522 BARUCHSPINOZA
I reply that I do not know, just as I do not know how one should reckon a man who hangs
himself, or how one should reckon babies, fools, and madmen.
My final task is to show what practical advantages accrue from knowledge of this
doctrine, and this we shall readily gather from the following points:
- It teaches that we act only by God’s will, and that we share in the divine nature,
and all the more as our actions become more perfect and as we understand God more
and more. Therefore, this doctrine, apart from giving us complete tranquillity of mind,
has the further advantage of teaching us wherein lies our greatest happiness or blessed-
ness, namely, in the knowledge of God alone, as a result of which we are induced only
to such actions as are urged on us by love and piety. Hence we clearly understand how
far astray from the true estimation of virtue are those who, failing to understand that
virtue itself and the service of God are happiness itself and utmost freedom, expect God
to bestow on them the highest rewards in return for their virtue and meritorious actions
as if in return for the basest slavery. - It teaches us what attitude we should adopt regarding fortune, or the things that
are not in our power, that is, the things that do not follow from our nature; namely, to
expect and to endure with patience both faces of fortune. For all things follow from
God’s eternal decree by the same necessity as it follows from the essence of a triangle
that its three angles are equal to two right angles. - This doctrine assists us in our social relations, in that it teaches us to hate no
one, despise no one, ridicule no one, be angry with no one, envy no one. Then again, it
teaches us that each should be content with what he has and should help his neighbor,
not from womanish pity, or favor, or superstition, but from the guidance of reason as
occasion and circumstance require. This I shall demonstrate in Part IV. - Finally, this doctrine is also of no small advantage to the commonwealth, in
that it teaches the manner in which citizens should be governed and led; namely, not so
as to be slaves, but so as to do freely what is best.
And thus I have completed the task I undertook in this Scholium, and thereby I bring
to an end Part II, in which I think I have explained the nature of the human mind and its
properties at sufficient length and as clearly as the difficult subject matter permits, and that
from my account can be drawn many excellent lessons, most useful and necessary to know.