Scholium: Hence we see that God’s infinite essence and his eternity are known to
all. Now since all things are in God and are conceived through God, it follows that from
this knowledge we can deduce a great many things so as to know them adequately and
thus to form that third kind of knowledge I mentioned in Sch. 2 Pr. 40, II, of the superi-
ority and usefulness of which we shall have occasion to speak in Part V. That men do
not have as clear a knowledge of God as they do of common notions arises from the fact
that they are unable to imagine God as they do bodies, and that they have connected the
word “God” with the images of things which they commonly see; and this they can
scarcely avoid, being affected continually by external bodies. Indeed, most errors result
solely from the incorrect application of words to things. When somebody says that
the lines joining the center of a circle to its circumference are unequal, he surely under-
stands by circle, at least at that time, something different from what mathematicians
understand. Likewise, when men make mistakes in arithmetic, they have different
figures in mind from those on paper. So if you look only to their minds, they indeed are
not mistaken; but they seem to be wrong because we think that they have in mind the
figures on the page. If this were not the case, we would not think them to be wrong, just
as I did not think that person to be wrong whom I recently heard shouting that his hall
had flown into his neighbor’s hen, for I could see clearly what he had in mind. Most
controversies arise from this, that men do not correctly express what is in their mind, or
they misunderstand another’s mind. For, in reality, while they are hotly contradicting
one another, they are either in agreement or have different things in mind, so that the
apparent errors and absurdities of their opponents are not really so.
PROPOSITION 48:In the mind there is no absolute, or free, will. The mind is deter-
mined to this or that volition by a cause, which is likewise determined by another cause,
and this again by another, and so ad infinitum.
Proof: The mind is a definite and determinate mode of thinking (Pr. 11, II), and
thus (Cor. 2, Pr. 17, I) it cannot be the free cause of its actions: that is, it cannot possess
an absolute faculty of willing and nonwilling. It must be determined to will this or that
(Pr. 28, I) by a cause, which likewise is determined by another cause, and this again by
another, etc.
Scholium: In the same way it is proved that in the mind there is no absolute faculty
of understanding, desiring, loving, etc. Hence it follows that these and similar faculties
are either entirely fictitious or nothing more than metaphysical entities or universals
which we are wont to form from particulars. So intellect and will bear the same relation
to this or that idea, this or that volition, as stoniness to this or that stone, or man to Peter
and Paul. As to the reason why men think they are free, we explained that in the
Appendix to Part I.
But before proceeding further, it should here be noted that by the will I mean the
faculty of affirming and denying, and not desire. I mean, I repeat, the faculty whereby the
mind affirms or denies what is true or what is false, not the desire whereby the mind seeks
things or shuns them. But now that we have proved that these faculties are universal
notions which are not distinct from the particulars from which we form them, we must
inquire whether volitions themselves are anything more than ideas of things. We must
inquire, I say, whether there is in the mind any other affirmation and denial apart from that
which the idea, insofar as it is an idea, involves. On this subject see the following proposi-
tion and also Def. 3, II, lest thought becomes confused with pictures. For by ideas I do not
mean images such as are formed at the back of the eye—or if you like, in the middle of the
brain—but conceptions of thought.