Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza
page 35 of 298 (11%)
page 35 of 298 (11%)
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which it should be conditioned to exist and act. Thus (Def.
vii.) it cannot be called a free cause, but only a necessary or constrained cause. Q.E.D. Coroll. I.-Hence it follows, first, that God does not act according to freedom of the will. Coroll. II.-It follows, secondly, that will and intellect stand in the same relation to the nature of God as do motion, and rest, and absolutely all natural phenomena, which must be conditioned by God (Prop. xxix.) to exist and act in a particular manner. For will, like the rest, stands in need of a cause, by which it is conditioned to exist and act in a particular manner. And although, when will or intellect be granted, an infinite number of results may follow, yet God cannot on that account be said to act from freedom of the will, any more than the infinite number of results from motion and rest would justify us in saying that motion and rest act by free will. Wherefore will no more appertains to God than does anything else in nature, but stands in the same relation to him as motion, rest, and the like, which we have shown to follow from the necessity of the divine nature, and to be conditioned by it to exist and act in a particular manner. PROP. XXXIII. Things could not have been brought into being by God in any manner or in any order different from that which has in fact obtained. Proof-All things necessarily follow from the nature of God (Prop. xvi.), and by the nature of God are conditioned to exist and act in a particular way (Prop. xxix.). If things, therefore, could have been of a different nature, or have been conditioned to act in a different way, so that the order of nature would have |
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