ethica

1app.md (15831B)

 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.