THAT THE ETERNAL BEING, AND FIRST PRINCIPLE, HAS
ARRANGED ALL THINGS VOLUNTARILY
It is clear that this supreme, necessary, active intelligence is
possessed of will, and has arranged all things because it[69] willed
them. How can one act, and fashion all things, without willing to
fashion them? That would be the action of a mere machine, and this
machine would presuppose another first principle, another mover. We
should always have to end in a first intelligent being of some kind
or other. We wish, we act, we make machines, when we will; hence
the great very powerful _Demiourgos_ has done all things because he
willed.
Spinoza himself recognises in nature an intelligent, necessary power.
But an intelligence without will would be an absurdity, since such an
intelligence would be useless; it would do nothing, because it would
not will to do anything. Hence the great necessary being has willed
everything that it has done.
I said above that it has done all things necessarily because, if
its works were not necessary, they would be useless. But does this
necessity deprive it of will? Certainly not. I necessarily will to be
happy, but I will it none the less on that account; on the contrary,
I will it all the more strongly because I will it irresistibly.
Does this necessity deprive it of liberty? Not at all. Liberty can
only be the power to act. Since the supreme being is very powerful,
it is the freest of beings.
We thus recognise that the great artisan of things is necessary,
eternal, intelligent, powerful, possessed of will, and free.