The Book of Spinoza 2 · Written between lens-grindings, from his Ethics and his letters
This man wrote his own books. His pages are full of the word God, and his God has no will, no purpose, and does not hear prayer — which is what the Prologue means by god is the law. So the third rule cannot keep him out: he is the man who carried that rule all the way. One thing more is not from his hand, and this Order records it: at twenty-four his own community expelled him with the heaviest curse it had, and he was never taken back.
2.1A man is born not knowing the causes of things, and knowing only what he wants.
2.2So he supposes that everything has a what-for.
2.3He sees eyes and says eyes were made for seeing.
2.4He sees teeth and says teeth were made for chewing.
2.5He sees grass and says grass was made for cattle, and cattle for men.
2.6Carry that on and there must at last be someone who arranged the whole of it for men.
2.7So he reveres him and petitions him — because he supposes that one is like a man too, and likes being revered and petitioned.
2.8Then plague comes, and earthquake, and the good die first while the wicked live long.
2.9And here he will not say: I was wrong.
2.10He says: the will of God is unsearchable.
2.11That sentence is the sanctuary of every ignorance.
2.12A man who says it is the will of God and then stops asking is not revering God. He is closing up shop.
2.13This whole scheme turns the world upside down: it takes an effect for a cause.
2.14Eyes did not come about in order that there be seeing. There is seeing because there came to be eyes of this kind.
2.15Reverse the order and you will never trace the cause of anything at all.
2.16I do not forbid a man to revere. I say only: while you revere, do not stop asking.