Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer.
Benedict de Spinoza, THE ETHICS
(Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata)
Translated by R. H. M. Elwes
PREFACEAt length I pass to the remaining portion of my Ethics, which is concernedwith the way leading to freedom. I shall therefore treat therein of thepower of the reason, showing how far the reason can control the emotions,and what is the nature of Mental Freedom or Blessedness; we shall then beable to see, how much more powerful the wise man is than the ignorant.It is no part of my design to point out the method and means whereby theunderstanding may be perfected, nor to show the skill whereby the body maybe so tended, as to be capable of the due performance of its functions. Thelatter question lies in the province of Medicine, the former in the provinceof Logic. Here, therefore, I repeat, I shall treat only of the power of themind, or of reason; and I shall mainly show the extent and nature of itsdominion over the emotions, for their control and moderation. That we donot possess absolute dominion over them, I have already shown. Yet theStoics have thought, that the emotions depended absolutely on our will, andthat we could absolutely govern them. But these philosophers were compelled,by the protest of experience, not from their own principles, to confess,that no slight practice and zeal is needed to control and moderate them:and this someone endeavoured to illustrate by the example (if I rememberrightly) of two dogs, the one a house-dog and the other a hunting-dog. Forby long training it could be brought about, that the house-dog should becomeaccustomed to hunt, and the hunting-dog to cease from running after hares.To this opinion Descartes not a little inclines. For he maintained, that thesoul or mind is specially united to a particular part of the brain, namely,to that part called the pineal gland, by the aid of which the mind isenabled to feel all the movements which are set going in the body, and alsoexternal objects, and which the mind by a simple act of volition can put inmotion in various ways. He asserted, that this gland is so suspended in themidst of the brain, that it could be moved by the slightest motion of theanimal spirits: further, that this gland is suspended in the midst of thebrain in as many different manners, as the animal spirits can impingethereon; and, again, that as many different marks are impressed on the saidgland, as there are different external objects which impel the animalspirits towards it; whence it follows, that if the will of the soul suspendsthe gland in a position, wherein it has already been suspended once beforeby the animal spirits driven in one way or another, the gland in its turnreacts on the said spirits, driving and determining them to the conditionwherein they were, when repulsed before by a similar position of the gland.He further asserted, that every act of mental volition is united in natureto a certain given motion of the gland. For instance, whenever anyonedesires to look at a remote object, the act of volition causes the pupil ofthe eye to dilate, whereas, if the person in question had only thought ofthe dilatation of the pupil, the mere wish to dilate it would not havebrought about the result, inasmuch as the motion of the gland, which servesto impel the animal spirits towards the optic nerve in a way which woulddilate or contract the pupil, is not associated in nature with the wish todilate or contract the pupil, but with the wish to look at remote or verynear objects. Lastly, he maintained that, although every motion of theaforesaid gland seems to have been united by