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Excerpts from Baruch Spinoza
DEDICATION
"...that there cannot be two infinites, but only one."
Baruch Spinoza
"Understanding the proof of Spinoza's statement above
is key to understanding the rest of his system."
jgc
Baruch Spinoza’s takedown of Big Religion, as his age knew it, has made him famous and infamous in equal measure. Spinoza (1632-1677) affirmed his belief in scripture, but denied that its authors’ worldviews and cultural understandings were binding for philosophical or scientific purposes.
Big Religion, the giant State Churches of his day, manipulated the fear and superstition of common people, he insisted, for purposes other than obedience to the Gospel. (Imagine that!)
Consider Spinoza’s circumstances to evaluate his critique.
His grandparents were Jews of ancient residence in Portugal when they were driven into exile by the Inquisition. Portugal’s version of the Inquisition, like its Spanish neighbor, enforced Catholic faith on all its residents. It insisted that all Jews convert to Catholicism or leave the country. The ones who did neither faced the dreaded auto de fe, public execution. In the years leading up to Spinoza’s birth in 1632, the Dutch Republic was the only place in Europe where a limited toleration of different religious groups was practiced.
Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam, now the capital of The Netherlands, then of the Dutch Republic. The Republic was at war for the sixty-fourth of the eventual Eighty Years War of independence from Spain. The Protestant majority refused and resisted the introduction of the Inquisition in its provinces.
Over the border that year in what is now Germany, the German states were embroiled in the fourteenth of an eventual Thirty Years War. This war, which caused the deaths of one in three Germans, had been triggered by a Catholic emperor’s attempt to restore Catholicism across his empire. The war led to the first widespread German emigration to North America.
When Spinoza was ten, civil war broke out in England between a Protestant Parliament and a Catholic-leaning King. The war lasted until 1651. A Protestant protectorate proved as willing to massacre Catholic Irish and Protestant Scots as any of the continental despots. The Republic barely outlasted its leading figure, Oliver Cromwell, and England restored its monarchy in 1660.
When Spinoza was sixteen, in 1648, both the Dutch and the German wars were settled, and a measure of peace returned. The years of violence and disruption in the name of Big Religion are the backdrop to Spinoza’s philosophical takedown of it.
Spinoza was an excellent writer and precocious communicator. In 1656, at age twenty-four, he was excommunicated from his Jewish temple for his philosophical view of God. In a world then organized largely along denominational lines, he was left without community and at risk, even in his Dutch homeland.
Spinoza published cautiously during his lifetime. The only book bearing his name during his lifetime was a textbook called Descartes' Principles of Philosophy (1663). He was ever wary of pushing even the tolerant Dutch, making his living grinding lenses and building scientific tools. He turned down a professorship at the University of Heidelberg in a Protestant enclave of Germany for fear of running afoul of religious authority.
His second and last publication while living was the Theologico-Political Treatise. To lessen the audience and hopefully avoid the worst consequences, he published it anonymously, in Latin rather than Dutch, in 1670.
Theologico-Political Treatise stirred a significant backlash, as Spinoza feared it would. His greatest work, Ethics, was published by his friends and companions only after his death in 1677.
"Baruch Spinoza teaches that to live by Reason is to align our lives with the true nature of reality - what he calls God or Nature - by understanding causes clearly and acting from that understanding rather than from impulse or confusion. Instead of being driven by fleeting emotions like fear, anger, or envy (which arise from inadequate ideas), the rational person seeks adequate knowledge, recognizing the necessary order behind all things. This leads to freedom - not in the sense of controlling events, but in no longer being enslaved by passions. Living by Reason also means seeking what truly enhances our power to exist and flourish, which naturally includes cooperation, honesty, and goodwill toward others, since other people are part of the same rational order. In the end, this way of life culminates in what Spinoza calls the intellectual love of God - a deep, steady joy that comes from understanding and accepting the whole as it is."
Aisha Iapeno
From Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect
Now we have said that this kind of knowledge does not result from something else, but from a direct revelation of the object itself to the understanding. And if that object is glorious and good, then the soul becomes necessarily united with it, as we have also remarked with reference to our body. Hence it follows incontrovertibly that it is this knowledge which evokes love. So that when we get to know God after this manner then (as he cannot reveal himself, nor become known to us otherwise than as the most glorious and best of all) we must necessarily become united with him. And only in this union, as we have already remarked, does our blessedness consist.
p. 103.
For the ordinary surroundings of life which are esteemed by men (as their actions testify) to be the highest good, may be classed under the three heads - Riches, Fame, and the Pleasures of Sense: with these three the mind is so absorbed that it has little power to reflect on any different good.
p. 130.
From A Theologico-Political Thesis.
I know how deeply rooted are the prejudices embraced under the name of religion; I am aware that in the mind of the masses superstition is no less deeply rooted than fear; I recognize that their constancy is mere obstinacy, and that they are led to praise or blame by impulse rather than reason.
p. 520.
I know that I am a man and, as a man, liable to error, but against error I have taken scrupulous care, and striven to keep in entire accordance with the laws of my country, with loyalty, and with morality.
pp. 520-521.
From Ethics
...Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.
Ethics p. 25.
But all things which are, are in God, and so depend on God, that without him they can neither be nor be conceived.
Ethics, p. 53.
Therefore the intellect, in function finite, or in function infinite, must comprehend the attributes of God and the modifications of God, and nothing else. Q.E.D.
("Q.E.D": Quod Erat Demonstrandum, "thus it has been proven")
Ethics p. 56.
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.
Ethics p. 66.
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.
Ethics p. 66-67.
"...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.
Ethics p. 82.
The doctrine is good, 1. Inasmuch as it teaches us to act solely according to the decree of God, and to be partakers in the Divine nature, and so much the more, as we perform more perfect actions and more and more understand God. Such a doctrine not only completely tranquilizes our spirit, but also shows us where our highest happiness or blessedness is, namely, solely in the knowledge of God, whereby we are led to act only as love and piety shall bid us.
Ethics p. 183.
I submit that the world would be much happier, if men were as fully able to keep silence as they are to speak.
Ethics p. 198.
It is thus plain from what has been said, that in no case do we strive for, wish for, long for, or desire anything, because we deem it to be good, but on the other hand we deem a thing to be good, because we strive for it, wish for it, long for it, or desire it.
Ethics p. 207.
From what has been said we may clearly understand the nature of Love and Hate. Love is nothing else but pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause: Hate is nothing else but pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause.
Ethics p. 213.
By good I here mean every kind of pleasure, and all that conduces thereto, especially that which satisfies our longings, whatsoever they may be. By evil, I mean every kind of pain, especially that which frustrates our longings.
Ethics p. 251.
It thus appears that men are much more prone to take vengeance than to return benefits.
Ethics pp. 255-256.
He who has conferred a benefit on anyone from motives of love or honour will feel pain, if he sees that the benefit is received without gratitude.
Ethics p. 256.
Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love.
Ethics p. 257.
Hatred which is completely vanquished by love passes into love: and love is thereupon greater than if hatred had not preceded it.
Ethics p. 258.
No one envies the virtue of anyone who is not his equal.
Ethics p. 276.
DESIRE IS the actual essence of man, in so far as it is conceived, as determined to a particular activity by some given modification of itself.
Ethics p. 288.
Love is pleasure, accompanied by the idea of an external cause.
Ethics p. 293.
Hatred is pain, accompanied by the idea of an external cause.
Ethics p. 294.
Hope is an inconstant pleasure, arising from the idea of something past or future, whereof we to a certain extent doubt the issue. XIII. Fear is an inconstant pain arising from the idea of something past or future, whereof we to a certain extent doubt the issue. Explanation - From these definitions it follows, that there is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.
Ethics pp. 295-296.
HUMAN INFIRMITY IN moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage: for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse
Ethics p. 318.
The knowledge of good and evil is nothing else but the emotions of pleasure or pain, in so far as we are conscious thereof.
Ethics p. 337.
I think I have now shown the reason, why men are moved by opinion more readily than by true reason, why it is that the true knowledge of good and evil stirs up conflicts in the soul, and often yields to every kind of passion. This state of things gave rise to the exclamation of the poet: "The better path I gaze at and approve, The worse - I follow."
12 Ov. Met. vii.20, "Video meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor."
Ethics p. 347.
I have not written the above with the object of drawing the conclusion, that ignorance is more excellent than knowledge, or that a wise man is on a par with a fool in controlling his emotions, but because it is necessary to know the power and the infirmity of our nature, before we can determine what reason can do in restraining the emotions, and what is beyond her power.
Ethics pp. 347-348.
Desire is the essence of a man (Def. of the Emotions, i.), that is, the endeavour whereby a man endeavours to persist in his own being.
Ethics p. 348.
As reason makes no demands contrary to nature, it demands, that every man should love himself, should seek that which is useful to him - I mean, that which is really useful to him, should desire everything which really brings man to greater perfection, and should, each for himself, endeavour as far as he can to preserve his own being. This is as necessarily true, as that a whole is greater than its part.
Ethics p. 349.
The mind's highest good is the knowledge of God, and the mind's highest virtue is to know God.
Ethics p. 360.
We may readily understand that there is in the state of nature nothing, which by universal consent is pronounced good or bad; for in the state of nature everyone thinks solely of his own advantage, and according to his disposition, with reference only to his individual advantage, decides what is good or bad, being bound by no law to anyone besides himself. In the state of nature, therefore, sin is inconceivable; it can only exist in a state, where good and evil are pronounced on by common consent, and where everyone is bound to obey the State authority.
Ethics p. 380.
Whatsoever conduces to man's social life, or causes men to live together in harmony, is useful, whereas whatsoever brings discord into a State is bad. Proof. - For whatsoever causes men to live together in harmony also causes them to live according to reason, and is therefore good, and (for the same reason) whatsoever brings about discord is bad.
Ethics p. 385.
Assuredly nothing forbids man to enjoy himself, save grim and gloomy superstition.
Ethics p. 390.
He, who lives under the guidance of reason, endeavours, as far as possible, to render back love, or kindness, for other men's hatred, anger, contempt, &c., towards him.
Ethics p. 392.
He who chooses to avenge wrongs with hatred is assuredly wretched. But he, who strives to conquer hatred with love, fights his battle in joy and confidence; he withstands many as easily as one, and has very little need of fortune's aid. Those whom he vanquishes yield joyfully, not through failure, but through increase in their powers...
Ethics p. 393.
He who rightly realizes, that all things follow from the necessity of the divine nature, and come to pass in accordance with the eternal laws and rules of nature, will not find anything worthy of hatred, derision, or contempt, nor will he bestow pity on anything, but to the utmost extent of human virtue he will endeavour to do well, as the saying is, and to rejoice.
Ethics p. 396.
The first foundation of virtue is self-preservation (IV. xxii. Coroll.) under the guidance of reason (IV. xxiv.). He, therefore, who is ignorant of himself, is ignorant of the foundation of all virtues, and consequently of all virtues.
Ethics p. 402.
Under the guidance of reason we should pursue the greater of two goods and the lesser of two evils.
Ethics p. 418.
We may, under the guidance of reason, seek a greater good in the future in preference to a lesser good in the present, and we may seek a lesser evil in the present in preference to a greater evil in the future.
Ethics p. 419.
In so far as men are influenced by envy or any kind of hatred, one towards another, they are at variance, and are therefore to be feared in proportion, as they are more powerful than their fellows. XI. Yet minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.
Ethics p. 434.
Furthermore, flattery begets harmony; but only by means of the vile offence of slavishness or treachery. None are more readily taken with flattery than the proud, who wish to be first, but are not.
Ethics p. 438.
But they who know the true use of money, and who fix the measure of wealth solely with regard to their actual needs, live content with little.
Ethics p. 442.
An emotion therefore becomes more under our control, and the mind is less passive in respect to it, in proportion as it is more known to us.
Ethics p. 455.
Thus he who would govern his emotions and appetite solely by the love of freedom strives, as far as he can, to gain a knowledge of the virtues and their causes, and to fill his spirit with the joy which arises from the true knowledge of them: he will in no wise desire to dwell on men's faults, or to carp at his fellows, or to revel in a false show of freedom.
Ethics p. 468.
This love towards God is the highest good which we can seek for under the guidance of reason...
Ethics p. 474.
For no one is solicitous or anxious about anything, unless he loves it; neither do wrongs, suspicions, enmities, &c. arise, except in regard to things whereof no one can be really master.
Ethics pp. 477-478.
Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; neither do we rejoice therein, because we control our lusts, but, contrariwise, because we rejoice therein, we are able to control our lusts.
Ethics pp. 503-504.
Excerpts from
Baruch Spinoza; Original Thinkers Institute.
Complete Works of Baruch Spinoza
(Grapevine Edition) Kindle Edition.
First published by Grapevine Books, 2025
Copyright © Grapevine, 2025
John Cunyus
Searchlight Press