Portrait of Spinoza (Public domain)

A Theologico-Political Treatise

by Baruch Spinoza

Originally published as volume 1 of
The chief works of Benedict de Spinoza by G. Bell and
Sons, London

[1883-1884]

Part 4—Chapters XVI to XX

CHAPTER XX.—THAT IN A FREE STATE EVERY MAN MAY THINK WHAT HE LIKES, AND SAY WHAT HE THINKS.

  1. [20:1]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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. All these questions fall within a man's natural right, which he cannot abdicate even with his own consent.

  5. I admit that the judgment can be biased in many ways, and to an almost incredible degree, so that while exempt from direct external control it may be so dependent on another man's words, that it may fitly be said to be ruled by him; but although this influence is carried to great lengths, it has never gone so far as to invalidate the statement, that every man's understanding is his own, and that brains are as diverse as palates.

  6. Moses, not by fraud, but by Divine virtue, gained such a hold over the popular judgment that he was accounted superhuman, and believed to speak and act through the inspiration of the Deity; nevertheless, even he could not escape murmurs and evil interpretations.
  7. How much less then can other monarchs avoid them!
  8. Yet such unlimited power, if it exists at all, must belong to a monarch, and least of all to a democracy, where the whole or a great part of the people wield authority collectively.
  9. This is a fact which I think everyone can explain for himself.

  10. However unlimited, therefore, the power of a sovereign may be, however implicitly it is trusted, as the exponent of law and religion, it can never prevent men from forming judgments according to their intellect, or being influenced by any given emotion.
  11. It is true that it has the right to treat as enemies all men whose opinions do not, on all subjects, entirely coincide with its own; but we are not discussing its strict rights, but its proper course of action.
  12. I grant that it has the right to rule in the most violent manner, and to put citizens to death for very trivial causes, but no one supposes it can do this without the approval of sound judgment.
  13. Nay, inasmuch as such things cannot be done without extreme peril to itself, we may even deny that it has the absolute power to do them, or, consequently, the absolute right; for the rights of the sovereign are limited by his power.

  14. [20:2]Since, therefore, no one can abdicate his freedom of judgment and feeling; since every man is by indefeasible natural right the master of his own thoughts, it follows that men thinking in diverse and contradictory fashion, cannot without disastrous results, be compelled to speak only according to the dictates of the supreme power.
  15. Not even the most experienced, to say nothing of the multitude, know how to keep silence.
  16. Men's common failing is to confide their plans to others, though there be need for secrecy, so that a government would be most harsh which deprived the individual of his freedom of saying or teaching what he thought; and would be moderate if such freedom were granted.
  17. Still we cannot deny that authority may be as much injured by words as by actions; hence, although the freedom we are discussing cannot be entirely denied to subjects, its unlimited concession would be most baneful; we must, therefore, now inquire, how far such freedom can and ought to be conceded without danger to the peace of the state, or the power of the rulers; and this, as I said at the beginning of Chapter XVI., is my principal object.
  18. It follows, plainly, from the explanation given above, of the foundations of a state, that the ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain, by fear, nor to exact obedience, but contrariwise, to free every man from fear, that he may live in all possible security; in other words, to strengthen his natural right to exist and work—without injury to himself of others.

  19. No, the object of government is not to change men from rational beings into beasts or puppets, but to enable them to develop their minds and bodies in security, and to employ their reason unshackled; neither showing hatred, anger, or deceit, nor watched with the eyes of jealousy and injustice.
  20. In fact, the true aim of government is liberty.

  21. Now we have seen that in forming a state the power of making laws must either be vested in the body of the citizens, or in a portion of them, or in one man.

  22. For, although mens free judgments are very diverse, each one thinking that he alone knows everything, and although complete unanimity of feeling and speech is out of the question, it is impossible to preserve peace, unless individuals abdicate their right of acting entirely on their own judgment.
  23. [20:3]Therefore, the individual justly cedes the right of free action, though not of free reason and judgment; no one can act against the authorities without danger to the state, though his feelings and judgment may be at variance therewith; he may even speak against them, provided that he does so from rational conviction, not from fraud, anger, or hatred, and provided that he does not attempt to introduce any change on his private authority.

  24. For instance, supposing a man shows that a law is repugnant to sound reason, and should therefore be repealed: if he submits his opinion to the judgment of the authorities (who, alone have the right of making and repealing laws),and meanwhile acts in nowise contrary to that law, he has deserved well of the state, and has behaved as a good citizen should; but if he accuses the authorities of injustice, and stirs up the people against them, or if his seditiously strives to abrogate the law without their consent, he is a mere agitator or rebel.

  25. Thus we see how an individual may declare and teach what he believes, without injury to the authority of his rulers, or to the public peace; namely by leaving in their hands the entire power of legislation as it affects action, and by doing nothing agains their laws, though he be compelled often to act in contradiction to what he believes, and openly feels, to be best.

  26. Such a course can be taken without detriment to justice and dutifulness, nay, it is the one with a just and dutiful man would adopt.
  27. We have shown that justice is dependent on the laws of the authorities, so that no one who contravenes their accepted decrees can be just, while the highest regard for duty, as we have pointed out in the previous chapter, is exercised in maintaining public peace and tranquility; these could not be preserved if every man were to live as he pleased; therefore it is no less that undutiful for a man to act contrary to his country's laws, for if the practice became universal the ruin of states would necessarily follow.

  28. Hence, so long as a man acts in obedience to the laws of his rulers, he in nowise contravenes his reason, for in obedience to reason he transferred the right of controlling his actions from his own hands to theirs.
  29. This doctrine we can confirm from actual custom, for in a conference of great and small powers, schemes are seldom carried unanimously, yet all unite in carrying out what is decided on, whether they voted for or against.
  30. But I return to my proposition.

  31. Fromt he fundamental notions of a state, we have discovered how a man may exercise free judgment without detriment to the supreme power: from the same premises we can no less easily determine what opinions would be seditious.
  32. Evidently those which by their very nature nullify the compact by which the right of free action was ceded.
  33. For instance, a man who holds that supreme power had no rights over his, or that promises ought not to be kept, or that everyone should live as he pleases, or other doctrines of this nature in direct opposition to the above-mentioned contract, is seditious, not so much from his actual opinions and judgment, as from the deeds which they involve; for he who maintains such theories abrogates the contract which tacitly, or openly, he made with his rulers.
  34. Other opinions, which do not involve acts violating the contract, such as revenge, anger, and the like, are not seditious, unless it be in some, corrupt state, where superstitious and ambitious persons, unable to endure men of learning, are so popular with the multitude that their word is more valued than the law.

  35. However, I do not deny that there are some doctrines which, while they are apparently only concerned with abstract truths and falsehoods, are yet pronounced and published with unworthy motives.
  36. This question we have discussed in Chapter XV., and shown that reason should nevertheless remain unshackled.
  37. If we hold to the principle that a man's loyalty to the state should be judged, like his loyalty to God, from his actions only—namely, from his charity towards his neighbours; we cannot doubt that the best government will allow freedom of philosophical speculation no less than of religious belief.
  38. 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?
  39. He who seeks to regulate everything by law, is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them.
  40. It is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful.
  41. 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.
  42. How much more then should free thought be granted, seeing that it is in itself a virtue and that it cannot be crushed!
  43. 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.

  44. But let it be granted that freedom may be crushed, and men be so bound down, that they do not dare utter a whisper, save at the bidding of their rulers; nevertheless this can never be carried to the pitch of making them think according to authority, so that the necessary consequences would be that men would daily be thinking one thing and saying another, to the corruption of good faith, that mainstay of government, and to the fostering of hateful flattery and perfidy, when spring stratagems, and the corruption of every good art.

  45. It is far from possible to impose uniformity of speech, for the more rulers strive to curtail freedom of speech, the more obstinately they are resisted; not indeed by the avaricious, the flatterers, and other numbskulls, who think supreme salvation consists in filling their stomachs and gloating over their money-bags, but by those whom good education, sound morality, and virtue have rendered more free.
  46. Men, as generally constituted, are most prone to resent the branding as criminal of opinions which they believe to be true, and the proscription as wicked of that which inspires them with piety towards God and man; hence they are ready to foreswear the laws and conspire against the authorities, thinking it not shameful but honourable to stir up seditions and perpetuate any sort of crime with this end in view.
  47. Such being the constitution of human nature, we see that laws directed against opinions affect the generous minded rather than the wicked, and are adapted less for coercing criminals than for irritating the upright; so that they cannot be maintained without great peril to the state.

  48. Moreover such laws are almost always useless, for those who hold that the opinions proscribed are sound, cannot possibly obey the law; whereas those who already reject them as false, accept the law as a kind of privilege, and make such boast of it, that authority is powerless to repeal it, even if such a course be subsequently desired.

  49. To these considerations may be added what we said in Chapter XVIII. in treating the history of the Hebrews.
  50. And, lastly, how many schisms have arisen in the Church from the attempt of the authorities to decide by law the intricacies of theological controversy!
  51. If men were not allured by the hope of getting the law and the authorities on their side, of triumphing over their adversaries in the sight of an applauding multitude, and of acquiring honourable distinctions, they would not strive so maliciously, nor would such fury sway their minds.
  52. This is taught not only by reason but by daily examples, for laws of this kind prescribing what every man shall believe and forbidding anyone to speak or write to the contrary, have often been passed, as sops or concessions to the anger of those who cannot tolerate men of enlightenment, and who by such harsh and crooked enactments, can easily turn the devotion of the masses into fury and direct it against whom they will.
  53. How much better would it be to restrain popular anger and fury, instead of passing useless lawas, which can only be broken by those who love virtue and the liberal arts, thus paring down the state until it is too small to harbour men of talent.
  54. What greater misfortune for a state can be conceived than that honorable men should be sent like criminals into exile, because they hold diverse opinions which they cannot disguise?
  55. What, I say, can be more hurtful than that men who have committed no crime or wickedness should, simply because they are enlightened, be treated as enemies and put to death, and that the scaffold, the terror of evil-doers, should become the arena where the highest examples of tolerance and virtue are displayed to the people with all the marks of ignominy that authority can devise?

  56. He that knows himself to be upright does not feat the death of a criminal, and shrinks from no punishment; his mind is not wrung with remorse for any disgraceful deed: he holds that death in a good cause is no punishment, but an honour, and that death for freedom is glory. What purpose then is served by the death of such men, what example is proclaimed? the cause for which they die is unknown to the idle and the foolish, hateful to the turbulent, loved by the upright.
  57. The only lesson we can draw from such scenes is to flatter the persecutor, or else to imitate the victim. If formal assent is not to be esteemed above conviction, and if govern

  58. 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.
  59. 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.
  60. 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.
  61. 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.

  62. [20:4]In order to prove that from such freedom no inconvenience arises, which cannot easily be checked by the exercise of the sovereign power, and that men's actions can easily be kept in bounds, though their opinions be at open variance, it will be well to cite an example.
  63. Such an one is not very, far to seek.
  64. The city of Amsterdam reaps the fruit of this freedom in its own great prosperity and in the admiration of all other people.
  65. For in this most flourishing state, and most splendid city, men of every nation and religion live together in the greatest harmony, and ask no questions before trusting their goods to a fellow-citizen, save whether he be rich or poor, and whether he generally acts honestly or the reverse.
  66. His religion and sect is considered of no importance; for it has no effect before the judges in gaining or losing a cause, and there is no sect so despised that it followers, provided that they harm no one, pay every man his due, and live uprightly, are deprived of the protection of the magestrial authority.

  67. On the other hand, when the religious controversy between Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants began to be taken up by politicians and the States, it grew into a schism, and abundantly showed that laws dealing with religion and seeking to settle its controversies are much more calculated to irritate than to reform, and that they give rise to extreme licence: further it was seen that schisms do not originate in a love of truth, which is a source of courtesy and gentleness, but rather an inordinate desire for supremacy,
  68. From all these considerations it is clearer than the sun at noonday, that the true schismatics are those who condemn other men's writings, and seditiously stir up the quarrelsome masses against their authors, rather than those authors themselves, who generally write only for the learned, and appeal solely to reason.
  69. In fact, the real disturbers of the peace are those who, in a free state, seek to curtail the liberty of judgment which they are unable to tyrannize over.

  70. I have thus shown:—

  71. I. That it is impossible to deprive men of the liberty of saying what they think.

  72. II. That such liberty can be conceded to every man without injury to the rights and authority of the sovereign power, and that every man may retain it without injury to such rights, provided that he does not presume upon it to the extent of introducing any new rights into the state, or acting in any way contrary, to the existing laws.

  73. III. That every man may enjoy this liberty without detriment to the public peace, and that no inconvenience arise therefrom which cannot easily be checked.

  74. IV. That every man may enjoy it without injury to his allegiance.

  75. V. That laws dealing with speculative problems are entirely useless.

  76. VI. Lastly, that not only may such liberty be granted without prejudice to the public peace, to loyalty, and to the rights of rulers, but that it is even necessary, for their preservation.
  77. For when people try to take it away, and bring to trial, not only the acts which alone are capable of offending, but also the opinions of mankind, they only succeed in surrounding their victims with an appearance of martyrdom, and raise feelings of pity and revenge rather than of terror.
  78. Uprightness and good faith are thus corrupted, flatterers and traitors are encouraged, and sectarians triumph, inasmuch as concessions have been made to their animosity, and they have gained the state sanction for the doctrines of which they are the interpreters.
  79. Hence they arrogate to themselves the state authority and rights, and do not scruple to assert that they have been directly chosen by God, and that their laws are Divine, whereas the laws of the state are human and should therefore yield obedience to the laws of God—in other words their own laws.
  80. Everyone must see that this is not the state of affairs conducive to public welfare.
  81. Wherefore, we have shown in Chapter XVIII., the safest way for a state is to lay down the fule that religion is comprised solely in the exercise of charity and justice, and that the rights of rulers in sacred, no less than secular matters, should merely have to do with actions, but that every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks.

  82. I have thus fulfilled the task I set myself in this treatise.
  83. [20:5]It remains only to call to attention the fact that I have written nothing which I do not most willingly submit to the examination and approval or my country's rulers; and that I am willing to retract anything which they shall decide to be repugnant to the laws, or prejudicial to the public good.
  84. I know that I am a man, and as a man liable to error, but against error I have taken scrupulous care, and have striven to keep in entire accordance with the laws of my country, with loyalty, and with morality.

    End of Part 4 of 4

Next: Author's Endnotes.