PART I: CONCERNING GOD.
Page: 38

seems good to one seems confused to another; what is pleasing to
one displeases another, and so on. I need not further
enumerate, because this is not the place to treat the subject at
length, and also because the fact is sufficiently well known.
It is commonly said: "So many men, so many minds; everyone is
wise in his own way; brains differ as completely as palates."
All of which proverbs show, that men judge of things according
to their mental disposition, and rather imagine than understand:
for, if they understood phenomena, they would, as
mathematicians attest, be convinced, if not attracted, by what I
have urged.

We have now perceived, that all the explanations commonly given
of nature are mere modes of imagining, and do not indicate the
true nature of anything, but only the constitution of the
imagination; and, although they have names, as though they were
entities, existing externally to the imagination, I call them
entities imaginary rather than real; and, therefore, all
arguments against us drawn from such abstractions are easily
rebutted.

Many argue in this way. If all things follow from a necessity of
the absolutely perfect nature of God, why are there so many
imperfections in nature? such, for instance, as things corrupt
to the point of putridity, loathsome deformity, confusion, evil,
sin, &c. But these reasoners are, as I have said, easily
confuted, for the perfection of things is to be reckoned only
from their own nature and power; things are not more or less
perfect, according as they are serviceable or repugnant to
mankind. To those who ask why God did not so create all men,
that they should be governed only by reason, I give no answer
but this: because matter was not lacking to him for the creation
of every degree of perfection from highest to lowest; or, more
strictly, because the laws of his nature are so vast, as to
suffice for the production of everything conceivable by an
infinite intelligence, as I have shown in Prop. xvi.

Such are the misconceptions I have undertaken to note; if there
are any more of the same sort, everyone may easily dissipate