The Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza (free ebook novel .txt) 📕

contains in himself the essence of the given mind alone, but as

he, at the same time, contains the minds of other things. Again,

from any given idea some effect must necessarily follow (I. 36) ;

of this effect God is the adequate cause (III. Def. i.), not

inasmuch as he is infinite, but inasmuch as he is conceived as

affected by the given idea (II. ix.). But of that effect whereof

God is the cause, inasmuch as he is affected by an idea which is

adequate in a given mind, of that effect, I repeat, the mind in

question is the adequate cause (II. xi. Coroll.). Therefore our

mind, in so far as it has adequate ideas (III. Def. ii.), is in

certain cases necessarily active ; this was our first point.

Again, whatsoever necessarily follows from the idea which is

adequate in God, not by virtue of his possessing in himself the

mind of one man only, but by virtue of his containing, together

with the mind of that one man, the minds of other things also, of

such an effect (II. xi. Coroll.) the mind of the given man is not

an adequate, but only a partial cause ; thus (III. Def. ii.) the

mind, inasmuch as it has inadequate ideas, is in certain cases

necessarily passive ; this was our second point. Therefore our

mind, &c. Q.E.D.

Corollary.-Hence it follows that the mind is more or less

liable to be acted upon, in proportion as it possesses inadequate

ideas, and, contrariwise, is more or less active in proportion as

it possesses adequate ideas.

PROP. II. Body cannot determine mind to think, neither can mind

determine body to motion or rest or any state different from

these, if such there be.

Proof.-All modes of thinking have for their cause God, by

virtue of his being a thinking thing, and not by virtue of his

being displayed under any other attribute (II. vi.). That,

therefore, which determines the mind to thought is a mode of

thought, and not a mode of extension ; that is (II. Def. i.), it

is not body. This was our first point. Again, the motion and

rest of a body must arise from another body, which has also been

determined to a state of motion or rest by a third body, and

absolutely everything which takes place in a body must spring

from God, in so far as he is regarded as affected by some mode of

extension, and not by some mode of thought (II. vi.) ; that is,

it cannot spring from the mind, which is a mode of thought. This

was our second point. Therefore body cannot determine mind, &c.

Q.E.D.

Note.-This is made more clear by what was said in the note to

II. vii., namely, that mind and body are one and the same thing,

conceived first under the attribute of thought, secondly, under

the attribute of extension. Thus it follows that the order or

concatenation of things is identical, whether nature be conceived

under the one attribute or the other ; consequently the order of

states of activity and passivity in our body is simultaneous in

nature with the order of states of activity and passivity in the

mind. The same conclusion is evident from the manner in which we

proved II. xii.

Nevertheless, though such is the case, and though there be no

further room for doubt, I can scarcely believe, until the fact is

proved by experience, that men can be induced to consider the

question calmly and fairly, so firmly are they convinced that it

is merely at the bidding of the mind, that the body is set in

motion or at rest, or performs a variety of actions depending

solely on the mind’s will or the exercise of thought. However,

no one has hitherto laid down the limits to the powers of the

body, that is, no one has as yet been taught by experience what

the body can accomplish solely by the laws of nature, in so far

as she is regarded as extension. No one hitherto has gained such

an accurate knowledge of the bodily mechanism, that he can

explain all its functions ; nor need I call attention to the fact

that many actions are observed in the lower animals, which far

transcend human sagacity, and that somnambulists do many things

in their sleep, which they would not venture to do when awake :

these instances are enough to show, that the body can by the sole

laws of its nature do many things which the mind wonders at.

Again, no one knows how or by what means the mind moves the

body, nor how many various degrees of motion it can impart to the

body, nor how quickly it can move it. Thus, when men say that

this or that physical action has its origin in the mind, which

latter has dominion over the body, they are using words without

meaning, or are confessing in specious phraseology that they are

ignorant of the cause of the said action, and do not wonder at

it.

But, they will say, whether we know or do not know the means

whereby the mind acts on the body, we have, at any rate,

experience of the fact that unless the human mind is in a fit

state to think, the body remains inert. Moreover, we have

experience, that the mind alone can determine whether we speak or

are silent, and a variety of similar states which, accordingly,

we say depend on the mind’s decree. But, as to the first point,

I ask such objectors, whether experience does not also teach,

that if the body be inactive the mind is simultaneously unfitted

for thinking? For when the body is at rest in sleep, the mind

simultaneously is in a state of torpor also, and has no power of

thinking, such as it possesses when the body is awake. Again, I

think everyone’s experience will confirm the statement, that the

mind is not at all times equally fit for thinking on a given

subject, but according as the body is more or less fitted for

being stimulated by the image of this or that object, so also is

the mind more or less fitted for contemplating the said object.

But, it will be urged, it is impossible that solely from the

laws of nature considered as extended substance, we should be

able to deduce the causes of buildings, pictures, and things of

that kind, which are produced only by human art ; nor would the

human body, unless it were determined and led by the mind, be

capable of building a single temple. However, I have just

pointed out that the objectors cannot fix the limits of the

body’s power, or say what can be concluded from a consideration

of its sole nature, whereas they have experience of many things

being accomplished solely by the laws of nature, which they would

never have believed possible except under the direction of mind :

such are the actions performed by somnambulists while asleep, and

wondered at by their performers when awake. I would further call

attention to the mechanism of the human body, which far surpasses

in complexity all that has been put together by human art, not to

repeat what I have already shown, namely, that from nature, under

whatever attribute she be considered, infinite results follow.

As for the second objection, I submit that the world would be

much happier, if men were as fully able to keep silence as they

are to speak. Experience abundantly shows that men can govern

anything more easily than their tongues, and restrain anything

more easily than their appetites ; when it comes about that many

believe, that we are only free in respect to objects which we

moderately desire, because our desire for such can easily be

controlled by the thought of something else frequently

remembered, but that we are by no means free in respect to what

we seek with violent emotion, for our desire cannot then be

allayed with the remembrance of anything else. However, unless

such persons had proved by experience that we do many things

which we afterwards repent of, and again that we often, when

assailed by contrary emotions, see the better and follow the

worse, there would be nothing to prevent their believing that we

are free in all things. Thus an infant believes that of its own

free will it desires milk, an angry child believes that it freely

desires vengeance, a timid child believes that it freely desires

to run away ; further, a drunken man believes that he utters from

the free decision of his mind words which, when he is sober, he

would willingly have withheld : thus, too, a delirious man, a

garrulous woman, a child, and others of like complexion, believe

that they speak from the free decision of their mind, when they

are in reality unable to restrain their impulse to talk.

Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men

believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious

of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those

actions are determined ; and, further, it is plain that the

dictates of the mind are but another name for the appetites, and

therefore vary according to the varying state of the body.

Everyone shapes his actions according to his emotion, those who

are assailed by conflicting emotions know not what they wish ;

those who are not attacked by any emotion are readily swayed this

way or that. All these considerations clearly show that a mental

decision and a bodily appetite, or determined state, are

simultaneous, or rather are one and the same thing, which we call

decision, when it is regarded under and explained through the

attribute of thought, and a conditioned state, when it is

regarded under the attribute of extension, and deduced from the

laws of motion and rest. This will appear yet more plainly in

the sequel. For the present I wish to call attention to another

point, namely, that we cannot act by the decision of the mind,

unless we have a remembrance of having done so. For instance, we

cannot say a word without remembering that we have done so.

Again, it is not within the free power of the mind to remember or

forget a thing at will. Therefore the freedom of the mind must

in any case be limited to the power of uttering or not uttering

something which it remembers. But when we dream that we speak,

we believe that we speak from a free decision of the mind, yet we

do not speak, or, if we do, it is by a spontaneous motion of the

body. Again, we dream that we are concealing something, and we

seem to act from the same decision of the mind as that, whereby

we keep silence when awake concerning something we know. Lastly,

we dream that from the free decision of our mind we do something,

which we should not dare to do when awake.

Now I should like to know whether there be in the mind two

sorts of decisions, one sort illusive, and the other sort free?

If our folly does not carry us so far as this, we must

necessarily admit, that the decision of the mind, which is

believed to be free, is not distinguishable from the imagination

or memory, and is nothing more than the affirmation, which an

idea, by virtue of being an idea, necessarily involves (II.

xlix.). Wherefore these decisions of the mind arise in the mind

by the same necessity, as the ideas of things actually existing.

Therefore those who believe, that they speak or keep silence or

act in any way from the free decision of their mind, do but dream

with their eyes open.