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Benedict de Spinoza
Dutch-Jewish Philosopher
1632-1677 A selection from A THEOLOGICO-POLITICAL TREATISE
Narrated by Alan Sklar
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Preface
Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their
circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune: but
being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being
often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty
of fortune's greedily coveted favours, they are consequently, for the most
part, very prone to credulity.
The human mind is readily swayed this way
or that in times of doubt, especially when hope and fear are struggling for
the mastery, though usually it is boastful, over - confident, and vain.
This as a general fact I suppose everyone knows, though few, I believe,
know their own nature; no one can have lived in the world without observing
that most people, when in prosperity, are so over-brimming with wisdom
(however inexperienced they may be), that they take every offer of advice as
a personal insult, whereas in adversity they know not where to turn, but beg
and pray for counsel from every passer-by. No plan is then too futile,
too absurd, or too fatuous for their adoption; the most frivolous causes
will raise them to hope, or plunge them into despair - if anything happens
during their fright which reminds them of some past good or ill, they think
it portends a happy or unhappy issue, and therefore (though it may have
proved abortive a hundred times before) style it a lucky or unlucky omen.
Anything which excites their astonishment they believe to be a portent
signifying the anger of the gods or of the Supreme Being, and, mistaking
superstition for religion, account it impious not to avert the evil with
prayer and sacrifice. Signs and wonders of this sort they conjure up
perpetually, till one might think Nature as mad as themselves, they
interpret her so fantastically.
Thus it is brought prominently before us, that superstition's chief
victims are those persons who greedily covet temporal advantages; they it
is, who (especially when they are in danger, and cannot help themselves) are
wont with Prayers and womanish tears to implore help from God: upbraiding
Reason as blind, because she cannot show a sure path to the shadows they
pursue, and rejecting human wisdom as vain; but believing the phantoms of
imagination, dreams, and other childish absurdities, to be the very oracles
of Heaven. As though God had turned away from the wise, and written His
decrees, not in the mind of man but in the entrails of beasts, or left them
to be proclaimed by the inspiration and instinct of fools, madmen, and
birds. Such is the unreason to which terror can drive mankind!
Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear. If
anyone desire an example, let him take Alexander, who only began
superstitiously to seek guidance from seers, when he first learnt to fear
fortune in the passes of Sysis; whereas after he had
conquered Darius he consulted prophets no more, till a second time
frightened by reverses. When the Scythians were provoking a battle, the
Bactrians had deserted, and he himself was lying sick of his wounds, "he
once more turned to superstition, the mockery of human wisdom, and bade
Aristander, to whom he confided his credulity, inquire the issue of affairs
with sacrificed victims." Very numerous examples of a like nature might
be cited, clearly showing the fact, that only while under the dominion of
fear do men fall a prey to superstition; that all the portents ever invested
with the reverence of misguided religion are mere phantoms of dejected and
fearful minds; and lastly, that prophets have most power among the people,
and are most formidable to rulers, precisely at those times when the state
is in most peril. I think this is sufficiently plain to all, and will
therefore say no more on the subject.
The origin of superstition above given affords us a clear reason for
the fact, that it comes to all men naturally, though some refer its rise to
a dim notion of God, universal to mankind, and also tends to show, that it
is no less inconsistent and variable than other mental hallucinations and
emotional impulses, and further that it can only be maintained by hope,
hatred, anger, and deceit; since it springs, not from reason, but solely
from the more powerful phases of emotion. Furthermore, we may readily
understand how difficult it is, to maintain in the same course men prone to
every form of credulity. For, as the mass of mankind remains always at
about the same pitch of misery, it never assents long to any one remedy, but
is always best pleased by a novelty which has not yet proved illusive.
This element of inconsistency has been the cause of many terrible wars
and revolutions; for, as Curtius well says: "The mob has
no ruler more potent than superstition," and is easily led, on the plea of
religion, at one moment to adore its kings as gods, and anon to execrate and
abjure them as humanity's common bane. Immense pains have therefore
been taken to counteract this evil by investing religion, whether true or
false, with such pomp and ceremony, that it may, rise superior to every
shock, and be always observed with studious reverence by the whole people -
a system which has been brought to great perfection by the Turks, for they
consider even controversy impious, and so clog men's minds with dogmatic
formulas, that they leave no room for sound reason, not even enough to doubt
with.
But if, in despotic statecraft, the supreme and essential mystery be to
hoodwink the subjects, and to mask the fear, which keeps them clown, with
the specious garb of religion, so that men may fight as bravely for slavery
as for safety, and count it not shame but highest honour to risk their blood
and their lives for the vainglory of a tyrant; yet in a free state no more
mischievous expedient could be planned or attempted. Wholly repugnant
to the general freedom are such devices as enthralling men's minds with
prejudices, forcing their judgment, or employing any of the weapons of
quasi-religious sedition; indeed, such seditions only spring up, when law
enters the domain of speculative thought, and opinions are put on trial and
condemned on the same footing as crimes, while those who defend and follow
them are sacrificed, not to public safety, but to their opponents'
hatred and cruelty. If deeds only could be made the grounds of
criminal charges, and words were always allowed to pass free, such seditions
would be divested of every semblance of justification, and would be
separated from mere controversies by a hard and fast line.
Now, seeing that we have the rare happiness of living in a republic,
where everyone's judgment is free and unshackled, where each may worship God
as his conscience dictates, and where freedom is esteemed before all things
dear and precious, I have believed that I should be undertaking no
ungrateful or unprofitable task, in demonstrating that not only can
such freedom be granted without prejudice to the public peace, but also,
that without such freedom, piety cannot flourish nor the public peace be
secure.
In order to establish my point, I start from the natural rights of the
individual, which are co-extensive with his desires and power, and from the
fact that no one is bound to live as another pleases, but is the guardian of
his own liberty. I show that these rights can only be transferred to
those whom we depute to defend us, who acquire with the duties of defence
the power of ordering our lives, and I thence infer that rulers possess
rights only limited by their power, that they are the sole guardians of
justice and liberty, and that their subjects should act in all things as
they dictate: nevertheless, since no one can so utterly abdicate his own
power of self-defence as to cease to be a man, I conclude that no one can be
deprived of his natural rights absolutely, but that subjects, either by
tacit agreement, or by social contract, retain a certain number, which
cannot be taken from them without great danger to the state.
From these considerations I pass on to the Hebrew State, which I
describe at some length, in order to trace the manner in which Religion
acquired the force of law, and to touch on other noteworthy points. I
then prove, that the holders of sovereign power are the depositories and
interpreters of religious no less than of civil ordinances, and that they
alone have the right to decide what is just or unjust, pious or impious;
lastly, I conclude by showing, that they best retain this right and secure
safety to their state by allowing every man to think what he likes, and say
what he thinks.
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. Therefore the multitude, and those
of like passions with the multitude, I ask not to read my book; nay, I would
rather that they should utterly neglect it, than that they should
misinterpret it after their wont. They would gain no good themselves,
and might prove a stumbling-block to others, whose philosophy is hampered by
the belief that Reason is a mere handmaid to Theology, and whom I seek in
this work especially to benefit. But as there will be many who have
neither the leisure, nor, perhaps, the inclination to read through all I
have written, I feel bound here, as at the end of my treatise, to declare
that I have written nothing, which I do not most willingly submit to the
examination and judgment of my country's rulers, and that I am ready to
retract anything, which they shall decide to be repugnant to the laws or
prejudicial to the public good. 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. More information about Benedict de Spinoza from Wikipedia
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