BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
mind, so far as it perceives what is true or false, can very clearly be conceived
without these decrees, but notwithout the necessarylaw of nature as we have
just de¢ned it. Secondly, I have said that these laws depend upon human
decisions because we ought to de¢ne and explain things by their proximate
causes, and a general consideration of necessity and the connectedness of
causes cannot help us at all in the formation and ordering of particular
things. We are also ignorant of the actual coordination and connectedness
of things, that is, of how things are really ordered and connected, and
therefore it is better and indeed necessary for the conduct of life, to regard
things as possible. So much about law considered in an absolute sense.
[2] It seems to be only by a metaphor that the word law (lex) is applied to
natural things. What is commonly meant by a law is a command which
men may or may not follow, since a law constrains human powers within
certain limits which they naturally exceed, and does not command anything
beyond their scope. Law therefore seems to have to be de¢ned more
precisely as ‘a rule for living which a man prescribes to himself or others for
some purpose’. But the real purpose of laws is normally evident only to a
59 few; most people are more or less incapable of grasping it, and hardly live
by reason at all. Hence legislators have wisely contrived (in order to constrain
all men equally) another purpose very di¡erent from the one which
necessarily follows from the nature of laws. They promise to those who
keep the laws things that the common people most desire, and threaten
those who violate themwithwhat they most fear. In this way they have tried
to restrain the common people like a horse with a bridle, so far as it can be
done. This is why the essence of law is taken to be a rule of life prescribed
to men by the command of another; and consequently those who
obey the laws are said to live under law and are regarded as subjects of it.
Truly he who gives other men what is due to them because he fears the
gallows, is acting at the behest of another man and under a threat of suffering
harm, and cannot be called just; but he who gives other men what is
due to them because he knows the true rationale of laws and understands
their necessity, is acting steadfastly and at his own and not another’s command,
and therefore is deservedly called just. I think this is what Paul
meant to point out when he said that those who lived under the law could
not be justi¢ed by the law. 1 For justice as it is commonly de¢ned, is
1 Epistle to the Romans 3.20.
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