{"collection":"phi","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/phi/spinoza/corr/corr57.htm","path":"phi/spinoza/corr/corr57.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/phi/spinoza/corr/corr57.htm","text":"Correspondence, by Benedict de Spinoza, [1883]\n[A continuation of the arguments in favour of ghosts, which may be summarized as follows:\u2014I say a thing is done by chance, when it has not been the subject of will on the part of the doer; not when it might never have happened.\u2014Necessity and freedom, not necessity and chance, are contraries.\u2014If we do not in some sense attribute human qualities to God, what meaning can we attach to the term?\u2014You ask for absolute proof of the existence of spirits; such proof is not obtainable for many things, which are yet firmly believed.\u2014Some things are more beautiful intrinsically than others.\u2014As God is a spirit, spirits resemble Him more than embodied creatures do.\u2014A ghost cannot be conceived as clearly as a triangle: can you say that your own idea of God is as clear as your idea of a triangle?\u2014As a circle exists without a sphere, so a sphere exists without a circle.\u2014We call things higher or lower in proportion to their distance from the earth.\u2014All the Stoics, Pythagoreans, and Platonists, Empedocles, Maximus Tyrius, Apuleius, and others, bear witness to ghosts; and no modern denies them.\n[paragraph continues] It is presumption to sneer at such a body of testimony. C\u00e6sar did not ridicule ghosts, but omens, and if he had listened to Spurina he would not have been murdered.]","title":"Correspondence of Spinoza: Letter LIX. From Boxel (Abstract)","type":"page"}