【英文原著类】Theologico-Political Treatise P1(神学与政治专题研究1).pdf

A Theologico-Political Treatise
A Theologico-Political
Treatise
1
A Theologico-Political Treatise
Part 1 - Chapters I to V
Baruch Spinoza
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A Theologico-Political Treatise
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 inte