Philosophical Works

"There is no mind... which remains so firmly bound up in the objects of the senses, as not sometime... to turn... away from them in the aspiration after... higher good, although not knowing... wherein that good consists."

"The greatest favourites of fortune—those who have health, honours, and riches in abundance—are not more exempt from [these] aspirations... nay... [T]hese are the persons who sigh... most deeply after another good greater and more perfect... But the supreme good, considered by natural reason without the light of faith, is... knowledge of truth through its first causes... [i.e.,] the wisdom of which philosophy is the study. ...[A]ll that is required to gain assent to their truth is that they be well stated."

"[M]en, of whom the chief part is the mind, ought to make the search after wisdom their principal care, for wisdom is the true nourishment... [M]any... would not fail in the search, if they would but hope for success... and knew the degree of their capabilities..."

"[T]hey who make pretensions to philosophy are often less wise and reasonable than others who never applied themselves..."

"[T]he word philosophy signifies the study of wisdom... [i.e.,] not merely prudence in the management of affairs, but a perfect knowledge of all... man can know... for... conduct... health and... discovery of all... arts, and that knowledge to subserve these ends must... be deduced from first causes...[i.e.,] Principles."

"God is... the only being... absolutely wise... who possesses a perfect knowledge of all things; but... men are more or less wise as their knowledge of the most important truths is greater or less."

"The first degree contains only notions so clear... that they can be acquired without meditation; the second comprehends all that the experience of the senses dictates; the third, that which the conversation of other men teaches us; ...the fourth, the reading, ...especially of such ...written by persons capable of ...proper instruction ...[A]ll the wisdom we in ordinary possess is acquired... in these... ways; for I do not class divine revelation among them, because it does not conduct us by degrees, but elevates us at once to an infallible faith."

"[T]o live without philosophising is... the same as keeping the eyes closed..."

"On ne sauroit rien imaginer de si étranger et si peu croyable, qu’il n’ait été dit par quelqu’un des philosophes..."

"If we consider all external goods as equally beyond our power, we shall no more regret the absence of such goods... when deprived of them without any fault of ours, than our not possessing the kingdoms of China or Mexico; and thus making... a virtue of necessity, we shall no more desire health in disease, or freedom in imprisonment, than we now do bodies incorruptible as diamonds, or the wings of birds to fly with. But I confess there is need of prolonged discipline and frequently repeated meditation to accustom the mind to view all objects in this light; and I believe that in this chiefly consisted the secret of the power of such philosophers as in former times were enabled to rise superior to the influence of fortune, and, amid suffering and poverty, enjoy a happiness which their gods might have envied. For, occupied incessantly with the consideration of the limits prescribed to their power by nature, they became so entirely convinced that nothing was at their disposal except their own thoughts, that this conviction was of itself sufficient to prevent their entertaining any desire of other objects; and over their thoughts they acquired a sway so absolute, that they had some ground on this account for esteeming themselves more rich and more powerful, more free and more happy, than other men who, whatever be the favors heaped on them by nature and fortune, if destitute of this philosophy, can never command the realization of all their desires."

"Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems."

"Je pense, donc je suis."

"[B]ut if there were machines bearing the image of our bodies, and capable of imitating our actions as far as it is morally possible, there would still remain two most certain tests whereby to know that they were not therefore really men."

"There have been... in all ages great minds who endeavoured to find a fifth road... more sure and elevated... The path they essayed was the search of first causes and true principles, from which might be deduced the reasons of all that can be known... [T]o them the appellation of philosophers has been... accorded."

"The second circumstance that proves the clearness of these principles is, that they have been known in all ages, and even received as true and indubitable by all men, with the exception only of the existence of God, which has been doubted by some, because they attributed too much to the perceptions of the senses, and God can neither be seen nor touched."

"The long chains of simple and easy reasonings by means of which geometers are accustomed to reach the conclusions of their most difficult demonstrations, had led me to imagine that all things, to the knowledge of which man is competent, are mutually connected in the same way, and that there is nothing so far removed from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it, provided only we abstain from accepting the false for the true, and always preserve in our thoughts the order necessary for the deduction of one truth from another."

"Of all things, good sense is the most fairly distributed: everyone thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those who are the hardest to satisfy in every other respect never desire more of it than they already have. (fr; en)"

"Car ce n'est pas assez d'avoir l'esprit bon, mais le principal est de l'appliquer bien."

"The tone and form are conciliatory, but with the kind of high-handed conciliation that exasperates. Much hard hitting will be taken without complaint in downright argument; but few men can endure to be confuted from their own premisses by an adversary who never fully shows his hand. It is more tolerable for a dogmatist to be confronted with novelties in speculative opinion than to be told that speculative opinions are in themselves indifferent; and the truth that conduct does not depend on speculation, though exemplified abundantly by all generations of men, is still unfamiliar and unwelcome to most of us. It is just to this unwelcome truth that Spinoza bears a testimony of unsurpassed power in the 'Tractatus Theologico Politicus;' but if anything more were needed to explain the storm of polemic that burst upon him, there is yet more to come. We have said that Spinoza does not omit the necessary reservations in favour of the civil power; we must add that he makes them not only freely but amply, so amply that he has been charged by some of his modern censors with going about to deify mere brute force. He appeals, moreover, from the Churches to the State, as representing the worldly common sense of the lay mind. He looks to an enlightened civil magistrate to deliver men from the barren clamour of anathemas, almost as an Indian heretic vexed by the Brahmans may look to the impartial secular arm of the British Government. ...If the English translator had been minded to give the book a second title, after the manner of English controversialists of that day, he might fairly have called it 'Erastianism not Unscriptural.'"

"The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellencies, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it."

"A Treatise partly Theological and partly Political, Containing some few Discourses, to prove that the Liberty of Philosophizing (that is Making Use of Natural Reason) may be allow'd without any prejudice to Piety, or to the Peace of any Common-wealth; and that the Loss of Public Peace and Religion it self must necessarily follow, where such a Liberty of Reasoning is taken away."

"This is the conclusion of the whole matter for him; a fervent appeal to the State to save us from the untoward generation of metaphysical Article-makers."

"The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt."

"The scope of the book is political and practical, not speculative. The final thesis to which all its apparatus of criticism leads up is that 'in a free commonwealth it should be lawful for every man to think what he will and speak what he thinks:' a proposition which, with due reservations in behalf of decency and civil order—and the reservations were in no wise neglected by Spinoza—has now become common learning for the greater part of the civilized world. It looks to our modern eyes infinitely less bold than the arguments by which Spinoza maintained it. In order to gain his desired foundation for the freedom of speculative opinion, he plunges into an investigation of the nature of prophecy, the principles of Scriptural interpretation, and the true provinces of theology and philosophy, anticipating with wonderful grasp and insight almost every principle, and not a few of the results of the school of historical criticism which has arisen within the last two or three generations; a school which, through Lessing and his circle, is connected by direct descent with Spinoza. Taking the whole contents of the treatise together, we cannot be surprised that even in the United Provinces, then the freest country in the world, it was thought needful to issue it without the name of the author and with that of a fictitious printer at Hamburg."

"If men's minds were as easily controlled as their tongues, every king would sit safely on his throne, and government by compulsion would cease; for every subject would shape his life according to the intentions of his rulers, and would esteem a thing true or false, good or evil, just or unjust, in obedience to their dictates."

"The more a government strives to curtail freedom of speech, the more obstinately is it resisted; not indeed by the avaricious, … but by those whom good education, sound morality, and virtue have rendered more free. Men, in general, are so constituted that there is nothing they will endure with so little patience as that views which they believe to be true should be counted crimes against the laws. … Under such circumstances they do not think it disgraceful, but most honorable, to hold the laws in abhorrence, and to refrain from no action against the government."

"The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain, by fear, nor to exact obedience, but, contrariwise, to free every man from fear, that he may live in all possible security ; in other words, to strengthen his natural right to exist and work without injury to himself or others. No, the object of government is not to change men from rational beings into beasts or puppets, but to enable them to develop their minds and bodies in security, and to employ their reason unshackled; neither showing hatred, anger, or deceit, nor watched with the eyes of jealousy and injustice. In fact, the true aim of government is liberty."

"When the religious controversy between Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants began to be taken up by politicians and the States, it grew into a schism, and abundantly showed that laws dealing with religion and seeking to settle its controversies are much more calculated to irritate than to reform, and that they give rise to extreme licence: further, it was seen that schisms do not originate in a love of truth, which is a source of courtesy and gentleness, but rather in an inordinate desire for supremacy. From all these considerations it is clearer than the Sun at noonday, that the true schismatics are those who condemn other men's writings, and seditiously stir up the quarrelsome masses against their authors, rather than those authors themselves, who generally write only for the learned, and appeal solely to reason. In fact, the real disturbers of the peace are those who, in a free state, seek to curtail the liberty of judgment which they are unable to tyrannize over."

"Nowhere does Scripture assert that anything happens which contradicts, or cannot follow from the laws of Nature; and, therefore, we should not attribute to it such a doctrine."

"The safest way for a state is to lay down the rule that religion is comprised solely in the exercise of charity and justice, and that the rights of rulers in sacred, no less than in secular matters, should merely have to do with actions, but that every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks."

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."

"The words of Moses, "God is a fire" and "God is jealous," are perfectly clear so long as we regard merely the signification of the words, and I therefore reckon them among the clear passages, though in relation to reason and truth they are most obscure: still, although the literal meaning is repugnant to the natural light of reason, nevertheless, if it cannot be clearly overruled on grounds and principles derived from its Scriptural "history," it, that is, the literal meaning, must be the one retained: and contrariwise if these passages literally interpreted are found to clash with principles derived from Scripture, though such literal interpretation were in absolute harmony with reason, they must be interpreted in a different manner, i.e. metaphorically. … In the present instance, as Moses says in several other passages that God has no likeness to any visible thing, whether in heaven or in earth, or in the water, either all such passages must be taken metaphorically."

"We may, then, be absolutely certain that every event which is truly described in Scripture necessarily happened, like everything else, according to natural laws; and if anything is there set down which can be proved in set terms to contravene the order of nature, or not to be deducible therefrom, we must believe it to have been foisted into the sacred writings by irreligious hands."

"In order to interpret the Scriptural miracles and understand from the narration of them how they really happened, it is necessary to know the opinions of those who first related them, and have recorded them for us in writing, and to distinguish such opinions from the actual impression made upon their senses, otherwise we shall confound opinions and judgments with the actual miracle as it really occurred: nay, further, we shall confound actual events with symbolical and imaginary ones. For many things are narrated in Scripture as real, and were believed to be real, which were in fact only symbolical and imaginary."

"Scripture does not explain things by their secondary causes, but only narrates them in the order and the style which has most power to move men, and especially uneducated men, to devotion; and therefore it speaks inaccurately of God and of events, seeing that its object is not to convince the reason, but to attract and lay hold of the imagination. If the Bible were to describe the destruction of an empire in the style of political historians, the masses would remain unstirred."

"In order to understand, in the case of miracles, what actually took place, we ought to be familiar with Jewish phrases and metaphors; anyone who did not make sufficient allowance for these, would be continually seeing miracles in Scripture where nothing of the kind is intended by the writer; he would thus miss the knowledge not only of what actually happened, but also of the mind of the writers of the sacred text."

"Plainly, they are but triflers who, when they cannot explain a thing, run back to the will of God; this is, truly, a ridiculous way of expressing ignorance."

"Philosophers who endeavour to understand things by clear conceptions of them, rather than by miracles, have always found the task extremely easy—at least, such of them as place true happiness solely in virtue and peace of mind, and who aim at obeying Nature, rather than being obeyed by her."

"Scripture makes the general assertion in several passages that nature's course is fixed and unchangeable. In Ps. 148:6, for instance, and Jer. 31:35. The wise man also, in Eccles. 1:10, distinctly teaches that "there is nothing new under the sun," and in verses 11, 12, illustrating the same idea, he adds that although something occasionally happens which seems new, it is not really new, but "hath been already of old time, which was before us, whereof there is no remembrance, neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that come after." Again in chap. 2:11, he says, "God hath made everything beautiful in his time," and immediately afterwards adds, "I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever; nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it.""

"All the events narrated in Scripture came to pass naturally, and are referred directly to God because Scripture, as we have shown, does not aim at explaining things by their natural causes, but only at narrating what appeals to the popular imagination, and doing so in the manner best calculated to excite wonder, and consequently to impress the minds of the masses with devotion."

"Any event happening in nature which contravened nature's universal laws, would necessarily also contravene the Divine decree, nature, and understanding; or if anyone asserted that God acts in contravention to the laws of nature, he, ipso facto, would be compelled to assert that God acted against His own nature—an evident absurdity."

"As nothing happens in nature which does not follow from her laws, and as her laws embrace everything conceived by the Divine intellect, and lastly, as nature preserves a fixed and immutable order; it most clearly follows that miracles are only intelligible as in relation to human opinions, and merely mean events of which the natural cause cannot be explained by a reference to any ordinary occurrence, either by us, or at any rate, by the writer and narrator of the miracle."

"Since miracles were wrought according to the understanding of the masses, who are wholly ignorant of the workings of nature, it is certain that the ancients took for a miracle whatever they could not explain by the method adopted by the unlearned in such cases, namely, an appeal to the memory, a recalling of something similar, which is ordinarily regarded without wonder; for most people think they sufficiently understand a thing when they have ceased to wonder at it. The ancients, then, and indeed most men up to the present day, had no other criterion for a miracle; hence we cannot doubt that many things are narrated in Scripture as miracles of which the causes could easily be explained by reference to ascertained workings of nature."

"LVI. What are modes, qualities, attributes. ... [S]ince God must be conceived as superior to change, it is not proper to say that there are modes or qualities in him, but simply attributes... in created things that which is found in them always in the same mode, as existence and duration... ought to be called attribute, and not mode or quality."

"But... there has been no one up to the present, who... has adopted them as principles of philosophy... [i.e.,] as such that we can deduce from them the knowledge of whatever else is in the world."

"When we know that all things are ordained and ratified by God, that the operations of nature follow from the essence of God, and that the laws of nature are eternal decrees and volitions of God, we must perforce conclude that our knowledge of God, and of God's will increases in proportion to our knowledge and clear understanding of nature."

"Now all these texts teach most distinctly that nature preserves a fixed and unchangeable order, and that God in all ages, known and unknown, has been the same; further, that the laws of Nature are so perfect, that nothing can be added thereto nor taken therefrom; and, lastly, that miracles only appear as something new because of man's ignorance."

"The last rule was to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I should be certain of omitting nothing."

"As men's habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another to scoff, I conclude … that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits; each would then obey God freely with his whole heart, while nothing would be publicly honoured save justice and charity."

"Having thus drawn attention to the liberty conceded to everyone by the revealed law of God, I... prove that this same liberty can and should be accorded with safety to the state and the magisterial authority—in fact, that it cannot be withheld without great danger to peace and detriment to the community."