The Ethics

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

PROP. XXXIII. Things could not have been brought into being by
God in any manner or in any order different from that which has
in fact obtained.
Proof-All things necessarily follow from the nature of God
(Prop. xvi.), and by the nature of God are conditioned to exist
and act in a particular way (Prop. xxix.). If things, therefore,
could have been of a different nature, or have been conditioned
to act in a different way, so that the order of nature would have
been different, God's nature would also have been able to be
different from what it now is ; and therefore (by Prop. xi.) that
different nature also would have perforce existed, and
consequently there would have been able to be two or more Gods.
This (by Prop. xiv., Coroll. i.) is absurd. Therefore things
could not have been brought into being by God in any other
manner, &c. Q.E.D.
Note I.-As I have thus shown, more clearly than the sun at
noonday, that there is nothing to justify us in calling things
contingent, I wish to explain briefly what meaning we shall
attach to the word contingent ; but I will first explain the
words necessary and impossible.
A thing is called necessary either in respect to its essence
or in respect to its cause ; for the existence of a thing
necessarily follows, either from its essence and definition, or
from a given efficient cause. For similar reasons a thing is
said to be impossible ; namely, inasmuch as its essence or
definition involves a contradiction, or because no external cause
is granted, which is conditioned to produce such an effect ; but
a thing can in no respect be called contingent, save in relation
to the imperfection of our knowledge.
A thing of which we do not know whether the essence does or
does not involve a contradiction, or of which, knowing that it
does not involve a contradiction, we are still in doubt
concerning the existence, because the order of causes escapes
us,-such a thing, I say, cannot appear to us either necessary or
impossible. Wherefore we call it contingent or possible.
Note II.-It clearly follows from what we have said, that
things have been brought into being by God in the highest
perfection, inasmuch as they have necessarily followed from a
most perfect nature. Nor does this prove any imperfection in
God, for it has compelled us to affirm his perfection. From its
contrary proposition, we should clearly gather (as I have just
shown), that God is not supremely perfect, for if things had been
brought into being in any other way, we should have to assign to
God a nature different from that, which we are bound to attribute
to him from the consideration of an absolutely perfect being.
I do not doubt, that many will scout this idea as absurd, and
will refuse to give their minds up to contemplating it, simply
because they are accustomed to assign to God a freedom very
different from that which we (Def. vii.) have deduced. They
assign to him, in short, absolute free will. However, I am also
convinced that if such persons reflect on the matter, and duly
weigh in their minds our series of propositions, they will reject
such freedom as they now attribute to God, not only as nugatory,
but also as a great impediment to organized knowledge. There is
no need for me to repeat what I have said in the note to Prop.
xvii. But, for the sake of my opponents, I will show further,
that although it be granted that will pertains to the essence of
God, it nevertheless follows from his perfection, that things
could not have been by him created other than they are, or in a
different order ; this is easily proved, if we reflect on what
our opponents themselves concede, namely, that it depends solely
on the decree and will of God, that each thing is what it is. If
it were otherwise, God would not be the cause of all things.
Further, that all the decrees of God have been ratified from all
eternity by God himself. If it were otherwise, God would be
convicted of imperfection or change. But in eternity there is no
such thing as when, before, or after ; hence it follows solely
from the perfection of God, that God never can decree, or never
could have decreed anything but what is ; that God did not exist
before his decrees, and would not exist without them. But, it is
said, supposing that God had made a different universe, or had
ordained other decrees from all eternity concerning nature and
her order, we could not therefore conclude any imperfection in
God. But persons who say this must admit that God can change his
decrees. For if God had ordained any decrees concerning nature
and her order, different from those which he has ordained-in
other words, if he had willed and conceived something different
concerning nature-he would perforce have had a different
intellect from that which he has, and also a different will. But
if it were allowable to assign to God a different intellect and a
different will, without any change in his essence or his
perfection, what would there be to prevent him changing the
decrees which he has made concerning created things, and
nevertheless remaining perfect? For his intellect and will
concerning things created and their order are the same, in
respect to his essence and perfection, however they be conceived.
Further, all the philosophers whom I have read admit that
God's intellect is entirely actual, and not at all potential ; as
they also admit that God's intellect, and God's will, and God's
essence are identical, it follows that, if God had had a
different actual intellect and a different will, his essence
would also have been different ; and thus, as I concluded at
first, if things had been brought into being by God in a
different way from that which has obtained, God's intellect and
will, that is (as is admitted) his essence would perforce have
been different, which is absurd.
As these things could not have been brought into being by God
in any but the actual way and order which has obtained ; and as
the truth of this proposition follows from the supreme perfection
of God ; we can have no sound reason for persuading ourselves to
believe that God did not wish to create all the things which were
in his intellect, and to create them in the same perfection as he
had understood them.
But, it will be said, there is in things no perfection nor
imperfection ; that which is in them, and which causes them to be
called perfect or imperfect, good or bad, depends solely on the
will of God. If God had so willed, he might have brought it
about that what is now perfection should be extreme imperfection,
and vice versâ. What is such an assertion, but an open
declaration that God, who necessarily understands that which he
wishes, might bring it about by his will, that he should
understand things differently from the way in which he does
understand them? This (as we have just shown) is the height of
absurdity. Wherefore, I may turn the argument against its
employers, as follows :-All things depend on the power of God.
In order that things should be different from what they are,
God's will would necessarily have to be different. But God's
will cannot be different (as we have just most clearly
demonstrated) from God's perfection. Therefore neither can
things be different. I confess, that the theory which subjects
all things to the will of an indifferent deity, and asserts that
they are all dependent on his fiat, is less far from the truth
than the theory of those, who maintain that God acts in all
things with a view of promoting what is good. For these latter
persons seem to set up something beyond God, which does not
depend on God, but which God in acting looks to as an exemplar,
or which he aims at as a definite goal. This is only another
name for subjecting God to the dominion of destiny, an utter
absurdity in respect to God, whom we have shown to be the first
and only free cause of the essence of all things and also of
their existence. I need, therefore, spend no time in refuting
such wild theories.

PROP. XXXIV. God's power is identical with his essence.
Proof.-From the sole necessity of the essence of God it
follows that God is the cause of himself (Prop. xi.) and of all
things (Prop. xvi. and Coroll.). Wherefore the power of God, by
which he and all things are and act, is identical with his
essence. Q.E.D.

PROP. XXXV. Whatsoever we conceive to be in the power of God,
necessarily exists.
Proof.-Whatsoever is in God's power, must (by the last Prop.)
be comprehended in his essence in such a manner, that it
necessarily follows therefrom, and therefore necessarily exists.
Q.E.D.

PROP. XXXVI. There is no cause from whose nature some effect
does not follow.
Proof.-Whatsoever exists expresses God's nature or essence in
a given conditioned manner (by Prop. xxv., Coroll.) ; that is,
(by Prop. xxxiv.), whatsoever exists, expresses in a given
conditioned manner God's power, which is the cause of all things,
therefore an effect must (by Prop. xvi.) necessarily follow.
Q.E.D.

APPENDIX :
In the foregoing I have explained the nature and properties
of God. I have shown that he necessarily exists, that he is one
: that he is, and acts solely by the necessity of his own nature
; that he is the free cause of all things, and how he is so ;
that all things are in God, and so depend on 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 versâ
: 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 it that God
foresaw human imagination, and arranged everything, so that it
should be most easily imagined. If this be their theory, they
would not, perhaps, be daunted by the fact that we find an
infinite number of phenomena, far surpassing our imagination, and
very many others which confound its weakness. But enough has
been said on this subject. The other abstract notions are
nothing but modes of imagining, in which the imagination is
differently affected : though they are considered by the ignorant
as the chief attributes of things, inasmuch as they believe that
everything was created for the sake of themselves ; and,
according as they are affected by it, style it good or bad,
healthy or rotten and corrupt. For instance, if the motion which
objects we see communicate to our nerves be conducive to health,
the objects causing it are styled beautiful ; if a contrary
motion be excited, they are styled ugly.
Things which are perceived through our sense of smell are
styled fragrant or fetid ; if through our taste, sweet or bitter,
full-flavored or insipid ; if through our touch, hard or soft,
rough or smooth, &c.
Whatsoever affects our ears is said to give rise to noise,
sound, or harmony. In this last case, there are men lunatic
enough to believe, that even God himself takes pleasure in
harmony ; and philosophers are not lacking who have persuaded
themselves, that the motion of the heavenly bodies gives rise to
harmony-all of which instances sufficiently show that everyone
judges of things according to the state of his brain, or rather
mistakes for things the forms of his imagination. We need no
longer wonder that there have arisen all the controversies we
have witnessed, and finally skepticism : for, although human
bodies in many respects agree, yet in very many others they
differ ; so that what seems good to one seems bad to another ;
what seems well ordered to one seems confused to another ; what
is pleasing to one displeases another, and so on. I need not
further enumerate, because this is not the place to treat the
subject at length, and also because the fact is sufficiently well
known. It is commonly said : "So many men, so many minds ;
everyone is wise in his own way ; brains differ as completely as
palates." All of which proverbs show, that men judge of things
according to their mental disposition, and rather imagine than
understand : for, if they understood phenomena, they would, as
mathematicians attest, be convinced, if not attracted, by what I
have urged.
We have now perceived, that all the explanations commonly
given of nature are mere modes of imagining, and do not indicate
the true nature of anything, but only the constitution of the
imagination ; and, although they have names, as though they were
entities, existing externally to the imagination, I call them
entities imaginary rather than real ; and, therefore, all
arguments against us drawn from such abstractions are easily
rebutted.
Many argue in this way. If all things follow from a
necessity of the absolutely perfect nature of God, why are there
so many imperfections in nature? such, for instance, as things
corrupt to the point of putridity, loathsome deformity,
confusion, evil, sin, &c. But these reasoners are, as I have
said, easily confuted, for the perfection of things is to be
reckoned only from their own nature and power ; things are not
more or less perfect, according as they delight or offend human
senses, or according as they are serviceable or repugnant to
mankind. To those who ask why God did not so create all men,
that they should be governed only by reason, I give no answer but
this : because matter was not lacking to him for the creation of
every degree of perfection from highest to lowest ; or, more
strictly, because the laws of his nature are so vast, as to
suffice for the production of everything conceivable by an
infinite intelligence, as I have shown in Prop. xvi.
Such are the misconceptions I have undertaken to note ; if
there are any more of the same sort, everyone may easily
dissipate them for himself with the aid of a little reflection.

Part II.
ON THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND

PREFACE

I now pass on to explaining the results, which must
necessarily follow from the essence of God, or of the eternal and
infinite being ; not, indeed, all of them (for we proved in Part
i., Prop. xvi., that an infinite number must follow in an
infinite number of ways), but only those which are able to lead
us, as it were by the hand, to the knowledge of the human mind
and its highest blessedness.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19