PREFACE
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.
Why this is so, and what is good or evil in the emotions, I propose to
show in this part of my treatise. But, before I begin, it would be well
to make a few prefatory observations on perfection and imperfection,
good and evil.
When a man has purposed to make a given thing, and has brought it
to perfection, his work will be pronounced perfect, not only by
himself, but by everyone who rightly knows, or thinks that he knows,
the intention and aim of its author. For instance, suppose anyone sees a
work (which I assume to be not yet completed), and knows that the aim
of the author of that work is to build a house, he will call the work
imperfect; he will, on the other hand, call it perfect, as soon as he
sees that it is carried through to the end, which its author had purposed
for it. But if a man sees a work, the like whereof he has never seen
before, and if he knows not the intention of the artificer, he plainly
cannot know, whether that work be perfect or imperfect. Such seems to
be the primary meaning of these terms.
But, after men began to form general ideas, to think out types of
houses, buildings, towers, &c., and to prefer certain types to others,
it came about, that each man called perfect that which he saw agree
with the general idea he had formed of the thing in question, and called
imperfect that which he saw agree less with his own preconceived type,
even though it had evidently been completed in accordance with the idea
of its artificer. This seems to be the only reason for calling natural
phenomena, which, indeed, are not made with human hands, perfect or
imperfect: for men are wont to form general ideas of things natural, no
less than of things artificial, and such ideas they hold as types,
believing that Nature (who they think does nothing without an object)
has them in view, and has set them as types before herself. Therefore,
when they behold something in Nature, which does not wholly conform to
the preconceived type which they have formed of the thing in question,
they say that Nature has fallen short or has blundered, and has left
her work incomplete. Thus we see that men are wont to style natural
phenomena perfect or imperfect rather from their own prejudices, than
from true knowledge of what they pronounce upon.
Now we showed in the Appendix to Part I., that Nature does not work
with an end in view. For the eternal and infinite Being, which we call
God or Nature, acts by the same necessity as that whereby it exists. For
we have shown, that by the same necessity of its nature, whereby it
exists, it likewise works (I:xvi.). The reason or cause why God or Nature
exists, and the reason why he acts, are one and the same. Therefore,
as he does not exist for the sake of an end, so neither does he act for
the sake of an end; of his existence and of his action there is neither
origin nor end. Wherefore, a cause which is called final is nothing else
but human desire, in so far as it is considered as the origin or cause
of anything. For example, when we say that to be inhabited is the final
cause of this or that house, we mean nothing more than that a man,
conceiving the conveniences of household life, had a desire to build a
house. Wherefore, the being inhabited, in so far as it is regarded as
a final cause, is nothing else but this particular desire, which is
really the efficient cause; it is regarded as the primary cause,
because men are generally ignorant of the causes of their desires.
They are, as I have often said already, conscious of their own actions
and appetites, but ignorant of the causes whereby they are determined
to any particular desire. Therefore, the common saying that Nature
sometimes falls short, or blunders, and produces things which are
imperfect, I set down among the glosses treated of in the Appendix to