>>>>>Proof--From the sole necessity of the essence of God it
follows that God is the cause of himself (Prop. xi.) and of all
things (Prop. xvi. and Cor.). Wherefore the power of God, by
which he and all things are and act, is identical with his
essence. Q.E.D.
XXXV. Whatsoever we conceive to be in the power of God,
necessarily exists.
>>>>>Proof--Whatsoever is in God's power, must (by the last
Prop.) be comprehended in his essence in such a manner, that it
necessarily follows therefrom, and therefore necessarily exists.
Q.E.D.
XXXVI. There is no cause from whose nature some effect does not
follow.
>>>>>Proof--Whatsoever exists expresses God's nature or essence
in a given conditioned manner (by Prop. xxv., Cor.); that is,
(by Prop. xxxiv.), whatsoever exists, expresses in a given
conditioned manner God's power, which is the cause of all
things, therefore an effect must (by Prop. xvi.) necessarily
follow. Q.E.D.
APPENDIX: In the foregoing I have explained the nature and
properties of God. I have shown that he necessarily exists,
that he is one: that he is, and acts solely by the necessity of
his own nature; that he is the free cause of all things, and how
he is so; that all things are in God, and so depend on him, that
without him they could neither exist nor be conceived; lastly,
that all things are predetermined by God, not through his free
will or absolute fiat, but from the very nature of God or
infinite power. I have further, where occasion afforded, taken
care to remove the prejudices, which might impede the
comprehension of my demonstrations. Yet there still remain
misconceptions not a few, which might and may prove very grave
hindrances to the understanding of the concatenation of things,
as I have explained it above. I have therefore thought it worth
while to bring these misconceptions before the bar of reason.
All such opinions spring from the notion commonly entertained,
that all things in nature act as men themselves act, namely,
with an end in view. It is accepted as certain, that God
himself directs all things to a definite goal (for it is said
that God made all things for man, and man that he might worship
him). I will, therefore, consider this opinion, asking first,
why it obtains general credence, and why all men are naturally so
prone to adopt it?; secondly, I will point out its falsity;
and, lastly, I will show how it has given rise to prejudices
about good and bad, right and wrong, praise and blame, order and
confusion, beauty and ugliness, and the like. However, this is
not the place to deduce these misconceptions from the nature of
the human mind: it will be sufficient here, if I assume as a
starting point, what ought to be universally admitted, namely,
that all men are born ignorant of the causes of things, that all
have the desire to seek for what is useful to them, and that
they are conscious of such desire. Herefrom it follows, first,
that men think themselves free inasmuch as they are conscious of
their volitions and desires, and never even dream, in their
ignorance, of the causes which have disposed them so to wish and
desire. Secondly, that men do all things for an end, namely, for
that which is useful to them, and which they seek. Thus it
comes to pass that they only look for a knowledge of the final
causes of events, and when these are learned, they are content,
as having no cause for further doubt. If they cannot learn such
causes from external sources, they are compelled to turn to
considering themselves, and reflecting what end would have
induced them personally to bring about the given event, and thus
they necessarily judge other natures by their own. Further, as
they find in themselves and outside themselves many means which
assist them not a little in the search for what is useful, for
instance, eyes for seeing, teeth for chewing, herbs and animals
for yielding food, the sun for giving light, the sea for
breeding fish, &c., they come to look on the whole of nature as a
means for obtaining such conveniences. Now as they are aware,
that they found these conveniences and did not make them, they
think they have cause for believing, that some other being has
made them for their use. As they look upon things as means, they
cannot believe them to be self-created; but, judging from the
means which they are accustomed to prepare for themselves, they
are bound to believe in some ruler or rulers of the universe
endowed with human freedom, who have arranged and adapted
everything for human use. They are bound to estimate the nature
of such rulers (having no information on the subject) in
accordance with their own nature, and therefore they assert that
the gods ordained everything for the use of man, in order to
bind man to themselves and obtain from him the highest honor.
Hence also it follows, that everyone thought out for himself,
according to his abilities, a different way of worshipping God,
so that God might love him more than his fellows, and direct the
whole course of nature for the satisfaction of his blind cupidity
and insatiable avarice. Thus the prejudice developed into
superstition, and took deep root in the human mind; and for this
reason everyone strove most zealously to understand and explain
the final causes of things; but in their endeavor to show that
nature does nothing in vain, i.e. nothing which is useless to
man, they only seem to have demonstrated that nature, the gods,
and men are all mad together. Consider, I pray you, the result:
among the many helps of nature they were bound to find some
hindrances, such as storms, earthquakes, diseases, &c.: so they
declared that such things happen, because the gods are angry at
some wrong done to them by men, or at some fault committed in
their worship. Experience day by day protested and showed by
infinite examples, that good and evil fortunes fall to the lot
of pious and impious alike; still they would not abandon their
inveterate prejudice, for it was more easy for them to class such
contradictions among other unknown things of whose use they were
ignorant, and thus to retain their actual and innate condition
of ignorance, than to destroy the whole fabric of their reasoning
and start afresh. They therefore laid down as an axiom, that
God's judgments far transcend human understanding. Such a
doctrine might well have sufficed to conceal the truth from the
human race for all eternity, if mathematics had not furnished
another standard of verity in considering solely the essence and
properties of figures without regard to their final causes.
There are other reasons (which I need not mention here) besides
mathematics, which might have caused men's minds to be directed
to these general prejudices, and have led them to the knowledge
of the truth.
I have now sufficiently explained my first point. There is no
need to show at length, that nature has no particular goal in
view, and that final causes are mere human figments. This, I
think, is already evident enough, both from the causes and
foundations on which I have shown such prejudice to be based,
and also from Prop. xvi., and the Corollary of Prop. xxxii.,
and, in fact, all those propositions in which I have shown, that
everything in nature proceeds from a sort of necessity, and with
the utmost perfection. However, I will add a few remarks in
order to overthrow this doctrine of a final cause utterly. That
which is really a cause it considers as an effect, and vice
versa: it makes that which is by nature first to be last, and
that which is highest and most perfect to be most imperfect.
Passing over the questions of cause and priority as
self-evident, it is plain from Props. xxi., xxii., xxiii. that
the effect is most perfect which is produced immediately by God;
the effect which requires for its production several
intermediate causes is, in that respect, more imperfect. But if
those things which were made immediately by God were made to
enable him to attain his end, then the things which come after,
for the sake of which the first were made, are necessarily the
most excellent of all.
Further, this doctrine does away with the perfection of God:
for, if God acts for an object, he necessarily desires something
which he lacks. Certainly, theologians and metaphysicians draw
a distinction between the object of want and the object of
assimilation; still they confess that God made all things for
the sake of himself, not for the sake of creation. They are
unable to point to anything prior to creation, except God
himself, as an object for which God should act, and are
therefore driven to admit (as they clearly must), that God
lacked those things for whose attainment he created means, and
further that he desired them.
We must not omit to notice that the followers of this doctrine,
anxious to display their talent in assigning final causes, have
imported a new method of argument in proof of their
theory--namely, a reduction, not to the impossible, but to
ignorance; thus showing that they have no other method of
exhibiting their doctrine. For example, if a stone falls from a
roof onto someone's head, and kills him, they will demonstrate
by their new method, that the stone fell in order to kill the
man; for, if it had not by God's will fallen with that object,
how could so many circumstances (and there are often many
concurrent circumstances) have all happened together by chance?
Perhaps you will answer that the event is due to the facts that
the wind was blowing, and the man was walking that way. "But
why," they will insist, "was the wind blowing, and why was the
man at that very time walking that way?" If you again answer,
that the wind had then sprung up because the sea had begun to be
agitated the day before, the weather being previously calm, and
that the man had been invited by a friend, they will again
insist: "But why was the sea agitated, and why was the man
invited at that time?" So they will pursue their questions from
cause to cause, till at last you take refuge in the will of
God--in other words, the sanctuary of ignorance. So, again,
when they survey the frame of the human body, they are amazed;
and being ignorant of the causes of so great a work of art,
conclude that it has been fashioned, not mechanically, but by
divine and supernatural skill, and has been so put together that
one part shall not hurt another.
Hence anyone who seeks for the true causes of miracles, and
strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being,
and not to gaze at them like a fool, is set down and denounced
as an impious heretic by those, whom the masses adore as the
interpreters of nature and the gods. Such persons know that,
with the removal of ignorance, the wonder which forms their only
available means for proving and preserving their authority would
vanish also. But I now quit this subject, and pass on to my
third point.
After men persuaded themselves, that everything which is created
is created for their sake, they were bound to consider as the
chief quality in everything that which is most useful to
themselves, and to account those things the best of all which
have the most beneficial effect on mankind. Further, they were
bound to form abstract notions for the explanation of the nature
of things, such as goodness, badness, order, confusion, warmth,
cold, beauty, deformity, and so on; and from the belief that
they are free agents arose the further notions of praise and
blame, sin and merit.
I will speak of these latter hereafter, when I treat of human
nature; the former I will briefly explain here.
Everything which conduces to health and the worship of God they
have called good, everything which hinders these objects they
have styled bad; and inasmuch as those who do not understand the
nature of things do not verify phenomena in any way, but merely
imagine them after a fashion, and mistake their imagination for
understanding, such persons firmly believe that there is an
order in things, being really ignorant both of things and their
own nature. When phenomena are of such a kind, that the
impression they make on our senses requires little effort of
imagination, and can consequently be easily remembered, we say
that they are well-ordered; if the contrary, that they are
ill-ordered or confused. Further, as things which are easily
imagined are more pleasing to us, men prefer order to
confusion--as though there were any order in nature, except in
relation to our imagination--and say that God has created all
things in order; thus, without knowing it, attributing
imagination to God, unless, indeed, they would have it that God
foresaw human imagination, and arranged everything, so that it
should be most easily imagined. If this be their theory, they
would not, perhaps, be daunted by the fact that we find an
infinite number of phenomena, far surpassing our imagination,
and very many others which confound its weakness. But enough
has been said on this subject. The other abstract notions are
nothing but modes of imagining, in which the imagination is
differently affected: though they are considered by the
ignorant as the chief attributes of things, inasmuch as they
believe that everything was created for the sake of themselves;
and, according as they are affected by it, style it good or bad,
healthy or rotten or corrupt. For instance, if the motion which
objects we see communicate to our nerves be conducive to health,
the objects causing it are styled beautiful; if a contrary motion
be excited, they are styled ugly.
Things which are perceived through our sense of smell are styled
fragrant or fetid; if through our taste, sweet or bitter,
full-flavored or insipid; if through our touch, hard or soft,
rough or smooth, &c.
Whatsoever affects our ears is said to give rise to noise, sound,
or harmony. In this last case, there are men lunatic enough to
believe, that even God himself takes pleasure in harmony; and
philosophers are not lacking who have persuaded themselves, that
the motion of the heavenly bodies gives rise to harmony--all of
which instances sufficiently show that everyone judges of things
according to the state of his brain, or rather mistakes for
things the forms of his imagination. We need no longer wonder
that there have arisen all the controversies we have witnessed,
and finally skepticism: for, although human bodies in many
respects agree, yet in very many others they differ; so that what
seems good to one seems confused to another; what is pleasing to
one displeases another, and so on. I need not further
enumerate, because this is not the place to treat the subject at
length, and also because the fact is sufficiently well known.
It is commonly said: "So many men, so many minds; everyone is
wise in his own way; brains differ as completely as palates."
All of which proverbs show, that men judge of things according
to their mental disposition, and rather imagine than understand:
for, if they understood phenomena, they would, as
mathematicians attest, be convinced, if not attracted, by what I
have urged.
We have now perceived, that all the explanations commonly given
of nature are mere modes of imagining, and do not indicate the
true nature of anything, but only the constitution of the
imagination; and, although they have names, as though they were
entities, existing externally to the imagination, I call them
entities imaginary rather than real; and, therefore, all
arguments against us drawn from such abstractions are easily
rebutted.
Many argue in this way. If all things follow from a necessity of
the absolutely perfect nature of God, why are there so many
imperfections in nature? such, for instance, as things corrupt
to the point of putridity, loathsome deformity, confusion, evil,
sin, &c. But these reasoners are, as I have said, easily
confuted, for 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 are serviceable or repugnant to
mankind. To those who ask why God did not so create all men,
that they should be governed only by reason, I give no answer
but this: because matter was not lacking to him for the creation
of every degree of perfection from highest to lowest; or, more
strictly, because the laws of his nature are so vast, as to
suffice for the production of everything conceivable by an
infinite intelligence, as I have shown in Prop. xvi.
Such are the misconceptions I have undertaken to note; if there
are any more of the same sort, everyone may easily dissipate
them for himself with the aid of a little reflection.