THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

SPINOZA
a political philosophy which expressed the liberal and democratic hopes
of his day in Holland, and became one of the main sources of that stream
of thought which culminated in Rousseau and the Revolution.
All political philosophy, Spinoza thinks, must grow out of a distinction
between the natural and the moral order that is, between existence
before, and existence after, the formation of organized societies. Spinoza
supposes that men once lived in comparative isolation, without law or
social organization; there were then, he says, no conceptions of right
and wrong, justice or injustice; might and right were one.
Nothing can exist in a natural state which can be called good or bad by
common assent, since every man who is in a natural state consults only his
own advantage, and determines what is good or bad according to his own
fancy and in so far as he has regard for his own advantage alone, and holds
himself responsible to no one save himself by any law; and therefore sin
cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, where it is
decreed by common consent what is good or bad, and each one holds himself
responsible to the state. 116 . , , The law and ordinance of nature under
which all men are born, and for the most part live, forbids nothing but what
no one wishes or is able to do, and is not opposed to strife, hatred, anger,
treachery, or, in general, anything that appetite suggests. 117
We get an inkling of this law of nature, or this lawlessness of nature,
by observing the behavior of states; "there is no altruism among na-
tions," 118 for there can be law and morality only where there is an ac-
cepted organization, a common and recognized authority. The "rights"
of states are now what the "rights" of individuals used to be (and still
often are) , that is, they are mights, and the leading states, by some for-
getful honesty of diplomats, are very properly called the "Great Powers."
So it is too among species : there being no common organization, there is
not among them any morality or law; each species does to the other what
it wishes and can. 119
But among men, as mutual need begets mutual aid, this natural order
of powers passes into a moral order of rights. "Since fear of solitude exists
in all men, because no one in solitude is strong enough to defend himself
and procure the necessaries of life, it follows that men by nature tend
120 towards social organization." To guard against danger "the force or
strength of one man would hardly suffice if men did not arrange mutual
9 * 121
aid and exchange. Men are not by nature, however, equipped for the
mutual forbearance of social order; but danger begets association, which
gradually nourishes and strengthens the social instincts: "men are not
born for citizenship* but must be made fit for it." 122
^Ethics, IV, 37, note 2. **Tractatus Politicus, ch. 2.
^Bismarck. ^Ethics, IV, 37, note i ; and App., 27.
"T. T~P., ch. 6. ^Ethics, IV, App., 28.
"V. P., ch. 5.
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