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 Chapter 1: Databases and Database Users 1

Solution Manual for Fundamentals of Database

Systems, 6/E 6th Edition : 0136086209
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CHAPTER 1: DATABASES AND DATABASE USERS

Answers to Selected Exercises

1.8 - Identify some informal queries and update operations that you would expect to apply to
the database shown in Figure 1.2.

Answer:
(a) (Query) List the names of all students majoring in Computer Science.

(b) (Query) What are the prerequisites of the Database course?.

(c) (Query) Retrieve the transcript of Smith. This is a list of <CourseName,

SectionIdentifier, Semester, Year, Grade> for each course section that Smith has
completed.

(d) (Update) Insert a new student in the database whose Name=Jackson,

StudentNumber=23, Class=1 (freshman), and Major=MATH.

(e) (Update) Change the grade that Smith received in Intro to Computer Science section
119 to B.

1.9 - What is the difference between controlled and uncontrolled redundancy?

Answer:
Redundancy is when the same fact is stored multiple times in several places in a database.
For example, in Figure 1.5(a) the fact that the name of the student with StudentNumber=8 is
Brown is stored multiple times. Redundancy is controlled when the DBMS ensures that
multiple copies of the same data are consistent; for example, if a new record with
StudentNumber=8 is stored in the database of Figure 1.5(a), the DBMS will ensure that
StudentName=Smith in that record. If the DBMS has no control over this, we have
uncontrolled redundancy.

1.10 - Specify all the relationships among the records of the database shown in Figure 1.2.

Answer:
(a) Each SECTION record is related to a COURSE record.

(b) Each GRADE_REPORT record is related to one STUDENT record and one SECTION
record.

(c) Each PREREQUISITE record relates two COURSE records: one in the role of a course
and the other in the role of a prerequisite to that course.

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Pearson Addison-Wesley.

2 Chapter 1: Databases and Database Users

1.11 - Give some additional views that may be needed by other user groups for the database
shown in Figure 1.2.

Answer:
(a) A view that groups all the students who took each section and gives each student's
grade. This may be useful for printing the grade report for each section for the
university administration's use.

(b) A view that gives the number of courses taken and the GPA (grade point average) for
each student. This may be used to determine honors students.

1.12 – Cite some examples of integrity constraints that you think can apply to the database
shown in Figure 1.2.

Answer:
We give a few constraints expressed in English. Following each constraint, we give its
type in the relational database terminology that will be covered in Chapter 6, for
reference purposes.

(a) The StudentNumber should be unique for each STUDENT record (key constraint).

(b) The CourseNumber should be unique for each COURSE record (key constraint).

(c) A value of CourseNumber in a SECTION record must also exist in some COURSE
record (referential integrity constraint).

(d) A value of StudentNumber in a GRADE_REPORT record must also exist in some

STUDENT record (referential integrity constraint).

(e) The value of Grade in a GRADE_REPORT record must be one of the values in the set
{A, B, C, D, F, I, U, S} (domain constraint).

(f) Every record in COURSE must have a value for CourseNumber (entity integrity
constraint).

(g) A STUDENT record cannot have a value of Class=2 (sophomore) unless the student
has completed a number of sections whose total course CreditHours is greater that 24
credits (general semantic integrity constraint).

1.13 - Give examples of systems in which it may make sense to use traditional file
processing instead of a database approach.

Answer:
1.1. Small internal utility to locate files Formatted: Bullets and Numbering
2.2. Small single user application that does not require security (such as a customized
calculator or a personal address and phone book)
3.3. Real-time navigation system (with heavy computation and very little data)
4.4. The students may think of others.

1.14 - Consider Figure 1.2.

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Pearson Addison-Wesley.

 Chapter 1: Databases and Database Users 3

a.a. If the name of the ‘CS’ (Computer Science) Department changes to ‘CSSE’ (Computer Formatted: Bullets and Numbering
Science and Software Engineering) Department and the corresponding prefix for the
course number also changes, identify the columns in the database that would need
to be updated.
b.b. Can you restructure the columns in COURSE, SECTION, and PREREQUISITE tables so
that only one column will need to be updated?

Answer:
a. The following columns will need to be updated.
Table Column(s)
STUDENT Major
COURSE CourseNumber and Department
SECTION CourseNumber
PREREQUISITE CourseNumber and PrerequisiteNumber

b. You should split the following columns into two columns:

Table Column Split Columns
COURSE CourseNumber CourseDept and CourseNum
SECTION CourseNumber CourseDept and CourseNum
PREREQUISITE CourseNumber CourseDept and CourseNum
PREREQUISITE PrerequisiteNumber PreReqDept and PreReqNum

Note that in the COURSE table, the column CourseDept will not be needed after the above
change, since it is redundant with the Department column.

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Pearson Addison-Wesley.

Other documents randomly have
different content
and inevitably towards the Unknown; it was also necessary that man
should learn that he possessed a soul.
We recognise that we have one; but are we equally clear as to what
it is?
We answer perhaps: “Yes, it is that part of us which is not the body
which perishes—the soul is immortal.” It is well to be able to make
such a reply, since it is true; our catechisms have sown the seed of
which this is the result.
But since all human knowledge, whether abstract or practical, has
the same beginning, through the senses, and that neither eye, ear,
nor hand has to do with the soul, what can we know of it? Above all,
what can we learn of its existence after death, the time when
immortality has passed beyond the sphere of the experience of the
senses? As man we recognise the spirit inhabiting the body, but with
no form, such as it might receive after death; we can hardly clothe
these ideas in words.
This belief in a soul, exactly like the belief in gods, and at last in One
God, can only be understood as the outcome of constantly renewed
observations and long meditations; the annals of language furnish
material for this study, those ancient words, which, meaning
originally something quite tangible and visible, came in time to mean
that which is invisible and infinite.
The last breath of a dying person gave the first conception of the
presence in man of a non-corporeal principle; it was recognised that
this perceptible breath, at the moment of death, was an accident
and transient. Language marks clearly the difference between the
act of breathing or breath, and that which breathed, the invisible
agent of this act—the living soul, the spirit. This agent received
different names, in the different languages; the Greeks named it
Psyche, saying that it was the breath which, at the hour of death,
passed out through the bars of the teeth; amongst the Hindoos it
was called Atman, and Anima amongst the Latins, two words which
originally were understood by those using them as meaning
something breathing. Cicero spoke of Anima, but he refrained from
defining it, and frankly avowed that he did not know whether to call
it breath or fire.
The word breath has been used figuratively to express the Power
governing the world.[111] A poet in the Veda when speaking of the
Supreme Being says, “It breathed without air.”
Although the word breath was most frequently used to denote the
principle of life, another expression was employed at a much earlier
period; in countries the most remote from each other, the words, the
shadow of the dead, were used, in order to express the idea of
something intangible yet closely related to the body. The influence of
language on thought is so real and so much more powerful than the
testimony of our senses, that those who named the soul a shadow,
came at last to believe that corpses threw no shadow because it had
left them.
It was then considered that the soul was not a homogeneous whole,
but composed of parts of which some are ephemeral, destined to
disappear with the body; these parts form what the Greek and Latin
writers call the Ego, and the Hindoos Aham, what in French would
be termed the moi—three words for one thing—an object of
contingency, since it depends on circumstances—on the body, on
age, and on sex.
All men have endeavoured to solve the riddle of human life; but the
Hindoos, who especially excelled in researches dealing with the
formation of words, that is to say, with the birth or development of
ideas, whilst penetrating deeply into the mysteries of their soul, their
Atman, arrived at an abstraction of this Atman, entirely freed from
all earthly or physical particles, and this “vehicle of an abstraction”
they considered to be incapable of perishing, since it had no
connection with breath, it was the pure self, “freed from the fetters
and conditions of the human Ego,” hidden in the Aham; not
contingent on circumstances—the self-existent One.
This new conception demanded a new name; the word Atman,
which at first signified all the concomitant elements of the soul—
those which pass, equally with those that remain—the Hindoos
retained in their language, and it was used to define the essence
itself, the being with no attributes, identical with the Being who
vivified nature, the Infinite that supported man’s own being, the
Highest Self. Socrates knew this same Self, but he called it
Daimonion, the indwelling God, whom the early Christians called the
Holy Ghost.
From the Hindoo point of view this idea holds in itself the solution of
the world’s great enigma. The commandment indicating the kernel
of all philosophy, “Know thyself,” was the Hindoo doctrine. Know
thyself as the self, or if we translate it into religious language, “Know
that we live and move and have our being in God” (Acts xvii. 28).[112]
In recognising the soul as that which is the self, we see that this fact
of existing is more wonderful than the acts of breathing, feeling,
thinking, living, since none of these manifestations are possible but
on the sole condition of having proceeded from the Being—who is.
After having analysed the human soul, the Hindoos followed it from
phase to phase from the moment when the breath which makes
man a living being received its first names. They thus traced its
history through time, and believed that they could follow it through
eternity.
Years were employed in the elaboration of this history, and we only
find its completion in a work which is posterior to the Vedic hymns,
the Upanishads. The study of the human soul is the central point in
Hindoo philosophy, and the Upanishads are the first psychological
work which has ever been made.
There are persons who doubt the existence of things, of which
others feel certain; but no one ever doubted the existence of his
own soul. Why did the theologians who arranged the creeds not
include the article, “I believe in my soul.” It would not have found
men incredulous.
Reflection enables us to admit that the soul without God could
possess no history, since neither the soul without God, nor God
without the soul, could constitute religion. For this which is called
religion, if under the form only of a soaring towards an unknown but
longed-for Being, has always existed since there have been men on
the earth.
We often meet the recurring questions “Whence?” “Why?” and the
frequent “Because”; and now we are told by a small number of
thinkers that all the explanations of speculative philosophy on the
first impulses of the human soul towards religion, are only worthless
suppositions, unless philosophers—as historians have done—have
recognised that there was a revelation at the beginning of time in
the true sense of the word; but opinions differ as to “the true sense
of the word.”
We are so accustomed to apply the expression “the Word of God” to
the sacred canon of Scripture, that we are inapt at seeking for God’s
Word elsewhere. But our first fathers read and studied it before the
Bible existed.
To reflective minds, primitive man presents a moving spectacle,
drawn towards the Unknown—the Unseen—they abandoned
themselves unresistingly to the current leading them in certain
directions.
I imagine that our Aryan ancestors would not have fixed their
attention with such tenacity on the objects in nature which
environed them, had the stars and heavenly bodies been immovable.
But the sun appearing on the one side, traversing the sky and then
disappearing on the opposite side, made the remark of the Incas
prince very natural: “There is some power behind the sun causing it
to ascend and descend.” It did not occur to him that the sun
travelled in accordance with natural laws. Other princes and poets,
with their eyes fixed on the moving objects of the firmament, would
have made the same reflection and sought the invisible cause.
If the world had been propelled by a moving power within itself,
creatures possessing reason would have been vaguely conscious of it
from the first. They would have been like the plants which turn
regularly and infallibly in one direction, since they are not free to do
otherwise.
“You premise a revelation,” may be said to me, “and yet you direct
us towards Evolution; choose one of the two since the one
contradicts the other.”
That remains to be proved. Apply the theory of the evolutionist to
the mollusc; we see it directing itself, and extending its tentacles,
towards a crumb of bread that floats on the water. If they touch it
the contact calls forth in the mollusc the act of seizing its prey. This
is only a movement of semi-consciousness, or perhaps rather it is
not entirely involuntary. Under the aspect of immediate cause and
effect, we see a principle anterior to the phenomenon; certain
perceptions which appear in the sight of many psychologists to be
innate, that is to say, impressions received on our mind before we
became conscious of ourself, may well be the result of the
receptability of our Ego, which enables us, when it is affected in a
certain fashion, to represent these affections to ourselves under
certain forms.
The presentiment that unknown powers were to be found behind
the visible world only showed itself when the Aryans first named
them sky, sun, moon, storm, day, night, all terms previously used for
various parts of nature.
With the perception of a Beyond, with the desire to know what it
contained, a gap made itself felt which separated it from the known
world. It must be crossed—a bridge was necessary. This thought
spread from one end of the globe to the other, but our ancestors
were the first bridge-makers. Scandinavian mythology mentions a
bridge built by the gods which was of three colours; it was clearly
intended originally for the rainbow. The Milky Way provided the
Hindoos with a bridge; and in the Upanishads mention is made of a
path having five colours. Here we have the rainbow again probably.
The source of these legends is the ineradicable belief in the heart of
man, that the here and hereafter, the immortal and the mortal, the
divine and the human, cannot remain apart for ever.
Here I will comment on a striking feature of the Rig-Veda. The rishis
give accounts of the manner in which the hymns are composed.
They say that they worked at them as other workmen do, such as
carpenters, weavers, and potters. Sometimes they speak of the
verses as coming direct from the heart; another says his hymn
moves as a skiff on the river. Sometimes they speak of their hymns
as god-given, and that the gods themselves are seers and poets. In
no part of the Rig-Veda are there traces of the theories of the verbal
inspiration with the meaning which the Greeks attached to the word
as a theophany or manifestation of divinity, nor as it was understood
afterwards in all religions, beginning with Brahmanism.
It would be useless to seek for a complete exposition of Vedic
thought in the Rig-Veda; all the hymns found in it are not ancient;
the collection was made by the priests, and if they retained much
that was useless for our purpose in their worship, yet we should be
very grateful to them, as in this manner much has been preserved to
us of the ancient poetry of India, and it is they who recount the
pilgrimage undertaken by the Aryans in search of the invisible
lodestone which attracted them beyond what they could see and
hear. As they advanced they rejoiced, seeming to attain their desire;
but cast down under the weight of their sadness, as at times they
found themselves misled.
It is said in the Bible, that for God a thousand years is as one day,
and as I read the sacred books of India, not as a learned critic, but
as a man who is rejoiced to discover his own thoughts in the
writings of the Hindoo poets, the three or four thousand years
appear to me as one day during which these poets have not ceased
to pour themselves out in their hymns, and it would be possible to
condense in one page the sentiments expressed in the first hymns
and the last Upanishads.
“Simple minded, not comprehending in my mind, I ask for the
hidden places of the gods.”[113] “My ears vanish, my eyes vanish, and
the light also which dwells in my heart; my mind with its far-off
longings leaves me; what shall I say, and what shall I think?”[114]
“There is no likeness of Him whose name is Great Glory. He is not
apprehended of the eye, nor by the other senses, nor by speech; not
by penance, or good works. We do not know, we do not understand,
how anyone can teach it. It is different from the known, it is also
above the unknown, thus we have heard from those of old who
taught us this.”
“You will not find Him who has created these things; something else
stands between you and Him.”[115]
These detached sentences acquire a very special value, when it is
remembered that they are not quotations drawn from some modern
works, which imitate the writings of another epoch; these exist
nowhere but in the Veda, a literary work composed in the silence
and shade, by writers who themselves were ignorant of the object of
their desire.
One point at last becomes clear in the mist; a thousand years
probably before the coming of Christ in Palestine, this verse was
pronounced in the north of India, “He who is above the gods alone
is God.”[116]
The Grecian, Roman, and German divinities disappeared before
other beliefs; but the Hindoos who knew that their gods were
nothing more than mere names, had no dawning religion within their
reach that they could adopt; therefore they did not abandon their
traditions, and they continued to grope, as one of their own poets
says, “Enveloped in mist and with faltering voices.”
All the religious thought of the Vedic period can be found in the
Upanishads (the literal meaning of this name is, sessions or
assemblies of pupils round their master). There is not what could be
called a philosophical system in these Upanishads; they are
fragments, and are in the true sense of the word, guesses at truth;
the spirit of the work is liberal, all shades of opinion are represented
in it, the most divers, and sometimes contradictory. Conjectures
abound with regard to the creation, all start from the theory that the
world we see is not the true world, and that before it appeared there
was the true Self—the Self-existent—the One which underlies the
whole world, from which has come all that seems to exist and does
actually exist. This was the final solution of the search after the
Unknown, the Invisible, which had been foretold through a long
chain of centuries; an intuition more convincing than all the
arguments which were used at a later period to prove the existence
of the Causa Causæ.
The difficulties of the Brahmans in making a complete collection of
these vague presentiments, confused thoughts, and true intuitions,
were increased a hundredfold by the fact that they had to accept
every word and every sentence of the Upanishads as supernaturally
revealed. However contradictory at first sight, all that was said in the
Upanishads had to be accepted and explained. It would seem
difficult to construct a well-arranged literary monument out of such
heterogeneous materials; but it was harmonised and welded into a
system of philosophy that for solidity and unity will bear comparison
with any other system of philosophy in the world.[117]
This gigantic work, which commenced with the Vedic hymns and
ended in the book called the Vedanta, or End, and was the end or
supreme object of the Veda, is also known under the name of
Mîmâmsâ-sutras. Mîmâmsâ is a desiderative form of the root man, to
think, and a very appropriate name for a philosophical work of this
kind; and sûtra means literally a string; but it is here used as the
name of short and abstract aphorisms, rendered still more
enigmatical by the conciseness of the language. There are several
hundreds of these sayings or headings, forming tables of contents, a
magic chaplet of immeasurable length, each word containing
condensed thought. This work must have required a concentration of
mind which it is difficult for us to realise.
The meaning and form of these aphorisms are characteristic—here is
one.
“I will declare in a line, that which has required millions of volumes.
“Brahma is true, the world is false; the soul is Brahma and nothing
else.”
Those who consider the Supreme Being as the Infinite in nature, and
the individual soul as the Infinite in man, must consider God and the
soul as one, not two, seeing there cannot be two Infinites; such is
the belief of the Hindoos; but this belief does not belong to them
exclusively, it existed amongst the Greeks, and it is encountered in
other places in our day besides India.
As works of art these sûtras are of course nothing, but for giving a
complete and accurate outline of a whole system of philosophy they
are admirable. Under these fragmentary forms can be found
treatises of grammar, etymology, exegesis, phonetics, ceremonial,
and jurisprudence.
The aphorism which I have quoted is the pure quintessence of the
Vedanta.
And of Pantheism also, it may be said. This word Pantheism is one of
the most difficult to define, and I shall not attempt to explain it. I
have a horror of epithets, and I am sorry that it is not always
possible to avoid them. I do not examine philosophical systems too
minutely, lest I should be drawn into hurling at them such words as
pantheism, mysticism, positivism, materialism, naturalism, without
being quite clear when it is no longer lawful to express myself in
these terms; epithets and labels are very apt to return home to
roost. I will therefore confine myself to this remark, with regard to
the belief of the Hindoos; if each definite colour can be broken up
into a number of tints too numerous to name, may it not be the
same with certain shades and meanings in words and thoughts?
The Greeks hardly suspected the existence of the Veda; in more
modern times Europe caught glimpses of it; and now, although
completely discovered and studied, it is thoroughly known only to a
few erudite scholars, which explains the fact that this ancient
creation of the Hindoo mind has exercised so small an influence on
our philosophy.

The Sacred Writings of the Hebrews

Whilst the hymns of the Rig-Veda, with their simple meditations,
invocations and interrogations—sent out by chance, as it were, into
space—accurately trace the march of thought which accompanies
the search for indications of the Unknown—the Infinite; we look in
vain in the Old Testament for the first dawnings, the first
impressions made on the human soul by the existence of things
divine. From the time when, in the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve
entered into communion with the Eternal, the sacred narrative of
facts, evidently historical, continues in such a manner as to have led
some to regard it as merely allegorical.
To verify in the light of scientific knowledge the titles which the Bible
can truly present to the veneration of the Christian world appears to
some more and more advisable.[118] Few persons amongst the critical
students of the Old Testament doubt that the books said to be by
Moses are a collection of ancient documents, a compilation made by
different individuals living at different periods, with long intervals
between them, each with his own point of view. The conscientious
examination to which these portions of the sacred writings have
been subjected was directed at first to isolated points, and in order
to exercise freely the critical faculties so much in evidence now, it
was necessary to modify the generally accepted view that the
religion of the Jews was cast in one piece, and perfect at the first. It
was necessary to separate the ancient documents from those of a
more recent date, but the attempt to make an exact chronological
table of the earlier history of the Hebrews was abandoned. Until the
death of Solomon only round numbers could be used, even the date
of the oldest fact in history, the exodus of the Jewish people from
Egypt, cannot definitely be fixed. Amongst the Egyptologists, whose
testimony is of the greatest value, there is great hesitation in
assigning a date, though the greater number hold to the fifteenth
century B.C. Their representations with regard to Moses are so
devoid of definite historical data as to envelop his personality in
great mystery.
The idea of a revelation expressly delivered to the Jewish people
acquired a more definite form in the Middle Ages; and from the
Reformation the theory was promulgated, amongst those to whom
the idea was not repugnant, that to a small portion of humanity only
—the elect—had been consigned the task of disseminating the
knowledge of religious truth in the world. The study of the Scriptures
spread to all classes where it was not forbidden to the laity, and
from that time millions of human beings knew no other literature.
Assured that the Old Testament contained the inspired words, Jews
and Christians alike read it with feelings of reverence which naturally
excluded all idea of captious criticism. But the spirit of biblical
criticism which animated the reformers was never afterwards
extinguished, and attentive readers discovered variations in the
construction of the Pentateuch which at that time were inexplicable.
The fact that the Bible contained many narratives which could not
always be reconciled the one with the other was known long before
the period of which we are speaking. St Jerome, when feeling the
want of more accurate Greek and Latin translations than those in
use in his time, undertook to make one, and wrote thus to a friend
of his, a priest: “Re-read the books of the Old and New Testaments,
and you will find so many contradictions in the numbers referring to
the years, and to the kings of Judah and Israel, that it would require
a man of leisure rather than a student to enter thoroughly into the
matter.”[119]
Side by side with this historical reconstruction which is now carried
on, there is a work of examination being pursued. It is asked by
what means did the Jewish people become so strong, so compact,
whilst in the midst of strange nations, and in spite of all vicissitudes.
It is also asked what was the earliest history of the Hebrews, and
whether it is due to the supernatural element that the tribes
assembled at the base of Mount Sinai were enabled to become an
united people; and, finally, these keen questioners desire to know
the stages by which the conception of the Deity entered the Semitic
mind.
The scholars who give themselves to these enquiries, generally
eliminate the question of popular orthodoxy from the subject, since
they consider that when theoretical theology finds its way amongst
such workers it does not assist research; it confuses their point of
view; they look upon the whole race as becoming prophets, and the
prophets become apostles, and thus, out of proportion. The work
advances slowly; each critic puts forth his own special lucubrations
concerning the biblical settings which all are naturally anxious to
retain; contentions are rife on the subject of the Hebrew writers;
their lack of Christianity, and their philosophy are both made matters
for discussion, and disputes between the commentators did not
cease.
Amongst those who are passive witnesses of the scientific
investigations, there are many who, without closely following this
modern exegesis, are sufficiently enlightened to recognise its aim
and its use, and they exclaim with a satisfaction mixed with
astonishment, “Whatever may be said one fact remains certain, our
holy Scriptures speak of God as God, the Creator of Heaven and
Earth, as He most truly is, therefore the Old Testament, the product
of the Semitic mind, is free from the taint which is perceptible in
ancient Aryan literature, that of mythology.”
Let us seek the reason of this immunity accorded to the sacred
books of the Hebrews, let us seek it in the language, not apart from
it, as some do when looking for the origin of thought.

The Various Names of God

According to the historians who have made a study of the ancient
religions, each name given to or descriptive of a deity corresponded
to a special conception formed by the people. This has been a
generally received principle, and it serves as a clue to guide us in our
study of primitive creeds.
The Semitic languages, like the Aryan, possessed a number of
names of the Deity in common, all expressive of certain general
qualities of the Deity, but all raised by one or other of the Semitic
tribes to be the names of God, or of that idea which the first breath,
the first sight of the world, the feeling of absolute dependence on a
power beyond ourselves, had for ever impressed and implanted in
the human mind. These names were all either honorific titles, or
represented some moral qualities. El and El-Schadai—Strong,
Powerful; Bel or Baal—Lord; Adon or Adonai—my Lord, Master; Melk
or Moloch—King; Eliun—the Highest God. Such names as these, so
clear and easily understood, did not readily lend themselves to
mythological contagion, and they were adopted by Christian
phraseology because they contained nothing but what might be
rightly ascribed to God.
I could have wished to pass over the name Eloha, which eventually
became Elohim, in silence, as its history is a long one, but I shall say
a few words about it, as it is one of the most primitive names, and
indicates to us what the Semites understood by divine. The name
Elohim, applied to an unknown, invisible power, one not grasped by
the senses, was the expression of all that was superior and beyond
what was seen and known on the earth. At the same time the name
was used not exclusively for the Deity, but for others whose
attributes, whether physical or moral, demanded a superlative
appellative ... there were thus several Elohims of varying natures,
the Semitic termination in im turning Eloha into a plural, still always
took a singular verb after it, and Elohim or the Elohim (pl.) were
both used.
If a comparison be made between the Semitic and Aryan methods of
treating the same subjects, the assertion seems amply justified that
mythology has not ventured to effect an entrance into the thoughts
of the Hebrew writers. If the subject Dawn be taken, it would remain
with the Semitic authors a natural daily occurrence, but the Aryan
writers would transform it into a personal agent taking the form of
gracious, kindly mythical personages. An example presents itself in
the book of Job.
Jehovah, the Creator of the universe, “answered Job out of the
whirlwind,” who had sought to learn the secrets of nature. Jehovah
said to him:—
“Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days
began, and caused the dayspring to know its place?
“Declare if thou knowest it all.
“Where is the way to the dwelling of light; and as for
darkness, where is the place thereof?
“Doubtless thou knowest, for thou wast then born. And
the number of thy days is great.” (Job xxxviii. 12, 18, 19,
21).
This is dawn in biblical language and in nature; but who would
recognise it under the figure of Daphne, Eos, or Ahana? All of whom
have so exercised the brains of our mythologists.
But Jehovah drives still more deeply the point of His discourse into
the conscience of Job.
“Who hath cleft a channel for the water flood, to cause it
to rain on a land where no man is?
“Hath the rain a father?
“Or who hath begotten the drops of dew?
“Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance
of waters may cover thee?” (Job xxxviii. 25, 26, 28, 34).
The Aryans had also described the rain, and their thoughts on the
subject coincided with those of the Semitic race, but they were
clothed in the grotesque language generally associated with myths.
“The rain is represented in all the primitive mythologies of the Aryan
race as the fruit of the embraces of Heaven and Earth.”[120] This is an
advance towards the poetical metaphor which Æschylus at a later
date thus expressed: “The bright sky loves to fructify the earth; the
earth on her part aspires to the heavenly marriage. Rain falling from
the loving sky impregnates the earth, and she produces for mortals
her fruit.”
It is necessary to possess a somewhat profound knowledge of the
morphological characteristics of the Semitic and Aryan languages in
order to note accurately the particulars to which I have drawn
attention, and to understand the amount of influence they exercise
on religious phraseology.

The Genius of Languages

Each linguistic family has special features, just as each race has its
own physiognomy; the distinctive feature of the Semitic languages is
that the significative elements destined to form appellatives, when
once incorporated as roots in the body of a word, suffered no
modification, and the original meaning could never be ignored. Thus
all Semitic names for the dawn, the sun, the vault of heaven, the
rain, and other natural phenomena, preserving their appellative
character, could not be used for any other object; thus they could
never express an abstract idea, such as that of the Deity. The
method followed with regard to the arrangement of words in the
greater number of Semitic dictionaries, which are generally arranged
according to their roots, attest the truth of this fact. When we wish
to find the meaning of a word in Hebrew or Arabic, we first seek for
its root, and then look in the dictionary for that root and its
derivatives. In similar languages no ambiguity is possible; nothing
lends itself to myths.
In the Aryan languages, on the contrary, such an arrangement would
have been extremely inconvenient; here the roots were apt to
become so completely absorbed by the derivative elements, whether
prefixes or suffixes, that often substantives ceased almost
immediately to be appellative, and were changed into mere names
or proper names; this peculiarity of the language enabled the
Hindoos to form such words as Dyaus, Aditi, Varuna, Indra, which at
first designate various aspects of nature, and afterwards were
applied to different aspects of divinities. The preceding pages have
afforded us many examples, and I hope that the comparison I have
drawn between the two representations of the same object will
suffice to explain why it is that we possess a Grecian and Hindoo
mythology, but that there was no Hebrew mythology.

Metaphor
But, on the other hand, the Old Testament is full of metaphor—these
pearls of discourse; these expressions so light and effective in the
mouths of poets as they skim over the surface of the subject in
hand, but which we make so ponderous and ungraceful with our
literal interpretations. When David speaks of God as a rock, a
fortress, a buckler, we have no difficulty in understanding his
meaning, although we might express ourselves differently, and
probably speak of the ever-present help of God. Where we allude to
a temptation from within or from without, it was more natural for
the ancients to speak of a tempter, whether in a human or animal
form. What with us is a heavenly message or a godsend was to
them a winged messenger.
What is really meant is perhaps the same, and the fault is ours, not
theirs, if we persist in understanding their words in their outward
and material aspect only; and forget that before language had
sanctioned a distinction between the concrete and the abstract, the
intention of the speakers comprehended both the concrete and the
abstract, both the material and the spiritual, in a manner which has
become quite strange to us.[121] I believe it can be proved that more
than half the difficulties in the history of religion owe their origin to
this constant misinterpretation of ancient language by modern
language, of ancient thought by modern thought, particularly
whenever the word has become more sacred than the spirit.
 The Later Name for God amongst the Hebrews
Each divine name mentioned hitherto represented a quality or an
attribute; we now come to one of comparatively more recent date,
which contains neither attribute nor similitude; it is mentioned for
the first time in a conversation between God and Moses. God speaks
from the burning bush, and tells Moses to bring the children of Israel
out of Egypt. “And Moses said unto God: Behold, when I come unto
the children of Israel and shall say unto them: ‘The God of your
fathers hath sent me unto you’; and they shall say to me: ‘What is
His name?’ what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses: ‘I
Am that I Am.’ And he said: ‘Thus shalt thou say unto the children of
Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you’” (Exod. iii. 14, 15).
God in speaking of Himself said: “I Am that I Am,” or, “I Am”; but
man in designating God used the word Jehovah. The etymology of
this word was sought, and it was regarded by many, rightly or
wrongly, as a derivative of the verb to be. Jehovah was thus—
absolute existence, or the Being.
“And God spake unto Moses and said unto him: ‘I am Jehovah; and I
appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob as El Shaddai,
but by my name Jehovah I was not known to them’” (Exodus vi. 2,
3).
Writers are now generally agreed that Jehovah should be
pronounced Jahveh. Renan notices this striking fact. “The name of
God which has conquered the world,” he says, “is unknown to all
who are not Hebraists, and even they do not know how to
pronounce it.”
By a superstition which some writers trace back to a very remote
period, the Israelites considered the name which God had used of
Himself to be too sacred to be uttered by human lips; gradually its
use was discontinued; and the name Lord was used in its place.
Although the names of God all indicated the one true God, they did
not preserve the children of Israel from polytheism, since there was
hardly a tribe that did not forget the original meaning of the titles
used. If the Jews had remembered the meaning of the word El, they
could not have worshipped Baal as distinct from El; but in the same
way as the Greeks connected the worship of Apollos and Uranus
with that of Zeus, so the Jews were ready at times to invoke the
gods of their neighbours.
It is not that the earlier names of the Deity contained no second
meaning as qualificative adjective; Force, for instance, could be
symbolised, but the idea of absolute existence expressed by the
words, “I Am,” excluded all symbol and all likenesses.
The Jews did not profit by this preservative from error; on the
contrary, with the advent in Israel of this new conception of the
Deity, the partial eclipse which so often obscured their reason seems
at times to have given place to one more complete. As soon as
Moses had constituted them a nation, they appear to have looked
upon God as a national God, ignoring His relationship with other
peoples.
The salient point in the Old Testament is the relation of God with His
people, an alliance or covenant between Jehovah and Israel of which
the rainbow became the first type. Threatenings and promises
enforced the keeping of the moral law, the good and evil things of
this life; if Israel obeyed the Lord and kept His commandments, the
fields would yield their crops, the trees their fruits, and peace would
reign in the land; if they were disobedient, the heaven would
become brass, and famine and pestilence would decimate the
people, and the rest would be led captive by foreign kings.
Although no definite assertion concerning the immortality of the soul
may be found in the Old Testament, a belief in personal immortality
is taken for granted in several passages, and mention is frequently
made of an abode in which the spirits remain after their separation
from the body, that is Sheol, in which joy and suffering are equally
unknown. The picture drawn by David in some of the Psalms, of the
abode of the departed is sad and desolate. Though the word is not
meant for an individual grave, this idea may have been borrowed
from it; the meaning is that of a vast space in the interior of the
earth; the dead lie down and are together and at rest, but separated
not only from man but also from God.
The Hebrews naturally mourned and compassionated their dead
most sincerely. “Alas my father, alas my mother, my poor children.”
But why should we Aryans, whose language is not allied
philologically with the Semitic, copy their phrases? Why should we
Christians, who are not linked to them by dogma, allow ourselves to
use the same hopeless expressions, instead of words instinct with
life and hope?

On the Prophets (Nābhī)

The phenomenon of prophecy, one of the earlier developments of
the human mind, has been found amongst all peoples, at one time
or other of their history. Certain spontaneous psychical movements
dominated men. The important rôle played by the oracles in the
history of Greece, is well known; the Greeks classed both the priests
who interpreted the auguries, and those persons who considered
themselves inspired by the gods and claimed a knowledge of hidden
things, under the name of prophets, indifferently. In the third
century B.C. the Jews of Alexandria, when writing the Septuagint,
translated the Hebrew word Nābhī by prophet. As amongst Hebraists
the word Nābhī does not necessarily imply the power of foretelling
the future, whilst the word prophet conveys that meaning, it might
have been well to employ both terms.
The original meaning of the word Nābhī seems to have been
“agitated outbursts.” These men seem to have passed through a
phase of nervous exaltation before beginning their exhortations;
when once they had started their outpourings they no longer had
control over their spirit’s impulse; and were often physically
prostrated, showing signs of an overpowering compelling physical
force, divinely irresistible.
These Nābhīs, who appeared on the occasion of any crisis, when the
welfare of the public was at stake, were at the head of popular
movements, giving them a right direction; they were the first to rise
against the oppression of the ruling powers, and thousands of them
perished in misery. Isaiah likens them to sentinels, or watchmen
always on the alert, watching with eyes fixed on the horizon,
charged with the duty of sounding the alarm on the approach of
danger. “One calleth unto me out of Seir; Watchman, what of the
night? Watchman, what of the night?” This same Isaiah compares
the negligent prophets to “dumb dogs, that cannot bark, lying down,
loving to slumber.”
Their preaching must have been very powerful; Luther, in speaking
of the prophecies of Isaiah, says, “Every word is a furnace.”
Until now Jehovah had by the mouth of the Nābhīs addressed the
people as a nation; the individual was not singled out. But
imperceptibly a change took place; new indications presented
themselves. Instead of the order, “Slay, slay,” milder accents were
heard; it was as though heart spoke to heart: “Wherewith shall I
come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I
come before Him with burnt offerings; with calves of a year old?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body
for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good;
and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love
mercy” (Micah vi.).
The individual becomes more evident; like the rishis, Elijah sought
the Lord; and he came to Mount Horeb: “And a great and strong
wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the
Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an
earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the
earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire
a still small voice,” I imagine that Elijah said to himself: “That still
small voice is for me.”
There were in certain places assemblies of Nābhīs, and schools in
which the young prophets were trained in rhetoric and in composing
discourses; for though some improvised, others—amongst them
probably Isaiah—previously wrote their messages. All used a
rhythmical language akin to poetry; the teaching of music no doubt
formed a part of their education, since we know that the sound of
music helped to produce the ecstasy which resulted in prophesy.[122]
The gift seems to have been to some extent contagious. Prophets
were found in bands, prophesying, and followed by musicians.
During the eight centuries preceding our era, a succession of terrible
calamities took place. The Nābhīs upheld the courage of the people
by their immovable conviction that the Lord would send a leader, and
deliverer of the people from their enemies. Through the whole of
this time Israel, though often despairing and sometimes in revolt,
resisted doubt; an unknown phenomenon amongst the heathens of
antiquity. That which strikes us as so inexplicable is that Judaism
showed itself capable of such prodigies of devotion and self-sacrifice,
though so little sustained by the bright glimpses of the future life.
The Elohim with whom the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
were permitted to hold intercourse, appeared more accessible to the
Israelites than the mighty Jehovah of whom they were forbidden to
make an image. The more we contemplate the infinite grandeur of
the majesty of God, of whom there is no similitude, whose name is
“I Am,” to whom, according to Fenelon, even the word spirit is
inapplicable, and of whom, according to Descartes and Bossuet,
nothing may be said but this, “The Being,” the more it seems
possible to fear, to reverence Him; but to love in those days seemed
difficult—love was rarely seen.
I desired to know what the best and most profound thinkers could
say on the ties uniting them with their Creator, those who had
experienced the action of the Divine love in themselves. At the same
time I determined to emphasise as little as possible the various
forms these thoughts might wear, whether in philosophical systems
or in religions which had been founded or organised in the visible
Church.
Amongst the thinkers who have occupied themselves with these
matters, I will mention one who, about two hundred years ago, was
looked upon as a dangerous heretic. Since that time Baruch Spinoza
has been anathematised as an atheist, and venerated as a saint;
afterwards he was declared by certain philosophers to be no atheist,
but was counted as a Pantheist. In our day he is known to be less of
a Pantheist than was thought.
Shrinking from such epithets, which disturb my judgment, I will not
enter into the question as to which approaches more nearly to the
truth.
I spoke once after this manner to some friends of mine, in the
presence of one whom I had not seen before.
“You are too diffident,” he said to me, “I will give you a safeguard
against obscurity of judgment. Read any system of philosophy you
like, you will doubtless discover that error predominates in it; put it
aside for the time being and read another, make the round of several
systems. With each your first impression will probably be renewed.
After that go over each in your mind, not in detail, but taking each in
its entirety. You will find that you can point out a certain truth, one
truth which will have occurred in all. Let this gradually expand in
your mind without unduly forcing it; you will have forgotten the
epithets used, and will find one dominant note which will enlighten
your judgment.”
The manner in which Spinoza interpreted the sacred writings of his
race has perhaps not attracted sufficient attention. His most
important work from this point of view has the somewhat repellant
title of Tractatus theologico-politicus. It is diffuse and heavy, and its
translators have not succeeded in rendering it more agreeable. It is
very difficult to grasp in detail, as omissions and reservations
abound.

The Views of Spinoza

When reading Spinoza it is necessary to bear in mind—which is not
easy—that he is neither a heathen philosopher nor a Father of the
Church nor a modern critic, but a learned Jew, living in the middle of
the seventeenth century. I will try to reproduce his opinions in his
own words, and endeavour to keep them uncontaminated, as far as
possible, with the views of the end of the nineteenth century.
Spinoza asserts plainly that he receives the Bible as an inspired
book; in this he perhaps differs from some of our more recent
exegetes who examine the Bible as any other literary work of history
and morality.
Christians grow up in the truth that the Bible contains the Word of
God, and they claim that their teaching has its basis in the Old
Testament. But others have argued thus: What do these know of the
history of the Hebrews? They do not understand the language of
their writings, and they cannot say what caused those sublime
teachers of the people, the prophets, to speak on such and such an
occasion, in such and such a manner. Being ignorant on all these
points it is possible that interpretations of the Old Testament may
have led us into error.
The existence of what are now called the laws of nature being
unknown in those far-off days, the Hebrews were unable to
recognise secondary or mediate causes; the book of Job is an
example of this. God intervenes personally on each occasion. Our
attention is directed solely to two points: man who suffers, that is,
who consents or is in revolt, and God who wills or wills not.
As everything without exception is placed in direct relationship with
God in the Old Testament, all is said to emanate from God; the
cedars of Lebanon are the cedars of God;[123] men of great stature,
the giants, are called in Genesis sons of God; the knowledge of
nature and of natural things which Solomon possessed is called the
wisdom of God; the discretion of a judge and the gains of a
merchant are the gifts of God; Assyria is the scourge of God, and the
lightning His arrows. And Spinoza asks: why are the children of
Israel called God’s chosen people? Because the Lord, having
delivered them out of Pharaoh’s hands, led them into the land of
Canaan, where they lived under the laws revealed to Moses, to
which the surrounding nations were not subject. “I will be your God,
and ye shall be My people,” Jehovah had said by the mouth of
Moses. This was the covenant concluded on Mount Sinai between
the Lord God and the Jewish nation. These laws, which were at the
same time civil and religious, were included under the general term,
the Law of the Lord, and the Book containing these precepts was
called the Word of God.
According to an ancient tradition, God revealed to Noah seven
precepts which corresponded to commandments given generally to
all mankind without distinction of race; there was thus perhaps a
revelation given at the beginning of time, even before the first and
greatest of the prophets, Moses; and this revelation the patriarchs
knew. The light which lightens every man born into the world
impressed these first precepts on the human heart; to the Jewish
race it seemed perhaps improbable that a divine law not
promulgated by a human mouth nor delivered in the name of the
God of Israel, could be imposed on man; as Moses was permitted to
hear God’s voice amongst the lightnings and thunders, the Israelites
considered themselves on a higher level than the rest of humanity,
and held in less esteem eternal verities which were the possession of
all mankind. Moses told them that after his death God would raise
up a prophet amongst them on condition that they should keep His
Covenant and His Commandments to do them, and he warned them
of the consequences of breaking these: “I testify against you this
day that ye shall surely perish.”
We find the second revelation in the books ascribed to Moses;
written in our memory as distinctly as in the Bible; it has so entirely
eclipsed the first that the greater number of us do not remember
ever to have heard of the seven precepts of Noah.
After the death of Moses, prophets succeeded each other in Israel;
all from the first to the last acknowledged that they received the
revelation either by symbols or illustrations, or by the word; their
eyes saw certain objects and their ears heard the explanation of
what they saw. Ezekiel, like Moses, saw God under the appearance
of a flaming fire; Daniel saw Him as the “Ancient of Days, whose
garment was white as snow”; the disciples of Christ saw the Spirit of
God under the form of a dove; the Apostles as tongues of fire; and
Saul, at the moment of his conversion, recognised it in a bright light,
and these visions were always accompanied by words.
The prophets rise above the level of other men by the intensity of
their faith, and by their vivid imagination; but imagination is mobile,
and their ecstatic conditions were not permanent; how could they
feel assured of being in direct communication with the Lord Himself?
They were so lacking in assurance that they often required some
palpable sign, thus did Abraham, Moses, Gideon and many others.
Each time the sign was granted to them; a fire descending from
heaven to consume the offering; a rod changed into a serpent; a
healthy hand instantly covered with leprosy; a fleece of wool
remaining dry on ground that was wet with dew, and other
miraculous signs.
According to Spinoza the gift of prophecy is on a lower level than
that of ordinary intellectual knowledge which requires no outward
sign of confirmation.
The nature of the revelation depended also upon the temperament
of each prophet, on his education and his own personal opinions;
the Magi who studied astronomy and astrology, seeing a star in the
east, at once went in search of the expected child. But on one point
all were agreed, they all said with Moses: “Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
might, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” And they said
with Isaiah: “Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your
doings, cease to do evil, learn to do well, relieve the oppressed.”

Obedience
A striking feature of Spinoza’s philosophical system was the basis of
obedience upon which the whole edifice of a religious life rested;
now obedience presupposes the existence of a law.
As the Israelites seemed incapable of appreciating the intrinsic
excellence of the precepts delivered to them, Moses enforced their
fulfilment, and spoke of God to them as a just and righteous law-
giver who would reward those who kept the commandments and
punish those who transgressed them. And when this law was given
out, amongst thunders and lightnings, the children of Israel
acknowledged it with acclaim—though not always fulfilling it—
because they were the only people possessing it.
At last the time came when it was possible to say: “The appointed
hour has come.” The Jewish nation, for whose sake the Mosaic law
had been revealed, was on the point of crumbling to pieces, when
Christ appeared proclaiming the universal and divine law. Christ was
no prophet in the ordinary acceptation of the word, since neither
word nor vision revealed God’s Will to Him, the truth was in Him in
all its plenitude, His mind was identical with that of the Father, and
Eternal Wisdom took the form of humanity.
Jewish as well as Christian theologians have equally contributed at
times to obscure the sense of the Holy Scriptures; they have taught
that man’s reason is unsound and can with difficulty penetrate the
mysteries of religion; and that the only way, therefore, was to accept
the Bible as infallible in all its details. The faithful extended this
doctrine of infallibility to every verbal peculiarity and failed to
distinguish the eternal principles, always clearly and simply
expressed by the prophets, from those vivid illustrations which
enabled them to speak, without hindrance, in terms most adapted
for arousing the wonder and belief of the ordinary hearer, of matters
per se inexpressible, as for instance of the Divine Nature. Spinoza
especially blames the theologians for having introduced in their
commentaries notions borrowed from Grecian philosophers, which
they adapted to the Old and New Testament, clothing them in
biblical language; this mixture of divine inspiration and subtle
argument more and more disturbed pious souls who went to their
Bibles for edification only.
To those capable of understanding them Christ revealed the secrets
of the Kingdom of God; they were the higher truths of eternal life,
the counsels of perfection; to the multitude He spoke in parables
and gave them commandments which were to be obeyed that they
might enter the kingdom of heaven. The Apostles spread abroad the
teachings of Christ; they preached the love of God with that of our
neighbour, not as sufficing in itself, but as a commandment spoken
in the name of the Life and Passion of our Saviour. And then each
one added to these great truths minor teachings, varying the
subjects according as they addressed Jews or Gentiles; many
different teachings were thus promulgated, giving rise in the early
Church to misunderstandings, gradually leading to disputes and
schisms; and after nineteen centuries of study of the subject we still
have not arrived at perfect mutual understanding. Spinoza quotes in
this connection a Dutch proverb: “Geen ketter; sonder letter.”
Without a text, no heresy.
When shall we learn that the revelation of God is not confined to a
certain number of books, to a certain number of words? It must of
necessity be inscribed elsewhere also, since words are patient of
more than one interpretation, books go astray and are lost, paper
becomes mildewed and is torn, stones are smashed even in the
hands of a prophet.
Spinoza tells us that he read and re-read the Holy Scriptures with
the greatest care before commenting on them, and he undertakes to
demonstrate to the Christian governments the necessity of reforming
the constitutions of the established churches by replacing a phantom
Bible by the Bible understood in spirit and in truth.
The scientific portion of the task would not be complicated, since the
commandments of God are few in number, in fact they may be
reduced to one. “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and
that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him”; and as a
proof that they seek Him they must practise justice and charity;
these are the foundations of the faith, and they are so clear and so
simple, that no commentary thereon is needed, nor are they
affected by any of the verbal differences or inaccuracies.
The ecclesiastical authorities thus act sometimes contrary to the
divine will when they declare those who are leading a good and
virtuous life to be the enemies of God, simply because their opinions
are not in exact conformity with the theological definitions put forth
by the churches. The civil power ought to be able to judge of the
belief of its citizens by the fruits they produce, if their works are
good, it may be thought that in the eyes of God their belief is also
correct, but personal theological opinions, though in conformity with
the decrees permitted by the Church, would not prevail in God’s
sight over wrong doing. When governments act in accordance with
these views, all is well—individuals, the nation, and the
governments.
In order to believe that God’s Word may be found elsewhere, it is
necessary to believe that He exists. His existence cannot be known;
[124]
we can, however, obtain some knowledge of it by certain means
of which we can know the reality; they are so real that we cannot
imagine any force that can invalidate them; these means or notions
are the fundamental axioms inherent in the human mind, and are
the bases of all knowledge; it is to these that we owe the power of
being able to distinguish good from evil, and this faculty we may
regard as the forerunner of the divine revelation. If we once admit
the possibility of these first principles—these axioms—becoming
obliterated, we should then admit a doubt of their intrinsic truth,
which would attack and weaken their immediate conclusion, which is
the existence of God; from that time we should possess no element
of certainty. This is why it has been said that attacks against reason
are more dangerous than attacks against the faith, because they
destroy with one blow the sacred edifice and the foundation which
bears it.

The Law
In a system where law is everything, how does Spinoza understand
the action of Providence?
Men are accustomed to call that knowledge divine which surpasses
the human understanding, and that event miraculous when the
cause is unknown to them; and nothing better demonstrates to them
the existence of God, His power and His providence, than those
things which appear to them to change the order of nature. We
sometimes show our ignorance by attributing things of which we are
ignorant to a special interposition of providence. Those who think
thus are not in a position to explain what they mean by the order of
nature.
This manner of viewing things might well date from the time of the
early Hebrews, who wished to prove to those nations who were not
Semitic, and who worshipped visible objects, such as the heavenly
bodies, that these were subordinate deities, subject to the will of the
invisible God, whose miracles on their behalf they related, since they
were convinced that the whole of nature contributed to the well-
being of the Hebrew people exclusively.
With God the understanding and the will are the same; to know and
to will is a single act; to know an object as it is in itself, and to
realise it effectively, is a necessity inherent in the Divine perfection;
since all truths come inevitably from the Divine intellect, the
universal laws of nature are the eternal decrees of God.
If any event takes place in nature not in accordance with these
universal laws, then the mind of God has not conceived it; in other
words, he who affirms that in a certain case God has acted contrarily
to the laws of nature, affirms also that God has acted contrarily to
His own Divine nature, which would prove the speaker’s perversity.
No event happens that is not by the will and eternal decrees of God,
each event conforms to laws eternally necessary and absolutely true.
To believe that this could be otherwise would be to admit that God
made an imperfect nature, and established laws so incomplete that
they required to be retouched each time that they failed to realise
the divine plan, a strange conception, and for which there is no
necessity. Those who seek and find their supreme happiness in the
love of God, and in doing the greatest good, have no wish that
nature should obey them; they desire to submit to nature, knowing
indubitably, that God governs all things in accordance with general
laws which are in agreement with universal life.
From this statement it will be seen that it is no longer a question of
resignation—of passive submission; man responds in every part of
his being to the supreme law which, as is the case with all men,
leads them blindly, and, for the most part, unconsciously towards
happiness; and causes, in a great nature, such as Spinoza’s, an
unceasing effort to maintain and to raise itself; the passage from
excellence to perfection is always accompanied by a feeling of joy,
and sadness marks each backward step towards imperfection. The
being—Spinoza’s monad—thus typifies perfection, and good, and evil
consists in the increase or diminution of the being. The natural love
of man for life has been transformed by Spinoza into law; his maxim
is well known: Every being tends to preserve its existence.

The Law in the Gospel

The Old and New Testaments are an exposition of a long discipline
of obedience, this makes their power, and those who study them
without preconceived ideas discover this.
Spinoza distinguishes between the spiritual needs of the majority of
men and the minority, and between the religions which suit the one
and the other. But all men, without exception, must acquire the
religion demanded by all, that is practical religion, which consists in
keeping those commandments given us in the sacred books. This
obedience serves to weaken passions; in the same proportion as
man attains this end, so a light, ever increasing in purity, illumines
his intellect, and so much the more does he comprehend that true
happiness is the result of virtue. Few men go beyond this, or—
without any other guide than their reason—experience that
intellectual love of God, inseparable from the true knowledge of God
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