Benedictus de Spinoza

“ Inquiring into such a state of things, I have been led to conclude that it is due to this: The majority of mankind regard the ministry of their Church as a dignity, its offices as benefices, and its priests or pastors as objects of the highest reverence. With the vulgar, such is the sum and substance of religion. As soon, indeed, as abuses had crept into the Christian Church, every worthless person seemed seized with a desire to administer its offices, and the propagation of a Divine Religion was made to subserve the ends of sordid avarice and base ambition ”

“ But as no one can so divest himself of the right of self-defence as to cease to be a man, I conclude that no individual can be absolutely deprived of the whole of his natural rights; but that he still retains something by the law of nature, as it were, of which he cannot be deprived without danger to the State, and which is therefore either tacitly conceded to him, or is expressly bargained for with the sovereign authority. ”

“ If, however, it be the grand object in despotisms to have mankind deceived, and means of terror always at hand by which they may be coerced; if religion be there made the pretext for inducing citizens to fight for slavery as though it were salvation, and it is not held base but highly becoming to venture limb and life for the vain-glory of one man, I can think of nothing more disastrous for a free State than the imposition of such a system upon it. ”

“ The mind involved in doubt, indeed, is easily swayed by every impulse, more especially when wavering between hope and fear, as in other moods it is but too apt to be self-sufficient and presumptuous.
No one, I imagine, can be ignorant of these, things, though I believe that few know themselves; for whoever has lived in the world must assuredly have seen that in prosperity the mass of mankind, however ill informed, seem to themselves so full of wisdom that they deem it an insult does any one presume to offer them advice ”

“ I have often wondered within myself that men who boast of the great advantages they enjoy under the Christian dispensation — the peace, the joy they experience, the brotherly love they feel towards all in its exercise — should nevertheless contend with so much acrimony, and show such intolerance and unappeasable hatred towards one another. If faith had to be inferred from action rather than profession, it would indeed be impossible to say to what sect or creed the majority of mankind belonged. ”

“ These are the men who credit the whisperings of fancy and their own puerile conceits, and call them divine promptings and responses, yea, who think that God turns his face from the wise, has written his decrees, not in the mind of man, but in the entrails of beasts, and has given the idiotic and insane among themselves, or the birds of the air, the power of foretelling events by instinct or divine inspiration! Such power has fear in making men irrational!
The mainspring of superstition, then, is fear; by fear, too, is superstition sustained and nourished. ”

“ Many other instances of a parallel kind could be easily adduced to prove that men are chiefly assailed by superstition when suffering from fear, and that all they then do in the name of a vain religion is in fact but the vaporous product of a sorrowful spirit, the delirium of a mind overborne by terror. These instances would further show that seers and soothsayers have always had the greatest influence with the multitude in times of affliction, and of disaster to the State, and have then also been found most formidable to sovereign or ruling powers. ”

“ Did men always act with understanding and discretion, or were fortune always propitious, they would never be the slaves of superstition. But as they frequently fall into straits and difficulties, and find no counsel in themselves, as they mostly strive without measure for the questionable favours of fortune, and in their vain aspirations after these are often tossed miserably betwixt hope and fear, so is their spirit commonly disposed to credulity. ”

“ I show, besides, that no one can truly cede this right unless he transfer the power of defending himself to another; and that he necessarily acquires this right absolutely to whom is transferred the right of each individual to live in his own way and to defend himself; hence I prove that whoever holds the sovereign or supreme authority in the State has a title to all he can command, and is the sole arbiter of right and liberty, the other members of the body politic being bound to act exclusively on his decrees. ”

“ From the cause of superstition assigned it follows that all men are by nature disposed to be superstitious (whatever others may say who maintain that superstition arises from the confused idea men in general entertain of Deity) ; that superstition assumes a vast variety of shapes, that it is inconstant also, like all the other uneasy feelings and impulses of the mind, and that it can only be held in countenance by desire, deceit, hatred, and anger, since it has nothing in common with reason, but is the product of mere affection of the most obnoxious kind. ”

“ Further, as one man differs notably from another in capacity and disposition, as one agrees and another disagrees with this or that opinion, as one is moved to devotion by that which disposes another to laughter, I conclude that freedom of opinion belongs of right to all, and that the privilege of interpreting articles of faith is to be left to every man according to his capacity, no one being adjudged pious or impious save by his works. ”

“ After this I have considered the erroneous conceptions entertained in regard to the rights and privileges of sovereign powers, which certain parties, with the most barefaced licence, and under pretext of religion, have arrogated to themselves, striving to turn the minds of the multitude, still held in the bondage of a heathen superstition, from their natural rulers, and to sink the world again into a state of abject slavery. ”

“ In the demonstration of this principle, I begin with a summary of the natural rights of man, which I show extend as far as the desires and power of the individual extend, and that no one is bound by natural law to live according to the pleasure of another, but that every one is by natural title the rightful asserter of his own independence. ”

“ The foundations of faith next made known, I conclude that the end and object of revealed knowledge is nothing but obedience, and is so distinct from natural knowledge as well in its objects as in its grounds and means as to have nothing in common with it, but that each may possess its own province without clashing, and neither need be subordinate to the other. ”

“ I hold that it is in every way repugnant to the general weal to fill the minds of the community with prejudices, or to seek to coerce them save by the laws. And as to those seditious movements that take place under pretext of religion, they only become possible because laws are passed upon speculative matters, and because opinions are made subjects of punishment like crimes. ”

“ If aught unusual happens, again, and their wonder is aroused, they believe it to be a prodigy, a portent, implying the displeasure or the anger of God, whom the superstitious then think it impious and irreligious not to seek to propitiate by vows and supplications. In this way do thousands of strange fancies take their rise, and as if all nature were delirious like themselves men interpret its processes in the most unreasonable manner. ”

“ Such being the state of things, we see that they who are most under the influence of superstitious feelings, and who covet uncertainties without stint or measure, more especially when they fall into difficulty or danger and cannot help themselves, are the persons who, with vows and prayers and womanly tears, implore the Divine assistance, who call reason blind, and human wisdom vain, and all forsooth because they cannot find an assured way to the vanities they desire! ”

“ How readily soever, therefore, men fall into any sort of superstition, with even as great difficulty are they to be kept true to the form it first assumes; yea, inasmuch as the mass of mankind are always equally miserable, therefore are they never long in the same mind ”

“ Moreover, in order that I might know from Scripture whether the human heart and understanding were naturally corrupt, I proceeded to inquire whether the Roman Catholic system of religion, or the Divine law propounded by the prophets and apostles to the whole human race, was different from the religion which the light of nature teaches? ”

“ The most inadequate causes, further, mostly suffice to make men now hope for better things, now fear for worse; for if aught occurs when they are depressed by fear which brings to mind some former good or ill that has befallen them, they forthwith imagine that it betokens a happy or a disastrous issue to their plight ”

“ And superstition is in fact the cause why at one time nations have been led to worship their kings as gods, and at another to execrate them as prime pests of humanity. and why vast pains have always been taken to surround the true or false religions that have prevailed in the world, with such pomp and circumstance as should cause religious observance to be esteemed of greater moment than aught besides, and a matter to be regarded by all with the highest reverence. ”

“ I would much rather they neglected it entirely than, by misconstruing its purpose and contents after the fashion usual with them, that they proved troublesome, and, whilst advantaging themselves in nothing, became obnoxious to those who would show a freer spirit in their philosophy, stood not this one obstacle in the way: The idea that Reason should be subordinate to Theology. ”

“ Christian, Turk, Jew, and Heathen, in fact, are not to be recognized save by complexion and habiliment, or by their frequenting this or that place of public worship, and the profession of this or of that system of opinion, each being wont to swear by the dictates of one master or another. As regards life and conversation it is the same with all. ”