SPINOZA’S correspondence in this period is dominated by the figure of Willem van Blijenbergh (1632-1696), not, it must be admitted, one of Spinoza’s most acute correspondents. A grain broker by profession, van Blijenbergh was already an author himself when his reading of Descartes’ Principles and the Metaphysical Thoughts prompted him to write to Spinoza. In 1663 he had published a work whose title alone suggests how little he and Spinoza really had in common:
Theology and Religion defended against the views of Atheists, wherein it is shown by natural and clear arguments that God has implanted and revealed a Religion, that God wants to be worshipped in accordance with it, and that the Christian Religion not only agrees with the Religion revealed by God but also with the Reason which is implanted in us.
In 1674 he was to write a defense of the Christian religion and of the authority of Holy Scripture against the arguments of the irreligious—“a refutation of that blasphemous book called the Theological-Political Treatise.” In 1682 there followed a ‘refutation’ of the Ethics.
Van Blijenbergh is a tedious fellow, obscure, repetitious, and slow to see the point. His doctrine that Scripture must be the ultimate authority (IV/96-98) is not a very promising basis for discussion with Spinoza. But he is not an utter fool. Some of his difficulties arise from the fact that in the beginning he knows Spinoza only through a work which is primarily an exposition of the thought of Descartes. Although there are many hints in that work of Spinoza’s own position, it is much easier to see their implications if you know the Ethics, or the Short Treatise. In any case, the basic questions he raises are important: is there such a thing as evil? if so, how is it compatible with God’s creation and continual conservation of the world? what does it mean to say that evil is only a negation in relation to God? what sense can Spinoza attach to the traditional language of theology which he persists in using? how can we distinguish between Spinoza’s own views and Descartes’ in the geometrical demonstration and its appendix? what does Spinoza’s view about the relation between mind and body imply about the immortality of the soul? While we may sympathize with Spinoza for losing his patience with van Blijenbergh, we cannot help wishing that he had been as forthcoming and instructive in his answers to some of these questions as he was to others.
Apart from the philosophical interest these letters contain, they may also have had an important effect on Spinoza’s life. We know from occasional remarks in the correspondence that the bulk of the Ethics was written between about 1662 and 1665. A draft of Part I was evidently circulating by early 1663 (Letter 8) and a draft of the final part, called at that stage Part III, was nearly ready to circulate by June of 1665 (Letter 28). In mid-1663 Spinoza had interrupted his work on the Ethics to write Descartes’ Principles and the Metaphysical Thoughts, in the hope that this work would arouse interest in the Ethics and allow him to publish it safely (Letter 13). The reference to his Ethics as “not yet published” (Letter 23, IV/151) and the plans for a Dutch translation (Letter 28) suggest that by mid-1665 he was nearly ready to go ahead.
But the next letters in the correspondence, which are reserved for Volume II, indicate a change of focus. A lost letter to Oldenburg of 4 September 1665 prompts its recipient to remark that Spinoza is not so much philosophizing as theologizing: “You are recording your thoughts about Angels, prophecy and miracles. But perhaps you are doing this philosophically.” (Letter 29, IV/165) In the following letter Spinoza announces that he is writing a treatise on his judgment regarding Scripture. Among the reasons he gives for doing this are:
(1) The prejudices of the theologians, for I know of no greater obstacle to men’s applying their minds to philosophy.…
(2) The opinion ordinary people have of me. They never stop accusing me of atheism, and I am forced to rebut this accusation as much as I can.… (Letter 30, IV/166)
It will be years before we hear more of the Ethics in the correspondence.
Now why does Spinoza put to one side a treatise he thinks of as nearly finished in order to start on another, which, as it turns out, will take some five years to complete? Note that I am not asking “Why did Spinoza feel it worthwhile to write the Theological-Political Treatise at all?” The answer to that involves a complicated story, having much to do with political and social conditions in the Netherlands at that time.1 I ask, instead, “Why did Spinoza defer publication of the one (nearly finished) work until after he had published the other?” And I conjecture that the correspondence with van Blijenbergh may have been a factor, that Spinoza may have come to think that the time was not yet ripe for his Ethics, that another work was required which would help to further prepare the way for the Ethics by freeing people from their reliance on Scripture as a guide to the truth about speculative matters. If that was his motivation, then Spinoza badly misjudged his public. For the Theological-Political Treatise generated a storm which made publication of the Ethics virtually impossible, not easier.
Apart from van Blijenbergh, there are two other new correspondents in this period:
(1) Pieter Balling (b. ?; d. c. 1664-1669) was a Mennonite and the agent in Amsterdam of various Spanish merchants. As a result he knew Spanish well. That is one reason for the suspicion that Letter 17 may have been written originally in Spanish.2 A work entitled The Light on the Candlestick (1662), which “attacked dogmatism and advocated a simple religion based on the inward light of the soul,” has been attributed to him, but there is some doubt about the accuracy of this attribution.3 He was, in any case, the translator into Dutch of Descartes’ Principles and the Metaphysical Thoughts, and perhaps of other works as well.4
(2) Johannes Bouwmeester (1630-1680) was a close friend both of Lodewijk Meyer and of Spinoza. Trained in medicine and philosophy at the University of Leiden, he was a fellow member with Meyer of the society Nil volentibus arduum and codirector of the Amsterdam theater in 1677. On commission from that society he translated (from a Latin translation, not from the Arabic) Ibn Tophail’s novel, The Life of Hai Ibn Yokdan, a work which purported to show how one could attain knowledge of oneself and of God, without any association with other people or instruction.5
For Letters 17, 25, and 26 our only sources are the OP and the NS. In each of those cases I translate the OP text, as reproduced in Gebhardt. Letter 28 (a draft of the letter actually sent) was known to the editors of the OP, but omitted by them as being of no value, so our only source there is the draft itself, reproduced in Gebhardt.
For the correspondence with van Blijenbergh the situation is more complicated. The OP and NS published four letters from van Blijenbergh to Spinoza (18, 20, 22, and 24). Of these we possess autographs of the last three, which Gebhardt reproduces (not too exactly) at the top of the page, with the OP text underneath. In these cases I translate the autograph text, as emended by AHW. Gebhardt gives priority to the NS text of Letter 18, which is the text I translate.
There are also four letters from Spinoza to van Blijenbergh (19, 21, 23, and 27). Of these, we possess autographs of the last two. Gebhardt does not give priority to the autographs, since he takes Spinoza to be responsible for the Latin translation which appeared in the OP, but he does print them below the OP text. I translate Gebhardt’s autograph text, as emended by AHW. In the case of Letter 21 we are dependent on the OP and the NS. I translate the OP text, which is the only one Gebhardt reproduces. For Letter 19, our sources are the OP, the NS and François Halma, who published a copy of the original in De boekzaal der geleerde wereld, an eighteenth-century periodical. Since Halma also published a copy of Letter 27, of which we possess an autograph, we can establish that his work was trustworthy. I translate Halma’s text, which Gebhardt reproduces below the OP text. For Letter 27, I translate the autograph text, though Gebhardt gives priority to the OP text.
Dear friend,
Your last letter, written, if I am not mistaken, on the 26th of last month, has reached me safely. It has caused me no little sadness and anxiety, though that has greatly decreased as I consider the prudence [10] and strength of character with which you are able to scorn the blows of fortune, or rather opinion, when they attack you with their strongest weapons. For all that, my anxiety increases daily, and therefore by our friendship I beseech and implore you to take the trouble to write to me at length.
[15] As for the omens you mention—that when your child was still healthy and well, you heard sighs like those he made when he was ill and shortly afterwards passed away—I should think that this was not a true sigh, but only your imagination. For you say that when you sat up and set yourself to listen, you did not hear them so clearly as [20] before, or as afterwards, when you had gone back to sleep. Surely this shows that those sighs were only sheer imagination, which, when it was unfettered and free, was able to imagine certain sighs more effectively and vividly than when you sat up to focus your hearing on a certain place.
I can confirm, and at the same time explain, what I say here by an [25] incident that happened to me last winter in Rijnsburg.2 One morning, as the sky was already growing light, I woke from a very deep dream to find that the images which had come to me in my dream remained before my eyes as vividly as if the things had been true—especially [the image] of a certain black, scabby Brazilian whom I had never seen [IV/77] before. For the most part this image disappeared when, to divert myself with something else, I fixed my eyes on a book or some other object. But as soon as I turned my eyes back away from such an object without fixing my eyes attentively on anything, the same image of the [5] same Black man appeared to me with the same vividness, alternately, until it gradually disappeared from my visual field.
I say that the same thing which happened to me in my internal sense of vision happened to you in hearing. But since the cause was very different, your case, but not mine, was an omen. You will understand this clearly from what follows.
[10] The effects of the imagination arise from the constitution either of the Body or of the Mind. To avoid being tedious, I shall prove this for now by experience alone. We find by experience that fevers and other corporeal changes are causes of madness, and that those whose blood is thick imagine nothing but quarrels, troubles, killings, and [15] things like these. We see that the imagination is also determined by the constitution of the soul alone; for as we find by experience, it follows the traces of the intellect in everything and links its images and words together in order, as the intellect does its demonstrations, so that we can hardly understand anything of which the imagination [20] does not form some image from a trace.
Because of this, I say, none of the effects of the imagination which proceed from corporeal causes can ever be omens of future things, because their causes do not involve any future things. But the effects of the imagination (or the images which have their origin in the constitution [25] of the Mind) can be omens of a future thing, because the Mind can confusedly be aware, beforehand, of something which is future. Hence it can imagine it as firmly and vividly as if a thing of that kind were present.
To take an example like yours, a father so loves his son that he and his beloved son are, as it were, one and the same. According to what [30] I have demonstrated on another occasion, there must be in thought an idea of the son’s essence, its affections, and its consequences. Because of this, and because the father, by the union he has with his son, is a part of the said son, the father’s soul must necessarily participate in the son’s ideal essence, its affections, and consequences (as I have demonstrated [35] elsewhere at greater length).
[IV/78] Next, since the father’s soul participates ideally in the things which follow from the son’s essence, he (as I have said) can sometimes imagine something of what follows from [the son’s] essence as vividly as if he had it in his presence—if, at least, the following conditions concur: [5] (i) If the incident which will happen to the son in the course of his life will be remarkable; (ii) if it will be of the kind that we can imagine very easily; (iii) if the time when this incident will happen is not very remote; and finally (iv) if his body is not only well constituted as regards health, but also free and void of all cares and troubles that disturb the senses externally.
[10] It can also be of assistance in this if we think of those things which for the most part arouse ideas like these. For example, if, while we are speaking with this or that man, we hear sighs, it will generally happen that when we think again of that same man, the sighs we heard when we spoke with him will come into our memory.
[15] This, dear friend, is my opinion about the Problem you raise. I confess I have been very brief, but intentionally, so that I might give you an occasion for writing back to me at the first opportunity, etc.
Voorburg, 20 July 1664
Sir and unknown friend,
I have now had the honor of reading through, frequently and attentively, your recently published Treatise, together with its Appendix.3 It will be more proper for me to express to someone else, rather than [10] yourself, the great solidity I have found there and the satisfaction I have received from this reading. But I cannot refrain from saying that the more often I run through it attentively, the more it pleases me. I continually find something there I had not noticed before. However, [15] having no wish to seem a flatterer, I do not want to marvel too much at the author in this letter. I know what price in toil the gods exact for what they give.4
But lest I keep you wondering too long who it is, and how it happens [IV/80] that someone unknown dares to take such liberty in writing to you, I shall tell you that he is one who, driven only by a desire for pure truth in this short and transitory life, strives to plant his feet [5] firmly in knowledge, as far as the human intellect allows, someone who, in his search for truth, has no other end than the truth, who seeks to acquire, by science, neither honor nor riches, but only truth, and peace of mind as an effect of truth, who, among all truths and [10] sciences, takes pleasure in none more than in those of Metaphysics (if not in all of it, then at least in some of its parts), and who finds his whole life’s pleasure in devoting what free time he has to its study. (But not everyone is so fortunate, or not everyone is so industrious as [15] I imagine you to be, and so not everyone attains the level of perfection I see already in your work.) In a word, it is one whom you will be able to know better, if you are willing to oblige him so much as to help open and pierce through his tangled thoughts.
But to return to your Treatise. As I have found many things in it [20] which were very palatable to me, so also have I found some I could [IV/81] not easily digest. Not knowing you, it would not be right for me to object to them, all the more because I do not know whether this will be pleasing to you or not. So I send this ahead, to ask whether, on [5] these winter evenings, you will have the time and the disposition to oblige me so much as to answer the difficulties I still find in your Book, and whether you will let me send you some of them, though on the condition that it should not hinder you in your more necessary and pleasant pursuits.
[10] For above all else I want what is promised in your Book, a fuller publication of your own views. (I would rather have communicated to you in person what I at last entrust to writing, but first my ignorance of where you lived, then the epidemic, and finally my profession have [15] caused me to keep postponing a visit to you.)
But that this letter may not be entirely empty, and in the hope that it will be agreeable to you, I shall present only this one [difficulty] here. Both in the Principles and in the Metaphysical Thoughts you generally [20] maintain—whether as your own opinion or to explain M. Descartes, [IV/82] whose Philosophy you were teaching—that creation and preservation are one and the same thing (which is so clear in itself, for those who have thought about it, that it is a first notion) and that God [5] has created not only substances, but also the motions in substances, i.e., that God not only preserves substances in their state by a continuous creation, but also preserves their motion and striving. For example, God not only makes the Soul exist longer and persevere in its state by his immediate willing or activity (whichever one is pleased to [10] call it), but that he also stands in a like relation to the motion of the Soul, i.e., as God’s continuous creation makes things exist longer, so also the striving or motion of things happens in them by the same [15] cause, since outside God there is no cause of motion. So it follows that God is the cause not only of the Soul’s substance, but also of the Soul’s every Motion or Striving, which we call will, as you maintain throughout.
From this assertion it also seems to follow necessarily, either that [20] there is no evil in the Soul’s motion or will, or else that God himself does that evil immediately. For the things we call evil also happen [IV/83] through the Soul, and consequently through such an immediate influence and concurrence of God. For example, Adam’s Soul wants to eat the forbidden fruit. According to the proposition above, that will of Adam happens through God’s influence—not only that [Adam] wills, [5] but that he wills in this way, as will be shown immediately. So either Adam’s forbidden act is no evil in itself, insofar as God not only moved his will, but also moved it in such a way, or else God himself seems to do what we call evil.
Nor does it seem to me that either you or M. Descartes solve this [10] problem by saying that evil is a nonbeing [I/262/20], with which God does not concur. For where, then, did the will to eat come from? Or the Devil’s will to pride? As you rightly note [I/279/28], the will is not something different from the Soul, but is this or that motion or striving [15] of the Soul. Hence, it has as much need of God’s concurrence for the one motion as for the other.
Now as I understand it from your writings [I/274/14ff.?], God’s concurrence is nothing but a determining of the thing in this or that way by his will. It follows, then, that God concurs with (that is, determines) the evil will, insofar as it is evil, as much as the good. For [20] his will, which is an absolute cause of everything that exists, both in [IV/84] the substance and in the striving, seems then to be also a first cause of the evil will insofar as it is evil.
Next, there is no determination of the will in us which God has not [5] known from eternity (unless we ascribe an imperfection to God). But how did God know those determinations except from his decrees? Therefore, his decrees are causes of our determinations. So it seems again to follow either that the evil will is no evil, or that God causes that evil immediately.
[10] And here the Theologians’ distinction between the act and the evil adhering to the act cannot be applied. For God has decreed not only the deed, but also the manner of the deed, i.e., God has decreed not only that Adam shall eat, but also that he shall necessarily do so contrary to the command. So again it seems to follow either that Adam’s eating the apple contrary to the command is no evil, or that God [15] himself caused it.
For the present, Worthy Sir, I mention only this, of the things I cannot penetrate in your Treatise. For the extremes on both sides are hard to maintain. But I expect from your penetrating judgment and [20] diligence a reply that will satisfy me, and I hope to show you in the [IV/85] future how much you will thereby put me under obligation to you.
Be assured, Worthy Sir, that I ask these things only from a desire for the truth, not from any other Interest. I am a free person, not [5] dependent on any profession, supporting myself by honest trade and devoting my spare time to these matters. I also humbly ask you to find pleasure in my difficulties, and if you are of a mind to write me the answer I look forward to so anxiously, please write to W.v.B. etc. [10] Meanwhile, I shall be and remain, sir,
Your devoted servant,
Willem van Blijenbergh
Dordrecht, 12 December 1664
Reply to the preceding
Sir, and very welcome friend,
I did not receive your letter of the 12th (enclosed with another of [20] the 21st of December) until the 26th of that month, while I was at Schiedam. From it I learned of your great love for the truth, and that it alone is the object of all your inclinations. Since I too aim at nothing else, this made me resolve not only to grant completely your request (that I should be willing to answer, to the best of my ability, the [25] questions you send now and will send in the future), but also to do everything on my part to bring us to a closer acquaintance and genuine friendship.
To me, of the things outside my power, I esteem none more than [IV/87] being allowed the honor of entering into a pact of friendship with people who sincerely love the truth; for I believe that of things outside [20] our power we can love none tranquilly, except such people. Because the love they bear to one another is based on the love each has for knowledge of the truth, it is as impossible to destroy it as not to embrace the truth once it has been perceived. Moreover, it is the greatest [25] and most pleasant that can be given to things outside our power, since nothing but truth can completely unite different opinions and minds. I shall not describe the very considerable advantages which follow from it, so as not to detain you longer with things you undoubtedly [30] well know yourself. I have done so up to now, the better to show how pleasant it is to me, and will be in the future, to be allowed the opportunity to show my ready service.
To seize the moment, I shall try to answer your question, which [35] turns on this: it seems clearly to follow, both from god’s providence, [IV/88] which does not differ from his will, and from his concurrence and continuous creation of things, either that there are no sins and no evil, [20] or that god does those sins and that evil. But you do not explain what you mean by evil. As far as I can see from the example of Adam’s determinate will, it appears that by evil you understand the will itself insofar as one conceives it to be determined in such a way, or insofar as it [25] would be contrary to god’s prohibition. And therefore it seems a great absurdity (as I too would grant, if it were so) to maintain either of these, i.e., that god himself produced things that were contrary to his will, or that they would be good, notwithstanding the fact that they were contrary to god’s will. But for myself, I cannot grant that sins [30] and evil are something positive, much less that something would exist or happen contrary to god’s will. On the contrary, I say not only that sin is not something positive, but also that when we say that we sin against god, we are speaking inaccurately, or in a human way, as we do when we say that men anger god.
[35] For regarding the first [that sin and evil are not something positive], [IV/89] we know that whatever there is, considered in itself, without relation to any other thing, involves perfection, which always extends, in each thing, as far as the thing’s essence does. For essence is nothing other [20] [than perfection]. As an example, I too take Adam’s decision, or determinate will, to eat the forbidden fruit. That decision, or determinate will, considered only in itself, involves as much perfection as it expresses of essence. We can understand this from the fact we can [25] conceive no imperfection in things unless we consider others which have more essence. Therefore, we will be able to find no imperfection in Adam’s decision, if we consider it in itself, without comparing it with others which are more perfect, or show a more perfect state. Indeed, we can compare it with infinitely many other things which [30] are much more imperfect in relation to that, such as stones, logs, etc. And in fact everyone grants this. For the same things we detest in men, and look on with aversion there, we all look on with admiration and pleasure in animals. For example, the warring of bees, the jealousy [35] of doves, etc. We detest these things in men, but we judge animals [IV/90] more perfect because of them. This being so, it follows clearly that sins, because they indicate nothing but imperfection, cannot consist in something that expresses essence, as Adam’s decision or its execution do.
Furthermore [regarding the second, that nothing exists or happens contrary to god’s will], we also cannot say that Adam’s will was in [25] conflict with god’s will, and that it was, therefore, evil, because it was displeasing to god. For apart from the fact that it would posit a great imperfection in god if anything happened contrary to his will, or if he wished for something he did not get, or if his nature were so limited that, like his creatures, he had sympathy with some things and an [30] antipathy for others—apart from all that, it would be completely contrary to the nature of god’s will. For because it does not differ from his intellect, it is as impossible for something to happen contrary to his will as it would be for something to happen contrary to his intellect. I.e., what would happen contrary to his will must be of such a nature that it conflicts with his intellect, like a square circle.
[35] So because the will or decision of Adam, considered in itself, was [IV/91] not evil, nor, properly speaking, contrary to god’s will, it follows that god can be its cause—indeed, according to the reasoning you call attention to, he must be—but not insofar as it was evil, for the evil that was in it was only a privation of a more perfect state, which Adam had to [25] lose through that act. It is certain that privation is nothing positive, and that it is said only in relation to our intellect, not in relation to god’s intellect. This arises because we express all the singular things of a kind (e.g., all those which have, externally, the shape of man) by [30] one and the same definition, and therefore we judge them all to be equally capable of the highest perfection which we can deduce from such a definition. When we find one whose acts are contrary to that perfection, we judge him to be deprived of it and to be deviating from [35] his nature. We would not do this, if we had not brought him under such a [IV/92] definition and fictitiously ascribed such a nature to him. But because god does not know things abstractly, and does not make such general definitions, because he does not attribute more essence to things than the divine intellect and power endow them with, and in fact give them, it [20] follows clearly that that privation can be said only in relation to our intellect, not in relation to god’s. By this, in my opinion, the problem is completely solved.
But to make the path smooth and to remove every objection, I must still answer the two following questions: (1) Why does Scripture say [25] that god wants the godless to repent, and why did he forbid Adam to eat of the tree when he had decided the opposite? (2) From what I say, it seems to follow that the godless, with their pride, greed, despair, etc., serve god as well as the pious do, with their legitimate self-esteem, [30] patience, love, etc., because they also follow god’s will.
To answer the first, I say that scripture, since it is intended mainly to serve ordinary people, continually speaks in a human fashion. For the people are not capable of understanding high matters. Therefore, I believe that [35] all the things which god has revealed to the prophets to be necessary [IV/93] for salvation are written in the manner of laws. And in this way the prophets wrote a whole parable. First, because god had revealed the [20] means to salvation and destruction, and was the cause of them, they represented him as a king and lawgiver. The means, which are nothing but causes, they called laws and wrote in the manner of laws. Salvation and destruction, which are nothing but effects which follow [25] from the means, they represented as reward and punishment. They have ordered all their words more according to this parable than according to the truth. Throughout they have represented god as a man, now angry, now merciful, now longing for the future, now seized by jealousy and suspicion, indeed even deceived by the devil. So the [30] Philosophers, and with them all those who are above the law, i.e., who follow virtue not as a law, but from love, because it is the best thing, should not be shocked by such words.
The prohibition to Adam, then, consisted only in this: god revealed to Adam that eating of that tree caused death, just as he also reveals [35] to us through the natural intellect that poison is deadly to us. And if [IV/94] you ask for what purpose he revealed it to him, I answer: to make him [20] that much more perfect in knowledge. So to ask god why he did not also give him a more perfect will is as absurd as to ask him why he did not give the circle all the properties of the sphere. This follows clearly from what is said above; I have also demonstrated it in IP15S [of Descartes’ Principles].
[25] As for the second difficulty, it is indeed true that the godless express God’s will in their fashion. But they are not on that account to be compared with the pious. For the more perfection a thing has, the more it has of godliness, and the more it expresses God’s perfection. [30] So since the pious have inestimably more perfection than the godless, their virtue cannot be compared with that of the godless. They lack the love of God which comes from knowledge of God and through which alone we are said, according to our human understanding, to be servants of God. Indeed, since they do not know God, they are [35] nothing but a tool in the hand of the master, that serves unknowingly, [IV/95] and is consumed in serving. The pious, on the other hand, serve knowingly, and become more perfect by serving.
[5] That, Sir, is all that I can now say in answer to your question. I wish for nothing more than that it may satisfy you. But if you still find some difficulty, I ask you to let me know it, to see whether I can remove it. For your part, you need not hesitate, but as long as it seems [10] to you that you are not satisfied, I want nothing more than to know the reasons for it, so that the truth may finally become evident.
I wish that I could write you in the language in which I was raised.5 Perhaps I could express my thoughts better. Please excuse it, correct [15] the mistakes yourself, and consider me
Your devoted Friend and Servanat,
B. de Spinoza
The Long Orchard
5 January 1665
I shall be at this address three or four weeks longer, and then I intend to return to Voorburg. I believe that I shall receive an answer from you before then, but if your occupations do not permit it, please write to Voorburg at the following address: To be delivered in the church lane, at the house of Mr. Daniel Tydeman, the painter.
Reply to the Preceding
Sir and worthy friend,
When I first received your letter and read through it quickly, I intended not only to reply immediately, but also to criticize many [10] things in it. But the more I read it, the less I found to object to in it. My pleasure in reading it was as great as my longing to see it had been.
Before I proceed to ask you to resolve certain other difficulties, you should know that I have two general rules according to which I always [15] try to philosophize: the clear and distinct conception of my intellect and the revealed word, or will, of God. According to the one I strive to be a lover of truth, according to the other, a Christian philosopher. [IV/97] Whenever it happens, after a long investigation, that my natural knowledge either seems to contradict this word, or is not easily reconciled with it, this word has so much authority with me that I suspect [5] the conceptions I imagine to be clear, rather than put them above and against the truth I think I find prescribed to me in that book. And no wonder, since I want to persist steadfastly in the belief that that word is the word of God, i.e., that it has proceeded from the highest [10] and most perfect God, who contains many more perfections than I can conceive, and who perhaps has willed to predicate of himself and of his works more perfections than I, with my finite intellect, can conceive today. I say ‘can conceive today,’ for it is possible that through my own action I have deprived myself of a greater perfection, and [15] therefore that, if I perhaps had that perfection of which I have been deprived by my own action, I would be able to conceive that everything that is presented and taught to us in that word agrees with the soundest conceptions of my mind. But since I now suspect myself of [20] having deprived myself of a better state through continued error, and since, as you maintain (Principles IP15), even our clearest knowledge [IV/98] still involves some imperfection, I rather incline toward that word, even without reason, merely on the ground that it has proceeded from the most perfect being (I presuppose this now, because the proof of it would be out of place or would take too long) and therefore I must [5] accept it.
If I should now judge your letter only by the guidance of my first rule, excluding the second, as if I did not have it, or as if it did not exist, I would have to grant a great many things (as I do, too) and [10] admire your penetrating Conceptions. But the second rule causes me to differ more from you. Within the limits imposed by a letter I shall examine your conceptions under the guidance of each of these rules.
First, according to the former rule, I have asked whether, from your [15] doctrines that creation and preservation are one and the same, and that God makes, not only things, but also the motions and modes of things, to persevere in their state (i.e., concurs with them), it does not seem to follow that there is no evil or that God himself does evil, relying [20] on this rule, that nothing can happen contrary to God’s will, otherwise it would involve an imperfection, or else the things God does (among [IV/99] which seem to be included those we call evil) would also have to be evil? But this also involves a Contradiction. However I turned, I could not avoid a Contradiction. Therefore I had recourse to you, who should [5] be the best interpreter of your own Conceptions.
In reply you say that you persist in that first presupposition, namely, that nothing happens, or can happen, contrary to God’s will. But then to the difficulty, whether God then does evil or not, you say that sin is [10] nothing positive, but also that we can only very improperly be said to sin against God. And in I, vi, of the Appendix, you say that “there is no absolute evil, as is manifest through itself.”6 But whatever exists, considered in itself, without relation to any other thing, involves perfection, which always extends [15] as far, in each thing, as the thing’s essence. Therefore it clearly follows that because sins denote nothing but imperfections, they cannot consist in something that expresses essence. If sin, evil, error, or whatever you please to call it, is nothing but the loss or the privation of a more perfect state, it [20] seems to follow, doesn’t it, that existing is neither an evil nor an imperfection, but that something evil can arise in the existing thing. For [IV/100] what is perfect will not lose a more perfect state through an equally perfect act, but through the fact that we incline toward something imperfect, because we do not sufficiently use the power given to us. [5] This you seem to call, not an evil, but a lesser good, because the things considered in themselves involve perfection. Furthermore, because, as you say, no more essence belongs to the things than the divine intellect and power have ascribed to them, and in fact given them, and therefore they can display no [10] more existence in their actions than they have received essence. For if I can bring about neither greater nor lesser acts than I have received existence,7 there can be no privation of a more perfect state. For if nothing happens contrary to God’s will, and if only as much happens as essence [15] has been given for, in what conceivable way can there be an evil, which you call the privation of a better state? How can anyone lose a more perfect state through an act so determined and dependent? So it seems to me that you must maintain one of two things: either [20] there is an evil, or if there is no evil, that there can be no privation of a better state. For that there is no evil, and that there is privation of [IV/101] a better state, seems to me to be a Contradiction.
But you will say, that in privation we decline from a more perfect state to a lesser good, not to an absolute evil. Still, you have taught me (Appendix I, iii) that we must not quarrel over words. So, whether [5] or not it may be called an absolute evil, I am not now disputing, but only whether the decline from a better to a worse state is not called by us, and may not rightly be called, a more evil state, or a state which is evil.
[10] But you will say that this evil state still contains much good. Still, I ask whether that man, who, through his imprudent act, caused the privation of a more perfect state, and consequently is now less than he was before, may not be called evil.
[15] To escape the above reasoning, since some difficulties still seem to remain concerning it, you say that there is indeed evil, and that there was indeed evil in Adam, but that it is not something positive, and is said only in relation to our intellect, and not in relation to God’s intellect; that that [evil] [20] is a privation in relation to us,8 but a negation in relation to God.
[IV/102] But let us examine here whether what you call evil, if it were evil only in relation to us, would be no evil, and next, whether evil, considered as what you maintain it to be, must be called only a negation in relation to God.
[5] The first question I seem to have already answered, to some extent, in what I said above. And though I granted that being less perfect than another being can posit no evil in me, because I can demand no better state from the creator, and it makes me differ only in degree, nevertheless I will not on that account be able to grant that, if I am [10] now more imperfect than I was before, and if I have brought this on myself through my own misdeed, I am not to that extent worse. I must acknowledge that I am worse. I.e., if I consider myself before I ever declined into imperfection, and compare myself then with others [15] who have more perfection than I, then that lesser perfection is no evil, but a lesser degree of good. But if I compare myself after I have declined from a more perfect state, and have deprived myself, through my own imprudence, of my first form, with which I came forth from the hand of my creator, in a more perfect form, then I must judge [20] myself to be more evil than before. For it was not the creator, but I [IV/103] myself, who brought me to this state. As you acknowledge, I had enough power to restrain myself from error.
The second question is whether evil, which you maintain to consist [5] in the privation of a better state, which not only Adam, but all of us have lost, by a hasty and disorderly act, whether in relation to God that evil is only a negation? To examine this soundly, we must see how you conceive of man and make him dependent on God before all error, and how you conceive of the same man after error.
[10] Before error you describe him as having no more essence than the divine intellect and power attributed to him, and in fact gave him. I.e., unless I misunderstand you, man can have neither more nor less perfection than God has endowed him with essence. That is to make [15] man dependent on God in the way the elements, stones, and plants are. But if that is your opinion, I cannot understand what is meant by the following:
Now, since the will is free to determine itself, it follows that we do have the power to contain our faculty of assenting within the limits of the intellect, [20] and so can bring it about that we do not fall into error.9
Does this not seem a contradiction, to make the will so free that it can [IV/104] restrain itself from error, and at the same time to make it so dependent on God that it can manifest neither more nor less perfection than God has given it essence?
[5] As for how you conceive of man after error, there you say that man has deprived himself of a more perfect state by a too hasty deed, namely, by not restraining his will within the limits of his intellect. But it seems to me that here (as also in the Principles) you ought to have shown in more detail the two extremes of this privation: what he [10] possessed before the privation and what he retained after the loss of that perfect condition (as you call it). You say what we have lost, but not what we have retained:
So the whole imperfection of error will consist solely in the privation of the best liberty, which is called error.10
[15] Let us examine both of these, as you maintain them.
You hold not only that there are such different modes of thinking in us, that we call some willings and others understandings, but also that between these there is such an order that we must not will things without first having a clear understanding of them. [OP: you affirm [20] also that] if we keep our will within the limits of our intellect, we shall never err, and finally that it is within our power to keep the will [IV/105] within the limits of the intellect.
When I reflect seriously on this, certainly one of two things must be true: either everything that has been maintained is a fiction, or else God has impressed this same order on us. But if God has impressed [5] that order on us, would it not be absurd to say that it happened for no purpose, and that God does not want us to have to observe and follow that order? For that would posit a contradiction in God. And if we must practice the order placed in us, how can we then be and [10] remain so dependent on God? For if no one has more or less perfection than he has received essence, and this power must be known from its effects, he who lets his will go beyond the limits of his intellect did not receive so much power from God, or else he would also put it into [15] effect. Consequently, he who errs must not have received from God the perfection of not being able to err, or he would never err. For according to what you maintain, there is always as much essence given as there is perfection produced.
Next, if God has given us so much essence that we are able to [20] maintain that order, as you hold that we can maintain it, and if we always produce as much perfection as we have essence, how does it [IV/106] happen that we transgress that order? How does it happen that we can transgress it, and that we do not always restrain the will within the limits of the intellect?
Thirdly, if, as I have shown above that you hold, I am so dependent [5] on God that I can restrain the will neither within, nor outside the intellect, unless God has first given me just so much essence, and has, through his will, first determined one or the other, how, if we consider this thoroughly, can I ever use this freedom of the will? Indeed, doesn’t it seem to posit a Contradiction in God, that he should give us an [10] order to restrain our will within the limits of our intellect, and not give us enough essence or perfection that we can put it into effect? And if, on your view, he has given us so much perfection, certainly we could never err. For we must produce as much perfection as we [15] have essence, and always display the power we are given in our actions. But our errors are a proof that we do not have such a power that is so dependent on God as you hold. So one of these two must be true, either that we are not so dependent on God, or that we do [20] not have in us the power of being able not to err. But on your view we have the power of not erring. Therefore, we can not be so dependent.
[IV/107] From what has been said, it seems to me now clear that it is impossible that evil, or being deprived of a better state, should be a negation in relation to God. For what is meant by being deprived, or losing a more perfect state? Is it not passing from more to less perfection, [5] and consequently, from more to less existence,11 and being placed by God in a certain measure of perfection and essence? Is that not to will that we can acquire no other state without his perfect knowledge, unless he had decided and willed otherwise? Is it possible that this [10] creature, produced by that omniscient and perfect being, who willed that it retain such a state of essence, indeed, a creature with which God is continually concurring to maintain it in that essence—is it possible that such a creature should decline in essence, i.e., become less perfect without God’s knowledge? This seems to me to involve an [15] absurdity.
Is it not absurd to say that Adam lost a more perfect state, and consequently was incapable of the order God had put in his soul, and that God had no knowledge of that loss and of that imperfection, no knowledge of how much perfection Adam had lost? Is it conceivable [20] that God would constitute a being so dependent that it would only [IV/108] produce such an action, and that then [this being] should lose a more perfect state through that action (of which, moreover, [God] would be an absolute cause) and that God should have no knowledge of it?
I grant that there is a distinction between the act and the evil adhering [5] to the act. But I cannot conceive that “evil in relation to God is a negation,” that God would know the act, determine it, concur with it, and yet that he would not know the evil that is in that act, nor know what outcome it would have. That seems to me to be impossible in God.
[10] Note, with me, that God concurs with my act of procreation with my wife, for that is something positive, and consequently, he has a clear knowledge of it. But insofar as I misuse that act with another woman, contrary to my promise and oath, evil accompanies that act. [15] What would be negative here in relation to God? Not that I perform that act of procreation, for insofar as it is something positive, God concurs with it. So the evil that accompanies the act must be only that, contrary to my agreement, or else to God’s prohibition, I do it with such a woman, with whom such an act is not allowed. But is it [20] really conceivable that God should know our actions, that he should concur with them, and that he should not know with whom we engage [IV/109] in those actions (particularly since God also concurs with the act of that woman with whom I transgress)? It seems hard to think this of God.
Consider the act of killing. Insofar as it is a positive act, God concurs [5] with it. But the effect of that act, i.e., the dissolution of a being and the destruction of God’s creature, he would not know—as if he did not know his own effects. (I fear that here I must not properly understand your meaning, for your conceptions seem to me too penetrating for you to commit such a grave error.)
[10] Perhaps you will reply that all those acts, as I represent them, are simply good, and that no evil accompanies them. But then I cannot grasp what it is that you call evil, on which the privation of a more perfect state follows. Also the whole world would then be put in an [15] eternal and lasting confusion, and we men would be made like the beasts. Just see what advantage such an opinion would bring the world.
You also reject the usual definition of man, but want to ascribe to each man only as much perfection of action as God in fact has given [20] him to exercise. But then I can’t see that you don’t maintain that the godless serve God with their acts as well as the godly do. Why? Because [IV/110] neither of them can perform actions more perfect than they have been given essence for, and than they show through their effects. And it doesn’t seem to me that you answer this question satisfactorily when you say:
[5] The more perfection a thing has, the more it has of godliness and the more it expresses God’s perfection. So since the pious have inestimably more perfection than the godless, their virtue cannot be compared with that of the godless … for the latter, like a tool in the hand of the master, serve unknowingly and are consumed in serving. The pious, on the other hand, serve knowingly [10] and are consumed in serving.12
This, however, is true of both, that they cannot do more. For the more perfection the one displays in comparison with the other, the more essence he has received in comparison with the other. Don’t the godless, then, serve God with their slight perfection as much as the [15] godly do? For on your view, God wants no more of the godless, otherwise he would have given them more essence. But he hasn’t given them more essence, as is evident from the effects. Therefore, he wants no more of them. And if each of them, in his species, does neither [20] more nor less than God wills, why should those who do less, but still as much as God desires of them, not please God as well as the godly?
[IV/111] Moreover, as on your view, we lose a more perfect state, by our imprudence, through the evil which accompanies the act, so you also seem to want to maintain that, by restraining our will within the limits [5] of our intellect, we not only remain as perfect as we are, but that we also become more perfect by serving. It seems to me to involve a contradiction, if we are so dependent on God that we can do neither more nor less than we have been given essence for, i.e., than God has [10] willed, and yet we can become worse through imprudence or better through prudence. So far as I can see, if man is as you describe him, the godless serve God with their actions as much as the godly do with theirs. And in this way, we are made as dependent on God as the [15] elements, Plants, stones, etc. What use is our intellect to us? What use, then, is that power of restraining our will within the limits of our understanding? Why has that order been impressed on us?
Consider, on the other side, what we deprive ourselves of, viz. the [20] anxious and serious meditation aimed at making ourselves perfect according to the rule of God’s perfection and according to the order he [IV/112] has impressed on us. We deprive ourselves of prayer and aspiration toward God, by which we have so often felt that we received extraordinary strength. We deprive ourselves of all religion, and all that hope, [5] all that satisfaction which await us from prayer and religion. For surely if God has no knowledge of evil, it is hardly credible that he will punish evil. What reason do I have for not eagerly committing all sorts of knavery (provided I can escape the judge). Why not enrich myself [10] through abominable means? Why should I not do, without making any distinction, whatever I like and the flesh inclines me towards?
You will say: because we must love virtue for its own sake. But how can I love virtue? So much essence and perfection has not been given me. And if I can take as much satisfaction from the one as from [15] the other, why should I make the effort to restrain my will within the limits of the intellect? Why not do what my passions lead me to? Why not secretly kill the man who gets in my way? See what an opening we give to all the godless, and to godlessness. We make ourselves like [20] logs, and all our actions just like the movements of a clock.
[IV/113] From what has been said, it seems to me that it is very hard to maintain that we can only improperly be said to sin against God. For what, then, is the significance of that power which is given to us to restrain our will within the limits of our intellect, so that when we [5] transgress it, we sin against that order?
Perhaps you will say: that is no sin against God, but only something against ourselves, for if we were properly said to sin against God, then we would also have to say that something happens contrary to God’s will. But that is impossible, on your view. Hence, sin is impossible [10] too. One of these two must be true: either that God wills that or that he does not will it. But if God wills it, how can it be evil in relation to us? And if he does not will it, then, on your view, it would not happen.
But though this, on your view, involves some absurdity, to admit, [15] for that reason, all the absurdities mentioned above seems very dangerous to me. Who knows whether, if we spent much meditation on it, we would not find an expedient to reconcile this in some measure?
With this I will conclude my examination of your letter according to the guidance of my first general rule. But before I pass to examining [20] it according to the second rule, I will mention here two more things which concern this Conception in your letter, both maintained by you in your Principles IP15.
[IV/114] First, you “affirm that we can retain the power of willing and judging within the limits of the intellect.”13 But I cannot absolutely grant this. For if that were true, then certainly, out of countlessly many [5] men, at least one would be found who would show through its effects that he had that power. Also, everyone can find in himself that, no matter how much of his power he exercises, he cannot reach that goal. And if anyone doubts this, let him examine himself and see how often, in spite of his own intellect, his passions master his reason, even when [10] he exerts the greatest force against them.
You will say that we don’t do that, not because it is impossible for us, but because we do not use enough diligence. To which I reply that if it were possible, wouldn’t we find at least one out of so many [15] thousands [who had done it]? But of all these men, there has been, or is, not even one who would dare boast of not falling into error. What more certain proof of this can we adduce than these examples? If there were even a few, there would be one [and that would show that the thing is possible]. But when there is not even one, then there is also no proof.
[20] But you will persist, saying: if it is possible that I, by suspending [IV/115] judgment and keeping my will within the limits of my intellect, can once bring it about that I do not err, then why could I not always have that effect, when I use the same diligence? I reply that I cannot see that today we have so much power as to be able to continue always. [5] If I put all my effort into it, I can cover two leagues in an hour, but I cannot do that always. So with great diligence I can refrain from error once at least, but I don’t have enough power to be able to do that always. It seems clear to me that the first man, proceeding from [10] the hand of that perfect craftsman, did have that power, but (and in this I agree with you) by not using that power sufficiently, or by misusing it, he lost that perfect state of being able to do what previously was in his power. I could adduce various arguments to prove [15] this, if it would not take too long.
And in this it seems to me that the whole essence of holy Scripture consists, and that on this account we ought to hold it in very high esteem, since it teaches us what our natural intellect so clearly establishes: [20] a fall from our initial perfection, caused by our imprudence. What is more necessary than to reform that fall as much as possible? That is also the sole aim of holy Scripture, to bring fallen man back to God.
[IV/116] The second point to be mentioned from Principles IP15 is that you “affirm that understanding things clearly and distinctly is contrary to the nature of man” [I/175/11ff.]. From this you ultimately conclude that it is far better to assent to things [though] confusedly, and to be [5] free, than to always remain indifferent, which is the lowest degree of freedom. I don’t find this clear enough to grant it. For to suspend our judgment keeps us in the state in which we were created by our creator. But to assent to things that are confused is to assent to what we do not understand. In doing this we assent as easily to the false as to [10] the true. And if (as M. Descartes teaches somewhere)14 we don’t use that order in assenting which God has given between our intellect and will, viz. not to assent unless we understand clearly, even though by chance we obtain the true, we still sin because we do not embrace the [15] true with the order with which God has willed that we should embrace it. Consequently, just as not assenting preserves us in the state in which God put us, so assenting to things that are confused puts us in a worse state. For it lays the foundation for the errors through [20] which we then lose our perfect state.
But, I hear you say, is it not better to make ourselves more perfect [IV/117] by assenting to things, though they are confused, than by not assenting to keep ourselves always at the lowest degree of perfection and freedom? But apart from the fact that we deny that, and in some measure have shown that we have made ourselves not better, but worse, [5] it also seems to us impossible, and like a contradiction, that God should make the knowledge of things he himself determined extend further than the knowledge he gave us, indeed that God then would involve an absolute cause of our error. Nor does it go against this that we [10] cannot complain that God should give us more than he has, because he was not bound to. It is, indeed, true that God was not obliged to give us more than he did. But God’s supreme perfection posits also that the creature that proceeds from him can involve no contradiction, [15] as would then appear to follow. For nowhere in created nature do we find knowledge, except in our intellect. For what other purpose can that be given us than to contemplate and know God’s works? And what seems to follow more evidently than that there must be an agreement between our intellect and the things that must be known?
[20] But if I were to examine your letter by the guidance of my second general rule, we would differ more than we do when I examine it by [IV/118] the first. For it seems to me (but if I am mistaken, please tell me) that you do not ascribe that infallible truth and godliness to holy Scripture that I believe to be in it. It is true that you say you believe that God [5] has revealed the things in holy Scripture to the prophets, but in such an imperfect way that, if it was done in the way you maintain, it would involve a Contradiction in God. For if God has revealed his word and will to men, he has done so for a certain end, and clearly. [10] Now if the prophets had feigned a parable from the word they received, then God would have had either to will that also or not to will it. If God had willed that they should feign a parable from his word, i.e., depart from his meaning, then God was the cause of that error, and willed something contradictory. If God did not will it, then it was [15] impossible that the prophets should have been able to feign a parable from them. Moreover, it seems credible, if it is presupposed that God gave his word to the prophets, that he gave it to them in such a way that they, in receiving it, would not have erred. For in giving his [20] word, God had to have a certain end. But God’s end could not be to [IV/119] lead men into error by giving them his word, for that would be a Contradiction in God. Also, man could not err contrary to the will of God, for on your view that is impossible. In addition to all this, it is not credible that that most perfect God would allow that his word, [5] given to the prophets to explain to the people, should be given to the prophets in another sense than God willed. For if we maintain that God gave the prophets his word, we maintain at the same time that God appeared to the prophets in an extraordinary way, or spoke with [10] them. Now, if the prophets feigned a parable from the word given them, i.e., gave it another meaning than the one God has willed that they should give it, God would surely tell them about it. Also, it is both impossible in relation to the prophets, and a Contradiction in relation to God, that the prophets could have another meaning than [15] God willed that they should have.
I see, also, very little proof that God would have revealed his word in the way you maintain, i.e., that he would have revealed only salvation and destruction, that he decreed certain means to [those ends], [20] and that salvation and destruction are nothing more than the effects of those means he decreed. For surely if the prophets had received [IV/120] God’s word in that sense, what reason would they have had to give it another sense? But I also don’t see that you adduce any proof capable of convincing us that this view should be placed above that of the [5] prophets. If you think it is a proof that otherwise that word would involve many imperfections and contradictions, I say that that is only an assertion, not a proof. Who knows which opinion would involve fewer imperfections, if they were both put on the carpet? Finally, that [10] supremely perfect being knew very well how much the people could understand, and therefore what the best way was to instruct them.
As far as the second part of your first question is concerned, you ask yourself why God forbade Adam to eat of the tree when he had [15] decreed the opposite. And you answer that the prohibition to Adam consisted only in this: that God revealed to Adam that eating of that tree caused death, as he reveals to us, through the natural intellect, that poison is deadly for us. If it is established that God has forbidden something to Adam, what reasons are there that I should have to [20] believe in the manner of prohibition you maintain rather than that of the prophets, to whom God himself has also revealed the manner of prohibition?
[IV/121] You will say: my way of prohibition is more natural, and therefore agrees better with the truth and with God. But I deny that. I also cannot conceive that God has revealed to us through the natural understanding [5] that poison is deadly, and I see no reason by which I would ever know that something is poisonous, if I had not seen or heard evil effects of the poison in others. Daily experience teaches us how many men, because they are not acquainted with a poison, eat it unknowingly and die.
[10] You will say: if the people knew that it was poison, they would know that it is evil. But I answer that no one is acquainted with poison, or can be, unless he has seen or heard that someone has hurt himself by using it. And if we maintained that until now we had never [15] seen or heard that anyone had hurt himself by using it, not only would we not know it now, but we would use it, without fear, to our detriment. Such truths are taught us every day.
What can give an upright intellect more pleasure in this life than [20] the contemplation of that perfect godhead? For as it is concerned with the most perfect [being] it must also involve in itself the most perfect [IV/122] [thing] that can fall under our finite intellect. I also have nothing in my life that I would want to exchange for that pleasure. I can spend much time in it, with a heavenly joy. But at the same time I can also be deeply saddened when I see that my finite intellect lacks so much. [5] I soothe that sadness with the hope I have, which is dearer to me than life, that I shall exist again, and remain, and shall contemplate this godhead with more perfection than I do today. When I consider this short and fleeting life, in which I see that my death may occur at any [10] moment, if I had to believe that I would have an end, and be cut off from that holy and glorious contemplation, certainly I would be the most miserable of all creatures, who have no knowledge that they will end. For before my death, my fear of death would make me wretched, [15] and after my death, I would entirely cease to be, and hence be wretched because I would be separated from that divine contemplation.
And this is where your opinions seem to me to lead: that when I come to an end here, then I will come to an end for eternity. Against this, God’s word and will fortify me with his inner witness in my soul [20] that after this life I shall, in a more perfect state, enjoy myself in the contemplation of that most perfect godhead of all. Certainly even if [IV/123] that hope were ultimately found to be a false one, it makes me happy while I have it. This is the only thing I desire of God, and will desire with prayers, sighs, and earnest wishes (Oh that I could contribute [5] more to it!), so long as there is breath in this body: that through his goodness he should be pleased to make me so fortunate that, when this body is dissolved, I might still remain as an intellectual being, to continue contemplating that perfect godhead. If only I get that, it is a matter of indifference to me what men believe here, what they persuade [10] one another of, and whether it is something founded on our natural intellect and can be grasped, or not. That and that alone is my wish, my desire, and my constant prayer, that God should only establish that assurance in my soul. Oh, if I lack it, I am most miserable! [15] And if I have it, then my soul cries out from desire: “As a hart cries for fresh brooks, so longs my soul for thee, the living God. Oh, when will the day come when I will be with you and behold you?” [Ps. 42:2-3] If only I obtain that, then I will have the whole end and desire of my soul.
[20] But those hopes do not appear to me, on your view, because our service is not pleasing to God. I also cannot grasp why, if God takes no pleasure in our service and praise (if at least I may speak of him in [IV/124] so human a way), why he should produce us and preserve us? But if I mistake your view in this, then I wish you would explain how.
I have delayed myself, and perhaps also you, too long with this. [5] Seeing that my time and paper are running out, I shall end. This is what I would still like to see solved in your letter. Perhaps here and there I have drawn some conclusions from your writing that by chance will not be your opinion. But I would like to hear your explanations of them.
[10] I have busied myself recently with reflection on some of God’s attributes. Your Appendix has given me no little help with these. Indeed I have only paraphrased your views, which seem to me nothing short of demonstrations. So I am astonished that L. Meyer says, in [15] his preface, that this is not your opinion, but that you were obliged so to instruct your student, whom you had promised to teach the philosophy of Descartes. He says that you have a completely different view both of God and of the soul, particularly of the soul’s will. I also [20] see it said in that preface that you will shortly publish these Metaphysical Thoughts in an expanded form. I have a very great longing for [IV/125] both of these, for I expect something special from them. But it is not my custom to praise someone to his face.
This is written in sincere friendship, as your letter requests, so that [5] we may discover the truth. Forgive me for having written more than I intended to. If I receive an answer to this, you will oblige me very much. As for being allowed to write in the language in which you were brought up, I cannot refuse you, so long, at least, as it is Latin [10] or French. But I ask to receive the answer to this letter in Dutch. I have understood your meaning in it very well, and perhaps in Latin I would not understand it so clearly. If you do this, you will oblige me so that I shall be, and remain, Sir,
Your most devoted and dutiful,
Willem van Blijenbergh
Dordrecht, 16 January 1665
In your reply I would like to be somewhat more fully informed what you really understand by a negation in God.
Reply to the preceding
Version
Sir and friend,
When I read your first Letter, I thought our opinions nearly agreed. [10] But from the second, which I received on the 21st of this month, I see that I was quite mistaken, and that we disagree not only about the things ultimately to be derived from first principles, but also about the first principles themselves. So I hardly believe that we can instruct one another with our Letters. For I see that no demonstration, however [15] solid it may be according to the Laws of Demonstration, has weight with you unless it agrees with that explanation which you, or Theologians known to you, attribute to sacred Scripture. But if you believe that God speaks more clearly and effectively through sacred Scripture than through the light of the natural intellect, which he has also granted us, and which, with his Divine Wisdom, he continually [20] preserves, strong and uncorrupted, then you have powerful reasons for bending your intellect to the opinions you attribute to sacred Scripture. I myself could hardly do otherwise.
But as for myself, I confess, clearly and without circumlocution, that I do not understand Sacred Scripture, though I have spent several [25] years on it. And I am well aware that, when I have found a solid demonstration, I cannot fall into such thoughts that I can ever doubt it. So I am completely satisfied with what the intellect shows me, and entertain no suspicion that I have been deceived in that or that Sacred Scripture can contradict it (even though I do not investigate it). For [30] the truth does not contradict the truth, as I have already indicated clearly in my Appendix. (I cannot cite the chapter [I/265/30] for I do [IV/127] not have the book here with me in the country.) And if even once I found that the fruits which I have already gathered from the natural intellect were false, they would still make me happy, since I enjoy them and seek to pass my life, not in sorrow and sighing, but in peace, joy, and cheerfulness. By so doing, I climb a step higher. Meanwhile [5] I recognize something which gives me the greatest satisfaction and peace of mind: that all things happen as they do by the power of a supremely perfect Being and by his immutable decree.
But to return to your letter, I am, sincerely, very grateful to you [10] for revealing to me in time your manner of Philosophizing. But I do not thank you for attributing to me the things you want to draw from my letter. What occasion did my letter give you for ascribing these opinions to me: that men are like beasts, that men die and perish as beasts do,15 that our works are displeasing to God, etc.? (On this last [15] point we may differ very much, for if I understand you, you think that God takes pleasure in our works, as someone who has attained his end is pleased because things have turned out as he wished.) As for me, I have said quite clearly that the pious honor God, and by continually knowing him, become more perfect, and that they love [20] God. Is this to make them like beasts? or to say that they perish like beasts? or, finally, to say that their works do not please God?
If you had read my letter more attentively, you would have seen clearly that our disagreement is located in this alone: whether God as God—i.e., absolutely, ascribing no human attributes to him—communicates [25] to the pious the perfections they receive (which is what I understand), or whether he does this as a judge (which is what you maintain). That is why you defend the impious, because, in accordance with God’s decree, they do whatever they can, and serve God as much as the pious do. But according to what I said, that does not follow at all. For I do not introduce God as a judge. And therefore I [30] value works by their quality, and not by the power of the workman, and the wages which follow the work follow it as necessarily as from the nature of a triangle it follows that its three angles must equal two right angles. Everyone will understand this, provided only that he is aware that our highest blessedness consists in love toward God, and [35] that that love flows necessarily from the knowledge of God which is [IV/128] so greatly commended to us. Moreover, this can easily be proven in general, provided only that one attends to the nature of God’s Decree, as I explained in my Appendix. But I confess that anyone who confuses the Divine Nature with human nature is quite incapable of understanding this.
[5] I had intended to end this letter here, so as not to be more troublesome to you in matters which serve only for joking and laughter, but are of no use (as is clear from the very devoted addition at the end of your letter). But not to reject your request entirely, I proceed further to the explanation of the terms “Negation” and “Privation.” I shall [10] also give a brief explanation of what is necessary to grasp more clearly the meaning of my preceding Letter.
I say, therefore, that Privation is, not the act of depriving, but only the pure and simple lack, which in itself is nothing. Indeed, it is only a Being of reason, or mode of thinking, which we form when we [15] compare things with one another. We say, for example, that a blind man is deprived of sight because we easily imagine him as seeing, whether this imagination arises from the fact that we compare him with others who see, or his present state with his past, when he used to see. And when we consider this man in this way, by comparing his [20] nature with that of others or with his own past nature, then we affirm that seeing pertains to his nature, and for that reason we say that he is deprived of it. But when we consider God’s decree, and his nature, we can no more affirm of that man than of a Stone, that he is deprived [25] of vision. For at that time vision no more pertains to that man without contradiction than it does to the stone, since nothing more pertains to that man, and is his, than what the Divine intellect and will attribute to him. Hence, God is no more the cause of his not seeing than of the stone’s not seeing, which is a pure Negation.
[30] Similarly, when we attend to the nature of a man who is led by an appetite for sensual pleasure, we compare his present appetite with that which is in the pious, or with that which he had at another time. We affirm that this man has been deprived of a better appetite, because we judge that then an appetite [35] for virtue belongs to him. We cannot do this if we attend to the nature of the [IV/129] Divine decree and intellect; for in that regard, the better appetite no more pertains to that man’s nature at that time than it does to the Nature of the Devil, or of a stone. That is why, in that regard, the better appetite is not a Privation, but a Negation.
So Privation is nothing but denying something of a thing which we [5] judge to pertain to its nature, and Negation nothing but denying something of a thing because it does not pertain to its nature. From this it is evident why Adam’s appetite for earthly things was evil only in relation to our intellect, but not in relation to God’s. For although God knew the past and present of Adam, he did not on that account understand [10] that Adam was deprived of the past state, i.e., that the past state pertained to his nature. For then God would understand something contrary to his will, i.e., contrary to his own intellect.
If you had perceived this properly, and also that I do not grant that [15] Freedom which Descartes ascribes to the Mind (as L. M. declared in my name in the Preface), you would not have found even the least contradiction in my words. But I see that I would have done much better if, in my first Letter, I had replied in Descartes’ words, by saying that we cannot know how our freedom, and whatever depends on it, is compatible with God’s providence and freedom (as I have [20] done in various places in the Appendix [NS: to Descartes’ Principles]), so that we can find no contradiction between God’s Creation and our freedom, because we cannot grasp at all how God created things or (what is the same) how he preserves them. But I thought you had read the Preface, and that, if I did not reply with my own opinion, I would [25] have sinned against the duty of the friendship which I was offering from the heart. But these things are of no importance.
Nevertheless, because I see that you have not yet understood Descartes’ Meaning, I ask you to attend to these two things:
(1) Neither I nor Descartes ever said that it pertains to our nature [30] to contain our will within the limits of the intellect, but only that God has given us a determinate intellect and an indeterminate will, though in such a way that we do not know to what end he created us; moreover, an indeterminate or perfect will of that kind not only makes us more perfect, but also is quite necessary for us, as I shall say in what [35] follows.
[IV/130] (2) That our Freedom is placed neither in contingency nor in a certain indifference, but in a manner of affirming and denying, so that the less indifferently we affirm or deny a thing, the more free we are. [5] For example, if God’s nature is known to us, then affirming that God exists follows necessarily from our nature, just as it proceeds from the nature of a triangle that its three angles equal two right angles. Nevertheless, we are never more free than when we affirm a thing in such a way. Because this necessity is nothing but God’s Decree (as I have [10] shown clearly in my Appendix [NS: to Descartes’ Principles]), one can understand, in some measure, how we do something freely, and are the cause of it, notwithstanding the fact that we do it necessarily and from God’s decree. I say that we can understand this in some measure when we affirm something which we perceive clearly and distinctly. [15] But when we assert something which we do not grasp clearly and distinctly, i.e., when we allow our will to wander beyond the limits of our intellect, then we cannot so perceive that necessity and God’s Decrees, but [can so perceive] our freedom, which our will always involves (and only in relation to our freedom are our works called good [20] or evil). If we then strive to reconcile our freedom with God’s Decree and continuous Creation, we confuse what we understand clearly and distinctly with what we do not understand. Therefore we strive for that in vain. It is enough for us, then, that we know that we are free, and that we can be such, notwithstanding God’s decree, and that we [25] are the cause of evil, in that no act can be called evil except in relation to our freedom.
These are the things that concern Descartes, which I mention to demonstrate that his position on this involves no contradiction. Now I shall turn to those things that concern me.
First I shall briefly recall the advantage that stems from my opinion. [30] This derives chiefly from the fact that our intellect offers Mind and Body to God, free of any Superstition. Not that I deny that prayers are quite useful to us. For my intellect is too weak to determine all the means God has to lead men to love him, i.e., to salvation. Hence, [35] it is so far from being the case that this opinion of mine will be harmful, that on the contrary, it is the only means of attaining the highest [IV/131] degree of blessedness for those who are not in the grip of prejudice or childish superstition.
But what you say—that I make men like elements, plants, and stones by making them so dependent on God—shows sufficiently that you [5] understand my opinion very perversely and confuse things that concern the intellect with [those which concern] the imagination. For if you had perceived with a pure intellect what it is to depend on God, you would certainly not think that things, insofar as they depend on God, are dead, corporeal, and imperfect. Who has ever dared to speak [10] so vilely of the supremely perfect Being? On the contrary, you would grasp that for that reason, and to that extent, they are perfect. So that we best understand this dependence and necessary operation through God’s decree, when we attend not to logs and plants, but to the most intelligible and perfect created things, as is clearly evident from what [15] I have already mentioned above, under the second point about Descartes’ view. You ought to have noticed this.
I cannot suppress my astonishment at your saying that if God did not punish transgressions (i.e., punish as a judge does, with the kind of punishment that the transgression itself does not carry with it—for [20] that is all that is at issue here), what reason would prevent me from eagerly perpetrating all sorts of knavery? Certainly one who abstains from knavery only from dread of punishment (I hope this is not you) does not in any way act from love and does not at all esteem Virtue. As for myself, I abstain from those things, or try to, because they are explicitly contrary to my singular nature, and make me wander from [25] the knowledge and love of God.
Next, if you had attended a little to human nature, if you had perceived the nature of God’s decree, as I have explained it in the Appendix, and finally, if you had known how things ought to be deduced, before one arrives at a conclusion, you would not have said so [30] boldly that this opinion makes us like logs, etc. Nor would you have attributed so many absurdities to me as you imagine.
Before you proceed to your second Rule, you say there are two things you cannot perceive. To the first I reply that Descartes is enough [35] for drawing your conclusion, viz. that if only you attend to your nature, you will find by experience that you can suspend your judgment. [IV/132] But if you say that you do not find by experience that we have so much power over reason today, that we can always continue this, to Descartes that would be the same as saying we cannot see today that as long as we exist we shall always be thinking things, or will retain [5] the nature of a thinking thing. That certainly involves a contradiction.
Regarding the second point, I say, with Descartes, that if we could not extend our Will beyond the limits of our very limited intellect, we would be very wretched, and it would not be in our power to eat a [10] piece of bread, or take a step, or to remain still. For all things are uncertain and full of danger.
I pass now to your second Rule, and I assert that I indeed believe that I do not attribute to Scripture that Truth which you believe to be in it. Nevertheless, I believe that I ascribe as much, if not more, [15] authority to it, and that I take care, far more cautiously than others do, not to attribute to it certain childish and absurd opinions. No one can do this unless he either understands Philosophy well or has Divine revelations. So I am not much moved by those explanations that Ordinary [20] Theologians give of Scripture, especially if they are of the kind that always take Scripture according to the letter and external meaning. Except for the Socinians,16 I have never seen a Theologian so dense that he did not perceive that Sacred Scripture very often speaks of God in a human way and expresses its meaning in Parables.
[25] As for the contradiction you strive—in vain, I think—to show, I believe that by a Parable you understand something quite different from what is commonly understood. For who ever heard that one who expresses his conceptions in parables wanders from his own meaning. When Micaiah said to King Ahab [1 Kings 22:19ff.] that he had seen God sitting on his throne, with the heavenly hosts standing on his [30] right and his left, and that God asked them who would deceive Ahab, that was certainly a Parable by which the Prophet expressed sufficiently the main thing he was supposed to reveal in God’s name on that occasion (which was not one for teaching lofty doctrines of Theology). So he would not depart in any way from his meaning.
[35] So also the other Prophets revealed God’s Word to the people, by [IV/133] God’s command, in that way, as the best means (though not as the means God demanded) of leading the people to the primary goal of Scripture. According to what Christ himself taught [Matt. 22:37-40], that goal consists in this: in the love of God before all else, and of [5] one’s neighbor as oneself. Lofty speculations, I believe, concern Scripture not at all. As for me, I have learned no eternal attributes of God from Sacred Scripture, nor could I learn them.
As for your argument17 (that the Prophets have revealed God’s word [10] in such a way), since truth is not contrary to truth, nothing remains except that I should demonstrate (as anyone who perceives the Method of Demonstrating will judge) that Scripture, just as it is, is the true revealed Word of God. I cannot have a Mathematical Demonstration of it, except by Divine Revelation. And for that reason I said “I [15] believe”—but not “I know in a mathematical way”—“that all the things which God has revealed to the Prophets [to be necessary for salvation are written in the manner of laws.—IV/92/15-93/1].” For I firmly believe, but do not know Mathematically, that the Prophets were God’s confidential Counselors and trusty Messengers. So in the things I have affirmed, there is no contradiction at all, whereas on the other side, many are found.
[20] The rest of your Letter—viz. where you say “Finally that supremely perfect Being knew [very well how much the people could understand—IV/120/9ff.],” and next what you bring up against the example of the poison, and finally, what concerns the Appendix and what follows—none of this, I say, concerns the present Problem.
With regard to Meyer’s Preface, it certainly shows both what Descartes [25] would still have to prove, to construct a real demonstration of Free Will, and adds that I favor the contrary opinion, and how I favor it. In its proper time perhaps I shall show this, but that is not my intention now.
I have not thought about the work on Descartes nor given any further [30] attention to it since it was published in Dutch. The reason for this would take too long to tell. So nothing more remains to be said, except that I, etc.
[Schiedam, 28 January 1665]
Reply to the preceding
Sir and worthy Friend,
I received your letter of 28 January in good time, but occupations other than those of study have prevented me from answering before [10] now. And since your letter was interlarded here and there with touchy reproofs, I hardly knew what I should think of it. For in your first letter, of 5 January, you firmly and heartily offered me your friendship, with a protestation that not only was the letter you had received then very pleasing to you, but also that future letters would be. Indeed, [15] I was invited, amicably, to raise freely any difficulties I might still have. That is what I did, rather extensively, in my letter of 16 January. In view of your request and promise, I expected a friendly and instructive reply. But what in fact I received was a letter that does [IV/135] not sound very friendly. You say that no demonstrations, no matter how clear they are, count with me, that I do not understand Descartes’ meaning, that I mix corporeal and spiritual things too much, etc., so [5] that we can no longer instruct one another by exchanging letters.
To this I reply, very amicably, that I certainly believe that you understand the above-mentioned things better than I do, and that you are more accustomed to distinguish corporeal from spiritual things, for you have already ascended to a high level in metaphysics, where I [10] am a beginner. That is why I sought to insinuate myself into your favor, to get instruction. But I never thought that by making frank objections I would give occasion for offense. I thank you heartily for the trouble you have taken with both letters, and especially for the [15] second. I think I grasped your meaning more clearly there than in the first. Nevertheless, I still cannot assent to it unless the difficulties I still think I find in it are removed. That should not, cannot, give you any reason for offense. For it is a great defect in our intellect to assent [20] to the truth without having the grounds of assent that are necessary. [IV/136] Even if your conceptions were true, I should not assent to them so long as I still have any reason for obscurity or doubt, even if those doubts arise not from what you maintain, but from the imperfection [5] of my intellect. Because you know this only too well, do not think ill of me if I again raise some objections, as I am bound to do so long as I cannot grasp the matter clearly. This happens only because I want to discover the truth, not because I want to distort your meaning, [10] contrary to your intention. So I ask for a friendly reply to these few words.
You say that no thing has more essence than the divine will and power attribute to it and in fact give it. And when we attend to the nature of a man who has an appetite for sensual pleasure, and compare his present appetites [15] with those of the pious, or with those he himself had at another time, then we say that that man is deprived of a better [OP: appetite] because then we judge that the appetite for virtue belongs to him. We cannot do this if we attend to the nature of God’s decree and intellect. For in relation to that, the better appetite no more pertains to the nature of that man at that time than it does [20] to the nature of the devil, or of a stone, etc. For even though God knew the [IV/137] past and present state of Adam, he did not on that account understand that Adam was deprived of his past [OP: state], i.e., that the past [state] belonged to his present nature, etc.18
From these words it seems to me (though I am subject to correction) to follow clearly that on your view nothing else pertains to an essence [5] than what it has at that moment when it is perceived. I.e., if I have an appetite for sensual pleasure, that appetite pertains to my essence at that time, and if I have no appetite for sensual pleasure, then that lack of appetite pertains to my essence at the time when I lack that appetite. Also, consequently, it must follow infallibly that in relation [10] to God, I involve as much perfection (different only in degree) in my actions when I have an appetite for sensual pleasure, as when I have no appetite for sensual pleasure, when I engage in all kinds of knavery, as when I practice virtue and justice. For to my essence at that time [15] pertains only as much as I do; for on your view I can do neither more nor less than I have in fact received essence. For because the appetite for sensual pleasure and knavery pertains to my essence at the time when I engage in them, and at that time I receive no greater essence [20] from the divine power, the divine power requires only such works of me. And so it seems to me to follow clearly from your position that [IV/138] God desires knavery in the same way he desires those things you call virtue.
Let us posit now that God, as God, and not as a Judge, gives both [5] the pious and the impious only as much essence as he wills that they shall exercise. What reasons are there for God not to desire the act of the one in the same way as that of the other? For because God gives each the quality for his act, it follows certainly that from those to whom God has given less, he desires, in the same way, only so much; [10] as he [desires more] from those to whom he has given more. Consequently, God, in relation to himself, wills more or less perfection from our actions, the desire for sensual pleasure and the desire for virtue, in the same way. So those who engage in knavery must necessarily [15] engage in knavery because nothing else belongs to their essence at that time, as he who practices virtue does so because the divine power has willed that this should pertain to his essence at that time. Again, all I can see is that God wills equally, and in the same way, knavery and [20] virtue. And insofar as he wills both, he is the cause of both, and both must be pleasing to him. I find that too hard to conceive of God.
[IV/139] I see, indeed, that you say that the pious serve God. But from your writings all I can see is that serving God is nothing but doing such acts as God has willed that we should do. That you ascribe also to the [5] godless and sensual. What difference is there, then, in relation to God, between the service of the pious and of the godless? You say also that the pious serve God, and in serving continually become more perfect. But I cannot see what you understand by ‘becoming more perfect’ nor [10] what ‘continually becoming more perfect’ means. For the godless and the pious both receive their essence, and also the preservation or continuous creation of their essence, from God, as God, not as a Judge. And they both carry out God’s will in the same way, viz. according to God’s decree. What distinction can there then be between the two [15] in relation to God? For that ‘continually becoming more perfect’ flows not from the act, but from the will of God, so that if the godless become more imperfect through their acts, that too flows not from their acts, but only from the will of God. Both only carry out God’s will. So there can be no distinction between these two in relation to [20] God. What reasons are there, then, that the one should continually become more perfect through his acts and the other be consumed in serving?
[IV/140] But you seem to locate the distinction of the one’s acts over the other’s in the fact that the one act involves more perfection than the other. I am confident that there is an error concealed here, either yours [5] or mine. For the only rule I can find in your writings according to which a thing is called more or less perfect is that it has more or less essence.19 But if that is now the rule of perfection, then certainly knavery, in relation to God’s will, is as pleasing to him as the acts of the [10] pious. For God, as God, i.e., in relation to himself, wills them in the same way, because they both proceed from his decree. If this alone is the rule of perfection, then errors can only improperly be so called. In fact, there are no errors, there are no acts of knavery, but everything [15] contains just as much essence as God gives it, which always involves perfection, whatever it is. I confess that I cannot perceive that clearly.
You must forgive me if I ask whether killing is as pleasing to God as giving charity, whether, in relation to God, stealing is as good as [20] being just. If you say ‘no,’ what are the reasons? If you say ‘yes,’ what [IV/141] reasons can there be, why I should be moved to do the one act, which you call virtue, rather than the other? What law or rule forbids me the one more than the other? If you say the law of virtue itself, I must [5] certainly confess that I see in your writings no law according to which virtue can be regulated or known. For everything depends inseparably on God’s will, and consequently the one is as virtuous as the other. So I don’t understand why you say that we must act from love of [10] virtue, since I cannot grasp what, according to you, virtue, or the law of virtue, is.
You say, indeed, that you omit vice and knavery because they are contrary to your singular nature and would make you stray from the divine knowledge and love. But in all your writings I see no rule or [15] proof of this. Indeed, excuse me, but I must say that the opposite seems to follow from what you have written. You omit the things I call vice because they are contrary to your singular nature, but not because they contain vice in themselves. You omit doing them as we omit eating food that our nature finds disgusting. Certainly those who [20] omit evils only because their nature finds them disgusting can pride themselves very little on their virtue.
[IV/142] Here again the question can be raised: if there was a mind to whose singular nature the pursuit of sensual pleasure or knavery was not contrary, is there a reason for virtue which would have to move it to [5] do good and omit evil? But how is it possible that a man should be able to omit the appetite for sensual pleasure when that desire pertains to his essence at that time and he really has received it and cannot omit it?
I can also not see that this follows in your writings: that the acts which I call knavery should make you stray from the knowledge and [10] love of God. For you have done only what God willed, nor could you do more, because at that time the divine power and will gave you no more essence. How can an action so determined and dependent make you stray from the love of God? To stray is to be confused and independent. [15] And on your view that is impossible. For whether we do this or that, whether we manifest more or less perfection, we receive that for our essence, at that time, immediately from God. How, then, can we stray? I must not understand what is meant by straying. Here, [20] and here alone, must lie the cause, either of my mistake or yours.
[IV/143] Here there are many other things I would still like to say and ask.
(1) Whether intellectual substances depend on God in a different way than lifeless ones do? For although intellectual beings involve [5] more essence than the lifeless do, don’t they both require God and God’s decrees for their motion in general, and for such and such motions in particular? Consequently, insofar as they are dependent, are they not dependent in one and the same way?
(2) Because you do not grant the soul the freedom Descartes ascribed [10] to it, what distinction is there between the dependence of intellectual substances and that of those without a soul? and if they have no freedom of the will, in what way do you conceive the dependence on God, and how the soul is dependent on God?
(3) If our soul does not have that freedom, is our action not God’s [15] action and is our will not God’s will?
There are several other questions I would like to ask, but I dare not seek so much of you. But I shall look forward to receiving, shortly, your answer to the preceding pages. Perhaps in that way I can understand your meaning somewhat better and then we will discuss these matters in person somewhat more fully. For after I have your answer, [20] I shall have to be in Leyden in a few weeks, and will give myself the honor of greeting you in passing, if that is agreeable with you at least. [IV/144] Depending on this, I send you hearty greetings, remaining
Your most devoted and dutiful
W. v. Blijenbergh
If you do not write to me under Cover, please write to Willem van Blijenbergh, Grainbroker, near the great Church, Dordrecht, 19 February 1665
[10] In my excessive haste I have forgotten to include this question: whether by our prudence we cannot prevent what would otherwise happen to us?
Reply to the preceding
Sir and friend,
This week I received two letters from you, the one of 9 March [20] serving only to inform me of the other, of 19 February, which was sent to me from Schiedam. In the latter I see that you complain of my having said that no demonstration is of any force with you, etc., as if I had said that with regard to my own reasonings, because they did not immediately satisfy you. That was far from my meaning. I [25] had in mind your own words:
Whenever it happens, after a long investigation, that my natural knowledge either seems to contradict this word, or is not easily etc. this word has so much authority with me that I suspect the conceptions I imagine to be clear rather etc. [IV/97/1-5]
[30] So I only repeated, briefly, your own words. I do not believe, therefore, that I gave the slightest reason for offense, the more so because I brought that up to show the great difference between us.
Furthermore, because you had said at the end of your second letter [IV/123/1ff.] that your only wish was to persevere in your belief and [35] hope, and that the rest, which we can persuade one another of concerning [IV/146] the natural intellect, is indifferent to you, I thought, and still [20] think, that my writing could be of no use, and that therefore it was more advisable for me not to neglect my studies—which I would otherwise have to set aside for so long—for the sake of things that can be of no use. This does not contradict my first letter because there I considered you as a pure philosopher who (as many who consider [25] themselves Christians grant) has no other touchstone of truth than the natural intellect and not theology. But you have taught me otherwise and shown me that the foundation on which I intended to build our friendship was not laid as I thought.
Finally, as regards the rest, that happens commonly in disputation, [30] without going beyond the bounds of politeness. For these reasons, I have let such things pass unnoticed in your second letter, and will in this one also. That will suffice to show that I have given you no reason for it, much less to think that I can bear no contradiction. I shall now [35] turn to your objections to answer them again.
[IV/147] First, then, I say that God is absolutely and really the cause of everything that has essence, no matter what it is. If you can demonstrate now [20] that evil, error, knavery, etc., are things that express essence, then I will grant completely that God is the cause of knavery, evil, error, etc. As for me, it seems to me that I have shown sufficiently that what constitutes the form of evil, error, and knavery does not consist in something that expresses essence, and that therefore we cannot say [25] that God is the cause of it.
For example, Nero’s matricide, insofar as it comprehends something positive, was not knavery. For Orestes, too, performed the [same] external action, and with the [same] intention of killing his mother. Nevertheless, he is not blamed, or at least, not as severely as Nero is. [30] What, then, was Nero’s knavery? Nothing but this: he showed by that act that he was ungrateful, without compassion, and disobedient. And it is certain that none of these things express any essence. Therefore, God was not the cause of them, but was the cause of Nero’s act and intention.
[35] Next, I should like it noted here that while we are speaking philosophically [IV/148] we must not use theological ways of speaking. For because theology has usually—and that not without reason—represented God [20] as a perfect man, it is appropriate in theology to say that God desires something, that he finds sorrow in the acts of the godless and takes pleasure in those of the pious. But in philosophy we understand clearly that to ascribe to God those ‘attributes’ which make a man perfect is [25] as bad as if one wanted to ascribe to man those which make an elephant or an ass perfect. So there words of this kind have no place, and we cannot use them without confusing our concepts very much. Therefore, speaking philosophically, we cannot say that God desires [30] something of something, nor that something is pleasing or a cause of sorrow to him. For those are all human ‘attributes,’ which have no place in God.
Finally, I should like it noted that—though the acts of the pious (i.e., of those who have clearly that idea of God according to which [35] all their acts and thoughts are determined), and of the godless (i.e., of [IV/149] those who do not have that idea of God, but only confused ideas of [20] earthly things, according to which all their acts and thoughts are determined), and, finally, the acts of everything there is, follow necessarily from God’s eternal laws and decree, and continually depend on God—nevertheless, they differ from one another not only in degree, but also essentially. For though a mouse depends on God as much as [25] an angel does, and sadness as much as joy, a mouse cannot on that account be a kind of angel, nor sadness a kind of joy.
With this I think I have answered your objections (if I have understood them, for sometimes I doubt whether the conclusion you draw [30] does not differ from the proposition that you undertake to prove). But this will be more evident if I reply, following these principles, to the questions you have proposed:
(1) Whether killing is as pleasing to God as almsgiving?
(2) Whether stealing, in relation to God, is as good as being just?
(3) If there was a mind to whose singular nature the pursuit of [35] sensual pleasure and knavery was not contrary, is there a reason [IV/150] for virtue which should move it to do good and omit evil?
To the first I say that I do not know (philosophically speaking) what [20] you mean by “pleasing to God.” If the question is “Whether God does not hate the one and love the other?” or “Whether the one has not done God an injury and the other a favor?” then I answer “no.” If the question is “Whether men who kill and those who give charity are equally good or perfect?” again I say “no.”
[25] To the second, I say that if “good in relation to God” means that the just man does God some good, and the thief does him some evil, I answer that neither the just man nor the thief can cause God pleasure or displeasure. But if the question is “Whether the two acts, insofar [30] as they are something real, and caused by God, are not equally perfect?” then I say that, if we consider the acts alone, and in such a way, it may well be that both are equally perfect.
If you then ask “Whether the thief and the just man are not equally perfect and blessed?” then I answer “no.” For by a just man I understand one who [35] constantly desires that each one should possess his own. In my Ethics, (which I [IV/151] have not yet published)20 I show that this desire necessarily arises in the pious from a clear knowledge which they have of themselves and of God. And since [20] the thief has no desire of that kind, he necessarily lacks the knowledge of God and of himself, which is the principal thing that makes us men.
If, however, you still ask what can move you to perform the act I call virtuous rather than the other, I reply that I cannot know what [25] way, of the infinitely many there are, God uses to determine you to such works. It may be that God has imprinted the idea of himself clearly in you, and through love of him, makes you forget the world and love all men as yourself. It is clear that such a constitution of mind is contrary to all the others which we call evil. Therefore, they [30] cannot exist in one subject.
This is not the place to explain the foundations of Ethics, nor to prove everything I say, because I am concerned only to answer your objections and to turn them away from myself.
Finally, your third question presupposes a contradiction. It is as if [35] someone were to ask: if it agreed better with the nature of someone to [IV/152] hang himself, would there be reasons why he should not hang himself? But suppose it were possible that there should be such a nature. Then I say (whether I grant free will or not) that if anyone sees that [20] he can live better on the gallows than at his table, he would act very foolishly if he did not go hang himself. One who saw clearly that in fact he would enjoy a better and more perfect life or essence by being a knave than by following virtue would also be a fool if he were not a [25] knave. For acts of knavery would be virtue in relation to such a perverted human nature.
As for the other questions which you have added at the end of your letter, since one could just as well ask a hundred in an hour, without ever coming to the conclusion of anything, and since you yourself do [30] not press much for an answer, I shall leave them unanswered. For now I shall say only [that I shall expect you at the time we arranged, and that you will be very welcome to me. But I should like it to be soon, since I am already planning to go to Amsterdam for a week or [35] two. Meanwhile, I remain, with cordial greetings,
Your friend and servant,
B. de Spinoza]21
Voorburg, 13 March 1665
Reply to the preceding
Sir and friend,
When I had the honor of being with you, the time did not allow me to stay longer with you. Still less could my memory retain everything [10] we discussed, although immediately on leaving you I collected all my thoughts in order to be able to retain what I had heard. So in the next place I came to, I tried to put your opinions on paper myself. But I found then that in fact I had retained not even a fourth of what [15] was discussed. So you must excuse me if once again I trouble you by asking about matters where I did not clearly understand your meaning or did not retain it well. (I wish I could do something for you in return for your trouble.) [My difficulties] were:
[IV/154] First, when I read your Principles and Metaphysical Thoughts, how shall I be able to distinguish what is stated as Descartes’ opinion from what is stated as your own?
[5] Second, is there really error, and what does it consist in?
Third, in what way do you maintain that the will is not free?
Fourth, what do you mean by what you have Meyer say in the Preface:
Though you admit … that there is a thinking substance in nature, you [10] nevertheless deny that it constitutes the essence of the human Mind; instead you maintain that just as Extension is determined by no limits, so also Thought is determined by no limits. Therefore, just as the human Body is not extension absolutely, but only an extension determined in a certain way according [15] to the laws of extended nature by motion and rest, so also the human Soul, is not thought absolutely, but only a thought determined in a certain way according to the laws of thinking nature by ideas, a thought which, one infers, must exist when the human body begins to exist.22
[20] From these words it seems to me to follow that as the human body is composed of thousands of small bodies, so also the human mind is [IV/155] composed of thousands of thoughts; and that as the human body, when it disintegrates, is resolved again into the thousands of bodies of which it was composed, so also our mind, when separated from our [5] body, is resolved again into that multitude of thoughts of which it was composed. And as the scattered bodies [which composed] our human body no longer remain bound to one another, but other bodies separate them, so also it seems to follow that, when our mind disintegrates, those countless thoughts of which it was composed, are no longer [10] combined, but separated. And as our bodies, when they are broken up, remain bodies, but not human bodies, so also when, after death, our thinking substance disintegrates, the thoughts or thinking substances remain, but their essence is not what it was when it was called a human mind.
[15] From this it continues to seem to me as if you maintained that the thinking substance of men is changed and resolved like corporeal substances, so that some are completely annihilated and no thought of theirs remains. Indeed, if memory serves me, you maintained this [20] concerning the wicked. And just as Descartes, according to Meyer, only assumes that the mind is a substance thinking absolutely, so it [IV/156] seems to me that you and Meyer, in these words, for the most part only make assumptions. So I do not clearly grasp your meaning in this.
Fifth, you maintained, both in our conversation and in your letter of 13 March, that from the clear knowledge which we have of God [5] and of ourselves there arises in us a constant desire that each should remain in possession of his own. But it remains to be explained how the knowledge of God and ourselves causes us to have a constant desire that each should possess his own. I.e., how does it proceed from [10] the knowledge of God that we are obliged to love virtue and to omit those acts we call vicious? How does it happen—since on your view killing and stealing contain something positive in them, just as much as giving charity does—that killing does not involve as much perfection, blessedness, and satisfaction as giving charity?
[15] Perhaps you will say, as you do in your letter of 13 March, that this problem belongs to the Ethics, and that you discuss it there. But then, without an explanation of this problem, and also of the preceding questions, I cannot clearly understand your meaning. Absurdities [20] remain which I cannot reconcile. So I ask you as a friend to answer me somewhat more fully, and especially to state some of your principal [IV/157] definitions, postulates, and axioms, on which your Ethics, and especially this question, rest. Perhaps the trouble will deter you, and you will excuse yourself, but I entreat you this time at least to satisfy [5] my request. Without a solution to this problem I shall never be able to grasp your meaning correctly. I wish I could offer you something in exchange. I dare not limit you to one or two weeks, but will only ask that you reply before your departure for Amsterdam. If you do [10] this, you will oblige me very much, and I shall show you that I remain, sir,
Your most devoted servant,
Willem van Blijenbergh
Dordrecht, 27 March 1665
To Mr. Benedictus de Spinosa,
staying in Voorburg
per couverto
[5] Very Illustrious Sir, Dearest Friend,
I was delighted to learn in a recent letter from Mr. Serrarius, that you are alive and well and remember your Oldenburg. But at the same time I complain greatly of my fortune (if it is legitimate to use that word), in that I have been deprived for so many months of that very [10] pleasant correspondence I used to have with you. The fault lies both with a great deal of business and with frightful domestic misfortunes. My great fondness for you and my faithful friendship will always remain steadfast and unshakable through the years. Mr. Boyle and I [15] often talk about you, your Erudition, and your profound meditations. We would like to see the fruit of your understanding published and entrusted to the embrace of the learned. We are sure that you will not disappoint us in this.
There is no need for Mr. Boyle’s essay on Niter, and on Solidity and Fluidity, to be published in Holland. It has already been published [20] in Latin here, but there is no opportunity to send you copies. I ask you, therefore, not to allow any of your printers to undertake such a thing.
Boyle has also published a notable Treatise on Colors, both in English and in Latin, and at the same time, an Experimental History of [25] Cold, Thermometers, etc., in which there are many excellent things and many new things. Nothing but this unfortunate war23 prevents me from sending these books to you.
Another notable publication is a Treatise on sixty Microscopic observations,24 in which many things are discussed boldly, but Philosophically (yet according to Mechanical principles). I hope our Booksellers [30] will find a way of sending copies of all of these to your country. For my part, I am anxious to receive, from your own hand, what you have done recently or are working on now. I am
Your most devoted and affectionate,
Henry Oldenburg
London, 28 April 1665
Most honorable friend,
A few days ago a friend of mine said he had been given your letter of 28 April by an Amsterdam Bookseller, who no doubt received it from Mr. Serrarius. I was extremely glad to be able to learn at last, from you yourself, that you were well and that you are as favorably [10] disposed toward me as before. I, of course, as often as I could, asked about you and your health of Mr. Serrarius and Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, who also told me he knew you. From the same Huygens I also learned that the very learned Mr. Boyle is alive and [15] has published that notable Treatise on Colors in English. He would lend it to me if I understood English.
So I am pleased to learn from you that this Treatise (as well as that other, on cold and Thermometers, which I had not yet heard about) has been given Latin citizenship and published. Mr. Huygens also has the book on microscopic observations, but unless I am mistaken, [20] it is in English.
He has told me wonderful things about these microscopes, and also about certain Telescopes, made in Italy, with which they could observe Eclipses of Jupiter caused by the interposition of its satellites, and also a certain shadow on Saturn, which looked as if it were caused by a ring. These things make me astonished at Descartes’ haste. He [25] says that the reason why the Planets next to Saturn—for he thought its projections were Planets, perhaps because he never observed them touching Saturn—do not move may be that Saturn does not rotate around its own axis. But this does not agree very well with his principles, and he could have explained the cause of the projections very [30] easily on his principles, if he had not labored under a prejudice, etc. [Voorburg, May 1665]
Reply to Letter 24
Sir and friend,
[20] When I received your letter of 27 March, I was about to leave for Amsterdam. So I left it at home, only half-read, intending to answer it on my return. I thought it contained only things about the first problem. Later, when I read it through, I found that its content was [25] quite different. Not only did it ask for a proof of those things I had [Meyer] put in the Preface [OP: of my Geometric Demonstrations of Descartes’ Principles]—but which I had him include only to indicate to everyone my own opinions, not to prove or explain them—it also asked for proof of a great part of Ethics, which, as everyone knows, must [IV/161] be founded on metaphysics and physics. So I could not bring myself to satisfy you on this.
But I wanted the opportunity to talk with you in the friendliest way, so that I might ask you to desist from your request. Then I [20] would, at the same time, give you a reason for my declining, and finally, show you that those things do not make for a solution of your first problem, but that, on the contrary, most of them depend on [the solution of] that problem. So it is far from being the case that you cannot understand my opinion regarding the necessity of things without [25] the solution of these new questions, because the solution of the latter, and what pertains to them, cannot be perceived unless one first understands that necessity. For as you know, the necessity of things concerns metaphysics, the knowledge of which must always come first.
However, before I could get the desired opportunity, I received [30] another letter this week, under cover from my host, which seems to show more displeasure at the long wait. So it is necessary for me to write these few lines, to tell you briefly my resolution and intention. That I have now done. I hope that, when you have weighed the matter, [35] you will voluntarily desist from your request and still retain your good will toward me. For my part, I shall show, in every way that I can or may, that I am
Your well-disposed Friend and Servant,
B. de Spinoza
Voorburg, 3 June 1665
Special friend,
[15] I don’t know whether you have completely forgotten me, but many things concur that raise the suspicion. First, when I was about to leave [Amsterdam], I wanted to say goodbye to you, and since you yourself had invited me, I thought that without doubt I would find you at home. But I learned that you had gone to The Hague. I returned to Voorburg, not doubting that you would at least visit us in passing. [20] But you have returned home, God willing, without greeting your friend. Finally, I have waited three weeks, and in all that time I have no letter from you.
If you want to remove this opinion of mine, you can do so easily by a letter in which you can also indicate a way of arranging our correspondence, of which we once talked in your house. Meanwhile, [25] I would like to ask you urgently, indeed I entreat and request you by our friendship, to be willing to pursue serious work energetically and with true enthusiasm, and to be willing to devote the better part of your life to the cultivation of your intellect and soul. You must do [IV/163] this now, while there is time, before you complain of the passage of time, indeed, the passage of yourself.
Next, to say something about our proposed correspondence so that you will not fear to write freely to me, you should know that I have previously suspected and am almost certain, that you have less confidence [5] in your ability than you should, and fear that you will ask or propose something unbefitting a learned man. It is not proper for me to praise you to your face and to tell you your gifts. Nevertheless, if you fear that I will communicate your letters to others, to whom you will subsequently be an object of mockery, I give you my word that henceforth I will keep them scrupulously and will not communicate [10] them to any other mortal without your permission. On these conditions you can begin our correspondence, unless perhaps you doubt my good faith. I don’t believe that for a moment; nevertheless I expect to learn your opinion about these matters from your first letter.
At the same time I also expect some of the conserve of red roses that you promised, though for a long time now I have been better. [15] After I left [Amsterdam] I opened a vein once, but the fever did not stop (though I was somewhat more active even before the bloodletting—because of the change of air, I think). But I have suffered two or three times from tertian fever. By good diet, however, I have got rid of it and sent it I know not where. My only care is that it should not return.
[20] As for the third part of our philosophy, I shall soon send some of it either to you (if you wish to be its translator) or to friend de Vries. Although I had decided to send nothing until I finished it, nevertheless, because it is turning out to be longer than I thought, I don’t want to hold you back too long. I shall send up to about the 80th proposition.25
[25] I hear much about English affairs, but nothing certain. The people do not cease suspecting all sorts of evils. No one knows any reason why the fleet does not set sail. And indeed, the matter does not yet seem to be safe. I am afraid that our countrymen want to be too wise and cautious. Nevertheless, the event itself will finally show what they have in mind and what they are striving for. May the gods make things turn out well.
[30] I would like to hear what people think there, and what they know for certain. But more than that, indeed more than anything, I would like to hear that you consider me, etc. [Voorburg, June 1665]