BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

On ceremonies and narratives
they are carried away by sensual desire and by their passions (which have
no regard for the future and for other things). This is why no society can 74
subsist without government and compulsion, and hence laws, which
moderate and restrain desires. However human nature does not allow itself
to be absolutely compelled, and as the tragedian Seneca says, 8 no one has
maintained a violent re´gime for long; it is moderate re´gimes that endure.
For while men are acting from fear alone, they are doing what they do not
at all want to do; they have no reason of interest or necessity for doing what
they do; they seek merely to avoid punishment or even execution. Indeed,
they cannot help but rejoice when their ruler su¡ers pain or loss, even if
this involves them in great su¡ering themselves; they cannot help but wish
him every calamity and in£ict it themselves when they can. Moreover there
is nothing that people ¢nd less tolerable than to be ruled by their equals
and serve them; and nothing is more di⁄cult than to deprive people of
liberty once it has been granted.
[9] It follows from all this, ¢rst, that either the whole of society (if this is
possible) should hold power together, collegially, so that all are subject to
themselves and nobody must serve their equal, or else a few men [hold
power], or if one man alone holds power, he will need to have something
above ordinary human nature ^ or at least strive with all his resources to
convince the common people that he has. Secondly, in any form of state
the laws should be so drawn up that people are restrained less by fear than
hope of something good which they very much desire; for in this way
everybody will do his duty willingly. Finally, since obedience consists in
carrying out commands on the sole authority of a ruler, it follows that
[such subordination] has no place in a society whose government is in the
hands of all and where laws are made by common consent. In such a
society, whether the number of laws is increased or reduced, the people
still remain just as free, since they are not acting under the authority of
another but by their own proper consent. The opposite is the case when
one man alone holds power absolutely, for all are carrying out the commands
of government on the sole authority of a single person. Hence,
unless people have been raised from the outset to be subservient to the
ruler’s every word, he will ¢nd it di⁄cult to institute new laws when they
are needed and to take away the people’s liberty once it has been granted.
8 Seneca,Trojan Women, 258^9.
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