Leibniz on "Lazy Reason"
from the preface to "Theodicy", by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)
"...Men have been perplexed in well-nigh every age by a sophism which the
ancients called the 'Lazy reason', because it tended towards doing nothing,
or at least towards being careful for nothing, and only following inclination
for the pleasure of the moment. For, they said, if the future is necessary,
that which must happen will happen, whatever I may do. Now the future (so
they said) is necessary, whether because the Divinity foresees everything,
and even pre-establishes it by the control of all things in the universe;
or because everything happens of necessity, through the concatenation of
causes; or finally, through the very nature of truth, which is determinate
in the assertions that can be made on future events, as it is in all assertions,
since the assertion must always be true or false in itself, even though we
know not always which it is. And all these reasons for determination which
appear different converge finally like lines upon one and the same center;
for there is a truth in the future event which is pre-determined by the causes,
and God pre-establishes it in establishing the causes.
The false conception of necessity, being applied in practice, has given rise
to what I call Fatum Mahometanum, fate after the Turkish fashion,
because it is said of the Turks that they do not shun danger or even abandon
places infected with plague, owing to their use of such reasoning as that
just recorded. For what is called Fatum Stoicum, was not so black
as it is painted: it did not divert men from the care of their affairs, but
it tended to give them tranquillity in regard to events, through the
consideration of necessity, which renders our anxieties and our vexations
needless. In which respect these philosophers were not far removed from the
teaching of our Lord, who deprecates these anxieties in regard to the morrow,
comparing them with the needless trouble a man would give himself in laboring
to increase his stature.
It is true that the teachings of the Stoics (and perhaps also of some famous
philosophers of our time), confining themselves to this alleged necessity,
can only impart a forced patience; whereas our Lord inspires thoughts more
sublime, and even instructs us in the means of gaining contentment by assuring
us that since God, being altogether good and wise, has care for everything,
even so far as not to neglect one hair of our head, our confidence in him
ought to be entire. And thus we should see, if we were capable of understanding
him, that it is not even possible to wish for anything better (as much in
general as for ourselves), than what he does. It is as if one said to men:
Do your duty and be content with that which shall come of it, not only because
you cannot resist divine providence, or the nature of things (which may suffice
for tranquillity, but not for contentment), but also because you have to
do with a good master. And that is what may be called Fatum Christianum.
Nevertheless it happens that mose men, and even Christians, introduce into
their dealings some mixture of fate after the Turkish fashion, although they
do not sufficiently acknowledge it. It is true that they are not inactive
or negligent when obvious perils or great and manifest hopes present themselves;
for they will not fail to abandon a house that is about to fall, and to turn
aside from a precipice they see in their path; and they will burrow in the
earth to dig up a treasure half uncovered, without waiting for fate to finish
dislodging it. But when the good or the evil is remote and uncertain, and
the remedy painful or little to our taste, the lazy reason seems to us to
be valid. For example, when it is a question of preserving one's health,
and even one's life, by good diet, people to whom one gives advice thereupon
very often answer that our days are numbered, and it avails nothing to try
to struggle against that which God destines for us. But these same persons
run to even the most absurd remedies, when the evil they neglected draws
near. One reasons in somewhat the same way, when the question for consideration
is somewhat thorny, as for instance when one asks oneself, quod vitae
sectabor iter? what profession one must choose; when it is a question
of a marriage being arranged, of a war being undertaken, or a battle being
fought; for in these cases, many will be inclined to evade the difficulty
of consideration, and abandon themselves to fate or to inclination, as if
reason should not be employed except in easy cases. One will then all too
often reason in the Turkish fashion (although this way is wrongly termed
trusting in providence, a thing that in reality occurs only when one has
done one's duty), and one will employ the lazy reason, derived from the idea
of inevitable fate, to relieve oneself of the need to reason properly."
Adapted from a translation in the Open Court
edition of Leibniz' "Theodicy"
Leibniz is often referred to as "the last universal mind." For an essay
on politics, strategy, science, art, history, and culture, by Leibniz' modern-day
successor, Lyndon LaRouche,
click
here.
Homepage
Send us E-Mail
|