Page:A Brief History of Modern Philosophy.djvu/80

Rh was supplanted by a more realistic conception under the influence of Hobbes without a thoroughgoing application of the logical consequences of the new conception.

e. Spinoza bases his ethics on the instinct of self-preservation.—Man is conditioned by the fact of being one among many individual beings, and obstacles constantly thwart his instincts. As a member of the total series of causes and effects man does not contain his cause within himself, he is not active, but passive, not free, but necessitated. The sense of dependence enables man to strive for freedom and independence. He then imagines an ideal of human life (idea hominis, tanquam naturæ humanæ examplar), as it would be under conditions of perfect freedom and independence. This furnishes a standard of judgment: whatever contributes towards the realization of that ideal is good; whatever prevents it is evil. The predicates “good” and “evil” which are meaningless when applied to absolute Being, Substance, become significant from the viewpoint of temporal experience and finite development. Sub specie æterni there is no ethics; all antitheses and differences, and moreover all valuation, disappear when so considered.

A desire can be subdued only by another desire, and hence, if the ideal is to govern our life, it must either give rise to or become a desire. Duty then becomes a matter of making this desire as strong as possible. Social life is a means to this end. Men can make better provision for self-preservation by uniting their energies. Spiritual goods, especially knowledge, which furnishes the only possible means to perfect freedom and activity, can only be acquired under conditions which guarantee the external