Spirits Have Inclinations, just as bodies have motions

It would not be necessary to treat natural inclinations, as we are going to do in this fourth book, nor of the passions, as we will do in the next, in order to discover the causes of men’s errors, if the understanding did not depend on the will in the perception of objects; but because it receives its direction from it, it is the will that determines it and applies it to some objects rather than to others; it is absolutely necessary to understand its inclinations well, in order to penetrate the causes of the errors to which we are subject.

Spirits must have inclinations, just as bodies have motions

If God, in creating this world, had produced an infinitely extended matter without impressing any motion upon it, all bodies would not have been different from one another; all this visible world would still be only a mass of matter or extension, which might well serve to make known the greatness and power of its author; but there would not be this succession of forms and this variety of bodies, which constitutes all the beauty of the universe, and which leads all minds to admire the infinite wisdom of Him who governs it.

Now it seems to me that the inclinations of spirits are to the spiritual world what motion is to the material world, and that if all spirits were without inclinations, or if they never willed anything, there would not be found in the order of spiritual things that variety which causes not only the depth of God’s wisdom to be admired, as the diversity found in material things does; but also His mercy, His justice, His goodness, and generally all His other attributes. The difference of inclinations therefore produces in spirits an effect quite similar to that which the difference of motions produces in bodies; and the inclinations of spirits, and the motions of bodies together constitute all the beauty of created beings. Thus all spirits must have some inclinations, just as bodies have different motions. But let us try to discover what inclinations they ought to have.

If our nature were not corrupted, it would not be necessary to seek by reason, as we are going to do, what ought to be the natural inclinations of created spirits; we would only have to consult ourselves, and we would recognize by inner feeling, which we have of what passes within us, all the inclinations that we ought naturally to have. But because we know by faith that sin has overturned the order of nature, and reason itself teaches us that our inclinations are disordered, as will be seen better later, we are obliged to take another approach. Not being able to trust what we feel, we are obliged to explain things in a more elevated manner; but which will doubtless seem little solid to those who esteem only what is felt.

God gives spirits motion only for Himself

It is an incontestable truth that God can have no other principal end of His operations than Himself, and that He can have several less principal ends, all tending to the preservation of the beings He has created. He cannot have any other principal end than Himself; because He cannot err or place His ultimate end in beings that do not contain all kinds of goods. But He can have as a less principal end the preservation of created beings; because, participating all in His goodness, they are necessarily good, and even very good according to Scripture, valde bona. Thus God loves them, and it is even His love that preserves them; for all beings subsist only because God loves them. Diligis omnia quae sunt, says the Wise Man, et nihil odisti eorum quae fecisti: nec enim odiens aliquid constituisti et fecisti. Quomodo autem posset aliquid permanere, nisi tu voluisses; aut quod a te vocatum non esset conservaretur? Indeed, it is not possible to conceive that things which do not please an infinitely perfect and all-powerful being can subsist, since all things subsist only by His will.

God therefore wills His glory as His principal end and the preservation of His creatures, but for His glory. The natural inclinations of spirits being certainly continuous impressions of the will of Him who created them and preserves them, it seems to me necessary that these inclinations be entirely similar to those of their creator and preserver. They cannot therefore naturally have any other principal end than His glory, nor any other secondary end than their own preservation and that of others, but always in relation to Him who gives them being. For finally it seems to me incontestable that God, being unable to will that the wills He creates love a lesser good more than a greater good—that is to say, that they love what is less lovable more than what is more lovable—He cannot create any creature without turning it toward Himself and commanding it to love Him above all things, although He can create it free and with the power to detach and turn away from Him.

Spirits are moved toward particular goods only by the motion they have for good in general

There is only one love in God, which is the love of Himself; and God can love nothing except by this love, since God can love nothing except in relation to Himself; so God imprints only one love in us, which is the love of good in general; and we can love nothing except by this love, since we can love nothing that is not or does not appear to be a good. It is the love of good in general that is the principle of all our particular loves, because in effect this love is only our will; for, as I have already said elsewhere, the will is nothing other than the continuous impression of the author of nature, which bears the human mind toward good in general. Certainly one must not imagine that this power we have of loving comes from or depends on us. Only the power of loving badly—or rather of loving well what we ought not to love—depends on us; because being free we can determine, and we do in fact determine, toward particular goods, and consequently toward false goods, the good love that God never ceases to imprint in us, as long as He does not cease to preserve us.

But not only does our will, or our love for good in general, come from God; our inclinations toward particular goods, which are common to all men, although unequally strong in all men—such as our inclination for the preservation of our being and of those with whom we are united by nature—are also impressions of the will of God upon us; for I call indiscriminately by the name of natural inclination all the impressions of the author of nature which are common to all spirits.

Origin of the principal natural inclinations, which will form the division of this book 4

God loved His creatures, and that it was even His love that gave them being and preserved them. Thus, God imprinting in us unceasingly a love similar to His own, since it is His will that makes and rules ours, He also gives all those natural inclinations that do not depend on our choice, and that necessarily incline us to the preservation of our being and of those with whom we live. For, although sin has corrupted all things, it has not destroyed them. Although our natural inclinations do not always have God for their end by the free choice of our will, they always have God for their end in the institution of nature; for God who produces them and preserves them in us, produces and preserves them only for Himself. All sinners tend toward God by the impression they receive from God, although they move away from Him by the error and wandering of their mind. They love well, for one can never love badly, since it is God who makes them love. But they love bad things—bad only because God, who gives even to sinners the power to love, forbids them to love them, because since sin they turn them away from His love: for men, imagining that creatures cause in them the pleasure they feel on their occasion, rush with fury toward bodies, and fall into a complete forgetfulness of God, who does not appear to their eyes.

We therefore have today the same natural inclinations, or the same impressions of the author of nature, that Adam had before his sin. We even have the inclinations that the blessed have in Heaven, for God does not create and preserve creatures without giving them a love similar to His own. He loves Himself, He loves us, He loves all His creatures: He therefore does not create spirits without inclining them to love Him, to love themselves, and to love all creatures.

But as all our inclinations are only impressions of the author of nature which incline us to love Him, and all things for Him, they can be regulated only when we love God with all our strength, and all things for God, by the free choice of our will; for we cannot without injustice abuse the love that God gives us for Himself by loving through this love something other than Him and without relation to Him. Thus, we presently know not only what our natural inclinations are, but also what they ought to be, in order that they may be well regulated and according to the institution of their author.

We have therefore:

1. An inclination for good in general, which is the principle of all our natural inclinations, of all our passions, and of all the free loves of our will.

2. We have an inclination for the preservation of our being or of our happiness.

3. We all have an inclination for other creatures, which are useful either to ourselves or to those we love. We have still many other particular inclinations that depend on these, but we will perhaps speak of them elsewhere. We only intend to relate in this fourth book the errors of our inclinations to these three heads: to the inclination we have for good in general, to the love of ourselves, and to the love of our neighbor.