Benedictus de Spinoza

“ By these words Solomon clearly declares, first, that wisdom or understanding alone teaches us that God is to be reverenced with knowledge and worshipped in a truly pious spirit; and, secondly, that wisdom and understanding flow from God, the only giver of these inestimable gifts. This truth we have ourselves insisted on when we showed that all our understanding and all our knowledge depended on the idea or knowledge of God alone, with whom they originate and by whom they are made perfect. ”

“ Faith in history, however, although of itself inadequate to impart to us a knowledge, and to fill us with the love, of God, may nevertheless be useful. The perusal of historical records, as they bear upon the social state and condition, may be extremely edifying, for, as we shall have better observed and more carefully studied the manners and customs and actions of mankind, so shall we have learned to live more guardedly in the world, and to accommodate our bearing and conversation, in so far as right and reason permit, to the peculiar genius of those around us, or with whom we have relations. ”

“ The same conclusion follows from this, that man is the more perfect according to the nature and perfection of that which he loves and strives to know above all things; and he therefore is necessarily the most perfect, and participates most fully in the supreme good, who most delights in the intellectual cognition of God, the most perfect of beings. Our supreme happiness, therefore, our highest joy, again resolves itself into a knowledge and love of God. ”

“ The word Law, taken in an absolute sense, signifies that in virtue of which things of the same species act in a certain determinate manner. Now this comes either of natural necessity, or it depends on the will and pleasure of an agent. The law which depends on natural necessity is that which follows from the nature of things; that which depends on the will and pleasure of an agent — say man — again, and which were well entitled Jurisprudence (Jus) , is prescribed by men for themselves and others, with a view to the safety and commodity of life, or for any other reason. ”

“ As the word Law, however, by an extension of its meaning, has been applied to common things; and as by the term nothing more is very usually understood than a precept or command which men may observe or neglect — something which human capacity may overpass, nothing which is beyond the power of man — it seems requisite to define law in a more particular manner, as a rule of conduct, which man imposes on himself and others for a definite end. ”

“ Legislators may be said to have undertaken to dominate mankind in the same way as a horse is controlled by his provender, the bit, and the spur. From this it has come to pass that it has been usual to designate as law rules of conduct imposed by a certain man or by certain men on all the rest of their tribe or nation, and to speak of those who obey these laws as living under them, and in a sort of slavery. ”

“ Moses, in short, apprehended the revelations made to him not as eternal truths and necessities, but as precepts and institutes; and he, therefore, prescribed them as laws of God in the mere human sense, and so brought it to pass that God was conceived by the Israelites as a king, ruler, or legislator; as merciful, just, jealous, &c., though all these attributes belong to human nature alone, and ought not to be named in connection with the Divine nature. In this way, from this point of view, I say, are those prophets to be regarded who have uttered laws in the name of God. ”

“ But they who are aware that there is nothing more excellent than understanding and integrity of mind conclude differently and more justly.
Thus do we explain that in which divine law especially consists, and also show what constitutes human law, — law having reference to social existence. Human laws, however, may have been sanctified by being specially revealed by God, in which case they are properly referred to him. ”

“ Wherefore true happiness and the peace of mind it brings which satisfies natural understanding, even in Solomon's opinion, depends not particularly on the smiles of fortune, that is, on the favour of God, as things external are concerned, but on intrinsic satisfaction or virtue, which is God's favour as regards inward things, and is best assured and kept by watchfulness, counsel, and virtuous conduct. ”

“ It is not surprising therefore that Paul should hold evil-doers to be inexcusable, for as every man sows, so shall he reap; from evil, unless wisely corrected, evil necessarily springs, as from good follows good, if it be but joined to constancy of mind. Scripture therefore acknowledges and refers to the authority of our natural understanding and the divine law. ”

“ I have also said that jurisprudence or human social law depends on the will of man, because we ought ever to define and explain things by their immediate causes; inasmuch as general considerations of the order of nature, and the concatenation of causes, cannot in the least assist us in our considerations of particular things ”

“ Solomon speaks of understanding as the true well-spring of life; and he makes misfortune to consist in foolishness only, in which sentence it is to be observed that by life, from the Hebrew word used, is to be understood true life, as plainly appears from Deuteronomy xxx. 19, 20. The fruit of understanding, therefore, consists in true life alone, and chastisement in deprivation of understanding only, a conclusion that accords entirely with what will be found set forth in our fourth position concerning the divine natural law. ”

“ But those actions which are good only from being enjoined, or from being symbols or representatives of some good thing, cannot improve our understanding; neither are they more than mere shadows, for they cannot be reckoned as the offspring or fruit of intelligence and integrity of mind. But it seems unnecessary to insist further on this head. 4th, Finally, we see the great reward of the divine law to be that law itself, in other words, the knowledge of God and the privilege of loving him in true liberty, in entireness and constancy of soul ”

“ They are plainly so immediately connected with the faculties of the human mind, that though mind itself, in its power of perceiving things in their relations to the true and the false, can be perfectly well conceived without these laws, it cannot be conceived without the idea of divine or necessary law, as we have but just defined it. ”

“ For example, — It is a universal law of ponderable matter, and a natural necessity, that bodies in motion impinging on other bodies lose as much of their proper motion as they communicate to these. So, again, it is a law which follows necessarily from the constitution of human nature, that in recollecting some particular thing we bring to mind another similar thing, or something of which we were cognizant at the same time with the former. ”

“ Man, when he was called into being on this earth by his Almighty maker, may have been as perfect as we now find him, most probably he was less perfect, and very certainly he was not more perfect than he now is. ”

“ Wherefore, in respect of God, we affirm one and the same thing when we say that he from eternity has decreed and willed, or has understood, that the three angles of a triangle shall he equal to two right angles. ”

“ It was not enough, therefore, that his ideas should be accommodated to Jewish views and opinions; they required to be in harmony with the opinions common to the whole of mankind, in other words, with absolutely true and universal ideas. And, indeed, when we say that God revealed himself immediately to Christ (i.e. to the mind of Christ) , and not mediately as to the prophets by words and signs, nothing more is to be understood than that Christ perceived revealed things truly, adequately and in themselves, or that he comprehended them ”

“ It seems to be an element in man's nature to imagine things better and more happily constituted in times gone by than at the present hour — best of all, therefore, in times of the most remote antiquity ”

“ Ed.↑ A universal system of morals must be based on the faculties proper to man under the guidance of the intellectual powers, the faculties man has in common with the lower animals being in subjection but not annulled. ”