I know that such a comparison will cause indignation! Hegel, Kant, Aristotle, on the one hand, and the dissolute Figaro, on the other. But, apart from the fact that "indignation" cannot possibly pass for an objection, I may now refer to a tradition, and even a classical one, of which we have already spoken. After all, Plato himself did not hesitate to tell us about the encounter between Thales and the Thracian woman, or, rather, about how the young ignorant (and also, apparently, charming) girl put the father of philosophy to shame. There can be no dispute: the aged Thales was put to shame by the young Thracian woman, for she laughed merrily as she stood on the solid ground, while he cried out helplessly, floundering in his well. And also, as I have already pointed out, there can be no dispute that the criticism of the Thracian woman has taught philosophers a great deal: άνάγκη στηαι — it was born not in the soul of Aristotle, but in the soul of Thales, who fell into the well. It was the frightened Thales, to the loud laughter of the village beauty, who made a firm decision no longer to go at random, where God sent, but, before moving forward, carefully examine where to put his foot.

This is the main task of what is commonly called the theory of knowledge. Kant was least of all concerned with justifying science and pure reason. He knew as well as Hegel that it was impossible to raise the question of the rights of scientific knowledge. He only needed to discredit self-willed and capricious metaphysics, i.e., to show that metaphysics builds its edifice not on solid granite, but on sand. Hegel's objection must be understood in such a way that, if we want to preserve the certainty of the inviolability of our methodological methods of searching for truth, it is best to abolish altogether the question of whence this certainty came to us. It is important that there is confidence, and where and how we got it, this is the second thing. Even more: only such a certainty is lasting, of which no one can remember or guess when and whence it came. For if we begin to remember and inquire, where is the guarantee that our curiosity will lead us to the desired results? And what if the opposite happens? If the desire to substantiate confidence will not only not strengthen, but will shake it. We have knowledge, and knowledge has brought us a great deal: one does not seek good from good. Let us remain with what we have and lull the restless tempter within us, the Philosopher must not forget the dangerous experience of Thales and the Aristotelian principle άνάγκη στηαι that grew out of it.

II

Thus, there is no need for any metaphysics, or, if we already admit a metaphysics, then only one that knows how to get along with science and even submit to it. For, it may be known in advance, if metaphysics clashed with science, it would be "swept from the face of the earth." The new philosophy grew and became stronger in this consciousness. After Descartes, and especially after Spinoza, none of the recognized philosophers could speak or think otherwise.

Spinoza left us a legacy of Ethica more geometrico demonstrata. No one doubts that Spinoza's system is a metaphysical system. But many are convinced that Spinoza was still alien to the "criticism" created by Kant. In textbooks of philosophy, things are often depicted in such a way that, if Spinoza had lived after Kant, he would no longer have been able to say what he said. But this is hardly true. It seems that what was essential in Kant's criticism was already entirely contained in Spinoza's more geometrico. Like Kant, Spinoza did not want "arbitrary" metaphysics. He sought a rigorous scientific character, and if he clothed his reflections in the form of mathematical deductions, it was precisely because, like Kant, he was most concerned with putting an end once and for all to the capricious diversity of opinion and to creating a permanent uniformity of judgment connected with the idea of necessity. Axioms, postulates, theorems — all these philosophical books, unusual for the reader and seemingly useless vestments, in which Spinoza dressed his truths, served their purpose. Like the Persian king's servant about the Athenians, they reminded Spinoza that there should be no arbitrariness in metaphysics, that it should be a strict science.

By the way, in Spinoza, as in many other great philosophers, you will not find an exact answer to the question of what science is. Even Kant, when he wrote the Critique of Pure Reason, did not give an exhaustive answer to this question. Science? Everyone knows what science is. These are geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, physics, even history. No one goes beyond examples and common places. And you will not find a real definition of reason anywhere, not even in Kant, who wrote the critique of reason. Everyone is supposed to know what the mind is, just as everyone knows what science is. If you yourself want to extract from the writings of philosophers an idea of what reason is and what science is, then everything will come down to one thing: reason and science give us generally binding judgments. And where, in one way or another, generally binding judgments are obtained, all doubts, all disputes must come to an end: there everyone has always thought and will think alike. And, therefore, there is eternal truth.

From antiquity to the present day, therefore, the eyes of philosophers were turned to mathematics. Plato dismissed people who did not know geometry. Kant called mathematics a royal science, and even Spinoza, the truthful Spinoza himself, considered it his duty to pretend that the truth he had so painfully sought was not indistinguishable in its nature from mathematical truth. When one of his correspondents asked him by what right he considered his philosophy to be the best, he replied that he did not consider it the best at all, but only the true, and on the same ground that every one thinks that the sum of the angles in a triangle is equal to two right angles.

Thus Spinoza replied to his angry correspondent, so he spoke on every occasion, and sometimes even without any provocation and in his writings. In the Ethics, he promised to treat God, the mind, and human passions as if they were planes and triangles, and he made a solemn vow to eradicate from his philosophical vocabulary all words that in any way resembled human desires, searches, and struggles. Neither evil nor good, neither beautiful nor ugly, neither good nor bad, he says, will influence his method of searching for truth. Man is a link or one of infinitely many links in a single infinite whole, which he called now God, now nature, now substance. The task of philosophy, on the other hand, is to "understand" the complex and intricate mechanism by virtue of which an infinite number of separate parts form a single and self-sufficient whole. He did not abolish the word "God" and even (in the same letter to his angry correspondent) emphasized that in his philosophy God was given the same honorable place as in other philosophies: the truthful Spinoza did not disdain this lie either.

To this circumstance I pay special attention, for, after Spinoza, who took upon himself the full burden of responsibility for the first time in modern history the glorified lie, this kind of pretense was almost elevated to a philosophical virtue. And it is clear to the blind that the equation – God, nature, substance – meant that God could not and should not be given a place in philosophy. In other words: when you are looking for the ultimate Truth, you have to go after it in the same way that mathematicians go when they solve their problems. When we ask what the sum of the angles in a triangle is, do we expect that the one who gives us the answer to our question has the freedom to answer us in one way or another, i.e., has the property by which we distinguish a living being from a non-living being, animate from inanimate? That is why mathematics is distinguished by such seductive precision and solidity, and by the universality and binding nature of its judgments connected with this, that it has renounced everything human, that it wants neither ridere nor detestari, that it needs only what Spinoza calls intelligere.

And since philosophy wants the same solidity and universal obligation for itself, it has no other way out. It must strive only for intelligere, and reject everything that does not fit into the intelligere as non-existent and illusory. And we already know what Spinoza's intelligere means. Intelligere means to imagine the world as an infinite number of particles (Leibniz later called monads) moving according to the rules that have existed for centuries, having neither the possibility nor the right to change anything without them, and not at all the established order for them. And God, in this sense, is no different from people. And his "freedom" lies only in submission to the order, which, in the end, expresses his being. Deus ex solis suæ naturæ legibus, et a nemine coactus agit. [2]

That is why, already in the Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza raises and without any apparent hesitation resolves the question of the meaning and significance of the Bible and the God of the Bible. In the Bible, he tells us, there is no Truth, and the Bible has no place for Truth. There is only moral instruction in the Bible. We can accept this from the Bible, but we need to go to another place for the Truth. Yes. The Bible does not claim to be the Truth, and what it tells does not look like the Truth at all. God did not create the world in six days. God never blessed man, did not reveal Himself to Moses at Sinai, did not lead the Jews out of Egypt, etc. All these are only poetic images, i.e., fiction that a reasonable person interprets in a conditional and limited sense. And the God about whom so much is told in the Bible does not exist and never existed – this is again evidenced by reason, i.e. the Something that peremptorily solves mathematical problems and in mathematics teaches man to separate truth from falsehood. And finally, and this was perhaps of particular importance for the future, not only is there no God of the Bible, but there is no need for him. For people, the essential thing is not whether there is a God, but whether it is possible to preserve the fullness of piety, to which those who have been brought up in the course of centuries who have been brought up on the Holy Scriptures. The peoples of the Scriptures. Spinoza, who believes in the infallibility of reason, meekly submits to this decision of his. Yes, God can and must be rejected, but piety and religiosity must be preserved. And if this is so, it follows that the concepts of "substance" or "nature," concepts that do not offend the mind of a person brought up in mathematics, perfectly replace the idea of God, which has become unacceptable to everyone.

Spinoza's formula – deus-natura-substantia – like all the conclusions drawn from it in the Ethics and in the works that preceded the Ethics, only means that there is no God. This discovery of Spinoza became the starting point for reflection on the philosophy of modern times. No matter how much we talk about God now, we know for sure that we are not talking about the God who lived in biblical times, who created heaven and earth and man in His own image and likeness, who loves, and wants, and worries, and repents, and argues with man, and sometimes even yields to man in dispute. Reason, the same reason which has power over triangles and perpendiculars, and which therefore believes that it has the sovereign right to distinguish truth from falsehood, a reason which seeks not a better philosophy but a true one, this reason, with its characteristic self-assurance and unobjectionable tone, declares that such a God would not be an all-perfect and even merely perfect being, and therefore therefore, he is not God at all. Anyone who refuses to accept the decision of reason will inevitably face the fate of Thales: he will fall into the well and all earthly joys will become inaccessible to him.

III

This is what the truthful Spinoza taught us. He found the last judge over the living and the dead, bowed down before him and bequeathed to us that the highest, final wisdom is in obedience to this judge, by whose weak-willed will the sum of the angles in the triangle is equal to two right angles, and everything that happens in life is accomplished...