will or
absolute fiat, but from the very nature of God or infinite power.
I have further, where occasion afforded, taken care to remove the
prejudices, which might impede the comprehension of my
demonstrations. Yet there still remain misconceptions not a few,
which might and may prove very grave hindrances to the
understanding of the concatenation of things, as I have explained
it above. I have therefore thought it worth while to bring these
misconceptions before the bar of reason.
All such opinions spring from the notion commonly
entertained, that all things in nature act as men themselves act,
namely, with an end in view. It is accepted as certain, that God
himself directs all things to a definite goal (for it is said
that God made all things for man, and man that he might worship
him). I will, therefore, consider this opinion, asking first,
why it obtains general credence, and why all men are naturally so
prone to adopt it? secondly, I will point out its falsity ; and,
lastly, I will show how it has given rise to prejudices about
good and bad, right and wrong, praise and blame, order and
confusion, beauty and ugliness, and the like. However, this is
not the place to deduce these misconceptions from the nature of
the human mind : it will be sufficient here, if I assume as a
starting point, what ought to be universally admitted, namely,
that all men are born ignorant of the causes of things, that all
have the desire to seek for what is useful to them, and that they
are conscious of such desire. Herefrom it follows, first, that
men think themselves free inasmuch as they are conscious of their
volitions and desires, and never even dream, in their ignorance,
of the causes which have disposed them so to wish and desire.
Secondly, that men do all things for an end, namely, for that
which is useful to them, and which they seek. Thus it comes to
pass that they only look for a knowledge of the final causes of
events, and when these are learned, they are content, as having
no cause for further doubt. If they cannot learn such causes
from external sources, they are compelled to turn to considering
themselves, and reflecting what end would have induced them
personally to bring about the given event, and thus they
necessarily judge other natures by their own. Further, as they
find in themselves and outside themselves many means which assist
them not a little in the search for what is useful, for instance,
eyes for seeing, teeth for chewing, herbs and animals for
yielding food, the sun for giving light, the sea for breeding
fish, &c., they come to look on the whole of nature as a means
for obtaining such conveniences. Now as they are aware, that
they found these conveniences and did not make them, they think
they have cause for believing, that some other being has made
them for their use. As they look upon things as means, they
cannot believe them to be self-created ; but, judging from the
means which they are accustomed to prepare for themselves, they
are bound to believe in some ruler or rulers of the universe
endowed with human freedom, who have arranged and adapted
everything for human use. They are bound to estimate the nature
of such rulers (having no information on the subject) in
accordance with their own nature, and therefore they assert that
the gods ordained everything for the use of man, in order to bind
man to themselves and obtain from him the highest honor. Hence
also it follows, that everyone thought out for himself, according
to his abilities, a different way of worshipping God, so that God
might love him more than his fellows, and direct the whole course
of nature for the satisfaction of his blind cupidity and
insatiable avarice. Thus the prejudice developed into
superstition, and took deep root in the human mind ; and for this
reason everyone strove most zealously to understand and explain
the final causes of things ; but in their endeavor to show that
nature does nothing in vain, i.e. nothing which is useless to
man, they only seem to have demonstrated that nature, the gods,
and men are all mad together. Consider, I pray you, the result :
among the many helps of nature they were bound to find some
hindrances, such as storms, earthquakes, diseases, &c. : so they
declared that such things happen, because the gods are angry at
some wrong done to them by men, or at some fault committed in
their worship. Experience day by day protested and showed by
infinite examples, that good and evil fortunes fall to the lot of
pious and impious alike ; still they would not abandon their
inveterate prejudice, for it was more easy for them to class such
contradictions among other unknown things of whose use they were
ignorant, and thus to retain their actual and innate condition of
ignorance, than to destroy the whole fabric of their reasoning
and start afresh. They therefore laid down as an axiom, that
God’s judgments far transcend human understanding. Such a
doctrine might well have sufficed to conceal the truth from the
human race for all eternity, if mathematics had not furnished
another standard of verity in considering solely the essence and
properties of figures without regard to their final causes.
There are other reasons (which I need not mention here) besides
mathematics, which might have caused men’s minds to be directed
to these general prejudices, and have led them to the knowledge
of the truth.
I have now sufficiently explained my first point. There is
no need to show at length, that nature has no particular goal in
view, and that final causes are mere human figments. This, I
think, is already evident enough, both from the causes and
foundations on which I have shown such prejudice to be based, and
also from Prop. xvi., and the Corollary of Prop. xxxii., and, in
fact, all those propositions in which I have shown, that
everything in nature proceeds from a sort of necessity, and with
the utmost perfection. However, I will add a few remarks, in
order to overthrow this doctrine of a final cause utterly. That
which is really a cause it considers as an effect, and vice vers�
: it makes that which is by nature first to be last, and that
which is highest and most perfect to be most imperfect. Passing
over the questions of cause and priority as self-evident, it is
plain from Props. xxi., xxii., xxiii. that the effect is most
perfect which is produced immediately by God ; the effect which
requires for its production several intermediate causes is, in
that respect, more imperfect. But if those things which were
made immediately by God were made to enable him to attain his
end, then the things which come after, for the sake of which the
first were made, are necessarily the most excellent of all.
Further, this doctrine does away with the perfection of God :
for, if God acts for an object, he necessarily desires something
which he lacks. Certainly, theologians and metaphysicians draw a
distinction between the object of want and the object of
assimilation ; still they confess that God made all things for
the sake of himself, not for the sake of creation. They are
unable to point to anything prior to creation, except God
himself, as an object for which God should act, and are therefore
driven to admit (as they clearly must), that God lacked those
things for whose attainment he created means, and further that he
desired them.
We must not omit to notice that the followers of this
doctrine, anxious to display their talent in assigning final
causes, have imported a new method of argument in proof of their
theory-namely, a reduction, not to the impossible, but to
ignorance ; thus showing that they have no other method of
exhibiting their doctrine. For example, if a stone falls from a
roof on to someone’s head, and kills him, they will demonstrate
by their new method, that the stone fell in order to kill the man
; for, if it had not by God’s will fallen with that object, how
could so many circumstances (and there are often many concurrent
circumstances) have all happened together by chance? Perhaps you
will answer that the event is due to the facts that the wind was
blowing, and the man was walking that way. “But why,” they will
insist, “was the wind blowing, and why was the man at that very
time walking that way?” If you again answer, that the wind had
then sprung up because the sea had begun to be agitated the day
before, the weather being previously calm, and that the man had
been invited by a friend, they will again insist : “But why was
the sea agitated, and why was the man invited at that time?”
So they will pursue their questions from cause to cause, till at
last you take refuge in the will of God-in other words, the
sanctuary of ignorance. So, again, when they survey the frame of
the human body, they are amazed ; and being ignorant of the
causes of so great a work of art, conclude that it has been
fashioned, not mechanically, but by divine and supernatural
skill, and has been so put together that one part shall not hurt
another.
Hence anyone who seeks for the true causes of miracles, and
strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being,
and not to gaze at them like a fool, is set down and denounced as
an impious heretic by those, whom the masses adore as the
interpreters of nature and the gods. Such persons know that,
with the removal of ignorance, the wonder which forms their only
available means for proving and preserving their authority would
vanish also. But I now quit this subject, and pass on to my
third point.
After men persuaded themselves, that everything which is
created is created for their sake, they were bound to consider as
the chief quality in everything that which is most useful to
themselves, and to account those things the best of all which
have the most beneficial effect on mankind. Further, they were
bound to form abstract notions for the explanation of the nature
of things, such as goodness, badness, order, confusion, warmth,
cold, beauty, deformity, and so on ; and from the belief that
they are free agents arose the further notions of praise and
blame, sin and merit.
I will speak of these latter hereafter, when I treat of human
nature ; the former I will briefly explain here.
Everything which conduces to health and the worship of God
they have called good, everything which hinders these objects
they have styled bad ; and inasmuch as those who do not
understand the nature of things do not verify phenomena in any
way, but merely imagine them after a fashion, and mistake their
imagination for understanding, such persons firmly believe that
there is an order in things, being really ignorant both of things
and their own nature. When phenomena are of such a kind, that
the impression they make on our senses requires little effort of
imagination, and can consequently be easily remembered, we say
that they are well-ordered ; if the contrary, that they are
ill-ordered or confused. Further, as things which are easily
imagined are more pleasing to us, men prefer order to
confusion-as though there were any order in nature, except in
relation to our imagination-and say that God has created all
things in order ; thus, without knowing it, attributing
imagination to God, unless, indeed, they would have
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