Lev Shestov - Potestas Clavium - Part III

     I know perfectly well that Spinoza, even more than Hegel, was the enemy of all mythology, and that in his eyes the Biblical mythology did not present any advantage over the mythology of the pagans. And, nevertheless, it has been impossible for me not to remember Adam and the original sin.

     Spinoza concluded his Ethics with these words: Omnia praeclara tam difficilia, quam rara sunt [all beautiful and excellent things are as difficult as they are rare]. What is this if not the free transcription of the terrible words addressed by God to Adam and Eve when He drove them out of Paradise: "In the sweat of your brow shall you gain your bread," etc? Why must everything beautiful be rare and difficult? It ought to be just the opposite, one would think: man ought to gain his daily bread easily and joyously and woman ought to bring children into the world without pain. For all that is "natural," assuming the word "natural" has any meaning whatsoever, ought to correspond to the will and aspirations as well as the physical organization of man. Work ought to be a need for us, and childbirth not only painless but even pleasant. Death itself, as a natural end, ought to be something welcomed, not an object of horror.

     But Spinoza, like all the great philosophers, felt that in philosophy one should follow not the line of least but of greatest resistance. If it is true that polemos patêr pantôn, "war is the father of all," philosophy must be essentially polemos. It is for this reason probably that the eudemonistic, hedonistic, and even utilitarian theories have never survived long here on earth. The philosopher seeks what is difficult; he seeks struggle. His true element is the problematic, the eternally problematic. He knows that Paradise has been lost and wishes to regain the lost Paradise. If it is impossible to regain it immediately or in a more or less near future, he is ready to wait years, decades, to the end of life, and if it be necessary, to postpone the task to the time after death, even if he should for this reason have to live in an extreme tension at all moments and to feel perpetually only the pains of an unending childbirth.

     In Spinoza, despite his external calm which is so strange and dominates everything, this interior tension attains an unheard-of degree. What is perhaps most remarkable in his philosophy is that he knew how to speak of the most difficult and greatest events of his internal life in simple and even meagre words. His famous sentence, non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere [not to laugh, not to weep, not to curse, but to understand], does not at all mean that he did not laugh or weep or curse. I am even ready to translate it by those words of Pascal which, at first blush, seem directly opposed to it: Je n'approuve que ceux qui cherchent en gémissant [I approve only those who seek with lamentation]. When, like a monk who takes vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, Spinoza renounces divitiae, honores, et libidines [riches, honors, and pleasures], it seems that the tragedy of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise is repeated anew. For what are divitiae, honores, libidines? Three little words, it seems, and words that, furthermore, never contained anything very attractive for philosophy. But behind them, finally, lies the entire universe of God. And even, if you wish, paradise. For, as the Bible tells us, in paradise there was an immense abundance of riches, and joys were not forbidden there; there man was honored, and all passions except one, the passion to know, were there not only permitted but even encouraged. Now before all these things stands an angel with a fiery sword, and it is only to the tree of knowledge, to the intelligere, that we have free access.

     Obviously the angel and the fiery sword are only symbols; I do not wish to trouble the mind of the modern, educated reader by demanding of him that he believe in the supernatural. And, in general, I do not impose any demands. But such is reality. Whether you wish it or not, Spinoza is right: divitiae, honores, et libidines - my God, how miserable and empty they are here on earth! If the laconic reflections of Spinoza on this matter do not satisfy you, re-read Schopenhauer: he will speak to you of these things with the éclat and verve which are his own. And he will add that all this is already contained implicite in Spinoza's little treatise.