BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
with clear testimonies, but I am willing to let this go, as I am anxious to
get on to other things. I move on then to the second topic that I proposed
to deal with in this chapter, namely, for whom, and why, belief in the
narratives contained in the Bible is necessary. To investigate this question
by the light of natural reason, it seems one should proceed as follows.
[14] Anyone seeking to persuade or dissuade people of something
which is not known by itself, must, to gain their acquiescence, deduce it
from things already accepted, convincing them by means of experience
or reason.That is, one must convince them either by things which they
know through their senses happen in nature or from clear intellectual
concepts evident in themselves. However, unless the experience is such
as to be plainly and distinctly understood, it will, even though it may
77 convince a person, still not su⁄ce to sway the understanding and dissipate
its doubts as e¡ectively as when the conclusion is deduced from
intellectual axioms alone, that is, solely by the power of the understanding
and in the order in which it comprehends things. This is especially
so where it is a spiritual matter that is in question with no
connection with the senses.
Often though, a long chain of linked inferences is required, to come to
¢rm conclusions from basic ideas alone. Furthermore, this requires great
caution and perspicacity and supreme mental discipline, qualities only
seldom met with among human beings. People prefer to be taught by
experience than to deduce all their ideas from a few premises and connect
these together. Consequently, where someone seeks to teach a whole
nation, not to speak of the entire human race, and wants to be understood
by everybody, he must substantiate his points by experience alone
and thoroughly adapt his arguments and the de¢nitions of his teaching
to the capacity of the common people (the majority of mankind), and not
make a chain of inferences or advance de¢nitions linking his arguments
together. Otherwise he will be writing only for the learned, that is, he
will be intelligible only to what is, in comparison with the rest of mankind,
a very small handful of people.
[15] Therefore since all of Scripture was revealed for the bene¢t of a
whole people in the ¢rst place and, ultimately, for the entire human race,
its contents had necessarily to be entirely adjusted to the capacity of the
common people and substantiated by experience alone.
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