consider Him to be the cause of sorrow. But I reply that in so far as
we understand the causes of sorrow, it ceases to be a passion (Prop. 3,
pt. 5), that is to say (Prop. 59, pt. 3) it ceases to be a sorrow; and
therefore in so far as we understand God to be the cause of sorrow do we
rejoice." The third proposition of the fifth part which he quotes
merely proves that in so far as we understand passion it ceases to be a
passion. He replies to those "who ask why God has not created all men
in such a manner that they might be controlled by the dictates of reason
alone," {52} "Because to Him material was not wanting for the creation
of everything, from the highest down to the very lowest grade of
perfection; or, to speak more properly, because the laws of His nature
were so ample that they sufficed for the production of everything which
can be conceived by an infinite intellect." Nevertheless of pain we
have no explanation. Pain is not lessened by understanding it, nor is
its mystery penetrated if we see that to God material could not have
been wanting for the creation of men or animals who have to endure it
all their lives. But if Spinoza is silent in the presence of pain, so
also is every religion and philosophy which the world has seen. Silence
is the only conclusion of the Book of Job, and patient fortitude in the
hope of future enlightenment is the conclusion of Christianity.

It is a weak mistake, however, to put aside what religions and
philosophies tell us because it is insufficient. To Job it is not
revealed why suffering is apportioned so unequally or why it exists, but
the answer of the Almighty from the whirlwind he cannot dispute, and
although Spinoza has nothing more to say about pain than he says in the
passages just quoted and was certainly not exempt from it himself, it
may be impossible that any man should hate God.

We now come to the final propositions of the Ethic, those in which