神学・政治論 — スピノザ
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : Theologico-Political Treatise — Part 1 Author : Benedictus de Spinoza Translator : R. H. M. Elwes Release date : July 1, 1997 [eBook #989] Most recently updated: January 6, 2021 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/989 Credits : Joseph B. Yesselman. HTML version by Al Haines. *** START OF A Theologico-Political Treatise Part 1 - Chapters I to V Baruch Spinoza A Theologico-Political Treatise Part 1 - Chapters I to V TABLE OF CONTENTS: PREFACE. Origin and consequences of superstition. Causes that have led the author to write. Course of his investigation. For what readers the treatise is designed. Submission of author to the rulers of his country. CHAPTER I - Of Prophecy. Definition of prophecy. Distinction between revelation to Moses and to the other prophets. Between Christ and other recipients of revelation. Ambiguity of the word "Spirit." The different senses in which things may be referred to God. Different senses of "Spirit of God." Prophets perceived revelation by imagination. CHAPTER II - Of Prophets. A mistake to suppose that prophecy can give knowledge of phenomena Certainty of prophecy based on: (1) Vividness of imagination, (2) A Sign, (3) Goodness of the Prophet. Variation of prophecy with the temperament and opinions of the individual. CHAPTER III - Of the Vocation of the Hebrews, and whether the Gift of Prophecy was peculiar to them. Happiness of Hebrews did not consist in the inferiority of the Gentile. Nor in philosophic knowledge or virtue. But in their conduct of affairs of state and escape from political dangers. Even this Distinction did not exist in the time of Abraham. Testimony from the Old Testament itself to the share of the Gentiles in the law and favour of God. Explanation of apparent discrepancy of the Epistle to the Romans. Answer to the arguments for the eternal election of the Jews. CHAPTER IV - Of the Divine Law. Laws either depend on natural necessity or on human decree. The existence of the latter not inconsistent with the former class of laws. Divine law a kind of law founded on human decree: called Divine from its object. Divine law: (1) universal; (2) independent of the truth of any historical narrative; (3) independent of rites and ceremonies; (4) its own reward. Reason does not present God as a law-giver for men. Such a conception a proof of ignorance - in Adam - in the Israelites - in Christians. Testimony of the Scriptures in favour of reason and the rational view of the Divine. CHAPTER V - Of the Ceremonial Law. Ceremonial law of the Old Testament no part of the Divine universal law, but partial and temporary. Testimony of the prophets themselves to this Testimony of the New Testament. How the ceremonial law tended to preserve the Hebrew kingdom. Christian rites on a similar footing. What part of the Scripture narratives is one bound to believe? Author's Endnotes to the Treatise. A Theologico-Political Treatise Part 1 - Chapters I to V PREFACE. (1)Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune: but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune's greedily coveted favours, they are consequently, for the most part, very prone to credulity. (2) The human mind is readily swayed this way or that in times of doubt, especially when hope and fear are struggling for the mastery, though usually it is boastful, over - confident, and vain. (3) This as a general fact I suppose everyone knows, though few, I believe, know their own nature; no one can have lived in the world without observing that most people, when in prosperity, are so over-brimming with wisdom (however inexperienced they may be), that they take every offer of advice as a personal insult, whereas in adversity they know not where to turn, but beg and pray for counsel from every passer-by. (4) No plan is then too futile, too absurd, or too fatuous for their adoption; the most frivolous causes will raise them to hope, or plunge them into despair - if anything happens during their fright which reminds them of some past good or ill, they think it portends a happy or unhappy issue, and therefore (though it may have proved abortive a hundred times before) style it a lucky or unlucky omen. (5) Anything which excites their astonishment they believe to be a portent signifying the anger of the gods or of the Supreme Being, and, mistaking superstition for religion, account it impious not to avert the evil with prayer and sacrifice. (6) Signs and wonders of this sort they conjure up perpetually, till one might think Nature as mad as themselves, they interpret her so fantastically. (7) Thus it is brought prominently before us, that superstition's chief victims are those persons who greedily covet temporal advantages; they it is, who (especially when they are in danger, and cannot help themselves) are wont with Prayers and womanish tears to implore help from God: upbraiding Reason as blind, because she cannot show a sure path to the shadows they pursue, and rejecting human wisdom as vain; but believing the phantoms of imagination, dreams, and other childish absurdities, to be the very oracles of Heaven. (8) As though God had turned away from the wise, and written His decrees, not in the mind of man but in the entrails of beasts, or left them to be proclaimed by the inspiration and instinct of fools, madmen, and birds. Such is the unreason to which terror can drive mankind! (9) Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear. If anyone desire an example, let him take Al