The Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza (most important books of all time .txt) 📖

him, that without

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