Classics for Cnglisb Cabers 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 WILLIAM KXIGHT, LL.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS 
 
 SPINOZA 

 
 PBEFATOBY NOTE, 
 
 THE materials which the author had prepared for this 
 book were found greatly to exceed the limits assigned 
 to it. He has therefore, besides other parts of his plan 
 to which special reference need not here be made, been 
 compelled to leave out the account of Spinoza's life and 
 letters, and to confine the work to an examination of his 
 philosophical system. This is the less to be regretted 
 that the life has been so fully narrated in the recent 
 works of Mr Pollock and Dr Martineau. These works 
 contain, also, very able and elaborate expositions of the 
 Spinozistic philosophy, but this book attempts to deal 
 with that philosophy from a point of view different 
 from that of either of these writers.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION, ... 1 
 
 I. THE ETHICAL MOTIVE OF SPINOZA*S PHILOSOPHY 
 THE TREATISE ' CONCERNING THE IMPROVEMENT 
 OF THE UNDERSTANDING,' . . .8 
 
 II. INFLUENCE OF PRECEDING WRITERS THE KABBALA, 36 
 
 III. THE MEDIEVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHERS, . . 60 
 
 IV. GIORDANO BRUNO, . . . . .75 
 V. DESCARTES, . . . . . .91 
 
 VI. THE ' ETHICS ' ITS METHOD, .... 113 
 
 vii. SPINOZA'S STARTING-POINTSUBSTANCE, . . 130 
 
 VIII. SUBSTANCE AND ATTRIBUTES, . . .141 
 
 IX. MODES, ...... 157 
 
 X. INFINITE MODES, ..... 176 
 
 XI. THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND, . .188 
 
 XII. THE MORAL NATURE OF MAN, . . . 222 
 
 XIII. DOCTRINE OF THK EMOTIONS THE SELF-MAINTAIN- 
 
 ING IMPULSE, ..... 231 
 
 XIV. INTELLIGENCE AND WILL, .... 240 
 XV. THE BONDAGE AND FREEDOM OK MAN, . . 259 
 
 XVI. IMMORTALITY AND THE BLESSED LIFE, . . 287 
 
 CONCLUSION, ...... 303
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 A GREAT system of philosophy is exposed to that kind 
 of injustice which arises from the multiplicity of its 
 interpreters, and from the fact that these interpreters 
 are apt to contemplate and criticise it, not from the 
 point of view of its author, but from their own. Critics 
 and commentators of different schools and shades of 
 opinion are naturally desirous to claim for their own 
 views the sanction of a great writer's name, and uncon- 
 sciously exercise their ingenuity in forcing that sanction 
 when it is not spontaneously yielded. If any ambigui- 
 ties or inconsistencies lurk in his doctrines, they are sure 
 to be brought to light and exaggerated by the tendency 
 of conflicting schools to fasten on what is most in ac- 
 cordance with their own special principles. And even 
 when a writer is on the whole self-consistent, it is pos- 
 sible for a one-sided expositor so to arrange the lights 
 and shadows, so to give prominence to what is incidental 
 and throw into the shade what is essential, as to make 
 him the advocate of ideas really antagonistic to his own. 
 P. xn. A
 
 2 Spinoza. 
 
 41 
 
 More, perhaps, than most systems of philosophy, that 
 of Spinoza has been subjected to this sort of miscon- 
 struction. Doctrines the most diversified and contra- 
 dictory have been extracted from it. Pantheism and 
 atheism, idealism and empiricism, nominalism and real- 
 ism, a non-theistic naturalism as uncompromising as that 
 of the modern evolutionist, and a supernaturalism or 
 acosmism which makes as little of the world as the 
 Maya of the Buddhist have all alike found a col- 
 ourable sanction in Spinoza's teaching. A philoso- 
 phy apparently as exact and logically coherent as the 
 Geometry of Euclid or the Principia of Newton, has 
 proved, in the hands of modern interpreters, as enig- 
 matical as the utterances of the Jewish Kabbala or the 
 mystical theosophy of the N"eo-Platonists. To the vision 
 of one observer, it is so pervaded and dominated by the 
 idea of the Infinite, that he can describe its author only 
 as " a God-intoxicated man." To the acute inspection 
 of another, the theistic element in it is only the decor- 
 ous guise of a scientific empiricism a judicious but 
 unmeaning concession to the theological prejudices of 
 the author's time, or an incongruous dress of medieval 
 scholasticism of which he had not been able wholly to 
 divest himself. 
 
 "Whilst some at least of those heterogeneous notions 
 which have been fathered on Spinoza have no other ori- 
 gin than the mistakes of his modern critics, there arc, it 
 must be acknowledged, others which indicate real incon- 
 sistencies. It is true, indeed, that the controversies of 
 subsequent times may easily read into the language of 
 an early writer decisions on questions of which he knew 
 nothing. " Philosophers of an earlier age," it has been
 
 Apparent Inconsistencies. 3 
 
 said, " often contain, in a kind of implicit unity, different 
 aspects or elements of truth, which in a subsequent time 
 become distinguished from and opposed to each other." 
 They make use, in a general and indeterminate way, of 
 terms which later controversies have stamped Avith a 
 special significance ; they may thus seem to answer ques- 
 tions which they never put to themselves, and may easily 
 be got to pronounce seemingly inconsistent opinions on 
 problems which they never thought of solving. The 
 eager controversialist catches at his pet phrase or mot 
 Vnrdre, and hastily concludes that the old writer speaks 
 in the distinctive tone of the modern polemic. But 
 obviously the inconsistencies which thus arise are incon- 
 sistencies only to the ear. It may be possible to get 
 Spinoza to side in appearance with the modern evolution- 
 ist or with the modern spiritualist, to make him an indi- 
 vidualist after the fashion of Mill or Spencer, or a uni- 
 versalist who speaks by anticipation with the voice of 
 Schelling. But if such attempts are made, they are 
 mere philosophical anachronisms. The problems which 
 they seem to solve are problems which, when the supposed 
 solutions were given, could not even be propounded. 
 
 Yet it is impossible to ascribe the discordancy of 
 Spinoza's modern interpreters only to the necessary 
 ambiguity of their author's language. His philosophy 
 is not a completely homogeneous product. It may 
 rather be said to be the composite result of conflicting 
 tendencies, neither of which is followed out to its utmost 
 logical results. If we say in general terms that philo- 
 sophy is the search for unity, the effort of thought to 
 gain a point of view from which the contrast variously 
 expressed by the terms the One and the Many, the Uni-
 
 4 Spinoza. 
 
 versa! and the Individual, the Infinite and the Finite, 
 God and the World, shall be reconciled and harmonised, 
 then \ve shall look in vain, in the philosophy of Spinoza, 
 for one consistent solution of the problem. No solution 
 can be regarded as satisfactory which suppresses or fails 
 to do justice to either of the extremes, or which, though 
 giving alternate expression to both, leaves them still in 
 merely external combination without being reconciled 
 for thought. Yet, at most, the latter result is all that 
 the philosophy of Spinoza can be said to achieve. There 
 are parts of his system such as the reduction of all 
 finite individuals to modes or accidents of the absolute 
 substance, and the assertion that all determination is 
 negation in which the idea of the infinite is so empha- 
 sised as to leave no place for the finite, or to reduce 
 nature and man, all individual existences, to unreality 
 and illusion. There are parts of his system, on the 
 other hand such as his assertion that the individual 
 is the real, his ascription to each finite thing of a rmiutn* 
 in suo esse perseverandi, his rejection of general ideas as 
 mere entia rationis, his polemic against teleology, his use 
 of the term "Nature" as a synonym for "God" which 
 seem to give to the finite an independent reality that 
 leaves no room for the infinite, or reduces it to an expres- 
 sion for the aggregate of finite things. Thus the system 
 of Spinoza contains elements which resist any attempt to 
 classify him either as a pantheist or an atheist, a natur- 
 alist or supernaturalist, a nominalist or a realist. As he 
 approaches the problem with which he deals from difl'er- 
 ent sides, the opposite tendencies by which his mind is 
 governed seem to receive alternate expression ; but to 
 the last they remain side by side, with no apparent con-
 
 Underlying Unity. 5 
 
 sciousness of their disharmony, and with no attempt to 
 mediate between them. 
 
 But though it may be conceded that the philosophy 
 of Spinoza is not self- consistent, or contains elements 
 which, if not irreconcilable, are unreconciled, it does not 
 follow that the task of the expositor of Spinoza is limited 
 to what is involved in this concession. Inconsistency 
 may arise not so much from incompatible principles as 
 from defective logic. Contradictory elements may have 
 been admitted into a system, not because its author 
 looked at things from different and irreconcilable stand- 
 points, but because he failed to see all that his funda- 
 mental standpoint involved ; not because he started from 
 different premisses, but because he did not carry out 
 what was for him the only true premiss to its legitimate 
 results. As moral defects assume an altogether different 
 aspect according as they are regarded as the expression 
 of a retrograding or of an advancing moral nature as 
 willing divergences or as involuntary shortcomings from 
 its own ideal so intellectual inconsistencies may mean 
 more or less according to the attitude of the mind from 
 which they proceed. It may be possible to discover, 
 through all a man's thoughts, a dominant idea or general 
 tendency, and to explain his inconsistencies as only un- 
 conscious aberrations from it. It may even be possible 
 to discern, underneath apparent contradictions or abrupt 
 transitions from one point of view to another, an implicit 
 unity of aim the guidance of thought by an unconscious 
 logic towards a principle of reconciliation not yet fully 
 grasped. And if any such dominant idea or implicit 
 aim can be detected in a great writer, it cannot fail to 
 throw light on the general character and bearing of his
 
 6 Spinoza. 
 
 speculations, and it may enable us to pronounce whether 
 and to what extent in his seeming inconsistencies he is 
 only unfaithful to himself, or inadequately representing 
 his own idea. 
 
 Now there are various conceivable indications by 
 which we may be aided in detecting this undercurrent 
 of tendency in the mind of a philosophical writer. We 
 may be able, for instance, to learn something of the 
 motive of his speculations to discover in his previous 
 spiritual history what it was that constituted for him, so 
 to speak, the original impulse towards philosophy, and 
 that secretly guided the process by which intellectual 
 satisfaction has been sought. Or again, we may know 
 something of the helps which have been afforded him in 
 the search for truth, of the studies on which his open- 
 ing intelligence has been fed, of the sources from which 
 he has derived inspiration, of the books or authorities 
 which consciously or unconsciously have moulded the 
 substance or form of his thoughts. Or finally, we may 
 have the means of viewing his system in the making, of 
 watching the working of his mind and the development 
 of his ideas from their earlier and crader shape to the 
 form which they have finally taken. We may be able 
 thus to see which, if any, of the conflicting elements in 
 his thought has gradually tended to prevail over the 
 others, and to which of them therefore, though the 
 victory to the last may be incomplete, the place of the 
 ruling or characteristic principle must be ascribed. We 
 may find it possible in this way to pronounce of the 
 blots which disfigure his system in its final form, that 
 they are not radical inconsistencies, but only irrelevances 
 or excrescences foreign to its essential character.
 
 Interpretation of his System. 7 
 
 we are not without sucli helps to the understand- 
 ing of the Spinozistic philosophy. In the first place, we 
 possess in the preface to the treatise ' Concerning the 
 Improvement of the Understanding ' an axitobiographical 
 fragment in which Spinoza narrates what may be termed 
 the origin and development of his spiritual life, and from 
 which we gain a clear insight into the motive and genesis 
 of his philosophical system. In the second place, we 
 have information, direct and indirect, as to Spinoza's 
 early studies in philosophy. From his own testimony, 
 from the internal evidence supplied by his writings, and 
 from other sources, we know something as to the authors 
 he had read, the intellectual atmosphere in which he 
 grew up, the authorities which may have influenced the 
 formation of his opinions. Lastly, we have in Spinoza's 
 earlier works the means of tracing the gradual develop- 
 ment of those ideas which took their final systematised 
 form in the ' Ethics.' Especially in the ' Treatise con- 
 cerning God and ^lan,' which has been brought to light 
 only in our own time, we possess what may be regarded 
 as an early study for the ' Ethics,' embracing the same 
 subjects and dealing with the same fundamental ideas, 
 but presenting them in a cruder and less coherent form, 
 and exhibiting the conflicting tendencies of the later 
 work in harder and more unmodified opposition to each 
 other. From these various sources some help may be 
 derived towards the right apprehension of Spinoza's 
 philosophy and the explanation of its apparent ambi- 
 guities and inconsistencies.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ETHICAL MOTIVE OF SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY III i: 
 
 TREATISE 'CONCERNING THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE 
 UNDERSTANDING.' 
 
 THE impulse towards philosophy Avas not in Spinoza's 
 mind a purely intellectual one. His philosophy is the 
 logical sequel to that of Descartes, but the Cartesian 
 philosophy only supplied or suggested a dialectic for con- 
 victions that were the independent growth of his own 
 moral and spiritual experience. He was prompted to 
 seek after a method of knowledge because primarily he 
 sought after spiritual rest. It Avas the consciousness 
 that the dissatisfaction and disquietude which the ordi- 
 nary desires and passions engender had their ultimate 
 source in a false view of the world in other words, that 
 the contemplation of the Avorld from the point of vieAv 
 of the senses and the imagination bred only perturbation 
 and unrest which led him to ask himself Avhether that 
 point of A r ieAv is not an illusory one, and Avhether it is 
 possible to penetrate beneath the shoAvs of things to tlu-ir 
 hidden essence. Xor is this account of the origin of 
 Spinoza's philosophy a mere conjecture. The introduc- 
 tion to the unfinished treatise above named is, as AVC
 
 Motive of Ms Philosophy. 9 
 
 have said, a kind of spiritual autobiography, in which the 
 author explains to us what were the moral difficulties 
 and aspirations in which his speculative inquiries origin- 
 ated. He tells us what is the view of the true end and 
 goal of human existence to which his own experience had 
 led him, and he points out the means by which he con- 
 ceived that that end could be attained. His philosophy 
 took its rise, he tells us, not primarily in the search for 
 intellectual satisfaction, but in the endeavour to discover 
 some true and abiding object of love, something in find- 
 ing which he would find a perfect and eternal joy a joy 
 which could not be found in the ordinary objects of 
 human desire in riches, honour, the pleasures of appe- 
 tite and sense. All these objects experience proved to 
 be deceptive and inconstant, difficult and uncertain of 
 attainment, and when attained bringing only disappoint- 
 ment and disquietude. 
 
 " Our happiness," he says, " depends entirely on the qual- 
 ity of the objects to which we are attached by love. For, on 
 account of that which is not loved, no strifes will ever arise, 
 no sorrow if it perishes, no envy if others possess it, no fear, 
 no hatred, no perturbation of mind all of which come upon 
 us in the love of things which are perishable, as are all those 
 things of which we have spoken. But love to a thing which 
 is eternal and infinite feeds the mind only with joy a joy 
 that is unmingled with any sorrow ; that therefore we 
 should eagerly desire and with all our strength seek to 
 obtain." l 
 
 The end of all human endeavour, therefore that in 
 which consists the perfection and blessedness of our 
 nature is union by love with an infinite and eternal 
 
 1 De Int. Emend. , L
 
 10 Spinoza. 
 
 object. But love, according to Spinoza, rests on know- 
 ledge ; or rather there is a point of view in which, for 
 him, feeling and intelligence, knowing and being, are 
 identified. The sure and only Avay to attain the end AVO 
 seek is to knoxv things as they really are, to disabuse our 
 minds of error and illusion ; and for this purpose what 
 is chiefly needed is a discipline of the intelligence, " a 
 method," as he expresses it, " of curing the understand- 
 ing and of so purifying it that it may knoAV things as 
 Avell as possible and withoiit error." But all knoAvledge, 
 he repeats, has a value for him only as it is directed to 
 one end and goal viz., the attainment of that highest 
 human perfection of Avhich he had spoken and every- 
 thing in the sciences which does not bring us nearer to 
 that end he Avill reject as useless. The task, therefore, 
 Avhich in this treatise he proposes to himself is the de- 
 A'ising, not of a method of knoAvledge or organon of the 
 sciences in general, but of a means of attaining that kind 
 of knoAvledge, or of apprehending all things in that aspect 
 of them, Avhich will lead to the attainment of moral and 
 spiritual perfection. 
 
 It is unnecessary, for our present purpose, to follow 
 out in detail the successive steps by which Spinoza Avorks 
 out his conception of the true method of knowledge. 
 The general drift of the treatise may be said to be this, 
 to set before us an ideal of true knoAvledge, and to 
 point out the Avay in Avhich that ideal is to be realised. 
 In contrast Avith the kind of knoAvledge Avhich con- 
 stitutes the content of our ordinary unreflecting ex- 
 perience, that knoAvledge Avhich can be said to be real 
 and adequate must be intuitive or self-eA'idencing ; it 
 must apprehend its objects in their unity or their rela-
 
 Notes of Tme, Knoidcdge. 11 
 
 tion to each other as parts of one absolute whole ; and it 
 must see them in their right order, or in their relation to 
 the first principle of knowledge, so that the order of our 
 thoughts shall " correspond to the exemplar of nature," 
 or represent the real order of things. The knowledge of 
 the ordinary, unreflecting consciousness is, in the first 
 place, merely second-hand and unintelligent, it is derived 
 from hearsay, or from loose and unsifted experience. 
 True knowledge, in contrast with this, must be that in 
 which the mind is in immediate relation to its object, in 
 which truth is seen in its own light, or, as Spinoza ex- 
 presses it, " in which a thing is perceived solely from 
 its own essence, or from the knowledge of its proximate 
 cause." Ordinary knowledge, again, is disconnected and 
 fragmentary, it looks at things apart from each other, or 
 in the accidental order in which they are presented to 
 the -common observer of nature, or connected with each 
 other only by arbitrary associations. In contrast with 
 this, true knowledge is that which breaks down the false 
 isolation and independence which popiilar imagination 
 gives to individual objects; it regards the universe as 
 a whole, in which no object exists for itself, or can be 
 understood save in its relations to other objects and to 
 the whole. It discerns, or seeks to discern, the real re- 
 lations of things, or what is the same, the rational rela- 
 tions of the ideas of things ; and therefore it is fatal to 
 all such connections or combinations of ideas as rest on 
 accident or arbitrary association. For the same reason, 
 lastly, true knowledge is that which not only sees its 
 objects as related to each other, but sees them in that 
 definite relation of ordered sequence which is determined 
 ultimately by the first principle out of which they
 
 12 Spinoza. 
 
 spring. There are certain ideas on which other ideas 
 rest. Spinoza rejects the "universals" of scholastic 
 nietaphysic as mere entia rationis or fictions of the 
 imagination. Yet we are not left to the impossible task 
 of attempting to collect or string together in thought 
 the infinite multiplicity of finite and changeable things. 
 There are certain ideas which come to us in the place of 
 universals, and which gather up o\ir knowledge into that 
 unity which by means of the fictitious universals was 
 sought after. " There are," he tells us in language the 
 precise significance of which we cannot at present ex- 
 amine, certain " fixed and eternal things, which, though 
 they are individual, yet on account of their omnipresence 
 and all-comprehending power become to us as universals, 
 or as genera in the definitions of individual changeable 
 things, and as the proximate causes of all things." l 
 Finally, there is one highest idea, that of " the most 
 perfect Being," which is the source and explanation of 
 all other ideas, as it represents the source and origin of 
 all things. That knowledge therefore alone can be 
 termed adequate which proceeds from and is moulded by 
 this supreme or central idea. " That our mind," says he, 
 " may thoroughly reflect the exemplar of nature, it must 
 evolve all ideas from that which represents the origin 
 and source of all nature, so- that that idea may appear to 
 be the source of all other ideas." 2 
 
 Such, then, is Spinoza's theory of knowledge : how is 
 it to be reduced to practice 1 What, in other words, is 
 the true method of knowledge ] AYhat Spinoza says in 
 answer to this question in the present treatise amounts 
 to little more than this, that we should endeavour to 
 1 De Int. Emend., xiv. - Ibid., vii.
 
 Method of Knowledge. 1 3 
 
 become possessed of what he calls " true ideas," and that 
 we should by means of the highest of all ideas seek to 
 reduce them to unity, or endeavour " so to order and 
 concatenate our ideas that our mind shall represent 
 objectively (i.e., in thought) the formality (i.e., objec- 
 tive reality) of nature, both as to the whole and as to its 
 parts." l 
 
 Spinoza does not atttempt here to investigate the rela- 
 tion of mind to nature, of thought to its object. He as- 
 sumes that a true idea is something different from its 
 object, the idea of a circle from an actual circle, the idea,, 
 of the body from the body itself : but he takes for granted 
 that the former agrees with or adequately represents the 
 latter. To verify a true idea we need not go beyond itself. 
 " Certitude is nothing but the objective essence (the 
 idea) itself ; the way in which we perceive the formal 
 essence is itself certitude." 2 "NVe may, indeed, have a 
 reflex knowledge of our ideas make one idea the object 
 of a second idea, or, in modern phraseology, be not only 
 conscious but self-conscious. Yet, in order to the attain- 
 ment of knowledge, it is no more necessary to know that 
 we know, than, in order to know the essence of a triangle, 
 it is necessary to know the essence of a circle. But 
 though it is possible to have true ideas without reflecting 
 on them, and even to reason correctly without a know- 
 ledge of logic or the principles of reasoning ideas, both 
 in themselves and in their relations, being their own 
 evidence yet this does not hinder that, for lack of 
 reflection and by reason of various prejudices, people 
 often mistake error for truth and go Avrong in their 
 reasoning, so that " it seldom happens that in the inves- 
 1 De Int. Emeud., xii. 2 Ibid., vi
 
 14 Spinoza. 
 
 tigation of nature they proceed in proper order." Hence 
 arises the need for method, " which is nothing but re- 
 flected knowledge or the idea of the idea." 1 
 
 What this means is that we do not need to go outside 
 of thought in search of a criterion of truth, inasmuch 
 as this would virtually be the demand to excogitate a 
 method of thought before we begin to think, to learn 
 to swim before we go into the water. We cannot criti- 
 cise the forms of thought without using them. Ideas 
 must, so to speak, criticise themselves. In reflecting 
 on them, making them objects of consciousness, they 
 determine their own nature and limits, and so become 
 capable of being used as the instruments of further 
 knowledge. 
 
 " True ideas," Spinoza says, constitute themselves " the 
 inborn instruments of knowledge " which the understand- 
 ing makes for itself by its own native force. Having 
 grasped a true idea, we have only to direct the mind's oper- 
 ations so as to make the given true idea " a norm accord- 
 ing to which we shall understand all tilings." Method, 
 in short, consists in bringing ideas to self-consciousness, 
 and then in using them as the principles of investigation. 
 Having a true idea such as, c.ij., that of Causality you 
 become conscious of it, understand and define it ; and 
 thenceforward it is no longer used at random, unintel- 
 ligently, but becomes a principle of method or a guide in 
 future inquiries. Knowledge thus acquired will possess, 
 so far, the characteristics which have been laid down as 
 constituting the ideal of knowledge ; it will rest on ideas 
 or principles which are their own evidence, and it will, 
 instead of a mere collection or combination of things 
 1 De lut. Eniend., vii.
 
 Unity of Knmvledge. 15 
 
 arbitrarily associated, consist of parts related to each other 
 by links of reason or necessary thought. 
 
 But there is a further and more important element 
 which method must include ere it can be adequate to 
 the whole field of knowledge. Knowledge must remain 
 imperfect until we can contemplate all things from the 
 point of view of their absolute unity. True ideas may 
 serve as provisional instruments of thought ; but their 
 main use is that we may, like a workman who uses 
 ruder implements to construct more perfect ones, fashion 
 by means of them " other intellectual instruments, by 
 which the mind acquires a farther power of investi- 
 gation, and so proceeds till it gradually attains the 
 summit of wisdom." x Each true idea, Spinoza seems 
 to teach, furnishes us with a term of thought which 
 serves so far to correct the false independence which 
 imagination gives to individual objects ; but that idea 
 itself needs to have its individuality dissolved in a higher 
 conception. As all things in nature "have commerce 
 with each other, i.e., are produced by and produce 
 others " are, in other words, reciprocally causes and 
 effects so each idea or term of thought is only a focus 
 of relations, a transition point in a systematic whole ; 
 and ideas rise in importance according as they extend 
 over a wider portion of the realm of knowledge. But 
 if this be so, that knowledge must still be imperfect 
 which stops short of the highest and most comprehen- 
 sive idea in this intellectual hierarchy. Xot only must 
 individual objects yield up their false independence, 
 but ideas themselves must surrender in succession their 
 isolated authority, until we reach that which is " the 
 1 De Int. Emend., vi.
 
 16 
 
 fountain and source of all other ideas" the idea, as 
 Spinoza terms it, of "the most perfect Being." 
 
 " That method will be good which shows how the niind is 
 to be directed according to the norm of a given true idea. 
 Moreover, since the relation between two ideas is the same 
 with the relation between the formal essences (objects) of 
 these ideas, it follows that that reflective knowledge, which 
 is that of the idea of the most perfect Being, will be more 
 excellent than the reflective knowledge of other ideas ; that 
 is, that method will be the most perfect which shows how 
 the mind is to be directed according to the norm of the given 
 idea of the most perfect Being." x 
 
 " If we proceed as little as possible abstractly, and begin 
 as soon as possible with the first elements i.e., with the 
 source and origin of nature we need not fear deception. . . . 
 No confusion is to be apprehended in regard to the idea of 
 it (the origin of nature), if only we have the norm of truth, 
 as already shown. For this is a Being single, infinite i.e., 
 all being, and beyond which there is no being." 2 
 
 " As regards order," again Spinoza writes, " and that we 
 may arrange and unite all our perceptions, it is required 
 that, as soon as it can be done and reason demands, we in- 
 quire whether there is any being, and, at the same time, of 
 what sort, which is the cause of all things, as its objective 
 essence is also the cause of all our ideas ; and then will our 
 mind, as we have said, reproduce nature as completely as 
 possible ; for it will contain objectively both its essence and 
 its order and unity." 3 
 
 "\Vhat then, the question arises, are we to understand 
 by this " most perfect Being," " Being, single, infinite, 
 all-embracing," the idea of which constitutes, according 
 to Spinoza, the first principle of knowledge ? Is it 
 something above nature, outside of the cosmos of finite 
 
 1 De Int. Eiueud., vii. 2 Ibid., ix. 3 Ibid., xiv.
 
 " The Most Perfect Seiny" 17 
 
 things and relations, though itself the source or cause 
 of all things 1 Or is it, though the highest, only one of 
 the elements which constitute nature, the first principle 
 of the system of related phenomena, but itself essential- 
 ly part of that system ? Or again, is it only a synonym 
 for Mature, the totality of individual things and beings, 
 and is this identification of nature with " the most per- 
 fect Being " merely a concession to theological prejudices, 
 whilst really nothing more is meant than that the uni- 
 verse is to be conceived of as an ordered system of things 1 
 According to one of the ablest of Spinoza's recent ex- 
 positors, " the idea of the most perfect Being includes, 
 if it is not equivalent to, the belief that the whole of 
 nature is one and uniform," which belief is "the very 
 first principle of science." "In knowing the 'most 
 perfect Being,' " he adds, " the mind also knows itself 
 as part of the universal order and at one with it, therein 
 finding, as we have to learn elsewhere, the secret of 
 man's happiness and freedom. What more Spinoza 
 may have meant is doubtful, that he meant this much 
 is certain." 1 Spinoza, he further explains, whilst "at- 
 tached by an intellectual passion to the pursuit of exact 
 science," was also " attached by race and tradition to 
 the Hebrew sentiment of a one and only Supreme 
 Power ; " and in this he seems to find the explanation 
 of the fact that Spinoza clothed the purely scientific 
 idea of the unity and uniformity of nature in the theo- 
 logical guise of " the most perfect Being." Spinoza, he 
 tells us, " follows in form and even in language the 
 examples made familiar by theologians and philoso- 
 phers under theological influence and pressure, who had 
 
 i Pollock's Spinoza, p. 136. 
 P. XII, B
 
 18 Spinoza. 
 
 undertaken to prove the existence of a being apart from 
 and above the universe. He does not simply break off 
 from theological speculation, and seek to establish philo- 
 sophy on an independent footing ; he seems intent on 
 showing that theological speculation itself, when reason 
 is once allowed free play, must at last purge itself of all 
 anthropomorpliism and come round to the scientific 
 view. Spinoza does not ignore theology, but provides 
 an euthanasia for it." l Many of Spinoza's other mod- 
 ern interpreters have convinced themselves on various 
 grounds that Spinoza's system is one of pure naturalism, 
 that his highest principle does not go beyond the con- 
 ception of an all-embracing, all-dominating, but uncon- 
 scious nature-force, and that we should not misconstrue 
 him if we substituted the word " Xature " for " God," 
 wherever the latter occurs in his philosophy. 
 
 It cannot, we think, be questioned that the view 
 taken by these writers is so far true that in Spinoza's 
 system " theological speculation has," in Mr Pollock's 
 graphic phrase, "purged itself of anthropomorphism." 
 Spinoza's God is certainly not the supramundane poten- 
 tate or "magnified man" of popular thought, or even 
 the " all-wise Creator and Governor " of natural the- 
 ology. Whatever else the idea of " the most perfect 
 Being " means, it is an idea which is supposed to consti- 
 tute a principle, and the highest principle, of knowledge 
 at once its own evidence and the evidence or explana- 
 tion of the whole finite world. But an outside Creator 
 or Contriver is a notion which explains nothing. Xot 
 only does it reduce the God who is placed outside the 
 world to something finite, but it is essentially dualistic. 
 1 Pollock's Spinoza, p. 166.
 
 No Anthropomorphic God. 19 
 
 The link between God and the world, according to this 
 notion, is a purely arbitrary one. To find in God the 
 explanation of the world implies that the existence of 
 the world and all that is in it is traceable to something 
 in the nature of God, and not to His mere arbitrary will 
 or poAver. A cause which thought can recognise as such 
 is one which contains in it the reason and necessity of 
 the effect, and which reveals itself in the effect. But a 
 personified cause, which of its mere will produces an 
 effect it might have refrained from producing, is an 
 impossible conception. In such a conception cause and 
 effect stand apart, and the gap is not filled up for 
 thought by the interposition of an arbitrary, omnipotent 
 will. To find in God the first principle of all being and 
 of all knowledge implies a relation between the prin- 
 ciple and that which flows from it between God and 
 the world such that, in one point of view, God would 
 not be God without it; and on the other hand, the 
 world would not be what it is, would be reduced to 
 unreality or nonentity, without God. Now this, as we 
 have seen, is what Spinoza doe>, or attempts to do. 
 The " most perfect Being," whatever else the phrase 
 means, is a Being the idea of which is the first prin- 
 ciple of knowledge, the key to the meaning of the 
 whole system of being. Without this central principle, 
 finite things and beings have no existence other than 
 the illusory existence and individuality which imagina- 
 tion ascribes to them are mere fictions and unrealities. 
 And on the other hand, to anticipate Spinoza's favourite 
 illustration, from this fundamental principle all things 
 folloAV as necessarily as from the conception of a triangle 
 follow the equality of its angles to two right angles, and
 
 20 Spinoza. 
 
 all its other properties. If, therefore, Spinoza's system 
 can only be redeemed from naturalism by the idea of 
 an anthropomorphic God the deus ex machina of 
 popular theology a pure naturalistic system it is. 
 
 The exclusion of the notion of an anthropomorphic God 
 does not, however, of necessity reduce a system of phil- 
 osophy to pure naturalism. A principle which explains 
 nature is not therefore, to say the least, a part of nature. 
 It is possible to derive from such a principle all that 
 renders the facts of nature intelligible without regarding 
 it as itself one of these facts. The definition of nature 
 may indeed be so widened as to include in it the idea 
 or principle which constitutes the world an ordered or 
 rational system; but in another and truer sense that 
 principle may, and properly must, be contemplated as 
 something prior to and above nature. The treatise be- 
 fore us is, as above said, an unfinished work, and it does 
 not contain except inferentially any explanation of what 
 its author meant by the idea of the "most perfect 
 Being." But if we take into view the general drift and 
 intention of the work if, in other words, we consider 
 the motive from which it starts, and the general bearing 
 of its theory of knowledge, we shall be led, I think, to 
 see in Spinoza's "most perfect Being" something very 
 different, at once from crude supernaturalism, and from 
 the pure naturalism with which it has been sought to 
 identify it. 
 
 1. The knowledge of the " most perfect Being " as the 
 constitutive principle of the world is the formal expres- 
 sion of the result to which Spinoza was led by his 
 search for that spiritual satisfaction and rest Avhich he 
 could not find in " the things that are changeable and
 
 God and Nature. 21 
 
 perishable." His examination of the principles of know- 
 ledge had given theoretical justification to his dissatis- 
 faction with the ordinary objects of human desire, by 
 proving that these objects have no reality save the ficti- 
 tious and illusory reality which imagination lends to 
 them. And the presumption with which he started, 
 and which indeed constituted the implicit ground of his 
 discontent with these objects viz., that there must 
 exist " something eternal and infinite, love to which 
 would fill the mind with joy and with joy alone," now 
 finds verification in the rational idea of a "most perfect 
 Being," " a Being single, infinite, and beyond which 
 there is no being." Now, however intense may have 
 been Spinoza's " intellectual devotion to the pursuit of 
 exact science," the process just described is, we think, 
 one Avhich that formula does not cover. If it did, then 
 the attitude of mind to which, under whatever modifi- 
 cations, the designation " religion " has been given, must 
 be something essentially indistinguishable from "the 
 passion for exact science." For, however foreign to 
 Spinoza's nature much that passes under the name of 
 religion must be pronounced to be, his account of the 
 mental experience that constituted the impulse to spec- 
 ulative inquiry is that of a process in which the very 
 essence of religion may be said to lie. If we pass be- 
 yond the " fetichism " of barbarous races, the mere in- 
 discriminating ascription of mysterious powers to ma- 
 terial objects (which is as irrelevant to the religious 
 history of the world as the other phenomena of savage 
 life are to the history of morality and civilisation), the 
 religious life of man may be said to have its root in 
 what, for want of a better description, may be called
 
 22 Spinoza. 
 
 Pantheism. The dawn of religious feeling may be 
 traced to the impression which experience forces upon 
 us of the unsubstantial character of the world on which 
 we look and of which we form a part. In different 
 ways this sense of the illusoriness of the world may 
 come to different men and different races, according to 
 their less or greater depth of nature. The apparent 
 shifting of the outward scene, the lapse of time, the 
 impossibility of staying the passing moment to question 
 what it means, the uncertainty of life and the insecurity 
 of its possessions, may be to one what to another is its 
 inner counterpart, the changing of our opinions, feelings, 
 desires, which, even if the world remained steadfast, 
 would perpetually make and unmake it for us. Or 
 again, the sense of the illusoriness of life deepens into 
 weariness and disgust or into a sense of shame and re- 
 morse, in the man who reflects on himself and feels 
 himself the sport of it, who has detected the vanity of 
 his desires and hopes, yet is powerless to emancipate 
 himself from their dominion. Now it is this sense of 
 the unreality of the world regarded from the point of 
 view of ordinary experience which not merely gives rise 
 to the longing for some fixed and permanent reality, 
 "some Life continuous, Being unexposed to the blind 
 walk of mortal accident," but is in itself, in a sense, 
 already the implicit recognition of the existence of such 
 a Being. Arguments from "design," which conclude 
 from the existence of finite things to a God conceived 
 of after the analogy of a maker of machines, are not a 
 true expression of the natural history of religion. Such 
 arguments are only the afterthought of an imperfect 
 philosophy. It is not the reality, but the unreality, of
 
 The Process of Religion. 23 
 
 the finite world that gives rise to the consciousness of 
 God. It is not from the affirmation, but from the 
 negation, of the finite that the human spirit rises to the 
 conception of the infinite. And when we reflect on 
 what this process, this elevation of spirit means, we 
 discern that what is second in time is really, though 
 implicitly, first in thought. The very consciousness of 
 a limit is the proof that we are already beyond it God 
 is not the conclusion of a syllogism from the finite 
 world, but the prius or presupposition which reveals its 
 presence in the very sense of our finitude and that of 
 the world to which we belong. The impression that 
 comes to us first in time is that the world is nothing ; 
 but that impression would have no existence or mean- 
 ing if the thought really though latently first were not 
 this God is all. It is not, of course, meant that the 
 process we have described is one which all who experi- 
 ence it experience in the same manner. Like all nor- 
 mal elements of human experience it varies, as we have 
 said, with the varying character and the wider or nar- 
 rower culture of individuals and races. In the deeper 
 and more reflective natures it manifests itself chiefly in 
 the consciousness of an inner life other and larger than 
 the life of sense, of a self that transcends the natural 
 desires. With widening experience of life this con- 
 sciousness deepens, since wider experience only furnishes 
 new materials for the contrast between the multiplicity 
 of impressions and the self that is identified with none 
 of them. Advancing intellectual and moral culture 
 brings with it the profounder consciousness of an in- 
 finite possibility within us, of being greater than our 
 sensations and desires, of capacities to which the out-
 
 24 Spinoza. 
 
 ward life is not adequate. This consciousness, rightly 
 interpreted, is a negative which involves a positive. It 
 is the revelation in us of a something that is not of us, 
 of a perfect, by comparison with which the imperfection 
 of ourselves and the whole complex of finite existences 
 is disclosed. Reflecting on the meaning of the discord 
 between itself and its desires, the consciousness of a 
 thirst that is unquenchable by the world becomes to 
 such a nature the presumptive proof of " an infinite and 
 eternal object, love to which would fill the mind with 
 unmingled and abiding joy." 
 
 Now if there be any truth in the foregoing analysis of 
 the movement of mind of which we speak, it is obviously 
 one which cannot be identified with the processes of 
 physical science, and the result of which could never be 
 generated by empirical observation of the facts and 
 phenomena of the world. It may be if there be no 
 other dialectic than the logic of the sciences, it un- 
 doubtedly is a movement which reason does not justify, 
 inasmuch as it puts more into the conclusion than is 
 contained in the premisses, or rather, as we have seen, in- 
 asmuch as its conclusion is the negative of the premiss 
 with which it seems to start. If it evaporates anything 
 as "a dogmatic dream," it is not God but nature. The 
 object to which it concludes is not one which is con- 
 tained in, or can by any process of generalisation be ex- 
 tracted from the facts of nature, or identified with its 
 "laws of coexistence and succession." If scientific ex- 
 perience be experience of change and laws of change, by 
 no straining can this be identified with an experience 
 which is that of an object beyond all change or possibility 
 of change. At any rate, logical or illogical, scientific or
 
 Relation to the Infinite. 25 
 
 unscientific, the attitude of mind which Spinoza records 
 as that which constituted for him the impulse to specu- 
 lative inquiry is identical, or in close analogy, with that 
 which in the history of mankind has been the origin and 
 secret nerve of what we mean by the word "religion." 
 
 2. But the negation of the finite is not the last step 
 in the process of which I have spoken. Neither religion, 
 nor philosophy which seeks to develop the logic of re- 
 ligion, can rest content with an idea of God from, which 
 no explanation of the finite world can be derived. Even 
 if the independent existence of finite things be an illu- 
 sion, the idea of God must contain in it a reason if only 
 for their illusory existence. The shadow, though it be 
 but a shadow, must have its reason in the substance it 
 reflects. To say that the infinite is the negation of the 
 finite, implies that there is in the infinite at least a 
 negative relation to the finite. But it implies something 
 more than this. The recognition of the inadequacy of 
 finite objects is not only the expression of the implicit 
 consciousness of an infinite object, but also of my relation 
 to that object. It is through something in me that I 
 am capable of pronouncing the verdict of reality and un- 
 reality. If therefore, on the one hand, I belong to the 
 finite world which, as an independent reality, is negated, 
 on the other hand, there is a side of my nature in which 
 I belong or am inwardly related to that infinite and 
 eternal reality which negates or annuls it. If I deny my 
 own reality as part of the finite world, I in one and the 
 same act reassert it as essentially related to God. It is 
 this which explains what may be termed the positive side 
 of that mental experience which formed the starting- 
 point of Spinoza's investigations. The inadequacy or
 
 26 Spinoza. 
 
 unreality of the finite was to him an implicit revelation, 
 not only of an infinite and eternal object, but also of 
 himself as in essential relation to it. And what he was 
 thus implicitly conscious of he seeks to make explicit. 
 
 It is, we think, from this point of view that we must 
 interpret Spinoza's attempt partially fulfilled only in 
 the fragmentary treatise before us, burdened with con- 
 flicting elements even in the later work in which it 
 finds systematic embodiment to reaffirm and explain 
 the reality of the finite world in and through the idea of 
 the infinite. But though in the present work the thought 
 which forms the fundamental principle of his system is 
 left undeveloped, it is possible, from the general drift and 
 bearing of the treatise, to divine in some measure the 
 meaning he attached to that principle, and the direction 
 in Avhich its development must lie. And, considered in 
 this light, it is impossible, I venture to say, to find in 
 Spinoza's philosophy only that pure naturalism with 
 which it has been identified, or to regard the meaning 
 of his " idea of the most perfect Being," as exhausted 
 by any such formula as "the unity and uniformity of 
 nature." 
 
 It is no doubt possible, as already said, so to define 
 "Xature" as that it shall include both finite and in- 
 finite, the multiplicity of individual things, and the 
 principle which gives them unity. If we mean by the 
 universe all reality, then to say that there is nothing 
 outside of it, that nature or the universe is all, is only 
 an identical proposition. 
 
 Moreover, as we have seen, nothing can be more un- 
 questionable than that Spinoza's God was no transcen- 
 dent dam ex machina, existing apart from the world, or
 
 " Uhiversals." 27 
 
 connected with it only by the unintelligible bond of an 
 arbitrary creative act. Again, it may be conceded that 
 we do not as a matter of fact begin by forming a con- 
 ception of God as the principle of all things, and then, 
 by a separate mental act or process of thought, bring this 
 conception to bear 011 the world of finite, individual 
 existences. Observation and experience are, it may be 
 granted, the only instruments of knowledge in this sense, 
 that the principle which gives unity to knowledge is 
 grasped, not apart from, but as inseparably implicated 
 with, the facts and phenomena observed or experienced. 
 But the real and only important question is, whether it 
 is Spinoza's doctrine that the individual, the things of out- 
 ward observation, or the world as a collection or sum of 
 finite existences, are the sole constituents of knowledge 
 whether there is not involved in real knowledge or 
 knowledge of realities, a principle of unity distinguish- 
 able from the manifold of phenomena, a universal dis- 
 tinguishable from the sum of particulars, an infinite and 
 eternal distinguishable from the finite and changeable, 
 not given by it, logically prior to it. If this question 
 be answered in the affirmative, it matters not whether 
 you give the name God or Xature to the universe ; in 
 neither case is Spinoza's system a pure naturalism. 
 
 Now it might seem, at first sight, to preclude any such 
 answer that, for Spinoza, individual things are, in one 
 sense, the only realities, and that he regards general 
 ideas or " universals " as one of the chief sources of error 
 and confusion. 
 
 " When anything," says he, 1 " is conceived abstractly, as 
 
 1 De Int. Emend., ix.
 
 28 Spinoza. 
 
 are all universals, it is always apprehended in the. understand- 
 ing in a wider sense than its particulars can really exist in 
 nature. Further, since in nature there are many things the 
 difference of which is so slight as almost to escape the under- 
 standing, it may easily happen, if we think abstractly, that 
 we should confuse them." And again : " We ought never, 
 when we are inquiring into the nature of things, to draw any 
 conclusions from abstract notions, and we should carefully 
 guard against confounding things which are only in the under- 
 standing with those which actually exist." 1 
 
 Whilst, however, here as elsewhere, Spinoza wages a 
 constant polemic against the " universals " or abstract 
 notions of scholastic metaphysics, and treats as nugatory 
 any conclusions that rest on such premisses, this by 
 no means implies that he excludes from knowledge 
 every universal element every element other than that 
 which is generated by observation of particular facts. 
 The very context from which the foregoing passages 
 have been taken renders any such inference impossible. 
 His denunciation of the abstractions of scholasticism is 
 introduced expressly to contrast these false, with Avhat 
 he deemed true, universals. Deception arises, he tells 
 us, in a passage already quoted, from conceiving things 
 too abstractly. 
 
 " But," he adds, " such deception need never be dreaded by 
 us if we proceed as little as possible abstractly, and begin as 
 soon as possible with the first elements, that is, with the 
 source and origin of nature. And as regards the knowledge 
 of the origin of nature, we need have no fear of confounding 
 it with abstractions. . . . For, since the origin of nature, as 
 we shall see in the sequel, can neither be conceived abstractly, 
 
 1 De Int. Emend., xii.
 
 True and False Universals. 29 
 
 nor can be extended more widely in the understanding than 
 it actually is, nor has any resemblance to things that are 
 changeable, there is no need to fear any confusion in regard 
 to the idea of it, if only we possess the norm of truth, and 
 this is a being single, infinite, i.e., it is all being and beyond 
 which there is no being." 1 And again he says : "It is to 
 be remarked that by the series of causes and of real en- 
 tities, I do not understand the series of individual change- 
 able things, but only the series of fixed and eternal things. 
 For the series of individual changeable things it would be 
 impossible for human weakness to attain to . . . because of the 
 infinite circumstances in one and the same thing of which 
 each may be the cause of the existence or non-existence of 
 the thing ; since the existence of things has no connection 
 with their essence, or, as I have just said, is not an eternal 
 truth. It is, however, not at all necessary to know their 
 series, since the essences of changeable individual things are 
 not derivable from their series or order of existing, for this 
 gives us nothing but external denominations, relations, or, at 
 most, circumstances which are foreign to their inmost essence. 
 The last is only to be sought from fixed and eternal things, 
 and at the same time from the laws that are inscribed in these 
 things as their true codes, according to which all individuals 
 both take place and are ordered ; yea, these changeable things 
 depend so intimately and essentially, so to speak, on those 
 fixed things, that without them they can neither exist nor be 
 conceived. Hence those fixed and eternal things, although 
 they are individuals, yet on account of their omnipresence 
 and all-comprehending power, are to us as universals or as 
 genera of definitions of the individual changeable things, 
 and as the proximate causes of all things." 2 
 
 From these and other passages in the treatise it is 
 impossible, we think, to avoid the conclusion that 
 Spinoza's "nominalism" did not imply, either that indi- 
 
 1 De Int. Emeiid. , ix. - Ibid. , xiv.
 
 30 Spinoza. 
 
 viduals, finite objects, the facts and phenomena of 
 empirical observation, are the only realities, or that 
 there are not universals other than the abstract essences 
 of scholasticism which constitute a necessary element of 
 all true knowledge. In the first place, when we ask 
 what are the individuals of which it can be affirmed 
 that they constitute the only realities, it is to be con- 
 sidered that the individuality or independence which 
 ordinary observation ascribes to particular objects is no 
 real individuality. Ordinary observation contemplates 
 things under the external conditions of space and time, 
 and so it can begin and end anywhere. It conceives as 
 an independent reality whatever it can picture to itself 
 as such. Even scientific observation does not go beyond 
 the conception of the system of things as a multiplicity 
 of separate substances, each endowed with its own 
 qualities, and all acting and reacting on each other 
 according to invariable laAvs. But when we examine 
 more closely what this so-called individuality means, 
 we perceive that it is a mere fictitious isolation or inde- 
 pendence, which it is the function of advancing know- 
 ledge to dissipate. Objects are not abstract things or 
 substances, each with a number of qualities attached to 
 it. The qualities by which we define the nature of a 
 thing are in reality nothing else than its relations to 
 other things. Take away all such relations, and the 
 thing itself ceases to have any existence for thought. 
 It is the qualities or relations which constitute its definite 
 existence : the substance in which they are supposed to 
 inhere, and which remains one and the same through all 
 the manifoldness of its properties, if detached from them 
 would have no meaning. At most, it would be but a
 
 True Individuality. 31 
 
 name for the bare abstraction of being or existence ; and 
 when we think away the predicates or properties, the 
 sxibstance vanishes with them. But if the qualities by 
 which we determine any object are simply its relations 
 to other objects, then, inasmuch as each individual object 
 is directly or indirectly related to all other objects, com- 
 pletely to determine any individual, to see what it really 
 is, is to see it in its relation to all other objects. An 
 object cannot be perfectly individualised until it is per- 
 fectly universalised. In other words, knowledge of it 
 in its complete individuality would be knowledge of it 
 as determined by the whole universe of which it is a 
 part. True knowledge, therefore, does not begin with 
 individuals regarded as mere isolated singular things ; 
 nor is it the apprehension of the universe as a collection 
 of such individuals, nor any generalisation got from them 
 by a process of abstraction. In so far as it is knowledge 
 of the individual, it is of the individual which has be- 
 come more and more specialised by each advancing step 
 in the progress of science, by every new and higher con- 
 ception which exhibits it in new and hitherto unobserved 
 relations ; and the ideal of true knowledge cannot stop 
 short of the conception of each individual in its relation 
 to the highest universal, or seen in the light of the whole 
 system of being in its unity. It is this conception of 
 individuality to which Spinoza points when he speaks 
 of individuals as the only realities. For him the indi- 
 viduals of ordinary observation are as much unrealities, 
 figments of the imagination, as the abstract essences of 
 the schoolmen, they are " the individual, changeable 
 things the existence of which has no connection with 
 their essence," and the " accidental series " of which " it
 
 32 Spinozc:. 
 
 is not at all necessary to know." The true " essences " 
 of individuals are to be discerned only in their relation 
 to what he calls "fixed and eternal things and their 
 laws, according to which all individuals exist and are 
 ordered," and "without which they can neither exist 
 nor be conceived," and, above all, in their relation to 
 that which is the " highest norm of truth, a being single, 
 infinite, and all - comprehending." So far, therefore, 
 from asserting that knowledge begins with individuals 
 regarded as the only realities, he tells us that " that 
 method of knowledge would be the most perfect in 
 which we should have an idea of the most perfect Being, 
 to the knowledge of which, therefore, it becomes us as 
 soon as possible to attain," and that our mind can only 
 reflect the exemplar of nature by deriving all its ideas 
 from that which reflects the source and fountain of 
 nature i.e., the "idea of the most perfect Being." 
 
 In the second place, it is implied in what has now 
 been said that Spinoza's " nominalism " does not involve 
 the denial of universals other than the abstractions of 
 scholasticism, as constituting a necessary principle or 
 factor of true knowledge. What are these universals, 
 and especially, what is that "idea of the most perfect 
 Being " which is the highest universal or first principle 
 of knowledge ? We have seen that a recent expositor 
 of Spinoza finds nothing more in it than the idea of 
 " the unity and uniformity of nature." 
 
 Even if we could suppose that by the " idea of the 
 most perfect Being " Spinoza meant nothing more than 
 the scientific conception of the unity and uniformity of 
 nature, the supposition would be fatal to the assertion 
 of his " thorough-going nominalism." Xominalism re-
 
 Uniformity of Nature. 33 
 
 individual substances as the only realities, and 
 nature as, at most, a name for the collection or aggregate 
 of such substances. But the unity and uniformity of 
 nature is the first principle of all science. All scientific 
 investigation proceeds on the tacit assumption that 
 nature is not a chaos, but a system of invariable coex- 
 istences and successions constituting a self-consistent 
 whole. " It is an assured fact that discoveries are not 
 made without belief in the nature of things, by which I 
 mean the sure trust that under all diversity of appear- 
 ances there is a constant and sufficient order, that there 
 is no maze without a clue. Belief in the nature of 
 things is the mainspring of all science and the condition 
 of all sound thinking. " l But if this be so, it seems 
 beyond question that a belief which is presupposed in 
 all scientific observation and experience cannot itself be 
 a product or part of that experience. It is from observa- 
 tion and experience that we learn what are the particular 
 sequences of phenomena in nature, what are the par- 
 ticular causes or conditions of particular effects ; but the 
 idea or principle of uniform sequence with which we 
 start cannot itself be learnt from experience. To the 
 unreflecting mind nature seems to reveal its own unity 
 and uniformity. The objective world is a ready-made 
 system, and the only function of intelligence is to 
 observe and investigate what is already presented to it 
 in its complete reality. Xature in its unity and uni- 
 formity is given to us, ready to be taken up into our 
 experience ; the facts and phenomena and their unity 
 and uniformity are things of the same order, and our 
 knowledge of both comes from the same source. "We 
 
 1 Pollock's Spinoza, p. 142. 
 P. XIL C
 
 34 Spinoza. 
 
 have before us a world organised into unity, and then 
 our consciousness simply reproduces it. But a little 
 reflection teaches us that this is not the true account of 
 the process of knowledge. Our knowledge of nature as 
 an ordered system implies a principle which is not 
 natural, and which cannot be observed as we observe the 
 facts of nature. Experience of difference implies already 
 the presence of a principle of unity, experience of suc- 
 cessions or changes the presence of a principle that is 
 constant or self-identical. A process of change cannot 
 be conceived to generate a consciousness of itself, still 
 less to generate a consciousness of change according to 
 a uniform method. In order to the minimum, of scien- 
 tific experience, the observation of a single sequence of 
 related facts, there is presupposed in the observer the 
 consciousness that the relation is an unalterable one, 
 that the same conditions will and must ever give the 
 same result ; in other words, there is presupposed the 
 idea of uniformity. But that which is the prim or pre- 
 condition of all knowledge of the facts of nature cannot 
 be itself one of those facts or the result of the observa- 
 tion of any number of such facts. The idea or prin- 
 ciple, therefore, which is the necessary condition of all 
 knowledge of nature, without which there could be for 
 us no nature, and in the light of which all particular 
 facts or objects are known this, though it is not a uni- 
 versal, like the abstract essences of scholastic realism, 
 may be said, in Spinoza's language, " on account of its 
 omnipresence and all-comprehending power, to take the 
 place of a universal, or a genus of definition of indi- 
 vidual changeable things." 
 
 But by the idea of " the most perfect Being," can we
 
 Presuppositions of Knowledge. 35 
 
 suppose that Spinoza meant no more than that of " the 
 unity and uniformity of nature " ] Or if he did mean 
 something more, if the latter formula does not exhaust 
 the meaning of the former or of the equivalent expres- 
 sion, "a Being single, infinite, and all-comprehending," 
 can we form any conjecture as to what that something 
 more is 1 The answer to this question would carry us 
 beyond the contents of the work before us. This much 
 at least we can gather from it, that Spinoza's speculative 
 inquiries originated in his moral and spiritual aspirations, 
 and that in both his endeavour was to rise above the 
 illusoriness and unreality of the finite. The unrest in- 
 separable from desires and passions that point only to 
 finite and changeable things is itself implicitly the 
 aspiration after an infinite and eternal object, in which 
 the spirit can find perfect satisfaction and rest. And 
 true knowledge, following in the steps of aspiration, 
 discovers to us the unreality of the world as it appears 
 to sense and imagination, and has for its aim to rise 
 above the finite and to grasp that primary idea or first 
 principle which is the source of all other ideas, in the 
 light of which the fragmentary, contingent, confused 
 aspect of things will vanish, and all things will be seen 
 in their unity and reality as parts of one intelligible 
 whole.
 
 36 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 INFLUENCE OP PRECEDING WRITERS THE KABBALA. 
 
 CONCEDING that the philosophy of Spinoza is not 
 thoroughly self-consistent, we have said that it may be 
 possible to discover what was the dominant idea or pre- 
 vailing tendency in its author's mind, and to see in its 
 inconsistencies, not so much the presence of irreconcilable 
 principles, as an inadequate apprehension of the meaning 
 and results of one leading principle. One help towards 
 the right understanding of his system we have found in 
 Spinoza's own account of the motive of his speculations, 
 the impulse which originated and guided the process by 
 which he endeavoured to attain intellectual satisfaction. 
 Another help may be found in what we know of his 
 early studies, and of the writers who may have moulded 
 his mind or given a special direction to his thoughts. 
 
 Much ingenuity has been spent, perhaps we might say 
 misspent, in tracing the supposed " sources " of Spin- 
 ozism. Not only has it been regarded by many writers 
 as the logical development of the Cartesian philosophy, 
 but, in so far as it diverges from the latter, it has been 
 represented as reflecting or reproducing the mystical 
 theosophy of the Kabbala, or the ideas of Maimonides
 
 Originality. 37 
 
 and other medieval Jewish philosophers, or the revived 
 Platonism of Giordano Bruno and other writers of the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 
 
 But it is to be considered that the originality of a 
 philosophical writer is not to be determined simply by 
 the measure in which his ideas are traceable to earlier 
 sources, or by the suggestions he has caught up from 
 other minds. To lend real value to any contribution to 
 philosophy it must reproduce the past, the sole question 
 is whether the reproduction is a dead or living repro- 
 duction, a rechauffe of old materials collected from 
 various sources, or a revival of them, absorbed, trans- 
 formed, renewed, by the quickening, transmuting power 
 of speculative thought. On the other hand, no doubt, 
 a great philosophical system must advance beyond the 
 past ; but the all-important test of the new element is, 
 whether it is connected with the past as a mere arbitrary 
 increment, or as the outcome of an organic development 
 The history of thought cannot, from its nature, be an 
 arbitrary one. It is true that, as the formation of 
 individual opinion may be deflected by a thousand acci- 
 dents from the order of reason or rational progression, 
 so the history of the thought of the world may be some- 
 times the record of what is accidental and irrational of 
 errors, vagaries, reactions, incoherencies : but in both, in 
 so far as there is real progress, it is a progress which 
 must follow the order of reason an advance by steps, 
 each of which contains in it a reason for the next, each 
 of which is at once the result and the explanation of 
 that which preceded it. The merit, therefore, of any 
 individual thinker, must be determined mainly by con- 
 sidering whether he takes up and carries on the move-
 
 38 Spinoza. 
 
 ment of thought at the particular stage which it has 
 reached in his own day. If his work have real or per- 
 manent value, it will be due, indeed, to his own pro- 
 ductive activity, but to that as an activity which has 
 for its necessary presupposition the intellectual life of 
 the past, growing out of it and determined by it. Con- 
 sciously or unconsciously he must make that life his 
 own. The originality of his work will consist, not in 
 his independence of the thought of the past, but in this, 
 that whatever ideas or suggestions he may have gathered 
 from, various thinkers of various times, all his acquire- 
 ments have become fused in a mind that is, so to speak, 
 in sympathy with the dialectic movement of the spirit of 
 its time. His greatness, if he be great, will be that of 
 one who has at once put and answered the questions 
 for the solution of which the age is pressing, given artic- 
 ulate expression to the problem of philosophy in the 
 form in which it is silently moving the thought of the 
 world, and either partially or completely furnished the 
 solution of it. 
 
 That the merit of originality in the sense now indi- 
 cated may be justly claimed for the philosophy of 
 Spinoza, we shall endeavour to show in the sequel. But 
 though the solution of the problem of philosophy to 
 which he was led was logically involved in, and grew 
 out of the teaching of Descartes, it is not inconsistent 
 with this to say that it is one for which he was in some 
 measure prepared and predisposed by the intellectual 
 atmosphere of his early life, and by the literature and 
 traditions which created it. In the ideas imbibed from 
 the speculative mysticism of the Kabbala, from the 
 teaching of medieval Jewish rationalists, and from the
 
 References to the Kabbala. 39 
 
 Platonic or Xeo-Platonic revival of times near his own, 
 we may discern, though not the logical origin, at least 
 the predisposing impulse towards the pantheistic side of 
 Spinoza's philosophy. 
 
 THE KABBALA. 
 
 Ko direct reference to the Kabbala is to be found in 
 Spinoza's writings, with the exception of one sentence in 
 the 'Tractatus Theologico-politicus,' the contemptuous 
 tone of which has been supposed to settle the question 
 of his indebtedness to Kabbalistic speculation. " I have 
 read," says he, "and, moreover, been (personally) ac- 
 quainted with certain Kabbalistic triflers, at whose folly 
 I cannot sufficiently wonder." But this depreciatory 
 judgment, it has been pointed out, has special reference 
 to the arbitrary and grotesque method of interpretation 
 by which Kabbalistic writers endeavoured to extract a 
 hidden significance from the historical narratives and 
 other parts of the Old Testament Scriptures ; and that 
 his contempt for such vagaries does not extend to what 
 may be termed the speculative element of the Kabbala 
 seems to be placed beyond question by two passages in 
 his writings in which Kabbalistic doctrines are referred 
 to with at least a qualified respect. Replying to Olden- 
 burg, who had urged that, in the work above named, 
 Spinoza seemed to many to confound God and Mature, 
 he says : "I hold that God is the immanent and not the 
 transient cause of all things. That all things are in God 
 and move in God I affirm with Paul, and perhaps also 
 with all the ancient philosophers, and I might even 
 venture to say with all the ancient Hebrews, in so far as 
 may be conjectured from certain traditions, though these
 
 40 Spinoza. 
 
 have been in many ways corrupted." l The other pas- 
 sage is contained in the ' Ethics,' 2 where, with reference 
 to his doctrine that " thinking substance and extended 
 substance are one and the same substance, apprehended, 
 now under this attribute, now under that," and that " a 
 mode of extension and the idea of that mode are one and 
 the same thing expressed in two different ways," he adds, 
 " which truth certain of the Hebrews appear to have seen 
 as if through a cloud when they affirm that God, the 
 intellect of God, and the things which are the objects 
 of that intellect, are one and the same thing." To show 
 that the reference here is to the Kabbala, the following 
 passage has been adduced from a work entitled ' The 
 Garden of Pomegranates,' an exposition of the Kabba- 
 listic doctrine of "the Sephiroth" or Divine Emana- 
 tions, by a celebrated Kabbalist of the sixteenth century, 
 Moses Corduero. " The knowledge of the Creator differs 
 from that of the creature in this respect that, in the case 
 of the latter, thought, the thinker, and the object thought 
 of are different. But the Creator is Himself knowledge, 
 the knower, and the object known. His knowledge does 
 not arise from His directing His thoughts to things out- 
 side of Him, since in comprehending and knowing Him- 
 self, He comprehends and knows everything that exists. 
 Nothing exists which is not one with Him and which 
 He does not find in His own substance. He is the 
 archetype of all things that exist, and all things are in 
 Him in their purest and most perfect form." Notwith- 
 standing the parallelism in this quotation, both in sub- 
 stance and expression, to the doctrine ascribed by Spinoza 
 to " certain Hebrews," the reference is rendered somewhat 
 1 Ep., 21. Eth., p. ii, Prop. vii. Schol.
 
 Neo-Platonism. 41 
 
 doubtful by the fact that Ave have no evidence that 
 Spinoza knew anything of the writer from Avhom it is 
 taken, and also, that in the ' Guide to the Perplexed,' the 
 well-known work of the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, 
 from whom Spinoza elsewhere quotes, a passage occurs 
 in which the same doctrine is maintained in almost the 
 same terms. 
 
 It is not, however, in particular citations from the 
 Kabbala that we find the most probable indications of 
 the influence of its ideas on Spinoza's mind. Even the 
 least incoherent of Kabbalistic works, the so-called 
 ' Book Zoliar,' can only be described as a strange con- 
 glomerate of philosophy and allegory, reason and rhap- 
 sody, of ideas from Plato and Aristotle and ideas from 
 the Pentateuch, of Jewish traditions and oriental mysti- 
 cism. But if we try to extricate from this curious com- 
 posite the underlying speculative element, we find in 
 it distinct traces of one particular phase or school of 
 thought. "Whatever the date or outward origin of the 
 Kabbala, or its historic relation to Alexandrian meta- 
 physic, the philosophy it teaches is simply Neo-Platonism 
 in a fantastic guise. And through whatever channel they 
 reached him, Spinoza's writings contain, we think, indi- 
 cations of a certain influence of Neo-Platonic ideas. It is 
 necessary, therefore, to form some conception of the system 
 of thought to which these ideas belong. 
 
 Neo-Platonism took its rise at a period when the old 
 religions and philosophies of the world began to mingle, 
 and (though the Greek element in it was the preponder- 
 ating one) it attempted to produce a coherent system 
 out of elements derived from Semitic theology, Asiatic 
 mysticism, and the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.
 
 42 Spinoza. 
 
 The main problem of ^Neo-Platonic speculation is that of 
 the relation of the infinite and finite, of God and the 
 world. Starting from a conception of the two extremes 
 of this relation which made them absolutely irreconcil- 
 able, the whole system was the expression of one long 
 effort to bridge over an impassable gulf to deal with the 
 idea of God conceived of as an absolute unity, beyond 
 limitation or definition, so as, on the one hand, to make it 
 possible for God to reveal Himself not merely in nature 
 and man, but in an absolute formless matter ; and on the 
 other hand, for the human spirit to rise into communion 
 with the divine. The solution of this absolute dualism 
 which Neo-Platonism propounds may be represented by 
 the two words Emanation and Ecstasy. 
 
 In the first place, the intense religious feeling which 
 was the underlying motive of Xeo-Platonic speculation, 
 and the consequent endeavour to elevate the conception 
 of God above all the limiting conditions of human exist- 
 ence, led to an idea of the First Principle of all things 
 which is simply that of the absolutely indeterminate 
 that which can be thought of only as the negation of all 
 that can be affirmed of the finite. God is the Absolute 
 One, unity beyond all difference, to which no predicates 
 can be attached, of which nothing can be affirmed or 
 expressed. We may not think of Him as intelligent, for 
 intelligence implies distinction between the knower and 
 the object known. For a similar reason we may not 
 ascribe to Him a will. " Strictly speaking, He is neither 
 consciousness nor unconsciousness, neither freedom nor 
 unfreedom, for all such opposites pertain to the realm of 
 finite things. He gives life, yet Himself lives not, Hf is 
 all and the negation of all/' Even when we name Him
 
 Emanation. 43 
 
 "the One," we must exclude any thought of numerical 
 unity, for that contains or implies the idea of multipli- 
 city, and is meaningless when applied to that which is 
 above all distinction. " Only by negation can we define 
 Him. He is inexpressible, for all speech names some 
 definite thing ; He is incomprehensible, for thought dis- 
 tinguishes between itself and its object ; if we would 
 grasp Him, it is only by an act of intuition in which 
 the mind rises above thought and becomes one with 
 its object." 
 
 But when the idea of God has been tints rarefied to 
 an abstraction which is simply the negation of the finite, 
 every way back to the finite would seem to be cut off. 
 The Absolute One of Neo-Platonism, in which the ex- 
 planation of all finite things is to be found, would seem 
 to be shut up in its own self-identity. In a unity so 
 conceived there is no reason why it should go beyond 
 itself to manifest or reveal itself in the manifoldness of 
 finite existence. The solution of the problem which 
 Xeo-Platonism gives is contained, as we have said, in the 
 word "emanation." The self -involved imprisonment of 
 the Absolute which reason cannot break down, Plotinus 
 attempts to dissolve by the aid of imagination and pic- 
 torial analogy. " Everything," says he, " that is in any 
 degree perfect, and most of all, therefore, the absolutely 
 perfect, tends to overflow itself, to stream forth, and pro- 
 duce that which is other than itself yet an image of it- 
 self. Fire produces heat, snow cold, fragrant substances 
 odours, medicine healing. The most perfect cannot re- 
 main powerless, shut up in itself." Accordingly, that 
 Absolute which is above knowledge is conceived to 
 stream forth in a series of emanations, descending
 
 44 Spinoza. 
 
 through successive stages in which the irradiation be- 
 comes fainter and fainter, till it reaches the realm of 
 darkness, of that formless matter which is below know- 
 ledge. As Plato endeavoured to overcome the dualism 
 between the ideal and phenomenal world by the concep- 
 tion of a world-soul as a kind of mediator, so Plotinus 
 seeks to escape from a still more absolute dualism by ex- 
 panding the Platonic conception into that of four de- 
 scending stages of emanations, each of which successively 
 represents a lower degree of perfection. The first is the 
 ideal world or realm of ideas, in which the Absolute 
 One, the ineffable light which is indistinguishable from 
 darkness, becomes conscious of itself, or produces as the 
 image of itself mind or intelligence. This ideal world, 
 though in itself the archetype of all finite being, the 
 source of all the light and life of the phenomenal 
 world, is in itself incapable of any immediate relation 
 to it ; and so, by the same emanational expedient, the 
 conception is formed of an intermediating principle, the 
 world-soul or realm of souls, related, on the one hand, 
 to the realm of ideas from which it emanates, and on 
 the other hand, to the realm of matter, by its impregna- 
 tion of which it produces the phenomenal world, and 
 time and space, which are the conditions of its being. 
 In this descending series we pass, circle beyond circle, 
 within the world of light and reality, till we reach its 
 utmost limit in the world of souls, beyond which lies 
 the sensible phenomenal world, which is produced by 
 the last circle of light casting forth its rays into the 
 darkness beneath. The phenomenal world is thus a 
 composite of light and darkness, being and non-being, 
 whose only reality is due to the radiance which pene-
 
 Ecstasy. 45 
 
 trates it from the world above. Beneath it lies the 
 region of formless matter, which, as the opposite of the 
 First Principle, is designated Absolute Evil, in the sense 
 of pure negation or non-being. In the phenomenal 
 world it is redeemed from negation ; but that phenomenal 
 Avoiid is itself only a world of shadows, owing its reality 
 to the world-soul, as that in turn to the ideal world, and 
 both alike to the primordial unity, the only absolute, all- 
 comprehending reality. There, and there alone, all dis- 
 tinction, all mutation, cease ; the whole universe of 
 thought and being exists only as its transient image 
 or irradiation, and the reabsorption of that universe into 
 its primal source woiild be at once the vanishing away 
 of its finite existence and its return to the only absolute 
 reality. 
 
 In the second place, this last thought receives definite 
 expression in an ascending series of stages, in which as- 
 piration, ending in ecstasy or ecstatic intuition, reverses 
 the process of the descending series of emanations. All 
 finite being strives after union with its origin. All in- 
 dividual existences in their separateness and transiency 
 are under an impulse which urges them backwards to- 
 wards the centre from which they emanated. The in- 
 dividual soul, like the soul of the world, of which it is 
 a part, stands at the middle of this universe of emana- 
 tions, and combines in itself elements at once of the 
 highest and of the lowest. As embodied it is a part of 
 nature and allied to the lower world of matter; as spiritual 
 it belongs to the ideal world and to the unity from which 
 it emanates, in estrangement from which it is in bondage 
 to a natural necessity separating it from its true home ; 
 and to that home, in obedience to its proper destiny, it
 
 46 Spinoza. 
 
 ever seeks to return. The steps by which this return is 
 achieved repeat in reverse order those of descent. By 
 knowledge or contemplative energy it emancipates itself 
 from the bondage of sense, and remounts into the ideal 
 world, the region where thought or intelligence finds 
 nothing foreign to itself, but lives and moves in the pure 
 atmosphere of eternal ideas. But even here intelligence 
 has not reached its highest goal, the absolute unity to 
 which it aspires. Even in the realm of ideas there is 
 still division. The mind which contemplates objective 
 truth, or which attains to knowledge by any dialectic pro- 
 cess, is still not absolutely one with its object. There is 
 a stage of spiritual exaltation higher than that of definite 
 thought. There is a point where the last distinction, 
 that of subject and object, vanishes, where thought dies 
 away into feeling, intelligence loses itself in rapt identi- 
 fication with its object, and all sense of individuality is 
 absorbed in that absolute transparent imity where no 
 division is. This is the final goal of Xeo-Platonic specu- 
 lation, the " ecstasy " which can only be described as 
 the extinction of thought from its own intensity, the 
 striving of the finite spirit beyond itself till it is lost 
 in God. 
 
 If we try to characterise this system generally, it may 
 be described as a kind of poetical or imaginative pan- 
 theism. It does not succeed in overcoming the original 
 dualism which is involved in the two extremes of an 
 absolute, self-identical unity, and an absolute, formless 
 matter. The former contains in it no reason for the ex- 
 istence of a world in which its latent riches shall be 
 revealed, and the idea of emanation to which recourse 
 is had is only the substitution of a metaphor for a rational
 
 Neo-Platonism in the Kabbala. 47 
 
 principle. But in intention at least, it i.s purely pan- 
 theistic, or rather it belongs to that class of pantheistic 
 systems to which the designation " acosmism " is more 
 properly applied. The successive orders of emanations 
 which constitute the world are only phantoms, unreal as 
 the reflections in a mirror; its only reality is the absolute 
 unity from which their phantasmal existence is projected, 
 and that, as it was without diminution through their 
 existence, remains without increase when they have 
 vanished away. 
 
 If we endeavour to disengage from the arbitrary 
 mythological and other ingredients of which the Kab- 
 bala is composed, the speculative element which gives it 
 any value for thought, we shall find in it, as we have 
 said, little else than a reproduction of ^eo-Platonism. 
 In the Book Zohar, the only part of the Kabbala which 
 has any pretension to systematic connection, the funda- 
 mental idea is that of the " En Soph," or unlimited, 
 Avith its ten " Sephiroth," or emanations. The former, 
 the source from which all the life and light of the uni- 
 verse, all ideal and actual existence, flows, is described 
 as " the unknown of the unknown," " the mystery of 
 mysteries." " He cannot be comprehended by the 
 intellect nor described in words, and as such he is in 
 a certain sense non-existent, because, as far as our minds 
 are concerned, that which is perfectly incomprehensible 
 does not exist." l In other words, the Kabbalists, in 
 their endeavour to exalt the conception of God above all 
 anthropomorphic elements, refine it away till it becomes 
 simply the abstract notion of being which is indistinguish- 
 able from non-being. This Absolute Being, unknowable 
 1 Zohar, quoted by Ginsburg, The Kabbala, \>. 6.
 
 48 Spinoza. 
 
 in Himself, can become known, even indirectly, only l>y 
 becoming active or creative. But He cannot become im- 
 mediate creator of a finite world : first, because to ascribe 
 to Him intention and will would be to introduce finite 
 determinations into His nature ; and secondly, because an 
 Infinite Being can produce only that which is infinite. 
 Accordingly, in ^[eo-Platonic fashion, the Kabbala invents 
 a mediating principle based on the figure of the radia- 
 tion of light from an invisible centre. This principle, 
 corresponding to the " ideal world " of Plotinus, is desig- 
 nated " the world of emanations," and is elaborated and 
 arranged by the Kabbalists into successive trinities, each 
 of which constitutes, on the one hand, one of the various 
 aspects under which the " En Soph," or incomprehensible 
 divine nature, is contemplated ; on the other hand, the 
 archetype of some one of the various orders of existence 
 in the finite world. In their totality, gathered up into 
 unity by the last emanation, which is the harmonising 
 principle of the whole series, they are designated the 
 'Adam Kadmon,' the ideal or celestial man, inasmuch 
 as, according to the Zohar, " the form of man contains 
 all that is in heaven and earth, all beings superior and 
 inferior, and therefore the ancient of ancients has chosen 
 it for his own." 1 In order to constitute the mediating 
 principle between God and the world, the Sephiroth are 
 represented as partaking of the nature at once of the in- 
 finite and finite : as emanations from the infinite, they 
 are themselves infinite ; as distinguishable from the in- 
 finite, they are the first order of finite things. The finite 
 world is not a creation out of nothing, but simply a 
 further expansion or evolution of the Sephiroth. By a 
 1 Zohar, quoted by Franck, La Kalilxdr, p. 179.
 
 Emanation. 49 
 
 curious conceit the Kabbala supposes, prior to the ex- 
 istence of the present world, certain formless worlds, 
 abortive attempts at creation, so to speak, to have issued 
 from the ideal archetypal fountain of being and then 
 vanished away ; and these it compares to sparks which 
 fly from a red-hot iron beaten by a hammer, and which 
 are extinguished as they separate themselves from the 
 burning mass. 1 On the other hand, in contrast with 
 these failures, the being of the actual world is due to 
 the continuous presence in it and in all it contains of a 
 measure, greater or less, of the luminous element from 
 which it springs. All finite existences are made in 
 descending series " after the pattern of things in the 
 heavens." " First comes the 'Briatic world,' which is 
 the abode of pure spirits ; next, the ' Yetziratic world,' 
 or world of formation, which is the habitation of angels ; 
 and lastly, the ' Assiatic world,' or world of action, which 
 contains the spheres and matter, and is the residence of 
 the prince of darkness and his legions." 2 Without fol- 
 lowing this theory of creation in the details of fantastic 
 imagery into which it is wrought out by the Kabbalists, 
 it may be observed in general that its characteristic prin- 
 ciple, the emanational conception of the relation of the 
 world to God which is common to it with iNeo-Platonism, 
 reappears in it in a form modified by Jewish mythological 
 traditions. The belief in angels and demons was deeply 
 rooted in the spirit of the Jewish people, and under its 
 influence the emanations of Neo-Platonism become per- 
 sonified into the angels of the Kabbala, and the world- 
 soul of the former becomes in the latter the Briatic 
 world, which is the habitation of pure spirits. In like 
 
 1 Ginsburg, I.e., p. 15. - Ginsburg, p. 24. 
 
 P. XIL D
 
 /50 Spinoza. 
 
 manner the phenomenal world of Xeo-Platonism becomes 
 the Yetziratic world of the Kabbala ; and as the former 
 was constituted by the irradiation of light from above 
 into the darkness of matter, so in the cosmology of the 
 Kabbala the same result is brought about by the presence 
 of angelic beings pervading the whole realm of nature. 
 To every part and process of the material world the 
 heavenly firmament, the orbs of light, the earth, the 
 element of fire, the revolution of the seasons, &c. an 
 angelic ruler is assigned, and it is to the agency of the 
 angelic hosts that all the varied movements of nature 
 and their harmony and unity are to be ascribed. Finally, 
 under the same personifying influence, the Jfeo-Platonic 
 realm of darkness, beneath the last circle of ideal life, 
 becomes, in the Kabbala, the Assiatic world, the habita- 
 tion of evil spirits a conception in which the demon- 
 ology of Jewish tradition and its wild imaginative 
 reveries come into strange conjunction with the results 
 of Greek speculative thought 
 
 In the Kabbalistic theory of the nature and destiny 
 of man we find the same reproduction of Neo-Platonic 
 ideas under Jewish forms. Man is the epitome of the 
 universe, the microcosm who combines in his nature all 
 the various elements which constitute the totality of being. 
 He is, says the Zohar, 1 " at once the sum and the highest 
 term of creation. . . . As soon as man appeared every- 
 thing was complete, both the higher and lower worlds, 
 for everything is comprised in him ; he unites in him- 
 self all forms of being." This is otherwise expressed by 
 saying that man is the earthly Adam, the image of the 
 heavenly Adam, the Adam Kadmon above described. 
 i Quoted, Franck, 229.
 
 Absorption. 51 
 
 As the latter is simply an expression for the totality of 
 Sephiroth, the eternal ideal archetypes of all that exists 
 in the finite world, so, to say that man is the earthly 
 image of the heavenly Adam is to say that all things in 
 heaven and earth, from the highest to the lowest, are 
 represented or expressed in the unity of his nature. He 
 is at once spiritual and animal, divine and demoniacal 
 011 the higher side of his being an emanation from the 
 world of pure spirits, which is itself an emanation from 
 the Infinite ; on the other hand, having relation through 
 his fleshly nature to the material world and to that form- 
 less matter which is figured as the abode of the spirits of 
 darkness. Finally, in its doctrine of the destiny of man 
 and the world, the Kabbala reproduces, under a slightly 
 modified form, the reascending stages of Neo-Platonism. 
 As all individual souls, according to the Zohar, in their 
 ideal essence, pre-existed in the world of emanations, so, 
 having inhabited human bodies, and passed through the 
 discipline of an earthly life (or through successive lives), 
 they become emancipated from the blind power of nature 
 which governs the animal life, and return to the source 
 from which they emanated. In this reascending process 
 two stages are distinguished, each marked by its own 
 characteristics. From the servitude of the animal life the 
 soul rises first into that real but still imperfect relation to 
 the divine source of light in which knowledge is only re- 
 flective and obedience is more that of fear than of love. 
 But there is, says the Zohar, a state of perfection in 
 which the Eternal Light falls no longer indirectly and 
 as through a veil on the spirit, but shines on it directly 
 and full-orbed in immediate vision, and in which perfect 
 love casts out fear. In this consummation of its being,
 
 52 Spinoza. 
 
 this state of intuitive vision and unmingled love, there is 
 no longer any division between the spirit and its object. 
 It has lost its individual character ; all finite interests, 
 all activity, all return upon itself have vanished. Its 
 being becomes absolutely lost in the divine. 1 I have 
 said that the Neo-Platonic system leaves still in the 
 " formless matter " which lies beyond the last circle of 
 light an element of unsolved dualism, which its pan- 
 theistic principle of emanation has not overcome. But 
 the pantheism of the Kabbala is, in expression at least, 
 more uncompromising. In it the differentiation of the 
 primordial unity is succeeded by a more complete re- 
 integration. Not even the lowest world of darkness, the 
 habitation of evil spirits, which is the analogue for the 
 "formless matter" of Neo-Platonism, is left in the final 
 crisis unreclaimed. The Kabbala knows no absolute 
 evil, no being doomed to everlasting separation from the 
 source of light. There will come a time when the world 
 of darkness will disappear, and even the archangel of 
 evil, "the venomous beast," will be restored to his 
 angelic name and nature, and when all orders of being 
 will have entered into the eternal rest, the endless 
 Sabbath of the universe. 2 
 
 It is not, as we have said, in the theosophic mysticism 
 of the Kabbala, but in the dialectic movement of the 
 thought of his own time a movement which found 
 independent expression where there could be no question 
 of Jewish influences, in the philosophy of Malebranche 
 and in the theology of the Eeformers that the true 
 genesis of Spinozism is to be discerned. But whilst 
 Descartes is the logical parent of Spinoza, there are 
 
 i Franck, p. 248. 2 Ibid, p. 217 ; Ghislmrg, p. 44.
 
 Spinoza and the Kdbbala. 53 
 
 traces in the 'Ethics,' and still more distinctly in the 
 earlier treatise ' Concerning God and Man,' of his 
 familiarity with Kabbalistic ideas, and these ideas may 
 have constituted in a mind early imbued with them 
 a predisposing tendency toward that view of the world 
 and of its relation to God which lies at the basis of the 
 Spinozistic philosophy. Whatever else Spinozism is, it 
 is an attempt to find in the idea of God a principle 
 from which the whole universe could be evolved by 
 a necessity as strict as that by which, according to 
 Spinoza's favourite illustration, the properties of a tri- 
 angle follow from its definition. For the clear intelli- 
 gence of Spinoza it was impossible to rest satisfied with 
 a system in Avhich metaphor plays the part of logical 
 thought ; and accordingly, in his philosophy the emana- 
 tion theory of the Kabbalists finds no place. Yet even 
 in a system in which logical consecution is the supreme 
 principle of method, there are traces of that attempt to 
 effect by an arbitrary mediating principle what reason 
 fails to accomplish, which is the main characteristic 
 of Kabbalistic speculation. In one point of view the 
 transition from the infinite to the finite is barred for 
 Spinoza, as it was for the Kabbalists, by the idea of 
 God with which he starts. If we interpret that idea by 
 his own principle that " all determination is negation," 
 what it means for him is the absolutely indeterminate, 
 the bare affirmation of Being which is reached by 
 abstracting from all determinations. It is true that he 
 ascribes to God or absolute substance the two attributes 
 of thought and extension, but these attributes are only 
 distinctions relative to finite intelligence ; they do not 
 pertain to the absolute essence of the divine nature, but
 
 54 Spinoza. 
 
 are only ways in which the human understanding con- 
 ceives of it. Beyond these attributes or determinations 
 lies the indeterminate substance, of which nothing can 
 be affirmed but that it is the self-identical unity into 
 which no difference or distinction can enter. But in so 
 defining the nature of God, Spinoza would seem to have 
 rendered impossible all advance from this primary idea 
 to anything further. In that of which nothing can be 
 affirmed there can be no reason for the existence of 
 anything else, and to find in it a reason for the existence 
 of the finite world would be to find in it a reason for its 
 own negation. To rehabilitate the finite world would 
 be to reaffirm that by abstracting from which the idea of 
 God has been attained ; it Avould be to destroy God in 
 order to derive the finite from Him. 
 
 Yet though in this point of view the fundamental 
 principle of Spinozism would seem to preclude all fur- 
 ther advance, it was, as above said, the intention of its 
 author to find in that principle the explanation of all 
 things. The whole finite world was to be so involved 
 in the idea of God as to be deducible from it as cer- 
 tainly as the propositions of geometry from its defini- 
 tions and axioms. To achieve this result it is obvious 
 that either the fundamental principle as above defined 
 must be modified, or some illogical expedient must be 
 adopted to cure it of its barrenness. The latter alter- 
 native is that which Spinoza adopted. He attempted 
 by means of a conception analogous to the world-soul of 
 the Neo-Platonists, to mediate between the infinite and 
 finite, and to gain for the latter a legitimate derivation 
 from the former. Out of the rigid unity of absolute sub- 
 stance difference is to be educed ; from an infinite which
 
 "Infinite Modes." 55 
 
 is in incommunicable isolation the finite world is to be 
 derived. This problem Spinoza thinks to solve by con- 
 ceiving of all individual finite existences as " modes " 
 i.e., finite determinations of the infinite substance and 
 then escaping the contradiction implied in determina- 
 tions of the indeterminate by means of the conception 
 of what he terms " infinite modes." On the one hand 
 we have the infinite, indeterminate substance on the 
 other, a world of finite modes or determinations ; and in 
 order to bridge the gulf between them we have a third 
 something which, as its name implies, is so conceived 
 as to be in affinity with both, with the finite or modal 
 world, as being itself a " mode " ; with the infinite, as 
 an " infinite " mode. In other words, Spinoza thinks it 
 possible to conceive of modes which, though as such 
 they belong to the finite, changeable world, are them- 
 selves infinite and unchangeable. The whole corporeal 
 world may be represented as a single individual, a 
 universal motion which, embracing all particular move- 
 ments, remains itself eternally unmoved; and the whole 
 spiritual world may be represented as a universal intelli- 
 gence, which, embracing all finite ideas or intelligences, 
 is itself unlimited or infinite. Thus these universal 
 individuals having in them elements at once of infinitude 
 and finitude, may constitute the transition from the one 
 realm to the other. As infinite and eternal, they in- 
 troduce no negation into the one absolute substance ; as 
 expressions for the totality of finite existences and of 
 the whole series of phenomenal changes, they are in 
 close relation to the finite world. It is not at present 
 our business to criticise this notion ; all we have to do 
 is to point out that, whether suggested to his mind from
 
 56 Spinoza* 
 
 his early studies in Jewish philosophy of not, there is at 
 least a certain analogy between it and the Nee-Platonic 
 conception, reproduced in the Kabbala, of an inter- 
 mediating principle between the absolute unity and the 
 world of finite existences, between the ideal world, in 
 itself eternal and unchangeable, and the world of mutable 
 things and beings. 
 
 Nor, on the other hand, is it impossible to discern in 
 Spinozism a certain reflection of the reascending move- 
 ment which forms the converse side of the Xeo-Platonic 
 system. As in the descending movement we have the 
 stages of infinite attributes, modified by infinite modes, 
 and these by an infinite number of finite modes, so in 
 the return to God there is, so to speak, a retracing of the 
 steps by which finite individualities have become differ- 
 entiated from the unity of infinite substance in which 
 all reality is comprehended. In the attitude of ordinary 
 experience (experientia vaya) we contemplate the world 
 as consisting of independent things and beings. But 
 the independence we thus ascribe to them is illusory. 
 As it is only by applying to space or extension, which 
 is one and indivisible, the conceptions of number and 
 measure, which are mere " aids of imagination," that we 
 caii think of it as made up of discrete parts, so it is only 
 imagination which gives to ourselves and all other finite 
 individuals a separate, independent existence. Not only 
 does each finite mode exist only as determined by other 
 finite modes in an infinite series, but by the very fact 
 that it is a mode it has no claim to independence in 
 regard to the infinite substance. The first step or stage 
 of true knowledge, therefore, the commencement of our 
 escape from the illusion of the finite, is that of our passing
 
 Stages of Knowledge. 57 
 
 from " vague experience " to " reason " or the rational 
 contemplation of the world. This kind of knowledge 
 Spinoza defines x as " that in which we contemplate things 
 not as accidental but as necessary ; " and again, 2 as " that 
 in which we know things under a certain form of eter- 
 nity." It is not the highest stage of knowledge, but it 
 is so far on the way to the highest that in it we are 
 rescued from the dominion of accidental associations ; 
 we look at things no longer in the arbitrary relations of 
 time and place, but as linked together in necessary con- 
 nection of cause and effect, so that all things are seen to 
 be what they are because they are parts of that series or 
 totality which, as above described, constitutes the " in- 
 finite modes" of the absolute substance. So regarded 
 they have in them, underneath all appearances of change, 
 an element of unchangeableness, of necessity, of eternity. 
 But beyond even this ideal aspect of things, there is a 
 higher attitude of mind which Spinoza designates scientia 
 i/itniftrri, in which we "proceed from an adequate idea 
 of a certain attribute of God to the adequate knowledge 
 of the nature of things." This stage of knowledge is 
 that in which we no longer reason about things, but 
 know them in their essence, no longer proceed infer- 
 entially, from premisses to conclusion, from causes to 
 effects, but as by immediate vision penetrate to the heart 
 and life, the inmost reality of the world. If there is 
 any element of mediation in this knowledge, it is only 
 in so far as it is that of an intelligence which sees all 
 things in God and in their relation to Him. At this 
 stage the finite mind has risen above itself and other 
 things as individuals, to contemplate them in their 
 1 Eth. ii. 44. - Ibid., cor. 2.
 
 58 Spinoza. 
 
 unity, as they are in God or as modifications of His 
 attributes. Even its knowledge of God is no longer 
 simply the knowledge which the finite has of the infinite, 
 it is a part of the knowledge which God has of Himself. 
 Moreover, it is to be noticed that, by his identification 
 of will with intelligence, the reascending process is for 
 Spinoza a moral as well as an intellectual one. The 
 bondage of sense and the bondage of inadequate ideas 
 is one and the same. To discern the illusory independ- 
 ence we ascribe to ourselves and to all finite things is to 
 escape from it ; to know the absolute law of necessity 
 imder which we lie is to become free ; to know our- 
 selves " under the form of eternity " is to rise above the 
 sphere of time. It is the false reality which opinion and 
 imagination ascribe to the finite that subjects us to the 
 slavery of our desires and passions. Reason, in destroy- 
 ing their unreal basis, breaks the yoke. And when, 
 finally, we have risen to that supreme attitude of mind 
 in which we not merely reason from the idea of God as 
 a first principle to the nature of things, but by the grasp 
 of intuitive insight see ourselves and all things in the 
 light of it, then with the very existence of our finite self 
 the desires and passions that were implicated with it of 
 necessity vanish. As we cease to know, so we cease to 
 will or love, any object outside of God ; and our love to 
 God, like our knowledge of God, becomes one with that 
 wherewith God regards Himself. Here as elsewhere in 
 the philosophy of Spinoza there are elements which, as we 
 shall see in the sequel, essentially distinguish him from 
 the mystical Neo-Platonic theosophists ; yet even in the 
 foregoing sketch of the process by which he reaches that
 
 Influence of the Kabbala. 59 
 
 ' ' intellectual love " which is for him the final goal of 
 moral endeavour and aspiration, we may discern points 
 of analogy to the Neo-Platonic "ecstasy" and to the 
 Kabbalistic absorption in the " En Soph " which, in a 
 mind steeped from early youth in Jewish literature and 
 tradition, cannot have been altogether a matter of 
 accident.
 
 60 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHERS. 
 
 A VAST amount of learning and ingenuity has been ex- 
 pended on the question of Spinoza's supposed obligations 
 to Maimonides, Chasdai Creskas, and other distinguished 
 philosophic writers of his own race. Many parallelisms 
 of thought and expression have been adduced by Dr 
 Joel and others, and it has even been maintained that 
 his debt to these writers seriously affects his title to 
 originality as a philosopher. Such occasional coinci- 
 dences, however, even if they had been more numerous 
 and unambiguous than those on which this opinion rests, 
 cannot without further consideration be accepted as prov- 
 ing the derivation of Spinozism from Jewish sources. Par- 
 ticular points of resemblance, as we have already said, mean 
 more or less according to the general principles and point 
 of view of the writers in whom they occur. The signifi- 
 cance of an idea or form of expression can only be esti- 
 mated in view of its organic relation to the whole of 
 whicli it forms a part, and even exact verbal coincidences, 
 so far from establishing the intellectual obligation of a 
 later writer to earlier writers of a different school or stand- 
 point, only go to prove, at most, that he was acquainted
 
 Maimonides. 61 
 
 with their works. It is on this principle that we must 
 judge of the alleged anticipations of Spinozism in the 
 medieval Jewish philosophers. From one and all of 
 these writers he differed, at least in this respect, that 
 they served two masters, he only one. The conclusions 
 they reached were the result of a compromise between 
 reason and authority. Their aim in all they wrote was 
 to reconcile philosophy with the teaching of Moses and 
 the traditional dogmas of Judaism, and the result was 
 even more unsatisfactory than in the parallel case of the 
 scholastic philosophy. That result varied, indeed, in its 
 character in different instances, according as the philo- 
 sophic or the authoritative tendency predominated in the 
 mind of the writer. In some cases Jewish dogma was 
 manipulated by arbitrary interpretation into accordance 
 with Greek philosophy, in others Aristotelian and Pla- 
 tonic terminology was crudely applied to the cosmogony 
 of Moses and the theology of the synagogue. In all 
 cases alike the issue of this forced alliance was a 
 spurious one, which neither reason nor authority could 
 claim as its own. Between such composite productions 
 and a strictly reasoned system like Spinozism there can 
 be no common measure. 
 
 A detailed examination of Spinoza's relations to the 
 Jewish philosophers would carry us beyond the limits of 
 this work. We must confine our remarks to that one 
 of these writers to whom Spinoza has been said to owe 
 the most, Moses Maimonides. The philosophical writ- 
 ings of Maimonides are characterised as a whole by the 
 tendency above indicated, the endeavour to establish 
 foregone conclusions. But perhaps the part of his philo- 
 sophy in which this tendency shows itself least is that
 
 62 Spinoza. 
 
 which relates to the idea of God. In his treatment of 
 this subject the Jewish theologian is almost entirely sub- 
 ordinated to the follower of Plato and Aristotle. In 
 one passage of his most important work, the ' Moreh 
 Nebuchim,' or ' Guide to the Perplexed,' he adopts the 
 Aristotelian definition of God as vo^o-ts vor/o-ews i.e., 
 thought which is its own object, pure, abstract self- 
 consciousness ; and in other passages in which he treats 
 of the divine attributes, the notion of abstract unity 
 involved in this definition is further rarefied into the 
 ^N"eo-Platonic conception of absolute self -identity, a unity 
 which repels every element of difference. We have 
 already seen how, in the endeavour to clear the idea 
 of God from all anthropomorphic alloy, Xeo-Platonism 
 endeavours to get beyond the stage at which there is a 
 distinction between thought and its object, and to rise 
 to a point of exaltation higher even than thought or in- 
 telligence, a unity in which this distinction vanishes. 
 Maimonides in different parts of his writings wavers 
 between these two conceptions. As Plotinus maintained 
 that the highest ideal of intelligence is that in which 
 the object of knowledge is no longer something external 
 to the knowing subject, but that pure self -contemplative 
 energy in which thought is the object of its own activity, 
 so Maimonides, still more closely following the Aristo- 
 telian dialectic, endeavours on the same principle to dis- 
 tinguish between divine and human intelligence. It is 
 of the very nature of thought or intelligence that it 
 grasps the " forms " or real essences of things ; and when 
 it does so, these forms are not something different from 
 itself, for it is only as active, as thinking these forms, 
 that it realises its own nature. Intelligence apprehend-
 
 Divine Intelligence. 63 
 
 ing the forms of things, and the forms of things appre- 
 hended by intelligence, are only different expressions for 
 one and the same thing, or the same thing regarded from 
 different points of view. When, therefore, the human 
 intelligence is in the state of actual thought, thought, the 
 thinker, and the thing thought of, are wholly one. But 
 man is not always in the state of actual thought. At first 
 thought in him is only potential, a capacity of thinking 
 which has not yet come into actuality ; and even when 
 intelligence in him has become developed, it is not 
 always or continuously active. When the mind is at 
 the potential stage of thought, or when the capacity of 
 thinking is in abeyance, we can regard the power of 
 apprehension and the object capable of being appre- 
 hended as two separate things ; and farther, inasmuch 
 as a power can only be conceived of as residing in a 
 being or nature which possesses it, to these two we 
 have to add a third viz., the mind in which the power 
 of thought resides. But when we conceive of a univer- 
 sal and ever-active intelligence, an intelligence in which 
 there is no unrealised capacity, no potentiality that is not 
 actuality, and which does not apprehend at one time 
 and cease to apprehend at another when, in other 
 words, we think of a mind to which no reality is foreign, 
 in which the forms or essences of things are ever present, 
 and which is eternal activity as well as potentiality, 
 then we have before us the conception of a being in which 
 the threefold distinction vanishes. In a mind which ever 
 thinks there is no separation of thinker and power of 
 thought, nor of the power of thought from its own objects. 
 In God, the absolute energy, the ever-active intelligence, 
 thought, the thinker, and the object of thought, are one,
 
 64 Spinoza. 
 
 In the passage which I have here epitomised, the idea 
 of God which Maimonides reaches is that which, if 
 followed out and freed from the limitations which are 
 connected with it in the Aristotelian philosophy, would 
 lead to the modern conception of absolute, self-conscious, 
 self-determining Spirit of thought which at once reveals 
 itself in the manifold differences of the finite world and 
 from all these differences returns upon itself. 
 
 But in Mairnonides not only does this idea remain 
 undeveloped, but it is left in unreconciled contradiction 
 with another conception of the divine nature on which 
 he more frequently insists. In the false search for unity, 
 or confounding that discreteness which destroys unity 
 with that concrete fulness in which the highest unity con- 
 sists, he sets himself to think of something higher even 
 than intelligence, an absolute which is not the unity of 
 subject and object, but the abstraction in which these 
 distinctions are lost. An absolute unity is that from 
 which every element of plurality or difference must be 
 excluded. Our belief in the divine unity, therefore, 
 implies that the essence of God is that to which no pred- 
 icates or attributes can be attached. When we describe 
 an object by attributes, these attributes must be conceived 
 of either as constituting its essence, or as superadded to 
 it. If the attributes of God are conceived of as con- 
 stituting his essence, we fall into the absurdity of con- 
 ceiving of a plurality of infinites, and further, of in- 
 troducing into the nature of God that divisibility or 
 compositeness which belongs only to corporeal things. 
 If the attributes are thought of as superadded to the 
 essence, then are they merely accidents and express 
 nothing in the reality of the divine nature. By these
 
 The Absolute Unity. 65 
 
 and similar arguments, Maimonides convinced himself 
 that such attributes as power, wisdom, goodness, cannot 
 be understood as expressing any positive reality, and 
 that even such predicates as existence, unity, &c., can- 
 not, in the ordinary sense of the words, be applied to the 
 divine essence. As applied to finite beings, existence is 
 something separable from essence ; the idea of a house in 
 the mind of the builder, for instance, being something 
 different from the house as an actually existing thing : 
 but in God existence and essence, idea and reality, are 
 one and indivisible. When, again, we say of God that 
 He is one, we must understand something different from 
 the unity we predicate of finite things, for " unity and 
 plurality are accidents belonging to the category of 
 discrete quantity." When we pronounce a thing to be 
 one, we add to its essence the accidents of its relations 
 to other things ; but in God as an absolute or necessarily 
 existing Being, unity and essence are one. The con- 
 clusion, therefore, to which Maimonides comes, is that 
 the predicates by which we suppose ourselves to attain 
 to a knowledge of God do not express any positive real 
 ity in the divine nature, but can only be employed in 
 a negative sense, to denote, not what God is, but what 
 He is not; in other words, they are only expressions 
 for our own ignorance. The essence of God is that pure 
 absolute unity which lies beyond all plurality, and there- 
 fore beyond all predication, of which we can only say 
 that it is, but not what or how it is. 1 
 
 From the foregoing summary it is obvious that Mai- 
 monides does not advance beyond the Keo-Platonic con- 
 ception of the nature of God. If any positive reference 
 
 1 Moreh, i. 51-57 
 P. XII. E
 
 66 Spiili >-.'i. 
 
 to him can be traced in Spinoza's writings, it is in the 
 passage above quoted, in which he speaks in a somewhat 
 slighting tone of some faint anticipation of his doctrine 
 of the relation of the attributes of thought and extension 
 to the divine substance as having dawned " as through 
 a cloud" on the minds of "certain of the Hebrews." 
 On the further question, whether on this point any 
 indirect influence of the writers so designated can be 
 traced in the philosophy of Spinoza, enough has already 
 been said. 
 
 Whatever the relation of Spinoza's doctrine as to the 
 nature of God to that of Maimonides, when we pass 
 from this point to the teaching of the latter as to the 
 relation of God to the world, the divergence between 
 the two systems amounts to nothing less than radical 
 inconsistency. Here it is no longer Aristotle but Moses 
 who is the master of Maimonides. He is no longer an 
 independent thinker, but a rabbi striving by special 
 pleading to force philosophy into reconciliation with the 
 creed of the synagogue. A philosophy Avhich starts 
 from the notion of a transcendent God, a self-identical 
 unity excluding all distinctions, can find in itself no 
 logical explanation of the existence of a finite world. 
 The process from unity to difference becomes impossible 
 when there is no element of difference in the unity. 
 Even the Aristotelian conception of God as pure self- 
 consciousness, pure Form without Matter, rendered it 
 impossible to account for a world in which form \vas 
 realised in matter. And the impossibility of the transi- 
 tion becomes still more obvious when the unity of self- 
 consciousness is sublimated into the Neo-Platonic idea of 
 a pure identity without difference. The only device by
 
 Relation of God to the World. 67 
 
 which an apparent transition from the one to the many, 
 from God to the world, can, under such conditions, be 
 effected, is either to substitute metaphor for reason, as 
 we have seen at tempted in Xeo-Platonism, or, failing that 
 expedient, to take refuge in mystery and to account for 
 the world by a supernatural creative act. It is the 
 latter expedient which, under the constraint of the pre- 
 supposed orthodox doctrine of a creation of the world 
 ex niltilo, Maimonides adopts. There is indeed one 
 remarkable passage in the ' Guide to the Perplexed ' in 
 which the Xeo-Platonic theory of emanation is distinctly 
 taught. How, he asks, can that which remains eternally 
 the same and unmoving be the cause of all motion and 
 becoming? And he answers by the following illustra- 
 tion : " Many a man possesses so much Avealth that he 
 can not only bestow on others what they are in want of, 
 but can so enrich them that they in turn can enrich 
 others. In like manner there is poured forth from God 
 so much good that there emanates from Him, not only 
 spirit, but a sphere of spirits. This second spirit again 
 contains in it ever such a fulness that from it also 
 spirit and spheres of spirit are derived, and so forth 
 down to the last intelligence and the first matter from 
 which all the elements arose. This idea of God was 
 held by the prophets, and because this emanation of 
 God is limited neither by space nor time, they have 
 compared God to an eternal and inexhaustible fountain 
 pouring itself forth on all sides." l This passage, how- 
 ever, can only be understood as the passing lapse of an 
 unsystematic writer, adopting for the moment and for rt 
 special purpose a theory inconsistent with his funda- 
 i Moreh, ii. 11, 12.
 
 68 Spinoza. 
 
 mental principles. It is scarcely necessary to show by 
 formal quotations that the theory, if so it can be called, 
 on which Maimonides rests as the only possible explana- 
 tion of the existence of the finite world, is that which is 
 expressed by the phrase, "creation out of nothing." In 
 answer to the Aristotelian argument that creation in 
 time would imply in God a potentiality which had not 
 yet passed into actuality, Maimonides maintains that 
 " the sole ground of creation is to be found in the will 
 of God, and that it belongs to the nature of will that 
 a thing takes place at one time and not at another." l 
 " For all these phenomena of nature," he adds, " I see 
 no law of necessity, but can only understand them when 
 we say with the doctrine of Moses that all has arisen by 
 the free will of the Creator." 2 " If I had any proofs 
 for the doctrines of Plato," again he writes, " I would 
 unconditionally accept them, and interpret allegorically 
 the verses of Moses which speak of a creation out of 
 nothing." 3 And then he proceeds elaborately to defend 
 the Mosaic doctrine against the philosophic, which, in 
 his opinion, would completely subvert religion, our 
 belief in Scripture, and the hopes and fears which reli- 
 gion inculcates. 
 
 It need scarcely be said that we have here a doctrine 
 which is irreconcilable, not only with the philosophy of 
 Spinoza, but with any philosophy whatever. "Whether 
 Spinoza's doctrine of one substance, of Avhich all finite 
 things are only transitory modes, furnishes any adequate 
 solution of the problem of the relation of the world to 
 God, it is at least an attempt to find in the idea of God 
 a first principle from which everything else follows by 
 i Moreh, ii. 18. - Ibid., ii. 22. ibid., ii. 25.
 
 Creation out of Nothing. 69 
 
 strict necessity. The finite world is for him that which 
 " follows from the necessity of the divine nature that 
 is, all the modes of the divine attributes, in so far as 
 they are considered as things which are in God, and 
 cannot be conceived without God." l Even the theory 
 of emanation is at least an attempt to solve the problem 
 with which it deals. But the theory of creation out of 
 nothing is simply the abandonment of the problem as 
 insoluble ; and if it seem anything more, it is only 
 because its real character is disguised by a meaningless 
 phrase. The theory itself, as well as the world for 
 which it would account, is created out of nothing. 
 
 It is unnecessary to follow the so-called philosophy of 
 Maimonides into further details. Setting out from a 
 point of divergence such as has just been indicated, it is 
 obvious that in the subsequent course of their specula- 
 tions Spinoza and Maimonides could never meet, and 
 their occasional coincidences are such only to the ear. 
 Maimonides, for example, like many thinkers of the 
 same order, feels himself impelled to seek a basis for 
 moral responsibility in a freedom of indifference or in- 
 determinism, and from the difficulties involved in this 
 conception he finds a ready escape in his theory of 
 creation. He who begins by tracing all things to an 
 arbitrary supernatural act can never be at a loss for a 
 solution of particular speculative difficulties. " To man," 
 says he, 2 " has been given complete freedom whether he 
 will incline to the good or evil way. Here there is no 
 law of causality as in outward nature, so that the will 
 of man should be the effect of any cause, but man's own 
 will is the first cause of all his actions." "But," he 
 1 Eth. i. 29, schol. - Yad-ha-chazakah, v. 4.
 
 70 Spinoza. 
 
 asks, " does not the assertion that the will is free stand 
 in contradiction with the divine omnipotence] The 
 answer is, !Not so ; for, as God has given to everything its 
 own nature, so He has made it the nature of the human 
 will that it should be free." In other words, the un- 
 conditioned freedom of the human will is not only not 
 derived from but is in absolute contradiction with the 
 nature of God, and must therefore be ascribed simply to 
 His arbitrary will, and what is contradictory to God's 
 nature ceases to be so when God Himself is the author 
 of the contradiction. How far apart from Spinoza, both 
 in matter and manner, lies this kind of reasoning, need 
 not here be pointed out. 
 
 There is, however, one subject on which, viewed apart 
 from the general principles of the two systems, their 
 coincidence at first sight looks more than verbal viz., 
 the nature of physical and moral evil : 
 
 "We must," says Maimonicles, 1 "first of all consider 
 whence evil comes, and what is the nature of good and evil. 
 Only the good is something positive ; evil, on the contrary, 
 is only want of good, therefore a mere negation. Life, e.g. , 
 is the combination of this form with this matter ; the cessa- 
 tion of the combination or the division of the two is death. 
 Health is harmony in human bodies, sickness arises so soon 
 as the harmony is destroyed. God, therefore, can only be 
 regarded as the author of evil in the world in so far as He 
 permits change, and lets the world arise out of matter which 
 is subject to change. But change is a thing that is necessary ; 
 that anything should begin to be implies the possibility of 
 its passing away. And not only of natural evil but of moral 
 evil must it be pronounced that it is a mere negation. It 
 comes merely from a want of reason, and is nothing positive. 
 
 1 Moreh, iii. 21.
 
 Nature of Evil. 71 
 
 Were men wholly rational there would be neither hatred, 
 nor envy, nor error, which work destructively amongst men, 
 just as blind men injure themselves and others through want 
 of sight. Both kinds of evil are mere negations which God 
 does not cause, but only permits. Both are consequences of 
 matter from which the world and man have become, and yet 
 from matter nothing better could arise." 
 
 Compare with this doctrine of evil the following 
 passages from Spinoza : 
 
 "With regard to good and evil, these indicate nothing 
 positive in things considered in themselves, nor anything 
 else than modes of thought or notions which we form from 
 the comparison of one thing with another." l " For my own 
 part, I cannot admit that sin and evil have any positive 
 existence. . . . We know that whatever is, when considered 
 in itself without regard to anything else, possesses perfection, 
 extending in each thing as far as the limits of that thing's 
 essence. The design or determined will (in such an act as 
 Adam's eating the forbidden fruit), considered in itself alone, 
 includes perfection in so far as it expresses reality. Hence 
 it may be inferred that we can only perceive imperfection 
 in things when they are viewed In relation to other things 
 possessing more reality. . . . Hence sin which indicates 
 nothing save imperfection cannot consist in anything which 
 expresses reality." 2 "I maintain that God is absolutely and 
 really (as causa sui) the cause of all things which have 
 essence (i.e., affirmative reality). . . . When you can prove 
 to me that evil, error, crime, &c., are anything which ex- 
 presses essence, then I will grant to you that God is the 
 cause of evil. But I have sufficiently shown that that 
 which constitutes the form of evil does not consist in any- 
 thing which expresses essence, and therefore it cannot be 
 said that God is the cause of it." 3 
 
 To the cursory reader of these passages both writers 
 i Eth. iv. Pref. 2 Ep. 32. 3 Ep. 36.
 
 72 Spinoza. 
 
 seem to teach the same doctrine as to the nature of evil, 
 and with a common object. To prove that God is not 
 the author of evil, it seems to be the endeavour of both 
 to show that no positive reality can be ascribed to it, 
 and that physical and moral evil alike must be relegated 
 to the category of negations or unrealities. But a little 
 closer examination proves that a fundamental difference 
 underlies this superficial similarity. The theory of 
 Maimonides is essentially dualistic. To exonerate his 
 supramundane Creator from the causation of evil, he 
 adopts the Aristotelian distinction of form and matter, 
 ascribing all that is positively good in the system of 
 being to the former, and regarding evil as only the 
 element of negation or limitation which necessarily clings 
 to the latter. In so far as any finite being is redeemed 
 from imperfection, the element of good that is in it is 
 due to the divine causation ; in so far as imperfection 
 still adheres to it, it is to be ascribed, not to the positive 
 agency of God, but, so to speak, to the intractableness of 
 the materials with which He has had to deal. Matter is 
 essentially mutable ; pain, sickness, death are its inevit- 
 able conditions ; only the life which arrests change and 
 disintegration is due to God. Error and crime are not 
 traceable to God, any more than the blunders and mis- 
 takes of the blind to the author of the organ of vision. 
 If reason were perfect there would be neither error nor 
 sin ; and therefore the measure of knowledge and virtue 
 which men possess is to be ascribed to the author of 
 reason ; that they have no more, and therefore yield to 
 irrational passions, is simply another Avay of saying that 
 they are finite. God wills the good element which re- 
 claims finite beings from matter ; the evil which shows
 
 Unreality of Evil. 73 
 
 that they are only partially reclaimed He can at most be 
 said only to permit. 
 
 It is not our business to criticise this theory, further 
 than to point out its essentially dualistic character, and 
 therefore its discordance with every system which, like 
 that of Spinoza, maintains the absolute unity of the 
 universe. Xot only does it start from the fundamental 
 dualism of a supramundane Creator and a world lying 
 outside of Him, but even in that world all does not spring 
 from the will that creates it. God is not responsible for 
 all that takes place in the world, simply because another 
 principle, that of "matter," has there a role which is in- 
 dependent of Him, and over which He can achieve at 
 best only a partial victory. Spinoza, on the other hand, 
 knows nothing of such an external Creator, or of any 
 element of matter which possesses substantiality and 
 independence. For him there is but one infinite sub- 
 stance, outside of which nothing exists or can be con- 
 ceived ; and all finite beings, corporeal and spiritual, are 
 only modes of that one substance. Interpreted in the 
 light of this fundamental principle, Spinoza's language 
 with respect to the non-positive nature of evil means 
 something with which the doctrine of Maimonides has 
 no relation. Finite things, as such, have neither in 
 their existence nor their essence any substantial reality. 
 Everything that has a real existence, everything in 
 nature and man that can be said to have any positive 
 reality, is a modification or expression of the divine 
 nature, and everything else that seems to be is only 
 unreality, nonentity. If, then, we ask how it comes 
 that we regard anything as evil, or ascribe reality to 
 things that are injurious or wicked, the answer is that
 
 74 Spinoza. 
 
 this arises from the false substantiation which imagination 
 or opinion gives to things finite. " Whatever we think 
 injurious and evil, and, moreover, whatever we think to 
 be impious, or unjust, or wicked, arises from this, that we 
 conceive things in a distorted and mutilated fashion." ] 
 As by means of the conceptions of number and measure, 
 which are merely " aids of the imagination," we give a 
 false independence to discrete parts of space, which is 
 really one and continuous, so the negative element in 
 individual things and actions, which have no reality 
 apart from God, is only due to the false isolation or 
 limitation which the imagination or the abstracting un- 
 derstanding gives to them. Remove the fictitious limit 
 by which they are distinguished from God, and the 
 negation vanishes ; the positive element, which alone 
 expresses their essence, is all that remains. Whether 
 this view of the nature of evil be tenable or not, it is 
 obviously one which has nothing in common with that 
 of Maimonides. For the latter, God is not the author 
 of evil, because the evil or negative element in things is 
 to be ascribed to another and independent source : for 
 Spinoza, God is not the cause of evil, because, from the 
 point of view of the whole, contemplating the system of 
 being in the only aspect in which it has any real or 
 affirmative existence, evil vanishes away into illusion 
 and nonentity. 
 
 i Eth. iv. 73, dem.
 
 75 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 GIORDANO BRUNO. 
 
 ONE of the most remarkable writers of the transition 
 period between medieval and modern philosophy is 
 Giordano Bruno. His numerous works, poetical, scien- 
 tific, philosophical, reflect the general characteristics of 
 that period, modified in some respects by a strongly 
 marked individuality. The revolt against authority, the 
 almost exulting sense of intellectual freedom, the breaking 
 down of the artificial division between things sacred and 
 secular, human and divine, the revival of ancient philo- 
 sophy, and resumption of its problems from a new and 
 higher standpoint these and other distinctive features 
 of the spirit of the time, and along with these the 
 intellectual unsettlement and unrest, the predilection for 
 occult sciences and arts, the tendency to commingle the 
 dreams and vagaries of imagination with the results of 
 rational investigation which marked some of its nobler 
 yet more undisciplined minds, are vividly represented 
 in Bruno's multifarious writings. In these it is vain to 
 seek for systematic unity. They are the expression of a 
 mind filled with intellectual enthusiasm, rich, versatile, 
 original, yet undisciplined and erratic, feeling after truth,
 
 76 Spinoza. 
 
 and making random guesses now in this direction, now 
 in that, pouring forth with almost inexhaustible pro- 
 ductiveness speculations, theories, conjectures, under 
 the impulse of the moment or the varying influence of 
 external circumstances and of the intellectual atmosphere 
 in which he moved. Betwixt such a mind as this and 
 the clear, patient, disciplined intelligence of Spinoza, it 
 would seem impossible to find any point of contact, and 
 in the absence of any direct evidence we might be dis- 
 posed to regard Spinoza's alleged obligations to Bruno as 
 nothing more than accidental coincidences. It is true, 
 indeed, that the absence of any reference to Bruno in 
 Spinoza's writings does not settle the question, inasmuch 
 as Spinoza was undoubtedly conversant with, and derived 
 important suggestions from, authors whom he does not 
 qiiote. But without attaching any weight to Spinoza's 
 silence, the positive proof of his obligations would seem, 
 at first blush, to consist only of a few verbal coincidences 
 scarcely avoidable in writers treating of the same subjects, 
 and more than overborne by the lack of any real affinity 
 of thought. 
 
 AVhen, however, we examine more closely the general 
 drift of Bruno's philosophical writings the leading ideas 
 which, though never developed into a coherent system, 
 underlie his speculations concerning man and nature and 
 God we shall find in them not a little which may be 
 regarded as a kind of anticipation of Spinozism. The 
 idea which seems to have dominated the mind of Bruno, 
 and which, by means partly of Aristotelian categories, 
 partly of Neo-Platonic emanation theories, he seeks in 
 his various writings to explain and defend, is that of the 
 divinity of nature and man. He was in profound sym-
 
 Bruno's Pantheism. 77 
 
 patliy with the revolt against the medieval notion of a 
 transcendent God, and a sphere of divine things absolutely 
 separated from nature and the secular life of mankind. 
 The course of religious thought during the scholastic 
 period had tended more and more to obscure the Christian 
 idea of the unity of the divine and human. The 
 ecclesiastical conception of God had gradually become 
 that, not of a Being who reveals Himself in and to the 
 human spirit, but of a Being above the world, and to 
 whom thought can be related only as the passive re- 
 cipient of mysterious dogmas authoritatively revealed. 
 The false exaltation thus given to the idea of God led 
 by obvious sequence to the degradation of nature, and 
 the individual and social life of man. The observation 
 of nature lost all religious interest for minds in which 
 the divine was identified Avith the supernatural, and 
 which found the indications of a divine presence not in 
 the course of nature, but in interferences with its laws. 
 In like manner, and for the same reason, the specially 
 religious life became one of abstraction from the world, 
 ami the secular life of man, its domestic, social, political 
 relations, came to be regarded as outside of the sphere of 
 spiritual tilings. It is easy to see how the reaction from 
 this false separation of the natural and spiritual, the 
 human and divine, should give rise, on the one hand, to 
 the reawakened interest in nature which is indicated by 
 the scientific revival of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries, and on the other, to the pantheistic tendency 
 in philosophy which gives their distinctive character to 
 the speculative writings of Bruno. Both on the religioiis 
 and the poetical side of his nature, Bruno recoiled from 
 the conception of a supramuiidane God, and a world
 
 78 Spinoza. 
 
 in whose life and thought no divine element could be 
 discerned. In the external world, in whose least 
 phenomena science had begun to perceive the hid- 
 den glory of intelligible order and law; in the inner 
 world of mind, to whose boundless wealth of thought 
 the consciousness of the time was becoming awakened, 
 Bruno seemed to himself intuitively to discern, not the 
 mere production of a distant omnipotence, but the im- 
 mediate expression of a divine presence and life. And 
 with the whole strength of his ardent nature he sought 
 to give philosophic form and verification to this intuitive 
 sense of a kingdom of heaven on earth. But religious 
 and poetical feeling may instinctively grasp what reason 
 is inadequate to justify. Bruno was a poet first and a 
 philosopher only in the second place. And whatever in- 
 direct influence his writings may have had on a greater 
 mind, it needed a calmer intelligence and severer logic than 
 his own to overtake the task he set himself to accomplish. 
 "The true philosopher," says Bruno, "differs from th> 
 theologian in this, that the former seeks the infinite 
 Being, not outside the world, but within it. TVe must 
 begin, in other words, by recognising the universal 
 agent in creation, before attempting to rise to that 
 elevated region in which theology finds the archetype of 
 created beings." l Dismissing, then, the conception of 
 a supramundane God, it is Bruno's aim to show how 
 philosophy justifies the idea of an immanent relation of 
 God to the world. When we examine his solution of 
 the problem, it is found to consist partly in a recurrence 
 to Neo-Platonic figures and analogies, partly in a manipu- 
 
 1 De la causa, pincipio et uno Wagner's edit., i. p. 175. Cf. 
 Bartholmess, J. Bruno, ii. p. 130.
 
 The "Soul of the World." 79 
 
 lation of the Aristotelian categories of matter and form, 
 of potentiality and actuality. To the former point of 
 view belongs his elaborate exposition of the notion of a 
 "soul of the world." The universe is to be conceived 
 of as an infinite living organism, not created by any out- 
 ward cause, but having the principle of all its existences 
 and activities within itself. It is that beyond which 
 nothing exists, in which all things live, and move, and 
 have their being. This inward, ever- active, creative 
 principle he compares to the principle of life in the root 
 or seed, " which sends forth from itself shoots, branches, 
 twigs, &c., which disposes and fashions the delicate 
 tissue of leaves, flowers, fruit, and again, by the same 
 interior energy, recalls the sap to the root." It is in one 
 sense external, in another internal, to purely natural 
 things ; the former, because it cannot be regarded as 
 itself a part or element of the things it creates the 
 latter, because it does not act on matter or outside of 
 matter, but wholly from within, in the very bosom and 
 heart of matter. He represents this first principle again 
 as an "inner artist" of infinite productiveness and 
 plastic power ; but it differs from a human artist in two 
 respects : (1.) That the latter operates on matter which is 
 already alive or instinct with form, whereas in the case 
 of the former no such presupposition is involved. He 
 argues, therefore, that though we may shrink from re- 
 garding the universe as a living being, yet we cannot 
 conceive any form which is not already, directly or in- 
 directly, the expression of a soul, any more than we can 
 conceive a thing which has absolutely no form. It 
 would be absurd, indeed, to regard as living forms the 
 productions of human art. My table, as such, is not
 
 80 Spinoza. 
 
 animate ; but inasmuch as its matter is taken from 
 nature, it is composed of materials which are already 
 living. There is nothing, be it ever so little or worth- 
 less, that does not contain in it life or soul. 1 The 
 human artist, in other words, works from without to 
 communicate his own thought to materials which are 
 taken from nature, and which have already, as part of 
 nature, a life and being of their own ; but the divine or 
 inner artist has no pre-existing materials on which to work. 
 His art is creative, at once of the materials and of the in- 
 finitely diversified forms imposed on them. Creative and 
 formative energy are in Hun one and the same thing; and 
 if He transmutes lower into higher forms of existence, 
 the former are not taken from a sphere that is foreign 
 or external to Him, but already instinct with His own 
 life ; and the latter are only the same life putting forth a 
 new expression of its inexhaustible energy. (2.) It is 
 only a slightly varied form of the same thought when 
 Bruno tells us that in the divine or inner artist, in con- 
 trast with the human, the ideas of efficient and final cause 
 are inseparable. In nature, he argues, the efficient cause 
 cannot be separated from the final or ideal cause. Every 
 reasonable act presupposes an end or design. That 
 design is "nothing else than the form of the thing to he 
 produced. From which it follows that an intelligence 
 capable of producing all, and of raising them by a 
 marvellous art from potentiality into actuality, should 
 contain in itself the forms and essences of all things." 5 
 Since it is intelligence or the soul of the world which 
 creates natural things, it is impossible that the formal 
 
 1 De la causa, i. p. 241. Cf. Bartholmess, ii. p. 135. 
 
 2 De la causa, i. p. 237. Cf. Bartholmess, ii. p. 134.
 
 Tlic Unircrsc an Organism. 81 
 
 should be absolutely distinct from the efficient cause. 
 They must fall together in the inner principle of things. 
 Bruno expresses the same thing in another way when 
 he speaks of the universe as a living organism. In 
 the work of a human artist the thought or conception 
 lies outside of the materials on which he works, and in 
 which it is by his plastic hand to be realised. But the 
 thought or design which is at work in the creation of an 
 organised structure, is not a mere mechanical cunning 
 acting from without, shaping and adjusting matter accord- 
 ing to an ingenious plan which is foreign to it. Here, 
 on the contrary, the ideal principle or formative power 
 goes with the matter, and constitutes its essence. Such 
 a principle is supposed to be present from the beginning, 
 inspiring the first minutest atom of the structure with 
 the power of the perfect whole that is to be. The inner 
 principle, the life within, is both first cause and last ; it 
 makes the last first, and the first last. When, therefore, 
 we apply this conception to the universe, what it brings 
 before us is, not an extramundane omnipotent agent, 
 creating and shaping things to accomplish an end out- 
 side both of himself and them implying, therefore, some- 
 thing originally lacking both to himself and the matter 
 on which he operates but a universe which contains in 
 itself the principle of its own being, a vast organism 
 in which the power of the whole is working from the 
 beginning, in which the least and most insignificant of 
 finite existences presupposes and manifests the end to be 
 realised, and in which the first principle is at once be- 
 ginning and end of all. Had Bruno realised all that is 
 contained in this conception, his philosophy might have 
 gone beyond that of Spinoza, and anticipated much 
 P. XIL F
 
 82 Spinoza. 
 
 which it was left for later speculative thought to 
 develop. 
 
 But when we follow the course of his speculations, and 
 ask how from his fundamental thought he proceeds 
 to explain the nature of God, and His relation to the 
 world, we find that, under the limiting influence of 
 scholastic or Aristotelian categories, the inherent wealth 
 of his own idea escapes his grasp. With him as with a 
 greater than he, the principle of abstract identity is in 
 fatal opposition to that of concrete unity, or if the latter 
 is faintly adumbrated in his conception of the soul of 
 the world as a self-differentiating, self-integrating unity, 
 the former speedily reasserts itself, so as to reduce the 
 idea of God to a meaningless and barren abstraction, 
 and the finite world to evanescence and unreality. 
 
 In order to determine the nature of the first principle 
 of all things, Bruno has recourse to the Aristotelian 
 distinction of "form" and "matter." 
 
 "Democritus and the Epicureans," says he, "hold that 
 there is no real existence which is not corporeal ; they regard 
 matter as the sole substance of things, and assert that it is 
 itself the divine nature. These, with the Stoics and others, 
 hold also that forms are simply the accidental dispositions of 
 matter. ... A closer examination, however, forces us to re- 
 cognise in nature two kinds of substances, form and matter. If, 
 therefore, there is an active principle which is the constitutive 
 principle of all, there is also a subject or passive principle 
 corresponding to it, a something that is capable of being acted 
 on as well as a something that is capable of acting. Human 
 art cannot operate except on the surface of things already 
 formed by nature; . . . but nature operates, so to speak, from 
 the c-eiitre of its subject-matter, which is altogether unformed. 
 Therefore the subject-matter of the arts is manifold, but the
 
 Matter and Form,. 83 
 
 subject-matter of nature is one, seeing that all diversity 
 proceeds from form." 1 
 
 In this passage and elsewhere, what Bruno seeks to 
 prove is, that the conceptions of matter and form are 
 correlative, that neither can be apprehended in abstrac- 
 tion from the other, and that the necessities of thought 
 force us beyond them to another and higher conception, 
 that of a primal substance which is neither matter alone 
 nor form alone, but the unity of the two. We are led 
 to the same result, he elsewhere shows, when we con- 
 sider the supposed hard and fast distinction of sub- 
 stances corporeal and incorporeal. " It is necessary that 
 of all things that subsist there should be one principle 
 of subsistence. . . . But all distinguishable things 
 presuppose something indistinguishable. That indis- 
 tinguishable something is a common reason to which, the 
 difference and distinctive form are added." Just as sen- 
 sible objects presuppose a sensible subject, intelligible 
 objects an intelligible subject 
 
 " So it is necessary that there be one thing which corresponds 
 to the common reason of both subjects, ... a first essence 
 which contains in itself the principle of its being. If body, 
 as is generally agreed, presupposes a matter which is not 
 body, and which therefore naturally precedes that which we 
 designate as properly corporeal, we cannot admit any absolute 
 incompatibility between matter and the substances which we 
 name immaterial. ... If we discern something formal and 
 divine in corporeal substances, on the same principle we 
 must ?ay that there is something material in divine sub- 
 stances. As Plotinus says, if the intelligible world contains 
 an infinite variety of existences, there must be in them, along 
 
 1 De la causa, p. 251.
 
 84 Spinoza. 
 
 with tlieir characteristic differences, something which they 
 all have in common, and that common element takes the place 
 of matter as the distinctive element takes that of form. . . . 
 This common basis of things material and immaterial, in so 
 far as it includes a multiplicity of forms, is multiple and 
 many-formed, but in itself it is absolutely simple and indi- 
 visible ; and because it is all, it cannot be itself any one par- 
 ticular being." l 
 
 Such considerations do not suggest the idea of a 
 Supreme Being (an extramundane God), "but of the 
 soul of the world as the actuality of all, the poten- 
 tiality of all, and all in all Whence, though there 
 are innumerable individuals, yet everything is one." 2 
 " There is one form or soul, one matter or body, which 
 is the fulfilment of all and the perfection of all, which 
 cannot be limited or determined, and is therefore un- 
 changeable." 3 
 
 These quotations may suffice to show what is the gen- 
 eral drift of Bruno's speculations. The result to which his 
 reasoning leads is not that which he intended or supposed 
 himself to have attained. His obvious aim was to attain 
 to a first principle Avhich should be the living source and 
 explanation of all finite existences, material and spiritual. 
 But owing to the false method by which he proceeds, 
 what he does reach is, not a unity which comprehends, 
 but a unity which excludes, all determinations not a 
 being which embraces in its concrete unity the whole in- 
 exhaustible wealth of the finite world, but an empty 
 abstraction from which all content has been evaporated. 
 Finding that the ideas of matter and form, and again of 
 
 1 De la cam a, Wagner, i. pp. 269, 270, 272. 
 
 2 Ibid., i . s ibid., p. 280.
 
 His Unity an Abstraction. 85 
 
 corporeal and spiritual, cannot be held apart, but that 
 when we attempt to think it, each implies and falls over 
 into the other, he yet does not rise to a higher unity, a 
 unity which transcends, yet at the same time compre- 
 hends both. Hence his only available resource is to find 
 his higher unity in that which matter and form, mind 
 and body, have in common when their differences are 
 eliminated. But by thinking of that which mind has in 
 common with body, or form with matter, we do not reach 
 a unity which is higher and richer than both, any more 
 than we do so when we think of that which gold has in 
 common with silver or copper. A generic unity, in 
 other words, is a mere logical abstraction which has 
 less content than the lowest individual it is supposed to 
 embrace. In short, like many other thinkers before and 
 after him, Bruno conceived himself to be explaining the 
 differences and contrarieties of existence by the simple 
 process of eliminating or ignoring them. And his first 
 or highest principle (which he identified with God), in 
 which he conceived himself to have reached the origin 
 and end of all things, was nothing more than the abstrac- 
 tion of " Being," which is logically higher, simply because 
 it is poorer in content, not merely than matter or mind, 
 but than the lowest of finite existences. 
 
 And if thus his idea of God or the infinite was depleted 
 of all content or reality, it fared no better, and for the 
 same reason, with his idea of the finite world. What 
 he sought for was a first principle or " soul of the world," 
 in which all finite existences should find their being and 
 reality. The solution of this problem, therefore, implied 
 at once the nothingness of all finite being apart from 
 God, and their reality in God. His fundamental notion
 
 86 Spinoza. 
 
 of an organic unity imposed on him the necessity of 
 explaining the universe as an organism in which the 
 members are nothing but dead, meaningless fragments in 
 separation from the life or vital principle of the whole ; 
 but also the necessity of showing that through their re- 
 lation to that principle they cease to be such unreal 
 abstractions. His method certainly enabled him, as he 
 himself saw, to achieve the former of these results 
 viz., that of reducing all finite existences, as such, to 
 evanescence and nothingness. 
 
 " In its externality," says he, " nature is nothing more than 
 a shadow, an empty image of the first principle in which 
 potentiality and actuality are one. . . . Thou art not nearer 
 to the infinite by being man rather than insect, by being star 
 rather than sun. And what I say of these I understand of 
 all things whose subsistence is particular. Now, if all these 
 particular things are not different in the infinite, they are 
 not really different. Therefore the universe is still one, and 
 immovable. It comprehends all and admits of no difference 
 of being, nor of any change with itself or in itself. It is all 
 that can be, and in it is no difference of potentiality and 
 actuality. 1 . . . Individuals which continually change do 
 not take a new existence, but only a ne\v manner of being. 
 It is in this sense that Solomon has said, ' There is nothing 
 new under the sun, but that which is was before.' As all 
 things are in the universe and the universe is in all things, 
 as we are in it and it is in us, so all concur to one perfect 
 unity, which is sole, stable, and ever remaining. It is one 
 and eternal. Every form of existence, every other thing is 
 vanity, every thing outside of that one is nothing." 2 
 
 But whilst Bruno thus proved the unreality of all 
 finite existences apart from the first principle, the si nil 
 i De la causa, i. p. 281. - Ibid., -
 
 Relation to Spinoza. 87 
 
 or substance of the world, what he failed to prove, and 
 from the self-imposed conditions of his method could 
 not prove, was that even in their relation to the first 
 principle any reality was left to them. Regarded as 
 that which is reached by abstraction from the limits of 
 finite existences, the first principle does not explain, it 
 simply annuls them. Their distinction from God is their 
 finitude, and the withdrawal of their finitude, which 
 makes them one with God, makes them lost in God. 
 They are only figures carved out in the infinitude of 
 space, and, like figures in space, they vanish when the 
 defining lines are withdrawn. 
 
 Such then, in substance, is Bruno's contribution to 
 that problem with which, directly or indirectly, all 
 speculative thought attempts to deal. It would be to 
 forestall the exposition of the Spinozistic system to at- 
 tempt here, save in a very general way, to answer the 
 question, What, if any, traces are to be found in it of 
 the influence of this writer on the mind of its author? 
 At first sight there woidd seem to be discordances as 
 great between the leading ideas of Bruno and of Spinoza 
 as between the glowing, imaginative, poetical manner 
 and style of the former, stamped throughout with the 
 personality of the writer, and the rigid mathematical 
 mould, excluding every trace of personal feeling, in 
 which the ideas of the latter are cast. What point of 
 contact, for instance, can be discerned between Spinoza's 
 view of the universe as a system in which all things fol- 
 low from the idea of infinite substance by as strict logical 
 deduction as the properties of a triangle from its defini- 
 tion, and Bruno's conception of an infinite organism in-
 
 88 Spitioza. 
 
 stinct with the freedom, the activity, the perpetual change 
 and variety of life, and in which the first principle is 
 for ever manifesting itself, with the spontaneity and in- 
 exhaustible productiveness of art, in the forms and 
 aspects of the world 1 Yet perhaps a closer examination 
 may lead to the conclusion that, with many apparent 
 and some real differences between the two systems, in 
 their essential principle and in the results to which it 
 leads, there is a real affinity between them. Both seek 
 to justify for thought that idea of the absolute unity of 
 all things which is the presupposition of all science and 
 of all philosophy. Both seek to explain the universe 
 from itself, to the exclusion of any external or arbitrary 
 cause, as implying a virtual abandonment of the problem 
 to be solved. In the idea of God both endeavour 
 to find, not an inexplicable supramundane Creator, but 
 the immanent cause or principle of the world. In both 
 there is a sense in which the words " God " and "Nature " 
 are interchangeable. In Bruno, the first principle is the 
 union of potentiality and actuality ; and whether you 
 consider it as a principle which realises itself in the 
 actual, and call it God, or as all actuality in relation to 
 its principle, and call it Nature, it is only one and the 
 same thing contemplated from different sides. In Spinoza, 
 Substance is that beyond which nothing exists or can be 
 conceived, and Nature understood as the whole finite 
 world, including all possible modifications of an infinite 
 number of infinite attributes in their relation to Substance, 
 or in so far as they are expressions of it is only another 
 name for the same universe regarded from a different 
 point of view. Finally, in both systems the logical ru-
 
 Bruno and Spinoza. 89 
 
 suit falls short of the aim and intention of the author, 
 and the failure in both cases arises, to some extent at 
 least, from the same cause viz., the attempt to reach a 
 concrete, by a method that can yield only an abstract, 
 unity. We have seen how in Bruno the infinite living 
 organism, which was his ideal of the universe, reduces 
 itself to a God who is only a bare self-identical abstrac- 
 tion, in which the finite is lost or annulled. And in the 
 sequel we shall find that Spinozism is, from one point of 
 view, the ambiguous result of two conflicting elements 
 a self-identical, undetermined substance which is all in 
 one, and a world of finite individualities, each of which 
 has a being and reality of its own. It is the obvious in- 
 tention of the author to bring these two elements into the 
 unity of a perfect system to find in Substance the origin 
 and explanation of finite existences, and also to bring 
 back all the individualities of the finite world into unity 
 in their relation to the one infinite substance. But the 
 relation between the two elements is only asserted, never 
 demonstrated. The absolutely undetermined is, by its 
 very definition, precluded from going forth out of itself 
 into a world of finite determinations ; and if we start 
 from the latter, they can only be brought back to the 
 former by the destruction of their finitude, and their 
 absorption in the infinite all. 
 
 From these considerations it seems to follow that, 
 whatever weight we attach to the external evidence of 
 Spinoza's indebtedness to Bruno, in the movement of 
 thought in both writers, in the principle from which 
 they start, the end at which they aim, their partial suc- 
 cess, and the reason of their failure, a close resemblance
 
 90 Spinoza. 
 
 may be traced. Whether, in point of fact, we can affili- 
 ate Spinoza's system to the speculations of his predeces- 
 sor is doubtful, but it must at least be conceded that 
 the philosophy of the former betrays tendencies which, 
 had he been acquainted with Bruno's writings, would 
 have led him to recognise in the latter a spirit akin to 
 his own.
 
 91 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DESCARTES. 
 
 THE philosophy and the theology of modern times 
 start from a common origin, and a certain analogy 
 may be traced, at least in their earlier stages, in 
 the course of development through which they passed. 
 What first strikes us in studying that development is its 
 apparent inconsistency with its origin. The principle of 
 freedom is the common source of both, yet in both it 
 speedily passes into a doctrine of absolutism which seems 
 to be the complete negation of freedom. From a move- 
 ment in which everything seems to be grounded on the 
 individual consciousness, we are brought almost imme- 
 diately to a theory of the universe in which God is so 
 conceived of as to leave to the world and man no inde- 
 pendence or reality. In religion, the assertion of the 
 right of private judgment gives rise to a theology of 
 absolute predestination and " irresistible grace." In 
 philosophy the principle of self -consciousness, as the 
 source of all knowledge and the criterion of certitude, 
 develops into a system of uncompromising pantheism. 
 
 Yet a little reflection will show that the transition 
 thus indicated involves no real inconsistency. The prin-
 
 92 Spinoza. 
 
 ciple of the Protestant Reformation was, indeed, the 
 assertion of spiritual freedom. It expressed the revolt 
 of the reawakening religious consciousness against ex- 
 ternal mediation or authority in matters of faith. It 
 is implied in the very idea of religion that the human 
 spirit is essentially related to the divine, and that in 
 seeking to realise that relation it is attaining to a deeper 
 consciousness of itself. By whatever outward means 
 the knowledge of God and of divine things may "be con- 
 veyed to us, it is not religious knowledge until it has 
 been grasped by the spiritual consciousness and has 
 found its witness therein. The ultimate criterion of 
 truth must lie not without, but within, the spirit. The 
 voice of God must find its response in the heart and 
 conscience of him to whom it speaks, and nothing can 
 hold good for him as true or divine which has not re- 
 ceived its authentication in the " assurance of faith." But 
 whilst nothing, it would seem, can be more thorough- 
 going than this assertion of spiritual freedom, it involves 
 and directly leads to what might easily be regarded as 
 the negation of such freedom. Religious knowledge is 
 the revelation to man at once of freedom and of absolute 
 dependence ; of freedom, because it is to consciousness 
 that truth appeals, and by the activity of consciousness 
 that truth is apprehended of absolute dependence, be- 
 cause at the very first step of our entrance into the king- 
 dom of truth, we find ourselves in a region where nothing 
 can be made or unmade by us, in the presence of an author- 
 ity which dominates our will and claims the complete 
 submission of our thoughts. The very act of entering 
 into it involves the renunciation of all individual opin- 
 ions, inclinations, prejudices, of everything that pertains
 
 Principle of the Reformation. 93 
 
 to me merely as this individual self. It implies, more- 
 over, the recognition by the individual self, not merely 
 of its finitude and dependence, but of its moral blindness 
 and weakness. Truth must find its witness in the con- 
 sciousness ; but the consciousness to which it appeals is 
 that not of the natural man, but of the spiritual. The 
 response which it awakens is that not of the individual 
 self, but of a higher or universal self, with which the 
 former is not in harmony. It is therefore the revelation 
 to me not merely of a universal reason to which the in- 
 dividual consciousness must subject itself, but of an 
 absolute moral authority, an infinite will at once in me 
 and above me, before which I am self-condemned and 
 helpless. Religion begins with the sense of moral guilt 
 and impotence ; but the presupposition which this in- 
 volves is that of an infinite will with which my finite 
 will is not in harmony, and to which it is only by the 
 absolute renunciation of any individual independence, 
 that I can ever be reconciled. It is from this point of 
 view that we can understand how, from the principle of 
 Protestantism, the early Reformers should be led to that 
 idea of God which constitutes the primary doctrine of 
 their theological system. 
 
 The principle which was at the root of the Protestant 
 Reformation found thus its first expression in the sphere 
 of religion, and it was here that the human spirit first 
 attained emancipation from that bondage to authority in 
 which it had been held. But the century of the Refor- 
 mation is the beginning also of a new epoch in philo- 
 sopli}' ; and both in its origin and development, a close 
 analogy can be traced between the philosophical and the 
 religious movement. Speculative thought felt the same
 
 94 Spinoza. 
 
 impulse with religion to liberate itself from the presup- 
 positions which had hitherto fettered it, and to assert its 
 autonomy in its own sphere. And here, too, the individual 
 consciousness seemed to employ its regained freedom only 
 in subjecting itself to a new and more absolute limita- 
 tion. In this point of view the philosophy of Descartes 
 may be compared to the first assertion of religious liberty 
 by the Reformers, and the philosophy of Spinoza springs 
 from it by the same movement of thought which gaA'e 
 birth to the predestinarian theories of Luther and 
 Calvin. 
 
 In general, the philosophy of Descartes expresses the 
 effort of intelligence to bring all things within -its own 
 sphere, to find within thought the explanation of all the 
 problems of thought. Formally stated, Descartes' search 
 after an ultimate criterion of certitude was the endeavour 
 to give to all that claims to be knowledge the form of 
 self-consciousness. The process by which he represents 
 himself as reaching this criterion is indeed, when closely 
 examined, one which already virtually implies it. In 
 the search for intellectual satisfaction he begins by re- 
 solving to reject everything which it is possible to doubt. 
 When we examine the contents of ordinary knowledge, 
 we find it to consist of a mass of unsifted and incongru- 
 ous materials of impressions, opinions, beliefs, which 
 reason has never tested, and which have no other than 
 an accidental connection with each other. They have 
 been blindly accepted on authority or by tradition, they 
 have fallen upon the mind in the form of instinctive 
 impressions, they have been woven together by arbitrary 
 associations. When rejection is awakened, there are
 
 Criterion of Certitude. 95 
 
 none of them which it cannot doubt, and, at least pro- 
 visionally, reject ; not authoritative dogmas and beliefs, 
 for these by their very definition have no inherent cer- 
 tainty ; not things we seem to perceive by the senses, 
 for the senses often deceive us, and what once deceives 
 may do so always ; not even mathematical propositions, 
 for, as we are not the makers of our own minds, it is at 
 least conceivable that they are the creation of some 
 malicious or mocking spirit who has so constructed them 
 as, even in their seemingly demonstrative certainties, to 
 be mistaking error for truth. But when, by this process 
 of elimination, I have got rid of or provisionally rejected 
 one after another of the elements of that accidental con- 
 glomerate of beliefs which I have hitherto accepted, is 
 there nothing that remains, no primeval rock of certitude, 
 or fundamental basis of knowledge unassailable by doubt 1 
 And the answer is, that when everything else has been 
 doubted, there is one thing which lies beyond the reach 
 of doubt, which in the very process of doubting I tacitly 
 affirm. I cannot doubt the doubter. Doubt is thought, 
 and in thinking I cannot but affirm the existence of the 
 thinker. From everything else I can abstract, but I 
 cannot abstract from myself who performs the process of 
 abstraction. Coyito, ergo sum. 
 
 In this account which Descartes gives of the way in 
 which he seemed to himself to have reached an ultimate 
 principle of certitude, it is obvious that he tacitly presup- 
 poses from the outset the principle of which he is in quest. 
 When he sets out by saying, " I will question everything 
 which I can doxibt," he virtually posits the " I " as the 
 umpire by whose verdict everything is to be decided. In 
 this, as in every other possible investigation which it can
 
 96 Spinoza. 
 
 undertake, thought presupposes itself. In bringing any- 
 thing to the bar of consciousness, consciousness presumes 
 its own reality. Nay, we can go further, and say that 
 in every act of intelligence, in the most rudimentary 
 exercise of thought by which I bring any object before 
 me, I presuppose myself as the thinking subject to which 
 that object is referred. And this, further, enables us to 
 see what is the real significance of Descartes' fundamental 
 principle. As has been often pointed out, the proposition, 
 " I think, therefore I am," is only in form syllogistic. As 
 its author himself expressly says, it is not an argument 
 based on the major premiss, " Whatever thinks exists," 
 for the terms of that premiss would have no meaning 
 save what is derived from the prior intuition of the unity 
 of being and thought. Gogito ergo sum is, therefore, 
 simply the expression of that unity as the ultimate datum 
 of consciousness. In saying " I am conscious," the " I " 
 and the consciousness predicated of it cannot be separated. 
 In affirming the consciousness we affirm the I. Descartes' 
 proposition, therefore, is the assertion of the indissoluble 
 unity of thought and reality in self-consciousness as the 
 fundamental principle on which all knowledge rests. 
 
 Descartes had now attained the principle of which he 
 was iu quest; but the inquiry would have been fruitless 
 unless in that principle he had found not only that which 
 is al isolutely certain in itself, but that which is the source 
 of all other certainties, the idea by means of which we 
 can advance to rehabilitate the world which doubt has 
 destroyed. If this principle is not to remain a mere 
 barren abstraction, a form of knowledge without content, 
 it must enable us to recover, as objects of rational and 
 Britain knowledge, what had been rejected as a congeries
 
 Principle of Self-Consciousness. 97 
 
 of unsifted beliefs. How, then, asks Descartes, shall we 
 find iu self-consciousness the key to all knowledge 1 Now 
 the failure or success of any attempt to answer this ques- 
 tion must, it is easy to see, turn upon the sense in which 
 the principle itself is understood. "Whether the proposi- 
 tion, " I in thinking am," or more briefly, " I think," is to 
 be fruitful or barren, depends on the part of it on which the 
 emphasis is thrown. If the latter term be limited by the 
 former, if, in other words, the thought or self-conscious- 
 ness here affirmed be taken as merely subjective and 
 individual, the proposition contains in it the beginning 
 and end of all knowledge. In the empirical fact of his 
 own self-consciousness there is nothing which enables 
 the individual to transcend his own individuality. 
 Thought that is purely mine can build for itself no 
 bridge by which it can pass to a world that lies, by 
 supposition, wholly beyond it. The future history of 
 philosophy was to show, in the vain endeavours of the 
 empirical psychologists, from Locke downwards, to solve 
 this problem, that individualism imprisons the mind in 
 its own isolated consciousness, and can never attain to 
 the legitimate knowledge of the nature or even of the 
 existence of any reality beyond it. 
 
 On the other hand, the principle of self-consciousness 
 may be so construed as to become in itself the fraitful 
 source of knowledge, and the test by which all know- 
 ledge can be evaluated. What it may be understood to 
 mean is, that beyond all difference of thought and being, 
 of thought and its object, there is a unity which alone 
 makes this difference intelligible, a unity which is the 
 first presupposition of all affirmation about the particular 
 subject and the particular object. Or to state it differ- 
 
 p. XIL c
 
 98 Spinoza. 
 
 cntly, it may mean that whilst I caii abstract from ev-ry- 
 thing else, I cannot abstract from the being which is iden- 
 tical with thought. That being is not the being of my 
 particular self ; for that too, like every other particular 
 contingent existence, I can in one sense abstract from. 
 I can make it an object of observation, I can think of it, 
 and I can think it away, as that which was not and 
 might not be. But the self from which I cannot ab- 
 stract, the self which is identical with thought, is that 
 for which not only I, this particular individual, am, but 
 for which and in which I and all things are. So far 
 from shutting me up in a mere subjective experience, 
 with a world of realities lying beyond and inaccessible, 
 self-consciousness, thus understood, is that which contains 
 in it the possibility of all knowledge. It is that which 
 is presupposed in all knowledge and to which all realities 
 are relative. 
 
 In which of these senses did Descartes understand his 
 own fundamental principle? In his endeavour to re- 
 construct the world by means of it, did he employ it in 
 the sense in which it is altogether inadequate for the 
 task, or in the sense in which a system of knowledge 
 can legitimately be based on it? The answer is, that 
 he did neither, bitt wavered between the two radically 
 inconsistent interpretations, and whilst his system con- 
 tains much that implies or points towards the higher 
 view, he neither grasps it firmly nor carries it out to 
 its logical results. Yet even the arbitrary expedients 
 which he employs to extract more from his first prin- 
 ciple than, in the narrower sense, it could yield, proves 
 that the wider construction of it was that towards 
 which he unconsciously tended, though it was left for
 
 Mind and Mattt /-. 99 
 
 other and more consequent thinkers to discern its full 
 significance. 
 
 To say that self-consciousness is that to which all 
 things are relative, is to say that the world is an in- 
 telligible world, and that betwixt mind and matter, 
 thought and being, there is no essential division, and 
 no necessity, therefore, to go in search of some third 
 principle to mediate between them. Such a necessity, 
 however, Descartes creates for himself. The do\ibt or 
 provisional negation of external things by which the 
 affirmation of a conscious self had been reached, he 
 speedily hardens into an absolute negation. It is through 
 the opposition of a not-self that mind realises itself. 
 How then can that conscious self which exists only as it 
 opposes itself to that which is not-self, which knows itself 
 only in abstracting from a world without, hold any in- 
 telligent converse therewith? In attempting to know 
 anything beyond itself, is not consciousness committing 
 a virtually suicidal act? This difficulty was rendered 
 more formidable for Descartes by the view he takes of 
 the essentially distinctive nature of mind and matter. 
 Mind and matter are independent substances, each having 
 its own determining or characteristic attribute. The 
 characteristic attribute of mind is thought or self- 
 consciousness, that of matter is extension, and these two 
 can only be understood in a sense which renders them 
 reciprocally contradictory. Thought or self-consciousness 
 is that which is absolutely self-included and indivisible. 
 We can ideally distinguish in it that which thinks and 
 that which is object of thought ; but they do not lie out- 
 side of each other, they are indivisible elements in the 
 unity of self-consciousness. But if this z'tensiveness is
 
 1 00 Spinoza. 
 
 the essence of mind, that of matter is the very opposite 
 or contradiction of this extension, self-externality, ex- 
 istence which consists of parts outside of parts, without 
 any centre of unity. Mind is self-consciousness; mat- 
 ter, on the other hand, is absolute selflessness. Now 
 then, between things which by their very definition are 
 reciprocally exclusive, can there be any communion 1 
 How can that whose very being is to be selfless become 
 related to that whose very being is to be a conscious 
 self? In passing into mind, matter must cease to be 
 matter ; in going forth to apprehend matter, mind must 
 cease to be mind. 
 
 The expedient by which ultimately Descartes en- 
 deavours to overcome this difficulty is, as we shall see, 
 that of arbitrarily depriving the two independent sub- 
 stances of their independence and reciprocal exclusive- 
 ness by reducing them to moments of a third and higher 
 substance. Whilst the distinctive attribute which makes 
 each a substance with reference to the other remains, 
 their opposition is mediated by the absolute substance, 
 God, on whom the existence of both depends. But this 
 attempt to overcome the dualism of mind and matter 
 presents itself first in a somewhat cruder and more 
 mechanical form. Mind and matter are essentially op- 
 posed ; but God becomes the guarantee to mind of the 
 truthfulness of its ideas of matter. Mind has no im- 
 mediate certainty of the truth of these ideas ; it simply 
 finds them in itself. They convey no assurance of any 
 objective reality corresponding to them. It is conceiv- 
 able, as was formerly supposed, that our notions of 
 material things, or even of the existence of an external 
 world, may be illusions. But our idea of God is that
 
 Idea of God. 101 
 
 of an all-perfect Being, one of whose perfections is ab- 
 solute veracity or truthfulness. If, therefore, in the 
 mind which owes to Him its existence we find certain 
 clear and distinct ideas of matter or of external realities, 
 the veracity of God is the unquestionable security that 
 these ideas are true. Ideas of things which we could 
 not otherwise trust, we can trust as implanted in us by 
 a God that cannot lie. 
 
 Arbitrary and forced as this method of solving the 
 problem before him seems to be, what it really indicates 
 is, that Descartes had discerned the inadequacy of a 
 merely individualistic principle of knowledge, and had 
 begun to see that the consciousness of the individual is 
 implicated with a consciousness wider and more abso- 
 lute than itself. And this becomes more obvious when 
 we go on to consider how Descartes contrives, without 
 any conscious departure from his fundamental principle, 
 to extract from it the idea of God and the proof of His 
 objective existence. In two ways consciousness seems 
 to him to testify to something more absolute than 
 itself. In the first place, he finds in it an idea 
 which, from its very nature, cannot be traced to any 
 finite source, and which therefore witnesses to an in- 
 finite Being as its cause or archetype. Whatever real- 
 ity, he argues, any thing or idea contains, at least as 
 much must be contained in its cause. If I find in 
 myself an idea which contains more reality than is 
 contained in my own nature or could be derived or 
 collected from other finite natures, I may conclude 
 that there is a being containing in himself an amount 
 of reality transcending that of all finite existence. 
 Such an idea is that of God, the infinite substance,
 
 102 Spinoza. 
 
 and it could only have been implanted in me by an 
 actually existing God. 
 
 To this argument it is easy to take exception, on the 
 obvious ground that it presupposes the thing which it is 
 intended to prove that it seeks to deduce from conscious- 
 ness, or one of the ideas of consciousness, a being who 
 is to guarantee the veracity of consciousness ; and further, 
 that it attempts to find in thought the proof of some- 
 thing outside of thought or unthinkable in other words, 
 to make thought transcend itself. Yet the flaw is only 
 in the form, not in the real though implicit significance 
 of the argument. The being who contains in himself 
 all perfections is still a being thought of in a most defi- 
 nite way. Seeming to himself to have forced a path 
 outward to a region beyond consciousness, Descartes is 
 still within it ; and what he has really achieved is vir- 
 tually to expand the sphere of self-consciousness till it 
 embraces that which transcends all that is finite and 
 individual. The secret nerve of the argument, and that 
 which constituted its motive and significance, was, that 
 there is an infinite element in thought, or that the con- 
 sciousness of the individual, when closely examined, is 
 seen to be implicated with or dominated by a universal 
 consciousness, or a consciousness of the infinite. 
 
 The contrast between the apparent and the real signi- 
 ficance of the argument becomes still more obvious in 
 the second form in which Descartes presents it, and 
 which is only a modification of the "ontological argu- 
 ment " of Anselm and Aquinas. The objective existence 
 of God is involved in the very idea of God. Amongst 
 the various ideas in our minds we find one, the highest 
 of all that of a Being supremely wise and powerful and
 
 Ontological Argument. 103 
 
 absolutely perfect ; and Ave perceive that this idea, unlike 
 others, contains in it the characteristic, not of possible 
 or contingent, but of absolutely necessary existence. In 
 the same way, therefore, as from the fact that the idea 
 of a triangle necessarily involves that its angles should 
 be equal to two right angles, we conclude that every 
 triangle must have this property ; so from the fact that 
 the idea of an absolutely perfect being includes in it 
 that of existence, we conclude that such a being must 
 necessarily exist. Here again the argument, though 
 faulty in the form in which Descartes presents it, is 
 valuable as indicating the untenableness of ' his origi- 
 nal standpoint, and the inevitable tendency to read into 
 it a new and deeper meaning. If self -consciousness 
 is only individual, and we suppose a world of realities 
 lying outside of it, it is impossible to conclude from self- 
 existence or any other element of an idea in us that 
 there is any actual reality corresponding to it any 
 more than, according to Kant's familiar illustration, I 
 can infer from the idea of a hundred dollars in my mind 
 that I have them in my purse. That equality of its 
 angles to two right angles is a necessary element of the 
 idea of a triangle, proves no more than that //' any actual 
 triangle exists, it will possess this property ; and that 
 necessary existence belongs to the idea of God, merely 
 prove-; that if there is a being corresponding to the idea, 
 he exists necessarily. By no. straining, therefore, could 
 the principle of self-consciousness, if regarded as merely 
 individualistic, break down, in this case any more than 
 in any other, the barrier between the subjective self and 
 the world of realities opposed to it. But what Descartes 
 was really aiming at was a self-consciousness which is
 
 104 Spinoza. 
 
 not individual but universal, or the principle that the 
 real presupposition of knowledge is not the individual's 
 consciousness of himself as an individual, but the thought 
 or consciousness of a self which is beyond all individual 
 selves and their objects that, viz., of universal or abso- 
 lute intelligence. Other existences may be contingent, 
 other things may or may not be ; but behind all our 
 ideas there is one which, whether we are explicitly or 
 only implicitly conscious of it, so proves its reality from 
 thought, that thought becomes impossible without it. 
 Its absolute reality is so fundamental to thought, that to 
 doubt it is to doubt reason itself. This was the goal to 
 Avhich Descartes was tending. Had he reached it, the 
 principle of individual freedom with which he started 
 would have converted itself into another form, which is 
 either the pantheistic suppression of freedom, or the re- 
 establishment of it on a deeper basis. In his own hands, 
 however, it remained in the imperfect form in which it 
 served only to introduce into his system a new element 
 absolutely inconsistent with the principle from which he 
 started. 
 
 The foregoing view of the tendency and results of the 
 Cartesian philosophy will be borne out if we consider, 
 further, how near Descartes comes to the abandonment 
 in express terms of his original for a different stand- 
 point; in other words, to the recognition of the truth 
 that it is not the consciousness of self but the con- 
 sciousness of God which is the first principle of know- 
 ledge. "VYhat he had represented to himself as the ori- 
 ginal certainty of self had been reached by doubting 
 everything else ; but it was not the doubt that had 
 created the certitude, but the certitude that had ere-
 
 Infinite and Finite. 105 
 
 ated the doubt. It was the implicit presence of a 
 standard of reality that had led him to pronounce his 
 first notions of things illusory and unreal. The idea 
 that was the prius in the process of doubt was not 
 that of the things doubted, but the idea or conscious- 
 ness of self. In like manner when he conies to con- 
 sider the relation of the idea of God to other ideas, 
 or of the idea of the infinite to that of the finite, he 
 expressly maintains that the idea of infinite and neces- 
 sary being does not arise by abstraction or negation 
 from that of finite, contingent being, but conversely, 
 that it is the presence in the mind of the idea of in- 
 finite and necessary being that enables us to pronounce 
 any other existences to be finite and contingent. " I 
 ought not to think," says he, " that I perceive the in- 
 finite only by negation of the finite, as I perceive rest 
 and darkness by negation of motion and light ; on the 
 contrary, I clearly perceive that there is more of reality 
 in infinite substance than in finite, and therefore that, in 
 a certain sense, the idea of the infinite is prior in me to 
 that of the finite." In other words, the idea of the infi- 
 nite is presupposed in that of the finite ; the former is 
 the positive idea, the latter produced merely by nega- 
 tion or limitation of it. It is really, though uncon- 
 sciously, the idea of God from which we start, and 
 from which our ideas of other existences as finite are 
 derived. But if this be so, it is to be observed that 
 we have here the complete subversion of Descartes' 
 original principle of knowledge. For, in the first place, 
 amongst the ideas of finite things to Avhich that of the 
 infinite is now pronounced the prius, must be included 
 the idea of the finite individual self. And in the
 
 106 Spinoza. 
 
 second place, the cogito ergo sum was, as we can now 
 see, only his proof of God in another form. In the 
 latter, he finds in his mind an idea which, in contrast 
 with all ideas of merely finite, contingent existences, is 
 that of infinite or necessary existence. In the former 
 he found in his mind an idea which, in contrast with 
 all ideas he could douht or deny, was ahsolutely certain. 
 The starting-point and the process are in both cases the 
 same. What he denies or reduces to negativity and 
 contingency in contrast with the idea of God, is pre- 
 cisely the same with what he denied or reduced to 
 illusion and nullity in contrast with the idea of self. 
 The conclusion he reaches must be in both cases the 
 same. And that the self of the one process is really 
 identical with the God of the other, is further obvious 
 from this, that doubt is possible, not through the cer- 
 tainty of self, but through the certainty of absolute 
 truth. In doubting or denying anything, the tacit appeal 
 is not to a finite but to an infinite standard, not to the 
 idea of the subjective self, but to that of absolute objec- 
 tive reality. The self of the cogito ergo sum was there- 
 fore not really the individual self, but that infinite which 
 he now pronounces to be the jn-ius in thought of all 
 finite existences. 
 
 But though logically Descartes' own express admis- 
 sion implied the abandonment of his former for a new 
 principle of knowledge, he did not himself recognise or 
 admit the implication. To save his OAvn consistency he 
 has recourse to a distinction which is simply the ac- 
 knowledgment of the unresolved dualism which charac- 
 terises his system. In order to retain the cogito ergo .-unit 
 as a first principle, whilst yet asserting that God or the
 
 Knoiviny and Belay. 107 
 
 infinite is in thought the prf-us of the finite, he distin- 
 guishes between the principle of knowledge (jprincipittim 
 cognoscendi) and the principle of being (principium 
 essendt), assigning the former role to the Ego, the latter 
 to God. But a philosophical system fails by its own 
 showing, if it does not give to all with which it deals 
 the unity of knowledge. What, as a philosophy, it 
 undertakes to do, is to explain the world as an intel- 
 ligible world to trace rational relations between all 
 existences and orders of being, to make them mem- 
 bers of one system by showing how all are expressions 
 of one principle to which all their differences can be 
 brought back. To make Being, therefore, something 
 apart from and irreducible to the principle of know- 
 ledge, is virtually to confess the inadequacy of the 
 system and of the principle on which it is based to 
 save that principle by admitting that there is something 
 it cannot explain. For Descartes the true escape from 
 his dilemma would have been by admitting the conclu- 
 sion to which his own hesitating language logically 
 pointed that God or the infinite is first in knowledge 
 as well as first in being. To separate the existence of 
 God from the idea of God, and make the latter only the 
 proof of the former, was the impossible attempt to go 
 outside of knowledge for the explanation of know- 
 ledge ; and it was an attempt which his own account 
 of that idea rendered wholly arbitrary and self-contra- 
 dictory. For what alone can be meant by an innate 
 or implanted idea of God is simply the indwelling or 
 activity of God in xis. To infer the existence of God 
 from the idea of God, is to infer the existence of God 
 from the consciousness of it, or to infer the existence of
 
 108 Spinoza. 
 
 God from itself. There is no advance to something new 
 in thinking of the existence of God, when in thought I 
 have already His necessary existence. The idea is 
 already the existence of God. " I think God, there- 
 fore God is," is no more a syllogism in which exist- 
 ence is inferred from thought than cogito eryo sum is 
 such a syllogism. The existence and the thought arc 
 given in one act, inseparably united. It was because 
 Descartes failed to perceive this that the unity to which 
 his system tended was left still encumbered with a 
 dualistic element. 
 
 Finally, it is to be remarked that the dualism which 
 remains unresolved in Descartes' view of the relation of 
 God and the world, continues of necessity unresolved in 
 his conception of the relation of mind and matter, of soxil 
 and body. If the infinite be arbitrarily separated from 
 the finite, the latter necessarily breaks into irreconcilable 
 oppositions. Thought and being divided at the source 
 cannot be united in the streams. Accordingly, mind and 
 matter, the world Avithin and the world without, remain, 
 in Descartes' view, independent entities tied together 
 only by an arbitrary bond. They are, as we have seen, 
 so defined as to be each the absolute negation of the 
 other. The two are conceived of only as substances recip- 
 rocally exclusive, and their very nature consists in fa-ii/i/ 
 reciprocally exclusive. It would seem, therefore, impos- 
 sible that two substances so defined should be united in 
 one system or brought into any real relation to each 
 other. To be so would imply that mind should cease 
 to be mind, or matter matter that mind should become 
 extended, or matter think. All the devices, therefore, 
 l>y which Descartes endeavours to include them in one
 
 Sithordinate Substances. 109 
 
 system, are expedients to knit together what has been 
 irreparably rent asunder. Mind has in it ideas of cor- 
 poreal things ; but these ideas have no real but only a 
 representative relation to external objects, and they are 
 not the mind's own, but due to an outside power who 
 mechanically inserts or infuses them and vouches for 
 their truth. Body and soul are not in themselves re- 
 lated to each other ; they are not correlative factors of 
 a whole which explains at once their difference and 
 their unity, but independent substances brought and 
 kept together by an external and unintelligible force. 
 Thus matter and mind fall asunder, and that which is 
 supposed to unite them does not unite them for thought. 
 There being nothing in their own nature which unites 
 them, an arbitrary act of power, even when it is des- 
 ignated omnipotent, explains nothing, but is merely 
 another way of saying that somehow or another they 
 are united. 
 
 There is indeed one form of explanation to which, 
 with marks of hesitation, Descartes' language seems 
 finally to point, and which, in so far as it is a conceiv- 
 able explanation, indicates the ultimate goal to which 
 his philosophy leads. The dualism which is only verb- 
 ally solved by reference to an inexplicable act of power, 
 finds at least a possible solution when the extended and 
 thinking substances are subordinated to an absolute or 
 infinite substance in which their differences are lost. 
 But in order to this solution two things are necessary : 
 in the first place, the subordinate substances must be 
 deprived of their substantial character and reduced to 
 attributes or accidents ; and in the second place, the 
 common substance in which they are united must be
 
 1 10 Spinoza. 
 
 conceived of as something underlying yet different from 
 both. And this, accordingly, is the process by which 
 Descartes effected his final solution of the problem be- 
 fore him, the restoring to unity of his disintegrated 
 universe. Substance, he tells us, is " that which so 
 exists that it needs nothing else in order to its exist- 
 ence." But in this sense the notion cannot be applied 
 to finite, created existences. Mind and matter retain, 
 indeed, each its substantial character and distinguishing 
 attribute with reference to the other ; but with reference 
 to God they lose their independence and exclusiveness, 
 and become, as absolutely dependent, moments or acci- 
 dents of His being. Further, the supreme or absolute 
 substance in which mind and matter find their reality 
 must be something in which their distinctive charac- 
 teristics no longer exist, a unity which is different 
 from both. Though elsewhere, therefore, Descartes 
 speaks of the nature of God as having a nearer affinity 
 to mind than to matter, yet, contemplated as substance, 
 he expressly declares that nothing can be predicated in 
 the same sense of God and finite creatures. The quali- 
 ties of matter He cannot have, for matter is divisible 
 and imperfect ; and if thought can be ascribed to Him, 
 it is in Him something essentially different from thought 
 in man. God is therefore for us simply the unknown 
 something which remains when we abstract from nature 
 and man their distinctive attributes. He is neither 
 matter nor thought, and if He can be conceived at all, it 
 is only as the bare abstraction of Being which is common 
 to both. 
 
 It is little wonder that Descartes' language should 
 become hesitating and ambiguous when he seems to be
 
 Pantheistic Tendency. Ill 
 
 led by his own logic to a conception which, instead of 
 explaining the differences of the finite world, seems to 
 suppress or annul them which, having absorbed nature 
 and man in God, reduces God Himself to a lifeless 
 abstraction of which we can say nothing but that it i*. 
 But whilst Descartes, recoiling from the pantheistic 
 abyss to the brink of which he had been led, refuses to 
 commit himself in definite terms to this result, it was 
 left for another and more resolute thinker to follow out 
 his principles to their legitimate conclusion.
 
 112 Spinoza. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The treatise ' De Deo et Homine,' which has been brought 
 to light in recent times, may be regarded as a kind of study 
 for Spinoza's greater and more systematic work, the ' Ethics.' 
 For the student of his philosophy its chief interest lies in 
 the fact that the ideas of the later work are here presented 
 to us in an inchoate and cruder form. As the title indi- 
 cates, the subject of the earlier work is the same as that of 
 the later ; the succession of topics is the same in both, 
 and we find in them many coincidences both of thought 
 and expression. But the earlier treatise is less coherent and 
 complete. There is much in it conceptions, definitions, 
 phrases, scholastic and theological formulae which are not 
 found in the ' Ethics,' and which can only be regarded as 
 survivals from a more immature stage of thought. At the 
 outset Spinoza seems to be hesitating between different start- 
 ing-points, and making trials of fundamental principles 
 which are essentially inconsistent. There are many gaps in 
 the logical sequence of thought, dialogues are interposed 
 which interrupt the main argument, and an appendix is 
 added in which the doctrines of the work are re-discussed 
 from a different point of view. But with all these differ- 
 ences the general character of the two works is the same. 
 They bear the stamp of the same mind, only of the same 
 mind at an earlier and a later stage of its philosophical de- 
 velopment. In the former we see the writer feeling his way 
 to ideas concerning God and man which reappear in the 
 latter, freed from irrelevances and inconsequences, as the 
 final result of his speculations. 
 
 It was my intention, as formerly indicated, to prepare for 
 the criticism and interpretation of the ' Ethics ' by a care- 
 ful examination of the treatise ' De Deo et Homine.' Such 
 an examination, however, would have extended this book 
 greatly beyond the limits assigned to it. I have there- 
 fore been compelled to omit this part of my general plan.
 
 113 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE ' ETHICS ' ITS METHOD. 
 
 THE point of view of a philosophical writer reflects itself, 
 not only in the substance of his teaching, but in the 
 form in which it is cast. Clear speculative insight may 
 rise above the restraints of a false or defective method, 
 but cannot altogether withstand its influence. Form 
 inevitably reacts on matter, method unconsciously modi- 
 fies ideas or hinders their full expression and develop- 
 ment. From the form, therefore, of Spinoza's system 
 we may derive some help in the endeavour to apprehend 
 its general bearing and to discover the reasons both of 
 its success and of its failure, of what it does and of 
 what it leaves undone. 
 
 "What Spinoza aimed at was a system of knowledge in 
 which everything should follow by strict necessity of 
 thought from the first principle with which it starts. 
 It is the function of reason to rise above the influence 
 of the senses, to strip away from the objects it contem- 
 plates the guise of contingency and independence with 
 Avhich ordinary observation clothes them, and to see all 
 things related to each other under the form of absolute 
 necessity. To this end it seeks to penetrate to the first 
 
 p. xii, H
 
 114 Spinoza. 
 
 ground or presupposition of all thought and being, to 
 grasp " that idea which represents the origin and sum of 
 nature, and so to develop all our ideas from it that it 
 shall appear as the source of all other ideas." 
 
 With such a conception of the nature of knowledge it 
 is easy to see how Spinoza should regard the science of 
 mathematics as affording the purest type of method, and 
 should endeavour, as he has done, to cast his system in 
 geometrical form. In geometry everything is based on 
 the fundamental conception of space or quantity, and 
 the whole content of the science seems to follow by 
 rigid logical necessity from definitions and axioms re- 
 lating to that conception. Might not the same exactitude, 
 certainty, necessity of sequence be obtained for the 
 truths of philosophy as for the truths of mathematics by 
 following the same method 1 It was probably some such 
 anticipation that led Spinoza to give to his great work 
 the form which is indicated by its title, ' Ethics de- 
 monstrated in Geometrical Order,' and to set forth his 
 ideas, after the manner of Euclid, in a series of defini- 
 tions, axioms, postulates, and of propositions and corol- 
 laries flowing from these by strict logical deduction. 
 
 To what extent the defects of Spinoza's system are 
 to be traced to his method will perhaps appear in the 
 sequel ; but it may be pointed out here that, from the 
 very nature of the thing, a purely geometrical method is 
 inadequate to the treatment of philosophical truth. 
 
 1. For one thing, philosophy must go further back 
 than either mathematics or the sciences that treat of 
 outward nature. These sciences may and do take much 
 for granted ; philosophy admits of no unexamined pre- 
 suppositions, The former not only deal with limited
 
 Geometrical Method. 115 
 
 departments of knowledge, and with things the existence 
 of which is regarded as already known, without asking 
 how they come to be known, but they employ categories 
 and forms of thought which they do not investigate, and 
 presuppositions which they do not pretend to do more 
 than verbally define. Even geometry may, in this point 
 of view, be called a hypothetical science. It presupposes 
 the objective existence of space, and employs, without 
 inquiry into its validity, the category of quantity. It 
 begins with certain definitions, e.g., of a point, a line, a 
 surface, without examining into their origin or asking 
 whether they are mere arbitrary conceptions, or express 
 what is absolutely true and real. Philosophy cannot 
 content itself with such a method. It cannot follow 
 the example of mathematics and start with defini- 
 tions and axioms, or employ in an uncritical way, 
 like the physical sciences, such categories as being, 
 substance, causality, &c. It must go back to the very 
 beginning, and, in a sense, create the matter with which 
 it deals. It must entitle itself to the use of its cate- 
 gories by tracing their origin and development, see them 
 coming to the birth in the pure medium of thought, and 
 evolving themselves in the necessary movement or pro- 
 cess of reason. The special sciences may content them- 
 selves, each with its own provisional view of things, and 
 may relegate to philosophy the task of explaining and 
 verifying it. A philosophy which did so would need 
 another philosophy to examine and criticise it. 
 
 2. The geometrical method, when closely examined, 
 fails in that quality which constitutes, at first sight, its 
 peculiar attraction. It does not furnish to philosophy the 
 paradigm of a science in which everything follows by strict
 
 116 Spinoza. 
 
 necessity from its fundamental principle. In a philo- 
 sophical system, according to Spinoza's favourite illustra- 
 tion, everything should follow from, the primary idea by 
 the same necessity with which the properties of a triangle 
 flow from its definition. And it is true that, if we look 
 only to the figures or ideal constructions represented in 
 the diagrams of the mathematician, it is possible to draw 
 out a series of propositions which follow by rigid deduc- 
 tion from the definitions of the figures. But if we test 
 the value of geometrical science, not by what can be 
 logically deduced from given premisses (and the illustra- 
 tion in question implies no more), but by what is involved 
 in and can be deduced from its fundamental conception, 
 then it fails to furnish what is implied in Spinoza's ideal 
 of a philosophical system. For the idea of space does 
 not evolve from itself a system of geometrical truth. 
 There is no reason simply in the idea of space why 
 triangles, circles, squares, &c., should arise in it. Such 
 constructions are conditioned by and presuppose that 
 idea, but are not produced by it. Space does not pro- 
 duce or evolve anything unless you, the geometrician, 
 arbitrarily create or imagine in it lines, surfaces, solids, 
 figured constructions of whatever kind. Being produced, 
 they must relate themselves to each other according to 
 the conditions which the conception of space involves ; 
 and so you may rear upon these ideal constructions a 
 vast system of geometrical truths of immense value in 
 determining the relations of objects that admit of being 
 regarded quantitatively. But neither these objects nor 
 their relations, ideal or actual, are the necessary product 
 of the fundamental conception. That conception has in 
 it no principle of self-determination, and the determina-
 
 Inadequacy of this Method. 117 
 
 tions it gets are arbitrarily imposed on it from without. 
 If, therefore, philosophical truth is to be, not a system 
 in which by arbitrary synthesis you force its first prin- 
 ciple to become fertile, but one in which that principle, 
 by its own genetic power, necessarily determines or 
 differentiates itself to all particular truths, then obvi- 
 ously it is a misconception to seek the type of such a 
 system in the province of the mathematician. 
 
 3. The main objection to the employment in philos- 
 ophy of the geometrical method is that the category on 
 which it is based is inadequate to the treatment of spir- 
 itual things. Inevitable confusion and error arise from 
 applying to one order of things conceptions or cate- 
 gories which are strictly applicable only to another and 
 lower order of things, or in leaving out of account in 
 the higher and more complex sphere all conditions and 
 relations save those which pertain to the lower. Xow the 
 conceptions of space and quantity have their proper and 
 exclusive application only to objects which can be con- 
 ceived of as occupying extension or lying outside of each 
 other ; whilst philosophy, in so far as it deals with things 
 spiritual, has to do with a sphere where purely external 
 or special relations vanish. In formal language, mathe- 
 matical method is applicable only to the sphere of self- 
 externality, but is incapable of dealing with thought 
 or self-consciousness, which is the sphere of immanence 
 or self-internality. 
 
 Mathematical science recommends itself by the clear- 
 ness and simplicity of its conceptions and the demon- 
 strative certainty of its results. But, however valuable 
 within its own sphere, as compared \vith other sciences 
 it may be said that its simplicity arises from its shallow-
 
 118 Spinoza. 
 
 ness or abstractness, and its certainty from its ignoring 
 of the very elements which, in the case of these sciences, 
 complicate the problems to be solved. Geometry, as we 
 have said, is based on the conception of space, and on 
 ideal constructions or figures in space. It abstracts from 
 all relations of actual objects, save those which arise 
 from their being extended from all conditions save 
 that of not occupying the same parts of space with each 
 other. But this obviously is a way of looking at things 
 which is purely abstract ; and conclusions reached with 
 reference to such abstractions do not apply, strictly speak- 
 ing, to anything beyond the abstraction itself. Even 
 inorganic objects are incapable of being reasoned about 
 as if conclusions which are true of space and its parts 
 held good with respect to them. In the material world 
 there are indeed unities which are unities merely of aggre- 
 gation made up, that is, of parts which seem to be only 
 externally related to each other, and to be connected with 
 other unities only externally. But there are no mate- 
 rial realities which are absolutely continuous or which 
 can be thought of as if their component parts were re- 
 lated to each other as the ideal parts of pure space, or 
 as if propositions with reference to lines, surfaces, solids 
 were unconditionally applicable to them. Nor, again, 
 are there any material realities which are not related to 
 each other in other ways than can be embraced under 
 the conception of spatial extension. Inorganic sub- 
 stances undergo chemical changes which do not admit of 
 being expressed simply in terms of quantity. Iron rusts, 
 but space does not, and the rusting is something more 
 than a change of spatial relations. Chemical changes, 
 in other words, involve other conditions than those of
 
 Inadequacy of this Method 119 
 
 space. In a chemical compound the unity is one 
 of which the elements have lost their independent 
 quantitative existence ; their spatial individuality has 
 vanished in the neutral product. Still less do or- 
 ganic existences admit of being adequately dealt Avith 
 under the category of quantity. A living being is not 
 composed of parts which exist simply outside of each 
 other, and have only external or spatial relations to 
 each other. There is a sense in which in an organism 
 the whole is in every part, and the parts exist only in 
 the whole. In a mere material aggregate the whole is 
 simply the sum of the parts ; but in a living unity, when 
 you have summed up all the parts, you have left out 
 something which escapes spatial measurement, and yet 
 which constitutes the very essence of the thing. It is 
 only when it ceases to be living that an organism de- 
 scends into the sphere to which quantitative measures 
 belong. And the reason is that its unity is not of parts 
 external to parts, but of parts which have their being in 
 and through each other not a self-external but an im- 
 manent or self-internal unity. Least of all, when we 
 rise to the sphere of spiritual things, when we propose 
 to consider the relations of God and man, to treat of 
 such things as intelligence, freedom, duty, immortality, 
 can we adequately apprehend them by a method which 
 turns on quantitative relations. Organisms, whatever 
 else they are, are tilings which still occupy space, and 
 may therefore partially be apprehended by means of a 
 category which deals Avith objects externally related to 
 each other. But in the sphere of thought or self-con- 
 sciousness we have absolutely transcended that of spatial 
 outwardness. The indivisible unitv of self-consciousness
 
 120 Spiiioza. 
 
 transcends all external difference. Xo thought or fuel- 
 ing is bende another. The self that thinks is not some- 
 thing outside of its thoughts. It is by a false abstraction 
 that we talk of one faculty of consciousness as if it were 
 a part or bit of mind separated by spatial division from 
 other faculties. In every part of consciousness the whole 
 is present. Nor, whatever we mean by speaking of one 
 mind as greater than another, can we determine the 
 greatness or littleness as quantitative magnitudes. "NVe 
 cannot conceive of Infinite Mind as something existing 
 above or beyond finite minds ; and if we say that Infin- 
 ite Mind or Intelligence comprehends and transcends all 
 finite minds, we cannot represent this relation as iden- 
 tical with that of a bigger circle or sphere to the smaller 
 circle or sphere that is contained in it. "VVe may speak 
 in a figure of " larger, other minds than ours," but if the 
 figure becomes more than a figure, if we let it govern or 
 guide our ideas as to the nature of spiritual things, it will 
 betray us into confusion and error. 
 
 Spinoza is often greater than his method. There are 
 parts of his system which it is impossible to reconcile 
 with the categories that in general seem to guide him. 
 In the last Book of the ' Ethics,' especially, he seems to 
 restore in a measure the very ideas, such as those of 
 human freedom and individuality and of final causality, 
 against which, in the earlier Books, he most strenuously 
 contends. Perhaps the most valuable part of his philos- 
 ophy is that in which his keen speculative insight rises 
 above his self-imposed restraints. Yet, on the other 
 hand, the method he adopts and the conception on which 
 it is based furnish often the key to the meaning of his
 
 Influence of this Method. 121 
 
 ideas, and the explanation of the errors into which he is 
 betrayed ; and the general bearing of his system becomes 
 more intelligible when we consider it in the light of that 
 method, as a brief glance at some of its leading points 
 may suffice to show. 
 
 1. One of these points is his identification of the 
 infinite with the purely affirmative, of the finite or 
 determined with the negative. In one of his letters 1 
 occurs the following passage : " As to the doctrine 
 that figure is negation and not anything positive, 
 it is plain that the whole of matter, considered in- 
 definitely, can have no figure, and that figure can only 
 exist in finite and determinate bodies. He who says 
 that he perceives a figure, merely says that he has before 
 his mind a limited thing. But this limitation does not 
 pertain to the thing in respect of its being, but, on the 
 contrary, of its non-being. As, then, figure is nothing 
 but limitation, and limitation is negation, figure, as I 
 have said, can be nothing but negation." The same 
 principle is expressed in more general terms in another 
 letter, 2 where he writes : " It is a contradiction to con- 
 ceive anything whose definition involves existence, or, 
 which is the same thing, affirms existence, under nega- 
 tion of existence. And since determination indicates 
 nothing positive, but only a privation of existence in the 
 nature conceived as determinate, it follows that that of 
 which the definition affirms existence cannot be con- 
 ceived as determinate." Applying the principle here 
 enunciated, he in the same letter identifies the idea of 
 God, or of " a Being absolutely perfect," with that of 
 " a Being absolutely indeterminate," and argues that, 
 1 Ep. 50. - Ibid., 41.
 
 122 Spinoza. 
 
 " since the nature of God does not consist in a certain 
 kind of being, but in being which is absolutely indeter- 
 minate, His nature demands everything which perfectly 
 expresses being, otherwise it would be determinate and 
 defective." And the same doctrine, that " finite being is 
 negation, infinite being absolute affirmation," is laid down 
 in the ' Ethics.' 1 
 
 In these passages the influence of what may be termed 
 a geometrical conception of the universe is obvious. 
 When we represent to ourselves the relation of infinite 
 and finite by that of space and its determinations, the 
 idea of the finite becomes that simply of privation or 
 negation. A figure in space has no individual reality ; 
 in so far as it has any positive reality, it is only the 
 reality that belongs to the part of infinite space which 
 its periphery cuts off; and in so far as it can be said to 
 have any individual existence in distinction from infinite 
 space, that existence is not positive but negative, it is 
 created solely by cutting off or negating all of space that 
 is outside of it. Its very essence, therefore, is privation, 
 negation, want of being. Its sole being is non-being. 
 And this conception Spinoza applies to all finite or 
 particular existences. In so far as they have any reality, 
 it is not their own, but that which pertains to them as 
 parts of the being of the infinite ; and any apparent 
 individuality in them is not positive but negative it ex- 
 presses, not what they are, but what they are not. It is 
 true that we can pictorially represent to ourselves figured 
 portions of space ; but these constructions are purely 
 ideal, entia ration},*, fictions of the mind. Space itself 
 has no parts ; it overflows, so to speak, these arbitrary 
 1 Eth. i. 8, schol.
 
 Determination and Negation. 123 
 
 divisions and annuls them. And in like manner, it is 
 possible for imagination to lend to particular finite beings, 
 material or spiritual, an apparent independence or in- 
 dividuality. But this individuality is purely fictitious. 
 It exists only for ordinary experience, which is under the 
 control of appearances ; or for imagination, which regards 
 as real anything that can be pictured. "When thought 
 penetrates to the reality of things, it discerns their in- 
 dividual independence to be an illusion ; it breaks down 
 the false abstraction, and perceives the only reality to be 
 that, not of the part but of the whole, not of the finite 
 but of the infinite. It is obvious also what, from this 
 point of view, is the only conception that can be formed 
 of " a Being absolutely perfect." When we withdraw 
 the arbitrary limits which distinguish the finite from the 
 infinite, what we reach is simply that which is free from 
 all limits or determinations, the absolutely indeterminate ; 
 and as determinations are merely negations, the removal 
 of all negations leaves us in the presence of non-negation, 
 or of pure, absolute affirmation. As the very essence of 
 the finite is nan esse, privation or negation of being, so 
 the essence of the infinite is simply pure Being, that 
 which is, or that which cannot be conceived save as 
 existing, seeing its very nature is one with existence. 
 "\Vc see, therefore, in so far as this part of his system 
 is concerned, the narrowing influence of Spinoza's 
 method. The conception of things on which that 
 method is based excludes any other alternative than that 
 of determination or indetermination. It excludes, in 
 other words, another possible alternative viz., that of 
 self-determination, that is, of an affirmation which does 
 not simply annul, but subsumes and includes negation.
 
 124 Spinoza. 
 
 Yet the way to this alternative lay open to Spinoza 
 when he had reached the last result which his method 
 could yield. For an affirmation which is reached by 
 negation, cannot ignore it. Apart from negation pure 
 affirmation has no meaning. A negative element enters 
 into its very essence. In itself, like the conception of 
 pure space on which it is based, it is a mere abstraction ; 
 it needs the negative or determinate as its correlate. 
 And when we have reached this point, we have got 
 beyond the contradictory elements of negation and affir- 
 mation to an idea which includes both. Thus the in- 
 finite, in the highest sense of the word, must be con- 
 ceived not as the simple negation of the finite, but as 
 that which at once denies and affirms it. What this 
 view further implies what is involved in the notion of 
 an infinite which does not annul, but realises itself in 
 and through the differences of the finite world this is 
 not the place to show. Had Spinoza token this further 
 step, it would have implied the reconstruction of his 
 whole system. As it is, the idea of a purely affirmative 
 infinite, or of a finite which is merely the illusory sub- 
 stantiation of imaginary distinctions in the infinite, had 
 it not been accompanied by other ideas, which, how- 
 ever illogically associated with it, modify or correct it, 
 would have left his system one of uncompromising 
 pantheism. 
 
 2. Connected with the foregoing, and in further 
 illustration of the relation of Spinoza's thought to his 
 method, we have to notice his denial of human freedom, 
 and his rejection of any other criterion of perfection 
 than that of amount or quantity of being. 
 
 In a system in which all things follow from the first
 
 Freedom ami Perfection. 125 
 
 principle with the same necessity as the properties of a 
 geometrical figure from its definition, or a logical con- 
 clusion from its premisses, individual freedom is, of 
 course, an impossible conception. The illusion of free- 
 dom, according to Spinoza, arises from the tendency 
 already noticed as belonging to ordinary thinking the 
 tendency to see things abstractly or with the eyes of 
 imagination. The individual thinks himself free because 
 he is conscious of his desires and actions, but not of the 
 conditions that determine them. He can imagine him- 
 self to have acted otherwise than he has done, and can 
 ascribe to himself a capacity of so acting, for the same 
 reason that he can picture himself as an isolated and 
 independent being in the universe. But when he looks 
 at himself with the eye of reason rather than of imagina- 
 tion, he can no more think himself acting otherwise than 
 he has acted, than a triangle, if it were conscious, could 
 think its angles equal to three or four right angles or any 
 other number of right angles than two. For the same 
 reason the terms good and evil, virtue and vice, perfection 
 and imperfection, have, from Spinoza's point of view, 
 either no meaning or a meaning different from that which 
 ordinary thought attaches to them. "Were men born 
 free," says he "that is, were they led by reason alone, 
 or possessed of adequate ideas of things they could form 
 no idea of good and evil." We may create for ourselves 
 by the abstracting power of imagination fictitious 
 standards of human perfection, and judge men accord- 
 ing as they fulfil or fall short of them ; but this is 
 merely a human Avay of looking at things. To the 
 divine intelligence what we call good and evil, as imply- 
 ing individual independence and freedom in relation to
 
 126 Spinoza. 
 
 the infinite, have no existence. "We compare men with 
 each other in view of this arbitrary standard, and regard 
 one as more imperfect than another ; but what separates 
 man from God, the absolutely perfect Being, is simply 
 his finitude, and no one finite being can be nearer to the 
 infinite than another. 
 
 There is, indeed, another side of Spinoza's teaching, 
 according to which, as we shall see, a certain indepen- 
 dence or self-assertion, a tendency to maintain itself or 
 persist in its own being, is ascribed to each individual 
 existence. But even here we find that the quasi moral 
 distinctions which this principle introduces, do not turn 
 on any conception of a universal element in man's nature, 
 a self deeper than the natural self, to which merely 
 quantitative measures will not apply. On the contrary, 
 what this supposed tendency or impulse points to is 
 simply the maintaining and increasing by each individual 
 of the amount of its being. " Perfection and reality," 
 says he, "mean the same thing." 1 It is the possession 
 of more or less of this " reality " that distinguishes one 
 individual from another. The more reality, the more 
 power of thinking and acting an intelligent being 
 possesses, so much the more perfect or virtuous he is. 
 " When I say that an individual passes from a less to a 
 greater perfection and vice versa, I understand by this, 
 that we conceive that his power of action, in so far 
 as it is understood from his own nature, is increased 
 or diminished." 2 The great principle of all spiritual 
 activity is thus simply the working out and enlargement 
 of our own individual nature. Even if apparently un- 
 selfish motives, such as sympathy with and participation 
 1 Eth. ii., clef. 6. - Il>id. iv., Pref.
 
 Idea of Final Cause. 127 
 
 in the good of others, are admitted as possible principles 
 of action, the ground of this possibility is that the 
 happiness of the object of such affections contributes to 
 the increase or expansion of our own individual being. 
 
 3. The influence of Spinoza's method betrays itself 
 again in his rejection of a teleological conception of the 
 relation of God to the world. 
 
 A philosophy which regards all things as following 
 by logical sequence from the first principle, obviously 
 excludes any question of the end or final cause of 
 things. Such a principle does not aim at its results, or 
 employ means to reach them. These results simply are, 
 and cannot be conceived to be other than they are ; 
 they do not arise as matters of foreseen design, but are 
 absolutely determined by the nature of the principle 
 with which we start. We may not ask, with respect 
 to finite things or beings, why or for what end they 
 exist, any more than we ask for what end the proper- 
 ties of a triangle exist. Of these we can only say that 
 they are, or that they are because they are given along 
 with the definition of the thing itself. And in like 
 manner, of all finite existences we can only say, not that 
 they point to or are explained by any ulterior end, but 
 that they are because God is, or because they are the 
 necessary determinate expressions of His being. 
 
 Spinoza's condemnation of a teleological view of the 
 world is directed mainly against that kind of teleology 
 which constitutes the so-called "argument from design." 
 To view the world teleologically would, he urges, imply 
 imperfection in God by conceiving of Him as aiming at 
 an end outside of Himself. It would be to think of Him 
 after the analogy of finite beings, who seek to give shape
 
 128 Spinoza. 
 
 to their unrealised conceptions, or are impelled by the 
 consciousness of wants to aim at objects which will 
 satisfy them. " If God," says he, " works for the sake 
 of an end, He necessarily seeks something of which He 
 stands in need. . . . Theologians maintain that God 
 has done all things for His own sake, . . . and there- 
 fore they are necessarily compelled to admit that God 
 stood in need of and desired those things for which He 
 determined to prepare the means." 1 But though a tele- 
 ological view of the world, rightly apprehended, does 
 not thus separate the end from the beginning, and there- 
 fore may be freed from the objection that it implies 
 original imperfection in the author of it, it is obvious 
 that in no sense can such a view be expressed in terms 
 of quantity, or under that category on which the geo- 
 metrical method is based. The idea of Final Cause is 
 that of a unity which realises itself in differences, which, 
 by its own inner impulse, gives rise to differences, yet ever 
 maintains itself in them, and through these differences 
 returns upon itself. It implies an organic process, in 
 which neither the unity is lost in the differences nor the 
 differences in the unity, but in which, the further the 
 differentiation is carried, so much the richer does the 
 original unity become. But, as we have already seen, 
 a geometrical method is incapable of expressing any such 
 living, self-differentiating, self-integrating unity. Space 
 does not determine itself to its own divisions, or give 
 rise to the determinate objects conceived as existing in 
 it. Xor does space retract these arbitrary differences 
 any more than it produces them ; and when ire have 
 withdrawn them and restored the original unity and 
 1 Eth. i., Append,
 
 True and False Teleology. 129 
 
 continuity of space, it has not become any richer by the 
 process. The unity prior to the finite was complete in 
 itself, and the arbitrary differentiation and reintegration 
 has not increased its wealth. The differences are not 
 preserved but annulled in the final unity, and it is the 
 same self-identical unity at the end as at the beginning. 
 
 p. xii.
 
 130 
 
 CHAPTER VTT. 
 
 SPINOZA'S STARTING-POINT SUBSTANCE. 
 
 THE starting-point of Spinoza's system is the idea of 
 " Substance," which he defines as " that which is in 
 itself and is conceived through itself i.e., that, the con- 
 ception of which does not need the conception of another 
 thing in order to its formation." 3 This substance he 
 characterises as infinite, indivisible, unique, free, eter- 
 nal, as the cause of itself and of all things, and as con- 
 sisting of an infinite number of infinite attributes, two 
 only of which, thought and extension, are cognisable 
 by human intelligence ; and he expressly identifies this 
 substance with God, whom he defines as " a Being ab- 
 solutely infinite that is, substance consisting of infinite 
 attributes, of which each expresses an eternal and infinite 
 essence." 2 
 
 In beginning with this idea Spinoza is attempting 
 to realise his own theory of knowledge viz., that "in 
 order that our mind may correspond to the exemplar of 
 nature, it must develop all its ideas from the idea which 
 represents the origin and sum of nature, so that that 
 idea may appear as the source of all other ideas." 3 
 
 1 Eth. i., def. 3. 2 Ibid., def. 6. 3 Be Emend., vii. 42.
 
 Philosophy a r nd Experience. 131 
 
 Philosophy, according to this view, begins with the 
 universal, not the particular ; it does not proceed by 
 induction or generalisation from the facts of observation 
 and experience, but it seeks to grasp the ultimate unity, 
 the highest principle of things, and to derive or develop 
 from it all particular existences. Its method is, not to 
 reach the universal from the particular, but to know the 
 particular through the universal. 
 
 But in thus endeavouring to find a first principle 
 from which all things are to be evolved, does not 
 Spinoza lay himself open to the charge often brought 
 against philosophy, of neglecting or anticipating ex- 
 perience, and attempting to explain the world by a 
 priori notions'? Is not his system a flagrant instance 
 of the unscientific method of metaphysicians who in- 
 terpret nature by subjective theories, instead of, by 
 patient observation and generalisation of facts, letting 
 nature be her own interpreter 1 Suppose we could ever 
 apprehend the unity with which he starts, would it not 
 be the end rather than the beginning of knowledge? 
 Science is ever seeking to embrace lower in higher and 
 more comprehensive generalisations, and the ultimate 
 goal to which the scientific impulse points may be a law 
 which would comprehend all laws, a final principle 
 which Avould transcend the inadequate and partial ex- 
 planations of the world which particular sciences give, 
 and achieve for them what they, each in its own pro- 
 vince, attempt to do for the special phenomena with 
 which they deaL But even if such a goal were actu- 
 ally attainable, would it not be so only as the last 
 result of the long labour of science; and must not 
 the hasty attempt to snatch at this unity by a mere
 
 132 Spinoza. 
 
 effort of abstract thought be regarded as vain and 
 futile ? 
 
 The answer in the case of Spinoza, as in that of all 
 kindred thinkers, is that philosophy does not neglect 
 experience, but only seeks to examine and criticise the 
 presuppositions involved in it, to trace back to their 
 ultimate ground the principles on which, unconsciously, 
 ordinary and scientific thought proceeds ; and then to 
 reinterpret experience or, in one sense, to re-create it 
 in the light of the results thus reached. This account 
 of its work implies that philosophy must, in a sense, 
 reverse the order of ordinary and even of scientific ex- 
 perience, and beginning with the highest universal 
 which thought involves, show how from it all lower 
 universalities take their rise, and how the whole world 
 of finite particular existences is transformed for thought 
 by becoming linked in bonds of rational necessity to the 
 first principle of all things. 
 
 The progressive method of knowledge then is, in 
 one sense, based on and presupposes the retrogressive. 
 Metaphysic does not pretend to create the world out of 
 its own categories, still less to supersede the special 
 work of science. On the contrary, it is through the 
 discovery of the partial and inadequate explanation of 
 things which the categories of science furnish that it is 
 led to seek after a deeper satisfaction for thought, an 
 interpretation of the world by higher principles, till it 
 attains that final interpretation which is given by a 
 principle that rests on no higher, but is seen by its own 
 light. Reversing the process, it then seeks to show how 
 all the previous stages of knowledge, from the highest 
 to the lowest, become transformed in the light of the
 
 True Order of Knowledge. 1 33 
 
 first principle of knowledge, or how all things are seen 
 in their reality only when regarded as its expressions or 
 manifestations. 
 
 Spinoza's method, then, is not justly chargeable with 
 reversing the true order of knowledge. If his phil- 
 osophy be found defective, the defect will lie not in his 
 beginning where he did, but in the nature of the idea 
 with which he began ; not in his attempt to start with 
 a first principle from which all things might be derived, 
 but in the idea with which he started being incapable 
 of fulfilling the function assigned to it, and in his 
 attempting to explain all things from this principle 
 simply by analytic deduction. If modern philosophy 
 has had more success in dealing with the problem, per- 
 haps the reason may, in some measure, be that science, 
 by its marvellous progress, has worked into the hands 
 of philosophy in our day as it did not and could not 
 do in his. The inadequacy of Spinoza's first principle 
 is, in part at least, traceable to the fact that he found 
 it possible, so to speak, to reach the infinite by a short 
 cut ; whilst modern thought, in some measure, owes the 
 greater richness and fertility of the idea which consti- 
 tutes its starting-point, to the fact that it has had to 
 attain that idea by a slower and severer process. The 
 problem for Spinoza, by his own showing, was to find 
 a first principle which would explain the universe, after 
 the analogy of mathematical science, according to the 
 simplest of categories. The problem which modern 
 philosophy has had to face is that of finding a final 
 interpretation of nature which must presuppose the 
 previous interpretations of it by the whole range of 
 the physical and biological sciences, and Avhich must
 
 134 
 
 supply a principle of criticism of the categories on 
 which these sciences are based, and itself at once com- 
 prehend and transcend them. 
 
 SUBSTANCE. 
 
 Spinoza's starting-point, the idea which is to be " the 
 source of all other ideas," that which explains all else 
 but needs no other idea to explain it, is " Substance," 
 which, as already said, he defines as " that which is in 
 itself and is conceived through itself." When we ask 
 what Spinoza means by substance, we seem precluded 
 by the very terms of the definition from all ordinary 
 methods of explanation. The question what it is, 
 seems to be ansAvered simply by the affirmation that it 
 is ; the question how we are to conceive of it, by what 
 other ideas we are to be enabled to apprehend its mean- 
 ing, seems to be met by the affirmation that it is that 
 which can be conceived only through itself: we may 
 understand all other ideas by means of it, not it by 
 means of them. 
 
 But whilst thus we seem debarred from any direct 
 explanation of the nature of substance, we may come 
 at the answer indirectly if we consider, in the light of 
 Spinoza's theory of knowledge, what is the point of 
 view which this term is intended to express. We can 
 understand the world, or bring our thoughts " into cor- 
 respondence with the exemplar of nature," he tells us, 
 as we have seen, only by "developing all our ideas 
 from the idea which represents. the origin and source of 
 nature ; " and the idea which constitutes the " origin of 
 nature," he elsewhere defines as that of " a Being, single, 
 infinite, which is the totality of being, and beyond
 
 Idea of the IVTiole. 135 
 
 which there is no being." 1 From this we gather that, 
 according to Spinoza's conception of it, true or adequate 
 knowledge is that which starts from tlie idea of ilt>' 
 whole, and for which all other ideas have a meaning and 
 reality only as they are determined by or seen in the 
 light of the idea of the whole. Whatever else sub- 
 stance means, therefore, by this term we are to under- 
 stand this much at least that idea of the whole or 
 totality of being, in the light of which only can all in- 
 dividual things and thoughts be understood. This may 
 be further illustrated by considering the contrast which 
 elsewhere Spinoza draws between that "vague expe- 
 rience " of which popular knowledge consists, and that 
 <-i')ttia infuitlra which is the highest and only real 
 kind of knowledge. The separate, independent exist- 
 ence which popular thought ascribes to individual things 
 and beings is no real existence. Xo object in nature is 
 a single isolated thing. Each object is what it is only 
 in virtue of its relations to other objects, and ultimately 
 to the whole system of being. Ordinary observation 
 looks at things superficially, or as to the outward eye 
 they seem to exist, each apart from or side by side with 
 the rest. Judging merely by the senses, it confounds 
 externality in space with independent existence, and 
 leaving out of view all deeper relations, it represents to 
 itself the spatial separation of stones, plants, animals, as 
 equivalent to an isolated or absolute reality. But when 
 we cease to look at things after the outward appearance, 
 and penetrate to their real nature, their isolated sub- 
 stantiality vanishes ; we perceive them to be linked to 
 each other by the inner bond of causality. Each in- 
 
 1 De Emend, ix.
 
 136 Spinoza. 
 
 dividual thing forms part of an infinite series of causes 
 and effects ; its place, form, functions, activities, are 
 what they are, not through itself alone, but through its 
 connection with other beings, and ultimately with the 
 whole universe of being. Not an atom of matter could 
 be other than it is without supposing the whole material 
 world to be other than it is ; and to understand a single 
 material substance, we must take into account not 
 merely its immediate environment, but the causes or 
 conditions which have created that environment, and so 
 on ad infinitum. And the same principle applies to 
 intelligent or spiritual beings ; they, too, are successive 
 existences which have only a semblance of individuality. 
 By a trick of the imagination, we look upon ourselves 
 as independent, self - determined individuals ; but oxir 
 whole spiritual life is involved in our relations to other 
 intelligences, as theirs again in that of those who sur- 
 round or precede them. Eightly viewed, each so-called 
 individual is only a transition-point in a movement of 
 thought that stretches back through the interminable 
 past and onwards through the interminable future. 
 Thus the substantial reality of individual existences 
 vanishes, and we can apply the designation " substance " 
 only to the whole, the totality of being which includes 
 and determines them. That whole is the only true in- 
 dividual, the only being which " is in itself and is con- 
 ceived through itself." 
 
 "All bodies," writes Spinoza in one of his letters, 1 "are 
 surrounded by other bodies, and reciprocally determine and 
 are determined by them to exist and act in a fixed and defi- 
 
 i Ep. 15.
 
 Tlie Universe a Substance. 137 
 
 nite way. Hence it follows that every body, in so far as it 
 exists under a certain definite modification, ought to be con- 
 sidered as merely a part of the whole universe, which agrees 
 with its whole, and thereby is in intimate union with all the 
 other parts ; and since the nature of the universe is not lim- 
 ited, but absolutely infinite, it is clear that by this nature, 
 with its infinite powers, the parts are modified in an infinite 
 number of ways, and compelled to pass through an infinity 
 of variations. Moreover, when I think of the universe as a 
 substance, I conceive of a yet closer union of each part with 
 the whole ; for, as I have elsewhere shown, it is the nature 
 of substance to be infinite, and therefore each single part 
 belongs to the nature of corporeal substance, so that apart 
 therefrom it can neither exist nor be conceived. And as to 
 the human mind, I conceive of it also as a part of nature, as 
 having in it an infinite power of thinking, which, as infinite, 
 contains in it the idea of all nature, and whose thoughts run 
 parallel with existence." 
 
 By "substance," therefore, we are to understand, in 
 the first place, the idea of the totality of being or the 
 universe as a whole. Further, this substance is by its 
 nature " infinite." It would be self -contradictory to 
 suppose that any finite thing could be determined 
 merely by a series of finite causes. We may trace back 
 step by step the regress of causes by which each par- 
 ticular existence, material or spiritual, is determined 
 to be what it is. But, however far back we go, we 
 are dealing still with the particular or finite, which 
 needs as much to be determined as the initial member 
 of the series. If it was only by an illusory abstraction 
 that we conceived of the latter as an independent 
 individual, it is only by a like abstraction that we 
 conceive of any aggregate of such individuals as having 
 any reality apart from the whole. We may resolve any
 
 138 
 
 particular tiling iuto a larger whole of which it forms a 
 part, but that larger whole is itself but a fragment " an 
 individual of the second order, but still an individual." 
 And though we may proceed in the same way by a 
 process of successive inclusions, correcting the con- 
 ception of each lower unity by a higher, we can never 
 by any such ascending movement reach that of which 
 we are in quest the infinite whole, the absolute unity 
 by which all finite things are determined to be what 
 they are. 
 
 But if we cannot reach the infinite, the substance of 
 all things, by seeking it through a receding series of 
 finite causes and effects, ai-e we to conclude that the 
 quest is vain, that the object of inquiry is a chimera ; 
 or if not, how is it to be attained 1 ? The answer of 
 Spinoza virtually is, that we need not ascend to heaven 
 to bring it down from above, for it is already in our 
 hands and in our mouths. "Every idea of any body 
 or existing thing necessarily involves the eternal 
 and infinite essence." l Our ordinary consciousness is 
 indeed, as we have seen, in one point of view, arbitrary 
 and illusory ; but we have only to examine what is its 
 real content and meaning to perceive that it involves 
 what is virtually the consciousness of the infinite. All 
 knowledge of what is limited rests on an implicit 
 reference to what is unlimited. Every conception of a 
 particular space or body presupposes the idea of infinite 
 space or extension. Every particular idea implies a 
 virtual reference to an infinite thought. And the dis- 
 tinction of mind and matter, of ideas and things, would 
 be itself impossible save by a tacit appeal to the idea of 
 i Etb. ii. 45.
 
 Infinite Substance. 139 
 
 an infinite unity which lies beyond their difference. All 
 finite thought and being, therefore, rests on the idea of 
 Infinite Substance. And of this ultimate idea, this 
 prius of all thought and being, it must be affirmed that 
 whilst other ideas rest on it, it rests itself on no other. 
 It cannot be proved by anything outside of itself, for 
 no thing or thought could be or be conceived save on 
 the assumption of it. It is beyond demonstration and 
 inaccessible to doubt, for demonstration and doubt alike 
 depend on and indirectly affirm it. It can only be 
 defined as "that which is in itself and is conceived 
 through itself." 
 
 What is to be said in criticism of Spinoza's funda- 
 mental principle has been already anticipated. That 
 the individual can only be understood in the light of 
 the whole system of being to which he belongs, that all 
 the differences of the finite world presuppose and rest 
 on an ultimate unity which is itself beyond demonstra- 
 tion or doubt, are propositions the soundness of which 
 cannot be questioned. The Aveakness of Spinoza's 
 doctrine may be said to lie in this, that his substance 
 or infinite unity on which all things rest is not organic 
 but abstract. It may be true to say that substance is 
 that which is in itself and conceived through itself, or, 
 otherwise expressed, that the thought or idea of God 
 proves His being. But the significance and force of the 
 so-called " ontological argument " lies in this, that the 
 unity of thought and being to which it concludes is not 
 an abstract but a concrete unity. The distinction 
 between them, as it is a distinction in thought and to 
 thought, is one which thought can transcend nay, one 
 which, when we bring to clear consciousness Avhat is
 
 140 Spinoza. 
 
 implied in it, thought in thinking it has already tran- 
 scended. But the unity thus reached is the unity of 
 the related elements, not something which merely lies 
 beyond them; it explains and reconciles but does not 
 annul them. What it expresses is, that thought and be- 
 ing, though distinguishable, are correlated elements in that 
 ultimate unity of self-consciousness which all knowledge 
 presupposes as its beginning and seeks as its goal. The 
 Spinozistic substance, on the other hand, is reached, as 
 we have seen, not by the reconciliation of opposed but 
 related elements in a higher unity, but simply by 
 abstracting from the difference of these elements. It is 
 not the reason of these differences but the unity that is 
 got by obliterating them. And as all differences vanish 
 in it, so no differences can proceed from or be predicated 
 of it. It not only contains in it no principle of self- 
 determination, but it is itself the negation of all deter- 
 minations. How then can Spinoza find in his infinite 
 substance the source and explanation of the variety 
 and multiplicity of existence 1 The answer to this 
 question is contained in his doctrine of "attributes" 
 and "modes."
 
 141 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 SUBSTANCE AND ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 RIGHTLY to fulfil the function assigned to it as the first 
 principle of knowledge, Spinoza's "substance" must 
 he so conceived as to he, not only the presupposition, 
 hut the productive source of all finite being. It must 
 be the ideal origin and explanation of things as well as 
 that which transcends them. We must not merely be 
 forced back to it as the unity Avhich is above all differ- 
 ences, but also find in it that from which all differ- 
 ences are evolved. The transition, in other words, to the 
 finite world must lie in the very nature of substance. 
 
 Does Spinoza's substance answer to this conception? 
 That he deemed it capable of doing so is obvious. 
 Substance is not merely causa sui, but causa omnium 
 rerum. It is a unity which differentiates itself, first 
 into "infinite attributes," then into "infinite modes," 
 and these last again are modified by an infinite number 
 of " finite modes." The world which is meaningless 
 apart from it, the individualities which are only shadows 
 and unrealities looked at in themselves, are redeemed 
 from non-entity by the intuitive grasp of an intelligence 
 which sees them instinct with the presence and power
 
 142 Spinoza. 
 
 of " substance." All things are unreal viewed as inde- 
 pendent or distinct from God; all things become real 
 in so far as we can discern in them the self-affirmation 
 of the divine nature. All thinking things, all objects 
 of all thought, as Spinoza regards them, throb with tin- 
 vital pulse of the universal life. The dead world 
 becomes alive in God. 
 
 But though there can be no doubt as to the part 
 which Spinoza intended his first principle to play, the first 
 step he takes raises the question whether it is inherent!}' 
 capable of the function assigned to it whether sub- 
 stance, as he defines it, is not so conceived as to be in- 
 capable, without giving up its essential nature, of passing 
 from its self-involved unity or identity into difference. 
 
 This first step is that which consists in the ascrip- 
 tion of " infinite attributes " to the infinite substance. 
 " Substance " or " God " " consists of infinite attributes 
 of which each expresses the eternal and infinite 
 essence." l But of these infinite attributes, whilst we 
 know that their number is infinite, only two, " thought " 
 and " extension," are cognisable by human intelligence. 
 AY hat, then, is the ground or reason of this differentiation 
 of the absolute unity 1 How does Spinoza find the 
 attributes in his substance ] To this question the 
 answer seems to be, that whilst (1) there is nothing in 
 the nature of substance, as Spinoza conceives it, which 
 can logically yield, but everything to preclude any such 
 element of difference, (2) failing such logical ground, he 
 simply asserts without proof the differentiation of sub- 
 stance into attributes which he has empirically reached. 
 In other words, the attributes are not differences to 
 i Eth. L, def. 6.
 
 Substance and Attributes. 143 
 
 which substance determines itself, but to which it is 
 determined ly us. 
 
 (1.) As we have already seen, Spinoza's process to the 
 infinite, the regressive movement by which he reaches 
 substance as the ultimate unity of knowing and being, 
 is simply the removal of the limit by which finite things 
 are supposed to be quantitatively distinguished from the 
 infinite. Number and measure are nothing but fictitious 
 instruments of the imagination by which we break up 
 the indivisible into parts. Space in itself is one and 
 continuous, not made up of discrete parts. You cannot 
 take one portion of space and isolate it from the rest, or 
 say that one portion is here and the next there. Part 
 runs into part, and it is only by a false abstraction 
 that you can view them as separate from each other. 
 " Figure," therefore, is " nothing positive." * And the 
 same principle applies to all finite existences. The 
 positive existence we ascribe to them is, when closely 
 viewed, only negation or non-existence. To get to real 
 or affirmative being we must negate the negation, with- 
 draw the fictitious limit, and what we get as the real is 
 simply the absolutely indeterminate, the logical abstrac- 
 tion of Being. To predicate differences of this colourless 
 entity would be to introduce into it non-entity. A de- 
 termined absolute would be a partly non-existing ab- 
 solute. From this point of view, therefore, it would 
 seem that Spinoza is precluded from attaching any predi- 
 i-atL-s or ascribing any attributes to his absolute sub- 
 stance. To do so would be, as he himself says, 2 " to 
 conceive under the category of non-existence that whose 
 definition affirms existence." 
 
 1 Ep. 50. 2 Ep. 51.
 
 144 Spinoza. 
 
 (2.) Yet whilst by the very idea of substance Spinoza 
 would seem to be precluded from giving to it any deter- 
 minations, we find him passing at once from the notion 
 of substance as the negation, to that of substance as the 
 affirmation, of all possible determinations. The colour- 
 less blank becomes at a stroke filled up with a rich and 
 varied content. The unity which was reached by ab- 
 straction from differences seems to be identified with a 
 unity which contains all differences. Thought seems 
 to re-enact the part for which imagination was con- 
 demned that of dividing the indivisible, of introducing 
 number and measure into the absolute. Substance 
 which, logically, is the purely indeterminate, passes into 
 substance which consists of infinite attributes infinitely 
 modified. 
 
 It is easier to discern the motive than to understand 
 the logic of this transformation. Had Spinoza not 
 refused to be led by his own logic, his system would 
 have ended where it began. Philosophy, along with 
 other things, comes to an end, in a principle which 
 reduces all thought and being to nothingness. More- 
 over, it is not difficult to understand how Spinoza should 
 seem to see more in the idea of substance than it legiti- 
 mately contained. While he ostensibly rejected all 
 determinations from it, in his thought an element of 
 determination tacitly clung to it. Thought often sup- 
 plies the hidden corrective of the theories we form about 
 it. It is possible to devise a theory which implies the 
 separation of unity and difference, of the universal and 
 the particular, of affirmation and negation. But the 
 opposite elements are really correlatives, and the rejected 
 or excluded element secretly clings to the thought that
 
 Unity and Difference. 145 
 
 denies it. It is impossible really to think an affirmative 
 which affirms nothing in particular, or which is pure, 
 blank affirmation devoid of all negation. When the 
 particular vanishes from thought, the universal vanishes 
 with it. Unity which carries with it no implication of 
 diversity, becomes as meaningless a conception as that of 
 a whole without parts, or a cause without effect. When, 
 therefore, Spinoza began by rightly denying, or pro- 
 nouncing to be -non e*$e, the particular existences of the 
 finite world apart from their unity, that to which his 
 thought pointed was the assertion, not of pure abstract 
 unity, but of the reality of these particulars in relation 
 to their unity. The converse of the nothingness of the 
 particular independent of the universal was, not the 
 reality of the abstract universal, but the reality of the 
 particular in the universal. From the negation of acci- 
 dents without substance what thought sought after was, 
 not the assertion of substance without accidents, but 
 the assertion of accidents transformed into the necessary 
 moments or attributes of substance, of substance real- 
 ising itself in and through accidents. Though, there- 
 fore, the former of these alternatives pure, abstract, 
 indeterminate substance Avas the logical result of his 
 method, the latter Avas the real result to which the 
 hidden, unconscious logic of his thought pointed. It 
 was natural for him, therefore, tacitly to substitute the 
 latter for the former, and so to pass, apparently by a 
 leap, from the notion of God or Substance as the nega- 
 tion, to that of God or Substance as the affirmation, of 
 all possible determinations. 
 
 But though it is possible thus to trace the real move- 
 ment of Spinoza's thought, that movement was not a 
 
 P. XII. K
 
 146 Sjnnoza. 
 
 conscious one, and it Avas not thus that he justified his 
 own conclusion. What he seemed to himself to have 
 reached as the presupposition of all things was the 
 purely indeterminate self-identical infinite ; and the 
 problem immediately arose, how to conceive of this 
 infinite unity as, Avithout abandoning its essential nature, 
 passing into difference, IIOAV to find in this moveless 
 Absolute the explanation of the diversity and change- 
 fulness of the finite Avorld. The device which Spinoza 
 falls upon to reach the diversity Avithout tampering with 
 the unity, is to regard the former as differences, not in 
 the substance itself, but in substance in relation to t In- 
 finite intelligence 'which contemplates it. " By attribute," 
 says he, 1 "I understand that Avhich the intellect per- 
 ceives of substance as constituting its essence." It is, 
 in other Avords, not the essence itself of substance, but 
 that essence relatively to our intelligence. In one of 
 his letters, 2 after defining substance, he adds, " By 
 attribute I understand the same thing, only that it is 
 called attribute Avith reference to the understanding 
 attributing a certain nature to substance." The relative 
 or subjective character of the element of difference ex- 
 pressed by attributes is further explained by various 
 illustrations. He compares substance, e.g., 3 to a surface 
 reflecting the rays of light, which, regarded objectively, 
 is called " a plane," but with reference to the observer 
 is described as "Avhite." "By a plane/' says he, "I 
 mean a surface Avhich reflects all rays of light Avithout 
 altering them ; by a white surface I mean the same, 
 Avith this difference, that a surface is called Avhite Avith 
 reference to a man looking at it." The same distinction 
 i Eth. i., def. 4. - Ep. 27. :i Ibirt.
 
 of Attributes. 147 
 
 is illustrated by the different names of the third patriarch, 
 who in his proper character called Israel, is in one special 
 relation called Jacob. Finally, in the following and 
 other passages of his writings Spinoza expressly teaches 
 that the true or absolute nature of God is something 
 that lies beyond all conceptions formed of Him by finite 
 intelligence : "If the will be supposed infinite, it must 
 be determined to exist and act by God, not in so far as 
 He is absolutely infinite substance, but in so far as He 
 has an attribute which expresses the infinite and eternal 
 essence of thought." l " Being as being, by itself alone, 
 as substance, does not affect us, and therefore it is to 
 be explained by some attribute, from which yet it is not 
 distinguished save ideally." 2 To the same effect, in the 
 ' Theologico-political Treatise,' 3 speaking of the various 
 titles of God in the Hebrew Scriptures, he says that the 
 name " Jehovah " points to " the absolute essence of 
 God without relation to created things ; " whilst on the 
 other hand " El Saddai " and other names express 
 "attributes of God, and pertain to Him in so far as 
 He is considered with relation to created things or is 
 manifested by them." 
 
 Thus the ascription of attributes to God does not 
 imply any tampering with the absolutely indeterminate 
 unity of the divine nature, inasmuch as they do not 
 characterise that nature in itself, but only as reflected 
 in the finite intelligence. Finite intelligence cannot 
 rise above itself, or see things otherwise than under the 
 conditions that arise from its own nature. As man is him- 
 self a being at once spiritual and corporeal in Spinoza's 
 language, a "mode" or modification of thought and 
 
 1 Eth. i. 32. 2 Cogitat. Metaph. i. 3. :i xiii. 11, 12.
 
 148 Spinoza. 
 
 extension he can know God only under these two 
 aspects or attributes. But we cannot conceive of the 
 infinite nature as exhausted by our ways of apprehend- 
 ing it. " The more reality or being anything has, the 
 more attribiites belong to it." ] "A being absolutely 
 infinite, therefore, is necessarily defined as being which 
 consists of infinite attributes, each one of which ex- 
 presses a certain essence eternal and infinite." Though, 
 therefore, to us God is expressed only under the two 
 attributes of " thought " and " extension," to minds 
 differently constituted from ours the divine nature would 
 reveal itself in different ways, and to an infinite number 
 of minds or to an infinite understanding in an infinite 
 number of ways or by an infinite diversity of attributes. 
 " The infinite ways whereby each particular thing is 
 expressed in the infinite understanding cannot constitute 
 one and the same mind of a singular thing, but infinite 
 minds, seeing that each of these infinite ideas has no 
 connection with the rest." 2 
 
 By yet another expedient does Spinoza find it pos- 
 sible to ascribe attributes to the infinite substance with- 
 out infringing its purely indeterminate nature viz., by 
 means of the distinction between what is "absolutely 
 infinite " and what is only " infinite in its own kind " 
 (in fuo genere). To avoid the implication that by at- 
 taching predicates to substance we necessarily introduce 
 an element of finiteness or negation into it, he tries to 
 conceive of predicates which express something not neg- 
 ative but positive, not finite but infinite, and which 
 therefore limit neither the infinite substance nor each 
 other. Such predicates are the infinite attributes of 
 i Eth. i. 9. 2 Ep. 68.
 
 Plurality of Infinites. 149 
 
 God. All finite distinctions disappear in the infinite ; 
 but we can conceive of distinctions which are not finite, 
 in this sense that no one of them is limited either by 
 the rest or by anything within its own sphere. We call 
 a thing finite Avhen it is bounded by another thing of the 
 same kind, as one piece of matter by another ; but things 
 of different kinds do not limit each other. Mental 
 things are not limited by material, nor vice versa. Ideas 
 do not occupy space. Bodies are neither inside nor out 
 side of minds. If therefore we can think of the attri- 
 bute of extension as that which has no limit within its 
 own sphere, its infinitude is not infringed by the exist- 
 ence of another attribute of a wholly different kind, 
 such as thought. It is no limitation of infinite exten- 
 sion that it cannot think, nor of infinite thought that it 
 is not extended. We may conceive an infinite number 
 of such attributes, each infinite in its own kind, and 
 yet their infinite diversity implying no reciprocal limi- 
 tation. It may be said that if we conceive of an infinite 
 number of such attributes as together constituting the 
 nature of a being, each of them can express only a part 
 of that nature, and therefore each must be regarded as 
 a limitation of its infinitude. But Spinoza's answer to 
 this objection virtually is, that it would be a valid ob- 
 jection if we conceived of infinite substance as made up 
 of thought, extension, and other attributes. When we 
 think of a thing as an aggregate or combination of quali- 
 ties, each of them is less than the whole, and expresses 
 a limitation of nature. But the absolutely infinite sub- 
 stance is not the sum or totality of its attributes. Ac- 
 cording to Spinoza's peculiar conception, each of the 
 different attributes expresses the same infinite reality
 
 150 Spinoza. 
 
 and the whole of that reality. The attributes are not 
 complementary properties, the omission of any one of 
 which leaves the whole imperfect, but each the same 
 perfect Avhole contemplated in a different aspect. They 
 are not correlative members of an organic unity Avhich 
 have no independent reality apart from each other, but 
 parallel, independent, equivalent manifestations of the 
 same infinite object. Thought does not contain more or 
 less of God than extension, but the content of both and 
 of an infinite number of other attributes is absolutely 
 the same. "Each attribute," says he, 1 "of one sub- 
 stance must be conceived through itself." " It is ob- 
 vious," he adds, 2 " that though two attributes are con- 
 ceived as distinct that is, the one without the aid of 
 the other yet we cannot therefore conclude that they 
 constitute two different entities or substances. For it 
 is of the nature of substance that each of its attributes 
 is conceived through itself (since all the attributes which 
 it has have existed simultaneously in it), nor could one 
 be produced by another ; but each expresses the real- 
 ity or being of substance. It is therefore by no means 
 absurd to ascribe a plurality of attributes to one sub- 
 stance." From this point of view, therefore, Spinoza 
 is enabled to combine the notions of absolute indeter- 
 minate unity with endless difference, or to conceive of 
 an infinite multiplicity of attributes without tampering 
 with the unconditioned unity of substance. The two 
 expedients, however, by which he accomplishes this re- 
 sult, virtually resolve themselves into one. The attri- 
 butes, though said to be infinite each in its own kind, are 
 not really different in kind from each other. The con- 
 i Eth. i. 10. 2 Ibid., schol.
 
 Criticism of the Doctrine. 151 
 
 tent of each is precisely the same as that of any other, 
 and the difference is only a difference in our way of 
 looking at it. The difference in kind is nothing more 
 than a difference of aspect. Spinoza's reconciliation, 
 therefore, of diversity of attributes with absolute self- 
 identical unity of substance, is simply that the diver- 
 sity is a purely subjective one. 
 
 1. One obvious criticism on Spinoza's doctrine of 
 attributes is that it presupposes what it is intended to 
 prove. The definition of attribute is "that which in- 
 telligence perceives in substance as constituting its 
 essence." But finite intelligence is itself only a " mode " 
 or modification of one of the attributes of substance. 
 The attributes, therefore, exist only through that which 
 is simply a modification of one of them. The thought 
 or intelligence which is the product of an attribute, 
 is surreptitiously introduced to create the attributes. 
 Thought, indeed, thinks itself and everything else ; and 
 if the intelligence which differentiates the infinite sub- 
 stance were its own, there would be no paralogism in 
 supposing infinite intelligence or self-consciousness to be 
 the source or origin of the finite intelligence which knows 
 it. But in the case before us, the absolutely infinite sub- 
 stance, as we have seen, is expressly distinguished from, 
 or logically prior to, the attributes that of thought as 
 Avell as every other. Thought is only one of the aspects 
 into which the absolute unity is diffracted by finite in- 
 telligence. Finite intelligence, therefore, is supposed to 
 create that by which it is itself created. 
 
 2. The attributes are not derived from, but brought 
 from without to, substance. To render the system co- 
 herent, the existence and distinctive character of the
 
 152 Spinoza. 
 
 attributes should arise out of the essential nature of 
 substance. In the very nature or idea of substance 
 an element of self-differentiation must be shown to ex- 
 ist, and that an element which does not tamper with its 
 unity. In other words, substance must be conceived 
 as a unity which has in it an impulse to go forth out 
 of itself, to realise itself in the infinite determinations 
 expressed by the attributes and their modifications, and 
 yet in so going forth as remaining in unbroken identity 
 with itself. Spinoza's substance, however, as we have 
 just seen, not only does not contain, but is exclusive of. 
 any such element of self-determination, and the deter- 
 mination expressed by the attributes are ascribed to a 
 purely empirical origin. "We feel and perceive," says 
 he, 1 " no particular things save bodies and modes of 
 thought," and therefore we conclude that thought and 
 extension are attributes of God. We represent to 
 ourselves God as a "thinking thing" or an "extended 
 thing." It is ice who ascribe or bring the attributes to 
 the substance, and the ice has not been accounted for. 
 
 3. The accidental character of the attributes is indi- 
 cated, not only in the origin ascribed to them, but also 
 in their number and relation to each other. If sub- 
 stance is to have the character of a principle from which 
 everything in the system is to be logically deduced, it 
 should contain in itself the reason why such and no 
 other determinations belong to it ; it should determine 
 the order of their sequence, and show how each involves 
 or is involved in all the rest. To say simply that a 
 number of attributes cohere in one substance, is not to 
 explain or give any rational idea of their unity, but 
 1 Eth. ii., ax. 5.
 
 Number and Relation of Attributes. 153 
 
 merely to affirm that they are united. In the Spinozistic 
 system extension, thought, and the other attributes are 
 not organically related to each other. Each is absolutely 
 independent of the rest forms, so to speak, a com- 
 pleted whole in itself, and is to be conceived in and 
 through itself. One attribute can no more be related to 
 another than an object seen through a glass of one colour 
 can be related to the same object seen through a glass 
 of a different colour, or than an idea expressed in one 
 language can be related to precisely the same idea ex- 
 pressed in another language. As it is perfectly indiffer- 
 ent to the object itself through how many differently 
 coloured glasses it is seen, so it is perfectly indiffer- 
 ent to the nature of substance by what or how many 
 attributes it is manifested. If Spinoza speaks of the 
 diversity of attributes as infinite, the infinitude is not 
 that which arises o\it of the essence of substance, but is 
 only a numerical infinitude the false infinite of endless- 
 ness or indefiniteness. In predicating of substance an 
 infinite number of attributes, Spinoza relapses into the 
 ambiguity which he himself had censured in a remark- 
 able letter already quoted the ambiguity, viz., of tho 
 term "infinite" as denoting either that which by its 
 very nature is incapable of limitation, or that which 
 exceeds every assignable limit. The infinitude which 
 he ascribes to substance is of the former kind, and 
 there is no legitimate connection between such an infini- 
 tude and the merely quantitative infinitude of attributes, 
 the number of which exceeds an}' given or conceivable 
 number. 
 
 4. In the li-tu-rs which passed between Spino/a and 
 his acute correspondent Tschirnhausen, some fiu-ther de-
 
 154 Spinoza. 
 
 fects and inconsistencies in his doctrine of the attri- 
 butes are brought to light. Amongst other pertinent 
 questions, Tschirnhausen asks these two : First, whether 
 it can be proved "that we cannot know any attributes 
 of God other than thought and extension ; " 1 or, more 
 fully expressed, " why my mind, which represents a cer- 
 tain modification (of absolute substance), a modification 
 which is expressed not only by extension, but in an 
 infinite variety of ways, perceives only that modifica- 
 tion as expressed by extension, and not as expressed 
 through the other attributes ? " 2 Secondly, whether, 
 though it is laid down that every attribute is of equal 
 content and significance with every other, " the attribute 
 of thought is not really (as Spinoza defines it) of wider 
 extent than any of the other attributes " ] 3 
 
 To the former of these questions Spinoza answers that 
 " the power of a thing is defined solely by its essence, 
 and that the essence of the mind is the idea of the body, 
 which idea does not involve or express any of God's 
 attributes save extension and thought. 4 Of this answer 
 it may be said that, though from Spinoza's point of view 
 it is no doubt conclusive, yet it betrays in some measure 
 the insufficiency and even inconsistency of the principles 
 on which it is based. In a philosophy in which thought 
 is related to extension, mind to matter, as the con- 
 scious subject to its own object, Tschirnhausen's ob- 
 jection would, in one point of view, be unanswerable. 
 For in such a philosophy there is nothing which lies out- 
 side the realm of intelligence, nothing which is not either 
 known or knowable. If thought can apprehend exten- 
 sion, there is nothing which it cannot apprehend. If 
 i Ep. 65. '- FI-. 87. :i lv 4 Kl>. 66.
 
 Tschirnliauseri s Questions. 155 
 
 human intelligence can transcend the distinction between 
 itself and one attribute or manifestation of God, it there- 
 by proves its capacity to transcend the same distinction 
 in the case of every other attribute. Mind cannot be 
 capable of apprehending its object in one aspect or two 
 aspects and not in every other aspect. But, on the 
 other hand, in a philosophy in which thought and ex- 
 tension, though regarded as attributes of one substance, 
 are still conceived of as wholly independent of each 
 other as simply two parallel but unconnected expres- 
 sions, amongst many others, of the divine essence there 
 is no reason in the nature of thought why, knowing one 
 such attribute or expression, it should also know any 
 other. The relation of parallelism does not carry with 
 it what is involved in the deeper relation of conscious- 
 ness to its object. An arbitrary connection does not 
 imply the universal results of a necessary relation. In 
 fact, the difficulty here is, not why, knowing extension, 
 thought should not know everything else, but why it 
 should transcend the gulf between itself and what is 
 outside of it at all. In Spinoza's philosophy, that 
 thought should overleap this gulf even in the one case 
 of extension is an inconsistency ; but it is one of those 
 happy inconsistencies which render it so fruitful and 
 suggestive. It must be added, however, that from an- 
 other point of view a philosophy which is based on the 
 principle of self-consciousness would, though on different 
 grounds, accept Spinoza's limitation of knowledge to ex- 
 tension and thought. For to such a philosophy exten- 
 sion is not, as Spinoza conceives, simply one amongst a 
 multiplicity of attributes which intelligence in man 
 happens to know, but it is the essential correlative of
 
 156 Spinoza. 
 
 thought. It is not one amongst many things which 
 thought can apprehend, but it is the necessary form of 
 the object in its opposition to the thought for which 
 it is. Extension and thought, in other words, are 
 not a duality of attributes, but the dualism which con- 
 stitutes the very essence of mind. If we conceive of 
 God as Infinite Mind or Spirit, extension, instead of 
 being one amongst an infinite number of attributes, is 
 simply the form of objectivity through which alone is 
 self-consciousness possible. 
 
 As to the second question, which does not seem to 
 have been answered by Spinoza, it may be remarked that 
 whilst, according to Spinoza's doctrine, every attribute 
 expresses the whole of substance, and is of precisely the 
 same value with every other, yet, inasmuch as all the 
 attributes alike are relative to thought, or are "what 
 intelligence perceives of substance as constituting its 
 essence," thought has obviously in his system a wider 
 function than any of the other attributes. In the case of 
 man it knows the two attributes of which his mind 
 and body are modifications, but it also, in the case of all 
 other possible intelligences, knows the other attributes of 
 which their natures are the modifications. If we conceive 
 the attributes as running in pairs, thought will always 
 be one of them. Each finite nature will be a modifica- 
 tion of thought and of some other attribute which plays 
 a corresponding part to extension in the nature of man. 
 Thought has therefore a purely exceptional place in the 
 scheme ; it is the con-elate of all the other attributes. It 
 is not simply one of the two attributes which human in- 
 telligence knows, but it is a universal factor in that know- 
 ledge of God which is possible for all finite intelligencea
 
 157 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 MODES. 
 
 THE next step in the process by which Spinoza attempted 
 to find in substance the first principle of all things, is 
 that which is expressed in his doctrine of "Modes." 
 The attributes, even if legitimately deduced, leave us 
 still in the region of the infinite, and furnish no transi- 
 tion to a finite world. Though thought and extension 
 are only expressions of substance, each in a certain 
 definite manner, they are still infinite. The character- 
 istic of being conceived through itself (per se concipi) 
 belongs to the idea of attribute as well as to that of 
 substance ; there is nothing in it which points to any- 
 thing beyond itself ; it contains no element of self- 
 differentiation by which the process to the finite might 
 be mediated. The attributes, like the substance, are 
 pure self-identical xmities, and if they presuppose finite 
 intelligence as the medium through which the colour- 
 less unity of substance is refracted, they only tacitly 
 presuppose but do not prove it. 
 
 It is in Spinoza's doctrine of " Modes," and of their 
 relation to substance, that we must find, if anywhere, 
 the explanation of the existence of the finite world, and
 
 158 Spinoza. 
 
 of its relation to the infinite. " By mode," says he, 1 " I 
 understand affections of substance, or that which is in 
 another, through which also it is conceived." "Modes 
 can neither exist nor be conceived without substance ; 
 therefore they can exist only in the divine nature, and 
 can be conceived only through it." 2 " Besides substance 
 and modes nothing exists, and modes are nothing but 
 affections of the attributes of God." 3 Finite modes are, 
 further, identified with individual things (res partlcu- 
 lares), and of these it is said 4 that " they are nothing but 
 affections of the attributes of God, or modes by which 
 the attributes of God are expressed in a certain definite 
 manner." 
 
 What we gather from these various forms of state- 
 ment is, that, in contrast with Substance or God, who 
 alone is self-existent, all finite things have only an ex- 
 istence that is dependent on or derived from Him, 
 Their being is a being which is not in themselves, 
 but " in another " that is, " in God." What is meant 
 by the phrase "in another," or "in God," the following 
 passages may help us to understand : 
 
 " Whatever is, is in God, and without God nothing can l>e 
 or be conceived." 5 " From the necessity of the divine nature 
 an infinite number of things follows in infinite ways, as will 
 be evident if we reflect that from the definition of a tiling 
 the understanding infers many properties which necessarily 
 follow from it that is, from the very essence of the thing 
 defined." 6 "The modes of the divine nature follow there- 
 from necessarily and not contingently, and that, whether we 
 
 1 Eth. i., clef. 5. - Eth. i. 15, tlem. 
 
 Eth. i. 28, dem. 4 Eth. i. 25, cor. 
 
 8 Eth. i. 15. Eth. i. 16, dem.
 
 Derivation of Modes. 159 
 
 consider the divine nature absolutely, or as determined to 
 act in a certain manner. Further, God is the cause of these 
 modes not only in so far as they simply exist, but in so far 
 as they are considered as determined to any action." l 
 
 In these passages the relation of modes or finite things 
 to God is represented by the equivalent forms of expres- 
 sion " following from God " and " caused by God " ; and 
 it is to be observed that in the last-quoted passage the 
 causality of God with regard to modes is spoken of as of 
 a twofold character viz., that of the divine nature " con- 
 sidered absolutely," and that of the divine nature " in 
 so far as it is determined to act in a certain manner." 
 This distinction, to which Spinoza frequently recurs, 
 and on the tenableness of which the coherence of his 
 system may be said to turn, is more fully expressed in 
 the following passages : 
 
 " That which is finite and has a determinate existence can- 
 not be produced by the absolute nature of any attribute of 
 God ; for whatever follows from the absolute nature of any 
 attribute of God is infinite and eternal. It must therefore fol- 
 low from God or from some attribute of God, in so far as He 
 is considered as affected by some mode, . . . (or) in so far as 
 He is modified by a modification which is finite and has a 
 determined existence. This mode again must in turn be 
 determined by another which also is finite, and this last again 
 by another, &c., ad infinitum." 2 Yet "it cannot be said that 
 God is only the remote and not the proximate cause of indi- 
 vidual things, except to distinguish them from those . . . 
 which follow from His absolute nature." 3 
 
 Thus the causality of finite things, considered as modes 
 of God, is not the nature of God viewed absolutely, but 
 that nature as modified by, or expressed in, the endless 
 
 i Etli. i. 29, clem. 2 Eth. i. 28, dem. 3 Ibid., schol.
 
 160 Spinoza. 
 
 regress of finite causes, or what Spinoza elsewhere calls 
 " the common order of nature and constitution of things," 
 or the " connection of causes." l This idea reappears 
 throughout the whole system as a solvent of the diffi- 
 culties involved in the relation of the purely indeter- 
 minate God to a world of finite individualities in time 
 and space. " The idea of an individual thing actually 
 existing is an individual mode of thinking distinct from 
 other modes," and is caused by God " not in so far as 
 He is a thinking thing absolutely, but in so far as He is 
 considered as affected by another mode of thinking, of 
 which again He is the cause as affected by another, and 
 so on to infinity." 2 " The human mind is part of the 
 infinite intellect of God ; and when we say that the 
 human mind perceives this or that, we affirm that God 
 has this or that idea, not in so far as He is infinite, but 
 in so far as He is expressed by the nature of the human 
 mind, or constitutes the essence of the human mind." 3 
 On the other hand, though the causality of individual 
 things is thus ascribed to God not as He exists absolutely 
 or infinitely, we find from other passages that there is 
 a sense in which they can be referred to the absolute or 
 eternal nature of God as their cause e.g. : 
 
 " It is the nature of reason to regard things not as contin- 
 gent but as necessary. But this necessity of things is the 
 very necessity of the eternal nature of God, and therefore it 
 is the nature of reason to regard things under this form of 
 eternity." " Every idea of every particular thing actually 
 existing necessarily involves the eternal and infinite essence 
 of God." " By existence (of individual things), I do not mean 
 existence in so far as it is conceived abstractly and as a certain 
 
 1 Eth. ii. 30, dem. " Eth. ii. 9, dem. :! Eth. ii. 11, cor.
 
 H'lation of Substance ami Modes. 161 
 
 form of quantity; I speak of the very nature of existence 
 which is ascribed to individual things, because an infinite 
 number of things follows in infinite ways from the eternal 
 necessity of God's nature of the existence of individual things 
 as they are in God. For, although each individual thing is 
 determined by another individual thing to exist in a certain 
 manner, yet the force whereby each individual thing per- 
 se veres in existing, follows from the eternal necessity of the 
 nature of God." 1 
 
 Further, the two kinds of existence of individual things 
 that in which they are viewed as a series of causes 
 and effects in time and space, and that in which they are 
 viewed. " under the form of eternity " are expressly 
 contrasted as follows : " Things are conceived as actual 
 in two ways either in so far as they exist in relation to 
 a certain time and place, or in so far as we conceive them 
 as contained in God and following from the necessity of 
 the divine nature. When in this second way we con- 
 ceive things as true and real, we conceive them under 
 the form of eternity, and the ideas of them involve the 
 eternal and infinite essence of God." 2 
 
 In the light of these and other passages to which we 
 shall refer in the sequel, we are prepared to examine 
 what is Spinoza's conception of the relation of infinite 01 
 absolute substance to its " modes." When we ask what 
 in his system is the relation of the finite world and in- 
 dividual finite things to God, the question is not settled 
 simply by referring to his doctrine that all things exist 
 in God, and that modes or finite things have no existence 
 or operation independently of the infinite substance. 
 
 1 Eth. ii. 44, cor., ii. 45, and ibid., schol. 
 - Eth. v. 29, schol. 
 P. XII. L
 
 162 Spinoza. 
 
 Spinozism is not at once proved to be pantheistic by 
 such expressions as these. For every system that is not 
 dualistic, and for which the terms infinite and finite 
 have any meaning, is pantheistic to the extent of hold- 
 ing that the world has no absolute or independent ex- 
 istence, and that the ultimate explanation of all things 
 is to be found in God. Before pronouncing Spinoza a 
 pantheist, therefore, the point to be determined is not 
 whether he ascribes independent reality to finite things, 
 but whether he ascribes to them any reality at all 
 whether his modes have any existence distinguishable 
 from that of substance, and such that we can speak of 
 an actual relation between the two. If, on the one hand, 
 it can be shown that the existence he ascribes to modes 
 is only a fictitious or fugitive semblance of existence, if 
 the distinction of modes from substance is a distinction 
 which is created by the imagination and has no objective 
 reality, and if the unity into which all individual things 
 are resolved is one which does not maintain but sup- 
 presses or annuls that distinction, then indeed his philo- 
 sophy may justly be characterised as pantheistic. But, 
 on the other hand, since real distinctions do not exclude 
 but imply a unity which transcends them, if Spinoza's 
 siibstance is a principle which subordinates but does not 
 suppress differences, if his modes are the expression for a 
 finite world which does not vanish, but constitutes a 
 necessary and permanent moment in the unity of the 
 infinite, then it is no proof of Spinoza's pantheism that 
 he affirms that " whatever is is in God," and that modes 
 are things that "exist only in God, and only through 
 God can be conceived." In the passages quoted above, 
 when read in the light of his general principles, there
 
 7s the Doctrine Pantheistic? 163 
 
 is much to favour the former of these t\vo construc- 
 tions of his system ; hut in these, as elsewhere, there 
 are expressions which refuse to lend themselves to a 
 purely pantheistic view of the relation of God to the 
 world. 
 
 1. The considerations that favour the former or pan- 
 theistic interpretation have already heen adduced, and 
 need not here he repeated. They amount to this, that 
 individual finite things have no real existence dis- 
 tinguishable from that of absolute substance, but are 
 merely creations of the abstracting imagination. 
 
 " It is mere folly or insanity," he write?, 1 " to suppose that 
 extended substance is made up of parts or bodies really dis- 
 tinct from each other. ... If you ask why we are by nature 
 so prone to attempt to divide extended substance, I answer 
 that quantity is conceived by us in two ways : viz., abstractly> 
 superficially, as we imagine it by aid of the senses ; or as 
 substance, which can only be done by the understanding. 
 So that if we attend to quantity, as it is in the imagination, 
 it will be found to be divisible, finite, made up of parts, and 
 manifold. Again, from the fact that we can limit duration 
 and quantity at our pleasure, when we conceive the latter in 
 abstraction from substance, and separate the former from the 
 way in which it flows from things eternal, there arise time 
 and measure time for the purpose of limiting duration, 
 measure for the purpose of determining quantity so that we 
 may, as far as possible, imagine them. Further, inasmuch 
 as we separate the modifications of substance from substance 
 itself, and reduce them to classes in order, as far as possible, 
 to imagine them, there arises number, whereby we limit 
 them. . . . Whence it is clear that measure, time, and num- 
 ber are nothing but modes of thinking, or rather of imagin- 
 ing. But," he adds, " there are many things which cannot 
 
 1 Ep. 29.
 
 164 Spinoza. 
 
 be conceived by the imagination, but only by the under- 
 standing e.g., substance, eternity, and the like. Thus, if 
 any one tries to explain these things by means of conceptions, 
 which are mere aids to the imagination, he is simply trying 
 to let his imagination run away with him." 
 
 The drift of these and other passages which might be 
 quoted is, not simply that modes, or individual finite 
 things, have no existence independent of substance, but 
 that they have no existence at all, save for a faculty 
 which mistakes abstractions for realities. It is possible 
 for the unreflecting mind to suppose itself capable of 
 thinking the separate halves or minuter isolated parts of 
 a line, but intelligence corrects the illusion. A line, it 
 discerns, could as easily be made up of points lying miles 
 apart as of points contiguous yet really isolated. The 
 point it perceives to be a mere fictitious abstraction, an 
 unreality, a thing which has no existence apart from the 
 line, and when we think the line the point ceases to 
 have any existence at all. And the same is true of lines 
 in relation to surfaces, of surfaces in relation to solids, 
 and of all existences in space in relation to space itself, 
 which is the one infinite, indivisible reality. In like 
 manner, when we regard the modes in relation to the 
 infinite substance, we see that they are mere creatures 
 of the imagination ; when we contemplate individual 
 things from the point of view of intelligence, or as they 
 really are, their illusory individuality vanishes', and the 
 only reality left, the only being in the universe, is God, 
 or Infinite Substance. And indeed it is only, Spinoza 
 expressly affirms, when we leave out of view the fictitious 
 differences which modes introduce into substance that 
 the latter can be truly contemplated. " Substance is
 
 Spinoza's " Quatenw." 165 
 
 considered in itself that is, truly when we set aside 
 all its modifications " (deposit is affectionibus). 
 
 It is true that whilst Spinoza not only concedes but 
 expressly teaches that modes or individual finite things 
 have no reality in relation to the absolute nature of God, 
 he yet contrives to ascribe to them, in a certain indirect 
 way, a divine origin. " That Avhich is finite," says he, 
 in a passage above quoted, " and has a determined ex- 
 istence, cannot be produced or follow from the absolute 
 nature of any attribute of God," for " whatever does so 
 follow is infinite and eternal." And " every individual 
 thing, or everything which is finite and has a determined 
 existence, can only exist or be determined to act by 
 another thing which is also finite, and this again only 
 by another which also is finite, and so on indefinitely." 
 " Only the infinite can follow from the infinite, the finite 
 can follow only from the finite." How, then, does Spinoza 
 reconcile these propositions with the assertion that modes 
 " are conceived through the divine nature, and follow 
 necessarily from it " 1 The answer is, that he simply 
 begs the question. " That which is finite," he tells us, 
 " cannot be produced by the absolute nature of God or 
 of any of His attributes ; ... it must therefore follow 
 from. God, or some attribute of God, in so far as (qua- 
 te)i)i$) He is modified by a modification which is finite 
 and has a determined existence, and this mode or cause 
 must in turn be modified by another, &c." The only 
 construction of which this proposition, taken in con- 
 nection with what precedes it, is capable, is that it simply 
 assumes without proof what has been already denied 
 viz., that individual finite things can be derived from 
 God. The nature of God is such that it does not admit
 
 166 Spinoza. 
 
 of modification, but finite things follow from it in so far 
 as it is modified. Or, otherwise expressed, Spinoza pre- 
 supposes the existence of finite things in order to prove 
 it, or virtually makes God finite in order to express 
 Himself in the finite. Finite things follow from God 
 in so far as He is (already) modified by finite things. 
 Every reader of Spinoza knows what an important role 
 is assigned to this quafenm, and how often, by means of 
 what is nothing more than a tautological phrase, he con- 
 trives to escape from difficulties and inconsistencies 
 otherwise insuperable. 
 
 It may be said that Spinoza's reasoning here is not 
 the bare petitio principii involved in the assertion that 
 finite things follow from God in so far as they already 
 follow from Him ; but that what he affirms is that they 
 follow, not from individual finite things, but from the 
 interminable series or connection of finite things, which 
 is not finite but relatively infinite. But to this the 
 answer is what, as we have seen, Spinoza has himself 
 taught us, that by the spurious infinite of mere endless- 
 ness we do not rise above the region of the finite. An 
 infinite quantity is a contradiction in terms, a phrase in 
 which the predicate denies the subject. By no indefinite 
 addition or aggregation of finites can we reach the essen- 
 tially or absolutely infinite that infinite from which 
 Spinoza asserts that the finite can not be derived. 
 
 In the foregoing view of Spinoza's doctrine as to the 
 relation of God to the world, we have considered it 
 simply as a relation of the absolutely indetermined infi- 
 nite to determined or finite things. But in some of the 
 above-quoted passages, and elsewhere, we find him ex- 
 pressing this relation in terms of another category viz.,
 
 Divine Causality. 167 
 
 that of causality. " God is the efficient cause of all things 
 that can fall under an infinite intellect." * " God is the 
 efficient cause not only of the existence of things but 
 also of their essence." 2 " The modes of any given 
 attribute have God for their cause, &c." 3 " Of things as 
 they are in themselves God is really the cause, &c." 4 
 Now, as the relation of cause and effect is one in which 
 we ordinarily think of the effect as something which, 
 though dependent on the cause, actually emerges out of 
 it into an existence of its own, the application of this 
 category to the relation of God and the world would 
 seem to give to finite things a reality which is not 
 illusory or imaginative, a being which is not absorbed 
 in that of infinite substance. But it is to be considered 
 that, in its proper sense, causality is not a category 
 which is applicable to the relation of the infinite to the 
 finite ; and if we attempt so to apply it, what it expresses 
 is not the reality of the finite, but either the limitation 
 or the non-reality of the infinite. 
 
 Causality is a category only of the finite. The rela- 
 tion of cause and effect is one which implies the succes- 
 sion or (though not with strict accuracy) the coexistence 
 of its members. In the latter case it presupposes the 
 existence of things external to, and affecting and being 
 affected by each other. In the former, it is a relation in 
 which the first member is conceived of as passing into the 
 second ; the cause, or the sum of conditions which con- 
 stitute it, loses its existence in the effect or in the sum of 
 the new conditions to which it has given rise. The cause, 
 iu other words, is only cause in and through the con- 
 
 1 Eth. i. 16, cor. 2 Eth. i. 25. 
 
 3 Eth. ii. 6. Eth. ii. 7, schol.
 
 168 Spinoza. 
 
 stimulated result which we call effect, and the very 
 reality or realisation of the former implies, in a sense, 
 its own extinction. In the impact of two balls the 
 motion of the first becomes the cause of the motion of 
 the second only when it has ceased to exist in the 
 former ; the force which has existed as heat becomes 
 the cause of motion only when it has exhausted itself of 
 its existence in the one form and become converted into 
 the other. But, obviously, in neither of these senses 
 can we embrace the relation of the infinite and the finite 
 under the form of causality. The infinite cannot be 
 conceived of as external to, and acting on, the finite, as 
 one finite body is outside of, and acts on, another ; in 
 such a relation it would cease to be infinite. " God," 
 says Spinoza, " is omne esse." Beyond substance there 
 is nothing real. Substance and its affections con- 
 stitute the totality of existence, and is absolutely in- 
 finite. But this it could not be if its affections, instead 
 of existing only in it and being conceivable only through 
 it, had an existence capable of being acted on by it. 
 Xor, again, can you speak of the infinite as a cause 
 which, in producing the finite, passes wholly into it 
 and becomes lost in it ; for, in that case, the existence 
 of the finite would be conditioned by the non-existence 
 or extinction of the infinite. 
 
 The inapplicability of the category of causality to the 
 relation of infinite and finite is thus so obvious that 
 Spinoza can only give a colour of relevancy to it by 
 qualifying the term " cause " when applied to God so as 
 virtually to destroy its meaning. "God," he tells us, 1 
 " is not the transient but the immanent cause of the 
 i Etk i. 18.
 
 Immanent Cause. 169 
 
 world." He can only be designated cause of all things 
 in the same sense in which He is cause of Himself 
 (<'au*a fit/). 1 In other words, to obviate the contradic- 
 tion involved in the idea of an infinite which is exter- 
 nal to the finite, he modifies the notion of cause so as to 
 conceive of it as existing, not outside of, but wholly 
 within, the things which are said to be its effects ; and 
 to obviate the further difficulty which thus arises, of 
 conceiving an infinite which passes away into the finite, 
 he again modifies the notion of cause so as to conceive 
 of it as maintaining its own independent existence at 
 the same time that it loses itself in the effect. But 
 though in the conception of a causa omnium rerum 
 which is at the same time causa sui, what Spinoza is 
 aiming at is the idea of a Being which remains one 
 with itself in all its changes, or of a self-differentiating, 
 which is at the same time a self -integrating, infinite, this 
 idea is one which in vain attempts to express itself 
 under the category of causality. The attempt so to 
 express it may be regarded as one of those indications 
 in Spinoza of the consciousness of another than the 
 purely negative relation of the finite -to the infinite 
 which his own inadequate logic forced him to maintain. 
 2. The foregoing considerations seem almost conclu- 
 sively to favour that view of Spinoza's doctrine of modes 
 which denies to individual finite things any existence 
 that is not fictitious and illusory. His derivation of 
 modes from substance would seem to be nothing more 
 than a reversal of the process of abstraction by which 
 the idea of substance was reached. It is not substance 
 which determines itself to modes, but we who, with a 
 i Eth. i. -25, clem.
 
 170 Spinoza. 
 
 show of logic, reintroduce into it the fictitious distinc- 
 tions which the same logic had abolished. 
 
 But this account of Spinoza's doctrine would be in- 
 complete if we did not point out that, however incon- 
 sistently they enter into it, there are elements of his 
 system which refuse to lend themselves to the notion 
 of the unreality of the finite world. Modes are not 
 invariably represented as merely transient creations of 
 the abstracting imagination. They have in them a 
 positive element which remains even when on the 
 negative side they have been resolved into the unity of 
 substance. 
 
 Besides the tacit implication of another doctrine in 
 the idea of a causa sui which is at the same time causa 
 omnium rerum, the following considerations seem to 
 point in the same direction : 
 
 (1.) Even if modes are only transient forms, there 
 must be a reason in the nature of substance for their 
 existence as suck. Though everything else in the finite 
 world is resolved into negation, the negation itself is 
 not so resolved. Evanescence itself does not vanish. 
 When you have reduced all finite things to phantoms, 
 insubstantial as the things of a dream, the dream-world 
 itself remains to be accounted for ; and more than that, 
 obviously the mind which perceives and pronounces 
 that it if a dream-world cannot belong to that world. 
 In ascribing to intelligence the function of rising above 
 and abolishing the distinction from substance of finite 
 things, Spinoza virtually exempts intelligence itself from 
 the process of abolition. The criterion of the illusory 
 cannot be itself illusory. If therefore, as Spinoza 
 asserts, "that which is finite and has a determinate
 
 Positive Element in the Finite. 171 
 
 nature cannot follow from the absolute nature of God, 
 for whatever does so follow is infinite and eternal," 
 what this involves as to that intelligence which discerns 
 the nothingness of finite things is, not that it does not 
 follow from the absolute nature of God, but that it has 
 in it, in its very discernment of its distinction from God, 
 an element of what is infinite and eternal 
 
 (2.) That Spinoza himself, despite of his own princi- 
 ple that " all determination is negation," recognises in 
 modes something that is not mere negation, is indirectly 
 indicated by the qualified form in which in the ' Ethics ' 
 that principle is stated. " The finite," says he, 1 " is in 
 part negation " (ex parte negatio). The negation implied 
 in finitude is not complete but partial. There is, in 
 other words, a positive element in finite things, which 
 is not annulled when the fictitious distinction from the 
 infinite is taken away. There is an individuality which 
 survives the extinction of the false or spurious individu- 
 ality. Xor is this implied only in the phrase " partial 
 negation." Besides the idea of God as the negation of 
 all determinations there are traces of another and oppo- 
 site idea that of the affirmation of all determinations. 
 For the indivisible unity in which all differences vanish, 
 Spinoza seems often, without consciousness of inconsis- 
 tency, to substitute the infinite unity which comprehends 
 in it all possible differences. 
 
 " From the necessity of the divine nature," says lie, 2 
 " must follow an infinite number of things in infinite -ways." 
 " There is not wanting to God materials for the creation of 
 all things from the highest to the lowest degree of perfec- 
 
 1 Eth. L 8, schol. - Eth. i. 16.
 
 172 Spinoza. 
 
 tion for the producing of all things which can be conceived 
 by an infinite intellect." 1 " There are two ways," says he 
 in a passage already quoted, " in which things are conceived 
 by us as actual viz., either as existing in relation to a 
 certain time and place, or as contained in God and following 
 from the necessity of the divine nature. In the second way 
 we conceive them as true and real, under the form of eter- 
 nity, and the ideas of them involve the eternal and infinite 
 essence of God." 2 
 
 And when we have reached the latter point of view, 
 what we have ceased to see in finite things is not their 
 individuality, but their finitude. Their true individu- 
 ality is not lost, for " every idea of an individual thing 
 actually existing necessarily involves the idea of the 
 eternal and infinite essence of God ; . . . for the force 
 by which each individual thing perseveres in its own 
 existence folloAvs from the eternal necessity of the divine 
 nature." 3 "In God there is necessarily an idea which 
 expresses the essence of this or that body under the form 
 of eternity," 4 and this idea is a certain mode of thinking 
 which is necessarily eternal. 5 What is lost, what of 
 our former unreal view of things disappears, is their con- 
 tingency, their transient, fugitive being as things of time 
 and sense, for " it is of the nature of reason to contem- 
 plate things as they are in themselves i.e., not as con- 
 tingent but as necessary," 6 not " as determined each by 
 another finite thing, but as following from the eternal 
 necessity of the nature of God." 7 
 
 That there is, in Spinoza's view, an affirmative ele- 
 
 1 Hth. i., Append. 2 Eth. v. 29, schol. 
 
 :i Eth. ii. 45, deni. and schol . 4 Eth. v. 22. 
 
 8 Eth. v 23, schol. e Eth. ii. 44, cor. 2. 
 
 7 Eth. ii. 45, schol.
 
 Tlic, Self-maintaining Impulse. 173 
 
 nient which remains to finite things when the negative 
 element which seemed to distinguish them from the in- 
 finite is obliterated, an individuality which, taken up into 
 the infinite, still exists and can be known through the in- 
 finite, these passages seem clearly to teach. But if we ask 
 further and more definitely what that element is, and how 
 it " follows from the infinite nature of God," the answer 
 is by no means satisfactory. As to the first question, 
 that element in the finite which lifts it out of the sphere 
 of time into " the form of eternity " is, Spinoza tells us, 
 the inherent impulse or endeavour of each individual 
 thing to maintain itself or persevere in its own being. 
 " No individual thing has in it anything by which it can 
 be destroyed or which can deprive it of its existence ; 
 but, on the contrary, it is opposed to all that could de- 
 prive it of its existence." x There is in each thing an 
 " endeavour (conatus) by which it seeks to persevere in 
 its own being," and this endeavour " is nothing but the 
 actual essence of the thing itself," 2 and it is therefore 
 something not conditioned by time, " it involves no 
 finite but an indefinite time." But is not this con- 
 ception of the self-maintenance or persevering in exist- 
 ence of an individual thing a simple tautology ? Does 
 it mean any more than this, that when we think of it as 
 an existing thing, we cannot think of it as a non-existing 
 thing ? Is not the inherent capacity to persevere in 
 existing simply the incapacity of the mind to predicate 
 of a thing at once existence and non-existence 1 When 
 \ve say that a thing necessarily perseveres in existence, 
 do we say any more than that, so long as we think of it, 
 we think of it as existing, or that the conception of 
 i Eth. iii. 6, deni. 2 Ibid., 7.
 
 ] 74 Spinoza. 
 
 existence excludes or contradicts the conception of 
 non-existence ] Moreover, is not this perseverance in 
 existing which is supposed to pertain to a thing as seen 
 "under the form of eternity," a conception which is 
 still conditioned by time ? We do not escape from 
 the quantitative idea of duration merely by making it 
 indefinite. Indefinite or endless duration is a form 
 of time and not of eternity. As to the second ques- 
 tionviz., as to the relation of this self-maintaining 
 element in the finite to God all that Spinoza says 
 amounts simply to the affirmation that it has its ori- 
 gin in the absolute nature of God, and is a determi- 
 nate expression of that nature. " Although each in- 
 dividual thing," says he, 1 " is determined to exist in a 
 certain way by another individual thing, yet the force 
 by which each thing perseveres in existing follows from 
 the eternal necessity of the nature of God." " Individ- 
 ual things are modes by which the attributes of God are 
 expressed in a certain definite manner, &c." 2 How 
 finite things can have in them a power of self-mainten- 
 ance, a capacity of continuous existence flowing from 
 their own nature, and yet have nothing in them which 
 does not follow from the nature of God, is the problem 
 to be solved, and Spinoza's only solution is simply to 
 affirm that both propositions are true. 
 
 As the result of our inquiry we seem to have found in 
 Spinoza's account of the nature of modes statements 
 which, if not irreconcilable, he has made no attempt 
 to reconcile. In accordance with the principle which 
 generally governs his reasoning, the very essence of 
 finite things is identified with negation or non-being ; 
 1 Eth. ii 45, scliol. 2 tb. iii. 6, dem.
 
 Result of Inquiry. 175 
 
 they not merely have no real existence apart from God, 
 but existence in God is for them equivalent to extinction 
 of existence. Yet, on the other hand, as we have just 
 seen, to these same finite things Spinoza ascribes a posi- 
 tive, self-affirmative nature, an individuality which is 
 inherent and essential, and which is not extinguished 
 when the limits that divide the finite from the infinite 
 are removed. And if thus Spinoza's two representations 
 of the nature of finite things seem to conflict, equally 
 conflicting are the corresponding representations of the 
 nature of God. To the former representation of the 
 finite corresponds the notion of a purely indeterminate, 
 to the latter that of a self-determining Infinite. In the 
 one case the world is nothing and God is all ; in the 
 other, the world is the manifold expression of the nature 
 of God, and God the Being whose nature unfolds with- 
 out losing itself in the innumerable individualities of 
 the finite world. If Spinozism contained no other con- 
 ception of the relation of God to the world than the 
 first, we should be compelled to pronounce it a purely 
 pantheistic system. Perhaps the second conception may 
 be regarded as the expression on Spinoza's part of an 
 unconscious endeavour to correct the inadequacy of the 
 first. But the correction, whilst it obviates the impu- 
 tation of thorough - going pantheism, and elevates his 
 system above all other pantheistic philosophies, is still 
 imperfect in this respect, that it implies a principle of 
 self-determination in God which is without any specula- 
 tive ground in his idea of the divine nature. At best, it 
 only creates the demand for a more complete and self- 
 consistent philosophy, and indicates the direction in 
 which it lies.
 
 176 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 INFINITE MODES. 
 
 SPINOZA'S system, so far as we have traced its develop- 
 ment in the foregoing pages, leaves us still without any 
 principle of mediation between God and the world. If, 
 as we have just seen, it sometimes represents finite 
 things as possessing an element of individuality which, 
 taken up into the infinite, still remains, and therefore 
 seems to imply a principle of self-determination in the 
 divine nature, so far as we have gone this principle is 
 simply affirmed, not proved ; the gap between the infinite 
 and finite remains unbridged. But there are certain 
 passages in the 'Ethics ' in which Ave meet with a concep- 
 tion not yet referred to, that of " Infinite Modes, "- 
 a conception which may be regarded as an attempt 
 to fill up the gap. As the very phrase indicates, 
 " infinite modes " point to something whicli constitutes 
 a link between the two worlds. As " modes," they 
 belong to the sphere of the finite ; as " infinite " modes, 
 to that of the infinite. Despite of Spinoza's own asser- 
 tion, that the finite can only follow from the finite, 
 we have here a conception in which the ideas of in- 
 finite and finite are combined. The following arc the
 
 Examples of Infinite Modes. 177 
 
 passages in which the doctrine of infinite modes is 
 most fully expressed : " Whatever follows from any at- 
 tribute of God, in so far as it is modified by a modifica- 
 tion which exists necessarily and as infinite through the 
 said attribute, must also exist necessarily and infinitely;" 1 
 and conversely, " Every mode which exists both neces- 
 sarily and as infinite, must necessarily follow, either from 
 the absolute nature of some attribute of God, or from an 
 attribute modified by a modification which exists neces- 
 sarily and as infinite." 2 Spinoza here speaks of certain 
 modes or modifications of divine attributes, differing 
 therefore from the attributes in this respect, that the 
 latter are conceived through themselves, the former only 
 through the attributes. Further, of these modes he 
 specifies two classes or grades : first, those which follow 
 immediately from attributes ; and secondly, those which 
 follow from attributes already modified : but to both the 
 predicate " infinite " is applied. One of Spinoza's cor- 
 respondents 3 asks for examples of these two classes of 
 modes, and conjectures that thought and extension 
 may belong to the first, "the intellect in thought" and 
 " motion in extension " to the second. Spinoza, with- 
 out waiting to correct the obvious error of finding 
 in thought and extension, which are themselves attri- 
 butes, examples of modifications of attributes, answers 
 thus : 4 " Examples which you ask are, of the first class, 
 in thought, the absolutely infinite intellect (intellectus 
 absolute infim'tus), in extension, motion, and rest ; of 
 the second class, the form of the whole universe (fades 
 tot! us universf), which, although it varies in infinite 
 ways, remains always the same." 
 
 1 Eth. i. 22. 2 th. i. 23. 3 Ep. 65. 4 Ep. 66. 
 
 P. XII. M
 
 178 Spinoza. 
 
 At first sight, Spinoza seems to be here attempting to 
 combine ideas which are reciprocally exclusive. Sub- 
 stance and modes, he himself affirms, include all being. 
 But in infinite modes we have a third something which 
 belongs to neither category which is neither " in itself" 
 nor " in another," neither infinite nor finite, but both at 
 once. If the absolutely infinite is " that which contains 
 in its essence whatever expresses reality and involves no 
 negation," is not an infinite mode as self-contradictory as 
 a round square or a rectangular circle ? " Intellect," he 
 tells us, 1 "whether finite OT infinite" (and the same is 
 true of the other infinite modes), belongs to the sphere of 
 natura naturata that is, to the order of things which 
 exist only for the imagination and its quantifying forms 
 of time and measure ; yet, at the same time, these infi- 
 nite modes are things which " cannot have a limited 
 duration," but " must exist always and infinitely," or to 
 which pertains the timeless immanent unity of the na- 
 ture of God. 2 In this conception of infinite modes there 
 seems thus to be involved the same apparent contradic- 
 tion with which theological controversy has made us 
 familiar in the doctrine of the " Logos " or " Son of 
 God," in which we meet with the same seemingly irre- 
 concilable elements of subordination and equality with 
 God ; of that which is " begotten," and therefore finite, 
 and that which is consubstantial with God, and therefore 
 infinite ; of that which is described as " eternally begot- 
 ten," and therefore as l>elonging at once to the sphere of 
 the temporal and to that of the eternal. And that this 
 is not a merely fanciful analogy, but one which was 
 present to Spinoza's own mind, we learn from his earlier 
 1 Eth. i. 32, cor. 2 Eth. i. 21. anl .Ion.
 
 Motive of the Conception. 179 
 
 treatise ' Concerning God and Man,' in which, with ex- 
 press reference to the subject before us, we find him thus 
 writing : 
 
 " As to the modes or creatures which immediately depend 
 on God, of these we know only two viz., motion in matter, 
 and intellect in thought of which we affirm that they have 
 been from all eternity, and will be unchangeably to all eter- 
 nity. . . . As to motion, therefore, that it is that which is in 
 its nature infinite, and that it can neither exist nor be con- 
 ceived through itself, but only by means of extension, . . . 
 of all this I will only say here that it is a son of God, or a 
 work or effect immediately created by God. As to intellect 
 in thought, this also, like the former, is a son of God, . . . 
 created from all eternity, and continuing unchangeable to all 
 eternity. Its sole function is that of clearly and distinctly 
 understanding all things in all times." l 
 
 Can the conception of infinite modes be freed from 
 the contradiction which it thus seems to involve 1 The 
 answer is, that though on Spinoza's principles the con- 
 tradiction is really insoluble, yet in this conception we 
 have an elaborate attempt to solve it. Infinitude and 
 finite individuality express ideas which, as Spinoza de- 
 fines them, are reciprocally exclusive ; but when we 
 examine what is meant by the phrase " infinite modes," 
 we find that it involves, in opposite directions, an en- 
 deavour so to modify these ideas as to bring them into 
 coherence. On the one hand it introduces, at a lower 
 stage, into the idea of the infinite, that element of 
 activity or self-determination which is lacking to the 
 higher ideas of sxibstance and attributes. On the other 
 hand, it attempts to raise the finite world to a quasi 
 1 De Deo, i. cap. 9.
 
 1 80 Spinoza. 
 
 infinitude which is denied to the separate individualities 
 that compose it. The barren infinitude is thus rendered 
 fertile, and then finite things are so ennobled as to make 
 it possible to claim for them an infinite origin. The 
 former side of this modifying process is expressed by 
 that class or grade of infinite modes which are " imme- 
 diate modifications" of the attributes of thought and 
 extension ; the latter, by those which are modifications 
 of the second degree, of which Spinoza adduces only one 
 example, the fades tot ins nniversi. 
 
 1. Of the infinite modes which are immediate modi- 
 fications of attributes, two are specified viz., "motion 
 and rest" as modifications of extension, and "the ab^.>- 
 lutely infinite intellect " as the modification of thought. 
 Now, if we examine the function assigned to these 
 " immediate modes," we shall find that they are simply 
 the attributes of extension and thought, plus that element 
 of activity or self-determination which these attributes 
 lack, and yet which is necessary to make them the pro- 
 ductive sources of finite things. The very designation 
 " infinite mode " shows that Spinoza is here uncon- 
 sciously seeking to introduce into his system the element 
 of difference or finitude which is excluded from the 
 abstract unity of substance. From such an abstract 
 infinite, the purity of which can be maintained only hy 
 the elimination of all distinctions (<lp<>*iti* a/ectionibus), 
 it is impossible to find any way back to the finite. Xor 
 could it legitimately be made the living source of finite 
 existences save by transforming it from the abstract 
 unity which extinguishes difference into the concrete 
 unity of a principle in which all differences are at once 
 embraced and subordinated. But whilst Spinoza's logic
 
 First Class of Infinite, Modes. 181 
 
 debarred him from any such introduction of a negative 
 or finite element into the purely affirmative unity of 
 substance, or even into the infinitude in suo genere 
 which is the conception of attribute, the need for such 
 an element, if he would not arrest the descending move- 
 ment of thought, asserts itself at the stage we have now 
 reached, and finds its expression in the conception of 
 infinite modes, or of an infinite which contains in it the 
 element of negation or finitude. With such a conception 
 a new principle of self-development is introduced into 
 his system. The barren self-identical infinite becomes 
 now an infinite which has in it the impulse to realise 
 itself in all the manifold individualities of the finite 
 world. That it is this principle of activity or self- 
 development which Spinoza is aiming at in the con- 
 ception of infinite modes, becomes clear from the 
 examples he gives of these modes, and from what he 
 says as to their nature and function. Of extension the 
 infinite modification is " motion and rest " ; and of 
 what he conceived to be the relation in this case of the 
 mode to the attribute, we have a clear indication in his 
 answer to inquiries on this point from his acute corre- 
 spondent Tschirnhaiisen. 1 " It is very difficult," writes 
 the latter, " to conceive how the existence of bodies which 
 have motion and figure can be demonstrated a pi'iori, 
 since in extension, considered absolutely, nothing of the 
 kind occurs." To this Spinoza answers by distinguish- 
 ing his own from the Cartesian notion of extension." 
 " From extension, as Cartesius conceives it that is, as a 
 mere inert mass it is not only difficult, as you say, but 
 altogether impossible, to demonstrate the existence of 
 1 Epp. 69-72.
 
 182 Spinoza. 
 
 bodies. For inert matter, as it is in itself, will persevere 
 in its rest, and will not be excited to motion save by a 
 more powerful external cause. And on this account I 
 have not hesitated formerly to affirm that the Cartesian 
 principles of natural things are useless, not to say 
 absurd." In a subsequent letter, in answer to further 
 difficulties propounded by his correspondent, Spinoza 
 points out that Descartes' notion of extension breaks 
 down by his own showing, seeing that he can only 
 deduce the variety of things from extension by supposing 
 it to be set in motion by God. Matter, therefore, cannot 
 be explained by extension as Descartes defines it, " but 
 must necessarily be explained by an attribute which 
 expresses eternal and infinite essence." The further 
 elucidation of this answer which Spinoza promises is not 
 given, but his meaning is obvious. An attribute of God 
 which explains the manifolclness of things only by call- 
 ing in the co-operation of an arbitrary external force, 
 is not what it pretends to be viz., " that which ex- 
 presses an eternal and infinite essence." It must not be 
 supplemented by an outside mover, but must contain in 
 itself implicitly the element of motion or activity. And 
 this idea Spinoza conceives himself to have attained 
 for his own attribute of extension by the proposition 
 that motion and rest constitute its immediate infinite 
 mode. In other words, extension, or what is here the 
 same thing, matter, is not a mere passive inert mass, 
 but contains in it, as equally essential moments, both 
 motion and rest. It is to be noticed that motion and 
 rest are here represented by Spinoza, not as two differ- 
 ent things, but as constituting one infinite mode, 
 parallel to that of " infinite intellect " in thought. His
 
 Meaning of these Modes. 1 83 
 
 motion is a motion which is self-terminated, or which is 
 not moved by anything outside of itself ; his rest is the 
 rest of that which is in intense and unchangeable activity. 
 In other words, his first infinite mode is simply self- 
 determined extension, or extension with the element of 
 activity or self-determination in it. 
 
 From purely infinite or indeterminate thought it is 
 as impossible to derive the manifold world of finite in- 
 telligences as from extension, considered as a mere inert 
 mass, to demonstrate the existence of bodies. Blank 
 self-identical thought remains one with itself. It is the 
 form of all ideas without the possibility of the actual 
 existence of any. Implicitly the whole wealth of the 
 world of intelligence is contained in it ; but it can never 
 realise that wealth, or become conscious of its own con- 
 tent, because to do so would be to introduce distinction 
 into that the very nature of which is to transcend all 
 distinctions. But what Spinoza wants is an infinite 
 thought which, while it remains one with itself, is yet 
 the productive source of an actual world of ideas and 
 intelligences. The only legitimate way in which this 
 could be achieved would be by transforming the idea of 
 God as Substance, with thought for its attribute, into 
 that of self-conscious Spirit or Mind. From this, how- 
 ever, which would have implied the reconstruction of 
 his whole philosophy, Spinoza was precluded, and the 
 expedient to which he had recourse was to introduce the 
 element of self-determination into thought under the 
 guise of an " infinite mode." " Intellect," though " ab- 
 solutely infinite," is not absolute thought (cogitatio ab- 
 aoliita), but only a certain mode of thinking, and there- 
 fore . . . must be referred not to natur". tt>it>ii->.ui*, but
 
 184 Spinoza. 
 
 to natura naturata" l By this means, without intro- 
 ducing difference into that which is " absolutely perfect 
 that is, absolutely indeterminate " Spinoza can claim 
 for the whole finite realm of thought a necessary deriva- 
 tion from the divine nature. " Infinite intellect " is not 
 simply infinite thought, but that which knows infinite 
 thought and all that is contained in it. " From the 
 necessity of the divine nature must follow an infinitude 
 of things in infinite ways that is, all things that can fall 
 under an infinite intellect." 2 "Active intellect, finite 
 or infinite, must comprehend the attributes and affections 
 of God." 3 " The ideas of (even) non-existent individual 
 things or modes must be comprehended in the infinite 
 idea of God." 4 Thus to " intellect," as an immediate 
 mode of thought, though it is said to belong to the 
 sphere of the finite (natura naturata), the predicate 
 " absolutely infinite " may be applied, inasmuch as there 
 is nothing in the realm of thought which it does not 
 comprehend. Though it contains an infinite number of 
 determinations, they are, from first to last, self-deteT- 
 minations. Though, as the productive source of all 
 ideas, it is intensely and unceasingly active, yet, like the 
 parallel mode of extension, its activity is a motion 
 which is never moved. As motion, which is at the 
 same time rest, is infinite, because it is motion which is 
 terminated only by itself, so intellect is infinite, because 
 its activity knows no limit that does not fall within its 
 own domain. What, in short, Spinoza is aiming at by 
 the conception of " intellect " as an " infinite mode " of 
 thought, is the virtual introduction into his system of 
 
 1 Eth. i. 31, clem. ^ Eth. i. 16. 
 
 3 Eth. i. 30. Eth. ii.8.
 
 Second Class of Infinite Modes. 185 
 
 what " he had actually excluded from his idea of God 
 viz., the principle of self -consciousness or of thought as 
 an active, self -determining principle which, in all its 
 determinations, remains one with itself. 
 
 2. I have said that the conception of infinite modes is 
 an attempt to bring into union the irreconcilable ideas 
 of infinitude and finite individuality, not only in the 
 way we have just considered viz., by introducing the 
 element of self-determination into the idea of the infi- 
 nite but also, from an opposite direction, by elevating 
 the finite world into a quasi infinitude. Spinoza had 
 laid down the principle that nothing can follow from 
 the infinite save that which is itself infinite and eternal, 
 and conversely, that " that which is finite and has a 
 determined existence cannot be produced by the abso- 
 lute nature of God." The world of finite individualities, 
 therefore, can never be connected by necessary derivation 
 with the first principle of his system, the absolute 
 nature of God or an attribute of God, unless he can con- 
 trive to lend to that world such a guise of infinitude as 
 will make it homogeneous with its origin. This he 
 attempts to do by the second order of infinite modes or 
 modifications of divine attributes in the second degree, 
 the nature of which he exemplifies in the phrase " form 
 of the whole universe." And the way in which he finds 
 it possible to connect this totality of things with the 
 absolute nature of God, is by ascribing to it, as a whole, 
 a kind of infinitude and unchangeableness which does 
 not pertain to the parts of which it is composed, taken 
 individually. For this " form of the whole universe," 
 "though it varies in infinite ways," though its con- 
 stituent finite parts are determined each only by other
 
 186 Sjnnoza. 
 
 Unite parts, and may be conceived to be endlessly diver- 
 sified in their particular movements, yet taken as a 
 whole, or as one composite individual, remains ever the 
 same. 1 The individual parts are finite or determined ; 
 but as constituting together the whole universe, outside 
 of which there is nothing to determine them, they are 
 infinite. Here, therefore, we have an aspect of the 
 finite world in which, in a being derived from the abso- 
 lute nature of God, it fulfils the condition that nothing 
 can be so derived which is not infinite and eternal. Un- 
 der whatever attribute we contemplate this totality of 
 things whether as the aggregate of all corporeal things, 
 or as the sum of all ideas nothing is presupposed to 
 it save " the absolute nature of some attribute of 
 God, or of such an attribute modified by a modification 
 which is necessary and infinite." The sole presupposi- 
 tion of the totality of finite bodies is the attribute of 
 extension, conceived as self-determining, or under the 
 infinite mode of motion ; the sole presupposition of the 
 totality of ideas is the attribute of thought conceived of 
 under the infinite mode of intellect. If the phrase 
 "fades tot iiis universi" be regarded as embracing both 
 the world of thought and the world of things, then we 
 have here a point of view from which we can contem- 
 plate it as an infinite and eternal expression of the abso- 
 lute nature of God. 
 
 If we ask what is the value of this attempt to mediate 
 between the infinite or absolute nature of God and the 
 finite world by the conception of " infinite modes," the 
 answer can only be that Spinoza himself has furnished 
 the proof of its inconclusiveness. The sum or aggregate 
 of modifications is not equivalent to the unmodified ; by 
 1 Ep. 66, and II. Lemma 7, schol.
 
 Criticism of the Conception. 187 
 
 endless additions of finites we do not reach the true 
 infinite ; the totality of relative, changeable things is 
 no nearer than any one of them to the unchangeable abso- 
 lute. Spinoza's finite modes, even when, by a petitio 
 l>rii:ij>ii, he speaks of each mode as determined by God 
 in so far as He is expressed by another finite mode, and 
 that by others in endless series, are only contiguous, not 
 essentially related, to each other. The whole finite 
 world, in so far as we can conceive it at all, is broken 
 up into an endless multiplicity of isolated atoms, and 
 the attempt to sum them gives us only the false infinite 
 of indefinite number, which leaves us no nearer the true 
 infinite at the end than at the beginning. 
 
 It may be possible, indeed, in another way to discern 
 a real infinitude in the multiplicity of finite things. As 
 a living organism is a unity which is not the sum of its 
 parts, but prior to yet expressing itself in each and all 
 of them, so it may be possible to conceive of the fades 
 fiift//* unirirx! as an infinite organic whole, every infi- 
 nitesimal portion of which is instinct with the universal 
 life, every part of which lives in and through the rest, 
 and all together constitute, not an aggregate outwardly 
 related to, but a corporate unity which is the living 
 expression of its infinite author. But though Spinoza 
 undoubtedly aimed at a view of the universe in which 
 all finite things should be seen to follow from, and 
 constitute a necessary expression of, the absolute nature 
 of God, we seek in vain in his dialectic for any such 
 principle of organic coherence between the individualities 
 of the finite world and the infinite substance. By his 
 own acknowledgment his "infinite modes " belong still 
 to the sphere of nntura naturafa, and the gulf between 
 them and his nntura naturan* remains unbridged.
 
 188 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND. 
 
 THE Second Book of the ' Ethics,' to which the above 
 title is prefixed, opens with the following words : " I 
 will now explain the results which must necessarily fol- 
 low from the nature of God, or of the Being eternal and 
 infinite ; not, indeed, all these results, . . . but only those 
 which can lead us to the knowledge of the human mind 
 and of its highest. blessedness." In these words we have 
 the key to the subsequent course of Spinoza's speculations 
 with respect both to the intellectual and the moral 
 nature of man. Here, as in his former work on ' The 
 Improvement of the Human Understanding,' his aim is 
 not a theoretical but a practical one not primarily the 
 search for intellectual satisfaction, but the discovery of 
 the way to spiritual perfection and blessedness. But as, 
 in his view, all moral advancement rests on and is in 
 one sense identical with intelligence, the true way to 
 perfection is to disabuse our minds of error and illusion, 
 and to gain a point of view from which we shall see 
 things as they really are. His inquiry into the nature 
 of the human mind, therefore, resolves itself into the 
 question whether, from its very nature, human intelli-
 
 Tu -of old Aspect of MlmL 189 
 
 gence is capable of adequate, or only of inadequate or 
 imperfect knowledge. Spinoza's doctrine of " finite 
 modes " contains two different and apparently irrecon- 
 cilable views of the nature of individual finite things 
 that in which the finite is represented as destitute of 
 any positive reality, and that, on the other hand, in 
 which the negation involved in the notion of the finite 
 is only a partial negation, leaving to it still a positive 
 element, " a force by which each individual thing 
 perseveres in existence, and which follows from the 
 eternal necessity of the divine nature." And what is 
 true of finite things is equally true of our knowledge 
 of them. The finite mind, like all other finite things, 
 has, on the one hand, an existence that is merely 
 negative and illusory ; the idea of the finite is itself 
 finite, limited and determined by other finites, and in- 
 capable of rising above itself. On the other hand, it 
 has in it an element which is not mere negation, which 
 transcends the limits of the finite and relates it to the 
 absolute nature of God. In the former aspect, in its 
 actual, empirical reality, it contemplates all things only 
 under the form of time ; it looks on the world from the 
 point of view of sense and imagination, broken up into 
 fictitious individualities, or into things which have only 
 accidental relations to each other in time and space. 
 In the latter aspect, it sees all things from the point 
 of view of reason or intelligence, as having in them a 
 nature that is not unreal and relations that are not 
 accidental, but which " involve the eternal and infinite 
 necessity of the nature of God ; " it sees them " under 
 the form of eternity." 
 
 Xow whether this twofold existence and activity
 
 190 Spinoza. 
 
 which Spinoza ascribes to the human mind is not, 
 when closely examined, an impossible and self-con- 
 tradictory notion, need not here be considered ; what 
 we are at present concerned to notice is, that it is 
 obviously Spinoza's aim, both here and in the more 
 strictly ethical part of his system, to represent the lower 
 or finite aspect of human nature as an imperfect stage 
 of man's being, and the higher or infinite aspect as the 
 goal of perfection to which, by its very essence, it is 
 capable of attaining. 
 
 The human mind, as we first contemplate it, is im- 
 prisoned in the finite. It is an individual amongst 
 other individuals, a link in the endless series of exist- 
 ences, to parts of which only it stands in immediate 
 relation. Its knowledge is only of the particular ; it 
 is a finite mode which has for its object only another 
 finite mode ; and it has no knowledge of other things 
 save in their accidental relation to its ow'n particular 
 being no knowledge, therefore, which is not at once 
 fragmentary and confused. The mind is thus in its 
 origin simply " the idea of an individual thing actually 
 existing, or an individual mode of thinking ; " and its 
 whole conception of things is determined by this indi- 
 vidual reference. 
 
 But though it would seem to be impossible, on 
 Spinoza's principles, that the individual finite mind 
 should, without ceasing to be finite or losing its in- 
 dividuality, attain to any higher knowledge, it is 
 implied in his whole treatment of the subject, that the 
 mind is capable of emancipating itself from the par- 
 ticular, and of attaining to a knowledge of things from 
 a universal point of view. There is a stage of human
 
 Stages of Intelligence. 191 
 
 intelligence in which it has become liberated from 
 accidental associations and can contemplate things not 
 as they are merely in relation to our own individuality, 
 but as they are in their own nature and in their 
 necessary relations to each other. At this stage of 
 knowledge the mind has ceased to be dominated by 
 the senses and the imagination ; its objects are not 
 mere transient phenomena, but permanent laws. But 
 beyond this there is a yet higher stage. Even the 
 second stage of knowledge, in which we connect things 
 under necessary principles and laws, rests on and 
 involves the highest principle of all, " the very necessity 
 of the nature of God." But there is a form of know- 
 ledge of which this principle is not merely the implied 
 basis but the very essence that which Spinoza de- 
 signates " intuitive knowledge," " which proceeds from 
 an adequate idea of the absolute essence of certain 
 attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the 
 essence of things." When it has reached this highest 
 stage of intelligence, the mind, starting with the unity 
 which is present in all knowledge, sees all things in the 
 light of it ; it discerns the immanence of the infinite in 
 the finite, and regards the finite as real only in so far 
 as it has the infinite in it. Thus Spinoza's inquiry into 
 the nature of the human mind begins with the definition 
 of the mind as " the knowledge of the body," and ends 
 virtually with defining it as the knowledge of God and 
 of all things in God. Its first consciousness of things 
 is from a purely individual, but it is capable of rising 
 to a universal standpoint. Lost at first in the confused 
 and inadequate ideas of sense and imagination, human 
 intelligence has in it the capacity of rising above itself.
 
 192 Spinoza. 
 
 of seeing things no longer in online a<l in<l!r!<ln>iui, but 
 in their objective reality and necessary relations ; and 
 finally, it is capable of reaching a point from which 
 by the intuitive grasp of reason it can discern all 
 individual things, and all relations of things in their 
 absolute unity, as expressions of "the eternal necessity 
 of the divine nature." 
 
 I. If now we examine a little more closely the course 
 of thought of which the foregoing is an outline, the lirst 
 important proposition in Spinoza's account of the nature 
 of the mind is that the human mind is " the idea of the 
 body." " The first," says he, " which constitutes the 
 actual being of the human mind is nothing else than 
 the idea of an actually existing individual thing," and 
 " the object of the idea which constitutes the human 
 mind is the body that is, a definite actually existing 
 mode of extension and nothing else." l 
 
 The proof that the mind is the idea of the body is 
 simply an application to the nature of man of Spino- 
 za's general doctrine of the attributes of thought and 
 extension, and of the modes as parallel expressions of 
 these attributes. Substance is both a " thinking thing" 
 and an "extended thing" ; but thought and extension, 
 and their respective modes, are not essentially different, 
 but only different expressions of one and the same 
 thing. To every mode of thought a mode of extension 
 corresponds, the order or series of thoughts is the same 
 as the order or series of things, and every actually 
 existing thing may be regarded as a modification both 
 of thought and extension. We say of man that he is 
 composed of body and mind, 2 but the body and the 
 1 Eth. ii. 11 and 13. 2 ii. 13, cor.
 
 Mind is tJie Idea of tJic Body. 193 
 
 idea of the body are one and the same thing, contem- 
 plated, now under one attribute, now under another. 
 The two worlds of mind and matter, thoughts and 
 things, are thus absolutely separated from each other. 
 Though completely correspondent, they are absolutely 
 independent, and idealistic explanations of physical, 
 and materialistic explanations of mental phenomena, 
 are equally precluded. In Spinoza's theory there is as 
 little room for the deus ex machina of Descartes as for 
 the " occasional causes " of Geulinx or the " pre-estab- 
 lished harmony " of Leibnitz, to explain the relation of 
 body and mind and the correspondence of bodily and 
 mental acts ; for relation implies difference, and in this 
 case there is no difference, but only one and the same 
 thing contemplated in different aspects. We may, 
 indeed, refer both mental and material phenomena to God 
 as their cause, but we can refer the former only to God 
 or Substance as thinking thing, the latter to God or 
 Substance as extended thing. To trace the existence of 
 any material object to the " will of God " would be to 
 explain by the attribute of thought what can only be 
 explained by the attribute of extension. A circle and the 
 idea of a circle are ono and the same thing, conceived 
 now under the attribute of extension, now under the 
 attribute of thought ; but we cannot explain the ideal 
 circle by the actual or by any mode of extension, but 
 only by thought and modes of thought, and vice versa. 
 Body and mind, in like manner, are to be conceived 
 each as a mode of its own attribute ; and the only union 
 of the two of which we can speak, is involved in the 
 proposition that for everything that exists " formally " 
 i.e., as a modification of extension there exists some- 
 p. XIT. x
 
 194 Spinoza. 
 
 thing exactly parallel "objectively" i.e., as a modifica- 
 tion of thought. 
 
 What, then, from this view of the nature of things, 
 are we to understand by Spinoza's definition of mind as 
 " the idea of the body " 1 In the first place, it might 
 seem that there is much in man's spiritual nature which 
 this definition does not embrace. By defining it as an 
 " idea " or mode of thought, does not Spinoza leave out 
 of sight such essential elements of that nature as feel- 
 ing, desire, will, &c., and reduce it to something purely 
 intellectual ? The answer is, that, in Spinoza's view, 
 knowledge, the objective knowledge of the human body, 
 precedes all other forms of consciousness and constitutes 
 the fundamental essence of man's mental nature. Xo 
 emotional or volitional element can exist without pre- 
 supposing thought, and the latter can exist without the 
 former. Thought is not one among many co-ordinate 
 faculties, each having its own peculiar function, its own 
 time and mode of action ; it is the principle which 
 underlies all the many-sided aspects of our spiritual 
 life, and of which these are but various specifications. 
 " Modes of thinking, such as love, desire, or affections of 
 the mind, by whatever name they are designated, do not 
 exist iinless there exists in the same individual an iilt-n 
 of the thing loved, desired, &c. But the idea may exist 
 without any other mode of thinking." 1 ''The essence 
 of man is constituted by modes of thinking, to all of 
 which the idea is by nature prior, and it is only when 
 that exists that the other modes can exist in the same 
 individual. Therefore the idea is the first thing consti- 
 tuting the being of the human mind." '' 
 
 1 Eth. ii., ax. 3. - Eth. ii. 11, deni.
 
 Mind not an abstract Entity. 195 
 
 But, secondly, even if we accept the doctrine that the 
 ideal element is that to which all other elements of man's 
 spiritual nature may be reduced, this doctrine, it may be 
 said, does not to the modern ear seem to be expressed 
 by the proposition, " the mind is the idea of the body." 
 Modern thought conceives of mind as the conscious, 
 thinking self to which ideas are referred, the rational 
 nature, which is not one idea but the source or subject, 
 at lowest, "the permanent possibility," of all ideas. 
 But the explanation of Spinoza's phraseology lies in 
 this, that mind, as anything more than the idea of the 
 body (or of " affections " of the body), is for him a mere 
 abstraction. It is only by a fictitious, imaginative gen- 
 eralisation that we conceive of any abstract faculty of 
 thinking, feeling, willing, apart from particular thoughts, 
 feelings, volitions ; so it is only by carrying the same 
 fictitious generalisation still further that we conceive of 
 an abstract entity called " mind," which is no particular 
 mental activity, but a capacity of all activities. Such a 
 conception belongs to the same fictitious region with the 
 conception of " lapidity " in relation to stones, or " aquos- 
 ity " to streams. " There is," says he, 1 " in the mind 
 no absolute faculty of understanding, desiring, loving, 
 <fec. These and similar faculties are either entirely 
 fictitious or merely metaphysical entities or universals, 
 such as we are accustomed to create from particular 
 things. Thus the intellect and the will stand in the 
 same relation to this or that idea or this or that volition, 
 as lapidity to this or that stone, or man to Peter and 
 Paul." "The mind is a fixed and definite mode of 
 thought, and not the free cause of its actions." 2 Mind 
 1 Eth. ii. 48, schol. 3 Ibid., dem.
 
 196 Spinoza. 
 
 is for Spinoza, not a general capacity of knowledge 
 without definite content, but a definite knowledge of 
 definite things, an individual mode of thought which 
 has for its object an individual mode of extension, the 
 idea of the body or of the ' affections ' of the body." 
 Are we, then, to understand that for Spinoza there is no 
 such conception as a conscious self, a permanent ego or 
 subject, to which all mental experiences are referred 1 ? 
 Is the human consciousness nothing but a succession of 
 isolated thoughts, feelings, &c., bound together by no 
 principle of unity] To this question the answer can 
 only be that, though Spinoza's philosophy contains 
 elements which, as we have often seen, are inconsistent 
 with his fundamental principles, there is for him, ac- 
 cording to these principles, no unity or unifying prin- 
 ciple of ideas that stops short of that ultimate unity of 
 all things which lies in God. We may group a number 
 of the simplest bodies (corpora simplissima] by aggrega- 
 tion, or by the constant relation of their motions to each 
 other, into a combined or corporate individual, and these 
 again, by a similar process, into larger individuals ; in 
 like manner we may combine the simplest ideas, or ideas 
 of the simplest bodies, into the more complex idea of an 
 individual body, which is the aggregate of many such 
 simpler elements, and from that again we may rise to 
 the idea of a larger and more comprehensive individual. 
 But all such unities, the most comprehensive alike with 
 the smallest, are artificial creations of the imagination, 
 which can ascribe to the part an independent unity that 
 exists only in the whole. The unity of all modes of 
 thought, of all modes of extension, lies solely in the 
 attribute which each mode expresses in a certain definite
 
 Alleged Ambiguity. 197 
 
 manner ; and the attributes themselves are only different 
 expressions of the one ultimate and only absolute unity, 
 that of Substance or God. As a mode of a divine attri- 
 bute, therefore, the human mind has no independent 
 individuality or self-consciousness. " It is," says Spinoza, 
 "part of the infinite intellect of God; and when we 
 say that it perceives this or that, what we affirm is that 
 God has this or that idea, not in so far as He is infinite, 
 but in so far as He is manifested through the nature of 
 the human mind, or constitutes the essence of the human 
 mind." l 
 
 By the phrase " idea of the body," we are thus to 
 understand that particular mode of thought called the 
 human mind which corresponds to that particular mode 
 of extension which we term the human body. Mind, 
 in other words, is the correlate in thought of body in 
 extension. It has been alleged that here, as elsewhere, 
 Spinoza wavers between two entirely different senses of 
 the word " idea " that, viz., in which it means, as just 
 explained, the mental correlate of a certain modification 
 of matter, and that in which it means the conception of 
 that modification. It is one thing to say that there 
 exists in thought an idea which is parallel to the thing 
 we call body, and another thing to say that the body is 
 the object of that idea. The relation expressed in the 
 former phrase is something quite different from the rela- 
 tion of the knower to the known, which is the relation 
 expressed in the latter. A constant relation of the mind 
 to the body does not imply that we are always thinking 
 of the body, nor a relation of the mind as a whole to the 
 body as a whole that there is a complete knowledge of 
 1 Eth.ii. 11, cor.
 
 198 Spinoza. 
 
 the body in every man's mind, or that every human 
 being is " an accomplished physiologist." Yet a confu- 
 sion of these two uses of the term " idea "is to be 
 traced, it is averred, in much of Spinoza's speculations, 
 and to this cause are to be ascribed some of his gravest 
 errors. l 
 
 If, however, we look to the whole drift of Spinoza's 
 doctrine, it must, I think, be acquitted of this alleged 
 ambiguity. Though, unquestionably, the idea of the 
 body is, according to Spinoza, an idea which has the 
 body for its object, yet neither directly nor by implica- 
 tion does Spinoza confound the idea of the body with 
 the physiologist's knowledge of it. The human mind is 
 a mode of thought, but relation to an object is of the 
 very essence of thought Spinoza, we have just seen, 
 rejects any such notion as that of an empty, abstract 
 mind or subject, a capacity of thinking apart from the 
 actual thought of a particular object. There is no 
 thought or idea which is not the thought or idea of 
 something. What, then, can be the special object of the 
 idea which is a particular mode of thought if not the 
 particular mode of extension which corresponds to it? 
 For man the whole universe of being consists of thought 
 and extension, and their modifications. Outside of 
 itself, therefore, there is nothing for the individual 
 mind to think, nothing that for it immediately exists, 
 save the individual mode of extension which is the 
 obverse, so to speak, of itself. In being the mental 
 correlate of the body the mind thinks the body. There 
 is no confusion, therefore, of correlation and relation in 
 saying that the idea that is correlated to the body is the 
 1 Pollock's Spinoza, p. 132.
 
 "Idea" not Scientific Knowledge. 199 
 
 idea which has the body for its object, or, in brief, that 
 the mind is the idea of the body. 
 
 But though the mind is, primarily, the idea of the 
 body, Spinoza in so defining it neither identifies, nor is 
 logically bound to identify, this idea of the body with 
 the scientific knowledge of it, or to maintain anything 
 so absurd as that " every human being must be an 
 accomplished physiologist." As a matter of fact, he 
 expressly teaches that the knowledge of the body which 
 is the content of this " idea " is very imperfect and 
 inaccurate knoAvledge. " The human mind," says he, 
 " does not involve an adequate knowledge of the parts 
 composing the human body." " The idea," again he 
 writes, " of each affection of the human body does not 
 involve an adequate knowledge of the human body 
 itself ; " and again, " The idea of the affections of the 
 human body, in so far as they are related only to the 
 human mind, are not clear and distinct, but confused." ] 
 Nor does his theory force him to hold any more than 
 this. The idea of the body and the body correspond to 
 each other ; but the correspondence is between the idea 
 as this finite mode of thought, dwelling in the region of 
 imagination or sensuous perception, and the body as this 
 finite mode of extension apart from its relations to the 
 whole system of the physical universe. In this point of 
 view " the body " no more includes its whole organic 
 .structure and functions as they are contemplated by the 
 anatomist or the physiologist, than " the idea of the 
 body " or the mind includes its whole constitution and 
 relations as they are contemplated by the psychologist 
 or the metaphysician. Between the adequate idea of 
 1 Eth. ii. 24, 27, 28.
 
 200 Spinoza. 
 
 the body, indeed, and the body as it really is, there 
 would be a perfect correlation, and the relation in this 
 case would be that of scientific knowledge ; but the cor- 
 relation implied in Spinoza's definition of the mind, is 
 not between the body as it really is and the scientific 
 mind, still less between the former and the unscientific 
 mind, but between body as a finite mode of matter, and 
 mind in that attitude which is for the ordinary con- 
 sciousness its first crude conception of things. If it be 
 said that, after all, the body is as it is to the perfect 
 physiologist, the answer is that the perfect physiologist 
 is God, who is also the body as it is in reality i.e., as 
 determined in relation to the whole of extension, and 
 therefore in all its physical relations. Mind is the idea 
 of the body, and only so as it is the idea of itself ; but 
 the consciousness is as imperfect in the one case as in 
 the other. Idea and object, therefore, are here exactly 
 correspondent. Relation includes no more than correla- 
 tion, and there is no confusion between two different 
 things between the body as the condition of thought, 
 and the body as the object of thought. What makes 
 our knowledge at this stage superficial and confused, we 
 shall see more fully in the sequel. 
 
 II. The first important point in Spinoza's inquiry into 
 the nature of the human mind is the definition of the mind 
 as the " idea of the body." The second is the further 
 characterisation of the mind as the idea of itself, the 
 doctrine of idea mentis or ut<- /'/>. This further step 
 may be expressed by saying that the first determination 
 is that of mind as consciousness of an object, the second 
 that of mind as self-consciousness. As "the mind is 
 united to the body because the body is the object of the
 
 Idea of the Mind. 201 
 
 mind, so ... the idea of the mind is united to its ob- 
 ject, the mind, in the same way as the mind is united to 
 the body ; " the only difference being that " mind and 
 body are one and the same individual regarded, now 
 under the attribute of thought, now under that of ex- 
 tension," whereas " the idea of the mind and the mind 
 are one and the same thing regarded under one and the 
 same attribute, that of thought." l 
 
 The proof of the doctrine of idea mentis is twofold, 
 (1) from the nature of God, (2) from the nature of mind 
 itself as " the idea of the body." (1.) The human mind, 
 as we have seen above, is, according to Spinoza, " part 
 of the infinite intellect of God." To say that the mind 
 perceives anything is to say " that God has this or that 
 idea, not in so far as He is infinite, but in so far as He 
 constitutes the essence of the human mind." But it is 
 involved in the divine attribute of thought that " there 
 must necessarily exist in God an idea both of Himself 
 and of all His affections, and therefore an idea of the 
 human mind." 2 " The idea of the mind and the 
 mind itself exist in God by the same necessity and 
 the same power of thinking." 3 The human mind, 
 therefore (or God as constituting its essence), has an 
 idea of itself. 
 
 (2.) The same thing is proved from the nature of 
 mind itself, regarded as " the idea of the body." " The 
 idea of the mind, or the idea of the idea, is simply the 
 form of the idea considered as a mode of thought with- 
 out reference to its object. For one who knows any- 
 thing, in the very act of doing so knows that he knows 
 
 1 Eth. ii. 21, deiu. aiid schol. 
 2 Eth. ii. 20, dein. 3 th. ii. 21, schol.
 
 202 Spinoza. 
 
 it, and knows that he knows that he knows it, and so 
 on ad infinitum." l 
 
 What it is of most importance to remark as to this 
 doctrine of idea mentis is that, notwithstanding Spino- 
 za's assertion of the absolute independence and equality 
 of the two parallel series of modes, a richer content is 
 here ascribed to the mental than to the corporeal side. 
 The idea of the body corresponds to the body, but there 
 is nothing in the latter which corresponds to the idea's 
 consciousness of itself. The body, as a mode of exten- 
 sion, has relations to other modes of extension, and the 
 idea which constitutes the mind has relations to other 
 modes of thought ; but in the series of ideas there is 
 interposed a relation which has nothing parallel to it in 
 the series of material modes viz., the relation of each 
 idea to itself. In returning upon itself, mind is not the 
 correlate in thought of anything that takes place in ex- 
 tension. It possesses a self-activity, a power of self- 
 reflection, which has no existence in matter. In his 
 whole doctrine, indeed, as to the relation of the ideal 
 and the material, we find an unconscious preponderance 
 ascribed to the ideal side. In the very definition of 
 mind as the idea of the body, there seems to be attributed 
 to it a power to transcend the gulf between thought and 
 things, which is not ascribed to the latter. Matter, so 
 to speak, becomes idealised, but mind does not become 
 materialised. It is not by any influence or impression 
 of the body on the mind, but by the mind's own in- 
 herent activity, that it knows the body, or has the body 
 for its object. " It would be absurd," says Spinoza, " to 
 think of the idea as something dumb, like a picture in- 
 1 Eth. ii. 21, schol.
 
 Preponderance of Ideal Side. 203 
 
 scribed on a tablet, and not as a mode of thinking, as in- 
 telligence itself." x " By idea," says he elsewhere, 2 " I 
 understand a conception of the mind which it forms be- 
 cause it is a thinking thing. I say conception rather 
 than perception, because the word ' perception ' seems 
 to indicate that the mind is passive to the object, but 
 ' conception ' seems to express the activity of the mind." 
 In being the idea of the body, mind is not passive but 
 active, and its activity is the purely internal, self-orig- 
 inated activity of thought. Moreover, as we have just 
 seen, its inherent activity manifests itself in a wholly 
 original manner, to which there is nothing corresponding 
 in the body viz., as reflection on itself. It is not 
 merely the idea of the body, but it makes that idea its 
 own object ; and in so doing, as Spinoza teaches, it is 
 its own criterion of certitude. In knowing, it knows 
 that it knows. The truth of its knowledge is self-cer- 
 tified. The content of every true idea carries subjective 
 certainty with it, and the " form " or characteristic pro- 
 perty of the idea is something that pertains to it, " in 
 so far as it is considered as a mode of thought, mthout 
 /'/fence to the object." 3 Finally, we shall afterwards 
 see that Spinoza ascribes to mind not merely an activity 
 independent of the body, but a power to control and 
 modify the body and its affections. The mind masters 
 the passions by the very act of thinking them, or " by 
 forming clear and distinct ideas of them ; " 4 and when 
 it is thus liberated from passion, it can order and con- 
 catenate its ideas according to the order of reason. But, 
 as ideas are ordered and connected in the mind, so are 
 
 i Eth. ii. 43, schol. 2 Eth. ii., def. 3. 
 
 3 Eth. ii. 21, schoL 4 Eth. v. 3.
 
 204 Spinoza. 
 
 the affections of the body or the images of things in 
 the body. " So long," he therefore concludes, " as we 
 are not assailed by passions which are contrary to our 
 nature, we possess the power of ordering and connecting 
 the affections of the body according to the order of 
 reason." a Notwithstanding, therefore, his denial of any 
 causal nexus between mind and body, we find him here 
 ascribing to mind not only a power over itself and its 
 own internal activities, which the body does not pos- 
 sess, but also a power, extending beyond the sphere of 
 thought, to control and regulate the affections of the 
 body. 
 
 III. The essence of the mind, as we have seen, is in- 
 telligence. It is idea, the idea of the body, and in 
 being the idea of the body it is the idea of itself. 1 1 s 
 characteristic attitude towards both the outward and the 
 inward world is that of knoicledge. But if we go on to 
 ask, What is the nature and value of its knowledge? 
 Spinoza's answer is, that in the first exercise of our in- 
 telligence, its knowledge is "inadequate" or, more 
 definitely, it is neither a complete nor a distinct, but 
 only a fragmentary and confused knowledge of things. 
 Its point of view is purely individual ; it is that of a 
 being Avho is only a part of the world, and as such ap- 
 prehends only the part with which he stands in imme- 
 diate connection, and even that only partially and 
 indistinctly; and as the mind's knowledge of itself is 
 relative to its knowledge of the body as it knows itself 
 only in knowing, and in the measure in which it knows, 
 outward things its self-consciousness is as inadequate as 
 its consciousness of outward objects, 
 i Eth. v. 10.
 
 Inadequate Knowledge. 205 
 
 The proof of the inadequacy of that knowledge which 
 pertains to the mind as the idea of the body, is based on 
 the proposition that the mind knows the body only by 
 means of ideas of bodily affections i.e.. of the modifica- 
 tions which the body experiences in its relations to out- 
 ward objects. 1 It has been shown 2 that an indi- 
 vidual finite thing can exist only as determined by 
 another finite thing, and that as determined by another 
 finite thing, &c., ad infinitum ; and as the knowledge 
 of an effect depends on the knowledge of its cause and 
 includes it, 3 an adequate knowledge of any indi- 
 vidual thing would imply a knowledge of the whole 
 endless series of causes and effects in other words, 
 would imply a knowledge which pertains only to the 
 infinite intellect of God. But the human mind is only 
 a part of that infinite intellect. Its knowledge is God's 
 knoAvledge of the body, not in so far as He is infinite, 
 but in so far as He is regarded as affected by another 
 idea of a particular thing actually existing, or by many 
 such ideas. 4 In other Avords, the idea or knowledge of 
 the body is not the idea of the body in itself, but only 
 of the body as determined or affected by other bodies ; 
 or the mind knows the body only by means of the ideas 
 of the affections it experiences. No\v, if we consider 
 what is the value of the knowledge so defined, it is 
 obvious that it must be both partial and confused. It 
 is partial ; it apprehends its objects not in the totality of 
 their nature and relations. Its knowledge of the body, 
 of outward bodies, and of itself, is a knowledge which 
 excludes or conceals all but a fragment of what would 
 
 i Eth. ii. 19. 2 Eth. i. 28. 
 
 3 Eth. i., ax. 4. 4 Eth. ii. 19, dem.
 
 206 Spinoza. 
 
 be necessary to true or perfect knowledge. Knowing 
 its own body only as it affects and is affected by outward 
 objects, it knows both only in one relation, the external 
 objects only in so far as they influence the human body, 
 but not in their innumerable other relations ; l the human 
 body only in that relation in which it has been affected 
 in a particular way, but not as it is capable of being 
 affected in a multiplicity of other ways. 2 Further, 
 the human body is a highly composite individual 
 thing, the parts of which belong to its essence only 
 in so far as they participate in its movements in 
 definite reciprocal relations ; but in so far as they 
 exist in other relations, or in action and reaction with 
 other bodies, the knowledge of their existence and 
 activity is not included in the idea of the body which 
 constitutes the human mind. Thus the knowledge that 
 comes through the affections of the body is the know- 
 ledge of outward objects, of the body itself, and of its 
 constituent parts, only in certain particular relations, and 
 is therefore imperfect or partial. It is also, even so 
 far as it goes, indistinct or confused. Each affection of 
 which the mind is conscious is the result of two factors 
 the action of the outward object and the susceptibility 
 of its own body and it is incapable of determining how 
 rrmch is merely subjective, how much due to the out- 
 ward object. "These ideas and affections, therefore, in 
 so far as they are related to the human mind alone, are 
 like conclusions without premisses that is, they are con- 
 fused ideas." 3 
 
 If the knowledge that comes to the mind through the 
 affections of the body is thus inadequate, equally inade- 
 1 Etb. ii. 25. 2 Eth. ii. 27. 3 Eth. ii. 28.
 
 Inadequate Knowledge. 207 
 
 quate must be the self-consciousness that is bound up 
 with it. The idea of the idea must partake of the im- 
 perfection and indistinctness of its object. "As the 
 idea of an affection of the body does not involve an 
 adequate knowledge of the body or adequately express 
 its nature, so the idea of that idea does not adequately 
 express the nature of the human mind or involve an 
 adequate knowledge of it." l The self -consciousness, in 
 other words, which is the consciousness of inadequate 
 ideas, must be itself an inadequate self-consciousness. 
 
 But besides this imperfection and confusion which 
 characterises our first consciousness of things, or that 
 knowledge which is mediated by the affections of the 
 body, there is a further defect which inevitably clings 
 to it. !Not only at this stage are our particular percep- 
 tions inadequate, but the same inadequacy attends our 
 ways of connecting or combining them. A mind which 
 knows things only through the affections of the body, 
 or as they present themselves in individual sensible 
 experience, can have no other notion of the relations 
 of things than that of arbitrary or accidental association. 
 The affections of the body, and therefore the ideas of 
 these affections, vary in each case with the individual 
 susceptibility. They are limited in number by the 
 range of individual experience, and they succeed each 
 other in no rational order, but only in the order in 
 which the individual chances to be affected by them. 
 "Memory," says Spinoza, "is an association of ideas 
 which involves the nature of things outside the body, 
 but it is an association which arises in the mind ac- 
 cording to the order and association of the affections 
 1 Eth. ii. 29, dem.
 
 208 Spinoza. 
 
 of the body," in contradistinction from the order of 
 intelligence " whereby the mind perceives things through 
 their primary caiises, and which is the same in all men." l 
 Thus, so long as our knowledge is derived from mere 
 external experience, Spinoza shows (though by the help 
 of a somewhat crude physiological explanation, on which 
 nothing really turns) that it is possible to regard as 
 actually present, things which are absent or even non- 
 existent, 2 and to connect things arbitrarily "according 
 to the manner in which the mind has been accustomed 
 to connect and bind together the images of things." 3 
 Lastly, the inadequacy and arbitrariness which is the 
 general characteristic of this kind of knowledge finds 
 another example in the fictitious " universals," the 
 general or abstract terms by which we attempt to give 
 connection and unity to our particular perceptions of 
 things. Transcendental terms, such as " being," " thing," 
 " something " ; generic terms, such as " man," " horse," 
 " dog," &c., so far from expressing real relations of 
 things, only intensify the confusion of our individual 
 perceptions. They are expressions of the mind's weak- 
 ness, not of its strength. They arise from the fact that 
 its capacity of forming even confused images of things 
 is limited, so that when they exceed a certain number 
 they run into each other, and our only resource is to 
 group them indistinctly under some general term. In- 
 stead, therefore, of giving unity to the differences of 
 our primary perceptions, they only redouble the original 
 indistinctness. And they are as arbitrary as they are 
 confused. They do not supply any objective principle 
 by which the differences of things are explained and 
 1 Eth. ii. 18, schol. 2 Ibid., 17. " Tbid., 18, schol.
 
 Is Adequate Knowledge, Possible ? 209 
 
 harmonised, but only images or subjective conceptions, 
 varying with individual temperament, by which w<> 
 attempt to bind together diversities too complicated for 
 ordinary thought to embrace. " Those who have most 
 frequently looked with admiration on the stature of men 
 will understand by the term. ' man ' an animal of erect 
 stature; while those who have been in the habit of 
 fixing their thoughts on something else will form a dif- 
 ferent general image, as of an animal capable of laughter, 
 a biped without feathers, a rational animal, &c., each 
 person forming general images according to the tempera- 
 ment of his own body." ] 
 
 The knowledge which is mediated by the " affections 
 of the body " in other words, our first empirical con- 
 sciousness of things as they are given in immediate 
 perception is thus in many ways imperfect and unreal. 
 The mind, regarded simply as " the idea of the body," 
 has no adequate knowledge " either of itself or of the 
 body, or of outward bodies." It is but an individual 
 thing in a boundless universe, catching only indistinct 
 glimpses of other finite things in their immediate rela- 
 tion to its own individuality. It is but a transitory 
 mode of thought, which knows itself only as the reflex 
 of a transitory mode of matter ; and of all that lies be- 
 yond itself and its immediate object it knows nothing 
 save through the dim and broken impressions of its 
 accidental surroxmdings. To ask whether such a being 
 is capable of "adequate ideas" would seem to be 
 equivalent to asking whether the particular can com- 
 prehend the universal, or that which is merely subjec- 
 
 1 Eth. ii. 40, schol. 1. 
 P. XII. O
 
 210 
 
 live and contingent can find in itself the expression of 
 that which is objective and necessary. 
 
 Spinoza's answer to this question is contained in his 
 theory of the development of knowledge. The individual 
 point of view which constitutes the mind's first attitude 
 towards the world, is only the beginning of knowledge. 
 It is possible for man to rise above himself and the 
 conditions of his finitude. The human mind has in it, 
 by its essential nature, an element in virtue of which 
 it can escape from the narrowness and confusion, the 
 arbitrariness and contingency of its own subjective 
 feelings or affections, or of that knowledge which 
 is merely generated from them. It is possible for it, 
 in the process of knowledge, to eliminate its own in- 
 dividuality, and to attain to a view of things which is 
 untroubled by the peculiarities of individual tempera- 
 ment or the accidents of individual experience. From 
 conceptions which represent only the relations of its 
 own body to outward bodies it can rise to the appre- 
 hension of the laws or principles which are common to 
 all bodies, and which determine, not their accidental, 
 but their necessary relation to each other. And finally, 
 beyond even that emancipation from itself which is 
 implied in the knowledge of things as determined by 
 universal laws and rules (j)er It'ijc* ti /vyA/.-- lotiri-r- 
 xule*), 1 the mind is capable of attaining that supreme 
 elevation in which all finite things and all laws and 
 principles of finite things are referred to the ultimate 
 unity which is their immanent principle and origin. 
 In the light of this highest universality, it contemplates 
 all things as they really are, and not as they seem to In-, 
 i Eth. iii., Praf.
 
 Hir/lier Stages of Knowledge. 211 
 
 from the point of view of the whole, and not in partial, 
 fragmentary aspects, in their essential relations, and 
 not in accidental combinations, under the "form of 
 eternity," and not under the conditions of time. In a 
 word, the human mind, when it lias realised its inherent 
 capacity of intelligence, is no longer " the idea of the 
 body," but the idea or intuitive apprehension of God, 
 and of all things in God. 
 
 In the ascending scale of intelligence thus generally 
 indicated, Spinoza specifies two stages, which he des- 
 ignates respectively " reason " (ratio) and " intuitive 
 knowledge " (scientia intuitiva). In the earlier sketch of 
 the theory which is given in the treatise on ' The Im- 
 provement of the Understanding,' these two kinds or 
 stages of knowledge are defined as that " in which the 
 essence of a thing is inferred from another thing," and 
 that " in which a thing is perceived solely from its own 
 essence, or by the knowledge of its proximate cause." 
 In the ' Ethics ' the distinction is presented in a some- 
 what modified form. "Keason" is that knowledge 
 which arises " from our possessing common notions and 
 adequate ideas of the properties of things," l " ideas 
 which are common to all men," of those "things in 
 which all bodies agree," - " which exist equally in the 
 human body and in external bodies, and equally in the 
 part and in the whole of each external body." 3 " In- 
 tuitive knowledge," again, is " that kind of knowing 
 which proceeds from an. adequate idea of the formal 
 essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate know- 
 ledge of the essence of things." 4 And this last kind of 
 
 J Eth. ii. 40, schol. 2. * Eth. ii. 38, cor. 
 
 3 Eth. ii. 39, clem. * Eth. ii. 40, schol. 2.
 
 212 Spinoza. 
 
 knowledge he further describes as the knowledge of " the 
 existence of individual things in so far as they are in 
 God ; for although," he adds, " each individual thing is 
 determined by another individual thing to exist in a 
 certain way, nevertheless the force by which each thing 
 perseveres in its existence follows from the eternal 
 necessity of the nature of God." 1 
 
 1. The kind of knowledge which is designated "rea- 
 son," is, as we have just said, in the earlier form of the 
 theory distinguished from the third or highest kind of 
 knowledge simply as mediate from immediate, that 
 which is reached by ratiocination from that which we 
 obtain by intuitive perception. "Reason," in other 
 words, denotes that knowledge of which the object is 
 not apprehended directly and immediately, but only in- 
 ferentially, by deduction according to logical principles. 
 Of this inferential or deductive knowledge Spinoza ad- 
 duces as examples the conclusion from effect to cause, or 
 from any universal to " a property which always accom- 
 panies it." In the 'Ethics' the explanation of the 
 matter, though varied in form, is substantially the same. 
 There are certain common notions or fundamental 
 principles of reason which enable us to rise above the 
 merely individual and subjective view of things, and 
 which form the basis of a real knowledge. Behind the 
 phenomena of sense, which vary with the individual 
 subject, there are certain elements or laws which are 
 common to all things and all parts of things a universal 
 nature which each thing has in common with other 
 things, and in virtue of which it is a member of the 
 system or order of nature. Of these universal elements 
 1 Eth. ii. 45, schol.
 
 Second Stage of Knowledge. 213 
 
 the mind can form adequate ideas ; it caii apprehend 
 them in their simplicity and purity underlying the con- 
 fusion of the sensible world, and so perceive in that 
 world, not the accidental play of circumstances, but a 
 real or rational order. These adequate ideas enable us 
 to see things in their real agreements, differences, and 
 c] (positions. They form the basis of reason (fi 
 ratiotue) 1 or of ratiocination (fundamcnta 
 inasmuch as "whatever ideas in the mind follow from 
 adequate ideas are also themselves adequate," 3 and " the 
 things we clearly and distinctly understand are either the 
 common properties of things, or things which are deduced 
 from these." 4 " Reason," in short, is the mind's power 
 to form clear and distinct ideas, and deductions from such 
 ideas. a This kind of knowledge, he further points out, 
 though it raises us above our first crude perceptions of 
 things, inasmuch as it liberates us from accidental associa- 
 tions, yet falls short of the highest knowledge, and par- 
 takes in some measure of the defects of ordinary know- 
 ledge. It only incompletely redeems us from that partial 
 or abstract way of looking at things which is the radical 
 defect of the latter. In our ordinary unscientific attitude 
 of mind we proceed from part to part : setting out from 
 ourselves and our immediate surroundings, we pass from 
 object to object, regarding them as isolated, self-identical 
 things, or only vaguely connecting them with each other 
 by accidental associations of time and place. Reason so 
 far corrects this abstract, disintegrated view of things, 
 that it connects and separates them as genera and species 
 
 1 Eth. ii. 44, cor. dem. - Eth. ii. 40, schol. 1. 
 
 s Eth. ii. 40. * Eth. v. 12, dem. 
 
 5 Eth. v. 10, dem.
 
 214 Spinoza. 
 
 according to their likenesses and dissimilarities, or links 
 them together by necessary laws, such as that of cause 
 and effect. But in so doing reason only partially over- 
 conies the crude abstractions of ordinary thought. When, 
 e.g., we reason from effect to cause, we still contemplate 
 things as separate, self-identical substances connected 
 with each other only by an external link ; and however 
 far we carry out the series of causes and effects, we can 
 never arrive at any real principle of unity. The utmost 
 we get by any such method is only an endless or indefinite 
 succession of objects externally determining and deter- 
 mined. If the real unity of the world is to be discerned, 
 it must be by some higher principle of knowledge some 
 principle which will not leave the manifold objects of 
 the finite world lying still in disintegration, or explain 
 one finite thing by another which is still outside of it, 
 or by an infinite which is only the endless repetition of 
 the finite. What we want and what " reason" cannot 
 give us, is a first or highest principle which will at once 
 transcend and explain all differences of the finite world, 
 which will be seen in its own light, and in the light of 
 which the reality and unity of all finite things will be 
 seen. 
 
 2. "As all things are in God, and are conceived 
 through God, we can . . . form that third kind of 
 knowledge of which I have spoken, and of the excel- 
 lence and utility of which I shall in the fifth part (of 
 the 'Ethics') have occasion to speak." 1 It is thus that 
 Spinoza describes that scientia intuitiva which forms 
 the culminating stage of human intelligence, the attitude 
 of mind which is furthest removed from the purely in- 
 i Eth. ii. 47, schol.
 
 Third Stage of Knowledge. 215 
 
 dividual point of view, and in which it apprehends all 
 things in the light of that first principle in relation 
 to which alone they truly are and can be known. 
 " Keason," as we have seen, so far corrects the arbitrary 
 abstractions of sense and imagination, but its point of 
 view is still abstract. The link of necessity which con- 
 nects things with each other is something other than and 
 external to the things themselves. That which gives 
 them unity is foreign to, not immanent in them. By 
 means of such general principles as that of causality we 
 can infer or conclude from one thing to another, but we 
 do not see the unity that runs through them. We per- 
 ceive the differences of things and that which unites 
 them, but not unity in difference and difference in 
 unity. 
 
 Xow it is this highest apprehension of things which, 
 in " intuitive knowledge," the mind attains. What 
 Spinoza means by this phrase is a kind of knowledge in 
 which it no longer proceeds from part to part, from dif- 
 ference to unity, but is determined by the idea of the 
 whole, and proceeds from the whole to the parts, from 
 unity to difference. It is the realisation of what, else- 
 where, he had laid down as the ideal of true knowledge 
 viz., that the mind must grasp the idea which repre- 
 sents the origin and sum of nature, and see in that idea 
 the source of all other ideas." Moreover, this knowledge 
 is not mediate, but immediate or intuitive. In it the 
 unity is prior to diversity, and the process from unity to 
 difference is not one which first apprehends the principle 
 or origin of things as an independent, self-contained 
 reality, and then advances to the manifold existences 
 of the finite world ; but one in which, as by a single
 
 216 Spinoza. 
 
 intuitive glance of intelligence, it sees all finite things 
 as genetically involved in their first principle. It sees 
 the differences as the differences of unity, the unity as 
 immanent in the differences. It sees God in all things, 
 and all things in God. 
 
 That the human mind is capable of this highest kind 
 of knowledge Spinoza rests on the consideration that all 
 knowledge virtxially involves the idea of God, and that 
 we have only to evolve its content to bring our know- 
 ledge into correlation with its first principle or immanent 
 source. " The idea," says he, 1 of every individual thing 
 actually existing, necessarily involves the eternal and in- 
 finite essence of God." As all spaces must be known as 
 in one space, or through the conception of an all-com- 
 prehending space, so all individual ideas can be known 
 only through the all-embracing idea of God. " Inasmuch 
 as individual things have God for their cause, in so far 
 as He is regarded under the attribute of which they are 
 modes, their ideas must necessarily involve the concep- 
 tion of the attribute of these ideas that is, the eternal 
 and infinite essence of God." 2 The knowledge of God 
 is implicated with our knowledge of all things, and 
 without that knowledge we could know nothing else. 
 It is true that in our ordinary thinking we do not clearly 
 apprehend that which is really the fundamental element 
 of our consciousness ; but the reason of this is, that the 
 unreflective mind confounds thought with imagination, 
 and conceives itself to be incapable of thinking what 
 it cannot represent to itself by an outward picture or 
 image. "Men have been accustomed to associate the 
 name of God with images of things they have been in 
 i Eth. ii. 45. a ibid., dem.
 
 Intuitive Knowledge. 217 
 
 the habit of seeing," and the absence of the image is 
 mistaken for unconsciousness of the thing. If they 
 " could see into their own minds, they would no longer 
 make this mistake," any more than the man who makes 
 an error in calculation would ascribe it to an incapacity 
 in the human mind to apprehend the idea of number, 
 rather than to its unconscious substitution of false num- 
 bers for true. When we thus " see iuto our minds," or 
 bring, by reflection, their content to clear consciousness, 
 we discern that our ideas of all things of ourselves, of 
 our own bodies, and of external bodies as actually exist- 
 ing presuppose and are based on an adequate knowledge 
 of " the eternal and infinite essence of God." x Intuitive 
 knowledge, therefore, is that which interprets us to our- 
 selves, and enables us to transform our consciousness of 
 the finite by bringing it into relation with the infinite. 
 It not only liberates us from the arbitrary abstractions of 
 sense and imagination, but it frees us from the abstract- 
 ness that still clings to the general notions of ratiocinative 
 thought. When we " proceed from the absolute know- 
 ledge of the essence of God to the adequate knowledge 
 of the essence of things," from the idea of an absolute 
 unity, which is immanent in all diversity, to particular 
 things as only the expression of that unity in a certain 
 definite manner, the dualism which is involved in the 
 notion of causality vanishes. The higher universality dis- 
 solves the difference still left by the lower. The view 
 of the world, as a succession of finite things conditioned 
 by and conditioning each other in endless series, yields 
 to the view in which everything is seen in the light of 
 the infinite unity which is immanent in all. " For, al- 
 1 Etli. ii. 47, schol.
 
 218 
 
 though each particular thing be conditioned 1>y another 
 particular thing to exist in a given way, yet the force by 
 which each particular thing perseveres in existing" (/>.. 
 its inmost essence) " follows " (not from other particular 
 things, but) " from the eternal necessity of the nature of 
 God." 1 The intuition of reason is possible only when 
 diversity is seen through unity, for till then the special 
 existence of things and their mediating link are inde- 
 pendent. We cannot properly see the whole at o/n-r. 
 Mediacy thus can become immediacy only at the highest 
 point ; and this explains the difficulty that is involved 
 in asserting at the same time an intuitive knowledge and 
 a deduction of ideas from the highest idea. The perfect 
 collapse into unity is possible for reason only at the 
 highest point where it returns, so to speak, to the direct- 
 ness of sense. Finally, we cannot speak of intuitive 
 knowledge as a knowledge which is determined by time, 
 but only as knowledge "under the form of eternity." 
 Even ratiocinative knowledge, in so far as it lifts its 
 objects out of their contingency into a system of unal- 
 terable relations, may be said to be knowledge of things 
 " under a certain form of eternity " (sub quadaui specie 
 ti'fi'ritifafi*). But it is only intuitive knowledge to 
 which, in the fullest sense of the words, this description 
 can be applied. For here our consciousness of things is 
 a consciousness which is no longer subjected to finite 
 limitations, but one "which proceeds from the eternal 
 necessity of the divine nature," or which identifies itself 
 with the principle which transcends the sphere of time 
 and of temporal relations. " Things are conceived by 
 us as actual in two ways either as existing in relation 
 1 Etli. ii. 45, schol.
 
 Knoidcdye under the "Form of Eternity '." 219 
 
 to a given time and place, ov as contained in God and 
 following from tlie necessity of the divine nature." l 
 Time and number are only forms of the imagination, 
 pertaining to the phenomenal unreal aspect -of things. 
 It is only individual things, or things regarded as isolated 
 individuals, that arise and pass away in their inner 
 essence they neither begin nor cease to be. When we 
 contemplate them from a universal point of view, we 
 enter into a region in which duration and succession 
 have no place, where one thing is no more prior in time 
 to another than are the different properties of a circle or 
 a triangle. As he who grasps the idea of a circle or tri- 
 angle sees all its properties to be sinmltaneously present 
 in it, so he who intuitively apprehends the nature of 
 things sees all finite existences as eternally involved in 
 the idea of God sees them " under the form of eternity." 
 " Here," says Spinoza, " by existence I do not under- 
 stand duration that is, existence abstractly conceived, 
 and as a certain form of quantity. I speak of the very 
 nature of existence which is ascribed to individual things 
 because of this, that from the eternal necessity of the 
 nature of God an infinitude of things follow in infinite 
 ways." 2 
 
 Tt is unnecessary at present to enter into any detailed 
 examination of Spinoza's theory of knowledge. "What 
 we may here point out is, that the ideal at which it aims 
 it fails to fulfil. Setting out from the purely individual 
 point of view of the ordinary consciousness, it traces the 
 rise of the mind through the higher but still imperfect 
 xiniversality of reason, to that highest or absolute uni- 
 versality which is involved in the apprehension of all 
 1 Eth. v. 29, schol. " Eth. ii. 45, schol.
 
 220 Spinoza. 
 
 things in their relation to the idea of God. Expressed 
 in modern language, the gradual evolution of thought is 
 that in which the mind, beginning with ordinary unso- 
 phisticated experience, advances, first to the scientific 
 attitude, and finally to that of philosophy or speculation. 
 But whatever may be said as to the transition from the 
 first to the second stage, the fatal defect of Spinoza's 
 scheme of knowledge is, that the final step is, not from a 
 lower universality to a higher, from a plurality of prin- 
 ciples or categories to one highest principle which em- 
 braces and explains them, but simply from the diversity 
 of the former to a mere abstract identity which lies be- 
 yond them. The principle the intuitive apprehension 
 of which is to constitute the ultimate explanation of all 
 the differences of the finite world is, when we examine 
 what it means, nothing more than the common element 
 which we reach when these differences are left out of 
 sight. The implicit universality of intelligence, as we 
 may express it, asserts itself, first, in raising us above the 
 partial, accidental, confused aspect of things as they arc 
 regarded from a merely individual or subjective point of 
 view, and in apprehending them as related to each other 
 by universal principles or laws. But the rational or 
 scientific point of view, though it so far corrects that of 
 ordinary experience, leaves the impulse towards univer- 
 sality still unsatisfied. The claim of philosophy to be a 
 higher explanation of the world than that of science is 
 based on the fact, not only that science employs categor- 
 ies, such as substance and qualities, cause and effect, &c., 
 which it does not explain, but that these categories give 
 us only ;i provisional explanation of the world conceived 
 of as a manifold of existences outside of each other, and
 
 Defect of the TJieoi^y. 221 
 
 apart from their relation to the intelligence that knows 
 them. They connect things indeed by real and objec- 
 tive, instead of accidental and subjective relations, but 
 the highest view they reach is that of an aggregate of 
 finite substances acting and reacting externally on each 
 other, and contemplated in abstraction from the intelli- 
 gence for which alone they exist. What philosophy, if 
 it is to justify its pretensions, must do, is to furnish us 
 with a higher principle to which the categories of science 
 may be earned back as their principle, and at the same 
 time as the principle of the mind that apprehends them 
 an idea, in other words, which will be the reason at 
 once of the differences of things from each other, and 
 of the sxipreme difference of things from the mind that 
 knows them. Whether modern philosophy has achieved 
 this result we need not here inquire. But this much 
 at least is obvious, that the ultimate unity of knowing 
 and being cannot be found in a principle which abstracts 
 from their difference. If what we are in search of is a 
 key to the meaning of nature and man, of mind and 
 matter, of the manifold differences of the finite world, it 
 is not supplied by an idea which destroys these differ- 
 ences, or is itself destroyed when brought into contact 
 with them.
 
 222 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE MORAL NATURE OF MAX. 
 
 THE ethical part of Spinoza's philosophy is based on 
 the metaphysical, and partakes of the merits and de- 
 fects of the latter. A thorough-going pantheism knows 
 nothing' of moral distinctions. As it admits of no quali- 
 tative difference between finite things, so it admits of no 
 better and worse, higher and lower, in man's nature. 
 God is not more revealed in what Ave call the noblest 
 than in the meanest of finite existences. Each is but a 
 mode of the infinite, and none can be more. Nor can 
 there be any part or element of any individual nature 
 Avhich is more or less divine than another, or by the 
 triumph or subjugation of which that nature can elevate 
 itself to a higher or degenerate to a lower stage of being. 
 In such a system the terms " good " and " evil " must be 
 meaningless, or at most, expressions of facts of the same 
 order with the terms heat and cold, motion and rest, or 
 (in the case of sensitive beings) pleasure and pain. Fi- 
 nally, as in such a system the independent existence of 
 finite things is an illusion, and their only distinction 
 from the infinite a distinction which vanishes with the 
 false abstraction which gave it birth, any such notion as
 
 Sketch of the Theory. 223 
 
 that of aspiration, self-devotion, union with God any 
 such notions as form the basis of the religious life are 
 equally excluded with those of freedom, responsibility, 
 duty, &c., which form the basis of the moral. 
 
 But whilst, in one point of view, the metaphysic of 
 Spinozism, as of all pantheistic systems, is subversive of 
 what we commonly understand by " ethics," it is not 
 the less true that the ethical in Spinoza's aim and inten- 
 tion was the goal to which the metaphysical part of his 
 philosophy pointed. And even in his metaphysic itself 
 there are ideas and principles which are incongruous 
 with its pantheistic side, and of which his elabo- 
 rate ethical theory is the logical result. The origin 
 and explanation of all moral activity he finds in a cer- 
 tain self-maintaining or self-realising impulse, which is 
 identical with the very essence of each finite individual 
 " the effort by which it endeavours to persevere in 
 its own being." l Feeling or emotion Ja/ectut) is the 
 expression of this impulse, and modifications of feel- 
 ing arise from its satisfaction or repression. When the 
 self-maintaining impulse is satisfied, or when the mind 
 is conscious of an increase of power, the feeling is 
 that of pleasure or some modification of pleasure ; in the 
 opposite case the feeling is that of pain or a modification 
 of pain. When the individual is himself the adequate 
 cause of such increased power, the emotion is termed an 
 " activity " ; when the diminution or increase of power 
 follows from something external, and of which the 
 individual is only the partial cause, the emotion is 
 termed a " passion," or passive state. From this ac- 
 count of the nature and origin of human emotion we 
 i Eth. iii. 6 and 7.
 
 224 Spinoza. 
 
 are enabled to understand the relation of the intellectual 
 to the ethical part of Spinoza's philosophy, and the close 
 correspondence which he traces between the successive 
 stages of knowledge and the successive stages of man's 
 moral life. Through all the stages of knowledge runs 
 the self -realising impulse, taking its complexion and 
 content from each in succession, expanding and en- 
 larging itself with the widening sphere of intelligence, 
 and expressing itself in emotions coloured by the intel- 
 lectual atmosphere in which it breathes. At the lowest 
 stage, corresponding to that of " vague experience," 
 where intelligence is governed by accidental and sub- 
 jective associations, the self which seeks realisation is 
 the purely individual self, varying with individual 
 temperament and the accidental relations of time and 
 place. Its good and evil are nothing absolute, but 
 only that in which a purely individual nature can ex- 
 perience the feeling of enlargement or repression viz., 
 pleasure and pain ; and as its whole experience, all that 
 moves or affects it, arises not from the mind's own 
 activity, but from that which is external or foreign to it 
 as, in other words, it is at best only the partial cause 
 of its own emotions, and " the force whereby it perse- 
 veres in its being is infinitely surpassed by the power of 
 external causes " at this stage of the moral life man is 
 simply " a part of nature," and the general condition of 
 human nature can only be described as that of impotence 
 or " bondage." 
 
 But whilst, regarded simply as an individual amongst 
 other individuals, man is not, and never can be, free, 
 human nature contains in itself the secret of its own 
 emancipation. The bondage lies in this, that the true
 
 Sketch of tlie TJicory. 225 
 
 self is repressed by what is foreign to it. The fun- 
 damental impulse of self-maintenance, which is our 
 very essence, has here not free play ; it is in con- 
 tradiction with the conditions under which it exists, 
 and the effort to rise above these conditions is the ex- 
 pression of our deepest nature. All the force of that 
 nature goes with the effort to throw off the yoke of 
 imagination and passion, and to rise to rational freedom. 
 Corresponding, therefore, to the stage of intelligence 
 which Spinoza designates " reason," in which the mind 
 passes from the sphere of inadequate to that of adequate 
 ideas, there is a stage of moral activity, in which the 
 universal element in man's nature asserts itself, and the 
 mind ceasing to be the slave of external and accidental 
 impulse, its experience becomes the expression of its 
 own self -originated energy. On the intellectual side of 
 our nature, reason, as we have seen, is the sphere of 
 freedom ; it liberates from the confusion and contin- 
 gency of the senses and the imagination, and is itself 
 the pure activity of the mind, all the operations of 
 which can be " understood from our own nature as their 
 adequate cause." But it is the sphere of freedom also 
 as regards the moral life. To live according to reason 
 is to live according to ourselves, to make our life the 
 expression of our true nature. We cannot, indeed, 
 cease to be creatures of sense and imagination, or, so 
 long as the body exists, to have a consciousness which 
 consists of ideas of bodily affections. But reason, 
 though it cannot annul the conditions from which desires 
 and passions arise, can, to a great extent, elevate us 
 above their control. It can make us independent of 
 passion ; for " to all actions to which we are determined 
 r. xn. p
 
 by passion, where the mind is passive, we can be deter- 
 mined by reason without passion." l And it has in it, 
 by its very nature, a power to abate the control of 
 passion ; for, in one sense, the activity of thought kills 
 passion; by 1liinJchi<j a passion, we make it cease to be 
 a passion. The particular objects of our desire or aver- 
 sion, love or hatred, lose their power over iis when the 
 bodily affections we ascribed to them are referred to 
 their true origin viz., the whole order and complex of 
 things, and the universal laws by which they are regu- 
 lated. Seen in this light, the vehemence of passion 
 becomes as foolish as the child's anger against the stone 
 that hurts it, or the infuriated man's indignation against 
 the messenger of evil tidings. Moreover, reason quells 
 passion by revealing the vain imagination of liberty on 
 which passion is based. " The mind has greater power 
 over the passions, and is less subject to them, in so far 
 as it understands all things as necessary." 2 AVe gain 
 true freedom by the detection of false freedom. The 
 feverish restlessness of hope and fear, disappointment 
 and regret, pity and resentment, is allayed or cured 
 when we see in our affections of body and mind the 
 expression of a necessary and unalterable order. Reason 
 can no more be pleased or pained, be moved by love or 
 hate, desire or aversion, towards the beings or events 
 that often give rise to such emotions, than it can love or 
 hate a triangle for its properties, or a law of nature for 
 its inevitable results. Finally, the fluctuations of feel- 
 ing which depend on the succession of things in time 
 are subdued or quelled, the more we learn to see in them 
 those eternal relations which are the objects of rational 
 1 Eth. iv. 59. 2 Eth. v. 6.
 
 Sketch of the Theory. 227 
 
 observation. Joy or SOITOAV come and go with the 
 transitory relations of the imagination, but the true 
 order of things which reason reveals is not transitoiy. 
 It lifts us into a sphere in which neither the things 
 themselves nor our ideas of them are things of time. 
 Xot the latter, for our knowledge even of things in time 
 is not itself a thing of time ; not the former, for that in 
 the things themselves of which reason takes cognisance 
 is not accidental and arbitrary successions, but relations 
 which never change. Thus the mind that is guided by 
 reason is elevated above the ebb and flow of passion, is 
 no longer tossed to and fro on the ever-changing tides 
 of feeling, and its only emotion is the profounder joy 
 of acquiescence in that changeless order with which it 
 identifies itself when it contemplates all things " under 
 a form of eternity." 
 
 But the knowledge of things "under the form of 
 eternity " is, in the full sense of the words, as we have 
 seen, only attained when the mind rises to the highest 
 stage of knowledge, which Spinoza designates scientia 
 iittuitiva ; and to this corresponds the culminating stage 
 of the moral life. As knowledge is still imperfect which 
 proceeds from finite to finite even by the link of neces- 
 sary and unchanging relation, so the activity and freedom 
 of the spiritual life are still imperfect when they are 
 determined by affections which spring from finite rela- 
 tions of things. Joy in an invariable order is still a 
 joy in which the mind regards itself and other minds, 
 its body and other bodies, under the limits of the finite. 
 Though the links are golden, the chain is still there. 
 The alloy of finite passion is still possible when the 
 mind and the objects of its contemplation lie outside of
 
 228 Spinoza. 
 
 each other, and are not referred to the ultimate unity 
 from which all differences spring, when it does not yet 
 live and breathe in unison with the universal heart and 
 life of the world. But intuitive knowledge, as we have 
 seen, not only annuls the arbitrary abstractions of sense 
 and imagination, but evaporates even that residuum 
 of abstraction which reason or ratiocination involves. 
 Raised to this point of view, the mind no longer con- 
 templates the world and itself as a system of finite 
 things conditioned by each other, but by the glance of 
 immediate intelligence sees them in the light of that 
 absolute unity of which they are only the infinitely 
 varied expression. And this supreme attitude of intel- 
 ligence reflects itself in that " intellectual love " which 
 is the goal and consummation of the moral life. Intel- 
 lectual love is the joy or blessedness of the mind in the 
 consciousness of its own perfect activity, combined with 
 the idea of God as its cause. It is a joy into which no 
 element of passion enters, for the mind has here com- 
 pletely emerged from that passivity to which passion 
 is due. Its consciousness is the consciousness of pure 
 activity, because it is determined by no other finite con- 
 sciousness, but only by that infinite intelligence with 
 which its own inmost nature is identified. Yet, though 
 absolutely unimpassioned, this joy is the highest of 
 which human nature is capable; for all joy is in the 
 consciousness of elevation to a higher measure of power, 
 and here, where its consciousness of self is one with 
 its consciousness of God, it has reached the summit of 
 human perfection. And as this joy in the consciousness 
 of perfection is at the same time joy in the knowledge 
 of God, or which is combined with the idea of God, it
 
 Sketch of the Theory. 229 
 
 is another name for the love of God. Further, as this 
 "intellectual love" is the love to God of a mind which 
 is itself a mode of God, and which, in all its activities, 
 is the expression of the divine nature, it may be said 
 that the mind's love to God is part of the infinite love 
 wherewith God loves Himself. Yet in so describing it 
 Spinoza does not imply that, in attaining to this its 
 highest perfection, human nature loses its individuality, 
 and is absorbed in indistinguishable identity with the 
 divine. For whilst there is an idea or consciousness of 
 self which is implicated with the affections of the body, 
 and which therefore perishes with it, the idea or con- 
 sciousness of self which intuitive knowledge involves is 
 not implicated with the body or with temporal and 
 spatial conditions. As knoAving God and all things in 
 God, the mind is not determined by time, it is itself 
 eternal. Taken up into the infinite, it still knoAvs itself 
 in and through the infinite. Its negation of self is the 
 negation, not of all consciousness, but only of that illu- 
 sory consciousness which belongs to the imagination 
 the negation, i.e., of that which is itself a negation, 
 leaving to it still the affirmation of that truer self which 
 lives now and for ever in the knowledge and love of 
 God, and of all things in God. In other words, the 
 negation of the finite as finite is not the negation, but 
 the realisation of that affirmative essence of humanity 
 which is the eternal object of the love of God. 
 
 Such, then, is an outline of the train of thought by 
 which Spinoza reaches, in the ethical part of his work, 
 that which, we know, was the implicit aim of all his 
 speculation the inquiry, "whether there may not be 
 some real good, the discovery and attainment of which
 
 230 Spiiwza. 
 
 will enable the mind to enjoy constant, supreme, and 
 perfect happiness," " which, as a thing infinite and eter- 
 nal, will feed the mind wholly with joy, and be itself 
 unmingled with sorrow." It must now be our business 
 to trace somewhat more in detail the steps by which 
 this conclusion is reached.
 
 231 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 DOCTRINE OF THE EMOTIONS THE SELF-MAINTAINING 
 
 IMPULSE. 
 
 IN Spinoza's doctrine of the emotions, we seem at first 
 sight to find a complete reversal of the principle of his 
 philosophy as it has been unfolded in the preceding 
 pages. For a pantheistic there is now substituted what 
 is apparently a purely individualistic principle. Instead 
 of deriving all from infinite substance, he seems to make 
 everything a deduction from a special impulse, which is 
 identified with the particular nature of each individual 
 thing. Whereas, hitherto, reality and modality had been 
 opposed to each other, and to modes or individual 
 finite things had been denied any other than a fugitive, 
 contingent, or merely negative existence, now he seems 
 to ascribe to each finite thing an original, indestructible 
 individuality, an independent self-centred being which 
 determines its relations to all other beings, is capable of 
 asserting itself against them, and can never be swamped 
 by them. In particular, the spiritual nature of man, of 
 which, alike with all other modes, only a negative exist- 
 ence had been predicated, Spinoza now endows with a 
 positive or affirmative essence. It is possessed of a power
 
 232 Spinoza. 
 
 ' to persevere in its own being," a capacity of resisting its 
 own suppression, and of perpetually seeking its own en- 
 largement ; and not only so, but this inmost essence of 
 man's individual being can survive the disintegration of 
 the body, and instead of vanishing when brought into 
 immediate relation to God, only then realises itself and 
 attains to its ideal perfection. 
 
 The fundamental principle of the emotions and of the 
 whole active and moral life of man, in Spinoza's view, is, 
 as I have said, a certain self-asserting, self-maintaining 
 impulse which he ascribes to every individual existence, 
 and which is only another name for its nature or essence. 
 " Everything, so far as it is in itself, endeavours to per- 
 sist in its own being." 1 "The endeavour wherewith 
 everything endeavours to persist in its own being is 
 nothing else than the actual essence of the thing itself." - 
 " The mind, whether as it has clear and distinct or as 
 it has confused ideas, endeavours to persist in its own 
 being for an indefinite time, and is conscious of this en- 
 deavour." 3 As Spinoza deals with it, this fundamental 
 principle is an impulse in the individual, not only to 
 self-preservation, but also to self-expansion or enlarge- 
 ment. It is that in virtue of which the individual 
 nature consciously or unconsciously aspires to its own 
 perfection, seeks after everything that contributes to 
 that perfection, shuns everything that hinders it. 4 
 Though the proof which he gives of this principle 
 viz., that a thing cannot without contradiction "be sup- 
 posed to contain anything which would destroy itself,' 5 
 is merely negative, and makes the self -maintaining im- 
 
 1 Eth. iii. 6. 3 Eth. iii. 7. 3 Etli. iii. 9. 
 
 4 Eth. iii. 12. s Eth. iii. 4, dem.
 
 TJie Emotions. 233 
 
 pulse nothing more than self-identity or the formal 
 agreement of each thing with itself, yet in his hands it 
 assumes the character of a positive, active principle, 
 reacting on its environment, rejecting all that would 
 limit it, assimilating all that furthers or expands it. The 
 particular form of consciousness by which this principle 
 expresses itself is that of feeling or emotion (affectus), 
 which he defines as "those affections of the body, and 
 the ideas of them, by which its active power is increased 
 or diminished, furthered or hindered." Emotion arises 
 in the transition from less to greater, or from greater to 
 less activity and power. When we " pass from a less to 
 a greater perfection," the emotion takes the particular 
 form of "pleasure" (Icetitia) ; when the transition is of 
 the opposite kind, the emotion is " pain " (tristitia). The 
 term " desire " (cupiditas) is simply the self-maintaining 
 impulse particularised, or filled with a definite content. 
 " Desire is the very essence of man in so far as it is con- 
 ceived as determined to any action by a given affection 
 of itself." x These three, desire, pleasure, pain, constitute 
 the primary emotions, of which all other emotions are 
 only modifications or derivations. From these primary 
 elements Spinoza, by a process, so to speak, of logical 
 combination and permutation, aided by the principle of 
 association, works out an elaborate scheme of the emo- 
 tions, which, however ingenious as a feat of psycho- 
 logical analysis, adds nothing to the development of his 
 system, and is, in that point of view, of slighter value 
 than the other parts of the 'Ethics.' 
 
 Tn basing all human feeling and action on "the im- 
 pulse to persist in one's being," does Spinoza reduce all 
 1 Eth. iii., def. 1.
 
 234 Spinoza. 
 
 morality to self-seeking 1 Is his whole ethical system to 
 be regarded as the development of a purely subjective, 
 egoistic principle, to the exclusion of any objective or 
 absolute standard of good and evil ? There is much in 
 his language that would appear at first sight to sanction 
 this construction of his teaching. To this effect the fol- 
 lowing passages may be quoted : 
 
 " By virtue and power I understand the same thing." * 
 " The effort 01 self-preservation is the first and only founda- 
 tion of virtue." 2 " To act absolutely in obedience to virtue 
 is in us the same thing as to act, to live, to preserve one's 
 being under the guidance of reason, on the ground of seeking 
 what is useful to one's self." 3 " The knowledge of good and 
 evil is nothing but the emotion of pleasure and pain in so 
 far as we are conscious of it." 4 " The more every man en- 
 deavours and is able to seek what is useful to him that is, to 
 preserve his being the more is he endowed with virtue." 5 
 " By good I mean that which we certainly know to be useful 
 to us, by evil that which we certainly know to be a hindrance 
 to us in the attainment of any good." 6 
 
 Self-assertion would thus seem to be the only founda- 
 tion, self-enlargement or increase of individual power the 
 only measure, of virtue. As consciousness of self-enlarge- 
 ment is pleasure, " all things which bring pleasure are 
 good," 7 all things which bring pain evil. By their 
 utility or their tendency to increase our individual being, 
 and the pleasurable emotion inplicated therewith, are our 
 relations to other things and beings to be determined. 
 Love is pleasure associated with the idea of another as 
 its cause. When we rejoice in the happiness of others, 
 
 i Eth. iv., def. 8. 2 Eth. iv. 22, cor. Eth. iv. 24. 
 
 * Eth. iv. 8. 5 Eth. iv. 20. Eth. iv., def. 1, 2. 
 
 " Eth. iv., App. c. 30.
 
 Is the Theory Egoistic ? 235 
 
 our seemingly disinterested delight is to be traced to the 
 fact that the contemplation of another's happiness con- 
 tributes to our own increase of being. 1 Our desire that 
 others should lead a rational or virtuous life is accounted 
 for by the reflection that " there is no individual thing 
 in nature which is more useful to man than a man who 
 lives under the guidance of reason." 2 And even the 
 supreme virtue, the knowledge and love of God, appears 
 to be regarded as the climax of moral perfection, because 
 " the mind's highest utility or good is the knowledge of 
 God." 3 
 
 Yet, however conclusively such passages seem to 
 point to a purely egoistic or selfish basis of morality, the 
 conclusion is one which a closer examination may serve 
 to modify, if it do not even lead us to see in Spinoza's 
 ethical theory what some of the profoundest minds have 
 discerned in it the expression of the purest intellectual 
 and moral disinterestedness. 
 
 1. It is to be observed, for one thing, that, in Spinoza's 
 intention at least, the self-maintaining impulse is no new 
 departure, no deviation from that which in the meta- 
 physical part of his system had been set forth as the first 
 principle of thought and being. Though, as above de- 
 fined, the impulse to persist in one's being seems to be 
 the expression for a hard, logical self-identity, an atomic 
 isolation or independence excluding from the individual 
 nature all reference to other natures, finite or infinite, 
 yet Spinoza expressly asserts that the affirmation of self, 
 which constitutes this impulse, is, rightly understood, 
 the affirmation of God in us. " The force by which each 
 individual perseveres in existence follows from the eter- 
 
 i Eth. iii. 21. 2 Eth. iv. 35, cor. 3 Eth. iv. 28, dem.
 
 236 Spinoza. 
 
 nal necessity of the nature of God." 1 "The power 
 whereby each individual thing, and therefore man, pre- 
 serves his being, is the power of God or nature. . . . 
 Thus the power of man, in so far as it is explained 
 through his own actual essence, is part of the infinite 
 power of God that is, part of His essence." 2 If, in- 
 deed, we ask how Spinoza reconciled these two things, 
 a God who is the immanent source and centre of all 
 things, and an individual finite nature which is its 
 own centre, infinite substance which is the negation of 
 the finite, and finite tilings to which a real self-affirma- 
 tive essence is ascribed ; or again, how finite individual- 
 ities can be at once contingent, evanescent modes, to 
 which only an illusory being belongs, and things which 
 have, through God, a real and permanent being, to 
 these questions Spinoza's dialectic furnishes no answer. 
 Xevertheless, the fact remains that the affirmative ele- 
 ment, which in the self-maintaining impulse is ascribed 
 to the nature of man, is neither obliterated when referred 
 to God, nor is left, on the other hand, a purely indepen- 
 dent, self-centred thing, but is, according to Spinoza, a 
 thing in and through which God realises Himself. 
 
 2. The impulse to persevere in one's being, as Spinoza 
 explains it, is not the affirmation but the negation of the 
 individual self as such. The " self " of selfishness is not 
 maintained but destroyed by the self-affirmation of reas. >n. 
 In other words, the impure element vanishes from self- 
 seeking when the self we seek is that whose essence is 
 ivason and the knowledge and love of God. Eationality 
 i-annot be too selfish, cannot seek its own satisfaction too 
 eagerly or crave with culpable excess for the enlargement 
 i Eth. ii. 45, scbol. 2 th. iv. 4, dem.
 
 Reason cannot lie Selfish. 237 
 
 of its own being. All tilings that bring pleasure to it 
 are good, all tilings that bring pain to it evil ; pleasure, 
 that is, becomes a term of moral significance and honour 
 when the subject of feeling is identified with reason. 
 That reason or a purely rational nature should love 
 others for its own sake rather than for theirs, means that 
 we cannot truly love another if we do not " love honour 
 more." Even to say that " man's highest utility is the 
 knowledge of God," or that we seek to know God be- 
 cause the knowledge of God is of all things the most 
 useful to us, is a formula which ceases to shock pious 
 sensibilities when translated into this equivalent, that 
 infinite intelligence is the supreme good of finite intelli- 
 gence, or that it is in the knowledge of God that a rational 
 nature finds its own perfection and blessedness. Now it 
 is the identification of the true nature of man with rea- 
 son or the divine element in him which furnishes the 
 key to much in Spinoza's ethical teaching that sounds 
 harsh and repulsive. The self which is affirmed in the 
 " self-maintaining impulse," and of which the satisfac- 
 tion and enlargement is identified with " virtue," is not 
 the individual self as such, not the self of appetite and 
 passion, but rather that which is repressed and limited 
 thereby, which finds its freedom in rising above the self- 
 ish desires and its proper sphere in " the life according 
 to reason." " The human mind consists of adequate 
 and inadequate ideas." x The essence of man, in other 
 words, is the power to think. Even in the lower stage 
 of imagination and inadequate ideas this its true essence 
 manifests itself in the pain of repression or limitation by 
 what is foreign to itself. In the stage of " reason " the 
 
 i Eth. iii. 9, dem.
 
 238 Spimza. 
 
 true self has shaken off the bondage of the non-rational 
 and emerged into the sphere of pure self-activity. Here 
 it knows nothing of pains and pleasures that refer only 
 to the narrow individual self. Its " good " is no longer 
 subjective or determined only by varying individual 
 temperament, but a good that is common to all rational 
 natures and determined by an objective standard. Finally, 
 in the stage of "intuitive knowledge " the self has reached 
 the point of enlargement at which all finite limits are 
 left behind, and it sees and feels all things in the light 
 of that which is universal and absolute. And here that 
 impure self-reference to which the stigma of selfishness 
 can be applied, has so completely vanished that even 
 love ceases to seek a personal response. Though in the 
 knowledge and love of God self -consciousness and self- 
 affirmation still survive, yet the taint of subjectivity is 
 so absolutely obliterated, that " he who loves God can- 
 not seek that God should love him in return." 1 
 
 3. Lastly, it is to be considered that there is an 
 obvious distinction between selfishness and sel f -real i Ca- 
 tion, between unselfishness and self-extinction. Moral 
 disinterestedness does not mean, even at the highest, 
 the cessation of self-consciousness or self-satisfaction. 
 Moral action implies in the agent the idea of a self 
 which realises itself in that which is done, which seeks 
 and finds satisfaction in the act. The " good " of a 
 conscious agent, whether it be sensual pleasure or the 
 purest intellectual and spiritual enjoyment, whether it 
 be low or high, must be a good fftr liim. Xo purer 
 philanthropy can be conceived than finding <>n<'' mm 
 satisfaction in the welfare of others. Even in self- 
 i Eth. v. 19.
 
 Selfishness and Self -Realisation. 239 
 
 sacrifice fur another there is present a reference to self, 
 an idea of an object to be attained in which the agent 
 seeks self-satisfaction. Without such reference even 
 the purest self-denial is a conception that swims in the 
 air. Though in unselfish acts the end sought is not 
 one's own pleasure or gratification, yet we do find our- 
 selves and our own satisfaction therein. Moreover, the 
 self-affirmation, self-realisation, is increased, not dimin- 
 ished, with the unselfishness of the act If in every 
 benevolent feeling there must be a consciousness of self 
 as well as of the object loved, in every benevolent act 
 a consciousness of self as well as of the object attained, 
 then the wider the range of benevolence, the more 
 numerous the objects embraced in it, so much the fuller, 
 richer, more complete becomes the self-consciousness or 
 self-realisation of the subject. Even the knowledge and 
 love of an infinite object is still my knowledge, my love, 
 and the infinitude of the object implies a kindred ele- 
 vation of the subject. Let slip the " my," and you sink 
 into the spurious rapture of the mystic, or the self- 
 annihilation of the pantheist. Whatever may be said 
 of Spinoza's philosophy in general, in this part of it 
 at least he knows nothing of such false self-abnegation ; 
 yet as little does the doctrine of self-affirmation as the 
 basis of morality introduce into his ethics a principle 
 inconsistent with the purest moral disinterestedness. 
 In other points of view, indeed, that principle is by no 
 means unexceptionable, as will be seen when AVC ex- 
 amine in detail the manner in which Spinoza applies it 
 to the elaboration of his ethical system.
 
 240 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 INTELLIGENCE AND WILL. 
 
 WE have seen that Spinoza finds the origin and ex- 
 planation of the active or moral life in the " self-main- 
 taining impulse/' of which pleasure and pain, desire, 
 and the innumerable varieties of feeling which spring 
 from these fundamental emotions, are only different 
 expressions or modifications. We have pointed out, 
 further, that it is this self-maintaining impulse which 
 constitutes the link between the intellectual and the 
 emotional and active sides of man's nature, and which 
 explains the close correspondence that can be traced 
 between the successive stages of knowledge and the 
 successive stages of the moral life. 
 
 There is, however, in Spinoza's account of the nature 
 of human knowledge one doctrine to which we have 
 not yet adverted, and which seems to imply, not simply 
 the correspondence, but the absolute identification of 
 the intellectual and the moral life. Knowledge and 
 will are not elements of man's spiritual nature which, 
 though closely related and constantly acting and react- 
 ing on each other, are yet different in nature and func- 
 tion. Spinoza's assertion would seem to be that, when
 
 Intelligence and Will. 241 
 
 closely examined, the active merges in the contempla- 
 tive or theoretical life, and that feeling, passion, desire, 
 volition, are only various phases of knowledge or intelli- 
 gence. " There is in the mind," says he, 1 " no volition 
 save that which an idea as idea involves." " ^Yill and 
 understanding are one and the same. ... A particular 
 volition and a particular idea are one and the same." 2 
 If we examine the reasons why men think otherwise, 
 and ascribe to themselves a faculty of will different 
 from and of wider range than that of understanding, 
 we shall find that they are all alike futile* For one 
 thing, popular thought, while it supposes intelligence to 
 be purely passive, and ideas to be merely "images 
 formed in us by contact with external bodies," 3 regards 
 all beyond such images as the product of the mind's 
 own voluntary activity ; whereas, if we reflect on the 
 nature of knowledge, we shall see that ideas are not 
 mere images like " dumb pictures on a tablet," but that 
 every idea involves in it an element of activity, a prin- 
 ciple of self-affirmation ; in other words, that intelligence 
 contains in it that free, voluntary activity which we 
 commonly regard as the exclusive function of will. 
 Common thought, again, distinguishes between truths 
 to which we necessarily assent, which carry with them 
 the assurance of their own reality, and arbitrary or 
 obscure conceptions with respect to which we have the 
 power to suspend our judgment, ascribing the former to 
 the understanding and the latter to " the will or faculty 
 of assent, which is free and different from the under- 
 standing." 4 Closer examination, however, teaches us 
 
 1 Eth. ii. 49. - Ibid., cor. and dem. 
 
 3 Eth. ii. 49, schoL 4 Ibid. 
 
 P. XII. Q
 
 242 Spinoza. 
 
 that the real activity of the mind is common to both 
 processes. The difference between them is simply the 
 difference between " adequate " and " inadequate " ideas, 
 and the suspense of judgment which is ascribed to a 
 faculty of volition is nothing more than the conscious- 
 ness of a confused and imperfect as distinguished from 
 a clear and distinct idea. The conception of a winged 
 horse implies mental activity as much as that of a horse 
 without wings, only the latter includes the affirmation 
 of existence or reality, which the former does not. If, 
 again, there- be no faculty of will different from that of 
 understanding, then it seems to the unreflecting mind 
 that it would be justified in concluding that assent to 
 what is false and evil is not essentially different from 
 assent to what is true and good ; to which Spinoza's 
 answer is, that the idea of what is false and evil is really 
 the idea of that which has in it no positive reality, and 
 the distinction in question is not between two equally 
 affirmative acts, but between the affirmation of being 
 and the affirmation of non-entity not between under- 
 standing and will, but between a sound and a diseased 
 or disordered understanding. Finally, to the popular 
 objection that it is the prerogative of will to decide 
 between conflicting motives, and that without such a 
 faculty, where there is an equilibrium of motives (as 
 in the famous example of " Buridan's ass "), action 
 would be absolutely suspended, Spinoza's reply virtually 
 is, that the supposed conflict of motives is, when we 
 examine what we mean, only a conflict of ideas, and 
 that ideas never really conflict save when one idea is 
 adequate and another confused and imperfect ; that in 
 the latter case reason is the true umpire, and that su*-
 
 Identity of the Two. 243 
 
 pense or inaction would prove, not that reason fails to 
 decide, but that the non-deciding agent is a fool or a 
 madman. 
 
 From these and other considerations the conclusion 
 which Spinoza reaches is, that the element of activity 
 which is commonly regarded as peculiar to the will 
 is one which belongs essentially to the understanding, 
 or that " there is in the mind no volition save that 
 which an idea as idea involves." On the other hand, 
 if intelligence is thus held to be active, all activity, 
 it is maintained, is intelligent, all the supposed ele- 
 ments of man's active life seem, when closely examined, 
 to be only modes of thought. Thought or intelligence is 
 not one among many co-ordinate "faculties," but it is 
 that which constitutes the very essence of the mind, and 
 the underlying principle of all our mental experiences 
 and activities. " Love, desire, or the affections of the 
 mind, by whatever name they are designated," are 
 essentially " modes of thought." l To all these modes 
 of thought "the idea is prior in nature, and when the 
 idea exists the other modes must exist in the same 
 individual." 2 Spinoza would thus seem to reduce the 
 whole content of man's spiritual life to thought or in- 
 telligence and its modifications ; and though he treats 
 of other elements which pertain to the active in contra- 
 distinction from the intellectual part of man's nature 
 of an impulse or endeavour in the mind to persist in its 
 own being, of pleasure and pain, desire and aversion, 
 and of particular emotions in elaborate detail to which 
 this impulse gives birth yet when we examine the real 
 significance of his teaching, these seemingly non-intel- 
 i EtL ii. ax. 3. 2 Eth. ii. 11, dem.
 
 244 Spinoza. 
 
 lectual elements, it has been held, lose their indepen- 
 dence, and resolve themselves into the one all-absorbing 
 principle of the theoretical intelligence. As " the essence 
 of the mind consists of adequate and inadequate ideas," l 
 so the self-maintaining impulse is nothing more than the 
 self-affirmation by the mind of its own power of think- 
 ing. 2 Will itself is only another name for this impulse, 
 " when referred solely to the mind ; " 3 desire (cupidita*} 
 is the same intellectual impulse, "in so far as it is con- 
 ceived as determined to any action by some affection of 
 itself ; " 4 emotions (affectus) are " ideas of affections of 
 the body by which its power of acting is increased or 
 diminished," 5 or again, " emotion which is called a 
 passion (or passivity of the mind) is a confused idea by 
 which the mind affirms of its body, or any part of it, a 
 power of existing greater or less than before." 6 " Pleas- 
 ure (Icetitia) is a passion by which the mind passes to 
 a greater, pain a passion by which it passes to a less, 
 perfection ; " 7 pleasure and pain, in other words, of 
 which all the other emotions are only specifications, are 
 not a new element different from anything in our purely 
 intellectual nature, but are simply "the transition from 
 a less to a greater or from a greater to a less perfection." 8 
 The process by which moral progress is achieved is in 
 the same way reduced to a purely intellectual activity. 
 If there are any outward causes which help or hinder 
 the activity of the body, and therefore the mind's 
 power of thinking, the mind, in seeking to affirm or 
 
 1 Eth. iii. 9, dem. 2 Eth. iii. 9. 
 
 3 Eth. iii. 9, schol. 4 Eth. iii., aff. def. 1. 
 
 5 Eth. iii., def. 3. 6 Eth. iii., aff. gen. def. 
 
 7 Eth. iii. 11, dem. Eth. iii., aff. def. 2, 3.
 
 Morality identified with Intelligence. 245 
 
 realise itself, endeavours to conceive or recollect the 
 former, and, as far as possible, to exclude and forget 
 the latter. 1 The stages of the moral life, by which it 
 advances to its goal, and that goal itself, seem not merely 
 to correspond but to be identified with its intellectual 
 progress and perfection. As the dominion of the passions 
 is that of inadequate ideas, so emancipation from their 
 power is simply the formation of clear and distinct ideas. 2 
 " The power of the mind is denned solely by knowledge, 
 its weakness or passivity by the privation of knowledge." 3 
 We are in moral bondage when the content of our con- 
 sciousness is determined by that which is external or 
 foreign to the mind, free when it is wholly due to the 
 mind's own activity ; but the pure inner activity of the 
 mind is that which it possesses when it apprehends it- 
 self, the bodily affections, and all outward things, no 
 longer in the confused and imperfect way in which 
 sense and imagination present them, but from a uni- 
 versal point of view, as part of a universal order or 
 concatenation of things, in other words, when it un- 
 derstands or thinks them according to the order of 
 intelligence." 4 " The effort to understand is the first 
 and sole basis of virtue." 5 "Good" and "evil" are 
 simply equivalent to " that which helps or hinders our 
 power to think or understand." 6 " In life it is of 
 supreme importance to us to perfect the understanding 
 or reason, and in this one thing consists man's highest 
 happiness or blessedness." " Finally, the culmination of 
 the moral life is attained when the understanding. by 
 
 i Eth. iii. 12, 13. 2 Eth. v. 3. 3 Eth. v. 20, schol. 
 
 * Eth. v. 10. 5 Eth. iv. 26, dem. Eth. iv. 27. 
 
 7 Eth. iv., App. 4.
 
 246 Spinoza. 
 
 the intuition of reason, grasps all the differences of finite 
 things in their unity, discerns all ideas in their relation 
 to the highest idea, the idea of God. "The absolute 
 virtue of the mind is to understand ; its highest virtue, 
 therefore, to understand or know God." l " Blessedness 
 is the contentment of spirit which arises from the in- 
 tuitive knowledge of God." 
 
 From what has now heen said it will be seen that 
 Spinoza's identification of intelligence and will is a prin- 
 ciple which runs through the whole of his ethical sys- 
 tem, and there appears to be substantial ground for the 
 assertion which has often been made, that the moral 
 life resolves itself, in his hands, into a purely intellec- 
 tual or theoretical process. If this construction of his 
 philosophy were the whole truth, his doctrine would 
 seem to be, not merely that ignorance is the cause and 
 knowledge the cure of moral imperfection, but that 
 ignorance is itself the only moral disease, and know- 
 ledge itself the true moral health and perfection of our 
 being. 
 
 Plausible, however, as this view of Spinoza's teaching 
 seems to be, a careful study of the ' Ethics ' will, I think, 
 lead us to regard it as one-sided and exaggerated. It is 
 possible to maintain the essential unity of intelligence 
 and will without obliterating all distinction between 
 them. Spinoza's apparent identification of the practical 
 with the theoretical side of man's nature is not incon- 
 sistent with the recognition of the distinctive character 
 and functions of the former ; and when we examine his 
 doctrine more closely, many of the criticisms to which 
 it has been subjected are seen to be irrelevant. 
 1 EtL iv. '28, (!!. i.
 
 Limits of the Doctrine. 247 
 
 1. It is to be considered that objections to the doc- 
 trine of the unity of knowledge and will, in order to be 
 relevant, must contemplate knowledge and will as em- 
 ployed about the same objects. Popular thought rightly 
 distinguishes between knowledge and goodness, between 
 intellectual and moral power. Great moral excellence is 
 not incompatible with a feeble and uncultured intelli- 
 gence, nor intellectual elevation with a low moral life. 
 Spinoza does not maintain, nor could any one be so ab- 
 surd as to maintain, that piety and virtue are inseparable 
 from and commensurate with literary and scientific abil- 
 ity, or that the qualities which constitute the mathema- 
 tician, the philosopher, the artist, are necessarily and in 
 equal measure combined with those which go to make 
 the good citizen, the philanthropist, the saint. All that 
 this proves, however, is only that intelligence in one 
 province does not imply practical activity in another. 
 To render the objection valid, what would need to be 
 proved is, that within the same province, and when 
 employed about the same objects, there is no necessary 
 conjunction of knowledge and will. Now, so limited, 
 Spinoza's doctrine, as we shall immediately see, is by no 
 means indefensible. It may be possible to show that, 
 within the province of the moral and spiritual, as well 
 as within the province of what we call the secular life, 
 knowledge and will are, if not identical, at least co- 
 existent and commensurate that, e.g., practical good- 
 ness or piety implies in every case a measure of spiritual 
 insight which, though not speculative or scientific, is of 
 the nature of knowledge, and is proportionate to the purity 
 and elevation of the life ; and, on the other hand, that 
 the man of science, the philosopher, the man of letters;,
 
 248 Spinoza. 
 
 exerts in every act of his intellectual life a force and 
 energy of will commensurate with the degree of intelli- 
 gence that is called forth. 
 
 2. But even when we thus narrow the ground to which 
 Spinoza's doctrine applies, is there not much which 
 seems to justify ordinary thought in denj'ing the sup- 
 posed coincidence or even invariable conjunction of 
 knowledge and will 1 Within the sphere of man's moral 
 life are not knowing and willing not only distinguishable 
 in thought, but in actual experience notoriously separ- 
 able 1 Is it not a moral commonplace that our actions 
 often fall short of our convictions ? There are ideas 
 which are purely contemplative and theoretical, projects 
 which never go beyond themselves, opinions about vir- 
 tue and goodness, which, through indolence or irreso- 
 lution or pravity of will, are never realised in action. 
 Thought and will are not only not invariably coincident, 
 but in individual actions, and even through the whole 
 course of life, are not seldom in glaring contrast with 
 each other. Nowhere, indeed, has this incongruity 
 been more forcibly expressed than in Spinoza's own 
 language : 
 
 " The powerlessness of man," says he, 1 "to govern ami 
 restrain his emotions, I call servitude. For a man who is 
 controlled by his emotions is not his own master, but is 
 mastered by fortune, under whose power he is often com- 
 pelled, though he sees the better, to follow the worse." 
 " I have shown why the true knowledge of good and evil 
 awakens disturbances in the mind, and often yields to every 
 kind of lust ; whence the saying of the poet, ' Video melion 
 proboque, deteriora sequor ; ' and Ecclesiastes seems to have 
 
 1 Eth. iv., Tref.
 
 All Intelligence is Active. 249 
 
 had the same thought in his mind when he said, ' He that 
 increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.' And this I say, 
 . . . that we may determine what reason can and what it 
 cannot do in governing the emotions." J 
 
 Spinoza's doctrine of the unity of knowledge and will 
 is, however, not really affected by this recognition of the 
 notorious inconsistency between human thoughts and 
 actions. What that doctrine really means is that, within 
 the same limits, or when employed about the same ob- 
 jects, intelligence and will are in our conscious experi- 
 ence inseparably interwoven. Every act of intelligence 
 is at the same time an act of will, every act of will also 
 an act of intelligence. And his answer to the above ob- 
 jection virtually is, that the thought or intelligence which 
 we can conceive of as separate from or in conflict with 
 will is not true thought, but thought falsely so called, 
 or, in his own phraseology, thought which consists of 
 "inadequate" i.e., "confused and imperfect ideas." 
 
 All thought is essentially active, all will essentially 
 intelligent. On the one hand, to represent thought as 
 devoid of the element of activity or as a merely passive 
 thing, is to reduce its content to " images or inanimate 
 pictures formed in us by contact with external bodies." 
 But mind does not become possessed of ideas as wax 
 receives the impression of a seal, or blank paper the 
 stamp of the printer's types. Every idea or process of 
 thought is essentially an act or a series of acts of affirma- 
 tion and negation. In the simplest perception there is 
 something more than the passive reception of impres- 
 sions from without. " Affections of the body " do not 
 become the content of thought by a mere mechanical 
 1 Eth. iv. 17, schol.
 
 250 Spinoza. 
 
 transference. To elevate them into ideas or objects of 
 rational thought implies a spontaneous activity of the 
 mind, stripping them of the contingency and confusion 
 of sense and imagination, fastening on " those properties 
 in them which are common to all things," infusing into 
 them its own universality. Every act of judgment or 
 process of reasoning involves in it a reaction of the 
 mind on the objects with which it deals, connecting 
 them in relations other than those of immediate percep- 
 tion, " arranging and associating them (not according to 
 the natural but) according to the intellectual order." 
 The idea of a triangle is, so to speak, the self-affirmation 
 of its own content. " The idea of a triangle must in- 
 volve that its three angles are equal to two right 
 angles," and " this affirmation can neither be nor be 
 conceived without the idea of a triangle." l To prove 
 the proposition that " there is in the mind no volition 
 save that which an idea as idea involves," Spinoza here 
 selects his example from what ordinary thought regards 
 as specially the province of contemplation or theoretic 
 intelligence ; and the implied conclusion is, that if here, 
 in what we deem its proper sphere, intelligence is shown 
 to be essentially active, a fortiori the element of activity 
 must pertain to it in what we account as more peculi- 
 arly the sphere of practical activity. If inherent activ- 
 ity is the characteristic of the idea when it is the idea 
 of a geometrical figure, much more must it be the char- 
 acteristic of the idea when it is that of a moral act. If it 
 cannot be or be conceived within the domain of science 
 save as self-realising, much less can it be or be conceived 
 save as self-realising when it pertains to man's moral life. 
 1 Eth. ii. 49, dem.
 
 All Will is Intelligent. 251 
 
 On the other hand, all will or practical activity is 
 essentially intelligent. "Will," says Spinoza, "is the 
 endeavour to persist in one's being when that endeavour 
 is referred solely to the mind." x "Will, in other words, 
 presupposes thought. It is the conscious endeavour of 
 the mind to realise itself and its own inherent power. 
 Devoid of the element of intelligence, will ceases to be 
 will, and becomes mere blind impulse or passion. " "We 
 act when anything takes place in us of which we (or 
 that intelligence which is our essence) are the adequate 
 cause that is, when anything follows in us from our 
 nature which that nature taken by itself makes clearly 
 and distinctly intelligible. We are passive when anything 
 takes place in us or follows from our nature, of which 
 we are not the cause, save partially." 2 In modern 
 language, will is distinguished from animal impulse by 
 this, that in the former and not in the latter there is 
 present the element of self-consciousness and self-deter- 
 mination. The merely animal nature is lost in the 
 feeling of the moment. Its experience is a succession 
 of feelings or impulses, each of which expires with its 
 immediate satisfaction ; it contains no constant element 
 of self-consciousness to which the successive feelings are 
 referred, no permanent self which realises itself in them. 
 Its impulses and actions are not self -originated, but 
 forced upon it from without. They are not woven into 
 a continuous experience by reference to any universal 
 centre of thought, and are connected together at most 
 only by the general life-feeling that pervades them. In 
 a rational or intelligent being, on the other hand, there 
 is present throughout all its feelings the uniting element 
 i Etb. iii. 9, schol. 2 Eth. iii., def. 2.
 
 252 Spinoza. 
 
 of reference to one self-conscious subject, and through 
 all its volitions the uniting element of self-determina- 
 tion. In willing, it knows that it wills and what it 
 wills ; it is conscious at once of the object willed and of 
 itself as willing it. It is conscious of a self which is 
 distinguished from, yet realised in, all its particular 
 volitions and actions, and in each particular case as 
 realised in this action and not another. Thought or 
 self-consciousness, in short, is the common element of 
 all voluntary acts, and that which gives them their 
 special character and complexion as the acts of a moral 
 agent. Now, though in Spinoza's philosophy individual 
 minds are only modes of the Divine Substance, and as 
 such are necessarily destitute of all independence or 
 capacity of self-determination, yet he attributes to them 
 a self-maintaining impulse which is identical with their 
 very essence, and to this principle he assigns all the 
 functions of a self-conscious, self-determining individu- 
 ality. It is in virtue of this principle that he can 
 maintain the distinction between the blindness of the 
 passive impulses and emotions, and the self-conscious, 
 intelligent activity of all human volitions. 
 
 From what has now been said it is clear that Spinoza's 
 doctrine of the unity of knowledge and will is to be 
 understood as implying, not that these elements coexist 
 side by side or in mechanical conjunction, but that they 
 are inseparably interwoven with each other in our con- 
 scious experience. He does not mean that our spiritual 
 life, or any part of it, is made up of these two elements 
 of an element of will added to an element of thought 
 so that what we first think, we then will ; his doctrine 
 is that no thought would be what it is if an element
 
 Answer to Popular Objection 253 
 
 of will did not euter into it, no volition what it is if it 
 were not essentially intelligent. "We can see, therefore, 
 how, from Spinoza's point of view, the popular objection 
 above noticed is to be met. If it be said that experience 
 disproves the inseparableness of thinking and willing, 
 that we are conscious of thoughts, opinions, convictions 
 which are never realised in action, of actions which con- 
 flict with our ideas and convictions the answer is, that 
 in all such cases there is no real separation of knowledge 
 from will, for the knowledge which is divorced from 
 will is not true knowledge, the will that is divorced 
 from knowledge not really will Knowledge that is 
 inert or inactive is not real knowledge ; it does not consist 
 of "adequate," but only of "confused and imperfect 
 ideas." "When we see the right without willing it, our 
 seeing is not the same seeing with that of the mind 
 which both sees and wills. 1 We sometimes express this 
 to ourselves by saying that there are things we cannot 
 know unless we love them ; that there is no real percep- 
 tion of beauty or goodness into which the element of 
 feeling of love, admiration, self-devotion does not 
 enter ; that it is only the pure in heart who can see 
 God. The object that is before the mind which only 
 inertly contemplates a moral and spiritual act, is some- 
 thing essentially different from the object that is before 
 the mind in which contemplation immediately and 
 necessarily passes into action. In the former case, the 
 mind is looking at an object as outside of and foreign 
 to itself, the form of which may engage the powers of 
 observation, comparison, reflection, or which it may 
 classify under some general head or category, such as 
 1 Cf. Green's Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 152 ff.
 
 254 Spinoza. 
 
 " good," or " just," or " pious " ; in the latter, at an object 
 which is regarded not merely as good, but as my good, that 
 in which I discern the fulfilment and realisation of my 
 own inmost nature. When this discernment is present, 
 when the object of thought is apprehended as not for- 
 eign or external, but one in which I find myself, with 
 Avhich I identify myself, which is the medium of my 
 own self-realisation there is no possible separation be- 
 tween the act of knowing and the act of willing. The 
 object known is known as that the affirmation of which 
 is indissolubly bound up with my self-affirmation. I 
 cannot know it without willing it, for not to will it, 
 or to deny it, would be equivalent to self-negation. I 
 cannot will it without knowing it, for to will it is to 
 become conscious of myself as realised in it. 
 
 Lastly, it is to be observed that Spinoza's doctrine 
 of the unity of thought and will does not imply the 
 denial of all distinction between the contemplative and 
 the active life. Thought and will are present in all our 
 mental employments alike, whether they be those which 
 have for their end simply the acquisition of know- 
 ledge, or those which have for their end the perform- 
 ance of some outward act. It does not follow, how- 
 ever, that the relation of these two factors is precisely 
 the same in both cases, or that we cannot distinguish 
 between thought and will as they are manifested in 
 the theoretic, and thought and will as they are mani- 
 fested in the practical life between, e.g., the attitude of 
 the mind in the solution of a mathematical problem and 
 the attitude of the mind in the performance of a moral 
 act. Spinoza's philosophy is couched in too abstract a 
 form to admit of any speculative treatment of the dis-
 
 Tlic Tlworctic and the Active Life. 255 
 
 tinetion between the theoretic or scientific and the active 
 life, yet in the ethical part of his system the distinction, 
 though not formally, is virtually recognised. As modern 
 thought represents it, the theoretic and the practical 
 life are only different sides or aspects of the same pro- 
 cess. In both there is a reconciliation between the ideal 
 and the actual, between consciousness and its object, 
 between thought and things. But the difference lies in 
 this, that in the one case we begin with the actual, the 
 objective, the particular, and end with the ideal, the 
 subjective, the universal ; in the other the process is 
 reversed. In both, the same elements are present a 
 universal, undetermined yet determining element, and a 
 particular or determined element and in both there is 
 an effort to overcome the opposition between them. But 
 in the theoretic life, or that of knowledge in the limited 
 sense, the universal element is present at first only im- 
 plicitly or potentially. In the endeavour to overcome 
 the opposition between itself and the world, thought 
 takes up at first a purely objective attitude. The mani- 
 fold objects Avith which it deals present themselves as 
 something external or foreign to the conscious subject. 
 But the latent presupposition under which it acts is that 
 the objects it contemplates are not really foreign to it- 
 self, that the principle which constitutes its own essence 
 is that which also constitutes the essence of things with- 
 out, and that it is possible for reason or intelligence to 
 find itself at home in the world. The whole process of 
 knowledge, therefore, is a bringing back of the world 
 into thought. Underlying the particularity, the diver- 
 sity, the contingency of the phenomenal world, con- 
 sciousness silently discerns the presence of that unity,
 
 256 Spinoza. 
 
 universality, and necessity which are its own essential 
 characteristics. And every step in this process is a 
 step towards the complete transformation of the particu- 
 lar into the universal, the actual into the ideal, the 
 manifold and accidental objects of thought into the 
 unity and necessity of self-consciousness. In the prac- 
 tical life, on the other hand, the reconciliation between 
 consciousness and the objective world begins from the 
 opposite pole. That life may be described as the con- 
 tinuous effort of the self-conscious subject to realise 
 itself in the outward world. It starts where the theo- 
 retical life ends. To that which is already a realised 
 content of thought it seeks to give further realisation in 
 some outward act. Whether it be an aesthetic or moral 
 or religious ideal, the mind is conscious of a conception 
 which involves in it the possibility, the desire, and the 
 effort for its embodiment in some particular concrete 
 form and under the conditions of the phenomenal 
 world. The vision of beauty which exists in the crea- 
 tive imagination of the artist, he seeks to infuse into the 
 rudeness and unconsciousness of matter and material 
 forms and colours. To the conception of righteous- 
 ness, goodness, holiness, which dwells in the mind 
 of the good or pious man, he seeks to give outward 
 actuality or realisation, and so to make the mere 
 physical relations of things and the functions of the 
 animal life instinct with the life of spirit to make the 
 outward world the expression of the inner world of 
 thought. Thus, in both the theoretical and the prac- 
 tical life, it is the same general result which is accom- 
 plished viz., the reconciliation between the actual and 
 ideal ; and in both cases alike the process is permeated
 
 Their Distinction and Unity. 257 
 
 by the presence and activity of the inseparable elements 
 of thought and will Yet this nnity of the two is still 
 consistent with their distinction as different aspects of 
 the same process, inasmuch as the reconciliation is that 
 wliich proceeds, on the one hand, from the object to the 
 subject, from the particular to the universal; on the 
 other, from the subject to the object, from the univer- 
 sal to the particular. In Spinoza's philosophy there is 
 not to be found any formal analysis of the process into 
 its opposite yet related movements ; yet we should err 
 in concluding that he ignores the distinction between 
 them, or that his principle of the unity of thought and 
 will implies the resolution of the moral life into a purely 
 theoretical process. His account of the emotions and 
 passions, his theory of the bondage of the human mind 
 and of its freedom, and of the method by which that 
 freedom is achieved the whole specially ethical part of 
 his system, in short, constitutes an elaborate exposition 
 of the active as distinguished from the purely intellectual 
 life. And if, as we have seen, there is much in his 
 treatment of ethical problems which seems to imply the 
 identification of virtue with knowledge, of moral evil 
 with ignorance, the true explanation is, that while 
 he describes the moral life in terms of knowledge, 
 knowledge with him is that highest kind of knowledge 
 above referred to, which includes or " connotes " will, 
 or which is instinct with the element of activity. All 
 other knowledge is not really knowledge, but only "con- 
 fused and imperfect ideas." Such ideas may be, nay, 
 must be, inert. They not merely do not lead to moral 
 action, but the mind that is the subject of them is the 
 passive slave of its own " bodily affections," and the ex- 
 p. xii. R
 
 258 Spinoza. 
 
 ternal influences with which these affections are impli- 
 cated. But "adequate ideas" are not doad or passive 
 but living things. They are self-realising. To think 
 them is to live them, to be quick with spiritual activity, 
 to be master of one's self and the world. So far from 
 man's moral life being reduced to a merely contemplative 
 process, a thing of ideas without volitions, Spinoza's 
 view is that no such ideas exist, or if they can be said 
 to exist, that they belong not to the realm of true know- 
 ledge, but to that of illusion and ignorance. An idea 
 which is " adequate," or which alone deserves the name, 
 is one which by its very essence asserts itself against 
 all that is foreign and hostile to the mind ; it cannot 
 coexist with confusion and error and the passions that 
 are bred of them, any more than light can coexist with 
 darkness. When the mind, or the self-maintaining im- 
 pulse which is one with its essence, identifies itself with 
 such an idea, it is ipso facto possessed of moral vitality 
 and power. And when it rises to the highest kind of 
 knowledge, the intuitive apprehension of that idea which 
 comprehends and transcends all other ideas in other 
 words, when the self -affirming impulse realises its true 
 significance as not the affirmation of the individual self, 
 but the self-affirmation of God in us then does it attain 
 to the perfection of virtue and power. 1 The goal of the 
 intellectual life is thus, at one and the same time, the 
 culmination of the moral life, and the best expression 
 for both is that " intellectual love " which consists in 
 the consciousness of the mind's own perfect activity 
 "combined with the idea of God as its cause." 
 1 Etli. v. -27.
 
 259 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 THE BONDAGE AND FREEDOM OF MAX. 
 
 IN the latter portion of his work Spinoza, as we have 
 seen, contemplates the course of man's moral life as a 
 movement from bondage to freedom, from the stage of 
 passivity in which he is not, to that of activity or the 
 " life according to reason," in which he is " the adequate 
 cause of his own actions." Regarded as an individual 
 mode amidst the infinite series of finite modes, he is 
 only " a part of nature," a link in the endless concate- 
 nation of causes and effects ; his self-activity is infinitely 
 surpassed by the power of external causes, and the free- 
 dom he ascribes to himself is only an illusory freedom, 
 due to the fact that he is conscious of his own thoughts 
 and actions, but not of the causes that determine them. 
 Yet though thus, by the very essence of his finite 
 nature, man is under a law of external necessity, the 
 possibility of freedom is not thereby precluded. It is 
 possible for him to elevate himself, through reason, above 
 all encroachment of outward influences on his own self- 
 determination. Accordingly, the last Book of the 
 ' Ethics ' is devoted to the development of the idea of 
 freedom, or of that state of moral perfection in which
 
 260 Spinoza. 
 
 man has become at once the source of his own spiritual 
 life and sharer in. the life of God. 
 
 The difficulty which meets us in this part of Spinoza's 
 speculations is not simply that of his apparent reasser- 
 tion of a doctrine he had formerly denied. For neces- 
 sity and freedom are not predicated of the same subject 
 at one and the same time, but are viewed as different 
 stages in man's moral life. But though a transition 
 from the bondage of natural necessity to spiritual free- 
 dom is not inconceivable, the question arises whether it is 
 conceivable under the conditions here laid down, or in 
 the manner here described. If we start from the idea 
 of man as but a unit amidst the infinite multiplicity of 
 other finite units, a single force encompassed and deter- 
 mined by the endless series of natural forces, is not 
 freedom excluded by the very conditions of the problem 1 
 To make freedom a possible achievement, there must be 
 at least some fulcrum on which it can be made to rest, 
 some qualitative distinction between the one force which 
 is destined to triumph and the many forces which are to 
 be overcome. If each finite mode, each member of the 
 series of causes and effects, has precisely the same value 
 as another, is not the possibility of freedom simply in 
 the ratio of one to infinity 1 If individuality be only 
 the " force by which each individual persists in his 
 own existence," and that is infinitely surpassed by the 
 multiplicity of similar external forces, is not individual 
 freedom reduced to a numerical contradiction 1 Must 
 not man be something more than " a part of nature " to 
 begin with, in order to the possibility of escape from its 
 bondage 1 
 
 But even if we concede the possibility of freedom.
 
 Conditions of the Problem. 261 
 
 can the transition be accomplished in the way in which 
 Spinoza describes it ? The problem is that which arises 
 from the conflict between the positive or self-asserting 
 and the negative or passive elements of man's nature ; 
 and Spinoza's manner of solving it is, as we shall see, 
 simply by the elimination of the latter. The negative 
 element disappears, leaving only the purely affirmative 
 to hold the field. But as in the idea of God, so in that 
 of man, pure affirmation, apart from negation, is an 
 impossible conception. In the struggle with passion, 
 according to Spinoza, reason prevails, but it prevails, not 
 by overcoming and subordinating passion, but simply 
 by abstracting from or excluding it. Yet if it is not 
 shown that in some way the natural desires and passions 
 can be rationalised, they are simply left behind as an 
 unresolved element. As organic life does not maintain 
 itself by the exclusion, but by the transformation, of 
 mechanical and chemical elements, so the ideal of the 
 rational life is that not of a passionless life, but of a 
 life in which passion is transcended and transformed. 
 In one sense man can never cease to be "a part of 
 nature," but in the higher life nature has itself become 
 a part of reason. 
 
 The force of these and other criticisms of the con- 
 cluding part of the ' Ethics ' will be seen by considering a 
 little more in detail (1) Spinoza's conception of human 
 bondage, and (2) his theory of the transition from bond- 
 age to freedom. 
 
 THE BONDAGE OF MAN. 
 
 AVhon we examine what Spinoza means by " the 
 bondage of man," we find that it ultimately resolves
 
 262 Spinoza. 
 
 itself into that conditioned or determined nature which 
 pertains to all individual finite things. Freedom is 
 self-activity or self-determination, bondage is subjection 
 to external causation. We act or are active " when 
 anything takes place in us of which we are the adequate 
 cause, or which can be deduced solely from the laws of 
 our own nature " "we are passive, therefore, in so far 
 as we are a part of nature a part, that is, which cannot 
 be conceived by itself and without the other parts." 1 
 But as "no individual finite thing can exist or be deter- 
 mined to act unless it be determined to exist and act by 
 another which is also finite and has a determined exist 
 ence, as that also by a third, &c.," 2 it follows that " it 
 is impossible that man should not be a part of nature or 
 should be capable of undergoing only changes which can 
 be understood through his own nature, and of which it 
 is the adequate cause." 3 
 
 It is true, as we have seen, that Spinoza introduces 
 into his account of the individual nature an element 
 which seems to modify the law of absolute external 
 causation, a self-maintaining impulse or capacity to re- 
 act on outward influences, and to " persevere in its own 
 being." But inasmuch as this element of apparent 
 independence belongs to all finite things alike, it does 
 not in the least modify the preponderance of the whole 
 or of the infinite multiplicity of external causes over 
 each individual thing, or affect man's bondage as a 
 part of nature. " The force by which a man persists 
 in existing is limited and infinitely surpassed by the 
 power of external causes." 4 Moreover, Avhen we con- 
 sider the special case of man as an intelligent and moral 
 i Eth. iv. 2, deni. 2 Eth. i. 28. 3 Eth. iv. 4. 4 Eth. iv. 2.
 
 The Bondage of Man. 263 
 
 being, this all-dominating power of nature over the in- 
 dividual loses nothing of its force. The medium by 
 which nature exerts its power over him is the influence 
 of the passions ; the struggle of the individual with the 
 determining power of external causes becomes, in the 
 case of man, the struggle of the mind or the idea of 
 the body with the passive emotions. But the passive 
 emotions are simply various modifications of the feelings 
 of pleasure and pain, which reflect the affections of the 
 body, or necessarily arise when the body is affected by 
 external causes ; and the mind in the unequal struggle 
 has no more power to resist the emotions than the body, 
 as an individual mode of extension, to resist its affec- 
 tions by external nature. " By pleasure," says Spinoza, 
 " I mean a passim state by which the mind passes to a 
 greater, by pain a pa^dve state by which it passes to a 
 lesser, perfection." " Emotion, which is called a pas- 
 sivity of the soul, is a confused idea by which the mind 
 affirms of its body a force of existence greater or less 
 than before, and by which it is determined to think one 
 thing rather than another." l Thus the whole content of 
 the mind's experience, all that moves or affects it, is 
 due, not to its own activity, but to something that is 
 external and foreign to it. If, under the sway of pas- 
 sion, it has sometimes a feeling of increased as well as of 
 diminished power, the former, alike with the latter, as 
 being determined from without, is only the witness to 
 its bondage. The strength of passion is only a spurious 
 strength, an activity that is produced by passivity, and 
 which, like the increased power produced by wine, is in 
 reality a sign of weakness. Spinoza's conclusion there- 
 1 Eth. iii., general def. of Emotion.
 
 264 Spinoza. 
 
 fore is, that neither in mind nor body, neither as a 
 mode of thought nor as a mode of extension, can 
 the individual man be the free cause of his own ac- 
 tions, that " in the mind there is no free will," l and 
 that if men think themselves free, it is only because 
 " they are conscious of their volitions and desires, and 
 never dream of the causes which have disposed them so 
 to will and desire." 2 " It is impossible," says he, " that 
 man should not be a part of nature ; . . . hence it 
 follows that he is necessarily always in subjection to 
 passions, that he follows and obeys the general order of 
 nature, and that he accommodates himself thereto as the 
 nature of things requires." 3 "I have explained," he 
 writes, at the conclusion of his account of the emotions, 
 " the principal emotions and changes of mind which 
 arise from the combination of the three primary emo- 
 tions, desire, pleasure, and pain. It is evident from this 
 that we are in many ways driven about by external 
 causes, and like the waves of the sea driven by contend- 
 ing winds, we are swayed hither and thither, uncon- 
 scious of the issue and of our destiny." 4 
 
 Such, then, is Spinoza's account of the state of bond- 
 age from which man's moral history starts. That it is 
 not a complete or exhaustive account of human nature, 
 but only of its first or lowest stage, he himself expressly 
 tells us. It is only the diagnosis of the disease which 
 is necessary in order to the understanding of the cure. 
 " It is necessary to know the infirmity of our nature "- 
 its impotence, that is, under the sway of the passions 
 " before we can determine what reason can do to liberate 
 
 i Eth. ii. 48. - Kt.li. i., App. 
 
 3 Eth. iv. -i and cor. 4 Ktli. iii. 59, scliol.
 
 Is such Bondage possible ? 265 
 
 us from their control." l But before passing to what he 
 has to say of " the course that is prescribed to us by 
 reason," \ve may pause for a moment to consider whether 
 his description of what lie calls " the impotence of hu- 
 man nature " is self-consistent, and whether that impo- 
 tence has not been so defined as to place it beyond the 
 reach of remedy. In other words, we may inquire, in 
 the first place, whether the conception of a conscious 
 being under a law of causation in the same sense as a 
 modification of matter, is a possible conception ; and 
 secondly, whether, if conceivable, it can be made a basis 
 for anything higher. Is such a state of bondage pos- 
 sible for a conscious subject ] If possible, can he ever 
 emerge from it 1 
 
 1. The bondage of man, as we have seen, is or arises 
 from that conditioned or determined nature which per- 
 tains to all individual finite things. It is common to 
 body and mind to man as a mode of extension, and to 
 man as a mode of thought. In both points of view he 
 is determined by what is external to his own being ; 
 the mind is a link in the series of ideas in the same 
 sense in which the body is a link in the series of material 
 causes and effects. The former is no more the author of 
 its own desires and volitions than the latter of its own 
 affections of motion and rest. Both are under a law 
 of external, mechanical causation. Mind is simply "a 
 spiritual automaton." The order and connection of 
 thoughts is the same as the order and connection of 
 things. But unless the two processes are absolutely 
 identical in which case the distinction between thought 
 and extension would be a distinction without a difference 
 1 Eth. iv. 17, schol.
 
 266 Spinoza. 
 
 can we attach any meaning to the conception of an 
 idea externally operated on by another idea, or of a mind 
 externally acted on by its passions, as one material thing 
 or body by another] Ideas, Spinoza himself tells us, 
 "are not mere images formed in us by contact with ex- 
 ternal bodies like lifeless pictures on a panel." "We can 
 think one body or mode of extension as lying outside of 
 and acting on another ; but can we conceive of the pro- 
 cess as exactly reflected or paralleled in the relation of 
 the idea of one body to that of another 1 We can, of 
 course, think or have an idea of mechanical causation, 
 but the idea of a mechanical effect is not mechanically 
 determined by the idea of a mechanical cause. A passion 
 is " a confused idea, by the presence of which the mind 
 is determined to think one thing rather than another." 
 A passion, that is to say, is " present to the mind," and 
 then, by its operation on the mind, thoughts and desires 
 spring up therein. But a passion, a feeling of pleasure 
 or pain, cannot be first present to the mind in the sense 
 of being externally in contact with it, and then begin to 
 operate upon it. Being present to the mind means that 
 the mind is conscious of it, that it is already, in a sense, 
 in the mind, and therefore the subsequent mental changes 
 thoughts, desires, volitions are not the result of a 
 merely external causation. The change in the mind is 
 not determined by the passion, as one physical event is 
 determined by an antecedent event, but the mind is 
 determined by a condition of which it is itself the 
 source. The earliest or lowest stage at which we can 
 date the beginning of man's mental history is one in 
 which he is not " a part of nature," in the sense of being 
 subjected to appetites, impulses, passions which are out-
 
 Motives not External Causes. 267 
 
 side of the nature that is to be determined by them. It 
 may, indeed, be possible to conceive of a lower stage than 
 this of sensitive creatures that are under the control of 
 blind impulse, and therefore absolutely determined from 
 without. But if the lower animals be such creatures, 
 self-conscious beings from the very outset of their con- 
 scious life belong to a different order. If there is a 
 stage at which man can be regarded as a being of merely 
 animal impulses and passions, so long as it lasts his 
 moral history has not begun. A conscious impulse is 
 not the same as a merely natural or animal impulse. 
 The infusion of the element of consciousness changes 
 its nature. In becoming a motive of human action, 
 an appetite or passion undergoes a radical transforma- 
 tion. It is no longer an external motor acting on the 
 mind ; it has already been taken out of the sphere of 
 externality, and in its character of motor become a 
 thing, in a sense, of the mind's own creation. In so 
 far, therefore, as the passions are natural forces, and 
 man can be regarded as a part of nature under the 
 bondage of external causation, he is not yet a think- 
 ing, conscious being ; and the moment you conceive 
 of him as such, it ceases to be possible for you to 
 account for his actions by a law of external causation 
 an element of self-determination enters into all 
 that determines him. Unmotived volition and action 
 is indeed an absurd and impossible notion, but equally 
 absurd is that of a conscious being impelled by 
 purely external causes. " Human bondage," therefore, 
 in Spinoza's sense of the words, is not thinkable, 
 and could only be made to seem thinkable by a 
 false separation between motives and volition IT-
 
 268 Spinoza. 
 
 tween passions acting on the mind, and the mind on 
 which they act. 
 
 2. It may be urged as a further objection to Spinoza's 
 doctrine, that if man were under such a bondage he could 
 never escape from it Spinoza proceeds to show how 
 reason liberates man from the slavery of passion and 
 elevates him into participation in the freedom and bless- 
 edness of God. But his conception of human freedom, 
 however true in itself, is not legitimately reached. His 
 " free man " is not the man with whom he started, and 
 it is only by an unconscious modification of his original 
 conception that he contrives to rear upon it his doctrine of 
 freedom. To make freedom a possible attainment, there 
 must be some germ of it to begin with. Imagination 
 may picture to itself the transformation of a stone or plant 
 or animal into a rational nature, but for thought there 
 can be no such transformation. The stone or organism 
 does not become a man, but the idea of the former is 
 dropped and that of the latter substituted for it. In the 
 same way Spinoza's bondsman may be represented as 
 becoming a free man ; but from his definition of the 
 former the transformation is for imagination only, not 
 for thought. If the agencies that constitute nature or 
 the system of being lie outside of the individual mind, 
 and dominate it from without, they can never cease to do 
 so. Mind can only become free in the presence of what 
 is external to it, by supposing it from the outset capable 
 of finding itself therein that is, by supposing in it that 
 which has virtually annulled the externality. Limiting 
 conditions can never cease to limit a nature that is not 
 from the first potentially beyond the limits. A slave 
 could never become a free citizen of the State unless lie
 
 Transition to Freedom. 269 
 
 were capable of finding himself in the constitution and 
 laws of the State. If animal passions rule man from 
 without, an animal he must remain. Reason indeed 
 may, as Spinoza shows, attain the supremacy in man's 
 life ; but it is only because man is from the beginning 
 something different from the being of whom Spinoza 
 speaks, for only that being which, in some sense, creates 
 the forces that act on it, can have in it the latent capa- 
 city to control them. It is, in short, the presence in 
 mind of something which is not subject to the bondage 
 of externality, that constitutes the fulcrum by which its 
 freedom can be achieved. 
 
 TRANSITION FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM. 
 
 Spinoza's conception of human bondage is, as we have 
 seen, self-contradictory. A being who is subject to a 
 law of purely external causation is incapable of freedom, 
 and therefore incapable of bondage. To be a part of 
 nature would be no bondage to man if he could be a part 
 of it. The A'ery term " bondage " implies that essentially 
 ami from the first he is something more. One mode of 
 matter is not in bondage to another, a physical effect is 
 not in bondage to its cause; to be so related is simply 
 the expression of its very nature. Subjection to tin-. 
 passions would be no slavery ; the vicious man would be 
 as innocent as an animal, if like the animal he were blind- 
 ly determined by his appetites. Spinoza's "bondage," 
 as interpreted by the proof he gives of it, is simply 
 modality or h'nitude, and it applies to man as a mode of - 
 thought precisely as it applies to him as a mode of ex- 
 tension. It implies no more reaction in the individual 
 mind than in a stone, against the determining power <>f
 
 270 Spinoza. 
 
 the infinite series of external causes. But, in order to 
 lend to "bondage" the deeper signification which the 
 term implies, and to make it the basis of a theory of 
 freedom, Spinoza unconsciously shifts the definition of 
 the subject of bondage. What he wants in mind is a 
 self which can be the source of its own activity, and 
 which, in so far as it is not so, is in bondage. Man 
 must be something more than an individual in a world 
 of individuals, a larger universal nature must be ascribed 
 to him, if the limits of individuality are to be dealt with 
 as hindrances to freedom. A life controlled by passion 
 can be stamped as " impotence," only if reason be 
 assumed to be the essence, and a rational life the proper 
 destiny of the being so controlled. To make this assump- 
 tion possible, Spinoza changes and deepens the signifi- 
 cance of that which constitutes the essence of mind. 
 The self-maintaining impulse in mind, which is identical 
 with its essence, in order to be " infinitely surpassed " by 
 that of all other finite natures, is at first nothing more 
 and deeper in the former than in the latter. As en- 
 dowed with it, the individual mind is, at most, only 
 quantitatively distinguished from the infinite multipli- 
 city of other individuals, one force amidst the infinitude 
 of forces, to which it necessarily succumbs. But to 
 make it at once capable of the bondage of nature and of 
 rising above it, it has to be invested with the functions 
 and to play the part of a self-conscious, self-determining 
 subject. Its essence is understanding or reason, its 
 essential function is knowledge or the capacity of 
 adequate ideas that knowledge Avhich, as we have seen, 
 is not inert or merely theoretical knowledge, but know- 
 lodge which is instinct with the activity of will ; and
 
 The Subject of Bondage. 271 
 
 the goal of which is " the consciousness of the mind's 
 own perfect activity combined with the idea of God." 
 
 "The effort of self-maintenance," Spinoza writes, 1 "is 
 nothing but the essence of a thing itself, ... its power of 
 doing those things which follow necessarily from its nature. 
 But the essence of reason is nothing but our mind in so far as 
 it clearly and distinctly understands. . . . The effort of the 
 mind by which it endeavours to persevere in its own being 
 is nothing else than understanding, and this effort at under- 
 standing is the first and sole basis of virtue," the source, 
 that is, of its moral and spiritual life. " The essence of the 
 mind consists in knowledge, which involves the knowledge 
 of God, and without it, it can neither be nor be conceived." 2 
 " Man acts absolutely according to the laws of his own nature 
 when he lives under the guidance of reason." 3 " To act 
 rationally is nothing else than to do those things which follow 
 from the necessity of our own nature considered in itself 
 alone." 4 "We know assuredly nothing to be good save 
 what helps, nothing to be evil save what hinders, under- 
 standing." 5 
 
 By this tacit modification of the definition of mind, 
 Spinoza, as we have said, infuses into it that element of 
 self-determination which makes it a possible subject of 
 bondage and of a process of emancipation from bondage. 
 (1.) As to the former: human bondage, instead of 
 being merely another name for finitude, or the deter- 
 mination of a single mode by the infinite series of ex- 
 ternal modes, becomes now the subjection of reason or 
 of a being essentially rational to the irrational. It is no 
 longer simply the relation of one "part of nature" to 
 
 1 Eth. iv. 26, dem. 2 Ibid., 37, dem. 
 
 3 Eth. iv. 35, cor. 1. 4 Eth. iv. 59, dem. 
 
 * Eth. iv. -J7.
 
 272 Spinoza. 
 
 the whole, but it is the subjection of the spiritual to the 
 natural. Eeason or intelligence is essentially active, a 
 rational nature has in it the spring of perpetual activity. 
 It is of its very essence to realise itself, to be the ade- 
 quate cause of its own thoughts and volitions, to make 
 its whole experience the expression of its own essence ; 
 and as pain and all painful emotions are the indications 
 of restrained or diminished power, it is the characteristic 
 of a rational nature to be a stranger to pain, to revel, so 
 to speak, in the unbroken consciousness of its own 
 energy. But, through the medium of the passions, a 
 foreign element gains access to the mind, ideas intrude 
 upon it which are no longer its own creation, but which 
 reflect the involuntary affections of the body by the 
 external world. A host of desires and emotions arise 
 in it of which it is not itself the source ; the presence 
 of pain, and of emotions coloured by pain, betrays its 
 repressed activity ; and even its pleasurable or joyous 
 emotions, and the sense of power that accompanies them, 
 are not of legitimate origin, biit, being due to external 
 stimulus, are the sign of the mind's weakness, not of its 
 strength. Again, it is of the very essence of a rational 
 nature, not only to determine itself, but to determine 
 itself by uniform and invariable principles of action. 
 " Whatever the mind conceives under the guidance of 
 reason, it conceives under the same form of eternity or 
 necessity, and it is affected by it with the same certi- 
 tude" 1 i.e., independently of all variable conditions or 
 of the accidents of time and place. The good which is 
 its satisfaction is an absolute good, a good which cannot 
 be diminished by distance or lapse of time, and which 
 i Eth. iv. 62, deni.
 
 Reason and the Passions. 273 
 
 is the same for all minds. But it is of the very nature 
 of the passions to introduce into the mind an element of 
 fitfulness and caprice, and to determine our actions by a 
 good which is contingent and fluctuating. Pleasure and 
 pain, reflecting as they do the affections of the body, 
 vary with individual temperament, with the accidental 
 and ever-changing relations of the individual to outward 
 things, with the nearness or distance in time and space 
 of the objects that affect us. Hence the inroad on the 
 mind of a whole brood of emotions of desire and aver- 
 sion, hope and fear, pride and humility, timidity and 
 daring, exultation and remorse, &c. which disturb its 
 equanimity, and render it the slave of accident and irra- 
 tionality. Hence, too, the tyranny of warring passions, 
 and the disturbance of that harmony and repose which 
 constitute the atmosphere of reason. For Avhilst the 
 objects of reason are the same for all minds, and they 
 who seek them seek a good which is common to all, 
 which can never be diminished by the multiplicity of 
 participants, and which each individual must desire that 
 others should seek ; l on the other hand, pleasure and 
 pain, from which the passions spring, are in their nature 
 purely individual. Not only do their objects affect dif- 
 ferent men in an infinite variety of ways, so that what 
 one desires and loves, another may hate and shun, but 
 their appropriation by one implies the loss of them to 
 all besides. Envy, jealousy, anger, hatred, all the malign 
 passions, beset those who make 'pleasure their good. In 
 these and other ways Spinoza shows that the passions, 
 as the word indicates, imply the passivity or bondage of 
 man's true nature. The essence of the mind is reason, 
 
 i Eth. iv. 18, 36, 37. 
 P. XII. S
 
 274 Spinoza. 
 
 the autonomy of reason its freedom ; but in so far as the 
 mind is under the control of passion, our actions " no 
 longer follow from the laws of our own nature, but are 
 determined by what is alien to it." To let passion rule 
 is a kind of suicide, for a suicide is one " who is over- 
 come by external causes, and those which are contrary 
 to his own nature." l On the other hand, "man is free 
 in so far as he is led by reason, for then only is he 
 determined to act by causes which can be adequately 
 understood by his own nature alone." 2 " We see thus 
 the difference between a man who is led solely by emo- 
 tion or opinion and a man who is led by reason. The 
 former, whether he will or no, does those things of 
 Avhich he is utterly ignorant; the latter does those things 
 only which he knows to be of the highest importance in 
 life, and which therefore he desires above all. There- 
 fore I call the former a slave, the latter a free man." a 
 
 (2.) The conception of human bondage Avhich Spino/.a 
 has now reached supplies him with a basis for his doc- 
 trine of freedom, and indicates the process by which the 
 transition from bondage to freedom is mediated. So 
 long as bondage is identical with determination or 
 finitude, freedom is impossible, or possible only by the 
 annulling of the very existence of the being to whom it 
 pertains. But if the freedom of man be conceived, not 
 :is indetermination but as determination by the laws of 
 his own nature, the possibility thereof resolves itself 
 into the question whether that nature can rise above the 
 external influences which dominate it. As the lowest 
 stage of knowledge is that of imagination or inadequate 
 ideas, so the lowest stage of the moral life is that nf 
 i Eth. iv. 20, schol. -' Tract, Pol., cap. ii. 11. Eth. iv. 66, srhnl.
 
 How Freedom is to be Attained. 275 
 
 bondage to the passions, which are, if not simply an- 
 other form of inadequate ideas, necessarily generated by 
 them. Can we rise from this state ; and if so, how 1 
 Is freedom possible ; and if possible, what is the process 
 by which it is achieved 1 
 
 As to the first of these questions, it may be said that 
 the answer is involved in the doctrine that the activity 
 of reason is essentially pleasurable, and that pain belongs 
 only to the passions. The pain of bondage is the pro- 
 phecy of freedom. Pain, in other words, is the con- 
 sciousness of limitation or repressed activity, and the 
 mind that is conscious of its limits is already virtually 
 beyond them. If man could be perfectly happy under 
 the dominion of passion, his moral condition would be 
 hopeless. The fact that in the lowest stage of selfish 
 indulgence there is an element of unrest is the witness 
 to the presence in man of a nature greater than his pas- 
 sions, and capable of rising above them. 
 
 But granting the possibility of freedom, how is it to 
 be attained? In the conflict of passion what are the 
 weapons at the command of reason 1 In answer to this 
 question, Spinoza enumerates what he terms " the 
 remedies of the emotions, or what the mind, considered 
 in itself alone, can do against them." l The more im- 
 portant of these " remedies " we shall briefly consider. 
 
 1. "The mind's power over the emotions consists, 
 first, in the actual knowledge of the emotions." The 
 knowledge of passion destroys passion. " An emotion 
 which is a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we 
 form a clear and distinct idea of it." 2 Spinoza's proof 
 of this proposition is in substance this that a passion 
 i Eth. v. 20, schol. 2 Eth. v. 3.
 
 276 Spinoza. 
 
 is, or rests on, " a confused idea," and that forming a 
 clear and distinct idea of it is equivalent to the vanish- 
 ing of the confusion. Error is extinguished, and its 
 power over the mind ceases when we know it as error. 
 Moreover, a passion is a confused idea " of an affection 
 of the body" But there is no affection of the body of 
 which we cannot form a clear and distinct idea. We 
 can rise above the confusion of ordinary knowledge to 
 the clear intelligence of reason. When, therefore, we 
 think a passion, what remains of it is not the passion 
 itself, but the true idea of it, or that is involved in it. 
 It is thus transferred from the sphere of our passivity to 
 that of our activity. Eeason not only masters passion, 
 but receives a fresh accession of power ; it not only de- 
 tects the illusion, but becomes possessed of the truth 
 that underlies it, so that what we sought blindly from 
 passion AVC now seek intelligently or from rational 
 motives. 
 
 Stripped of its technical form, the drift of Spino/a's 
 argument seems to be this : When it is asserted that 
 by the knowledge of our passions we gain the mastery 
 over them, or " that every one has the power clearly and 
 distinctly to understand himself and his emotions, and 
 therefore, if not absolutely, yet in part, of bringing it 
 about that he should not be subject to them," l it is 
 obviously not meant that to have a theoretical know- 
 ledge of passion is to be exempt from its control, which 
 would be as absurd as to say that the diagnosis of a 
 disease is equivalent to its cure. Xor, again, is Spinoza's 
 doctrine simply the commonplace maxim, that as an 
 enemy we know is comparatively harmless, so by study - 
 1 Eth. v. 4, schol.
 
 Thought transforms Passion. 277 
 
 ing our passions we learn how to be on our guard 
 against them. But what he means is, that when we gain 
 the point of view of true knowledge, passion loses its hold 
 over us. As, in the intellectual sphere, the aspect of the 
 world as it is for imagination, in which all things are 
 regarded from a purely individual standpoint, is of 
 necessity annulled when we rise to the higher stand- 
 point of reason, in which all things are discerned in 
 their universal and necessary relations, so, in the 
 ethical sphere, the attitude of purely individual feeling, 
 in which things are good or evil only as they contribute 
 to the satisfaction of our appetites and passions, vanishes 
 away when we rise to that higher attitude in which we 
 identify ourselves with the universal interests, and look 
 on our particular pleasures and pains in the light of that 
 universal order of which we are but an insignificant 
 part. So viewed, our particular satisfactions lose their 
 deceptive importance. They become no more to us, or 
 to reason in us, than those of other individuals, and 
 infinitely less than the interests of that universe of 
 being to which we and they belong. Thus, regarded 
 from the point of view of reason, the passions cease to 
 exist for us except in so far as they are functions of 
 the universal, or forms under which reason itself is 
 realised. 
 
 These considerations explain to us also the sequel of 
 Spinoza's argument, in which he maintains that in thus 
 knowing our passions we transform them into elements 
 of the mind's activity. "To all actions," he writes, " to 
 which we are determined by passion, we can be deter- 
 mined without passion by reason." 1 "Every desire," it 
 1 Eth. iv. 59.
 
 L>7S Spiiwza. 
 
 is added, " which springs from an emotion wherein the 
 mind is passive, would become useless if men were guided 
 by reason." l And again : " All appetites or desires are 
 passions only in so far as they spring from, inadequate 
 ideas, and the same results are ranked as virtues when 
 they are aroused or generated by adequate ideas. For 
 all desires by which we are determined to any action 
 may arise as well from adequate as from inadequate 
 ideas." 2 There is, in other words, a rational meaning or 
 end underlying the passions, and what we seek blindly 
 under the influence of passion we may seek deliberately 
 under the guidance of reason. When we know or form 
 an adequate idea of a passion, we discern this under- 
 lying end, and make it an object of conscious deliberate 
 pursuit. "We must endeavour to acquire as far as 
 possible a clear and distinct idea of every emotion, in 
 order that the mind may be thus, through emotion, 
 determined to think of those things which it clearly and 
 distinctly perceives and in which it fully acquiesces, and 
 thus that the emotion itself may be separated from the 
 thought of an external cause and connected with true 
 thoughts ; whence it will come to pass, not only that 
 love, hatred, etc., will be destroyed, but also that 
 appetites and desires which usually arise from such 
 emotions will become incapable of excess." 3 Even the 
 lowest appetites are capable of being thus transferred 
 from the sphere of passion to that of reason, from the 
 passive to the active side of our nature. The wise or 
 free man is no longer impelled by hunger or lust, but 
 by the rational endeavour after that to which these 
 appetites point the preservation and continuance of 
 1 Eth. iv. 59, schol. - Eth. v. 4, schol. 3 Ibid.
 
 The Pass iu /is become Nationalised. 279 
 
 the life of the individual and the race. Ambition and 
 kindred passions are based on the desire "that other 
 men should live after our fashion ; " but this is only an 
 irrational aim when it is the dictate of blind, selfish 
 impulse ; in a nature that is elevated to the universality 
 of reason it becomes simply the endeavour that all men 
 should lead a rational life. Animal courage or daring 
 purged of its impulsive character, becomes that wise 
 presence of mind which may express itself as much in 
 evading danger as in facing and overcoming it. 1 Even 
 those emotions, such as pity or compassion, which we 
 are wont to regard as good and praiseworthy, are, con- 
 sidered merely as emotions, bad and hurtful ; 2 but reason 
 or the rational man extracts the valuable element in 
 them, and instead of being impulsively moved by the 
 calamities and tears of the wretched, seeks on rational 
 grounds to ameliorate their condition. 3 Thus, in general, 
 the knowledge of passion annihilates passion, and sub- 
 stitutes for it the calm and deliberate activity of reason. 
 A perfectly wise man would be absolutely passionless, 
 and therefore absolutely free. He " would hate no man, 
 envy no man, be angry with no man," and for the same 
 reason, would love and pity no man, do nothing at the 
 mere dictate of feeling, but would order his life from 
 purely rational motives for the general good. 4 
 
 2. As another and kindred " remedy for the passions," 
 or means of attaining freedom, Spinoza points out that 
 " the mind can bring it about that all bodily affections 
 or images of things should be referred," (a) to "the 
 common properties of things or deductions therefrom," 
 
 i Eth. iv. 69. 2 Eth. iv. 50. 
 
 a Ibid., dein. 4 Eth. iv. 73, dem. and schol.
 
 280 Spiiwza. 
 
 or (b) to " the idea of God." l This " remedy for the 
 passions " is only the converse or correlate of that which 
 we have just considered. Thought or reason transforms 
 the object as well as the subject of passion. When I 
 think or know myself, the passion vanishes ; when I 
 think or know the world, it ceases to be that world 
 which appeals to passion. The latter result is, indeed, 
 already involved in the former. Even from Spinoza's 
 peculiar point of view, thought and its outward object 
 stand or fall with each other. The world, as it was for 
 inadequate thought, no longer exists for that which has 
 become adequate; thought cannot rise from the indi- 
 vidual to the universal without implying a parallel ele- 
 vation in the extended world which is its object. 
 
 But though the one transformation implies the other, 
 it is possible, following our author, to consider them 
 separately. The dominion of passion may be conceived 
 of as the dominion of the world and the things of the 
 world over a nature larger than themselves of the 
 world as it is for sense and imagination- over a nature 
 the essence of which is reason, of the things of the 
 world in their fictitious reality and independence 
 over a nature the essence of which is the idea or self- 
 affirmation of God. The " bondage," on that supposi- 
 tion, would be that of an infinite nature imprisoned in 
 the finite, of a being whose essence is light, harmony, 
 eternal order and unity, in a world of darkness and dis- 
 cordancy. The deliverance from this bondage is that 
 " remedy for the passions " to which Spinoza here point*. 
 Annihilate the world, and the passions which were re- 
 lated to it die a natural death. But the world on which 
 * Etb. v. 14 aud 12.
 
 The World transformed for Reason. 281 
 
 passion fed has no real existence. Nothing really is as 
 to imagination it seemed to be. The individual things 
 to which the affections of the body were referred, and 
 which, through these affections, became the objects of 
 desire and aversion, love and hate, are purely illusory. 
 The body and its affections, and all bodies which affect 
 it, are nothing save as determined by universal relations 
 of cause and effect, which link the whole order or sys- 
 tem of things into one vast unity. The mind that is 
 the prey of the passions is Avasting itself on a vain 
 show, fastening on that as real and permanent which is 
 fugitive and evanescent. Thought or reason dissolves 
 the show, and with it the passions to which it gave 
 birth. Passion, again, in its fluctuation and variable- 
 ness, is based on relations to a world which is the scene 
 of arbitrariness and accident. But there is no such 
 world. The "common properties," the universal laws, 
 of things determine their relations by an absolute neces- 
 sity, and when we " refer the affections of the body " to 
 these, when the world puts off the mask of change and 
 contingency, and the presence of eternal order and ne- 
 cessity confronts us, the restless alternations of satiety 
 and discontent vanish with the illusory world they re- 
 flected. " If we remove a disturbance of the mind or 
 an emotion from the thought of an external cause, and 
 connect it with other thoughts, then will love or hatred 
 towards the external cause, and also the fluctuations 
 of the mind which arise from these emotions, be de- 
 stroyed." l But further, in the real world which sup- 
 plants the illusory world of imagination, there is some- 
 thing deeper even than the " common properties " which 
 1 Eth. v. 2.
 
 2S'2 
 
 reason discerns. Thought, even when it has grasped 
 the universal principles or laws which bind all finite 
 things in the bonds of an unchangeable necessity, falls 
 short of apprehending their deepest meaning. "The 
 mind can bring it about that all bodily affections and 
 images of things should be referred to the idea of God." l 
 It is possible, as we have seen, for thought to rise to a 
 point of view from which the world is contemplated, 
 not merely as a system of tilings conditioning and con- 
 ditioned by each other, but as a system in which all 
 things are seen in the light of that absolute unity of 
 which they are only the infinitely varied expression. 
 The true " existence of things " is that which is ascribed 
 to them because of this, that from the eternal necessity 
 of the nature of God an infinity of things follows in 
 infinite ways." * The system of the world, in other 
 words, contains an element of unresolved diversity till 
 the particular existence of things, and their mediating 
 link of causation, are no longer independent, and by the 
 glance of immediate " intellectual intuition " we can, so 
 to speak, see the whole at once all diversity in unity, 
 all thinking things, all objects of thought as expressions 
 of that "idea of God" which is their immanent prin- 
 ciple and essence. In this highest and truest knowledge 
 of the world lies the secret of complete emancipation 
 from the bondage of passion, and of the attainment of 
 perfect freedom. In the sphere of the passions that 
 emotion is most vivid and powerful which is referred to a 
 present rather than an absent object, or to a greater rather 
 than a lesser number of objects, or to objects that most 
 frequently recur; and an emotion possessing all these 
 1 Eth. v. 14. a Eth. ii. 45, schol.
 
 The final Emancipation. 283 
 
 characteristics would prevail over every other. But if 
 there be one object or idea which, is ever present and 
 incapable of being excluded by any other, which all 
 things and thoughts suggest, and from which everything 
 else derives its significance and reality then must that 
 idea, and the emotion to which it gives rise, dominate 
 every other in the mind in which it dwells. Now, just 
 such is the idea of God. It is the idea to which it is 
 possible for the mind " to refer all bodily affections or 
 images of things," and in the mind which has achieved 
 this result, to which all things speak of God, or are seen 
 only as they exist in God, all passions that relate only 
 to things finite and transient are quelled, and every other 
 emotion is absorbed in that " intellectual love " which is 
 only another aspect of the intuitive knowledge of God. 
 Finally, whilst every other emotion limits the mind's 
 activity, this is the expression of its highest freedom. 
 For whilst all passion "springs from pleasure or pain, 
 accompanied with the idea of an external cause," this 
 emotion springs from a cause which is no longer outward 
 or foreign to the mind, but is its own inmost essence. 
 Subjection to absolute truth is the freedom of intelli- 
 gence. For the mind, the essence of which is that self- 
 affirming impulse which is in reality the self-affirmation 
 of God in it, and for which the world is a world in 
 which all things are seen in God, or awaken the thought 
 and love of God, subjection to what is external ceases ; 
 every object it contemplates, everything that stirs the 
 fount of feeling, only contributes to its own purest activ- 
 ity. The mind that is one with God is free of a uni- 
 verse in which itself and all things live and move and 
 have their being in God.
 
 284 Spinoza. 
 
 In reviewing this theory of the transition from bondage 
 to freedom, it may be pointed out that its main defect 
 seems to lie in the abstract ideal of man's highest life on 
 which it is based. Freedom is pure self-affirmation or 
 self-activity, all passion is negation of that activity. The 
 ideal, therefore, of the moral life is that of an absolutely 
 passionless life. The " life according to reason " is that 
 in which the agent is determined " by reason without 
 passion." Reason and passion cannot coexist. "Where 
 emotion is contrary to reason, it is noxious ; where it 
 coincides with reason, it is useless : in either case, it 
 is an invasion from without on that purely self-affirming 
 activity in which the mind's freedom consists. The 
 triumph of reason is not the subjugation but the ex- 
 tinction of passion. To think a passion is to kill it. 
 Thought and passion are opposed as activity and pas- 
 sivity, and the positing of the former is equivalent to 
 the annulling of the latter. Further, it follows from 
 this that the free or rational life is one from which 
 pain or sorrow is absolutely excluded. Pain is the 
 indication of repressed activity ; pleasure, in the sense 
 in which it is not of the nature of passion, of unimpeded 
 or expanding activity. Into the spiritual life, therefore, 
 no feeling of which pain or sorrow is an element can 
 enter ; and judged by this criterion, humility, penitence, 
 pity, compassion, and kindred emotions must be pro- 
 nounced to be evil. 1 
 
 But it is to be remarked that a freedom which is thus 
 identified with passionless intelligence, or the pure self- 
 affirmation of reason apart from negation, is either an 
 impossible notion, or a notion which is only a moment 
 i Eth. iv. 50, 53, 54.
 
 Criticism of the Theory. 285 
 
 or factor in the true idea of freedom. It is true that the 
 affirmation of a self which is above and beyond the pas- 
 sions, though not in itself spiritual freedom, is a step in the 
 process towards it. It is of the very essence of a spiritual 
 nature to be conscious of a self which is more than any or 
 all particular desires and affections, which does not come 
 and go with the succession of feelings, but underneath 
 all their transiency and changefulness remains ever one 
 with itself, posits or affirms itself in opposition to their 
 negativity. But though this self-affirmation is an element 
 of the process, it is only an element. A purely self- 
 affirming intelligence, or, otherwise expressed, a rational 
 will which has no materials of activity outside of itself, 
 is a mere abstraction. It is a determiner without any- 
 thing to determine, a universal without the particular, 
 the blank form of the moral life without any filling or 
 content. Reason can never realise itself merely by will- 
 ing to be rational ; it can only do so by willing particular 
 acts which come under the form of rationality. And 
 this implies that the general principle or aim of reason 
 can only fulfil itself through particular desires, impulses, 
 passions, which have their own ends or objects. An 
 intelligence feeding only on itself dies of inanition, or 
 rather, never begins to live. But whilst thus the ex- 
 tinction of passion would be the extinction of spirit- 
 iial life, or whilst an intelligence that could annihilate 
 passion would annihilate the very materials of its own 
 existence, yet, on the other hand, the passions, in so far 
 as they remain an element of the spiritual life, do not 
 remain unchanged. Reason, if it does not annul, trans- 
 mutes them. In the moral strife the conquest is not that 
 of a victor who slays his enemies, but who makes thfia
 
 286 Spinoza. 
 
 his own thralls. Or rather it is more thau that ; for in 
 the conflict with the passions reason achieves its own 
 freedom by infusing into them its own rationality. It 
 realises itself by elevating the natural impulses and 
 desires into its own universality. As the touch of art 
 glorifies matter, transnmtes stones and pigments into the 
 beauty and splendour of the ideal ; or as organic life, 
 whilst it takes up inorganic materials into itself, leaves 
 them not unchanged, but assimilates and transforms 
 them, suffuses them with its own power and energy, so 
 the impulses and passions of the natural self are but the 
 raw material which the spiritual self transforms into the 
 organs of its own life. The free man, the man who has 
 entered into the universal life of reason, is still a creature 
 of flesh and blood; he hungers and thirsts, he is no 
 stranger to ordinary appetites and impulses, or to those 
 wider passions which animate the most unspiritual 
 natures. But in living, not for his individual pleasure, 
 but for the higher ends of the spirit, the passions, whether 
 as the mere organic basis of the spiritual life, or as con- 
 trolled and denied for the sake of it, or as used up as its 
 resources, become, to the spirit, instinct witli its own 
 vitality and freedom.
 
 287 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 IMMORTALITY AND THE BLESSED LIFE. 
 
 SPINOZA'S doctrine of immortality is, in one point of 
 view, only another form of his doctrine of freedom. It 
 is the passions or passive emotions which hinder the 
 mind's inherent activity and subject it to the control of 
 a foreign element. But so long as the body exists, the 
 passions must more or less limit the autonomy of reason. 
 For the passions correspond to and reflect the affections 
 which the body receives from external bodies ; or, other- 
 wise expressed, they are due to the illusory influence of 
 the imagination, which contemplates outward objects in 
 their accidental relations to the body and gives to them a 
 false substantiality and independence. A passion is " a 
 confused idea by which the mind affirms greater or less 
 power of it* body than before, and by the presence of which 
 it is determined to think one thing rather than another." 
 <: AVhatsoever hinders the power or activity of the body, 
 the idea of that thing hinders that of the mind." 1 
 Whilst, therefore, the body endures, we must be more or 
 less the slaves of imagination and passion. If the mind 
 were wholly imagination it would perish with the body 
 i Eth. iii. 11.
 
 288 Spinoza. 
 
 and its affections. The illusory world and the ideas 
 that reflect it would vanish together. But, as we have 
 just seen, there is that in the mind which enables it to 
 rise above the slavery of passion, to emancipate itself 
 from the illusions that are generated by ideas of bodily 
 affections. The true essence of mind is reason, which 
 sees things, not under the fictitious limits of time, but 
 under the form of eternity and in their immanent rela- 
 tion to the idea of God. It is this essence of the mind 
 which constitutes what Spinoza calls its " better part," 
 and in which lies the secret at once of its freedom and its 
 immortality. It makes man free, for it raises him above 
 the desires that are related to the accidental and transient, 
 and brings him under the dominion of that "intellec- 
 tual love " which is the expression of his own deepest 
 nature. It makes man immortal, for, having no relation 
 to the body and its affections, it has in it nothing that 
 can be affected by the destruction of the body. " There 
 is nothing in nature that is contrary to this intellectual 
 love or can take it away." 1 "It is possible for the 
 human mind to be of such a nature that that in it which 
 we have shown to perish with the body is of little im- 
 portance in comparison with that in it which endures." '' 
 "The eternal part of the mind is the understanding, 
 through which alone we are said to act ; the part which 
 we have shown to perish is the imagination, through 
 which alone we are said to be passive." 8 
 
 There is, however, another and very peculiar aspect 
 
 of Spinoza's doctrine of immortality which remains to 
 
 be explained. We naturally ask how any such survival 
 
 of the mind after the destruction of the body as is here 
 
 1 Eth. v. 37. - Eth. v. 38, schol. 3 Eth. v. 40, cor.
 
 The " Essence " of the Body. 289 
 
 maintained, is consistent with the fundamental doctrine 
 of the uniform parallelism of thought and extension, or 
 with the principle that to all that takes place in the 
 human mind as a mode of thought there must be some- 
 thing corresponding in the human body as a mode of 
 extension. Spinoza's answer to this question turns on the 
 distinction which, according to him, obtains between the 
 " essence " and the " actual existence " of the body. The 
 mind's survival does not leave us with something in the 
 sphere of thought to which nothing in the sphere of ex- 
 tension corresponds. For though the particular mode of 
 extension which we designate this actually existing body, 
 or the body " in so far as it is explained by duration and 
 can be defined by time," ceases to exist, there is never- 
 theless an " essence " of the body which can only be 
 conceived through the essence of God or under the 
 form of eternity, and which therefore endures when 
 everything corporeal of which we can speak in terms of 
 time passes away. " God," says Spinoza, " is the cause 
 not only of the existence of this or that human body, 
 but also of its essence." l " There is necessarily in God 
 (and therefore in the human mind) an idea which ex- 
 presses the essence of the human body." 2 It would 
 therefore appear that not only the mind, but the body 
 also, survives death. The parallelism of thought and 
 extension is not affected by the destruction of the actually 
 existing body. In both there is something that passes 
 away, in both something that remains. If that particu- 
 lar mode of extension which we call the actually exist- 
 ing body passes away, so also does that mode of thought 
 which constitutes the idea of the actually existing body. 
 
 i Eth. v. 22, clem. - Eth. v. 23. lem. 
 
 P. XII. T
 
 290 Spinoza. 
 
 On the other hand, if the immortal element in mind 
 is the reason, which contemplates all things under the 
 form of eternity, in like manner the immortal element in 
 the body is that " essence of the body " which is the 
 object of reason. The " form of eternity " belongs alike 
 to the essence of the body and to the essence of the 
 mind. 
 
 1. In criticising this theory, it may be remarked that 
 in such phrases as " the duration of the mind without 
 relation. to the body," "the mind does not imagine, &c., 
 save while the body endures," Spinoza employs language 
 which, as addressed to the ordinary ear, is misleading, 
 inasmuch as it suggests the notion of an incorporeal im- 
 mortality, a survival of the purely spiritual element of 
 man's nature when the material element has passed away. 
 Such phraseology perhaps betrays an unconscious con- 
 cession to the popular conception of the material as the 
 grosser, the mental as the nobler element, and of immor- 
 tality as the emancipation of the spirit from the bondage 
 of matter. In any case, such language is obviously 
 inconsistent with Spinoza's doctrine as above explained. 
 Spinoza knows nothing of the false spiritualism which 
 recoils from the supposed grossness or " pravity " of 
 matter. To him, on the contrary, matter is as divine 
 as mind, modes of matter are as much the expression of 
 God as modes of mind. On his principles it would be 
 equally true and equally false to say that the body sur- 
 vives the mind, and to say that the mind survives the 
 body. To each he ascribes an "essence" which is dis- 
 tinct from its "actual existence " ; and if the essence of 
 the mind survives the body regarded as a particular, 
 transient modification of matter, the essence <>f the body
 
 Criticism of the Doctrine. 291 
 
 survives the mind regarded as the idea of that modifica- 
 tion, or the particular modification of thought which 
 corresponds to it. 
 
 2. It is a more important criticism of Spinoza's doc- 
 trine that it ascribes to death or the destruction of the 
 body what is really due to reason, as the destroyer of 
 the illusions of imagination. The triumph of mind is 
 not the destruction of the body, but the destruction of a 
 false view of it. It is not achieved by the cessation of 
 the body's existence, but by the dissipation of the illu- 
 sory reality ascribed to it. The immortality which is 
 predicated of the mind is not continuity of existence 
 after death, but its capacity to rise above the category 
 of time and to see itself, the body and all things, under 
 the form of eternity. To speak of this as something 
 future, or as a capacity of living on after a certain date, 
 or of surviving a certain event, is simply to explain in 
 terms of time that the very nature of which is to tran- 
 scend time. The immortality which is sanctioned by 
 Spinoza's principles is not a quantitative but a qualitative 
 endowment not existence for indefinite time, but the 
 quality of being above time. It is an immortality, there- 
 fore, which may be attained here and now. In so far as 
 we rise to the stage of intuitive intelligence and intel- 
 lectual love, we have an immediate experience of it, we 
 enter at once into the sphere of eternity, and the old 
 world of imagination vanishes away. And if we ask, 
 What is the relation of this eternal consciousness to the 
 life or death of the body? it might be answered that 
 the moral acceptance of death is the supreme act of 
 liberation. For the mind that sees things under the 
 form of eternity, the body, as a phenomenon in time,
 
 292 Spinoza. 
 
 has already vanished, the disillusioning power of reason 
 has anticipated in a deeper way the physical disinte- 
 gration of death. Spinoza knows nothing of the Pla- 
 tonic notion of the corporeal state as an imprisonment 
 of the soul, from which death liberates it. The mind 
 that knows God has already achieved its liberation, and 
 the eternity in which it dwells is neither hindered nor 
 helped by the destruction of the body. According to 
 his own principles, therefore, it is an obvious inconsist- 
 ency in Spinoza to speak of a subjection of the mind to 
 imagination and passion " so long as the body endures," 
 or of the " destruction of the body " as contributing in 
 any measure to its emancipation. For the higher con- 
 sciousness of the mind, the body has been already de- 
 stroyed, and the only emancipation of which the mind 
 is capable is one which reason, and not the destruction of 
 the body, has accomplished. 
 
 3. Spinoza's doctrine implies a tacit ascription to the 
 mind of a superiority over the body which is inconsistent 
 with their parallelism as modes of thought and extension. 
 That doctrine is, as we have seen, that there is an essence 
 of mind and an essence of body which both alike tran- 
 scend the category of time, and are part of the eternal 
 nature of God. But whilst Spinoza's conception of the 
 nature of mind supplies a ground for its superiority to 
 time, its permanence through all change, he assigns no 
 similar ground for the perpetuity of the body. Modes 
 of thought are determined by other modes ; but besides 
 this, there is a reduplication of thought upon itself ; in 
 other words, thought thinks itself. Modes of extension 
 are determined by other modes, but there is no similar 
 return of each mode of extension upon itself, nor, from
 
 Inconsistency of the Doctrine. 293 
 
 the very nature of the thing, is any such return con- 
 ceivable. Xow, though the conception of mind as not 
 only idea of the body, but as the idea of that idea, does 
 not amount to what is involved in the modern doctrine 
 of self-consciousness, yet in Spinoza's speculations it 
 performs in some measure the functions which that 
 doctrine ascribes to the mind. As conscious of itself, 
 mind contains in its very essence a principle of continu- 
 ity, a unity which remains constant through all phenom- 
 enal changes. It can abstract from all determinations, 
 and it is that to which all determinations are referred 
 the living, indestructible point of centrality to which 
 the thoughts and feelings that compose our conscious 
 life are drawn back. But there is nothing approximat- 
 ing to this principle of self-centrality in Spinoza's con- 
 ception of the body. " The human body is composed," 
 he tells us, 1 "of many individual parts of diverse 
 nature, each one of which is extremely complex," and 
 " these individual parts of the body, and therefore the 
 body itself, are constantly being affected by external 
 bodies." In all this diversity and change there is no 
 principle of unity ; the unity to which the body as a 
 composite thing is referred is not in itself, but in the 
 " idea of the body," or the mind that thinks it. 
 
 4. Spinoza's conception of immortality, or of the eter- 
 nal element in mind, is, as we have seen, simply that of 
 a mind for which the illusion of time has disappeared. 
 But to drop or eliminate an illusion is not to account for 
 it, or to explain its relation to our mental and spiritual 
 life. Spinoza points out as a fact that time as well as 
 figure, number, measure, are only illusory forms of ima- 
 1 Eth. ii., post. 1 and 3.
 
 294 Spinoza. 
 
 gination, and that reason rises above them. But even 
 an illusion must be in some way grounded in the intel- 
 ligence that experiences it. It can be explained only 
 by tracing its origin, and by showing that it forms a 
 necessary stage in the development of the finite mind. 
 Time, in other words, is not explained even as an illu- 
 sion, unless in the eternal there is shown to be a reason 
 for it ; nor is the eternal which rises above time to be 
 understood unless the negation of time is shown to be 
 contained in it. If the aspect of things " under the 
 form of eternity " has no necessary relation to their 
 aspect as things in time, the latter is a mere excrescence 
 in the system, and for any reason that appears, might 
 have been omitted altogether. If thinking things under 
 the form of time is not a necessary stage in the process 
 towards true knowledge, there is no reason why the 
 mind should not have started at once from the point 
 of view in which nothing is illusory, and in which 
 eternal realities are immediately apprehended. Spinoza 
 contrasts reason and imagination, the point of view in 
 which tilings are regarded as independent realities, and 
 the point of view in which they are seen in the light of 
 the idea of God, or under the form of eternity. But he 
 makes no attempt to show the relation between the 
 lower and the higher point of view. He simply pro- 
 nounces the former to be false and illusory, and the 
 latter to be an attitude of mind in which the former is 
 dropped or left behind. But is there no way, it may be 
 asked, in which it can be shown that the determination 
 of things in time, not merely empirically precedes, but is 
 a necessary presupposition of their determination under 
 the form of eternity 1 Is it not possible to discern that
 
 Ilhisioii of Time uncxplainnf. 295 
 
 the rise from imaginative to rational knowledge is not 
 an accident in the history of thought, but a necessary 
 step in the process by which a self-conscious intelli- 
 gence realises itself and its own inherent wealth ] The 
 answer to this question may be said to be involved in 
 the very nature of intelligence. The relation of im- 
 agination to reason is simply the relation, in modem 
 language, of consciousness to self-consciousness. The 
 consciousness of self implies relation to objects which 
 are opposed to self, and yet which, as related to self, 
 form a necessary element of its life. It is only by the 
 presentation to itself of an external world i.e., of a 
 world conceived of under the forms of externality that 
 mind or intelligence can, by the relating or reclaiming of 
 that world to itself, become conscious of its own latent 
 content Thought, in other words, is not a resting 
 identity, but a process, a life, of which the very 
 essence is ceaseless activity, or movement from unity 
 to difference and from difference to unity. It is not 
 by brooding on itself in some pure, supersensuous 
 sphere of untroubled spirituality, but by going forth 
 into a world that, in the first instance, is outside of 
 and foreign to itself, and of which the constituent 
 elements in their self-externality in space and succes- 
 sion in time, are the contradiction of its own inherent 
 unity, and then by the recognition of that world as not 
 really foreign or independent or discordant, but in its 
 real or essential natiire related to and finding its mean- 
 ing and unity in thought it is by this perpetual process 
 of differentiation and integration that self-conscious in- 
 telligence ceases to be a lifeless abstraction, and becomes 
 a concrete reality. But if this be so, the differentiat-
 
 296 Spinoza. 
 
 ing movement is presupposed in the integrating, the 
 world of imagination is no longer a mere illusion which 
 somehow the mind outlives, a dream from which it 
 awakes, but a necessary step in the life of spirit and 
 in its 'progress to higher things. Time is not a mere 
 subjective deception which passes away, but a form of 
 objectivity which it is of the very essence of spirit to 
 posit and transcend. It is only by the affirmation and 
 negation of time that we can rise to the contemplation 
 of things under the form of eternity. The eternal life 
 is not that which abstracts from the temporal, but that 
 which contains while it annuls it. 
 
 5. The most important question as to Spinoza's doc- 
 trine of immortality still remains, and that is the ques- 
 tion, not whether the individual mind can in any way 
 be said to survive the body, but whether in their 
 relation to God there can be said to be any real survival 
 of either. The view which we take of man's nature 
 implies and must be based on a corresponding view 
 of the nature of God. Whatever independence we 
 ascribe, to the finite involves as its correlate an idea 
 of the infinite which admits of and is the ground 
 of that independence. Does Spinoza's idea of God 
 admit of and furnish a basis for his doctrine of human 
 freedom and immortality? The peculiarity of the view 
 of man's nature and destiny which we have now ex- 
 plained is that it is just at the point where the limit 
 between the finite and infinite vanishes, and where 
 indeed there is the strongest reassertion of the doctrine 
 that the finite is and is conceived only through the in- 
 finite, that instead of being suppressed or indistinguish- 
 ably absorbed, the finite mind is represented as attain-
 
 Individuality iwt obliterated. 297 
 
 ing the most complete individuality and activity. " The 
 eternal part of the mind is the understanding through 
 which alone we are said to act, the part which we have 
 shown to perish is the imagination through which only 
 we are said to be passive." 1 The state which consti- 
 tutes the supreme or eternal destiny of man is not 
 simply that of absolute unity with God, but that in 
 which man attains to the consciousness of that unity, 
 and in which the distinction between itself and God is 
 not only not obliterated but intensified. " The mind as 
 eternal has a knowledge of God which is necessarily 
 adequate and is fitted to know all those things which 
 follow from this knowledge, . . . and the more potent 
 any one becomes in this kind of knowledge, the more 
 completely is he conscious of himself and of God." ~ 
 Xot only is it a state in which the mind has attained 
 the maximum of self-originated activity, and therefore 
 its highest individual perfection, but with the con- 
 sciousness of this comes also the highest joy or blessed- 
 ness. For " if joy consists in the transition to a greater 
 perfection, assuredly blessedness must consist in the 
 mind being endowed with perfection itself." " He 
 who knows things by this kind of knowledge passes to 
 the highest human perfection, and therefore is affected 
 by the highest joy, and that a joy which is accompanied 
 by the idea of himself and of his own virtue." 4 Finally, 
 all these elements of individual perfection freedom, 
 activity, self - consciousness, self - determination are 
 summed up in that attitude of mind which Spinoza 
 designates "intellectual love," which he defines as "joy 
 
 1 Eth. v. 40, cor. - Eth. v. 31, dein. and mr. 
 
 *"Eth. v. 33, schol. * Etls. v. 27, clem.
 
 298 Spinoza. 
 
 or delight accompanied by the idea of one's self, and 
 therefore by the idea of God as its cause." * The per- 
 fection of human nature, in other words, is a state of 
 blessedness in which the consciousness of self is not lost 
 in God, but actually based on the consciousness of God. 
 
 Can we find in Spinoza's idea of the divine nature 
 any room or ground for this conception of the nature 
 and destiny of man? The answer must be, that the 
 idea of God on which Spinoza's whole system is osten- 
 sibly based is one which involves the denial of any 
 reality or independence to the finite. It is by negation 
 of all individual finite things that that idea is reached. 
 It is by abstracting from all distinctions material and 
 mental, and even from the distinction of matter and 
 mind itself, that we attain to that pure, indeterminate 
 unity, that colourless, moveless abstraction of substance 
 which is Spinoza's formal conception of the nature of 
 God. 
 
 But this though formally is not really the idea of 
 God on which Spinoza's system rests. What he sought 
 to reach was a principle which would constitute the ex- 
 planation of man and the world, from which "an infi- 
 nite number of things in infinite ways must necessarily 
 follow," and from the adequate knowledge of which the 
 mind could proceed to the adequate knowledge of the 
 nature of things." 2 And though the idea of God which 
 he formulates does not constitute such a principle, yet 
 in the course of his speculations we find that idea under- 
 going various modifications which, if carried out to their 
 logical results, would have involved the complete recon- 
 struction of his philosophy. 
 
 1 Eth. v. 32, cor. - Etli. ii. 40, sell. 2.
 
 Jui mortality and Idea of God. 299 
 
 (1.) His constant use of the phrase qiiatenim is really an 
 acknowledgment of the inadequacy of the premiss it is 
 introduced to qualify an expedient, in other words, for 
 surreptitiously reaching results not logically justifiable on 
 his own principles. The infinitude Avhich is conceived 
 of as pure indetennination would be tampered with if 
 any finite existence could be regarded as an expression 
 of the essential nature of God; yet Spinoza is not 
 content with a barren infinitude an infinitude which 
 leaves nature and man unaccounted for. Hence the 
 frequent recurrence of such expressions as these : "The 
 idea of an individual thing actually existing has God for 
 its cause, not in so far as He is infinite, but in so far as 
 He is regarded as affected by another idea of an individ- 
 ual thing, &c. ; " a " God has this or that idea, not in so 
 far as He is infinite, but in so far as He is expressed 
 by the nature of the human mind or constitutes the 
 essence of the human mind ; " 2 " The intellectual love 
 of the mind toward God is the very love with which 
 He loves Himself, not in so far as He is infinite, but in 
 *> far as He can be expressed by the essence of the 
 human mind conceived under the form of eternity." a 
 The infinite can never be expressed by a nature which 
 is nothing but the negation of the infinite. Yet this 
 inevitable conclusion Spinoza will not let himself ac- 
 knowledge. The whole moral use and value of his 
 philosophy would vanish if man could not find the 
 origin and end of his being in God, and so the self- 
 contained, self-identical infinite must break through its 
 isolation and reveal itself in the essence of the human 
 mind. How or on what philosophical ground this rev- 
 i Eth. ii. 9. 2 Eth. ii. 11, cor. 3 Eth. v. 36.
 
 300 Spinoza. 
 
 elation is to be conceived Spinoza does not attempt 
 to explain ; but to speak of " God in so far as He 
 is expressed by the human mind," or of the human 
 mind as surviving in its individuality "in so far as God 
 can be expressed by its essence under the form of 
 eternity," would be to employ words without meaning 
 if this " in so far " did not point to something positive 
 and real in the nature of God. To say that a thing 
 exists or survives in so far as the divine idea is ex- 
 pressed in it, would be absurd if Spinoza believed that the 
 divine idea did not express itself in it at all. The ever- 
 recurring phrase must have been to its author something 
 more than a transparent artifice or a petitio prindpii. 
 
 (2.) Whilst Spinoza rejects the anthropomorphic idea 
 of God as a being who acts on nature from without or 
 whose essence contains arbitrary elements after the 
 analogy of man's imperfect thought and will, he yet 
 constantly ascribes activity to God. An indeterminate 
 absolute is a dead and moveless absolute. Whilst 
 God's activity cannot proceed from any external cause 
 or constraint, but must be the expression of an internal 
 necessity, yet He is essentially and eternally active. 
 " The omnipotence of God has been from eternity actual, 
 and will to eternity remain in the same actuality." 1 
 "From God's supreme power or infinite nature an 
 infinite number of things in infinite ways that is, all 
 things have necessarily flowed forth." 2 And this con- 
 ception of the essential productive activity of the divine 
 nature is based on the principle that the more reality a 
 thing has, the more properties follow therefrom, and 
 therefore the infinite nature " has absolutely infinite 
 1 Eth. i. 17, sch. 2 ibid.
 
 Self -Consciousness of God. 301 
 
 attributes, of which each expresses infinite essence in its 
 own kind." * The infinite which is the negation of all 
 properties or determinations thus becomes the infinite 
 which has an infinite number of properties or deter- 
 mination.-. 
 
 (3.) It is true indeed, as we formerly saw, that the 
 properties or attributes which Spinoza ascribes to God he 
 is compelled by stress of logic to remove from the nature 
 of God or Substance, absolutely viewed, and to regard as 
 having an existence only relatively to finite intelligence. 
 They are not distinctions which pertain to the divine 
 essence as it is in itself, but only distinctions " which the 
 understanding perceives as constituting that essence." 
 They do not exist, in other words, for or through God's 
 own thought, but for or through the thought of finite 
 minds. Yet it is to be observed that there are in- 
 dications that, however illogically, the attributes had for 
 him the significance of absolute and not relative distinc- 
 tions in the divine nature ; and further, that it is not 
 the human but the divine intelligence in and for which 
 he conceived them to exist. "By God," says he, 2 
 "I understand a being absolutely infinite that is, 
 Substance consisting of infinite attributes of which 
 each expresses eternal and infinite essence." "By attri- 
 butes of God is to be understood that which expresses 
 the essence of the divine Substance." 3 "The attri- 
 butes of God which express His eternal essence, express 
 at the same time His eternal existence." 4 Further, as 
 we have seen, though in his formal doctrine Spinoza 
 places thought on a level with extension and all other 
 
 1 Eth. i. 16, dem. 2 Eth. i., def. 6. 
 
 s Eth. i. 19, dem. 4 Eth. i. 20, dem.
 
 302 Spinoza. 
 
 possible attributes, he really ascribes to the former an 
 altogether higher and more comprehensive function. It 
 is thought or intelligence in man for which both exten- 
 sion and thought exist ; and as all other possible attributes 
 exist for some intelligence, not only are the infinitude of 
 attributes accompanied each by a parallel attribute of 
 thought, but each and all of them exist for thought. 
 In this conception of an infinite number of intelligences 
 for which the attributes of God exist, Spinoza is hover- 
 ing on the brink of the idea of an infinite intelligence 
 as not an attribute or distinction outwardly ascribed to 
 God, but the principle of distinction in the divine essence 
 from which all attributes or distinctions flow. But he 
 goes further still than this. Infinite intelligence is for 
 him not merely the aggregate of an indefinite number of 
 finite minds, it is infinite in a truer sense. For, as 
 we have attempted to show, the conception of "the 
 absolutely infinite intellect," as one of what Spinoza 
 terms "infinite modes," is simply a device by which he 
 is unconsciously seeking to introduce into the idea of 
 God that element of activity which neither his abstract 
 substance nor even its attributes contain. The gulf be- 
 tween the moveless infinite and the finite world is thus 
 bridged over by an expedient which, ostensibly without 
 affecting the indeterminateness of the absolute substance, 
 makes it quick with the life of creative thought intro- 
 duces into it, in other words, what is virtually the prin- 
 ciple of self-consciousness and self-determination.
 
 303 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 THE last word of Spinoza's philosophy seems to be the 
 contradiction of the first. Not only does he often fluc- 
 tuate between principles radically irreconcilable, but he 
 seems to reassert at the close of his speculations what he 
 had denied at the beginning. The indeterminate in- 
 finite, which is the negation of the finite, becomes the 
 infinite, which necessarily expresses itself in the finite, 
 and which contains in it, as an essential element, the 
 idea of the human mind under the form of eternity. 
 The all-absorbing, lifeless substance becomes the God 
 who knows and loves Himself and man with an infinite 
 " intellectual love." On the other hand, the conception 
 of the human mind as but an evanescent mode of the 
 infinite substance, whose independent existence is an 
 illusion, and which can become one with God only by 
 ceasing to be distinguishable from God, yields to that 
 of a nature endowed with indestructible individuality, 
 capable of knowing both itself and God, and which, in 
 becoming one with God, attains to its own conscious 
 perfection and blessedness. The freedom of man, which 
 is at first rejected as but the ilhision of a being who is 
 unconscious of the conditions under which, in body and 
 mind, he is fast bound in the toils of an inevitable neces-
 
 304 Spinoza. 
 
 sity, is reasserted as the essential prerogative of a nature 
 which, as knowing itself through the infinite, is no 
 longer subjected to finite limitations. The doctrine of a 
 final cause or ideal end of existence, which was excluded 
 as impossible in a world in which all that is, and as it is, 
 is given along with the necessary existence of God, is 
 restored in the conception of the human mind as having 
 in it, in its rudest experience, the implicit consciousness 
 of an infinite ideal, which, through reason and intuitive 
 knowledge, it is capable of realising, and of the realisa- 
 tion of which its actual life is the process. At the out- 
 set, in one word, we seem to have a pantheistic unity in 
 which nature and man, all the manifold existences of the 
 finite world, are swallowed up ; at the close, an infinite 
 self-conscious mind, in which all finite thought and being 
 nnd their reality and explanation. 
 
 Is it possible to harmonise these opposite aspects of 
 Spinoza's system, and to free it from the inherent weak- 
 ness which they seem to involve 1 ? Can we make him 
 self-consistent, as many of his interpreters have done, 
 only by emphasising one side or aspect of his teaching, 
 and ignoring or explaining away all that seems to con- 
 flict with it by clearing it of all individualistic elements, 
 so as to reduce it to an uncompromising pantheism, or 
 by eliminating the pantheistic element as mere scholastic 
 surplusage, in order to find in it an anticipation of 
 modern individualism and empiricism? 
 
 The answer is, that though Spinoza's philosophy can- 
 not, in the form in which he presents it, be freed from 
 inconsistency, yet much of that inconsistency is due to 
 the limitations of an imperfect logic, and that the philo- 
 sophy of a later time has taught us how it is possible to
 
 Negation and Ecasscrtion of the Finite. 305 
 
 embrace ill one system ideas which in him seem to be 
 antagonistic. There is a point of view which he at most 
 only vaguely foreshadowed, in which it is possible to 
 maintain (1) at once the nothingness of the finite world 
 before God and its reality in and through God, and (2) 
 the idea of an infinite unity transcending all differences, 
 which nevertheless expresses itself in nature and man, 
 in all the manifold differences of finite thought and 
 being. 
 
 1. The negation of the finite by which Spinoza rises 
 to the idea of God is, in one sense, an element which en- 
 ters into the essence of all spiritual life. But when we 
 consider the twofold aspect in which Spinoza himself 
 represents this negative movement, that, on the one 
 hand, which is involved in the principle that all de- 
 termination is negation ; and that, on the other hand, 
 which is involved in the rise of the human mind from 
 the lower to the higher stages of knowledge, we can 
 discern in his teaching an approximation to the idea 
 of a negation which is only a step to a higher affirma- 
 tion in other words, of that seZ/-negation or self-renun- 
 ciation which is the condition of self-realisation in 
 the intellectual, the moral, and the religious life. It 
 is the condition of the intellectual life. Scientific 
 knowledge is the revelation to or in my consciousness 
 of a system of unalterable relations, a world of object- 
 ive realities which I can neither make nor unmake, 
 and which only he who abnegates his individual fancies 
 and opinions can apprehend ; and all knowledge rc>t> 
 on the tacit presupposition of an absolute truth or 
 reason, which is the measure of individual opinion, 
 which cannot be questioned without self-contradiction, 
 
 p. xu. u
 
 which in our very doubts and uncertainties we assume, 
 and to which in its every movement the finite intelli- 
 gence must surrender itself. The intellectual life is one 
 which I can live only by ceasing to assert myself or to 
 think my own thoughts, by quelling and suppressing all 
 thought that pertains to me as this particular self, and 
 identifying myself with an intelligence that is universal 
 and absolute. Yet the negation of which we thus speak 
 is not an absolute negation. The finite intelligence is 
 'not absorbed or lost in the infinite to which it surrenders 
 itself. Surrender or subjection to absolute truth is not 
 the extinction 'of the finite mind, but the realisation of 
 its true life. The life of absolute truth or reason is not 
 a life that is foreign to us, but one in which we come to 
 our own. The annulling of any life that is separate 
 from or opposed to it, is the quickening, the liberation, 
 the reassertion of our own intelligence. 
 
 And the same thing is true of the moral life. Here, 
 too, it is possible to reconcile Spinoza's denial of any 
 reality to the finite in the face of the infinite, with his 
 reassertion of its reality in and through the infinite. 
 For in the moral life of man negation is ever a necessary 
 step to affirmation, it is only through the renunciation 
 of the natural life that we rise into the spiritual. The 
 natural life is that of the individual regarded as a being 
 of natural tendencies, of impulses, instincts, appetites 
 which look to nothing beyond their immediate satisfac- 
 tion. They pertain to him as this particular self, and 
 they seem to point to 1:0 other end than his own private 
 pleasure. But man never is a mere individual, or, in 
 this sense, a particular self, and his passions are al- 
 ways so far transformed by self-consciousness that the
 
 TJie Jfiu'df iul Hi'/i'/in/i* Lif<\ 307 
 
 attainment of their immediate objects is never their 
 complete satisfaction. He has, so to speak, not only 
 to satisfy them, but to satisfy himself ; and the self 
 he has thus to satisfy is not his own individuality as a 
 being separate from others, but a self which is developed 
 in him, just in proportion as he makes himself an instru- 
 ment to the life of others. Hence it is of the very 
 essence of a moral being that to be himself he must 
 be more than himself. Shut up within the limits of 
 purely isolated satisfactions, infinitely the larger part of 
 his nature remains undeveloped. To realise the capaci- 
 ties of his own being he must take up into it the life of 
 the other members of the social organism. It is in pro- 
 portion to the deepening and widening of his sympathies 
 that his life grows richer and fuller ; and its ideal purity 
 and perfection are conceivable only as the identification 
 of himself with a life which is universal and infinite. 
 But if this be so, then the higher or spiritual life implies 
 the negation of the. lower or natural life. It is impos- 
 sible to lead at the same time a life that is merely partic- 
 ular and a life that is universal, to be at once boiinded 
 by individual impulses, and giving free play to capacities 
 that are virtually limitless. In the very act of living 
 for others we die to self. And as the intellectual life 
 involves the abandonment of all thought that is merely 
 our own, so the moral life involves the abnegation of 
 all desire, volition, action that begins and ends with the 
 will of the individual self. 
 
 Lastly, the religious life is, above all, that which con- 
 forms to the idea of self-realisation through self-negation. 
 For if true religion is not the appeasing of an alien 
 power, or the propitiating of it for the attainment of our
 
 308 Spinoza. 
 
 own ends, neither can it be the mere prostration of the 
 finite before the infinite. With Spinoza we can discern 
 that it involves the negation of all that pertains to the 
 individual as " a part of nature " ; and yet admit the 
 justice of his condemnation of asceticism as a tristi* <.f 
 torva superstitio, and of his assertion that joy is itself 
 a progress to a greater perfection. We can see a mean- 
 ing in the doctrine that finite beings have no existence 
 save as vanishing modes of the divine substance, and 
 at the same time in the seemingly contradictory doc- 
 trine that the self-affirming impulse, Avhich is the very 
 essence of the finite, reaches its highest activity in abso- 
 lute union with God. We can perceive, in one word, 
 how the negation of the finite before God, may be the 
 beginning of a process which ends with the reafiirmation 
 of the finite in and through God. 
 
 2. Finally, this negation and reaffirmation of the 
 finite through the infinite involves a correlative con- 
 ception of the divine nature which harmonises elements 
 that in Spinoza appear to be irreconcilable. The unity 
 which transcends and the unity which comprehends all 
 the differences of the finite world; the God who is at 
 once absolutely undetermined and infinitely determined, 
 beyond whom is no reality, yet from whom an infinite 
 number of things in infinite ways necessarily proceeds, 
 who must be conceived of as the negation of finite 
 thought and being, yet who expresses or reveals Him- 
 self in nature and in the human mind, is there any 
 point of view from which ideas so discordant can be 
 harmonised 1 Can thought compass a conception which 
 will read a meaning at once into the featureless, move- 
 less infinite whose eternal repose no breath of living
 
 Idea, of God. 309 
 
 thought or feeling can disturb, and into the infinite, 
 who knows and loves Himself in His creatures with an 
 infinite " intellectual love " ? The answer is, that what 
 Spinoza was feeling after tlrrough all these contradictory 
 expressions, is to be found in the conception of God as 
 absolute Spirit. For when we examine what this con- 
 ception means, we shall find that it includes at once what 
 Spinoza sought in the unity which lies beyond all deter- 
 minations and in the unity which is itself the source of 
 all the determinations of the finite world. All philosophy 
 must rest on the presupposition of the ultimate unity of 
 knowing and being on the principle, in other words, that 
 there is in the intelligible universe no absolute or irre- 
 concilable division, no element which in its hard, irredu- 
 cible independence is incapable of being embraced in 
 the intelligible totality or system of things. All the 
 manifold distinctions of things and thoughts must be so 
 conceived of as to be capable of being comprehended 
 in one organic whole capable, that is, in the utmost 
 diversity that can be ascribed to them, of being brought 
 back to unity. All philosophy, moreover, which is not 
 atheistic, must find that ultimate unity in the idea of 
 God. Without rending the universe and falling into 
 dualism, whatever reality and independence are ascribed 
 to nature and man, that reality and independence must 
 not only have its source in God, but must not be pressed 
 beyond the point at which it is still consistent with the 
 relation of all things to God. To say that God is abso- 
 lutely infinite, is to say that in His nature must be con- 
 tained a reason for the existence of the finite world, 
 and also that nothing in the finite world can have or 
 retain any existence or reality that is outside of God.
 
 310 Spinoza. 
 
 What this implies is an idea of the nature of God as 
 a unity which reveals, yet maintains and realises, itself 
 in all the distinctions of the finite world. Xow the 
 one idea which perfectly fulfils this condition is that 
 of God as infinite, self-conscious Spirit. For only in 
 thought or self-consciousness have we a unity whose 
 nature it is to be infinitely determined, yet which in 
 all its determinations never goes beyond itself, but in 
 all this multiplicity and variety is only and ever real- 
 ising itself. Of this unity we find the type, though 
 only the imperfect type, in our own minds. The philo- 
 sophic interpretation of the world may be said to be 
 uhe application to nature and man of a principle with 
 whose action we are conversant in our own intelligence. 
 It is of the very nature of thought to reveal itself, to 
 give itself objectivity, to discover to itself its own in- 
 herent wealth by going forth to objects that are opposed 
 to, and in one sense external and foreign to itself. 
 Mind or intelligence is no abstract, self-contained identity, 
 having its whole reality in its own self-included being. 
 A consciousness that is conscious of nothing, a think- 
 ing subject which opposes to itself no external object, 
 is a mere blank, an abstraction which has no reality. 
 Without a world of objects in time and space, without 
 other kindred intelligences, without society and his- 
 tory, without the ever-moving mirror of the external 
 world, consciousness could never exist, mind could 
 never awaken from the slumber of unconsciousness and 
 become aware of itself. But it is also of the very 
 nature of mind in all this endless objectivity to main- 
 tain itself. The self that thinks is never borne away 
 from or lost to itself and its own oneness in the
 
 God and the Worla. 311 
 
 objects of its thought. It is the qne constant in their 
 ever-changing succession, the indivisible unity whose pres- 
 ence to them reclaims them from chaos. But further, 
 it not only maintains but realises itself in and through 
 the objects it contemplates. They are its own objects. 
 If it begins by opposing the world to itself, its next 
 movement is to retract the opposition, to annul the 
 seeming foreignness, to find itself therein. Knowledge 
 is a revelation, not simply of the world to the observ- 
 ing mind, but of the observing mind to itself. Those 
 unchangeable relations which we call laws of nature are 
 nothing foreign to thought; they are rational or intel- 
 ligible relations, discoveries to the intelligence that 
 grasps them of a realm that is its own, of which in the 
 very act of apprehending them it comes into possession. 
 And still more do our social relations in the family, the 
 community, the state, become to us a revelation of our- 
 selves, a revelation of a life which, though in one sense 
 other and larger than our own, is still our own. Thus 
 the whole process of knowledge is a gradual annulling 
 by the mind of that self-externality which is thought's 
 first attitude towards the outward world, and a gradual 
 self-creation or realisation of its own content. Con- 
 sciousness, in other words, through the mediation of 
 externality realises itself or becomes self-consciousness. 
 
 Xow the principle with whose action in our own 
 consciousness we are thus conversant is one which is 
 applicable, not simply to our intelligence, but to all 
 intelligence, and above all to that intelligence of which 
 our own is the highest finite expression. It is the 
 essential characteristic of spirit as spirit to be object to 
 itself, to go forth into objectivity and return upon itself.
 
 312 Spinoza. 
 
 To conceive of God as an abstract, self-identical infinite 
 would be to make Him not greater but less than finite 
 intelligence less by all that spiritual wealth which is 
 involved in our relations to nature and man. The 
 abstract or merely quantitative infinite excludes the 
 consciousness of any existence other than itself. It 
 can remain " secure of itself " only by the reduction of 
 all finite thought and being to unreality and illusion. 
 But the infinitude which is preserved only by the ab- 
 solute negation of the finite world is a barren infinitude. 
 Its greatness is the greatness of a metaphysical figment, 
 the greatness which is attained by leaving out from it 
 all those elements of life and thought and love which 
 constitute the wealth of a spiritual nature. On the 
 other hand, an infinite whose essence is intelligence or 
 self-consciousness, whilst it contains in it the necessity of 
 relation to a finite world, is not limited by that necessity. 
 For in so conceiving of it, as we have seen, the limitation 
 we ascribe to it is a limitation which is the medium of 
 its own self-realisation a going forth from itself which 
 is no lessening or loss, but only a step in the process by 
 which it returns upon itself in a complete fulness of 
 being. Viewed in the light of this conception, nature 
 and man are neither severed from God nor lost in God, 
 but have all their significance as expressing or manifest- 
 ing God. The external world, instead of being deprived 
 of reality, is endowed with that highest reality which 
 arises from this, that from the lowest inorganic matter 
 to the highest forms of organic life, reason or thought 
 underlies it ; and that ideal unity of nature which 
 science partially discloses, which art, by its imaginative 
 creations, foreshadows, is only then clearly apprehended
 
 Infinite Spirit. 313 
 
 when we recognise it as the unity of one spiritual prin- 
 ciple, one infinite self-consciousness which goes forth to 
 the utmost verge of self-externality in a world that exists 
 under the conditions of space and time, yet in all this 
 manifold objectivity remains ever one with itself. Above 
 all, in the light of this idea of God as infinite Spirit we 
 can see how man has a being and reality of his own, 
 which yet is no limit to the nature of God, but the only 
 medium of its complete manifestation. For only in the 
 communication of its own life to kindred intelligence is 
 there what can be termed, in the full sense of the word, 
 a revelation of the Being whose nature is thought and 
 love. Only in its relation to finite intelligence do we 
 see the veil removed from that twofold movement that 
 going forth from itself and return upon itself which is 
 the very life of infinite Spirit Only in man does the 
 divine Spirit go forth from itself ; for what God gives 
 to man is nothing less than Himself, a reproduction of 
 His own nature, a participation in His own life and 
 In 'ing. Thought, indeed, in us is limited in this sense, 
 that the knowable world exists independently of our 
 knowledge of it, and that there are boundless possibilities 
 of knowledge which for us have not become actual ; but 
 in the very fact that thought or self-consciousness can be 
 limited by nothing which lies outside of itself, that every 
 conceivable advance in knowledge is only a realisation of 
 ourselves, and that the very consciousness of our limits 
 implies that there is that in us which transcends them 
 in this lies the proof that it is of the essence of finite 
 spirit to share in the infinitude from which it springs. 
 Yet in this communication of Himself to man there is no 
 outflow from the infinite source which does not return
 
 31 4 Spinoza. 
 
 upon itself. Without life in the life of others spirit 
 would not be truly spirit. In spiritual life, giving and 
 receiving, loss and gain, self-surrender and self-enrich- 
 ment are ideas which implicate and pass into each other. 
 Infinite intelligence is not limited but fulfilled by the 
 existence of finite, for, as we have seen, it is the charac- 
 teristic of the latter that to realise itself it must abnegate 
 itself. To renounce every thought and volition that is 
 merely its own, to become the transparent medium of 
 the infinite mind and will, to be conscious of its dis- 
 tinction from God only that it may return into indivisible 
 unity with God this is its only possible way to self- 
 realisation. For this self-abnegation, rightly interpreted, 
 is not the subjugation of the finite intelligence to an out- 
 ward and absolute authority, but it reaches its perfection 
 when the thought and will to which it surrenders itself 
 is recognised as its own in it as well as above it ; when 
 it is not two concurrent voices that speak in its thought, 
 but the one voice of infinite reason ; when duty has ceased 
 to be self-denial, and the dictates of the absolute will 
 blend indivisibly witli the affirmation of its own. In so 
 far as this ideal is realised it may be said that in the 
 utmost activity of the spiritual life in man God never 
 breaks through the charmed circle of His own infinitude. 
 It is His own knowledge that is reflected in the human 
 mind, His own love that comes back upon Him through 
 the channel of human hearts. It is not the finite as 
 finite which God knows and loves, nor the finite as 
 finite which seeks to be known and loved, but the 
 finite which is transfigured with an infinite element, the 
 finite that is not a thing of time, but that is and knows 
 itself under the form of eternity. We have here a point
 
 Unity of I-njimrr. ami Finite. 315 
 
 of view in which the contradictions under which Spinoza's 
 thought seems ever to labour can be regarded as the acci- 
 dents of an unconscious struggle after a deeper principle 
 in which they are solved and harmonised. In the light 
 of that principle we can speak with him of an indeter- 
 minate and infinite unity in which all finite distinctions 
 lose themselves, and with him we can see that there is 
 no paradox in the assertion that "he who loves God 
 does not desire that God should love him in return." 
 We can discern at the same time a profound meaning 
 in those apparently mystical utterances in which he seems 
 to gather up the final result of his speculation " God 
 loves Himself with an infinite intellectual love ; " " God 
 in so far as He loves Himself loves man ; " " the intel- 
 lectual love of the mind to God is part of the infinite 
 love whereAvith God loves Himself ; " " the love of God 
 to man and the intellectual love of man to God are one 
 and the same." 
 
 END OF SPINOZA. 
 
 rr.INTTO TV AVII.UAM Til ACKTVOOD AND SONS.
 
 BRARY FAC1UTY 
 
 A 000 670 692 3