The Philosophy of Spinoza · Benedictus de Spinoza
THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE MORAL LIFE
_Introductory_ I have briefly explained the causes of human impotence and want of stability, and why men do not obey the dictates of reason. It remains for me now to show what it is which reason prescribes to us, which emotions agree with the rules of human reason, and which, on the contrary, are opposed to these rules. Before, however, I begin to demonstrate these things by our full method, I should like briefly to set forth here these dictates of reason, in order that what I have in my mind about them may be easily comprehended by all. Since reason demands nothing which is opposed to Nature, it demands, therefore, that every person should love himself, should seek his own profit--what is truly profitable to him--should desire everything that really leads man to greater perfection, and absolutely that every one should endeavor, as far as in him lies, to preserve his own being. This is all true as necessarily as that the whole is greater than its part. Again, since virtue means nothing but acting according to the laws of our own nature, and since no one endeavors to preserve his being except in accordance with the laws of his own nature, it follows: _Firstly_, That the foundation of virtue is that endeavor itself to preserve our own being, and that happiness consists in this--that a man can preserve his own being. _Secondly_, It follows that virtue is to be desired for its own sake, nor is there anything more excellent or more useful to us than virtue, for the sake of which virtue ought to be desired. _Thirdly_, It follows that all persons who kill themselves are impotent in mind, and have been thoroughly overcome by external causes opposed to their nature.
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