BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

chapter 4
On the divine law
[1] The word law(lex) in an absolute sense signi¢es that, in accordance
with which, each individual thing, or all things, or all things of the same
kind, behave in one and the same ¢xed and determined way, depending
upon either natural necessity or a human decision. A law that depends
upon natural necessity is one that necessarily follows from the very nature
or de¢nition of a thing. A law that depends upon a human decision, which
is more properly called a decree ( jus), is one that men prescribe to themselves
and to others in order to achieve a better and safer life, or for other
reasons. For example, the fact that when one body strikes a smaller body, it
only loses as much of its own motion as it communicates to the other, is a
universal law of all bodies which follows from natural necessity. So too the 58
fact that when a man recalls one thing he immediately remembers another
which is similar or which he had seen along with the ¢rst thing, is a law
which necessarily follows from human nature.
But the fact that men give up their right which they receive from nature,
or are compelled to give it up, and commit themselves to a particular rule
of life depends on human decision. And while I entirely agree that all
things are determined by the universal laws of nature to exist and act in a
¢xed and determined manner, I insist that these decrees depend on willed
human decision, and I do so for two reasons. Firstly, in so far as man is a
part of nature, he is also a part of nature’s power. Hence whatever follows
from the necessity of human nature (that is, from nature itself in so far as
we understand it to be expressly determined by human nature) results also,
albeit necessarily, from the capacity of men. Hence the decreeing of these
laws may quite correctly be said to follow from human will, because this
depends especially on the power of the human mind in the sense that our
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