Mantinomia

Quotes

Selected passages, linked to their place in the works.

916 quotes

When we read a book that supports our favourite opinions, how eagerly do we suck in the doctrines, and suffer our minds placidly to reflect the images that illustrate the tenets we have previously embraced. We indolently acquiesce in the conclusion, and our spirit animates and corrects the various subjects. But when, on the contrary, we peruse a skilful writer, with whom we do not coincide in opinion, how attentive is the mind to detect fallacy. And this suspicious coolness often prevents our being carried away by a stream of natural eloquence, which the prejudiced mind terms declamation—a pomp of words! We never allow ourselves to be warmed; and, after contending with the writer, are more confirmed in our opinion; as much, perhaps, from a spirit of contradiction as from reason. A lively imagination is ever in danger of being betrayed into error by favourite opinions, which it almost personifies, the more effectually to intoxicate the understanding. Always tending to extremes, truth is left behind in the heat of the chace, and things are viewed as positively good, or bad, though they wear an equivocal face.

A Vindication of the Rights of Men

Mary Wollstonecraft

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We must not, however, expect that this uniformity of human actions should be carried to such a length as that all men, in the same circumstances, will always act precisely in the same manner, without making any allowance for the diversity of characters, prejudices, and opinions. Such a uniformity in every particular, is found in no part of nature. On the contrary, from observing the variety of conduct in different men, we are enabled to form a greater variety of maxims, which still suppose a degree of uniformity and regularity.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

David Hume

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I beg the limitations here made may be remarked, when I say, that a miracle can never be proved, so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. For I own, that otherwise, there may possibly be miracles, or violations of the usual course of nature, of such a kind as to admit of proof from human testimony; though, perhaps, it will be impossible to find any such in all the records of history.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

David Hume

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When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

David Hume

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For if you kill me you will not easily find a successor to me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by God; and the state is a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you.

Apology

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Speaker: Socrates

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For if I tell you that to do as you say would be a disobedience to the God, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, and of those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you are still less likely to believe me.

Apology

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Speaker: Socrates

Read in the work: Apology

from good it is possible to become bad, and from bad good, for he who is depraved, being led to better pursuits and discourses, advances, though but a little, to be better, and if he once makes an advancement ever so little, he will evidently become either altogether changed, or have made a very great proficiency, since he ever becomes more disposed to virtue, even if he has obtained the smallest, increase, from the beginning.

Categories

Aristotle

Translated by Octavius Freire Owen

Read in the work: Categories

This Thracian told me that in these notions of theirs, which I was just now mentioning, the Greek physicians are quite right as far as they go; but Zamolxis, he added, our king, who is also a god, says further, 'that as you ought not to attempt to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the body, so neither ought you to attempt to cure the body without the soul; and this,' he said, 'is the reason why the cure of many diseases is unknown to the physicians of Hellas, because they are ignorant of the whole, which ought to be studied also; for the part can never be well unless the whole is well.'

Charmides

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Speaker: Socrates, reporting a Thracian physician

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How can you think that I have any other motive in refuting you but what I should have in examining into myself? which motive would be just a fear of my unconsciously fancying that I knew something of which I was ignorant. And at this moment I pursue the argument chiefly for my own sake, and perhaps in some degree also for the sake of my other friends. For is not the discovery of things as they truly are, a good common to all mankind?

Charmides

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Speaker: Socrates

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First: It belongs to the theory of modes that, though we can easily comprehend a substance apart from a mode, we cannot, conversely, clearly comprehend a mode unless at the same time we conceive the substance of which it is a mode (as I have explained in the first part of the Principles, Article LXI), and on this point all philosophers are agreed.

Comments on a Certain Broadsheet

René Descartes

Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross

Speaker: René Descartes

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Certain things are believed through faith alone. Such are the mystery of the Incarnation, the Trinity, and the like. Others, however, though they have a certain bearing on faith, can nevertheless be investigated by the natural reason. Among these are generally ranked by the orthodox theologians the existence of God, and the distinction of mind from body.

Comments on a Certain Broadsheet

René Descartes

Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross

Speaker: René Descartes

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I wrote that we could not doubt that our mind existed, because, from the very fact that we doubted, it followed that our mind existed, but that meantime we might doubt whether any material things existed; whence I deduced and demonstrated that mind was clearly perceived by us as an existence, or substance, even supposing we had no concept whatever of the body, and denied that any material things had existence; and, accordingly, that the concept of mind did not involve any concept of body.

Comments on a Certain Broadsheet

René Descartes

Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross

Speaker: René Descartes

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For I never wrote or concluded that the mind required innate ideas which were in some sort different from its faculty of thinking; but when I observed the existence in me of certain thoughts which proceeded, not from extraneous objects nor from the determination of my will, but solely from the faculty of thinking which is within me, then, that I might distinguish the ideas or notions (which are the forms of these thoughts) from other thoughts adventitious or factitious, I termed the former ‘innate.’ In the same sense we say that in some families generosity is innate, in others certain diseases like gout or gravel, not that on this account the babes of these families suffer from these diseases in their mother’s womb, but because they are born with a certain disposition or propensity for contracting them.

Comments on a Certain Broadsheet

René Descartes

Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross

Speaker: René Descartes

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In this point he differs from me, for when I saw that, over and above perception, which is required as a basis for judgment, there must needs be affirmation, or negation, to constitute the form of the judgment, and that it is frequently open to us to withhold our assent, even if we perceive a thing, I referred the act of judging, which consists in nothing but assent, i.e. affirmation or negation, not to the perception of the understanding, but to the determination of the will.

Comments on a Certain Broadsheet

René Descartes

Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross

Speaker: René Descartes

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What could be more unjust than to attribute to a writer opinions which he states only to the end that he may refute them? What more foolish than to imagine that, at least for the time being, while these false opinions are being propounded previous to their refutation, the author commits himself to them, and that, accordingly, the man who states the arguments of the Atheists is an Atheist for the time?

Comments on a Certain Broadsheet

René Descartes

Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross

Speaker: René Descartes

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Among Objects of the sense, that is not most gratefull to the Mind, which is most easily perceived by the sense; nor that, on the contrary, which is with the most difficulty apprehended: but that which is perceived not so easily, as that that naturall desire, wherby the senses are carried towards their proper Objects, is not therby totally fulfilled; nor yet so hardly, as that the sense is therby tired.

Compendium of Music

René Descartes

Translated by William Brouncker

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Some persons in fact believe that Solon deliberately made the laws indefinite, in order that the final decision might be in the hands of the people. This, however, is not probable, and the reason no doubt was that it is impossible to attain ideal perfection when framing a law in general terms; for we must judge of his intentions, not from the actual results in the present day, but from the general tenor of the rest of his legislation.

Constitution of the Athenians

Aristotle (attributed)

Translated by Frederic George Kenyon

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I gave to the mass of the people such rank as befitted their need, I took not away their honour, and I granted naught to their greed; While those who were rich in power, who in wealth were glorious and great, I bethought me that naught should befall them unworthy their splendour and state; So I stood with my shield outstretched, and both were safe in its sight, And I would not that either should triumph, when the triumph was not with right.

Constitution of the Athenians

Aristotle (attributed)

Translated by Frederic George Kenyon

Speaker: Solon

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Not only was he in every respect humane and mild and ready to forgive those who offended, but, in addition, he advanced money to the poorer people to help them in their labours, so that they might make their living by agriculture. In this he had two objects, first that they might not spend their time in the city but might be scattered over all the face of the country, and secondly that, being moderately well off and occupied with their own business, they might have neither the wish nor the time to attend to public affairs. At the same time his revenues were increased by the thorough cultivation of the country, since he imposed a tax of one tenth on all the produce.

Constitution of the Athenians

Aristotle (attributed)

Translated by Frederic George Kenyon

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Theramenes, however, criticized this scheme also, first on the ground that, while proposing to give all respectable citizens a share in the constitution, they were actually giving it only to three thousand persons, as though all merit were confined within that number; and secondly because they were doing two inconsistent things, since they made the government rest on the basis of force, and yet made the governors inferior in strength to the governed.

Constitution of the Athenians

Aristotle (attributed)

Translated by Frederic George Kenyon

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The democracy has made itself master of everything and administers everything by its votes in the Assembly and by the law-courts, in which it holds the supreme power. Even the jurisdiction of the Council has passed into the hands of the people at large; and this appears to be a judicious change, since small bodies are more open to corruption, whether by actual money or influence, than large ones.

Constitution of the Athenians

Aristotle (attributed)

Translated by Frederic George Kenyon

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In former times the Council had full powers to inflict fines and imprisonment and death; but when it had consigned Lysimachus to the executioner, and he was sitting in the immediate expectation of death, Eumelides of Alopĕcē rescued him from its hands, maintaining that no citizen ought to be put to death except on the decision of a court of law. Accordingly a trial was held in a law-court, and Lysimachus was acquitted, receiving henceforth the nickname of 'the man from the drum-head'; and the people deprived the Council thenceforward of the power to inflict death or imprisonment or fine, passing a law that if the Council condemn any person for an offence or inflict a fine, the Thesmothetae shall bring the sentence or fine before the law-court, and the decision of the jurors shall be the final judgement in the matter.

Constitution of the Athenians

Aristotle (attributed)

Translated by Frederic George Kenyon

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They despised everything but virtue, caring little for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtue and friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect for them, they are lost and friendship with them.

Critias

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Speaker: Critias

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Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed. By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence.

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

David Hume

Speaker: Cleanthes

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Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out; much labour lost, many fruitless trials made; and a slow, but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of world-making. In such subjects, who can determine, where the truth; nay, who can conjecture where the probability lies, amidst a great number of hypotheses which may be proposed, and a still greater which may be imagined?

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

David Hume

Speaker: Philo

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All religious systems, it is confessed, are subject to great and insuperable difficulties. Each disputant triumphs in his turn; while he carries on an offensive war, and exposes the absurdities, barbarities, and pernicious tenets of his antagonist. But all of them, on the whole, prepare a complete triumph for the Sceptic; who tells them, that no system ought ever to be embraced with regard to such subjects: For this plain reason, that no absurdity ought ever to be assented to with regard to any subject. A total suspense of judgment is here our only reasonable resource.

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

David Hume

Speaker: Philo

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For to hold converse with those of other ages and to travel, are almost the same thing. It is useful to know something of the manners of different nations, that we may be enabled to form a more correct judgment regarding our own, and be prevented from thinking that everything contrary to our customs is ridiculous and irrational,—a conclusion usually come to by those whose experience has been limited to their own country. On the other hand, when too much time is occupied in travelling, we become strangers to our native country; and the over curious in the customs of the past are generally ignorant of those of the present.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt. The second, to divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution. The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and sequence. And the last, in every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was omitted.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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In the same way, since in action it frequently happens that no delay is permissible, it is very certain that, when it is not in our power to determine what is true, we ought to act according to what is most probable; and even although we should not remark a greater probability in one opinion than in another, we ought notwithstanding to choose one or the other, and afterwards consider it, in so far as it relates to practice, as no longer dubious, but manifestly true and certain, since the reason by which our choice has been determined is itself possessed of these qualities.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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Inasmuch as we neither seek nor shun any object except in so far as our understanding represents it as good or bad, all that is necessary to right action is right judgment, and to the best action the most correct judgment,—that is, to the acquisition of all the virtues with all else that is truly valuable and within our reach; and the assurance of such an acquisition cannot fail to render us contented.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think, hence I am, was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that “I,” that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body, and is even more easily known than the latter, and is such, that although the latter were not, it would still continue to be all that it is.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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In the next place, I perceived that there was nothing at all in these demonstrations which could assure me of the existence of their object: thus, for example, supposing a triangle to be given, I distinctly perceived that its three angles were necessarily equal to two right angles, but I did not on that account perceive anything which could assure me that any triangle existed: while, on the contrary, recurring to the examination of the idea of a Perfect Being, I found that the existence of the Being was comprised in the idea in the same way that the equality of its three angles to two right angles is comprised in the idea of a triangle, or as in the idea of a sphere, the equidistance of all points on its surface from the centre, or even still more clearly; and that consequently it is at least as certain that God, who is this Perfect Being, is, or exists, as any demonstration of geometry can be.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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For, in the first place, even the principle which I have already taken as a rule, viz., that all the things which we clearly and distinctly conceive are true, is certain only because God is or exists, and because he is a Perfect Being, and because all that we possess is derived from him: whence it follows that our ideas or notions, which to the extent of their clearness and distinctness are real, and proceed from God, must to that extent be true.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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I wish it to be considered that the motion which I have now explained follows as necessarily from the very arrangement of the parts, which may be observed in the heart by the eye alone, and from the heat which may be felt with the fingers, and from the nature of the blood as learned from experience, as does the motion of a clock from the power, the situation, and shape of its counterweights and wheels.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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The second test is, that although such machines might execute many things with equal or perhaps greater perfection than any of us, they would, without doubt, fail in certain others from which it could be discovered that they did not act from knowledge, but solely from the disposition of their organs: for while reason is an universal instrument that is alike available on every occasion, these organs, on the contrary, need a particular arrangement for each particular action; whence it must be morally impossible that there should exist in any machine a diversity of organs sufficient to enable it to act in all the occurrences of life, in the way in which our reason enables us to act.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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I had after this described the reasonable soul, and shown that it could by no means be educed from the power of matter, as the other things of which I had spoken, but that it must be expressly created; and that it is not sufficient that it be lodged in the human body exactly like a pilot in a ship, unless perhaps to move its members, but that it is necessary for it to be joined and united more closely to the body, in order to have sensations and appetites similar to ours, and thus constitute a real man.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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For by them I perceived it to be possible to arrive at knowledge highly useful in life; and in room of the speculative philosophy usually taught in the schools, to discover a practical, by means of which, knowing the force and action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens, and all the other bodies that surround us, as distinctly as we know the various crafts of our artisans, we might also apply them in the same way to all the uses to which they are adapted, and thus render ourselves the lords and possessors of nature. And this is a result to be desired, not only in order to the invention of an infinity of arts, by which we might be enabled to enjoy without any trouble the fruits of the earth, and all its comforts, but also and especially for the preservation of health, which is without doubt, of all the blessings of this life, the first and fundamental one; for the mind is so intimately dependent upon the condition and relation of the organs of the body, that if any means can ever be found to render men wiser and more ingenious than hitherto, I believe that it is in medicine they must be sought for.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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But it is necessary also to confess that the power of nature is so ample and vast, and these principles so simple and general, that I have hardly observed a single particular effect which I cannot at once recognise as capable of being deduced in many different modes from the principles, and that my greatest difficulty usually is to discover in which of these modes the effect is dependent upon them; for out of this difficulty I cannot otherwise extricate myself than by again seeking certain experiments, which may be such that their result is not the same, if it is in the one of these modes that we must explain it, as it would be if it were to be explained in the other.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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And if I write in French, which is the language of my country, in preference to Latin, which is that of my preceptors, it is because I expect that those who make use of their unprejudiced natural reason will be better judges of my opinions than those who give heed to the writings of the ancients only; and as for those who unite good sense with habits of study, whom alone I desire for judges, they will not, I feel assured, be so partial to Latin as to refuse to listen to my reasonings merely because I expound them in the vulgar tongue.

Discourse on the Method

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

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but a thing can in no respect be called contingent, save in relation to the imperfection of our knowledge. A thing of which we do not know whether the essence does or does not involve a contradiction, or of which, knowing that it does not involve a contradiction, we are still in doubt concerning the existence, because the order of causes escapes us,—such a thing, I say, cannot appear to us either necessary or impossible. Wherefore we call it contingent or possible.

Ethics

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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This endeavour to bring it about, that our own likes and dislikes should meet with universal approval, is really ambition (see III. xxix. note); wherefore we see that everyone by nature desires (appetere), that the rest of mankind should live according to his own individual disposition: when such a desire is equally present in all, everyone stands in everyone else’s way, and in wishing to be loved or praised by all, all become mutually hateful.

Ethics

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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As for the terms good and bad, they indicate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves, but are merely modes of thinking, or notions which we form from the comparison of things one with another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance, music is good for him that is melancholy, bad for him that mourns; for him that is deaf, it is neither good nor bad.

Ethics

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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For instance, when we look at the sun, we conceive that it is distant from us about two hundred feet; in this judgment we err, so long as we are in ignorance of its true distance; when its true distance is known, the error is removed, but not the imagination; or, in other words, the idea of the sun, which only explains the nature of that luminary, in so far as the body is affected thereby: wherefore, though we know the real distance, we shall still nevertheless imagine the sun to be near us.

Ethics

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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I have not written the above with the object of drawing the conclusion, that ignorance is more excellent than knowledge, or that a wise man is on a par with a fool in controlling his emotions, but because it is necessary to know the power and the infirmity of our nature, before we can determine what reason can do in restraining the emotions, and what is beyond her power. I have said, that in the present part I shall merely treat of human infirmity. The power of reason over the emotions I have settled to treat separately.

Ethics

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Therefore, to man there is nothing more useful than man—nothing, I repeat, more excellent for preserving their being can be wished for by men, than that all should so in all points agree, that the minds and bodies of all should form, as it were, one single mind and one single body, and that all should, with one consent, as far as they are able, endeavour to preserve their being, and all with one consent seek what is useful to them all. Hence, men who are governed by reason—that is, who seek what is useful to them in accordance with reason,—desire for themselves nothing, which they do not also desire for the rest of mankind, and, consequently, are just, faithful, and honourable in their conduct.

Ethics

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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I have already said that I call these and similar emotions bad, solely in respect to what is useful to man. The laws of nature have regard to nature’s general order, whereof man is but a part. I mention this, in passing, lest any should think that I have wished to set forth the faults and irrational deeds of men rather than the nature and properties of things. For, as I said in the preface to the third Part, I regard human emotions and their properties as on the same footing with other natural phenomena. Assuredly human emotions indicate the power and ingenuity of nature, if not of human nature, quite as fully as other things which we admire, and which we delight to contemplate.

Ethics

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Men are also gained over by liberality, especially such as have not the means to buy what is necessary to sustain life. However, to give aid to every poor man is far beyond the power and the advantage of any private person. For the riches of any private person are wholly inadequate to meet such a call. Again, an individual man’s resources of character are too limited for him to be able to make all men his friends. Hence providing for the poor is a duty, which falls on the State as a whole, and has regard only to the general advantage.

Ethics

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Now all IMPERATIVES command either HYPOTHETICALLY or CATEGORICALLY. The former represent the practical necessity of a possible action as means to something else that is willed (or at least which one might possibly will). The categorical imperative would be that which represented an action as necessary of itself without reference to another end, i. e., as objectively necessary.

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

Immanuel Kant

Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott

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Because you seem not to be aware that any one who has an intellectual affinity to Socrates and enters into conversation with him is liable to be drawn into an argument; and whatever subject he may start, he will be continually carried round and round by him, until at last he finds that he has to give an account both of his present and past life; and when he is once entangled, Socrates will not let him go until he has completely and thoroughly sifted him.

Laches

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Speaker: Nicias

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And when I call the rulers servants or ministers of the law, I give them this name not for the sake of novelty, but because I certainly believe that upon such service or ministry depends the well- or ill-being of the state. For that state in which the law is subject and has no authority, I perceive to be on the highway to ruin; but I see that the state in which the law is above the rulers, and the rulers are the inferiors of the law, has salvation, and every blessing which the Gods can confer.

Laws

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Speaker: Athenian Stranger

Read in the work: Laws

For in learning these objects it is necessary to learn at the same time both what is false and what is true of the whole of Existence, and that through the most diligent and prolonged investigation, as I said at the commencement; and it is by means of the examination of each of these objects, comparing one with another—names and definitions, visions and sense-perceptions,—proving them by kindly proofs and employing questionings and answerings that are void of envy—it is by such means, and hardly so, that there bursts out the light of intelligence and reason regarding each object in the mind of him who uses every effort of which mankind is capable.

Letters I–XIII

Plato (attributed)

Translated by Robert Gregg Bury

Speaker: Author of Letter VII

Read in the work: Letters I–XIII

All people have their fancies; some desire horses, and others dogs; and some are fond of gold, and others of honour. Now, I have no violent desire of any of these things; but I have a passion for friends; and I would rather have a good friend than the best cock or quail in the world: I would even go further, and say the best horse or dog. Yea, by the dog of Egypt, I should greatly prefer a real friend to all the gold of Darius, or even to Darius himself: I am such a lover of friends as that.

Lysis

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Speaker: Socrates

Read in the work: Lysis

Whence, then, spring my errors? They arise from this cause alone, that I do not restrain the will, which is of much wider range than the understanding, within the same limits, but extend it even to things I do not understand, and as the will is of itself indifferent to such, it readily falls into error and sin by choosing the false in room of the true, and evil instead of good.

Meditations on First Philosophy

René Descartes

Translated by John Veitch

Read in the work: Meditations on First Philosophy

Ce qui fait qu'il est presque impossible de preuoir les vens particuliers qui doiuent estre chasque iour en chasque contrée de la terre, & que mesme il y en a souuent plusieurs contraires qui passent au dessus les vns des autres. Mais on y pourra bien determiner en general quels vens doiuent estre les plus frequens & les plus forts, & en quels lieux & quelles saisons ils doiuent regner, si on prent exactement garde a toutes les choses qui ont esté icy remarquées.

Meteorology (Les Météores)

René Descartes

Read in the work: Meteorology (Les Météores)

Nothing does this better than mathematics, which therefore I think should be taught all those who have the time and opportunity, not so much to make them mathematicians as to make them reasonable creatures; for though we all call ourselves so because we are born to it if we please, yet we may truly say, nature gives us but the seeds of it; we are born to be, if we please, rational creatures, but it is use and exercise only that makes us so, and we are indeed so no further than industry and application has carried us.

Of the Conduct of the Understanding

John Locke

Read in the work: Of the Conduct of the Understanding

Those things therefore which are in the voice, are symbols of the passions of the soul, and when written, are symbols of the (passions) in the voice, and as there are not the same letters among all men, so neither have all the same voices, yet those passions of the soul, of which these are primarily the signs, are the same among all, the things also, of which these are the similitudes, are the same.

On Interpretation

Aristotle

Translated by Octavius Freire Owen

Read in the work: On Interpretation

There is the same reasoning also in the case of contradiction; to be or not to be is necessary for every thing, also that it shall, or shall not be, yet it is not requisite to speak of each separately, but I say, for instance, that it is necessary for a naval action to occur or not occur to-morrow, yet it is not necessary that there should be a naval action to-morrow, nor that there should not be; it is necessary, however, that it should either be or not be.

On Interpretation

Aristotle

Translated by Octavius Freire Owen

Read in the work: On Interpretation

Et remarqués icy qu'il faut distinguer entre le mouuement, & l'action ou inclination a se mouuoir. Car on peut fort bien conceuoir que les parties du vin, qui sont par exemple vers C, tendent vers B, & ensemble vers A, nonobstant qu'elles ne puissent actuellement se mouuoir vers ces deus costés en mesme temps; & qu'elles tendent exactement en ligne droite vers B & vers A, nonobstant qu'elles ne se puissent mouuoir si exactement vers la ligne droite, a cause des grappes de raisins qui sont entre deus: & ainsy, pensant que ce n'est pas tant le mouuement, comme l'action des cors lumineus qu'il faut prendre pour leur lumiere, vous deués iuger que les rayons de cete lumiere ne sont autre chose, que les lignes suiuant lesquelles tend cete action.

Optics (Dioptrics)

René Descartes

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Et si, pour ne nous esloigner que le moins qu'il est possible des opinions desia receues, nous aymons mieux auoùer que les obiets que nous sentons, enuoyent veritablement leurs images iusques au dedans de nostre cerueau, il faut au moins que nous remarquions qu'il n'y a aucunes images qui doiuent en tout resembler aux obiets qu'elles representent: car autrement il n'y auroit point de distinction entre l'obiet & son image: mais qu'il suffist qu'elles leur resemblent en peu de choses; & souuent mesme, que leur perfection depend de ce qu'elles ne leur resemblent pas tant qu'elles pourroyent faire.

Optics (Dioptrics)

René Descartes

Read in the work: Optics (Dioptrics)

Or, encores que cete peinture, en passant ainsi iusques au dedans de nostre teste, retiene tousiours quelque chose de la resemblance des obiets dont elle procede, il ne se faut point toutesfois persuader, ainsi que ie vous ay desia tantost assés fait entendre, que ce soit par le moyen de cete resemblance qu'elle face que nous les sentons, comme s'il y auoit derechef d'autres yeux en nostre cerueau, auec lesquels nous la pussions aperceuoir; mais plustost, que ce sont les mouuemens par lesquels elle est composée, qui, agissans immediatement contre nostre ame, d'autant qu'elle est vnie a nostre cors, sont institués de la Nature pour luy faire auoir de tels sentimens.

Optics (Dioptrics)

René Descartes

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A sçauoir, leur grandeur s'estime par la connoissance, ou l'opinion, qu'on a de leur distance, comparée auec la grandeur des images qu'ils impriment au fonds de l'œil; & non pas absolument par la grandeur de ces images, ainsi qu'il est assés manifeste de ce que, encore qu'elles soyent, par exemple, cent fois plus grandes, lors que les obiets sont fort proches de nous, que lors qu'ils en sont dix fois plus esloignés, elles ne nous les font point voir pour cela cent fois plus grands, mais presque esgaux, au moins si leur distance ne nous trompe.

Optics (Dioptrics)

René Descartes

Read in the work: Optics (Dioptrics)

Et il est a remarquer qu'elle n'est aucunement requise pour la perfection de voir mieux, mais seulement pour la commodité de voir plus; & mesme qu'il est impossible de voir plus d'vn seul obiet a la fois distinctement: en sorte que cete commodité, d'en voir cependant confusement plusieurs autres, n'est principalement vtile, qu'afin de sçauoir vers quel costé il faudra, par aprés, tourner ses yeux pour regarder celuy d'entre eux qu'on voudra mieux considerer.

Optics (Dioptrics)

René Descartes

Read in the work: Optics (Dioptrics)

On pourra encore adiouster vne ou plusieurs autres lunetes plus parfaittes auec ces trois, au moins si l'artifice des hommes peut passer si auant. Et il n'y a point de difference entre la façon de ces plus parfaittes & de celles qui le sont moins, sinon que leur verre conuexe doit estre plus grand, & leur point bruslant plus esloigné. En sorte que, si la main des ouuriers ne nous manque, nous pourrons par cete inuention voir des obiets aussy particuliers & aussy petits, dans les Astres, que ceux que nous voyons communement sur la terre.

Optics (Dioptrics)

René Descartes

Read in the work: Optics (Dioptrics)

I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.

Phaedrus

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Speaker: Socrates

Read in the work: Phaedrus

For they conceive of men, not as they are, but as they themselves would like them to be. Whence it has come to pass that, instead of ethics, they have generally written satire, and that they have never conceived a theory of politics, which could be turned to use, but such as might be taken for a chimera, or might have been formed in Utopia, or in that golden age of the poets when, to be sure, there was least need of it.

Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

Read in the work: Political Treatise

We showed too, that reason can, indeed, do much to restrain and moderate the passions, but we saw at the same time, that the road, which reason herself points out, is very steep; so that such as persuade themselves, that the multitude or men distracted by politics can ever be induced to live according to the bare dictate of reason, must be dreaming of the poetic golden age, or of a stage-play.

Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

Read in the work: Political Treatise

And so by natural right I understand the very laws or rules of nature, in accordance with which everything takes place, in other words, the power of nature itself. And so the natural right of universal nature, and consequently of every individual thing, extends as far as its power: and accordingly, whatever any man does after the laws of his nature, he does by the highest natural right, and he has as much right over nature as he has power.

Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

Read in the work: Political Treatise

For a dominion, that looks no farther than to lead men by fear, will be rather free from vices, than possessed of virtue. But men are so to be led, that they may think that they are not led, but living after their own mind, and according to their free decision; and so that they are restrained only by love of liberty, desire to increase their property, and hope of gaining the honours of the dominion.

Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

Read in the work: Political Treatise

WE think that we know each thing singly, (and not in a sophistical manner, according to accident,) when we think that we know the cause on account of which a thing is, that it is the cause of that thing, and that the latter cannot subsist otherwise; wherefore it is evident that knowledge is a thing of this kind, for both those who do not, and those who do know, fancy, the former, that they in this manner possess knowledge, but those who know, possess it in reality, so that it is impossible that a thing of which there is knowledge simply should subsist in any other way.

Posterior Analytics

Aristotle

Translated by Octavius Freire Owen

Read in the work: Posterior Analytics

From sense, therefore, as we say, memory is produced, but from repeated remembrance of the same thing, we get experience, for many remembrances in number constitute one experience. From experience, however, or from every universal being at rest in the soul, that one besides the many, which in all of them is one and the same, the principle of art and science arises, if indeed it is conversant with generation, of art, but if with being, of science.

Posterior Analytics

Aristotle

Translated by Octavius Freire Owen

Read in the work: Posterior Analytics

Et quoy que vostre Methode promete tout ce qui peut estre esperé de l'esprit humain, touchant la recherche de la verité dans les sciences, elle ne promet pas neantmoins d'enseigner à deviner, mais seulement à deduire de certaines choses données toutes les veritez qui peuvent en estre deduites; & ces choses données, en la Physique, ne peuvent estre que des experiences.

Prefatory Letters to The Passions of the Soul

René Descartes, Unnamed friend of Descartes

Speaker: Unnamed friend of Descartes

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Car j'avouë que j'ay esté plus long temps à revoir le petit traité que je vous envoye, que je n'avois esté cy-devant à le composer, & que neantmoins je n'y ay adjousté que peu de choses, & n'ay rien changé au discours, lequel est si simple & si bref, qu'il fera connoistre que mon dessein n'a pas esté d'expliquer les Passions en Orateur, ny mesme en Philosophe moral, mais seulement en Physicien.

Prefatory Letters to The Passions of the Soul

René Descartes, Unnamed friend of Descartes

Speaker: René Descartes

Read in the work: Prefatory Letters to The Passions of the Soul

So much so that the mind eager for eternal truth, when it had hoped to find the tranquil expanse of its own desire, and crossing this with propitious speed to gain the haven of true cognition, finds itself on a tempestuous sea of thought tossed about and overcome, surrounded by storms of contending belief, and lost amid waves of uncertainty, without hope of rescue.

Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Halbert Hains Britan

Read in the work: Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

Indeed upon this truth alone, namely, that existence belongs to the nature of God, or that the concept of God involves a necessary existence as that of a triangle that the sum of its angles is equal to two right angles, or again that His existence and His essence are eternal truth, depends almost all our knowledge of God’s attributes by which we are led to a love of God (or to the highest blessedness). Therefore it is extremely desirable that the human race should sometime consider this.

Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Halbert Hains Britan

Read in the work: Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

From these corollaries it follows that motion must be distinguished from velocity. For we can conceive of bodies which have an equal velocity, but one of them having more motion than the other (per Prop. 21). And on the other hand, bodies with an unequal velocity may have an equal motion (per Coroll. II. above). This, also, is evident from the definition of motion which is nothing but the transference of one body from the vicinity, etc.

Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Halbert Hains Britan

Read in the work: Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

I say that we are seeking for principles which are simple and easily known. Unless such are found we do not desire any at all. For we are only adding the first principles to what has been given in order that the nature of these things may more easily be known, and that we may, according to the method of mathematics, advance from what is perfectly clear to that which is more obscure, and from the simple to what is more complex.

Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Halbert Hains Britan

Read in the work: Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

So much so that the mind eager for eternal truth, when it had hoped to find the tranquil expanse of its own desire, and crossing this with propitious speed to gain the haven of true cognition, finds itself on a tempestuous sea of thought tossed about and overcome, surrounded by storms of contending belief, and lost amid waves of uncertainty, without hope of rescue.

Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Halbert Hains Britan

Read in the work: Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

Indeed upon this truth alone, namely, that existence belongs to the nature of God, or that the concept of God involves a necessary existence as that of a triangle that the sum of its angles is equal to two right angles, or again that His existence and His essence are eternal truth, depends almost all our knowledge of God’s attributes by which we are led to a love of God (or to the highest blessedness). Therefore it is extremely desirable that the human race should sometime consider this.

Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Halbert Hains Britan

Read in the work: Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

From these corollaries it follows that motion must be distinguished from velocity. For we can conceive of bodies which have an equal velocity, but one of them having more motion than the other (per Prop. 21). And on the other hand, bodies with an unequal velocity may have an equal motion (per Coroll. II. above). This, also, is evident from the definition of motion which is nothing but the transference of one body from the vicinity, etc.

Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Halbert Hains Britan

Read in the work: Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

I say that we are seeking for principles which are simple and easily known. Unless such are found we do not desire any at all. For we are only adding the first principles to what has been given in order that the nature of these things may more easily be known, and that we may, according to the method of mathematics, advance from what is perfectly clear to that which is more obscure, and from the simple to what is more complex.

Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Halbert Hains Britan

Read in the work: Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

Hence it appears most difficult to construct an universal affirmative, but most easy to subvert it, in short, universals are easier to subvert than particulars, because the former are subverted, whether a thing is present with nothing, or is not with a certain thing, of which the one, namely, the not being with a certain thing, is proved in all the figures, and the other, the being with nothing, is proved in two.

Prior Analytics

Aristotle

Translated by Octavius Freire Owen

Read in the work: Prior Analytics

Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good.

Republic

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Speaker: Socrates

Read in the work: Republic

Method consists entirely in the order and disposition of the objects towards which our mental vision must be directed if we would find out any truth. We shall comply with it exactly if we reduce involved and obscure propositions step by step to those that are simpler, and then starting with the intuitive apprehension of all those that are absolutely simple, attempt to ascend to the knowledge of all others by precisely similar steps.

Rules for the Direction of the Mind

René Descartes

Translated by George Robert Thomson Ross

Read in the work: Rules for the Direction of the Mind

But lest we should always be uncertain as to the powers of the mind, and in order that we may not labour wrongly and at random before we set ourselves to think out things in detail, we ought once in our life to inquire diligently what the thoughts are of which the human mind is capable. In order the better to attain this end we ought, when two sets of inquiries are equally simple, to choose the more useful.

Rules for the Direction of the Mind

René Descartes

Translated by George Robert Thomson Ross

Read in the work: Rules for the Direction of the Mind

like one who, having never seen any sheep except with short tails, is surprised at the sheep from Morocco which have long ones. So it is related of a peasant that he had persuaded himself that beyond his fields there were no others, but when he happened to miss a cow, and was compelled to go and look for her far away, he was surprised at the great number of fields that there were beyond his few acres.

Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Abraham Wolf

Read in the work: Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being

Lastly, we see also that reasoning is not the principal thing in us, but only like a staircase by which we can climb up to the desired place, or like a good genius which, without any falsity or deception, brings us tidings of the highest good in order thereby to stimulate us to pursue it, and to become united with it; which union is our supreme happiness and bliss.

Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Abraham Wolf

Read in the work: Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being

like one who, having never seen any sheep except with short tails, is surprised at the sheep from Morocco which have long ones. So it is related of a peasant that he had persuaded himself that beyond his fields there were no others, but when he happened to miss a cow, and was compelled to go and look for her far away, he was surprised at the great number of fields that there were beyond his few acres.

Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Abraham Wolf

Read in the work: Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being

Lastly, we see also that reasoning is not the principal thing in us, but only like a staircase by which we can climb up to the desired place, or like a good genius which, without any falsity or deception, brings us tidings of the highest good in order thereby to stimulate us to pursue it, and to become united with it; which union is our supreme happiness and bliss.

Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Abraham Wolf

Read in the work: Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being

A thing of which I have already spoken;--letting alone these puzzles as involving no difficulty, he should be able to follow and criticize in detail every argument, and when a man says that the same is in a manner other, or that other is the same, to understand and refute him from his own point of view, and in the same respect in which he asserts either of these affections. But to show that somehow and in some sense the same is other, or the other same, or the great small, or the like unlike; and to delight in always bringing forward such contradictions, is no real refutation, but is clearly the new-born babe of some one who is only beginning to approach the problem of being.

Sophist

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Speaker: Eleatic Stranger

Read in the work: Sophist

And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.

Symposium

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Speaker: Diotima, as reported by Socrates

Read in the work: Symposium

Thus I think that true generosity which causes a man to esteem himself as highly as he legitimately can, consists alone partly in the fact that he knows that there is nothing that truly pertains to him but this free disposition of his will, and that there is no reason why he should be praised or blamed unless it is because he uses it well or ill; and partly in the fact that he is sensible in himself of a firm and constant resolution to use it well, that is to say, never to fail of his own will to undertake and execute all the things which he judges to be the best—which is to follow perfectly after virtue.

The Passions of the Soul

René Descartes

Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross

Read in the work: The Passions of the Soul

Those branches of knowledge which do not extend beyond the capacities of the human mind are, as a matter of fact, united by a bond so marvellous, they are capable of being deduced from one another by sequences so necessary, that it is not essential to possess much art or address in order to discover them, provided that by commencing with those that are most simple we learn gradually to raise ourselves to the most sublime.

The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light

René Descartes

Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross

Read in the work: The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light

That is what makes me hope that the reader will not be vexed by here finding an easier path, and that the facts which I shall advance will not be the less well received, even although I do not borrow them from Plato or Aristotle, but show that they have current value in the world, just as has money which is in nowise of less value when it proceeds from the purse of a peasant than when it comes from the treasury.

The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light

René Descartes

Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross

Read in the work: The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light

I thank you for the good opinion in which you hold me, but I do not desire to abuse your courtesy to the point of desiring that you should believe what I have just said, solely on the faith of my words. We must not advance opinions so far removed from vulgar beliefs, without at the same time being able to demonstrate certain effects from so doing; that is why I beg you both to be good enough to spend this delightful season here, so that I may have the opportunity of openly showing you some part of the things that I know.

The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light

René Descartes

Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross

Speaker: Eudoxus

Read in the work: The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light

Of all the attributes which I bestowed upon myself, only one remains for me to examine and that is thought; and I see that it is the only one that I cannot separate from myself. For if it is true that I doubt just because I cannot doubt that I do so, it is also equally true that I think; for what is doubting but thinking in a certain way? And in fact if I did not think, I could not know whether I doubt or exist. Yet I am, and I know that I am, and I know it because I doubt, that is to say because I think. And better, it might be that if I ceased for an instant to think I should cease at the same time to be. Likewise the sole thing that I cannot separate from me, that I know certainly to be me and that I can now affirm without fear of deception—that one thing, I repeat, is that I am a thinking thing.

The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light

René Descartes

Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross

Speaker: Polyander

Read in the work: The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light

You no sooner showed me the small amount of certainty which we have as to the existence of things which are only known to us by the evidence of the senses, than I commenced to doubt of them, and that sufficed to make me know doubt and at the same time my certainty of it, in such a way that I can affirm that as soon as I commenced to doubt I commenced to know with certainty. But my doubt and my certainty did not relate to the same object; my doubt regarded things only which existed outside me, my certainty concerned me and my doubt.

The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light

René Descartes

Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross

Speaker: Polyander

Read in the work: The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light

I never intended to prescribe to anyone the method he ought to follow in the search after truth, but merely to expound that of which I have availed myself, so that if it were found bad it would be set aside; if it were found good and useful others would avail themselves of it in turn; and I always left full liberty to all to set it aside or to admit it.

The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light

René Descartes

Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross

Speaker: Eudoxus

Read in the work: The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light

Or je ne vois point de raison qui nous oblige à croire, que ce qui est dans les objets d'où nous vient le sentiment de la Lumière, soit plus semblable à ce sentiment, que les actions d'vne plume & d'vne courroye le sont au chatouillement & à la douleur. Et toutesfois je n'ay point apporté ces exemples, pour vous faire croire absolument, que cette Lumière est autre dans les objets que dans nos yeux; mais seulement afin que vous en doutiez, & que, vous gardant d'estre préoccupé du contraire, vous puissiez maintenant mieux examiner avec moy ce qui en est.

The World, or Treatise on Light

René Descartes

Speaker: René Descartes

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Il me reste icy encore beaucoup d'autres choses à expliquer, & je serois mesme bien aise d'y adjouter quelques raisons pour rendre mes opinions plus vray-semblables. Mais afin que la longueur de ce discours vous soit moins ennuyeuse, j'en veux envelopper vne partie dans l'invention d'vne Fable, au travers de laquelle j'espere que la vérité ne laissera pas de paroistre suffisamment, & qu'elle ne sera pas moins agréable à voir, que si je l'exposois toute nuë.

The World, or Treatise on Light

René Descartes

Speaker: René Descartes

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J'ajouteray pour la troisiéme : Que, lors qu'vn corps se meut, encore que son mouvement se fasse le plus souvent en ligne courbe, & qu'il ne s'en puisse jamais faire aucun, qui ne soit en quelque façon circulaire, ainsi qu'il a esté dit cy-dessus, toutesfois chacune de ses parties en particulier tend toujours à continuer le sien en ligne droite. Et ainsi leur action, c'est à dire l'inclination qu'elles ont à se mouvoir, est différente de leur mouvement.

The World, or Treatise on Light

René Descartes

Speaker: René Descartes

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Et pour cela il faut sçavoir que, lors que je dis qu'vn corps tend vers quelque costé, je ne veux pas pour cela qu'on s'imagine qu'il ait en soy vne pensée ou vne volonté qui l'y porte, mais seulement qu'il est disposé à se mouvoir vers là : soit que veritablement il s'y meuve, soit plutost que quelqu'autre corps l'en empesche; & c'est principalement en ce dernier sens que je me sers du mot de tendre, à cause qu'il semble signifier quelque effort, & que tout effort présupose de la resistance.

The World, or Treatise on Light

René Descartes

Speaker: René Descartes

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Quant à ce qui est des lignes suivant lesquelles se communique cette action, & qui sont proprement les rayons de la Lumière, il faut remarquer qu'elles different des parties du second Element par l'entremise desquelles cette mesme action se communique; & qu'elles ne sont rien de materiel dans le milieu par où elles passent, mais qu'elles designent seulement en quel sens, & suivant quelle détermination le corps Lumineux agit contre celuy qu'il illumine; & ainsi, qu'on ne doit pas laisser de les concevoir exactement droites, encore que les parties du second Element, qui servent à transmettre cette action, ou la Lumière, ne puissent presque jamais estre si directement posées l'vne sur l'autre, qu'elles composent des lignes toutes droites.

The World, or Treatise on Light

René Descartes

Speaker: René Descartes

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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. 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.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Now, seeing that we have the rare happiness of living in a republic, where everyone’s judgment is free and unshackled, where each may worship God as his conscience dictates, and where freedom is esteemed before all things dear and precious, I have believed that I should be undertaking no ungrateful or unprofitable task, in demonstrating that not only can such freedom be granted without prejudice to the public peace, but also, that without such freedom, piety cannot flourish nor the public peace be secure.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Furthermore, as men’s habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another only to scoff, I conclude, in accordance with what has gone before, that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits; each would then obey God freely with his whole heart, while nothing would be publicly honoured save justice and charity.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Our conclusions on the subject must be drawn solely from Scripture; for what can we affirm about matters transcending our knowledge except what is told us by the words or writings of prophets? And since there are, so far as I know, no prophets now alive, we have no alternative but to read the books of prophets departed, taking care the while not to reason from metaphor or to ascribe anything to our authors which they do not themselves distinctly state.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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But I will show in greater detail and length, for I consider the point more important, that the prophecies varied according to the opinions previously embraced by the prophets, and that the prophets held diverse and even contrary opinions and prejudices. (I speak, be it understood, solely of matters speculative, for in regard to uprightness and morality the case is widely different.) From thence I shall conclude that prophecy never rendered the prophets more learned, but left them with their former opinions, and that we are, therefore, not at all bound to trust them in matters of intellect.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Every man’s true happiness and blessedness consist solely in the enjoyment of what is good, not in the pride that he alone is enjoying it, to the exclusion of others. He who thinks himself the more blessed because he is enjoying benefits which others are not, or because he is more blessed or more fortunate than his fellows, is ignorant of true happiness and blessedness, and the joy which he feels is either childish or envious and malicious. For instance, a man’s true happiness consists only in wisdom, and the knowledge of the truth, not at all in the fact that he is wiser than others, or that others lack such knowledge: such considerations do not increase his wisdom or true happiness. Whoever, therefore, rejoices for such reasons, rejoices in another’s misfortune, and is, so far, malicious and bad, knowing neither true happiness nor the peace of the true life.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Nor is this to be wondered at; for the ends of every social organization and commonwealth are (as appears from what we have said, and as we will explain more at length hereafter) security and comfort; a commonwealth can only exist by the laws being binding on all. If all the members of a state wish to disregard the law, by that very fact they dissolve the state and destroy the commonwealth.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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(2.) I have stated that these laws depend on human decree because it is well to define and explain things by their proximate causes. The general consideration of fate and the concatenation of causes would aid us very little in forming and arranging our ideas concerning particular questions. Let us add that as to the actual co-ordination and concatenation of things, that is how things are ordained and linked together, we are obviously ignorant; therefore, it is more profitable for right living, nay, it is necessary for us to consider things as contingent. So much about law in the abstract.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Still, though the truth of histories cannot give us the knowledge and love of God, I do not deny that reading them is very useful with a view to life in the world, for the more we have observed and known of men’s customs and circumstances, which are best revealed by their actions, the more warily we shall be able to order our lives among them, and so far as reason dictates to adapt our actions to their dispositions.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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The formation of society serves not only for defensive purposes, but is also very useful, and, indeed, absolutely necessary, as rendering possible the division of labour. If men did not render mutual assistance to each other, no one would have either the skill or the time to provide for his own sustenance and preservation: for all men are not equally apt for all work, and no one would be capable of preparing all that he individually stood in need of. Strength and time, I repeat, would fail, if every one had in person to plough, to sow, to reap, to grind corn, to cook, to weave, to stitch, and perform the other numerous functions required to keep life going; to say nothing of the arts and sciences which are also entirely necessary to the perfection and blessedness of human nature.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Lastly, as obedience consists in acting at the bidding of external authority, it would have no place in a state where the government is vested in the whole people, and where laws are made by common consent. In such a society the people would remain free, whether the laws were added to or diminished, inasmuch as it would not be done on external authority, but their own free consent. The reverse happens when the sovereign power is vested in one man, for all act at his bidding; and, therefore, unless they had been trained from the first to depend on the words of their ruler, the latter would find it difficult, in case of need, to abrogate liberties once conceded, and impose new laws.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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We may conclude, then, that we cannot gain knowledge of the existence and providence of God by means of miracles, but that we can far better infer them from the fixed and immutable order of nature. By miracle, I here mean an event which surpasses, or is thought to surpass, human comprehension: for in so far as it is supposed to destroy or interrupt the order of nature or her laws, it not only can give us no knowledge of God, but, contrariwise, takes away that which we naturally have, and makes us doubt of God and everything else.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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It is very rare for men to relate an event simply as it happened, without adding any element of their own judgment. When they see or hear anything new, they are, unless strictly on their guard, so occupied with their own preconceived opinions that they perceive something quite different from the plain facts seen or heard, especially if such facts surpass the comprehension of the beholder or hearer, and, most of all, if he is interested in their happening in a given way. Thus men relate in chronicles and histories their own opinions rather than actual events, so that one and the same event is so differently related by two men of different opinions, that it seems like two separate occurrences; and, further, it is very easy from historical chronicles to gather the personal opinions of the historian.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Nevertheless, though I maintain that Scripture teaches this doctrine, I do not assert that it teaches it as a truth necessary to salvation, but only that the prophets were in agreement with ourselves on the point; therefore everyone is free to think on the subject as he likes, according as he thinks it best for himself, and most likely to conduce to the worship of God and to single-hearted religion.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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I may sum up the matter by saying that the method of interpreting Scripture does not widely differ from the method of interpreting nature—in fact, it is almost the same. For as the interpretation of nature consists in the examination of the history of nature, and therefrom deducing definitions of natural phenomena on certain fixed axioms, so Scriptural interpretation proceeds by the examination of Scripture, and inferring the intention of its authors as a legitimate conclusion from its fundamental principles. By working in this manner everyone will always advance without danger of error—that is, if they admit no principles for interpreting Scripture, and discussing its contents save such as they find in Scripture itself—and will be able with equal security to discuss what surpasses our understanding, and what is known by the natural light of reason.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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I call passages clear or obscure according as their meaning is inferred easily or with difficulty in relation to the context, not according as their truth is perceived easily or the reverse by reason. We are at work not on the truth of passages, but solely on their meaning. We must take especial care, when we are in search of the meaning of a text, not to be led away by our reason in so far as it is founded on principles of natural knowledge (to say nothing of prejudices): in order not to confound the meaning of a passage with its truth, we must examine it solely by means of the signification of the words, or by a reason acknowledging no foundation but Scripture.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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III. Lastly, such a history should relate the environment of all the prophetic books extant; that is, the life, the conduct, and the studies of the author of each book, who he was, what was the occasion, and the epoch of his writing, whom did he write for, and in what language. Further, it should inquire into the fate of each book: how it was first received, into whose hands it fell, how many different versions there were of it, by whose advice was it received into the Bible, and, lastly, how all the books now universally accepted as sacred, were united into a single whole.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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I think I have now set forth the true method of Scriptural interpretation, and have sufficiently explained my own opinion thereon. Besides, I do not doubt that everyone will see that such a method only requires the aid of natural reason. The nature and efficacy of the natural reason consists in deducing and proving the unknown from the known, or in carrying premises to their legitimate conclusions; and these are the very processes which our method desiderates. Though we must admit that it does not suffice to explain everything in the Bible, such imperfection does not spring from its own nature, but from the fact that the path which it teaches us, as the true one, has never been tended or trodden by men, and has thus, by the lapse of time, become very difficult, and almost impassable, as, indeed, I have shown in the difficulties I draw attention to.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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With religion the case is widely different. Inasmuch as it consists not so much in outward actions as in simplicity and truth of character, it stands outside the sphere of law and public authority. Simplicity and truth of character are not produced by the constraint of laws, nor by the authority of the state, no one the whole world over can be forced or legislated into a state of blessedness; the means required for such a consummation are faithful and brotherly admonition, sound education, and, above all, free use of the individual judgment.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Therefore, as the supreme right of free thinking, even on religion, is in every man’s power, and as it is inconceivable that such power could be alienated, it is also in every man’s power to wield the supreme right and authority of free judgment in this behalf, and to explain and interpret religion for himself. The only reason for vesting the supreme authority in the interpretation of law, and judgment on public affairs in the hands of the magistrates, is that it concerns questions of public right. Similarly the supreme authority in explaining religion, and in passing judgment thereon, is lodged with the individual because it concerns questions of individual right.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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To this I would answer, that although it seems reasonable to suppose that Moses wrote down the laws at the time when he wished to communicate them to the people, yet we are not warranted to take it as proved, for I have shown above that we must make no assertions in such matters which we do not gather from Scripture, or which do not flow as legitimate consequences from its fundamental principles. We must not accept whatever is reasonably probable.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Perhaps I shall be told that I am overthrowing the authority of Scripture, for that, according to me, anyone may suspect it of error in any passage; but, on the contrary, I have shown that my object has been to prevent the clear and uncorrupted passages being accommodated to and corrupted by the faulty ones; neither does the fact that some passages are corrupt warrant us in suspecting all. No book ever was completely free from faults, yet I would ask, who suspects all books to be every where faulty? Surely no one, especially when the phraseology is clear and the intention of the author plain.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Lastly, it is indisputable that from these different grounds for religion selected by the Apostles, many quarrels and schisms distracted the Church, even in the earliest times, and doubtless they will continue so to distract it for ever, or at least till religion is separated from philosophical speculations, and reduced to the few simple doctrines taught by Christ to His disciples; such a task was impossible for the Apostles, because the Gospel was then unknown to mankind, and lest its novelty should offend men’s ears it had to be adapted to the disposition of contemporaries (2 Cor. ix. 19, 20), and built up on the groundwork most familiar and accepted at the time.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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This they have nowhere done; we cannot, therefore, think that opinions taken in themselves without respect to actions are either pious or impious, but must maintain that a man is pious or impious in his beliefs only in so far as he is thereby incited to obedience, or derives from them license to sin and rebel. If a man, by believing what is true, becomes rebellious, his creed is impious; if by believing what is false he becomes obedient, his creed is pious; for the true knowledge of God comes not by commandment, but by Divine gift. God has required nothing from man but a knowledge of His Divine justice and charity, and that not as necessary to scientific accuracy, but to obedience.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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The best faith is not necessarily possessed by him who displays the best reasons, but by him who displays the best fruits of justice and charity. How salutary and necessary this doctrine is for a state, in order that men may dwell together in peace and concord; and how many and how great causes of disturbance and crime are thereby cut off, I leave everyone to judge for himself!

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Philosophy has no end in view save truth: faith, as we have abundantly proved, looks for nothing but obedience and piety. Again, philosophy is based on axioms which must be sought from nature alone: faith is based on history and language, and must be sought for only in Scripture and revelation, as we showed in Chap. VII. Faith, therefore, allows the greatest latitude in philosophic speculation, allowing us without blame to think what we like about anything, and only condemning, as heretics and schismatics, those who teach opinions which tend to produce obstinacy, hatred, strife, and anger; while, on the other hand, only considering as faithful those who persuade us, as far as their reason and faculties will permit, to follow justice and charity.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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The sphere of reason is, as we have said, truth and wisdom; the sphere of theology is piety and obedience. The power of reason does not extend so far as to determine for us that men may be blessed through simple obedience, without understanding. Theology tells us nothing else, enjoins on us no command save obedience, and has neither the will nor the power to oppose reason: she defines the dogmas of faith (as we pointed out in the last chapter) only in so far as they may be necessary for obedience, and leaves reason to determine their precise truth: for reason is the light of the mind, and without her all things are dreams and phantoms.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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This we need not wonder at, for nature is not bounded by the laws of human reason, which aims only at man’s true benefit and preservation; her limits are infinitely wider, and have reference to the eternal order of nature, wherein man is but a speck; it is by the necessity of this alone that all individuals are conditioned for living and acting in a particular way. If anything, therefore, in nature seems to us ridiculous, absurd, or evil, it is because we only know in part, and are almost entirely ignorant of the order and interdependence of nature as a whole, and also because we want everything to be arranged according to the dictates of our human reason; in reality that which reason considers evil, is not evil in respect to the order and laws of nature as a whole, but only in respect to the laws of our reason.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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It will, perhaps, be thought that we are turning subjects into slaves: for slaves obey commands and free men live as they like; but this idea is based on a misconception, for the true slave is he who is led away by his pleasures and can neither see what is good for him nor act accordingly: he alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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I think I have now shown sufficiently clearly the basis of a democracy: I have especially desired to do so, for I believe it to be of all forms of government the most natural, and the most consonant with individual liberty. In it no one transfers his natural right so absolutely that he has no further voice in affairs, he only hands it over to the majority of a society, whereof he is a unit. Thus all men remain, as they were in the state of nature, equals.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Those who administer or possess governing power, always try to surround their high-handed actions with a cloak of legality, and to persuade the people that they act from good motives; this they are easily able to effect when they are the sole interpreters of the law; for it is evident that they are thus able to assume a far greater freedom to carry out their wishes and desires than if the interpretation of the law is vested in someone else, or if the laws were so self-evident that no one could be in doubt as to their meaning.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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But nature forms individuals, not peoples; the latter are only distinguishable by the difference of their language, their customs, and their laws; while from the two last—i.e., customs and laws,—it may arise that they have a peculiar disposition, a peculiar manner of life, and peculiar prejudices. If, then, the Hebrews were harder of heart than other nations, the fault lay with their laws or customs.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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If men’s minds were as easily controlled as their tongues, every king would sit safely on his throne, and government by compulsion would cease; for every subject would shape his life according to the intentions of his rulers, and would esteem a thing true or false, good or evil, just or unjust, in obedience to their dictates. However, we have shown already (Chapter XVII.) that no man’s mind can possibly lie wholly at the disposition of another, for no one can willingly transfer his natural right of free reason and judgment, or be compelled so to do. For this reason government which attempts to control minds is accounted tyrannical, and it is considered an abuse of sovereignty and a usurpation of the rights of subjects, to seek to prescribe what shall be accepted as true, or rejected as false, or what opinions should actuate men in their worship of God. All these questions fall within a man’s natural right, which he cannot abdicate even with his own consent.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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I confess that from such freedom inconveniences may sometimes arise, but what question was ever settled so wisely that no abuses could possibly spring therefrom? He who seeks to regulate everything by law, is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them. It is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful. How many evils spring from luxury, envy, avarice, drunkenness, and the like, yet these are tolerated—vices as they are—because they cannot be prevented by legal enactments. How much more then should free thought be granted, seeing that it is in itself a virtue and that it cannot be crushed! Besides, the evil results can easily be checked, as I will show, by the secular authorities, not to mention that such freedom is absolutely necessary for progress in science and the liberal arts: for no man follows such pursuits to advantage unless his judgment be entirely free and unhampered.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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If formal assent is not to be esteemed above conviction, and if governments are to retain a firm hold of authority and not be compelled to yield to agitators, it is imperative that freedom of judgment should be granted, so that men may live together in harmony, however diverse, or even openly contradictory their opinions may be. We cannot doubt that such is the best system of government and open to the fewest objections, since it is the one most in harmony with human nature. In a democracy (the most natural form of government, as we have shown in Chapter XVI.) everyone submits to the control of authority over his actions, but not over his judgment and reason; that is, seeing that all cannot think alike, the voice of the majority has the force of law, subject to repeal if circumstances bring about a change of opinion. In proportion as the power of free judgment is withheld we depart from the natural condition of mankind, and consequently the government becomes more tyrannical.

Theological-Political Treatise

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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Young persons, who are happily situated, do well to enter into fictitious distress; and if they have any judicious person to direct their judgment, it may be improved while their hearts are melted. Yet I would not have them confine their compassion to the distresses occasioned by love; and perhaps their feelings might more profitably be roused, if they were to see sometimes the complicated misery of sickness and poverty, and weep for the beggar instead of the king.

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters

Mary Wollstonecraft

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If then, Socrates, amid the many opinions about the gods and the generation of the universe, we are not able to give notions which are altogether and in every respect exact and consistent with one another, do not be surprised. Enough, if we adduce probabilities as likely as any others; for we must remember that I who am the speaker, and you who are the judges, are only mortal men, and we ought to accept the tale which is probable and enquire no further.

Timaeus

Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Speaker: Timaeus

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Ie suppose que le Corps n'est autre chose qu'vne statue ou machine de terre, que Dieu forme tout exprés, pour la rendre la plus semblable à nous qu'il est possible : en sorte que, non seulement il luy donne au dehors la couleur & la figure de tous nos membres, mais aussi qu'il met au dedans toutes les pieces qui sont requises pour faire qu'elle marche, qu'elle mange, qu'elle respire, & enfin qu'elle imite toutes celles de nos fonctions qui peuuent estre imaginées proceder de la matiere, & ne dependre que de la disposition des organes.

Treatise on Man

René Descartes

Speaker: René Descartes

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ie desire, dis-ie, que vous consideriez que ces fonctions suiuent toutes naturellement, en cette Machine, de la seule disposition de ses organes, ne plus ne moins que font les mouuemens d'vne horloge, ou autre automate, de celle de ses contrepoids & de ses roues; en sorte qu'il ne faut point à leur occasion conceuoir en elle aucune autre Ame vegetatiue, ny sensitiue, ny aucun autre principe de mouuement & de vie, que son sang & ses esprits, agitez par la chaleur du feu qui brûle continuellement dans son cœur, & qui n'est point d'autre nature que tous les feux qui sont dans les corps inanimez.

Treatise on Man

René Descartes

Speaker: René Descartes

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After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.

Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect

Baruch Spinoza

Translated by Robert Harvey Monro Elwes

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55. Children, I confess, are not born in this full state of equality, though they are born to it. Their parents have a sort of rule and jurisdiction over them, when they come into the world, and for some time after; but it is but a temporary one. The bonds of this subjection are like the swaddling clothes they are wrapt up in, and supported by, in the weakness of their infancy: age and reason as they grow up, loosen them, till at length they drop quite off, and leave a man at his own free disposal.

Two Treatises of Government

John Locke

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every man, that hath any possessions, or enjoyment, of any part of the dominions of any government, doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government, during such enjoyment, as any one under it; whether this his possession be of land, to him and his heirs for ever, or a lodging only for a week; or whether it be barely travelling freely on the highway; and in effect, it reaches as far as the very being of any one within the territories of that government.

Two Treatises of Government

John Locke

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And so whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any common-wealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees; by indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those laws; and to employ the force of the community at home, only in the execution of such laws, or abroad to prevent or redress foreign injuries, and secure the community from inroads and invasion. And all this to be directed to no other end, but the peace, safety, and public good of the people.

Two Treatises of Government

John Locke

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The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent: for the preservation of property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the people should have property, without which they must be supposed to lose that, by entering into society, which was the end for which they entered into it; too gross an absurdity for any man to own.

Two Treatises of Government

John Locke

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The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown, or some petty villain. The title of the offender, and the number of his followers, make no difference in the offence, unless it be to aggravate it. The only difference is, great robbers punish little ones, to keep them in their obedience; but the great ones are rewarded with laurels and triumphs, because they are too big for the weak hands of justice in this world, and have the power in their own possession, which should punish offenders.

Two Treatises of Government

John Locke

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This is in effect no more than to bid them first be slaves, and then to take care of their liberty; and when their chains are on, tell them, they may act like freemen. This, if barely so, is rather mockery than relief; and men can never be secure from tyranny, if there be no means to escape it till they are perfectly under it: and therefore it is, that they have not only a right to get out of it, but to prevent it.

Two Treatises of Government

John Locke

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Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty, will be born by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going; it is not to be wondered, that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected

Two Treatises of Government

John Locke

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Jeg mener at en myndig voksen fortsatt kan stå autentisk for et standpunkt som har utviklet seg under digital påvirkning, mens systemet likevel kan kritiseres for å gjøre påvirkningen skjult og vanskelig å undersøke. Vi kan holde mennesker ansvarlige for det de står for, samtidig som vi stiller strengere krav til systemene som former vilkårene standpunktene utvikles innenfor.

Moralsk Integritet i Den Digitale Dimensjon

Ola O. Hårstad

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