ft V ETHICS OF SPINOZA SPINOZA A HANDBOOK TO THE ETHICS BY J. ALLANSON PICTON NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 1907 / M Edinburgh : T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty TO THE BRIGHT MEMORY OF HERBERT AND ALICE MAUD RIX NOW AND ALWAYS ONE IN THE ETERNAL LIFE THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED 255129 PREFACE The aim of this work is practical ; that is to say, I have endeavoured to avoid discussing the philosophy of Spinoza more than is absolutely necessary to an understanding of his moral code. For ever since I became a humble student of his works I have had a growing impression that a rich vein of common -sense and sound morality runs through all his speculations, though it has often to be digged for as hidden treasure. But the fashion of his writing was determined in large measure by the customs of seventeenth-century philo- sophy, and he addressed himself only to those who were familiar with them. The result is that in our time, when the decay of old traditions makes a clearer view of the foundation of morals a matter of supreme im- portance, we lose the immense benefit of his moral and religious teaching because we are perplexed both by his use of familiar words, such as ' God ' and ' eternity ' and 'mind' and 'body,' in senses to which we are not accustomed; and we are also repelled by his artificial method of so-called 'mathematical proof.' I have en- deavoured to relieve these difficulties by a plain b vii viii ETHICS OF SPINOZA exposition which always keeps in view the moral and religious, rather than the intellectual value of the great Master's teaching. And to make the exposition clearer I have not hesitated to introduce ' modern instances 5 to show the concrete significance of apparently abstract principles. My indebtedness to the great and exhaustive treatise of Sir Frederick Pollock on Spinoza, His Life and Philosophy, can hardly be sufficiently acknowledged. But I trust it is evident in the following pages. Still my own experience suggests that, for those who are specially interested in the religious evolution of our own day, there is needed a ' Handbook to the Ethics ' which shall keep that evolution specially in view. This I have endeavoured to supply, measuring the wants of others by my own needs. As will be evident, I have continually compared my own translations of Spinoza's Latin — (edition of Van Vloten et Land) — with the admirable work of W. Hale White and Amelia H. Stirling. I have ventured often to differ from their rendering, and sometimes I have preferred to paraphrase the original. But my debt of obligation is the same. CONTENTS PAGE Part I. Concerning God 1 „ Appendix 39 Part II. The Nature and Origin of the Mind . . 50 Part III. The Origin and Nature of Mental Affections 83 „ Appendix— Definitions of the Mental Affec- tions — Introductory Remarks . . .10 Part IV. The Bondage of Man 127 Part V. The Power of the Intellect ; or, The Freedom of Man I 81 Conclusion 2 ^1 PAET I CONCERNING GOD Readers of Spinoza often experience much greater diffi- Difficulties in reading culty than they ought to find in making out his meaning, Spinoza because they bring with them to the study of his writings by bringing habits of thought entirely incongruous with his system. s t u dy in- And this is especially the case with his ' Ethics.' For in habftTof S his various tractates on somewhat more popular subjects, thou s ut - particularly in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, one of the very few of his writings printed during his lifetime, he so far condescended to the mental condition of his contemporaries as to use no small amount of conventional language. Thus readers who find him discussing pro- Not so phecy and its confirmation by signs, or revelation and ?n the* inspiration, feel at first quite at home, and only gradually a l\ n a, e discover that these terms must to him have had a very * 1CS ' different meaning from that familiar in ecclesiastical circles. But with his opus magnum, the Ethics, the case is entirely different. That he wrote for posterity is clear Reasons from the fact that he withheld the work from publication during his lifetime, though probably even he had no idea of the remoteness of the posterity for whom he was The Ethics writing. Perhaps it can hardly be said to have arrived posterity, yet, notwithstanding the increasing interest shown during the past half-century both in the man and his ideas. At A ETHICS OF SPINOZA any rate in this work he quite abjured any such conces- sions to contemporary conventions of thought as are found in his other writings, and gave uncompromising utterance to the results of his solitary contemplations of man and the universe, influence of Not that even here he was wholly uninfluenced by his Ldtradi- times or their traditions. For no such miracle as an Ethics 1 1 e entirely new man in this sense has ever appeared — no, mainly' to no ^ even ^ n ^he a 8 es °f transition from anthropoids to matters of an thropopithecus and anthropos. But the traces of tradition and convention in Spinoza's greatest work are seen mainly in matters of form. Thus the idea of com- pressing the whole philosophy of the universe into five E.g. the books of definitions, postulates, axioms, propositions and of the 10 " demonstrations, arranged after the manner of Euclid, form of" 1 seems utterly incongruous both with the physics and the and P demon- metaphysics of the twentieth century. In the seven- stration. teenth century, however, though the plan was a little startling to less daring minds, it did not seem impossible. Reasons And the reason for this was two-fold. Firstly, the vast- adoption, ness of the universe was not adequately felt ; and next, the difference in precision between doctrines of ideal space, on the one hand, and expressions of concrete ex- perience on the other, was not sufficiently apprehended. Now if the universe, or at least a definite portion of the universe, including man, is completely commensurable with the human intellect, and if every impression re- ceived by that intellect from the accessible universe is capable of as precise statement as our ideal notions of space — such as point, line, superficies, square, circle, and so on — there would seem to be no reason why a man of CONCERNING GOD 3 very exceptional philosophic genius might not reduce all our relations with the world of being to a set of Euclidean propositions. But such a notion of existence has become impossible to us. And we are compelled to recognise, in the form into which the Ethics was cast, the influence of an age in which the general outlook on the world was, in some important respects, entirely incongruous with that of our own time. There are other seventeenth-century conventions of other in- form which add to the difficulties of an average twentieth- seventeenth- century reader. But the instance now given will suffi- convention ciently illustrate my meaning for the present ; and other deferred - cases will be better considered in their proper places. All the more so, because we shall sometimes have to con- sider whether the difficulty of form does not also involve a difficulty of substance. And here it may be well to anticipate so far as to say that, while I regard Spinoza's doctrine of God, Nature, and Man as in its essence per- Spinoza's manent and inexpugnable, I must admit that some e temSJ details incidental to his treatment of that doctrine would ^ta§s of have been felt by him to be not only intolerable but im- ^{ h ^ possible, had he lived in the present a<*e. These details l iave been r ' . ? temporary. however, now generally recognised as impossible, do not occur in his moral system, which is singularly noble and complete, but rather in the attempt to work out an intellectual system of the universe from two .alleged 1 attributes ' of the Infinite, said to be the only ones known to us out of an absolutely unlimited number. ■^ t i -i • i • M1 i The present Erom the above preliminary remarks it will be seen essay an that I regard the average reader's difficulty in under- to meet standing Spinoza's Ethics as arising partly from our in- cu iJies, by 4 ETHICS OF SPINOZA veterate habit of assuming that such terms as God, Eternity, Good, Evil, and many others are used by him in the sense which we have learned in Church or Sunday- school to attach to them. But partly also the difficulty is caused by the admittedly unfortunate form in which the great work is cast, and also by the comparative dispensing remoteness of seventeenth-centurv mental habits from with the J Euclidean our own. I propose, so far as I can, to meet these form, omitting difficulties by giving a precis of the Ethics dissociated of proof, from the Euclidean form and set forth in language which, ing to the if not metaphysically exact, may at least enable readers common- c -, . . , ». , ,, sense of ordinary intelligence to grasp the common-sense con- ,s ance - victions forming the basis and main structure of Spinoza's Title-page, religion. Here then is the title-page rendered from the edition of Van Vloten and Land : ' Ethics, Proved on the Geometrical Method, and divided into Five Parts ; wherein is treated — I. Of God; II. Of Nature and the Origin of Mind ; III. Of the Origin and Nature of the Passions ; IV. Of Human Bondage, or of the Power of the Passions ; V. Of the Might of the Intellect, or of Human Freedom.' Meaning of And first it may be observed that by ' Ethics ' Spinoza meant much more than is usually understood by that word. For whereas we generally mean by it the principles of social duty as between man and man, individual or collective, Spinoza included in it the whole relations of the individual to the universe of which he forms part. It was therefore necessary for him to set forth, not only his ideas of right and wrong as between members of the human family, but also the eternal nature and constitu- tion of the universe as conceived by him. Therefore he CONCERNING GOD 5 begins with a book or section ' concerning God.' And here occurs the first and one of the chief difficulties of the Ethics. For no one brought up on Paley, Clarke, or their Assump- successors and imitators, can make out what Spinoza is being of 1 driving at in his Eleventh Proposition of Book I., which reads as follows : ' God, or substance (involving) x infinite attributes of which every one expresses an eternal and infinite essence, of necessity exists.' And the main demon- stration does not help us, referring as it does to a previous axiom and proposition belonging entirely to the realms of abstract thought, and not of experience. But one of the Apparent alternative demonstrations does help us a little, because of the it rests in part at least on experience of our own exist- arriving ence. Thus, ' either nothing exists, or a Being absolutely impression" infinite exists of necessity. But ' (as a matter of fact) JesTres to 6 1 we exist, either in and by 2 ourselves, or in and by prove - something else, which exists of necessity.' Here the meaning flashes upon us. For Spinoza is not trying to prove the existence of a personal Creator who called the worlds out of nothing, and is now only the greatest Being among innumerable others. What the Master means is that the fact of our present existence necessarily involves previous Being 3 in and by which we are what we are. By ' God ■ The inference that this previous Being must be absolutely the ' Uni- infinite and of necessary existence may appear subtle. But 1 Constant in the original. But the literal rendering 'consisting of,' or 'consisting in,' scarcely expresses the real meaning. 2 The two prepositions seern needed to express the full sense of Spinoza's in nobis, in alio. 3 The use of the words previous, past, future, etc., is practically necessaiy in speaking of human experience. But such use must always be understood subject to Spinoza's doctrine of eternity, as will afterwards appear. ETHICS OF SPINOZA A modern- ised para- phrase of the argu- ment. tflft inde- pendent and eternal existence of anything finite is un- til ink able. it has common-sense at the back of it. ' The capacity for non-existence is weakness, and, on the other hand, the capacity for existence is power. If therefore what now of necessity exists is nothing but finite beings, the finite beings must be mightier than absolutely infinite Being. But this is absurd.' Let us try to translate it into contemporary modes of thought. The Infinite of which Spinoza is thinking is not a divine Person, en- throned somewhere in space or in thought, apart from the Universe, but the Universe_ itself. It is of this that He alleges absolute infinity and necessary existence — that is, existence uncaused, and without beginning or end. Surely we may now feel some force in the argument, at least if we drop the subtleties about 'capacity for existence or non-existence.' For it is mere common- sense to assume that a limited number of finite creatures — men, beasts, birds, trees, planets, suns, and galaxies — could not independently exist isled in infinite space from eternity to eternity. For if once the notion of finite independent existence be allowed, no limit can be drawn beneath which such existence becomes unthink- able. Thus if the independent and eternal existence of a group of galaxies, measuring say a billion or a trillion cubic miles in extent, be conceivable, then no reason can be given why the independent and eternal existence of a group of galaxies measuring only a million cubic miles should be unthinkable. Nor, so far as conceivability is concerned, can we stop there. But there would be no reason why a universe measuring only a hundred cubic miles should not be conceivable as having independent CONCEKNING GOB 7 and external existence. And so we might come down to For if it • \V6T6 fl a single stone, and reasonably maintain that, if a finite S i ng i' e s tone universe on any scale be thinkable as having uncaused, ^^ ex ist- 6 independent existence from eternity to eternity, then a ence " single stone might be capable of it. According to ordinary, or, using the word in no offensive sense, vulgar modes of thought, the difficulty is removed by making the finite universe to depend on an Infinite Cause. But this of course admits Spinoza's The argument argument, that finite existence implies Infinite Being, practically t • t • i t admitted in It is only the application that is different; and as I am ordinary merely trying to expound Spinoza, I do not see that I thought. have, in this place at any rate, anything to do with that application. It is enough just now to recognise that by common consent our philosopher's argument is endorsed, that 'either nothing exists or else absolutely infinite/ - Being exists of necessity.' This last phrase ' of necessity i Meaning of ' necessity ' (necessario) must of course not be taken to mean any here, compelling cause, in the usual sense of the word. Spinoza quite agrees with the humblest Christian that God is uncaused, or, as he sometimes puts it, His own cause. In other words, God is because He is, and there, so far as we are concerned, is an end of the matter. JSTow having noted the common consent of humanity Spinoza's application to Spinoza's argument, when rightly understood, and of the , , . . . . . , , common having disowned any obligation to criticise here the conviction, application usually made by theologians, I go on to deal with Spinoza's own application of it. How should we think of this ' absolutely infinite Being ' who is because He is ? The late Herbert Spencer was content to regard 8 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Him as unknowable, and in this I have elsewhere * main- tained he was quite right, if we confine ourselves to Spencer's phrase 'in the strict sense of knowing.' But Difference Spinoza thought otherwise; and undoubtedly he was a of his Aire and transcendently greater man than Spencer. Let us learn then what that mighty seer of the seventeenth century thought we could know; and hereafter let us note in what respects his thought must be inevitably modified by the age of enormously developed telescopes, micro- scopes, and transcendental mathematics in which Spencer lived. infinite Spinoza, then, was sure that as our own finite existence attributes . . . -i-ip and modes, implies Infinite and Eternal Being, we must think ot this latter as substance involving infinite attributes, of which each several attribute expresses His infinite and Spinoza's essential nature. ' Substance ' he has already defined as iflpSi of* 'substance.'* that which is in (and by) itself, and is conceived through itself alone ; otherwise, that of which the conception does not need any other conception from which it has to be shaped.' Now at first sight there might appear to be a difficulty here. For, at least to common-sense, a simple Apparent colour such as blue or red does not need the help of any- difficulties. . i J thing else to clear up or define our sense of it. In fact, it cannot be defined except by methods of optical science which have no bearing whatever on our conscious im- pression. There is no relation realisable in consciousness between the alleged scientific fact that blue light means some seven hundred billion etherial vibrations in a second, and our perception of blue. No ; but at the same time we all recognise blue as a quality of something, 1 lieliijion of the Universe, Macmillan and Co. CONCERNING GOD 9 though that something may, as in the case of the blue sky or Mediterranean water, remain unknown to the majority of those on whom the impression of colour is made. Still, though the observer may not know to what the quality belongs, he is sure that it is a quality, and not a substance. Whether the colour be in the observer himself (subjective) or in the external world (objective), in any case it is a quality and not a substance. Returning to Spinoza's definition of substance, I find Really . equivalent it much more akm to Spencers idea of the Unknowable to Spencer's than orthodox Spinozists would be prepared to allow, able. For after all, the definition is and must be reached, in the case of ordinary people, by a process of larger and larger generalisations, such as Spencer gives us in his First Principles. 1 These generalisations are thus summed up in the concluding words of the chapter on the relativity of all knowledge (p. 83): 'On watching our thoughts we have seen how impossible it is to get rid of the consciousness of an Actuality lying behind Ap- pearances ; and how from this impossibility results our indestructible belief in that Actuality.' Happily, Spinoza does not speak of God as lying behind appearances. Otherwise Spencer's ' Actuality ' and Spinoza's ' Sub- stance' are obviously the same thing under different names. Nor is this identity in the least disproved by the different methods of the two philosophers in ap- proaching the ultimate reality. For though Spinoza, in The differ- his abstract way, thinks it enough to say curtly that formal and Substance — or ultimate Actuality — is that which is in nc (and by) itself, and is conceived through itself, or does 1 P. 81, sixth edition. tions the method of conmion- sense. 10 ETHICS OF SPINOZA not need the conception of any other tlnng from which it has to be shaped ; yet, as I have said, by ordinary mortals who have not the brains of a Spinoza, such a conception — so far as it is a conception at all — can only be reached by increasing circles of generalisation that Spinoza's widen out to infinity. Thus all things that make sensible U the 10 impressions on us are summed up as ' matter.' But this o7g?nius; matter is not thought or conceived without the help of geueraiisl- something else not classed as matter, as for instance con- sciousness, or thought of weight and mass. Similarly, consciousness or thought as a general expression is the last expanding circle of a series of generalisations from But neither individual acts of thought. But the finally generalised generalised . . . matter nor conception of thought or consciousness does not and mind* * ' cannot answer to Spinoza's definition of Substance as Spinoza's that the conception of which does not need to be helped Substance?* ^ ^ ie conception of anything else. For it could not be conceived at all except by the help of the innumerable impressions from without, which have evolved the in- dividual mind and suggested the generalisation supposed to include the experience of all other minds. Neither matter then, nor mind — however we may interpret the words — is Substance, according to the definition of Spinoza. But what relation have the two series of material and mental generalisations to each other? Are they utterly distinct, alien, and foreign to each other ? There have Spinoaa's been philosophers who have thought so. But Spinoza is that of was not of them, neither was Spencer; and each suc- matterand cessive generation of thinkers seems on the whole to i"ressions\ ' become more intolerant of so grotesque a doctrine. We CONCERNING GOD 11 need not therefore dwell upon it. But if these two series of generalised conceptions are not alien to one another, the only conclusion possible is that they merge in some unity of which each is a various expression. Now that final unity is Spencer's ultimate Actuality, and it is also Spinoza's Substance. But there is a very marked difference between the greater philosopher and the less as to the intelligibility of this ultimate ' Actuality.' For while Spinoza, in the serene confidence of his cloudless contemplations, is perfectly certain that he has an adequate idea of Sub- Apparent contradic- stance, Spencer's ultimate Actuality is, for the later tion philosopher, identical with that Unknowable, which ' no man hath seen nor can see.' Surely here is an absolute contradiction entailing the cou sequence that either these great thinkers must both be wrong, or one of them right and the other mistaken. Yet the contradiction is not so absolute, nor is the not so real . -r, . . , , as it looks. consequence so inevitable as it looks, lor in the ideal world, with which Spinoza mostly deals until he comes Spinoza to treat of human nature, his definition of Substance is rea i in the quite as clear as Euclid's definition of a point, a line, or a circle. Modern innovators are needlessly officious in assuring us that neither point nor line, according to Euclid's definition, has any existence in the external or finite world, and that to the circle only a rough approxi- mation can be obtained. But for all that Euclid's con- ceptions of ideal space remain certain and impregnable. Moreover, they remain the spiritual principles which as Euclid. are ' clothed upon ' by more materialistic geometry and mensuration. 12 ETHICS OF SPINOZA The de- finition of Substance is true in the sense that Euclid's definitions are true. v\ No real contradic- tion. Somewhat in the same way, Spinoza, contemplating Eternal Being, of which space or extension seemed to him only one attribute out of innumerable others, gives a definition of Substance which in the world of ideas is obviously true, though when we grope after it in the world of sense we never find it. Yet though we never find it so as to grasp it with the hands or behold it with the eyes or realise it with the practical understanding, still amongst the spiritual principles which evolve an intelligible universe, Spinoza's definition of substance must ever remain impregnable. (For substance is surely that beyond which we cannot go in thought, which can be referred to no wider genus, which requires the help of no other conception to frame our thought of it, because it is in and by itself, and includes everything by which we would explain it. , Intellectually, ideally, it is per- fectly plain. Only when we ask where it is in the work- a-day world do we get no answer except this, that it is everywhere and nowhere. Not that by the last word we need admit any unreality. But obviously that which is all in all cannot be in a particular spot. It is the whole Universe. We need not therefore admit any real contradiction between Spencer's ultimate Actuality and Spinoza's Substance. At the same time we are bound to acknow- ledge some obvious differences, and these are not in favour of the more modern philosopher. For while Spencer perpetually speaks of the ultimate Actuality as being ' behind ' the things we see and feel, Spinoza treats his Substance as an infinite Whole, of which the seen and felt Universe presents us with an infinite number of CONCERNING GOD 13 finite aspects. Again, the special purpose of Spencer to deal only with phenomenal evolution compelled him to clear out of his course at the outset certain ultimate questions with which he did not intend to concern him- self, thus giving the unfortunate and unjust 1 impression Spencer & ° . . misunder- that for him the Unknowable was something outside stood. the practical world and, in fact, negligible. For Spinoza, on the contrary, Eternal Substance was the beginning, Spinoza the plainer in middle, and end of his whole religion and morality. It dealing was never absent from his thoughts, contemplations, things. aspirations, or moral struggles. It gave meaning, reality, order, and peace to life. It could not, indeed, solve the enigmas that have baffled saint and seer alike. But it could impose upon him a humble sense of the 'inadequate ideas ' which perplex any man who takes a part for the whole, or judges a picture by some obscure spot in it on which his inquisitive eyeglass is fixed. We approach more popular notions of reality when we turn to consider Spinoza's doctrine of Attributes, f For, Attributes as we have seen, in Spinoza's view God is absolute Sub- stance, stance, that is, Substance endowed with infinite Attributes of which each one expresses eternal and infinite being (essentiqm).} Now it is precisely here that both Spencer's ultimate Actuality and Spinoza's Substance come within our ken bv presenting phenomena. ' By an attribute,' in what J r ° r J sense they says the latter, c I understand that which the understand- express ing perceives as constituting its essence ' (i.e. of substance). 1 Unjust to himself, because he thought nothing of the kind ; as is abundantly shown in his chapter on ' Reconciliation,' and also in every case where he has to deal with the notion that man can ever dispense with religion, or that any object of religion can be substi- tuted for that which is 'behind humanity and behind all other things.' 14 ETHICS OF SPINOZA illustrated by exten- sion. Measure- ments of extension always verifiable. There is a difficulty in these last words ; but I do not think I can be far wrong in suggesting that what Spinoza means by ■ constituting its essence ' or being, is practically equivalent to constituting its reality as apprehended by us. Now by ' reality ' is not meant here that beyond which we cannot go in thought, but that which remains through all phenomenal changes, and of which our care- ful observations with their legitimate inferences are always verifiable. For instance, Spinoza regards extension as an attribute of the divine Substance. 1 That is to say, it expresses or' makes cognisable to us His eternal and infinite essence. On this ground many have hastily accused Spinoza of gross materialism. But, as Sir Frederick Pollock has shown, his error, say rather his difference from the inevitable tendency of opinion in later days, is of a very different character, as we shall presently see. Meantime let us only note that Extension expresses for us the infinite essence or reality of God because it remains amid all phenomenal changes ; and our careful observations of it, whether to our experience subjective or objective, together with our legitimate inferences from those careful observations, are always verifiable. Thus the triangula- tion of a country by an accurate surveyor can always be verified again though the superficies (phenomena) of the country may have greatly changed. Pi vers may have altered their course, volcanoes may have subsided, and lakes may have been dried up. But nevertheless a suffi- 1 A good deal of what immediately follows is an anticipation of Book II., Of the Nature and Origin of Mind. But the transposition seems needful for the purpose I have in view. CONCERNING GOD 15 ciently skilled person will have little or no difficulty in verifying the measurements and area found by the previous accurate survey. For though modifications of extension, such as heights and depths and shapes, may have changed, the extension itself is still there — it is a reality. Similarly of ideal space we may say that careful And the mental observations and the legitimate inferences there- ideal space from are always verifiable. The skilled surveyor's measure- beVerified! ments by triangulation assume always that the three angles of every triangle are equal to two right angles. And any one who wants verification can have it, either roughly and imperfectly by the use of instruments applied to visible and tangible triangles, or purely and perfectly by mathematical demonstration dealing with ideal space. Such is the ' Extension ' which Spinoza treats as one of the infinite attributes of God. But being infinite, it is not measurable 1 in miles or feet or inches. And if it occurs to the reader that we have just now been illustrat- ing its reality by the possibility of verification through measurement, the reply is that Spinoza regards the i n f m it y f infinite attributes of God as subject to. an infinity of extenslon finite modes or modifications. • It is only these finite modifications that can be measured. But still the unfail- ing possibility of verification proves reality. And if it be asked, then why call extension infinite ? I might be content with replying that I am but expounding Spinoza; though not always as a ' Spiirozist.' Yet on this point it may be urged that if once the idea of extension arises, the non-existence of any possible limit follows as a matter of course. Eor- -however a man may try to think 1 I.e. in itself. It is only its finite modes that are measurable. 16 ETHICS OF SPINOZA of space as bounded, the question what is outside the bound necessarily arises, and the inevitable answer is space. subject to But it is only in its finite modes or modifications that of modlfica. extension is an object of experience. And though this fact does not in the least degree invalidate the connection of the idea of extension with unlimited (or infinite) space, it forms practically the whole content of our cognition of God's attribute of extension. For everything that we see form, or feel, whether on earth or in the heavens, is a finite mode or modification of that divine attribute of extension. motion, So likewise is motion, as it is a transference of something through extension or space. It is only by this inclusion of motion in the ' modes ' of extension that we can con- ceive how Spinoza brought the whole so-called ' material' colour, universe within the attribute of extension. For colour and sound and scent and feeling are not obviously modes of extension. But conceive them as modes of motion, which is the general theory in our day, and their inclu- weight. sion becomes simple. Nay, even weight, whether realised as a pull or as a pressure, may be conceived as motion striving to realise itself, and so falls under the same attribute of extension. I am not urging the importance of such subtleties, because it will be seen presently they vanish in the more spiritual air of Spinoza's higher philosophy. But there is some profit in trying to see the ' material ' world as he saw it. 1 ^For to his contemplative 1 Tennyson, in his Higher Pantheism, has to a certain extent set forth this vision for us, as only a poet can. But Spinoza did not insist upon illusion as Tennyson, in this poem, does. The former thought that he saw the world as it is, and not as ' a straight staff bent in a pool.' CONCERNING GOD 17 spirit everything in what we call the external world, including our own bodies, was a mode of God's attribute Spinoza's a i i • m ode of oi extension, bun, moon and stars, mountain and plain, conceiving river and ocean, forest and flower, bird and beast, storm and tang- and thunder, as well as rainbow, all were modes of the 1 ewor one aspect or attribute of eternal God. They were always changing because finite modes are necessarily variable at least to finite apprehension. But however they might be transformed and interchanged, they remained for ever in all their apparently successive forms, the finite modes of one eternal attribute of God. According to our teacher, this infinite attribute of The Attri- butes in- extension is only one out of innumerable Attributes, all numerable, %/ of them expressing some aspect of God's eternal and two cognis- infinite essence, or reality. ( But of these Attributes, a only two are cognisable by the human intellect. With one of these we have already dealt, that of Extension, and the one remaining to be considered is that of Thought (cogitatio).) It is clear that by this he cannot mean The second discursive thought. For one of the fundamental elements of his system is the superiority of God to time or dura- tion, and consequently to succession in thought. He seems to have used the word in Descartes' sense of what we may call ' awareness.' Of everything that passes within our conscious selves we have a perception. But whether the object of the perception be a sense-impres- its signifi- sion, a train of reasoning, an imagination, or a passion, it is included by Descartes under cogitatio, or thought; and Spinoza followed him. Perhaps it might occur to beginners in Spinoza-study more than that ' consciousness ' would be a better word. But, to ness.' 18 ETHICS OF SPINOZA say nothing of the difficulty of finding in Latin an exact equivalent for what Spinoza meant, or what we now mean by consciousness, such a word is too finite in its connotation to have served the purpose. For undoubtedly consciousness means the feeling by which a creature, aware of itself, recognises a practical (or phenomenal) difference between itself and its sustaining medium, as even an oyster in some sort must, when it opens its shell for the inflow of nutriment and closes it against attack. But such consciousness as this cannot thinkably because be an attribute of God, because, according to Pantheism, that He there can be nothing outside Himself, and we cannot therefore legitimately conceive Him as distinguishing Himself from other being. The same objection is not applicable to the word ' thought ' {cogitatio) in the sense given it by Descartes. For all that it necessarily signifies is that, just as the infinite Substance, God, has an infinite Attribute of Extension, so He has an infinite Attribute or aspect of Thought, which we may venture to describe as self-awareness. And of course this self- awareness includes in an infinite unity everything in existence, from the Milky Way to man, beast, plant and bacterium. Thought as ; This attribute of Thought equally with Extension ex- the divine presses the eternal and infinite essence (or reality) of 1 J y ' God. And, as in the case of the other Attribute, the essence or reality it expresses means to us the possibility of verifying the results of careful observation. This is not Spinoza's teaching. Fur to him direct intuition of eternal truth is the only verification worth having. But different generations have 'their different forms of CONCERNING GOD 19 thought. And though I am a devout believer in the Master's doctrine of intuition, yet, as he allows other methods of approaching reality, 1 it helps and does not hinder our understanding of him if we take a test of reality applicable to all modes of knowledge. For the intuition taught by him need not form any exception ; Verifiable because it is its own verification. In the case of Thought, tion? then, as in that of Extension, the reality it expresses can always be verified. As to the finite mode of infinite Thought constituting our own mind, indeed, intuition is the only possible verification ; but it is manifestly suf- ficient. Cogito, ergo sum. It is the prime fact of experi- ence, and, whenever we choose to reflect, it is always there. But it may well be said that only the fact of finite thought is verified thus, and not that of infinite Thought. Not neces- Yet this is not conclusive. For according to a line of confined argument adopted in recent times by an increasing thought, number of high authorities, and likely to be permanent, *the intuition of finite Thought necessarily involves in- finite and eternal Thought. Thus, by no effort of any 'faculty we possess, nor by any method, whether of * victorious analysis,' induction or deduction, can we; make thinkable the existence of finite Thought except as a 'mode' of Eternal Thought. It was this im-J possibility which forced the brilliant and candid Pro- fessor Clifford to suggest that every ultimate 'atom' of Professor . Clifford on matter was endowed with elementary consciousness or 'mind- 'mind-stuff.' 2 For he frankly recognised that if such 1 Ethices, Pars, ii., Prop, xl., Schol. 2. 2 I do not mean that Clifford made the same application of his 20 ETHICS OF SPINOZA The finite mode in- volves the infinite attribute. Not that the human conscious- ness in- volves the being of an infinite human con- sciousness. an attribute, as distinct from what we call 'physical' qualities, were not inherent in 'matter,' no conceivable combination, arrangement, or interplay of 'molecular vibrations' could ever have evolved consciousness. Ex- cluding then the hypothesis of creation out of nothing, the unthinkableness of which is here assumed through- out, surely this inference of universal c mind-stuff' from the present existence of consciousness endorses what has been said above, that the intuition of finite thought necessarily involves infinite and eternal Thought. But) if the two ideas are inseparable, the verification of the? one carries with it the verification of the other. And; thus every time that we assure ourselves of our own conscious existence, we assure ourselves also of an in| finite Thought, of which we are ' modes,' or as Coleridgi had it, ' parts and proportions.' It ought not to be necessary to guard against mis- understanding here. For, of course, I do not mean that the consciousness of manhood involves an infinite man- hood. For the whole development of manhood in its conventional divisions into ' body ' and ' soul ' can now be traced with a fair approximation to completeness. And we know that mankind have been evolved out of some sort of anthropoid ape through stages suggested by the imperfect skeleton of the ' anthropopithecus ' of Java. But that there ever was a time when there was no c mind-stuff is not only unproved, but, as Professor Clifford saw, unthinkable. While, therefore, I am far from reckoning that distinguished man as a ' Spinozist/ I do maintain that he confirmed Spinoza's view of Thought as an attribute of the Universe. Of course the CONCEENING GOD 21 word used is imperfect, an expression, as Matthew Arnold used to say, ' thrown out ' at an idea too vast for expression. But at least we may say this much : Clifford's 'mind-stuff' was diffused and omnipresent But the throughout a universe to which, so far as I know, he ence of assigned no bounds. Summing up, then, that omni- stuff' ' present and infinite ' mind-stuff,' we have practically aft the Spinoza's infinite eternal Thought as an attribute of the is aware* divine Substance or God. In other words, the Universe of ltself ' must be somehow aware of itself.. Another prevalent conviction of modern thinkers may Modem insistence be adduced as giving some confirmation to the foregoing, that there can be no For the notion that there can be anywhere an object object without a subject to be aware of it is, so far as my subject. reading goes, entirely repudiated by all thinkers outside the rapidly diminishing school of molecular mechanists. By which latter description I mean those who still cling to the theory that the whole Universe, with its life and feeling, can be explained by a chance-begotten arrangement of dead atoms. Outside this ancient and dying sect, there is a general recognition that when we look at anything such as sun or moon or tree or flower, we — or the God in us — in some measure make what we see. And what would be left of the object, if we could deduct what we do not make, no one has yet been wise enough to tell us. Common-sense, in its rough way, endorses the maxim that ' we see in things what we bring to them.' But Seeing in ° ° things what to what extent this is true neither common-sense nor we bring to them. philosophy has been able to decide. That to a man colour-blind, to a short-sighted man, and to a man of 22 ETHICS OF SPINOZA normal vision, a tree must needs be a very different object, every one owns. But how much its greenery, its grace, the interest of its tracery, and the music of its murmur owe to the subjectivity, or — sacrificing accuracy to plain- ness, let us say — to the mental constitution of the normal man, we really do not know. But this at least is certain, that his view of the tree includes a good deal that is not in the tree but in himself, as for instance, colour, grace, and interest. Doubtless there must be something which stimulates such perceptions in the observer, but that this something is anything like what he perceives is not only improbable but impossible. I must not be misunderstood as insinuat- ing that the observer is the subject of illusion. Not at all. He is the subject of reality and sees reality. But then the reality is not something outside and separate from him; it is the relation between the mode of divine Thought constituting his mind and the mode of divine Extension constituting the tree. Take away the mode of thought, and the mode of extension would be — we know not what, but certainly not a tree as we conceive it. But modern metaphysicians go farther than this, and with much reason. They are not content with divesting still further the thing seen of all that we manifestly bring to it. They without say that the residual object is still a thing thought of, sui!ject. g and except as a thing thought of can have no existence. This of course does not mean that the object has no existence except as we think of it. But it does mean that a thing which is an object of no thought at all, has no existence. And whether we agree with them or not, CONCERNING GOD 23 it is surely very difficult to draw the line between those qualities which, as common-sense allows, are brought to an observed object by thought, and those which may be supposed to have an independent existence. For, put it how we may, the residual, uncoloured, unscented, un- sentimental thing is still realised only in thought. Take thought away altogether, and is there anything left ? A permanent possibility of stimulating thought perhaps? But is not that something thought of! And what becomes of it if not thought of at all by any thinking being ? I need not labour the point farther. Its only bearing on my purpose is the illustration it affords of a certain Sole impor- tendency among thinking people to recur to Spinoza's as an iiius- philosophy, not indeed in the letter but in the spirit, recurrence From the letter, as we shall presently see, we are com- ° pm0 pelled to diverge widely. But in the recognition that there can be no object without subject, or, in other words, that the existence of finite thought implies infinite thought as an eternal attribute to the Universe or God, there is a very marked recurrence to the spirit of the ' Ethics.' This does not mean that the finite thought is the object of the Infinite thought, but that the finite thought is a mode of Infinite Thought. But against one error in interpretation we must very No idea carefully guard if we would understand Spinoza. i We Icemience ' are not to suppose that God has any other Self than the 111 pmoza * Universe ; for that would be to imagine Him as having a self other than Himself?) I am well aware that many who are partly attracted by Spinoza desire to reconcile his teaching with theological tradition by insisting on a 24 ETHICS OF SPINOZA transcendence as well as an immanence of God. This is not the place to argue the question; all I say here is that, if we are to understand the Master at all, we must not carry that notion with us into the study of his works. The attri- xhe infinite attribute of Thought then, or self-awareness, bute of . Thought equally with the attribute of Extension, expresses the co-ordinate with that of eternal and infinite being (essentia) or reality of God. extension and infinite And here again we must be on our guard against the +Vi insidious intrusion of notions about phenomena dis- tinguishable from ' things in themselves,' notions against which Herbert Spencer — though I cannot believe he held them himself — did not sufficiently guard his readers. But none Spinoza cherished no such superstition. fThe ' Attributes,' are to be ,. , . , , V separated according to .kini, are not to be regarded as distinct frojn_ from the "f! . , J , . , divine the substance any more than the various aspects of a ' flashing diamond can be separated from the diamond itself*) They are the diamond and express its reality, though doubtless there are other aspects of crystallised carbon incognisable to our senses, yet equally expressing its reality, j Just so in the view of Spinoza Extension is one aspect of the divine Substance, and Thought is another. But they are not qualities or powers added on to its essence. They are its essence as seen by con-., templation in one or the other aspect. And as they are not qualities added on to the divine Substance, so neither nor from are they to be regarded as independent of each other, or as distinct entities or as entities at all. f They are in- separable as they are infinite. For wherever tliere is Extension there is divine Thought, and wherever there is divine Thought there is Extension.^ Thus if the each other. CONCEENING GOD 25 Universe, in one aspect of it, is a measureless network of flaming orbs and planets, it is so because God so thinks it. And if the thought of the glorious vision implies illimitable space, it is so because Extension is an inseparable concomitant of the divine Thought. Further, Spinoza teaches that besides these Attributes there are innumerable others, each of them infinite, each Imramer- • a1:)le otner subject to innumerable modes, and each expressing the attributes infinite reality of God. But they express that reality abieto for God Himself, or for creatures other than ourselves, because they are incognisable to us. What then is their place in a rational system ? Confining ourselves to Spinoza, there can be no difficulty in answering this question. For the assumption is necessary to a very Need for important article in his creed, and that is the funxla- Spinoza's ~ system. mental, incommensurable difference between eternity and time. For him eternity is not infinite duration, and in fact has nothing whatever to do with duration. Eternity is, if we may so speak, an infinite moment, the j lifetime of infinite Thought, without past or future. And if in our view the manifestations of the Eternal ' change from glory to glory,' that is because of our finiteness which cannot at one glance comprehend Him as He is. But in His essence He is now all that can bei God is now There can be no addition and no diminution. Now ifWn be. that is so, it is obvious that the essence of the Eternal must be expressible in an infinite variety of ways) Thus, for Spinoza it was impossible to suppose the Attributes . . ~ This neces- expressive or the reality or the divine Substance to be sitatea the confined to two. On the contrary, those Attributes must ofumumer- be innumerable, that is, if the expression be allowed, bute*. 2G ETHICS OF SPINOZA Sir Frederick Pollock's criticism. infinite in number. Further, every one of such in cog- nisable attributes must be, like Extension and Thought, not something separable in any sense from the divine Substance, but, to adopt Sir Frederick Pollock's word, an aspect of it. And like Extension and Thought they must be all so correlated that, if it were possible to bring within our cognisance fifty or a hundred or a thousand of them, the multiplication would only deepei our sense of the divine unity, beside which unity there i^ indeed no other that is real. It is necessary now to pay particular attention 1 to the very important and incisive criticism made by Sir Frederick Pollock on Spinoza's treatment of the attributes of Extension and Thought. ' It is to be observed that inasmuch as Attribute is defined by reference to intellect, 2 and Thought itself is an Attribute, Thought appears to Thought be in a manner counted twice over.' That is to say, counted twice over. Thought is treated in the definition as necessary to the very existence of extension, because Extension is what is 1 perceived.' But then again Thought is regarded as an Attribute entirely distinct and independent. In making Extension the object of a perceiving subject Spinoza^ was in accord with the modern tendencies of thought mentioned above. But it is difficult to understand why Superfluity he should think it necessary to irive a separate and in- of any other J ° l Attributes dependent existence to the Attribute of Extension when, Thought, by his definition of Attribute, he makes Extension necessarily something perceived, or, in other words, a 1 See p. 14 ante, and Pollock's Spinoza, pp. 153 and 164. 2 Ethices, Pars, i., Def. iv. 'By an attribute I understand that which the intellect (thought) perceives concerning Substance, as constituting the essence (reality) of the latter.' CONCERNING GOD 27 mode of thought. ' Hence/ says Sir Frederick Pollock, 1 all Attributes except Thought are really superfluous : and Spinoza's doctrine when thus reduced to its simplest terms is that nothing exists but thought and its modifi- cations/ Nevertheless, with all the deference due to so high an Some authority, I think the criticism is here carried too far. tottie 101 Sir Frederick says indeed that 'it does not affect the criticism - substantial and working value of Spinoza's metaphysic.' Yet it is an essential article in Spinoza's creed that everything within the infinite possibilities of existence does actually exist. It is so essential that — as I hope will be seen farther on — without it the whole system collapses like St. Mark's Campanile through disharmony 4 of internal strains. But if everything that can exist does exist, it is surely venturesome to say that all po_ssi-. bilities of existence are limited to forms of thought. We do not indeed know what else there can be. But it would be presumptuous to limit possibilities of existence 1 The infinity , -,2 , . m, r~ . of existence to our capacity ot conception. The more consistent involves the course would seem to be to allow that Spinoza does Attributes. appear to have set up two Attributes where only one was necessary, but at the same time to allow that God may have infinite other Attributes incognisable to us. Whether it is worth while to follow that great master in such a 1 Sir Frederick Pollock having been good enough to read the few lines here referring to his comment on this part of Spinoza's system, makes on the above sentence the following remark, which with his permission I quote : ' Otherwise, whatever exists, exists because and so far as it can. The current use of " can " and "possible " means that no don't know all the conditions. But the question remains, what do we mean by existence?' /■ 28 ETHICS OF SPINOZA fashion is a point that cannot fairly be decided until we have completed our study of him, and have seen how on this foundation rests the heaven-high tower of contem- plation and peace and purity which he built for all the 7 Meantime it is sufficient to define the position we ( assume. We accept his doctrine of Substance. We regard it as Being. It is knowable to us through one Attribute of Thought. This is not something added to or distinguishable from Being. But it expresses to our intellect the essence or reality of substance or God. At the same time we provisionally follow the Master in holding that the divine Substance, Being, or God has infinite other Attributes or aspects which remain incog- i\ nisable x to us. Reasons for ^ tne res ^ °f tne First Book of the Ethica my purpose does not require me to give any detailed account. Of course, for those who wish to attain an approximately complete comprehension of Spinoza's philosophy of the Universe, a minute and careful study of every word is needful. For of him perhaps more truly than of any man who ever wrote, except perhaps Tacitus, it may be said that he never used an unnecessary word. But as 1 " Yes, but not to all capacity or intelligence. The idealist position is that unknowable reality (not merely unknowable to an}' particular kind of finite perception and intelligence) is a contradiction in terms. I have always disclaimed believing in systems as distinct from method, and should disclaim it more strongly now than twenty -five years ago." For this comment I am also indebted to Sir Frederick Pollock under the circumstances mentioned above. I am content ; for the method of Spinoza is more important to me than his system. And I am sure that his method leads inevitably to that identity of God and the Universe which is the ultimate goal, as it was, in a sense, the starting- point of religion. tion. CONCERNING GOD 29 my object is simply to bring within reach of ordinary Religious people like myself the religious peace and joy that result dominant, from his identification of God with the Universe, all I need to do is to note such ideas of the earlier books as are essential to the moral and spiritual appreciation of the final book. We have noted above how, according to the Master, the infinite divine substance is one, and there can no more be two substances than there can be two Gods. It follows — but the proofs need not detain us — that the one divine Substance is indivisible. I may quote certain Substance , , , . indivisible. pregnant sentences of explanation : — ' If, however, any one should ask why we are by nature so inclined to the division of quantity, 1 I reply to him that quantity is conceived by us in two different modes, that is to say, abstractly 2 — apart from reality — or superficially, just as we fancy it ; or else as substance, a conception grasped only by the intellect.' — Part I., Prop, xv., Schol. To a critical reader it may naturally occur that, Even if ex- if we surrender extension as a distinct Attribute, regarded 6 and regard it only as a mode of Thought, this part ^ Thought of Spinoza's teaching can have no interest for us. J h . ls d . oc " But I am not so sure of that. For the majority j] ot su P er - of people have an inveterate habit of regarding each finite personality as so intensely one and distinct from everything else, that it may be taken as the very type of unity. Now this belief is certainly opposed to Spinoza's doctrine of the indivisibility of Substance. Because, Ordinary though we are dealing immediately with an Attribute SersonaUty (Thought) and not with the divine Substance, yet, as we witiiTt. Stent 1 I.e. by measurement in yards, feet, inches, etc. 3 See farther on, p. 30. 30 ETHICS OF SPINOZA The doc- trine of Substance unaffected. Spinoza's notion of the ' abstract ' and the ' substan- tial' have seen, Spinoza regards the Attribute not as some- thing distinct from Substance, but as one aspect of it expressing its infinite reality. If, then, we regard the Attribute or aspect as divided down to the very core of Being, so that finite personality becomes the type of separate and distinct unity, we necessarily imply a division of the divine Substance, and thus contravene one of Spinoza's essential principles. But on this question no more need be said than is sufficient to show that even if we merge Extension in Thought, the doctrine of Sub- stance is unaffected. Or, as Sir Frederick Pollock says of his own luminous observations on this point, 'the process of criticism we have just gone through, supposing it to be legitimate, does not affect the substantial and working value of Spinoza's metaphysic' Eeturning then to the Master's defence of his teaching on the indivisibility of substance, we note that his mode of regarding the ' abstract ' and the ' substantial ' is pre- cisely the opposite of that sanctioned by ordinary custom. For the latter treats apparently separate exist- ences, such as stones, trees, and persons, as real, while the mental effort to merge them all in a higher unity as modes of the infinite Thought is regarded as an exercise in abstraction. But Spinoza, being convinced that the Universe, or God, is one substance and essentially indi- visible, regards all our impressions of separate finite / things as abstractions from reality; 1 while the infinite 1 This has nothing to do with Spinoza's treatment of the idea of ^ species. He quite rightly taught that the idea of species is only a blurred image of the individuals comprised, when they become too numerous to be retained separately in memory. But this has no bear- ing upon his theory that neither the ■ individuals ' nor the species imply any division of the divine Substance. an im- putation of CONCERNING GOD 31 truth is cognisable only by the intellect, or, as Kant afterwards preferred to call it, the ' pure reason.' But this does not at all imply that our ordinary not impressions are false. For though they are not abso- falsehood lutely true, they are relatively true. Let me try if I can prions, illustrate what I mean. I have already admitted that all analogies between the finite and the infinite must needs be inexact. Still sometimes they help us a little, but their Think, then, of a number of observers, north, south, east laUvVnot" and west, contemplating a great mountain whose form absolute - has been carved and moulded and riven by the vicissi- tudes of geological time. Needless to say that the illustration contour is so different, as seen from various points, that views of T if two or three observers compared their own personal mountam : impressions alone, the only escape from the mutual imputation of falsehood would seem to be that they had not been looking at the same mountain. Yet not one of their impressions is false. It is true relatively to the position of the observer, but it is not a true account of the whole mass. Thus one observer may see an aiguille aiguille, apparently quite detached from the great mountain and placed as the chief feature of a symmetrical arrangement of harmonious curves and wooded slopes around its base, so that it at once appears to demand a distinct name, and to be a thing of beauty by itself. To another every feeling is centred in a magnificent waterfall which rushes waterfall, into view from untrodden heights above, and, both by its might and its grace and its commanding voice, so sub- ordinates to itself every other feature of the visible landscape that, to this observer, the vision of the moun- tain is the vision of the waterfall, nothing more. To a 32 ETHICS OF SPINOZA forest and precipice ; view of the whole from the sky. Thus Spinoza treats the idea of separate things or persons. third, aspiring forests barred by naked precipices above, and the gleam of snow-fields over all, are for ever asso- ciated with the mountain's name. And all these aspects are true, relatively to the positions of the observers. But to the daring aeronaut who sails through the sky over the summit, the great mountain is seen to merge all these particular aspects in a general form which, though it convict none of the observers of falsehood, yet cannot be identified with what is seen by any. The painter's picture of the aiguille and its surrounding beauties, the poet's vision of the waterfall and his interpretation of its chant, the rapture of Kuskin's disciple before forest per- spectives and precipice and snow, are all the result of abstraction from the whole, and concentration of thought and emotion on a part which cannot, except relatively to contemplative thought and sense, be detached there- from. So Spinoza regarded all our impressions of separate and detached things or persons as abstractions from reality, yet not on that account false. For they are true relatively to our finite mode of the infinite Thought. And this truth can always be verified so long as our finite mode of thought remains what it is. For as the artisti- cally conceived landscape abstracted from the mountain mass will always be there again if the painter goes away and returns to it, so the abstractions formed from the infinite Whole by finite modes of thought can always be perceived again so long as the exercise of our senses and conception are normal, that is, in accordance with the nature of things. The Proposition (i., xxviii.) and Scholium in which his CONCERNING GOD 33 doctrine of finite things is set forth are attended by all His endless the inconveniences of the inappropriate Euclidean form, fr^te which to many readers — and indeed to all of us at first effects. an sight — quite obscures the plain common-sense at the basis of his theory. For really it all amounts to this/f that, while nothing can be separated from and still less independent of God, the infinite Attributes are subject to an infinite variety of finite modes, so that the plenum of the divine Life — if we may so speak — must be cor/ ceived by us as an infinite series of finite changes, so balanced as to constitute a Whole of eternal rest and peace. I know that this is not the form taken by his quasi-mathematical proposition and proof. But that this is what it means when translated into the thought of the plain man I cannot doubt. Here is the Proposition in English : — 'Every individual (thing) or any finite thing having a limited (mode of) existence, would be unable to exist or be actuated to work, unless it were determined in its existence and working by some other cause which also is finite and has a limited (mode of) existence, and again this cause also cannot exist nor be determined in its operation unless it is actuated in its existence and work by another which is also finite and has a limited (mode of) existence, and so on with- out end.' This may sound very obscure and dry. But it is only the Philosopher's way of expressing the truth of the Rendered . . in poetic Poet s vision : — form. ' There rolls the deep where grew the tree. earth, what changes hast thou seen ! There where the long street roars, hath been Tho stillness of the central sea. 34 ETHICS OF SPINOZA 1 The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form and nothing stands ; They melt like mists, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go.' Or as a much older philosopher, with an occasional gleam of melancholy poetry in his view of life, wrote long ago : — Aprecedent ' One generation passeth away and another generation ture CriI> cometh ; but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south and turneth about unto the north : it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea ; yet the sea is not full ; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.' Of course, neither the Hebrew cynic nor the late poet had the same philosophy as Spinoza. But their descrip- tion of the interplay of finite causes which keeps per- petual movement within the bosom of eternal peace is really a sort of ' kinetogram ' of the principles laid down by the Master. 1 Approxi- Further, Spinoza seems here to anticipate, though cipation of distantly, the modern doctrines of cause as equivalent to ?o°ctriueof the infinite sum of all conditions, and therefore identical ' cause -' with the effect. I say ' distantly,' for his approximation consists only in the perception that there can be no 1 The fact that Spinoza speaks of a static interdependence of all finite things on one another, while the Poet and the Hebrew sage referred to their perpetual movement, is of no consequence. For Spinoza knew as well as Heraclitus that ! vavra pel,' all things flow : and the static interdependence is simply the aspect presented to momentary consciousness, as when we glance at a rushing waterfall, which seems still, hut, as we know, is in violent motion. CONCEKNING GOD 35 isolated ' cause,' that everything is dependent on every- thing else. Thus the movements within the Universe are an infinite number of unbeginning and endless series through which the determination to existence and action * runs. Still his language about ' causes ' belongs to his own and preceding times, and would scarcely be adopted at the present time except by way of convenient conven- tion ; just as evolutionists talk of the 'purpose' of 'natural selection/ though the word means for them only the result attained, without any implication of intention. Still there remains insoluble for us or for any finite An in- creature, even an archangel, if such a being exists, the problem relation of what we call ' time ' to eternity, or the coinci- remaa deuce, nay, identity, of the peaceful realisation of all possible existence on the infinite scale, with the innumer- able, unbeginning and endless series of movements which constitute our impressions of life and the universe. All we can say is that the very fact of our finite existence, though it be not the hard, distinct, and separate thing 1 But the determination to existence and action is really of God alone, and the impression of intermediate ' causes ' and successions is due simply to our relative view of modes or modifications of the Attributes of the divine Substance. Spinoza's apparent recognition of secondary causes must surely be interpreted consistently with his Scholium to Proposition xxv., Pt. I., where he explains that God is the cause of all things in the same sense in which He is the cause of Him- self, i.e. all things are expressions of His self -existence. Or, as he puts it in the Corollary following, ' Individual things are nothing but affections or modes of the Attributes of God by which His attributes are expressed in a definite and limited manner.' E.g. a triangle or circle is an affection or mode of the Attribute of Extension expressing it in a definite, limited manner. And a man's thought about the world is a similarly limited mode of the divine Attribute of Thought. 36 ETHICS OF SPINOZA which some have thought, makes contemplation from the height of infinity impossible. Relatively our im- pressions are true. Past, present, and future are real, just as partial views of one enormous mountain are real to beholders in different positions. But all the same, it is true as Spinoza teaches, therein agreeing with many of the greatest philosophers and divines, that Eternity is not unlimited duration, but the always present consumma- tion of all possible existence. Natura This seems the best place in which to refer to a dis- and tinction treated as important by Spinoza, though it seems Natwrata. to me to have little bearing on the practical issues of re- ligion which I have in view. Still, though I am making no pretence to give a complete, detailed statement of the Master's philosophy, this is a point too characteristic to be omitted even in a sketch. For the distinction be- tween Natura Naturans or Nature Active, and Natura Naturata, or Nature Passive, gave profound satisfaction to the great Pantheist, 1 and it is possible that even now it may afford relief to those who are attracted by his vision of the Universe, but who, owing to the inveteracy of ancient habit, cannot dispense with the antithesis of Nature Creator and Creation. Now by Natura Naturans we are NaturV 111 ' 1 fc o understand ' what exists in and by itself, and is con- Passive. ce i ve d ]jj itself, or such Attributes of Substance as express its eternal and infinite essence (or reality), that is, God, so for as He is contemplated as a free cause.' 2 By Natura Naturata, on the other hand, we are to understand 1 The distinction, of course was not invented by him, as it was familiar to theological and scholarly writers of the Middle Ages. But I do not think any one ever before explained the distinction in the same way. ' L, xxix., Schol. CONCERNING GOD 37 1 all that follows necessarily from the nature of God, or prop, xxix., from any and every one of the Attributes of God, that is, all the modes of God's Attributes, in so far as they are contemplated as 'things' (res), which are in God, and which cannot either exist or be conceived apart from God.' In a word, as suggested above, the one is Nature Active, while the other is Nature Passive, but they differ only in aspect. For they are in essence absolutely identical, and each is only a mode of conceiving God. It should be noted, however, that thought, will, desire, love, and all affections belong to Natura Naiurata and not to intellect »t -jit- -r> • • • l andemo- JSatura Naturans. But this is not inconsistent with my tion belong rendering of the former phrase as Nature Passive, because xaturata. the thought, will, desire and the like here in view are only modes of attributes even were they on an infinite scale, and are referred to God as their free cause. And here, before leaving this First Book ' Concerning God,' it is needful to say a word on Spinoza's use of the word ' freedom.' For, ever since Milton's Fallen Angels endeavoured to alleviate their catastrophe by debatings on ' free will ' and ' fate,' every one who surveyed Nature and Man has been compelled to face a problem which, By Free like the equally ancient one of motion, solvitur amhulando not meant and in no other way. We have already seen that whenftr Variable the Master speaks of a divine ' free cause,' he means aj cause subject to no external compulsion, and acting oniy^ in accordance with the eternal laws of Its own nature/ 1 ( While, however, this freedom excludes external com 1 Of course, the phrase ■ laws of His own naturo ' is insufficient. But however we think of natural law, it suggests to most of us an absolutely certain regularity, and that is enough here. 38 ETHICS OF SPINOZA /straint, it also excludes caprice. That is, God does not fact now in this way and now in that from unreasoning choice. But the divine action is always in accordance with the laws of His own nature, and these laws, being of His eternal substance, could not be otherwise than they are. It is only our finiteness which prevents our seeing that they could no more be otherwise )than the three angles of a plane triangle could be less or more than two right angles. There is no need to dwell on this. It is an indefeasible principle of the system I am expounding. And though I have known the time when A question I was repelled by the idea of accepting such a Free ence. Cause, and preferred the imagined spectre of a biggest Person among all other persons, acting as smaller persons do, only better, I have come myself to recognise that the God of Spinoza is much more exalted above the God of Calvin than the Jahweh of Isaiah was above the Baal of King Manasseh. Perhaps, however, for the justi- fication of this experience, it is better to wait till we deal with the Fifth Book c Concerning the Freedom of Man.' APPENDIX TO PART I The following is a substantially accurate but verbally free rendering of the Appendix with which the Master concludes his First Part ' Concerning God.' 1 Thus I have expounded the nature of God and its pro- Summary perties. I have shown that He exists of necessity, that He theology!* S is the one and only God ; that He is and acts from the sole necessity of His own nature ; that He is the free cause of all things, and how He is so ; that all things are in God and so depend upon Him, that without Himself they can neither be nor be conceived ; and finally that all things have been pre- determined by God, not indeed in the exercise of freedom of will T or by despotic decree, but by reason of His absolute nature or infinite (unconditioned) power. Farther, as occasion arose, I have taken some pains to remove any pre- judices which might interfere with an understanding of my proofs. But since not a few prejudices still remain which ' also were formerly, and are still, an enormous hindrance to men's adoption of the system of the universe 2 which I have expounded, I think it worth while here to subject those pre- judices to the test of reason. And since all the prejudices Prejudices which I here undertake to expose depend on the one ordinary J^Ut to assumption of men that all things in Nature act like men the test of reason. 1 There is no contradiction between this and the former assertion that God is the 'free cause of all things.' The latter means simply the spontaneous cause, i.e. acting from within and not by external compulsion. But this does not in the least involve what is commonly understood by 'free will.' I have, however, often to acknowledge that Spinoza's whole doctrine of 'cause' is obsolete. 2 Rerum concatenationan. 40 ETHICS OF SPINOZA themselves with a view to an end, nay, even regard it as a matter of course that God Himself is guiding all things toward The some definite end 1 — for they say that God made all things not made on account of man, but man that he might worship God — I for man. g^u consider this point first, at the outset examining the reason why the generality of men agree in this prejudice Plan of the while all are hy nature inclined to embrace it. Next I shall exposition. snow t ne falsehood of this prejudice, and finally how out of it have sprung prejudices concerning good and evil, merit and crime, praise and blame, order and confusion, beauty and ugliness, and others of the like nature. ' But this is not the place to deduce all this from the nature (1) The of the human mind. It will be enough here if I take for a ideaof C frei mam principle the fact which all must surely acknowledge, will arises {.that all men are born ignorant of the causes of things, and couple receive from objects presented by means of the eyes conduce to satisfaction, the objects by which it is caused are called beautiful ; but those which excite an opposite sort of vibration, ugly. Objects again which stimulate perception through the nostrils men call fragrant or fetid, those (that act) through the tongue, sweet or bitter, tasty or unsavoury, and so on. Those objects which affect touch they call hard or soft, rough or smooth, and so forth. And, lastly, those which affect the ears are said to give forth noise, tone, or harmony ; and this last has befooled men to the extent of supposing that God takes pleasure in harmonious sound. Nor are there wanting Philosophers who have got the notion that there is such a thing as the music of the spheres. 2 Now all these facts show plainly how every one has formed his estimate of (outward) things according to the disposition of his brain, or rather how he has taken the affections of his imagination for actual- ities. No wonder therefore — as we may observe in pass- ing — that the multitudinous controversies of our experience have arisen among mankind, and from these controversies, in the last result, Scepticism. 3 For although the bodies of Differences men agree in many things they differ in very many, and tion^nd 3 " therefore what seems good to one seems evil to another : taste show . ' that there what is systematic to one is to another confused. "What is is no thing pleasant to one is displeasing to another ; and so of other absolute things which I here pass by, partly because this is not the quaiiti.- perceived. 1 Mot us — I do not attribute to Spinoza any modern theory, but vibration is as good as movement. 2 ' Sibi persuader hit motus celestes harmonium componere.'' B Spinoza means by this something worse than Agnosticism — un- named in his day. He refers to the Pyrrhonism — a name probably quite unjust to Pyrrho— which held that there was no means of knowing anything, and perhaps nothing to know. 48 ETHICS OF SPINOZA place to deal with them in order, and partly because the fact is one which everybody knows by experience. For every one keeps saying " so many heads, so many ways of thinking," " every one is satisfied by his own way of thinking " ; " the differences of brains are not fewer than the differences of palates." Such proverbs show plainly that men judge of things by the disposition of the brain, and imagine things rather than understand them. For if they understood things, all men, if not attracted (by the truth), would be at least convinced. 'Thus we see that all the methods by which ordinary people are accustomed to explain Nature are only modes of picturing things j nor do those methods reveal the nature of any object, but only the constitution of the imagination. Entities of And because those modes of imagination have names, as nation* 21 " though of entities existing independently, I call them entities not of reason, but of fancy. And in this way all arguments brought against us by means of such notions can easily be repelled. For many are in the habit of arguing thus : If all supposed things follow by necessity from the absolutely perfect nature tionTin " °f Q°&) whence have come so many imperfections in Nature ? Nature are For instance, the putrescence of things, with disgusting as parts odour, ugliness of things exciting nausea, confusion, evil, and pi-opor- cr j me anc i the rest ? But as I have just said, they are easily tions ot the * . -, whole. confuted, ior the perfection of things and their value (valency) is to be measured by their own nature solely ; and things are not more or less perfect on account of the delight or the offence they cause to men — because they are favour- able to human nature or repel it. To those, however, who inquire why God did not create all men so that they should be governed only by the guidance of reason, I reply only that there was no lack to Him of material for the creation of all sorts of things, from the highest to the lowest grade of perfection \ or, to speak more correctly, because the laws of His own nature were so resourceful (ample) that they sufficed for the production of all things that can be conceived by any infinite intellect, as I have shown. 1 These are the prejudices 1 Prop. xvi. APPENDIX TO PAET I 49 which I undertook here to notice. If any others of the same grain still survive they can be corrected by any one with a moderate amount of consideration.' If it stood by itself this Appendix might seem to A caution against justify those who have accused Spinoza of nullifying not hasty con- only the sanctions but the very possibility of morals. But it does not stand by itself. It is organically related to all the other parts. And when these are grasped in their entirety — but especially their culmination in Part v. — it will be found that Spinoza leaves the practical facts and issues of morality precisely as they have always been, and as they are now held by practical men uncommitted to any theory. What he does is to offer an explanation different from that most generally accepted, but more consistent with itself because more accordant with things as they are. All the usual sanctions of morality — God, Eternity — in the true sense — reward and punishment, repentance, remorse, aspiration, brotherly love, Love to God, aspiration after ideal goodness — have as much a place in Spinoza's system as in any other. But he gives them a profounder security, by showing that they are no mere ordinations of any Will, but the eternally necessary results of that divine Nature, which, in its Infinity, is absolutely perfect and good, though the mutual relations of finite modifications of its attributes are not always accommodated to our pleasure. PART II THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND Problem of Our study of the First Book of the Ethics has shown us the Second Book to that, according to Spinoza, there is absolutely nothing in find a place for finite being but God, His Attributes and their Modes. That wlthm the is to say, if the term ' Atheism ' or ' No-God-ism ' could God? 1 e ey e r be accurately used to describe any actual form of human belief, or unbelief, then Spinoza's position was the precise contrary of this, inasmuch as he maintained that in all eternity and infinity there has not been and cannot ever be anything other than God, Such a position necessarily raises the question, What then do we mean by ' creation,' by finite existence, and, above all, by indi- vidual consciousness ? Creation So far as concerns what we call 'creation,' we have things. already learned that according to Spinoza there was never a beginning and cannot be an end to the Universe as revealed by our senses. In his view, the impressions we have of an external world constitute our inadequate idea of the infinite number of things which eternally follow in endless variety from the necessity of the divine nature. Of the things thus involved in the necessity of the divine nature, individual things, or things which are finite and have a determinate existence — such as stars, planets, 50 THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND 51 trees, animals, and all the various objects of our senses — cannot exist nor be determined to action unless by means of another cause which is also finite, and again this ulterior cause depends on a farther finite cause, and so on ad infinitum} I have already suggested that this merely innumer- amounts to the assertion ot an innumerable and endless endless series of successions such as we partially picture in evolu- changes tion, and devolution, growth and decay, the whole of the JJfty. innumerable and endless series being comprehended within the divine unity of substance. Now, amongst the finite things thus constituted is men. Humanity: T n p n • r mind and I do not mean man as a race ; lor Spinoza was so far a body. ' Nominalist ' that he would not tolerate any idea of species except such as results from the compound image formed by the mind when trying to recall a group or series of individuals having marked points of resem- blance, too numerous to be retained separately in the memory. It is then the personal man — myself, yourself, himself, that is Spinoza's subject when he discourses of the Origin and Nature of Mind. Of course, he has in view the endless varieties of individual character, and is perfectly aware that to large numbers he must be unin- telligible. But he is inspired by a faith that truth must in the end prevail ; and so far as he is teaching the truth he knows that his word cannot die. For the purpose I have in view it will not be necessary scope of to do more than give briefly Spinoza's theory of the rela- chapter? 11 tions of body and mind with a very few of the results 1 See Props, xvi. and xxviii., Pi. i. It is true that nothing is said there about our ■ inadequate idea' of the Universe of finite things ; but it is clearly involved. does not touch evo- hitional origins. 52 ETHICS OF SPINOZA thereof as set forth in his Part n. If the word ' Origin ' stands in the title, we must not be misled by it. For he Spinoza certainly had not before him the same problem as Darwin and Haeckel ; though their conclusions, could he have foreseen them, would not in the least have disturbed his serene contemplations of the eternal life. Because such conclusions do not touch his doctrine of Substance, v \ Attributes, and Modes. However, what he means by the word Origin here is, clearly, the immediate cause or causes 1 of the finite mind, that is, of any personal mind ^ v \ now in being. Man a finite It will be remembered that, according to the Master, tension and Extension and Thought are each infinite Attributes of the divine Substance or God, and each subject to an infinite variety of Modes, or modifications, which Modes again may be either finite or infinite. Of the finite Modes of Extension and Thought man is an instance. For his body is a finite Mode of the Attribute of Exten- sion, while his mind is a finite Mode of the Attribute of Thought. But this does not mean that mind and body are two essentially different things. On the contrary, as Extension is one aspect of the divine Substance, and Thought is another, it follows that mind and body are both finite expressions or manifestations of the one ultima te reality. Therefore, if we would follow this teacher accurately, we are not to think of a ' soul ' or 'body' in the ordinary sense, but of God manifested under finite modes of Extension and Thought. Thus 1 The reader may need to be reminded that Spinoza's notion of 'cause' is certainly one of the points on which later thought tends irrevocably to diverge from him. THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND 53 Spinoza's theory is at least free from the difficulties felt by previous philosophers as to the interaction of spirit and flesh. For there is no interaction ; because they are the same thing in different aspects. It may perhaps be suggested that any practical exposi- Objection tion of Spinoza on these lines must be inconsistent with by Sir F. my adoption above of Sir Frederick Pollock's criticism on criticism the double appearance of Thought in the system. For, if the critic is right, as I have acknowledged, then Exten- sion (or at least consciousness of Extension) is only a Mode of Thought, and therefore only one Attribute, that of Thought, is cognisable in man. I do not, however, agree that any inconsistency arises. For Sir Frederick Pollock himself says that his criticism leaves the practical issues does not touch the of Spinoza's philosophy untouched ; x and it is with these practical issues I am mainly concerned. Indeed, even while allowing that Extension is a Mode of Thought, we feel it to be so different a mode from feelings of pain or pleasure, of desire or dislike, of ratiocination, induction or deduction, that it is easily and naturally kept apart as a group of forms of consciousness clearly distinguishable from those that do not involve the notion of extension or space. In this sense, while fully recognising that Extension itself is Extension J ° ° as a Mode a Mode of Thought, we may still attach significance to of Thought . sharply Spinoza's theory of mind and body as the same thing distmguish- t on -iTr ., ... able from under different aspects. We pursue the exposition, other adhering to Spinoza's method, but always with the reser- vation above stated. As Spinoza puts it then, the body is the 'object' of The body as 1 Of course, what I say here is only my interpretation of Sir Frederick Pollock's criticism. 54 ETHICS OF SPINOZA which the mind is the ' idea.' But we must mark the difference between Spinoza's notion of ' object ' and that (xiii.,Pt.n.) of many other thinkers. For he does not mean that the body is something outside, at which the mind looks as through a window. He means rather that the body is a finite mode of Extension, whose definiteness is otherwise realised in the other aspect of the same thing, that is, a finite mode of Thought. The two aspects are absolutely inseparable, because they are finite modes of co-existence and essentially related Attributes of the divine Substance, or God. 1 How the The next point we should notice is that the mind has the body, no knowtedgejof theJ)ody except through mental ideas of inconsistent bodily affections. 2 This might seem a truism, were it not Slism. 6 ' that it used to be in effect denied by ' materialists.' For in assuming that the mind is nothing but an undefined order of molecular vibrations in the brain, they excluded altogether, except as modes of motion, any 'ideas' of bodily affections. Nor is the question merely one of words, at least in the view of Spinoza. For according to him every finite expression of the Attribute of Extension has a corresponding finite expression under the Attribute 1 The inseparableness is even more apparent on Pollock's view, because both body and soul are different finite modes of the same Pt. II., Attribute of Thought. 1 ' 2 This word is to be understood as including all sense impressions or internal feelings. Mr. Hale White and Miss Stirling in their excellent translation prefer the word ' affect.' This is marked as obsolete in the New English Dictionary ; but that is of course no reason why it should not be used for a special purpose. But since explanation is needed, it seems just as convenient to use a familiar word with the understand- ing that it includes all possible mental impressions or feelings or efforts whether usually classed as perceptions, emotions, thought or will. In an analogous sense we use the word c affections ' as applied to the body. We include under the word all possible effects wrought on brain, nerve, muscle, or other tissue. THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND 55 of Thought, and also innumerable other finite expressions Correlation of Exten- under the other countless Attributes of God unknown to sion and us. What may be the finite expression of a tree or a with mountain or a stone under the Attribute of Thought other apart from man he does not expressly say, though it is everywhere implied that their ideas exist in God. But if Professor Clifford's suggestion of the in- Bearing of • t n i i n Clifford's separability of matter and thought be adopted, we are 'mind- able to apply to all creation Spinoza's theory of body and the theory. mind. For he holds in effect that the human mind is God thinking of the human body ; and if so, the element- ary thought of ' mind-stuff ' which Clifford assumed to be in all matter, is God thinking of that matter ; or to use language more in accordance with Spinoza's phraseology, it is the finite mode of the Attribute of Thought corre- All ^ would seem only to express in another form present 0Ur Spinoza's doctrine that an individual act of what we call purpose, -will j s the resultant of all the forces or influences im- pelling the mind this way or that ; and that freedom is realised when all, or the decisive determining influences rise from within, while compulsion is felt when all, or the decisive influences press on us from without. Spinoza's Spinoza concludes his Book on the Origin and Nature of the of the Mind with a summary of the practical bearing of c ap er. ^. g ^g^j^g on h uman life. ( Finally, it remains to show of how much practical value cai^sesof" a recognition of this teaching is to daily life, as we shall his doc- easily discern if we note the following points. To wit : — ' I. It instructs us that we act entirely at the beck (nutu) of God, and are partakers of the divine nature : all the more so ! 1 Of course, two difficulties recur : (1) As to the place of responsi- bility ; (2) as to the possibility of • more ' or ' less ' in partaking of the divine nature, if God is all in all. For (1) see p. 45 n. As to (2) we can only suppose that Spinoza refers to more or less God-co?iscioxisness. But it is premature to judge of either till we have studied Part v. THE NATUEE AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND 81 in proportion as our doings become more perfect, and we understand God more and more. This doctrine, therefore, It shows in addition to the all-pervading peace it gives to the mind, blessedness has also this distinction, that it shows us in what our supreme consists, felicity or blessedness consists, that is, exclusively in the knowledge of God, by which knowledge we are attracted to do only those things which love and piety suggest. Hence we perceive clearly how far they err from a true apprecia- tion of virtue who, for virtue and noble deeds, as though these were utter drudgery, look to be honoured by God with richest rewards. Just as though virtue itself and drudgery for God were not itself felicity and supreme liberty ! 1 II. It shows us how to bear ourselves in regard to matters makes us four- of fortune which are not within our own control, or events square to which do not result from our own nature ; that is, we a P t jj e .. are enabled to look for and bear either aspect of fortune time.' with an even mind ; and this because all things follow from God's eternal fiat by the same kind of necessity as that by which it follows from the essence of a triangle that its three angles are equal to three right angles. 1 III. This teaching is advantageous to social life, inasmuch in social as it instructs us to regard none with hatred, to scorn no one, teaches to mock no one, neither to be angry with, nor to envy any. tolerance Farther, it teaches that each of us should be content with his tentment. own lot, and should be obliging to his neighbour, not from effeminate pity, favouritism, or superstition, but solely under the impulse of Reason, according to the demands of time and occasion, as I will show in Part III. 1 IV. Lastly, this teaching offers no small benefit to social its political order, inasmuch as it instructs us on what principle citizens are to be governed and led, not as slaves ; but so that they may do freely what is best. 1 And so I have fulfilled the purpose I had before me in this Scholium, and thus I bring to an end our Second Part: in which I think I have expounded at sufficient length, and with as much clearness as the difficulty of the F 82 ETHICS OF SPINOZA matter allows, the nature and powers of the human mind, while I have uttered such principles as enable us to infer many glorious truths of the highest utility, and needful to be known ; as will in some measure be made evident by what follows.' PART III THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF MENTAL AFFECTIONS The English word ' affection/ when used as a rendering Meaning of of Spinoza's Latin affectus, is so liable to be misunder- stood, that, as previously noted, Mr. Hale White and Miss Stirling have in their translation revived the obsolete substantive 'affect.' But the addition of the epithet 'mental,' as above, seems a sufficient guarantee for a right understanding, especially if we accept the authority of the New English Dictionary, where, with New sufficient quotations to justify the view taken, the Dictionary. ' general and literal ' meaning of the word ' affection ' is given as ' the action of affecting, acting upon or influenc- ing ; or (when viewed passively) the fact of being affected.' In reference to the mind, the word means, according to the same authority, ' a mental state brought about by any influence.' This latter seems to me to be precisely equivalent to Spinoza's affectus. It is true, Our under- standing indeed, that in regard to appetite and pleasurable excite- notnega- tivi'il by ment, Spinoza joins the body with the mind as the sub- occasional ject of affectus. But we should remember that to himfcothe body and mind were different aspects of the same thing. 1 ri4ifof affections. 1 Strictly speaking, finite modes of two infinite Attributes express- ing the one divine Substance. 84 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Besides, in the cases just now mentioned, the body is brought in because it suggests the origin of the affection. But it is obvious throughout the book that the real topic is mental affections. Let it be borne in mind then, that by mental affections we mean any ' mental state brought about by any influence other than Keason.' 1 An all-important indication of the purpose of this section of the great work is given in the preface, where a Man not protest is uttered against any attempt to place man out- oStoof* 6 side the order of Nature. Of those who insist on this he Nature. says, ' they believe that man disturbs the order of Nature instead of following it, and is determined by no other power than himself.' But prophet though he was, the Master could not possibly have foreseen the curiously perverse application sometimes made of this false doc- Tendency trine in our time. For it is too common to read in the some to a writings of the expiring sect of materialists, unmeasured exaStatSn abuse of the order of the world, together with eloquent aLaS the exaltations of the creature man whom this botched world Universe, j^g mana ged to produce. While that homely Hebrew philosopher, Agur, the son of Jakeh, loved the wonder excited by ' the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent on a rock, and the way of a man with a maid/ these pessimistic critics of Nature and idolators of Man are more fascinated by the way of a cat with a mouse, or of a lion with an antelope, or the way of the whirlwind and the storm. Such morbid ponderers of Nature's riddles cannot, like the foolish king, express a wish that they 1 For further justification I may refer to the ' General Definition of the Affections' at the close of this Part, where, while the unity of body and mind is strictly preserved, every affection is an Animi Palhema. THE NATURE OF MENTAL AFFECTIONS 85 had been present at the creation of the world to warn the bungling opifex deus of the mischiefs he was brew- An illogical & ° x J _ position for ing. For, to do them justice, they do not believe in those who creation, an unbelief, which, so far as it goes, is certainly creation. a sign of grace. Because it ought to dispose them to a For the absence of recognition of the certain truth that eternal self-existence creation implies perfection. But the strange thing is, that looking eternal and on the Universe as an infinite muddle endowed with a perfect self- paradoxical faculty of keeping discordant and mutually exlstence - destructive parts in co-existence through eternity, they yet believe that this monstrous chimsera has begotten and brought forth a being gifted with faculties of orderly thought, sympathetic feeling, and ideal aspiration, such as erect him into the only god known, and lift him to the judgment-seat from which he can condemn and curse all that has made him what he is. Now, since every modem thinker agrees that what used to be called ' chance ' is out of the question as a world-forming or world-maintaining principle (apx 7 l)> it surely follows that, whether without or within the mass of existence, there must have been some energy guiding things along the lines they have taken in the course of evolution. 1 True, the unfolding which we call evolution incongru- ° ity of such can only be observed by us in an infinitesimal part of the a Weltan- schauung. infinite Whole — infinitesimal even though we include m the sweep of our telescopes galaxies beyond all mortal conceptions of distance. For beyond every bound of our For it snssrests contemplations, the circumference of the ' well-rounded disorder. whereas evolution 1 The argument here is from the point of view of time, or temporal involves succession. How this point of view is changed by an appreciation of or d«r. eternity will be seen in Part v. 86 ETHICS OF SPINOZA sphere ' 1 to which Xenophanes and Parmenides likened the Whole of Being, is still infinitely distant. Yet if there is a Universe, a unity of things, we may confidently claim, within obvious limits of reverence and common- sense, to judge the Whole on the analogy of a part. At least we may presume congruity, if only we had eyes to see. Granting this, then if evolution and devolution are proceeding everywhere with the self-consistency which we call order, the eternal process involves, as we have said, some energy compelling things along the lines of if the change which we see or infer. This energy is either evolution inherent in the Universe itself, that is, in every part of outsidettie it \ or it is something other than the Universe. Which pSsSSsts l a tter view has been and is earnestly maintained by those Devil. 11 a wno think the monotheism of the latest Jewish prophets to be in some transmuted shape essential to morality. That, however, is not the opinion of those materialists who imagine the Universe to have produced in man something better than itself. They sometimes speak of themselves as Agnostics, who do not know whether the energy of evolution is outside the world or within it. incongru- But if they allow even the possibility that the driving ity of this , . hypothesis power ot evolution is some outside Being, then their fact of criticism of his works makes him a Devil rather than a existence. God. And how a Devil could produce a creature able to think of him justly and call him by his right name, is a problem which surely belongs not to the unknowable, but to the unthinkable. 1 irapTodey cvkvkXou a n . • *_ i • -i i apparent something that has relation to a future time about which he opposite doubts. For instance, if he should deny that he can conceive maybe 6 en- gendered. 1 It is obvious that in such passages Spinoza is speaking of mankind without the light of Reason ; just as St. Paul in Romans i. and ii. speaks of mankind without the Gospel. 2 Spinoza does not quote St. Paul, but the parallelism is tempting. ' Plusjwto sentiat' is what Spinoza wrote. 120 ETHICS OF SPINOZA This ia self-depre- ciation. Glorying. Shame. of anything with definite clearness, or that he can either desire nor do anything but what is wicked or base. We may therefore say that a man thinks too little of himself when we observe that through excessive fear of shame he does not dare those things which others his equals dare. This affec- tion, then, we may set over against Pride, and I will call it self-depreciation. For as Pride springs from Self-satisfaction, so from Humility springs Self-depreciation, which accordingly is denned as follows. ' XXIX. Self-depreciation is thinking too little of one's self through depression (Tristilia). 'Explanation. Still we are often in the habit of contrasting Humility with Pride as its opposite, but only when we fix our attention more on their effects than on their nature. For we are accustomed to call that man proud who boasts too much, who talks only of his own virtues and other people's vices, who desires to take precedence of every one, and who, in fine, marches along with such stateliness and pomp as are the prerogative of others placed far above him. On the other hand, we call that man humble who very often blushes, who confesses his failings and tells of the virtues of others, who gives way to every one, and who, in fine, walks with bent head and neglects to adorn himself. But, indeed, these affections, I mean Humility and Self-depreciation, are very uncommon. For human nature, considered in itself, resists them with all its force (see Props, xiii. and liv. of this Part) ; and so those who are supposed to be self-depreciatory and humble are very generally most ambitious and full of envy. 1 XXX. Glorying l is Joy with the concomitant idea of some action of ours which we suppose others to praise. 'XXXI. Shame is Grief with the concomitant idea of some action which we suppose others to reprobate. 1 The word is justified by the Anglican Version of the Bible (1 Cor. v. 6, etc.), and seems nearer to Spinoza's meaning than 'self -exaltation,' which may be totally regardless of the praise of others. DEFINITIONS OF MENTAL AFFECTIONS 121 ' On these affections see Schol. to Prop. xxx. of this Part. But here should be noted the difference existing between Shame and Modesty. For Shame is Grief that follows a deed by which we feel disgraced. But Modesty is that Fear or Dread of Shame by which a man is restrained from doing anything disgraceful. To Modesty is usually opposed Im- pudence, which, properly speaking, is not an affection, as I will show in due course. But the names of affections, as I have already warned my readers, are matters rather of usage than of the nature of the affections. 1 1 have now discharged the task which I had set myself of explaining the affections of Joy and Grief. I go on now Affections to those which I ascribe to Desire. of Deslre, ' XXXII. Yearning 1 is the desire or longing to enjoy Yearning, something when the longing is quickened by the recollection of the object of Desire, but is at the same time hampered by the recollection of other things which exclude the existence of the desired object. ' Explanation. — Whenever we call to mind any object, as we have often said, we are by the very fact disposed to regard that object with the same mental affection as if it were pre- sent. But so long as we are awake, this disposition or effort is very much hampered by the images of things which ex- clude the existence of the object that we recollect. Thus whenever we recollect an object which affects us with any kind of Joy, we of necessity try to contemplate it as present and (to realise) the same kind of Joy as before. But this effort is instantly hampered by the recollection of things which exclude the existence of that object. So that Yearn- ing is in reality a Grief, the exact opposite of that Joy which arises from the absence of an object that we hate. (On which see Schol. to Prop, xlvii. of this Part.) But because the name Yearning seems related to Desire, I include this affection among those of Desire. 1 XXXIII. Emulation is the desire which is begotten in us Emulation. 1 Desiderhim. Compare the Scottish word 'wearying for.' I cannot agree that the bare word • regret ' renders it. 122 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Gratitude. Benevo- lence. Anger. Vengeance. Cruelty, for an object because we conceive that others have the same Desire. ' Explanation. — He who flees because he sees others flee, who fears because he sees others fear; or again, he who snatches his hand back and moves his body as though his hand had been burned, because he sees that some one else has burned his hand, may be said indeed to imitate the affection of another, but we do not call this emulation. Not that we know there is one cause for emulation and another for imitation, but because it is an established custom to call only that man emulous who imitates what we judge to be honourable, useful, or agreeable. But as to the causes of Emulation, see Prop, xxvii. of this Part and the Scholium. And as to the reason why Envy is so often connected with this affection, see Prop, xxxii. of this Part and the Scholium. 1 XXXIV. Thankfulness or Gratitude is Desire, or a devotion of Love by which we endeavour to benefit him, who, from a similar affection of Love, has done good to us. (Props, xxxix. and xli., Part III.) 'XXXV. Benevolence is the Desire of doing good to any one whom we pity (see Schol. to Prop, xxvii. of this Part). 1 XXXVI. Anger is the Desire by which we are impelled through hatred to injure him whom we hate. (Prop, xxxix., Part in.) 'XXXVII. Vengeance is the Desire by which, through mutual hatred, we are impelled to injure him who, through a similar affection, has injured us. See 2 Coroll., Prop. xl. of this Part, with the Scholium. 1 XXXVIII. Cruelty or Ferocity is the Desire by which any one is impelled to do harm to one whom we love or whom we pity. 1 ' Explanation. — To Cruelty is opposed Mercy, which is not 1 The definition seems curious ; but it is to a certain extent justi- fied by the totally different views taken of inter-racial ' atrocities ' by those who commit them and the friends of the sufferers — e.y. the Turks and the English sympathisers with Armenian Christians, or the whites in South Africa and the Aborigines Protection Society. DEFINITIONS OF MENTAL AFFECTIONS 123 a passion, but a power of the Mind by which a man restrains anger and vengeance. ' XXXIX. Timidity is the Desire of avoiding the greater of Fear, two dreaded evils by (accepting) the less. (See Schol. to Prop, xxxix. of this Part.) 1 XL. Boldness is the Desire inciting a man to do something Boldness, dangerous which his fellows fear to risk. 1 XLI. Cowardice is ascribed to him whose Desire is checked Cowardice, by dread of a danger which his fellows dare to meet. 'Explanation. — Cowardice, therefore, is nothing other than the dread of some evil which most people do not usually fear ; wherefore I do not include Cowardice among affections of Desire. Nevertheless I have wished to explain it here, be- cause so long as we keep in view Desire, Cowardice is the exact opposite of Boldness. 1 XLIL Consternation is affirmed of the man whose desire Consterna- of avoiding evil is paralysed by astonishment (horror) at the lon ' evil he fears. 1 Explanation. — Consternation is therefore a kind of coward- ice. But since Consternation arises from a double Dread, it may be more aptly defined as that Dread which holds a man stupefied or wavering, so that he cannot remove an evil. I say "stupefied," in so far as we understand his desire of removing the evil to be restrained by his astonishment. I say "wavering," in so far as we conceive the same Desire to be hampered by the fear of another evil which equally tortures him ; so that he does not know which of the two evils to avoid. (See Schol., Prop, xxxix., and Schol., Prop, lii., Part in. Farther, as to Cowardice and Boldness, see Schol., Prop, li., Part III.) ' XLIII. Courtesy or Affability is the Desire of doing those Courtesy or things which please men and omitting those which displease a J lty ' them. 'XLIV. Ambition is the excessive desire of Glory. Ambition. 'Explanation. — Ambition is a Desire by which all the Affections are nourished and strengthened ; and on that account this particular Affection can hardly be overcome. 124 ETHICS OF SPINOZA the excessive Desire and Love of For so long as a man is influenced by any Desire at all, he is inevitably influenced by this. "Every noblest man," says Cicero, "is chiefly actuated by glory. Even Philosophers attach their names to the books they write concerning con- tempt of glory, etc." Luxury. ■ XLV. Luxuriousness is the excessive Desire or Love of voluptuous living. inebriety. ' XL VI. Inebriety is drinking. Avarice. ' XLVII. Avarice is the excessive Desire and Love of riches. Lust. 'XL VIII. Lust is the like Love and Desire of sexual intercourse. * Explanation. — Whether this desire of sexual intercourse be held within bounds or not, it is usually called Lust. More- over, these five last-mentioned affections (as I have noted in the Schol. to Prop. lvi. of this Part) have no contrary affec- tions. For Affability is a sort of Ambition (as to which see Schol. to Prop. xxix. of this Part). And I have already pointed out that Temperance, Sobriety, and Chastity suggest , and not a passion. And although it an avaricious, or an ambitious, or a cowardly man may abstain from gluttony or drunkenness or debauchery, still Avarice, Ambition, and Timidity are not therefore the contraries of Luxury, Drunkenness, and Lust. For the avaricious man generally desires to guzzle as much meat and drink as he can at the expense of some one else. Again, the ambitious man, if only he hopes to keep it a secret, will restrain himself in nothing, and if he lives amongst drunkards and libertines will, precisely because he is ambitious, be the more given to the same vices. Lastly, the coward does that which he would rather not. For al- though to avoid death he may throw his wealth into the sea, yet he remains avaricious. 1 And if the lascivious man is grieved because he cannot act according to his manner, he 1 The subject of the sentence is evidently a man who is both cowardly and avaricious. a power of the Mind may well be that DEFINITIONS OF MENTAL AFFECTIONS 125 does not on that account cease to be lascivious. Universally, therefore, these affections have regard not so much to the mere actions of eating, drinking, and so on, as to Appetite and Love itself. Nothing therefore can be opposed as a contrary to these affections except nobility of soul and strength of mind, as we shall see afterwards. 1 The definitions of Jealousy and other vacillations of Jealousy, mind I pass over in silence, partly because they are com- etc ' pounded of the affections which we have already denned, partly because very many of them have no (specific) names. And this latter fact shows that, for the practical purposes of Life, it is sufficient to recognise only the genus to which they belong. Moreover, it follows from the Definitions of the affections which we have described, that they all spring from Desire, Joy, or Grief, or rather that there are no other affections beside these three, of which each one passes under various names, varying as their relations and external signs vary. If now we give attention to these elementary affec- tions, and to what we have said above as to the nature of the Mind, we shall be able here to define the affections in so far as they relate to the Mind alone. General Definition of the Affections. ' An affection, called also animi pathema, is a confused idea by which the Mind affirms of the Body or of any part of it, a greater or less power of existence than before, and this increase of power being given, the Mind is determined to one particular thought rather than another. 1 Explanation.— I say first that an Affection, or Passion of the Mind, is a confused idea. For we have shown (Prop. iii. of this Part) that the Mind is passive only so far as it has inadequate or confused ideas. I say in the next place by which the Mind affirms of the Body or of any part of it a greater or less power of existence than before. For all ideas that we have of bodies indicate the actual constitution of our own body 126 ETHICS OF SPINOZA rather than the nature of an external body (Coroll. 2, Prop, xiv., Part II.). But this idea which constitutes the form of an Affection must indicate or express the condition of the Body or of some part of it ; which condition the Body or any part of it possesses from the fact that its power of action or force of existence is increased or diminished, helped or limited. But observe, when I speak of a greater or less force of existence than before, I do not mean that the Mind compares the present with the past condition of the Body : but that the idea which constitutes the form of the Affection affirms of the Body something which necessarily implies more or less of reality than before. And since the Essence of the Mind consists in this (Props, xi. and xiii., Part II.), that it affirms the actual existence of its Body, and since we under- stand by Perfection, the very essence of a thing, it follows therefore that the Mind passes to a greater or less perfection when it happens to it to affirm of its Body or of some part of it what involves a greater or less reality than before. When therefore I have said above that the Mind's power of thought was increased or diminished, I intended nothing other than that the Mind has formed an idea of its Body or of some part of its Body, which idea expresses more or less of reality than the Mind had before affirmed of its Body. For the excellence of ideas and the actual power of thought are estimated by the excellence of the object. Finally, I have added " which being given the Mind itself is determined to one particular thought rather than another" that I might also ex- press the nature of Desire in addition to that of Joy and Grief which the first part of the Definition explains.' PART IV THE BONDAGE OF MAN The Fourth and Fifth Parts of the Ethica contain the Scope of practical application of the principles laboriously de- and Fifth tailed in the three previous Parts. And this practical application consists in an exposition of the alternative effects or consequences to man of the truths propounded. That is to say, those truths make either for the moral bondage of man or else for his moral freedom. And the question as to which of these two alternative results is to be realised in our own case will be decided by the attitude we adopt toward the truths already proved. Thus if we are content to have only inadequate ideas, A practical , , i • i , • application and always to be inadequate causes, we must remain of prin- in bondage. But if, on the other hand, we achieve a down. serviceable stock of adequate ideas, and — at least in the chief affairs of life — those of conduct — can be our- selves adequate causes, then we attain the only freedom possible to active life whether in body or mind, the consciousness of spontaneity, of acting as we would, and not as we are compelled. 1 Human impotence in the discipline and control of the Idea of mental and bodily affections I call bondage (servitufcm), bondage. For a man subordinated to his affections is not under his 127 128 ETHICS OF SPINOZA own dominion but under that of fortune. And under that power it often befalls that although he may see what is better for himself, he is compelled to follow what is worse. The reason for this, and what else of good or evil the affections possess, I purpose to show in this Part. But before I begin this, I think well to make a few prefatory remarks on perfection and imperfection and on good and evil.' The idea of Those prefatory words I proceed as usual to para- perfection c J r *■ purely phrase with here and there a free translation. The anthropo- A morphic, idea of Perfection, says the Master, that is, finishing, or completion, originates in the experience of a finite maker, for instance, of a house. Such an one, when he has got the roof on and has put the last touch to measured everything inside, says, ' There, that is finished — per* tention of fected.' And of any such mortal work, whether house, m Pit pt or carriage, or boat, of which we know by experience the intended final shape, the purpose of the maker, we can say whether it is finished, that is, perfect, or only and the part finished and imperfect. 'But if any man sees a latter being r , J unknown, product, the like of which he never saw before and mentis does not know the intention of the maker, that man certainly cannot say whether the thing is perfect (finished) or not.' To put a case unknown in the Master's days ; suppose we come upon a ' find ' of pre-pala3olithic, or SitMc im- ' eo ^ n ^ c ' weapons. It is quite possible there may be piements. many unfinished among them. Yet it would be difficult, if not impossible, in the present state of our knowledge to say confidently which they are. For whatever know- ledge we may have, even of the oldest palaeolithic weapons hitherto observed, it does not avail us much here. Because a very much rougher article served the purpose of the earlier race, and what to the eolithic THE BONDAGE OF MAN 129 man was a perfect weapon or tool, his successors would regard as unfinished. Thus the modern collector whose ideas have been formed by relics of a more advanced stone age, may have often thrown away, as mere flakes or cases of abrasion by natural forces, the ' perfected ' tools of the first stone users. In fact, as Spinoza says, we do not know the intention of the makers, and therefore cannot possibly tell whether that intention had been fulfilled, or, in other words, whether the product is perfect or not. But, of course, this simple notion of perfection, in the Abstract . . . perfection sense of being finished, often merges m a conception idea of much more abstract. For a number of finished articles of the same kind inevitably suggest a pattern or type, by which all such things must be judged. If they tally in human &rt 5 with the type, they are perfect ; but if they do not so tally, then, however sure the maker may be that they are finished, they are judged imperfect. And this habit of forming in the mind ideal types has been extended to many other things besides the works of man. Thus, as soon as men conceive to themselves a type of the in objects best race-horse, or the best rose, such ideals are con- human 1 * sidered as finished, complete, perfect, and all particular m eres ' race-horses or roses are judged by the degree in which they approximate to the conventional ideal. Then from objects of man's particular delight, such as horses and roses, this notion of an ideal by which all particular in all Nature. objects must be judged is easily extended to all Nature. 'When, therefore/ says Spinoza, ' men see anything in Nature which scarcely agrees with the ideal conception they cherish of that particular thing, they believe that I 130 ETHICS OF SPINOZA And so Nature herself has been at fault, and has left that thing Nature is ... supposed imperfect.' But this is a misimpression arising from to have . failed of her an inveterate prejudice. For men will have it that Nature had the particular end in view and failed, when, as it has already been shown, Nature has no end at all in view. That eternal and infinite Being which we Absurdity call God or Nature, is because He is. And this sublime where no necessity 1 is equally predicable of Him when we con- pos?ibie. 1S ceive of Him as acting and causing and directing. If He is because He is, He acts because He is, and the action is as determinate as the Being. As Spinoza puts it: 'the reason, therefore, or cause why God or Nature acts and why He exists is one and the same.' The being Can it be said that God is, or exists for any purpose ? 2 incommen- No ; even the very late Hebrew editor who redacted the purp^seT 1 ^ nrsfc vision of Moses on Sinai appears to have felt the absurdity of such a question when he interpreted the traditional name Jahweh as equivalent to ' I am that I am.' To assign an object or purpose to the Infinite who embodies in Himself all possible purposes would But if so, surely imply a defect in reverence. But if the Being actio™* nas no purpose, what we call the divine action, which aspect of aU i s on ty an aspect of Being revealed to human activity, have S no an can nave n0 purpose either. This aspect of the divine purpose, nature also is because it -is, and has no other reason. The idea of ' final causes ' of action, involving motive 1 A free necessity, because external compulsion is out of the question. 2 If it be said that God exists for the good of His creatures, it should be remembered that the creatures are all ' parts and propor- tions ' of God. But when we speak of anything existing for a purpose, we always mean a purpose outside itself. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 131 and purpose, is therefore inconsistent with infinite and eternal Being. How then has the belief in final causes for divine origin of action arisen ? Clearly from the inveterate human habit final causes of measuring everything by desire. Thus when we say that habitation is the final cause of this or that house, we mean that a man, having conceived the comforts of domestic life, had the desire of building a house in which those comforts might be secured. Now this order of thought pervades all human life, in which every action has its motive ; and that motive is desire, of which the fulfilment constitutes a final cause at which the action aims. It was therefore inevitable that as men began from false to think about the powers actuating Nature, and to personify or defy them, they should assume, as a matter of course, that final causes held in the world of the gods a place precisely similar to that which they hold amongst men. And this false analogy was persistently maintained throughout the whole course of religious evolution from animism or fetishism through polytheism, henotheism, and even up to the most refined monotheism. At this last stage, however, the inconsistency between the false- God's eternity and the attribution to Him of temporal which is or temporary purpose was felt very early in the growth realised in of Christian theology, and becomes abundantly evident Mono- 5 £ in the devotional paradoxes of St. Augustine. But in thelsm proportion as Monotheism merges in Pantheism, those devotional paradoxes grow increasingly unreal, until they are transfigured into the ' intellectual love of God ' preached by Spinoza, the love which drops the notion and aban- of divine purpose, being content to know that things Pantheism. 132 ETHICS OF SPINOZA are because they are, and could not have been other- wise, since if the Whole could be realised, they are eternally perfect. 1 This surrender of any belief in ' eternal purpose ' need not, however, prevent our treating of Nature's 'con- Nature's contriv- ances and purpose as trivances/ and of the concatenation of events in human a modus cog it audi. Case of 1 natural selection.' history as though superhuman purpose were really in- volved. For that is a convenient modus cogitandi, fruitful enough in suggestion. It is like the injection of colouring matter in microscopic anatomical prepara- tions — not a real part of the object to be studied, yet serving to make the relation of parts more obvious to human faculty. Thus Darwinians have often spoken and do still speak of the c purpose ' for which an insect proboscis was gradually lengthened and shaped by 'natural selection,' or the blubber of the whale was exaggerated, or a nictitating membrane given to the eyes of various tribes, or the fur of the mole caused to grow erect. Yet all the while the essential assump- tion of the theory is that there was no 'purpose' at all. Nevertheless the licence of language has been found highly convenient ; for the supposition of a special purpose in a variation is a short and emphatic way of stating its particular use. And since, in speaking of the Eternal All, we are necessarily limited by the finite modes of human speech, a similar licence must be allowed to the Pantheist, provided only that we are as well on our guard as Naturalists against the superstitions en- gendered by a mere necessity of finite thought. 1 On Spinoza's use of this epithet, as distinct from the use he condemns, see farther on. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 133 The conclusion is that the ascription of final cause Spinoza's or purpose to Infinite God must be classed among what reality. ' SpiDoza calls ' inadequate ideas ' ; that is, it is a case in which ■ God has this or that idea, not merely so far as He forms the nature of the human mind, but in so far as He has at the same time with the human mind the idea also of another thing ' while this also involves another thing, and so on ad infinitum. In other words, our impression is an illusion arising from the impossi- bility of seeing or conceiving the whole Universe at once. Hence it is obviously presumptuous to apply to the divine action a test derived from the harmony or otherwise of His works and ways with human desire. Yet if we cannot suppress the consciousness that some things in the Universe please us better than others, there is a truer standard of comparison than that of human desire. Not that it is entirely free from anthropo- morphism; but, at any rate, it is not so liable to superstitious abuse. According to the Master, this is the degree of reality involved. For while all creatures "Degrees of ... interest have their being in God, some, at least to our human propor- perceptions, have more being than others. For instance, intensity a crystal is more interesting than an amorphous mass, and ° its more complicated structure impresses us with a feel- ing of greater intensity of being. In the same way a living cell is more complicated still, and has yet more of being. Thus we may ascend from degree to degree of complication till we reach human mind, human genius, a Plato, an Augustine, a Shakespeare. On the other hand, some objects and creatures are, to our feeling, charac- terised by limitation and negation rather than by positive 134 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Imperfec- tion is negation, but does not imply a mistake of Nature. Weakness of the flesh qualities : such as a child born blind and deaf, or an idiot, or an incompetent fool. For it is by negation that these come short of their types. Such we may call imperfect, if we like, and regard them as possessing less of reality than other creatures of their kind. But this is not because they lack anything properly belong- ing to them as finite modes of the divine attributes ; nor has JVatura Naturans, in forming them, committed any mistake. For this would imply that in their creation — to use accustomed phraseology — a higher purpose was possible and missed. But as already seen, this is inadmissible. For, as Spinoza writes, 'nought belongs to anything in Nature except that which follows necessarily from its efficient cause, 1 and whatever follows from the necessity of the nature of an efficient cause, is inevitable.' In following the Master through such inexorable reasoning we are haunted by the shadow of evil as we have felt it in our own lives, and are at times tempted almost to think that he is mocking us with a hardy denial of black realities which sometimes threaten to make life unendurable. But Spinoza is much too profoundly in earnest to indulge in a mocking vein, and rarely has recourse even to gentle satire. He does not for a moment deny the personal miseries of our human bondage. Undoubtedly, for those who insist that God must exist for a purpose, and that purpose the happiness of our- selves, the Master's teaching is useless and hopeless. 1 The particular 'efficient cause' is, of course, only a link in the infinite network of causation, which, sub specie eternitatis, is a standing and motionless system. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 135 Still, for those of more open mind it is worth while to hear what he has to say on the problem of evil. 1 As to Good and Evil they connote nothing actual in Spinoza on things themselves, nor are they anything but modes of E ^ an thought or notions formed by comparison of things with each other. For one and the same thing may be at the same time good and evil, and also neutral. Thus music is good for brooding melancholy, bad for acute sorrow, and for the deaf neither good nor bad. Yet however this may be, we must stick to the terms ' — good and evil — ' for since we desire to form an ideal of human nature for contemplation, it will be useful to us to retain these words in the sense I have assigned to them. And so in what follows I shall understand by ' good ' whatever we know clearly (certainly) to be a mean whereby we may approach more and more to that ideal of human nature which we set before us. By evil, on the other hand, I shall understand whatever we clearly know to hinder us from attaining that ideal. Farther we shall call men perfect or imperfect in so far as they approach to or fall short of that ideal.' It will be observed that the Master here says nothing Spinoza's about pain or disease. But it is implied that such indifference things are evil only when they prevent the attainment or pa^ 6 of ideal manhood. For they may very well be good, if in any case they promote its attainment. Are we then to suppose that Spinoza was indifferent to, or rejoiced in the dread disease which carried him off in the flower of his age ? No ; but he believed himself to have only ' an inadequate idea' of it. That is, as more than once explained by bis explained before in terms of the Master, the persecuted theory of . , , .,. ~ . , „ ,. . . -, inadequate sick and ailing Spinoza was only part of a divine idea, ideas, while his true significance could not be attained without a comprehension of the rest of that divine idea ; and this 136 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Plea of individual desire irrelevant. Things most unde- sirable from a human point of view may- be essential to the perfection of the Universe. Suggestive- ness of human experience. ■would involve a comprehension of the Infinite which is unknowable. Now, whether we approve of this attitude of mind or not, it at least enables us to understand in what sense the Master declares that everythiug in the Universe is perfect. For he means that it could be no other without marring the harmony of the divine Whole. What bearing has this upon the often pathetic pleas of individual desire ? Such pleas have, as we shall find, their proper place in disciplined efforts towards the attainment of ideal manhood. But as bearing upon the perfection or imperfection of the Universe, they have no relevancy; they are nil. For just as in Cyclopsean masonry the most eccentric and distorted stones, as well as the most symmetrical, fill a place and exert a pressure in compacting and balancing the whole, so everything in Nature and life that seems to us abnormal and even repulsive is essentially necessary in precisely that abnormal or repulsive form. And we may in faith presume that if our inadequate idea of such dark features of Nature could be made adequate in the sense of seeing them as God sees them — in all their relationships to the infinite Whole — we should not desire to alter them if we could. Even in our ignorance we can occasionally see that if our idea of what we call an evil were supplemented by a perception of only finite wider relationships, we should cease to call it evil. For is not this human life of ours, with its endurance and its heroisms, noble in our eyes ? But how, without suffering, could it have been what it is ? Undoubtedly its moral glory has been kindled by THE BONDAGE OF MAN 137 the stress of conflict through which it has passed. And the afflictions which in each generation were mourned as evil, have produced greater good. Yet though such reflections may seem to throw some This not Spinoza's little light on the mysteries of sorrow, it must be con- method, fessed that they fall far short of the Master's method, not only in scope, but in principle. For he, denying that the action any more than the being of the Eternal can have any purpose at all, finds everything perfect in the sense of sharing in the absolute Keality. Or, in other words, each part and proportion, when imagina- tively considered in all its relations, is just what it ought to be, neither more nor less, as a constituent of the Eternal. But if it be asked why then should we try to alter why then ' S6Glt to anything, seeing that all is as it should be ? the answer alter any- is not so difficult as it seems. For this very tendency to ing " change is part of the perfect order of Nature. And the inspiration, of which we are in various degrees conscious, to modify ourselves or other things in the direction of a human purpose or an ideal, is as essential to the complete- ness of the Universe as is gravitation or cohesion. The fundamental antithesis between the eternity of the Eternity Universe and our human perception of temporal succes- sions of change within its parts belongs to the region of the unknowable, which was perhaps not sufficiently recognised by Spinoza. But granting this, we may freely assert that the necessity laid upon us of dealing with phenomenal changes in our pursuit of human purpose is not in the least inconsistent with Spinoza's theory, that, as eternal being and doing are determined by the divine 138 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Nature, so the phenomenal existence and phenomenal action in time of every finite part is determined by the derivative nature it possesses in virtue of being a mode of some infinite attribute of God. There is nothing in all this to neutralise the only genuine freedom, which is action from within, as distinguished from action by compulsion from without. Nor ought the joy of moral power and of devotion to high ends to be in the least diminished by the certain truth that it belongs to an ordered Whole. Instinct of Throughout this Part of Spinoza's Ethics, as in the pre- self-preser- vation in- ceding Parts, the instinct of self-preservation is assumed but fallible, as fundamental. But while ineradicable, it may be misguided, and may even take that for self-preservation which is really self-destruction. If it be asked how this can happen in a Universe identical with God, the answer has already been given, for no purpose x of God is defeated ; and our conception of the human tragedy is an ' inadequate idea.'' If we could see it as God sees it, and all that He sees along with it, we should know that it forms part of the perfection of the Whole. Definitions. The definitions given at the beginning of this Part need not detain us, for they have already been anticipated in our paraphrase of the preface, We know what the Master means by ' good ' and ' evil.' Things contingent are so in appearance only ; and so with things possible. Yet their apparent contingency and possibility have much to do with our moral trials. The end or final cause for which we do anything is the fulfilment of desire. Virtue and Power are identical. ' That is, virtue so far 1 Seepages 134-136. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 139 as it belongs to man is the essential being or nature of the man, so far as he possesses the power of achieving such things as may be understood solely through the laws of his own nature.' My own understanding of this I would illustrate thus. When Socrates refused to join Socrates in putting to the Assembly the illegal vote of vengeance illegal vote. on the victors of Arginusae for their alleged neglect, he acted according to the essence of his own nature, apart from external influences. His claim to inspiration at such crises does not in the least interfere with the fitness of the illustration. Because according to the doctrine of Spinoza the man Socrates was a finite modification of certain divine attributes. Such modified attributes con- stituted the essential being of the individual, and so long as the influences under which he acted fell within the limits of those modified attributes, what he did could be understood ' solely through the laws of his own nature.' Thus the virtue and the power of Socrates were one and the same. But now let us take a very different case, that of Judas Iseariot. Judas Iseariot — the historicity of details being of no importance to our purpose. Now the essence of Judas was also a finite modification of infinite divine attributes. And on Spinoza's theory, if Judas had acted solely from influences falling within the limits of those finite modi- fications, he could not have gone wrong. But the possible rewards of iniquity excited the passion of greed which enslaved him. He acted no more as a free man moved by impulses spontaneously arising within, and explicable only by the laws of his own nature. He was no longer governed by reason, but became the slave of passion. 140 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Thus virtue became impossible just in proportion as power was lost, and vice was victorious. 1 Such is the view of human nature assumed throughout the Fourth Part of the Ethics. We are passive, or we suffer — not necessarily pain, but servitude — so far as our part in Nature cannot be clearly conceived by itself or apart from other things — or, as we might put it, so long as we have no individuality. Undoubtedly this sounds strange, coming from a teacher who regarded God and the Universe as identical, and who insisted that the infinite is indivisible. But, as I have had occasion to observe elsewhere, even Spinoza could not always adapt the imperfections of language to his purpose. And, taking the whole context into view, I think it probable that what Spinoza has immediately in view here is not the primary idea of the man as a finite modification of certain divine attributes, but rather the secondary con- ception thence arising of an apparent centre of spontaneous action. A man who acts from reason feels his impulses rise within himself and is free. But a man who acts from passion — i.e. passive susceptibility to outward attractions or repulsions — is drawn hither and thither against his judgment, and is a slave. In the one case — according to Spinoza — the man's doings are explicable from the laws of his own nature alone as a finite and definite expression of God; in the other we have to account for much by delusive external images, temptations and snares. Or, as the Master otherwise puts it, the man under moral bondage is \ an inadequate cause.' 1 It must not be supposed that I regard such details of Spinoza's system as infallible, but they are worth understanding. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 141 But it is not suggested that man can cease to be a Absolute .draw himself wholly from external influences part of Nature, or withdraw himself wholly from external to exSrnaT influence. All that can be done is to consider carefully impossible. our natural and social surroundings, and to strive, as far as in us lies, to keep the proper development of our individuality free from undue submission to forces from without. And this is no easy task. For ' the force and A test of servitude. increase of any passion, together with its persistence, is not limited by the strength of our instinct of self-pre- servation, but by the proportion between this and the force of an external cause.' 1 And thus 'the strength of any passion or affection may overwhelm all the rest of a man's energies 2 or power ; so that the affection may obstinately stick to the man.' (Prop, vi.) Venturing again to illustrate the Master by our own niustra- observations of life, we may recall cases of dipsomania victim of in which the victim is perfectly aware that he is drink- ing himself to death. He does not want to die, but 'the force and increase of the passion ' for drink ( is not limited by ' the poor creature's instinct of self-preserva- tion, ' but only by the proportion between this and the force of the external cause,' which latter is in this case overwhelming. Is there then no help ? Yes, there is. But such A possible remedy* passions 'can neither be controlled nor removed except by an impression {affectum) contrary to and stronger than the passion to be controlled.' It is necessary there- fore to discuss the considerations affecting the relative 1 Prop, v., Pt. iv. ; see also demonstration of Prop, vi., Pars. iv. 2 Actio7ies — but the word here is equivalent to the whole being as active, which is fairly expressed by the sum of energ}*. 142 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Conditions powers of various feelings. Thus we learn that affections the strength arising from causes realised as present are stronger than tions. those dependent on remote contingencies. (Prop, ix.) Here again we may bring our experience of life to bear. For cases have been known in which an apparently hopeless drunkard, being suddenly confronted by some special circumstances, with the results of cruelty in- flicted on wife and children by his indulgence, 1 has really felt the force of an impression contrary to and stronger Present than the passion that has debased him. Yet mere warn- influences stronger ings of future effects of his conduct have been of no use. orcontin- The same advantage of causes realised as present over those regarded as remote contingencies might also be illustrated by the greater social influence of the actual millionaire as compared with that of the brilliant but impecunious young man who has just proved himself a genius. And, generally speaking, we know how hard it has been for ourselves, and how difficult it has been to persuade others, to set the probable gain of ten years hence against the enthralling attractions of immediate pleasure or ease. Similarly, hard present facts, such as the need of bread, have more influence in stimulating exertion than the contingent or possible advantages promised to temporary self-denial for purposes of self- culture. Knowledge Even true knowledge of good and evil — that is, of power ^nuit what makes for and against self-preservation in its feeling? highest sense, attainment of the ideal self — does not control passion unless that knowledge takes the form 1 The records of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children show many such cases. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 143 of mental affection, or, as we should say, of a feeling, 1 a saying which is merely a remarkable instance of the common-sense always underlying Spinoza's philosophy. Now, according to previous lessons, knowledge of good or evil is itself nothing but a feeling or affection of joy or grief, that is, consciousness of passage to a greater or a lesser degree of perfection. Thus the man halting between right principle and temptation to evil is moved alternately by a sense of the higher good which righteous- ness would be, and by a passion for the evil indulgence which, to a part of his nature, is so attractive. But The moral c Tim struggle as unfortunately true knowledge or good and evil can too in Rom. vii. easily be prevented by desires of a low or limited nature from conversion into an adequate impulse or feeling for good. And this is specially the case when the good is future and the inferior attraction present as well as pleasant. At this point we come upon a very noteworthy feature of the Master's ethical teaching. ' Other things being equal,' he says, ' desire arising from joy is stronger than The fruit- desire arising from grief.' (Prop, xviii., Pt. iv.) Now jj^ ess of Spinoza's own life was too full of persecution, affliction, and — from a worldly point of view — disappointment and failure and loss to allow any suspicion here of Epicurean illusion. And though, when we consider the prevalence of suffering and tears and blood in many epochs of humanity's re-birth to a higher life, the utterance appears at first sight paradoxical, we cannot ignore it as we might 1 This is my interpretation of Prop. xiv. Much dispute might be raised as to the technicalities. But Prop. viii. of this Part seems to justify the above as the substantial meaning. 144 ETHICS OF SPINOZA An idea dependent on the previous definition of joy. the self-gratulatory chuckle of a prosperous gold-grubber. Let us try, by the aid of the demonstration appended to the proposition, to make out the meaning, and then let us illustrate it if we can from human experience. "We must first, however, remind ourselves that, according to Spinoza, joy is the passage from a less perfect to a more perfect state, while grief is the passage from a more perfect to a less perfect state. Now, desire is of the very essence of man, being involved in the effort to persist in his essential being. So then desire arising from joy — i.e. the passage from a less perfect to a more perfect state — must needs be stronger than desire arising from sorrow — i.e. the passage from a more perfect to a less perfect state. For, as Spinoza puts it, the force of desire arising from joy has two co-operant causes, the external object of desire and the inward exuberance. But in the case of desire actuated by grief the external object is negative, being the shadow of a loss, or the passage from a greater to a less degree of perfection, and there remains only the human longing which cannot be weighed against the exuberance of impulse in the other case. But if this appears to be merely a formal or technical plea, we have only to turn to the most thrilling records of human experience to recognise how remarkably the Master's apparently most abstract state- ments do often suggest the very life and soul of man's moral glory. 1 The joy of Perhaps the most conspicuous example is to be found i^you r rd in tne outburst of resurrection joy during the rise of strength.' Christianity. Whatever may have been the nature of the alleged historical events, with regard to which our THE BONDAGE OF MAN 145 attitude here is one of comparative indifference, 1 it is indisputable that during the first century a.d. a wave of moral impulse rolled triumphantly from Syria over Asia Minor, Greece, Macedonia, and Italy. This moral impulse The resur- tended toward human brotherhood, equality, purity, and f pristiLe a { Kingdom of God,' identical with the Eepublic of Man. ity ns x And the chief note of this sacred impulse was one of unutterable joy, which was embodied in prophetic music because it could not find expression in prosaic speech. 1 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? Shall Rom. viii. 36 tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine or naked- ness, or peril or sword ? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that hath loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' There is abundant allusion here to the self-sacrifice essentially incidental to the Christian profession. But there is no minor tone of lamentation or grief. On the contrary, there is a triumphant realisation of the passage from a lesser to a greater perfection; and the rapture of concentration upon the divine ideal, the joy set before the saint, is swollen by the tide of that progress from a narrower to a larger life. It would be needless to multiply extracts ; for the Confirmed above utterance recalls a score of others in the New Testament™ generally 1 Those who regard this as an illogical position would do well to **"* by the consult the history of the Babi movement in Persia. Of the moral fathers. ^ revival there can be no question. If this was largely caused by imagination and personal magnetism in the nineteenth century, so may it have been in the hist century. K 146 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Refon Patriots. Testament, and many words of the Apostolic Fathers, which amply justify the familiar assertion that, despite all the stress of spiritual conflict, the chief note of the earliest Christian literature is one of exuberant joy. The much inferior and in many respects divergent movement of the Protestant Eeformation might afford other illustrations. For there is no doubt that Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Knox, and their followers felt or be- lieved themselves to be passing from a less perfect to a more perfect state; or that it was the thrill of joy in their experience which gave them an unconquerable energy of desire. Or if we turn from Church History to political and social movements, the same note of joy in the passage from a less perfect to a more perfect state is recognisable even in the grim energy of Cromwell's Ironsides, and still more in the apostles of popular liberty and freedom of trade. The Mazzinis, the Gari- baldis, the Cobdens, and the Brights of history have not been whining, melancholy pessimists, but men rejoicing in the inspired conviction that they were raising not themselves only but their nation, or even mankind, from a lesser to a larger perfection. So that of them too it might be said — giving to the sacred name its largest interpretation — ' the joy of the Lord is your strength.' At this point the Master interposes a short anticipa- tory excursus on the rules of Reason, which I quote as closely as possible : — Prop.xviii., < Thus briefly I have expounded the causes of human im- Anticipa- potence and inconstancy, and the reasons why men do not tory excur- observe the dictates of reason. It now remains that I should sus on the rules of show what it is that Reason prescribes to us ; also which Reason. — — — — ... ■ . THE BONDAGE OF MAN 147 affections are consistent with the rules of human reason, and which are opposed to those rules. But before I begin to prove this at full length by our geometrical method, I desire here to give a short preliminary exposition of the dictates of Reason in order that my convictions may be the more easily appreciated by every one. ' Since Reason demands nothing contrary to Nature, she Reason herself therefore demands that every one should love himself, Jhede- that he should seek what is useful to him — that is, what is v elopment really useful — and that he should desire everything which self, truly leads a man to greater perfection ; and generally that every one should strive as far as he can to preserve his own essential being (suum esse conservare). 1 This indeed is as necessarily true as that the whole is greater than its part. Moreover, since virtue is nothing else than action according to the laws of our own nature, 2 and no one may strive to preserve his own essential being unless by the laws of his own proper nature, hence it follows (1) that the basis of virtue is the impulse itself to preserve one's own essential being, and that happiness consists in a man's ability to preserve his own being. (2) It follows that virtue is to be desired on its own account, and that nothing is conceivably better than virtue or more useful to us, -with a view to which virtue should be desired. (3) Lastly, it follows that those who commit suicide are impotent in mind, and that they are utterly overcome by external causes at discord with their own nature. Moreover, it follows from Postulate 4, Part II., 3 fe^Teredus 1 The word 'essential' is, of course, an interpolation. But I think by the it is needed to give in English the true significance of Spinoza's Latin. wor id. Of course the ultimate substance of the man is God, and for the pre- servation of this there can be no anxiety. But the essence of the individual — qua individual — is a finite modification of certain Attri- butes of that Substance. And 'self-preservation' in the man is the guarding of his spontaneity within those limits against undue external influences which cause inadequate ideas and reduce the man to an 'inadequate cause.' - Always understand the finite Mode of God constituting our nature. 3 'The human body needs for its preservation very many other bodies by which it is, as it were, continually remade' 148 ETHICS OF SPINOZA that we cannot possibly succeed in putting ourselves beyond the need of things external for the preservation of our being, nor can we so live as to have no intercourse with things out- side us'; and further, so far as concerns our Mind, certainly our intellect would be more imperfect, if the Mind existed alone and had no understanding of anything beyond itself. 1 N There are therefore given many external things which are The most useful to us, and which on that account are to be desired, serviceable Out of these none can be conceived more excellent than of the those which entirely harmonise with our own nature. For worldare ^ tw0 individual things of entirely the same nature are those most joined together, they form an individual twice as powerful with onr° ny &s either when separate. To man, therefore, there is nothing nature. more useful than man ; nothing, I say, can men desire more Hence excellent for the preservation of their essential being, than supreme? " ~^at all should so harmonise in all respects that the Minds and important. Bodies of all should make up, as it were, one Mind and one Body ; and that all with one impulse, to the extent of their power, should strive to preserve their essential being, and that all with one impulse should seek, as for themselves, the common good of all. From which considerations it follows that men who are ruled by Reason, that is, men who by the guidance of Eeason seek their own good (utile), will crave nothing for themselves that they do not desire for all other men, and thus be just, loyal (Jidos), and honourable.' The law ' Such are those dictates of Eeason which I had purposed veiopmVnt nere briefly to set forth before beginning to prove them by is not to be the longer method. And the object with which I have done with pas- it is to win, if possible, the attention of those who regard as the very essence of impiety, and certainly not the foundation of virtue and piety, my principle that every man is bound to 1 Contemporary psychology would regard this as an impossible supposition, since the mind's knowledge of itself is supposed to be brought about by contact with the not-self. But the main issue, our dependence on what is called an external world for fulness of life, is not affected. For my part I do not believe that the old^sharp division between self and not-self is essential. sions of selfishness THE BONDAGE OF MAN 149 seek his own good. Now, therefore, having shortly pointed out that the exact contrary is the case, I hasten to go on with my demonstration in the same way by which we have hitherto advanced.' The purport of the above extract is to remove preju- Succeeding . demonstra- dice and to facilitate an understanding of the proofs that tions negli- follow. But it really does more ; at least for the modern reader. For if the latter's aim is a basis for ethical practice, and not a curious study of seventeenth-century dialectics, these general observations may save him anxiety about the proofs of many succeeding propositions, if he should find them apparently unconvincing or unnecessary. He believes the teaching, or he does not, and in either case the reason is really independent of the so-called ' geometrical method,' and depends upon the attraction And pro- or repulsion of his sympathy. It would therefore be a only occa- waste of time laboriously to pursue the series of demon- be quoted. strations by which the above ethical lessons are sus- tained. And even the propositions need not be quoted except where they add to or modify or explain the concise statements of the above extract. For instance, in a Scholium to Prop. xx. we are re- ideal self- .« preserva- assured as to the sort of self-preservation identified with tion. virtue. That it is not the gross love of life at any cost is made clear. For, notwithstanding the previous con- demnation of suicide, the act of Seneca is approved on the ground that lie sought ' to avoid a greater evil by a less.' From which it is clear that the self-preservation Spinoza has in view is persistence in the divine idea of the finite self. It is in this sense that the greatest energy of self-preservation is identified with the highest virtue. 150 ETHICS OF SPINOZA virtue and We also learn in the succeeding propositions what is meant by the words, ' Virtue is nothing else than action according to the laws of our. own nature ' — that is, without undue interference by external causes. Thus no man is regarded as being actuated entirely by virtue who is determined by inadequate ideas to do this or that; because the inadequate ideas imply undue inter- ference of causes outside his own nature. Virtue, at least in its purity, is predicated only of the man who is impelled by what he clearly understands. Now, it is undeniable that this language sounds like a mere techni- cality of an arbitrary system. But there is sound sense at the back of it for all that. Let us illustrate by an instance which will also show within what limits we should take the assertion that a virtuous man is actuated ' by what Henry vm. he clearly understands.' King Henry vm. was perhaps Thomas not wholly bad ; but it cannot be said that his policy as a ruler was guided by adequate ideas, or that he clearly understood his own motives. Thus in securing, through Thomas Cromwell, the passage of a novel Treason Act, making traitors of all who doubted the legitimacy of his second marriage, he was certainly impelled by causes lying quite outside the divine idea of his kingship, as defined by the human expression of God 1 within the 1 ' The human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God ; and accordingly when we say that the human mind perceives this or that, we say nothing other than that God, not in so far as He is infinite, but in so far as He is expressed by the human mind, or so far as He constitutes the essence of the human mind, has this or that idea. And when we say that God has this or that idea, not only so far as He constitutes the nature of the human mind, but so far as He has together with the human mind the idea of some other thing, then we say that the human mind perceives the thing in part or inadequately.' THE BONDAGE OF MAN 151 limits assigned by historical evolution to an English king of the time. But now take the case of Sir Thomas More, the victim Distinction of that novel treason law. Of him it is impossible to f sir c say with truth that he saw far into the future, or at least More!* 8 understood the sort of Nemesis that the king and Thomas Cromwell were preparing. But this thing at any rate he understood ; that wrong could not be right ; and that to acknowledge the legitimacy of a marriage clean contrary to all the sanctions associated by his conscience with the marriage rite would be a treason against divine order, and infinitely more guilty than disobedience to any ' law of a carnal commandment.' It may therefore be said that Sir Thomas More acted from causes that he under- stood ; while King Henry acted from ' inadequate ideas.' From this we are led to see that good and evil things Prop, xxvii. are to be judged by the one test : do they conduce to understanding, or do they hinder it ? That is, do they The highest help toward that serene clarity of spiritual vision pos- sessed by Sir Thomas More in his supreme hour, or do they hinder it ? But if this be so, then the highest good of the mind must be the knowledge of God, that is — as I take it — of our relation as parts to the Whole, which relation imposes upon us a duty of unreserved loyalty. 1 (Prop, xi., Pt. II., Coroll.) Which I apply to Henry viii. thus. His attempts to make Parliament merely the registering court of a despotic will were an essential element in the forces preparing the revolution of the following century. They were in that sense part of the divine order of the world. This answers to Spinoza's 'some other tiling' which was in the mind of God, but not in the mind of Henry. The idea of the latter therefore was • inadequate.' 1 ' The highest good of the Mind is the knowledge of God ; and the supreme virtue of the Mind is to know God.' — Prop, xxviii., Part iv. 152 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Having reached this lofty point of view, we are made Practical to descend to some practical details, and to consider what rules of life may help toward that highest good. Thus so far as anything harmonises with our nature — always Props. understand our divine nature — it is good. Thus, for instance, the majesty or the sweet insinuations of natural scenery, the alluring mysteries of organic life, and the impressive march of human history, are all in harmony with our nature, and of necessity good, in the sense already given, that is, they conduce to our understanding of our place in the world. And generally everything is good so far as it harmonises x with our nature understood as above. It follows that, apart from the imperfections caused by obedience to passion rather than reason, our fellow-men Whatman are, in a higher degree than anything else in Natura needs most is man. Naturctta, good for us and helpful to us. Because, of course, they have most points of harmony with our individual humanity. But the drawbacks to so cheerful a view are many. For men are very generally subject to Prop.xxxii., passion, that is, to moral impotence ; and as Spinoza will Schol. i-i • nave it, mere agreement in negations cannot constitute harmony of nature. Or, to put it in more vulgar fashion, two boys who are equally indolent, selfish, and incapable of moral aspiration, are the worst possible companions Prop. for each other. Again, men buffeted by passions are constantly brought into conflict one with another, and And man instead of helping, devour one another. In fine, it is finds man - ' when each only so iar as men are governed by reason that there can is governed 1 That is, as I understand, so far as it does not oppose, but promotes, the evolution of the individual ideal. . THE BONDAGE OF MAN 153 be a real harmony of nature between them and mutual help toward the ideal life. And though, when put in that way, this sounds too philosophical for 'human nature's daily food/ yet if for 'reason' we substitute loyalty to the best we know, with the desire to know more, together with a temper of sincerity and honour, this is very much what Spinoza means by ' reason.' Practical Thus interpreted, the above doctrine is plain common- twoc? ° sense. trine ' Men governed by reason in this sense will always R °ot of the . enthusiasm desire to be useful to others and to share with them a of human- ity, form of wealth that is increased and not lessened by giving. Also this desire will always be the greater in proportion to the knowledge of God attained by such men, that is, their knowledge of their relation as parts to the infinite Whole. But here again it may be well to quote as nearly as possible the Master's own words : — ' Whosoever, actuated merely by feeling, strives that others Prop, should love what he loves, and that others should live in ^0"! accordance with his notions, acts solely from impulse, and is Benevo- on that account hateful, especially to those who prefer other impulse things, and who on that very account also desire, and by the inferior to same impulse strive that others should on the contrary live volence of according to their notions. Moreover, since the highest good Reason - which men desire by force of feeling is often of such a nature that only one person may possess it, hence it follows that they who love it are not inwardly consistent, and while they glory in reciting the praises of the thing they love, are alarmed lest they should be believed. 1 But he who strives to lead others by reason does not act from impulse but from 1 What is really meant seems to be ' lest they should be so far believed that others should be impelled to obtain possession of the object so praised.' 154 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Social loyalty. c Natural ' and civic humanity in relation to the moral law. human sympathy and kindness, and inwardly 1 he is perfectly at one with himself. Moreover, I regard as Religion every desire and action of which we are ourselves the cause through having the idea or the knowledge of God. 2 But Piety I call that desire of well-doing w T hich is begotten in us by the life according to Reason. The desire, again, by which every man living according to Reason is possessed to unite others to himself in friendship I call honour ' — (social loyalty) — ' and I call that honourable which men, living according to Reason, praise ; and that, on the contrary, base which is inconsistent with the bonds of amity. . . . Again, the difference between real virtue and impotence is easily gathered from the above. For plainly real virtue is nothing else than life strictly according to reason. And thus impotence consists in this alone, that a man suffers himself to be led by things outside himself, and is determined by them to do, not what is required by his own proper nature regarded in itself alone, but (what is required) by the current order (communis con- stitutio) of outward things.' In a succeeding Scholium the Master draws a note- worthy distinction between the natural and the civic — or, if we like the word better — the social state of man. Thus he denies that man in his natural state is bound by any law to consider anything other than his own con- venience and pleasure. But if we are startled by such 1 Mente — as in the preceding sentence. 2 Literally, ' whatever we desire and do of which we are the cause so far as we have the idea of God, or so far as we have the knowledge of God, I refer to Religion.' I submit, however, that if the writer had been English, and written in his own tongue, the above is what he would have said. But, as premised in the first sentences of this para- phrase, Spinoza is made needlessly obscure by our forgetfulness of his Pantheism. Thus, in the present case, he does not in the least suggest that the Jewish Jahweh, or personal God, must be thought of at every moment in order to make our lives religious, but rather that everything is so, which we desire and do consistently with the sense of our being infinitesimal parts of one perfect Whole. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 155 a doctrine, let us ask ourselves whether lions and tigers and wolves are bound, so far as their conscious impulses are concerned, by any other law than that of appetite ? Surely no one will pretend it for a moment. And if we p r0 p. try to make a moral difference between such creatures schol. 2. and ' natural ' man, the effort is only an indication that we are still influenced by obsolete traditions of man's miraculous origin. But on the theory of evolution the Master is obviously right. There was a time when, so far as conscious impulse 1 was concerned, men were 'a law unto themselves ' just as much as lions and tigers are. Now such a stage of human evolution had obviously less perfection, that is, less fulness of being, than any stage attained by man when awakened to a sense of God, that is, a consciousness of being part of a Whole, which The God- consciousness, being finite, is necessarily subject to regu- ness am i " lations co-ordinating it with other parts. ' In order that moral law ' men may live harmoniously and be helpful to each other/ says the Master, ' it is necessary that they should yield their natural right and mutually give security that they will do nothing which would injure their neighbour.' 2 1 This limitation is intended to prevent possible misunderstanding. Because, of course, if by ' law ' we mean regular and inevitable suc- cession, 'natural man' in all his impulses and in every other respect was as much subject to law as trees and stones and streams. - I do not read this as implying any anticipation of the eighteenth- century myth of the contrat social. The passage only describes the practical effect of natural man's evolution into the social state. Nor do I see the slightest ground for the inference sometimes drawn that Spinoza regarded the moral law as only ' positive,' or artificial, and dependent on human authority. Not only the general tenour of his writings, but his life, contradicts this. Nor does the passage follow- ing, in which he docs discuss positive law, justify such a view of his 156 ETHICS OF SriNOZA To attain this, they must have recourse to the principle already laid down that no affection or impulse can be controlled except by an affection or impulse both stronger than and contrary to the affection to be controlled ; and that in general every one will abstain from hurting another if the injury will entail a greater hurt to him- self. Society's right to self-preser- vation Prop. xxxvii. , Schol. 2. involves enforce- ment of re- gulations, of which the infrac- tion is crime. ' By this law, then, Society can be bound together if only it can assert for itself the right which every individual has, of defending himself, and make itself the judge of good and evil. Provided also that Society must have the power of ordaining the community's order of living, and the power of legislation, and of sanctioning its laws not merely by reason, which cannot compel affections (or impulses), but by threats. Now this Society, held together by laws and by the power of self-preservation, is called a State (Civitas), and those who are defended by its jurisdiction are called Citizens. From all this we readily gather that in a condition of nature there is nothing declared to be good or evil by the consent of all. Because every one, in a condition of nature, considers only his own convenience, and according to his own fancy, having regard solely to the standard of his own convenience, deter- mines what is good or what is evil ; nor is he bound by any law to obey any one but himself alone. Hence, in a con- dition of nature, crime (peccahm) cannot be conceived ; but teaching ; for he is there discussing the political definition of mutual rights, and what is good for the State as a whole, not good in the sense of that Vdiich helps each man to realise his ideal self. It is to this aspect of higher rffcmhood as res acta existens that eternal morality appertains — eternal in the sense that whenever and wherever the same conditions occur, the same rule holds good. Spinoza's view seems to have been that, when the sense of being parts of a whole began to dawn, the need of living by reason began to be felt. And Reason means the realisation — which may take many forms from animism k) pantheism — that man is a ' partaker of the divine nature,' and subject to the eternal necessities of God's life. See Part v. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 1,57 only in the civic state in which, while good and evil are determined by the general voice, every one is held bound to obey the State. Crime, therefore, is nothing other than disobedience, which accordingly is punished by State right only • and, on the other hand, obedience is counted as merit in a citizen because, on account of this very thing, he is reckoned worthy to enjoy the advantages of the State. Farther, in a condition of nature, no one by the general voice Property is possessor of any single thing, nor does anything occur in Institution nature which can be said to belong to this man and not to of nature, that ; but all things belong to all. It follows that, in a con- dition of nature, there can be no disposition {voluntas) to render to each his own, nor yet to take away from any man what is his. In a word, no action can be called just or unjust in a condition of nature, but only in the civic State where the general voice determines what belongs to this man or to that. From all which it results that justice and injustice, crime and desert, are notions from without, 1 and not attri- butes which manifest the nature of the mind/ Passing over two propositions about the conservation of a balance of motion and rest in the body, propositions essential to the intellectual completeness of the system but not to the practical lessons I am trying to emphasise, I may summarise a number of succeeding propositions as follows : — All things are useful which make for social peace : Aphorisms, whatever has the contrary effect is evil. Joy, in its direct operation, is not evil but good : Grief, tfi. on the other hand, in its direct operation, is evil. 1 Notiones extrinsecas — i.e. generated by outward relations. The practical meaning is that 'morals' are evolved only out of special relations between special Modes of the divine Attributes — e.g. men. But perhaps the ' condition of nature,' as above, was prehuman rather than human. 158 ETHICS OF SPINOZA xlii. xliii. xliv. Cheerfulness cannot be in excess ; but it is always good. On the other hand, Melancholy is always evil. Pleasurable excitement may run to excess and be evil. Pain may be good to the same extent as pleasurable excitement or joy may be evil. Love and sensual passion are subject to excess. The Scholium here is worth quoting. Scholium. The mad- ness of violent passions. Evil of Hatred. xlv. xlvii. 1 The affections (or passions) by which we are daily buffeted have reference generally to some single part of the body which part is more affected than any of the rest. And accordingly the affections have an extreme excess and so hold the mind fixed upon one sole object that it is unable to think of others. And although men are exposed to many affections (or passions), and accordingly very few are found who are always buffeted by one and the same affection, yet there are not wanting those to whom the same one affection obstinately adheres. For we sometimes see men so much affected by one object that even if it is not present they fancy that they have it at hand. If such a thing befalls a man who is not asleep, we say that he is delirious or mad. And not less are they thought mad who burn with Love, and who day and night dream of a mistress, or a paramour \ for they usually excite laughter. But when the miser thinks of nothing else than gain or treasures, and the ambitious man of glory, and so on, these men are not believed to be mad ; they are rather offen- sive and considered deserving of hatred. But in very deed Avarice, Ambition, Lust, and such like are a sort of madness, although they are not reckoned as disease.' Hatred can never be good — that is, hatred towards men. He who lives by the guidance of reason endeavours as much as possible to counteract by love or generosity hatred, anger, and contempt toward himself. Affections of Hope and Fear cannot in themselves be THE BONDAGE OF MAN 159 good, but only so far as they serve to restrain the Hope and excesses of Joy. ' So far as we strive to live by the guid- seded by ance of Reason, to that extent we shall depend less on Hope, and free ourselves from Fear, while at the same time we endeavour as far as possible to be lords of fortune {fortunce imperare) and to direct our own actions by the certain counsel of Reason.' 4 The affections of Self-conceit and of Contempt are xlviii. always evil. Pity 1 is out of place in a man whose life is guided by l. Reason, and in itself is evil and useless. The demonstration goes far to explain -the paradox, and Paradox ° if tf on Pity. runs thus : — ' Pity is sorrow and therefore in itself evil. But the good which follows from pity, namely, that we en- deavour to free from his misery the man whom we pity, is what we desire through the dictate of Reason alone to effect. Nor can we achieve anything that we know clearly to be good unless we do it by the dictate of Reason alone. Therefore Pity in a man who lives by the guidance of Reason, is evil in itself and useless.' That is, help to the suffering should be prompted by reason and not by passion. 2 The Scholium is worth giving at length : — 1 He who fully knows that all things follow from the Schol. necessity of the divine nature, and are carried on according 1 Commiseratio. As said before, the attempt to render Spinoza's Latin word for any Affection always by the same English word would cause confusion on account of differences of connotation in different passages. , 2 Morbid sentiment may condemn such teaching. But if it were followed for ten years in our land, idle vagrancy and social malinger- ing would be abolished. 160 ETHICS OF SPINOZA to the eternal laws and rules of Nature, will surely find nothing that is worthy of Hatred, Laughter, or Contempt. Nor will he pity any one ; but so far as human virtue avails he will endeavour, as the saying is, to do good and rejoice. 1 To this we may add that he who is easily touched by the sentiment of pity and is moved by the misery or tears of another, often does something for which he is afterwards sorry. This is partly because we do not know clearly that anything done from sentiment is good, and partly because we do know clearly that we are easily deceived by fraudulent tears. Of course, in the above remarks, I have in view the man who lives by the guidance of reason. For he who is not moved either by Eeason or by Pity to help others, such a creature is rightly called inhuman ; for he seems to be alien to manhood.' Gratitude. ' Favour ' (in the sense of special love to a man who has done good to another) ' is not contrary to reason, but is in harmony with it, and may arise from it.' Schoi. 'Indignation' (in the sense of hatred to a man who has Indignation illegitimate, done harm to another) 'is essentially evil. But mark that when the sovereign power, in virtue of the desire by which it is actuated to defend the peace, punishes a citizen who has done harm to another, I do not say that the sovereign power shows indignation ; because it is not by hatred impelled .to the destruction of the citizen, but it punishes him at the instigation of piety.' Humility. Humility is not a virtue ; that is, it does not spring from Eeason. Penitence. Penitence is not a virtue ; that is, it does not spring from Eeason. These paradoxical utterances are necessitated by Spinoza's fundamental principle that a man's essence is 1 ' Trust in the Lord, and do good.' — Ps. xxxvii. 3. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 161 his power, not his impotence. Therefore anything which concentrates a man's attention on his impotence is bad ; that is, it hinders the ideal self. There is more in this than would at first sight appear. But it is admittedly dangerous and is guarded by the following Scholium. 1 Since men seldom live under the direction of Eeason, these two affections, namely, Humility and Penitence, and, in Scholium addition to these, Hope and Fear, do more good than harm ; fty^S? and accordingly, since error is inevitable, it is better to err tence > in that direction. For if men impotent in mind (i.e. morally Fear?' an impotent) should all be as presumptuous 1 as they are weak, they would scruple at nothing. And if they had nothing to fear, by what bounds could they be held together and kept in order ? The mob terrifies when it does not fear. And so there is no wonder that the Prophets who had regard to the advantage of all, and not of a few, should give such high praise to Humility, Penitence, and Eeverence. And indeed those who are susceptible to these affections can be led much more easily than others towards a life under the guidance of Reason, that is, toward freedom, and the enjoyment of the life of the blessed.' Either excessive pride or excessive self-depreciation Pride, indicates both utter ignorance of one's self and extreme lv ' aud lv1 ' impotence of mind. Hence it follows that the proud and the despondent are specially susceptible to affections (or passions). The proud man loves the company of parasites or lvii. flatterers, but that of the noble-minded he hates. Here follows a Scholium : — 1 It would be too long a task to reckon all the evils of Schol. Pride ; since the Proud are susceptible to all passions and to Pride sus- none less than those of Love and Pity. But here it must by H^* no means be forgotten that any man is called proud who passions. 1 >So I take ceque omnes mqaerbirent. 162 ETHICS OF SPINOZA thinks less of others than they deserve, and therefore with The essence this understanding Pride is to be defined as Joy arising from a man's false notion that he is superior to the rest of men. And Self-depreciation (pusillanimity) in contrariety to this is joy aris- ing from a false idea of superi- ority. Pride would be grief arising from a man's false notion that The oppo- Pride akin to madness. Pride and pusillanim- ity as extremes meet. he is inferior to the rest of mankind. But this being granted, we readily conceive that the proud man is necessarily envious, " te .of pusil- an( j ^hat he regards with the utmost hatred those who are most praised on account of their virtues. Nor can his hatred of them be easily overcome by Love or kindliness. And he takes pleasure only in the company of those who humour his impotence of mind, and from a fool turn him into a madman. 1 Now although Self-depreciation (pusillanimity) is contrary to Pride, yet the Despondent (pusillanimous) is next neighbour to the proud. For since his Grief arises from measuring his own impotence by the power or virtue of other men, that Grief will therefore be lightened, or he will rejoice, if his fancy should be engaged in the contemplation of other people's vices. Hence the proverb, " The consolation of the miserable is to have partners in affliction." And on the other hand he will be all the more sad in proportion as he believes himself debased below the rest of men. Whence it follows that none are so prone to envy as the despondent (pusillani- mous) j and also that such people for the most part watch the actions of mankind more with a view to fault-finding than to reformation ; so that at length they praise self- depreciation for its own sake and glory in it, but so that they may still seem to be despondent. Such consequences follow from this mental affection as inevitably as it follows . from the nature of a triangle that its three angles are equal to two right angles ; and I have already said that I call these and similar mental affections bad (only) so far as I confine my attention to the service of man alone. But Nature's laws are concerned with the general order of Nature of which Man is a part — a remark I make in passing, lest any one should suppose that I have desired here to recount the wicked and preposterous deeds of men, whereas I have The incon venience caused to mankind by such passions does not imply dis- order in Nature. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 163 sought only to set forth the nature and properties of things (as they are). For as I have said in the Preface to the Third Part, I look on the mental affections of man and their properties just as I look on the rest of natural phenomena. And indeed if the mental affections of man do not manifest human power, at least they set forth that of Nature and also her art, not less than many other things at which we wonder, and by the contemplation of which we are delighted. But I hasten on to note concerning the affections whatever is productive of profit or loss to man.' Glorying (i.e. joy in the thought of some action of ours Glory, which we suppose others to praise) is not repugnant to Reason and may even spring from Pieason. Here it seemed necessary to the Master to exclude And vain- glory. { vainglory.' And this he does in a Scholium which Fviii.,' explains that the latter depends upon the shifting opinion of the mob. The implication is that true glory can be sustained only by the praise of those who are steadfastly guided by Eeason. ' As to Shame, all that is needed may be gathered from Shame, what we have said about Pity and Penitence. This only I add ; that just like Compassion, Shame, though it be not a virtue, is yet good in so far as it shows that the man affected by Shame has in him a desire for an honourable life, even as pain, so far as it shows that the injured part is not mortified, is also good. Thus, even though a man ashamed of some deed is of course subject to Grief, yet he has more of perfection than the shameless one who has no desire for an honourable life. 1 This is all that I designed to say about the mental affections of Joy and Grief. . As to Desires, they are good or evil" according as they spring from good or evil affections. But in truth, all desires, so far as they are begotten in us by affections which are passions, are blind, nor would they be 164 ETHICS OF SPINOZA in any way needed if men could easily be led to live under the sole direction of Reason. And this I will now briefly show.' Reason We were taught at an earlier portion of this section can supply . the place * of the Ethics that knowledge, if it is to have practical passion. power, must put on the nature of feeling, which of course Prop. lix. i s a form of passion in its technical sense. We now have the converse lesson that reason may be as effectual as feeling. But this does not contradict the previous passage ; for more knowledge of this or that is not to be confounded with Eeason. Actions are < To all actions to which we are determined by a mental in them- . selves in- affection, which is a passion, we may also be determined different. by Eeason without passion.' The idea is that bodily actions are all in themselves indifferent, that is, neither good nor evil. And they only become good or evil according as they make for or against the development Moral f the ideal self. Thus talking, eating, drinking, and, to quality ° ° ° depends on take Spinoza's illustration, the act of striking, are colour- spiritual m m relations, less except in their relation to the ideal self. If they serve that, they are good ; if not, they are bad. Now to that is, on act according to Eeason is simply to do those things Reason. which follow from the inward necessity of our own nature considered in itself — that is, apart from the powers of the external world which deflect it from its true course. And such of us as consider ourselves — in spirit, though not always in the letter — to be Spinoza's disciples make bold to say that if any man could emulate the serene devotion of the Master who, from the time of his enlightenment, sought only to realise the divine thought identifiable with the man Spinoza, he would find THE BONDAGE OF MAX 165 Reason as thus conceived to be to him c wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption.' 1 Desire springing from Joy or Grief such as affects vices of only one or several, but not all parts of the body, has no desire! ° C proper bearing 1 on the good of the whole man.' We must remember that in Spinoza's system the body is the man in extension, and the mind the man in thought. They are therefore the same thing in two different aspects. For practical illustrations of the above proposition we may refer to drunkenness, sensual vices, and gambling, which gratify a part but do not serve the whole of the man. * Desire springing from Eeason is incapable of excess ' i*i. r ° & r Desires of — that is, it is always an impulse toward the realisation Reason are incapable Of OUr best Self. of excess. So far as the Mind conceives anything under the lxii. direction of Eeason, it is equally affected thereby whether unaffected the idea be of a future thing or a past or present. We may remember that on the natural man things immediate have much more influence than things remote, notwithstanding that the power of the latter over him is in the order of Nature equally certain. We may also remind ourselves of the fine utterance of Kepler when under the direction of reason he published his laws of planetary motion. 1 The lot is cast. I have written my book. It will be read ; instance of whether in the present age or by posterity matters little. Kc P ler - It can wait for its readers. Has not God waited six thousand years for one to contemplate his works ? ' 2 1 Rationem utilitatia totiua hominia non hdbet. But the practical sense is as above. 2 So. the true laws of planetary motion. The reference, of course, is to the old chronology, which dated creation about six thousand years back. 166 ETHICS OF SPINOZA lxiii. He who is led by fear and does what is good in order to avoid trouble (malum) is not led by reason. Penalties The suggestion is that fear of penalty cannot sustain cannot °° r J inspire noble conduct as reason can. For by the desire spring- ness. ing from reason we pursue good directly, and only as an incidental consequence escape evil. The difference between the positive pursuit of good and the negative avoidance of evil is not inaptly illustrated by the example of a sick and a healthy man. 'The sick man through fear of death eats what he dislikes ; the healthy man takes a pleasure in his food, and so enjoys life more than if he feared death and made it his chief aim 1 to avoid it; ixiv. The knowledge of evil is inadequate knowledge ; hence it knowledge follows that if the human mind has none but adequate ideas, excludes it would form no notion of evil, evil. In other words, if our consciousness could expand so as to fill the infinite Universe — of course an absurd supposi- tion — there would be no shadow of evil in it. ixv. Under the guidance of Reason we shall take the greater good and the lesser evil wherever a choice lies between the two. It must be remembered that good and evil here mean respectively what favours and what hinders the develop- ment of the ideal self. lxri Under the direction of Reason we shall prefer a greater future good to a present smaller good, and a present smaller evil to a future greater evil. This, of course, has been a familiar doctrine of preachers 1 Ecmque directe vitare cuperet. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 167 in all ages. But the distinctive note of Spinoza is that under the guidance of Reason he recognises only real good and real evil verifiable by experience. With this agrees the following : — The free man thinks of nothing less than of death ; and ixvii. his wisdom is meditation not of death but of life. Tbe lre( r man not concerned These words need no comment. with death - Proposition lxviii. may be treated parenthetically. For An impos- it puts an hypothesis which in a succeeding Scholium is thesis. 5P °~ shown to be impossible. That is, ' supposing men to be born free, they would form no conception of good or evil so long as they remained free.' For that man is free who is led by reason alone. But such a man can have no other than adequate ideas, and therefore has no concep- tion of evil. (Prop, lxiv.) The implication is that he sees things as God sees them. But Spinoza takes the opportunity of illustrating the meaning of the above impossible hypothesis by the myth of Adam's innocence and fall. Perhaps the great Jew gives us here a reminiscence of his studies in the Hagada Spinoza as or exposition for purposes of edification rather than exact b interpretation. At any rate, he suggests that in the story of Adam's creation, ' no other power of God is conceived excepting that by which he created man.' It was to keep the latter within the range of adequate ideas that he was debarred from ' the tree of knowledge of good and evil.' And by an edifying modification of the ancient text Spinoza tells us, God warned Adam ' that as soon as he ate of it he would immediately dread death rather than desire to live.' With an obscure allusion, possibly 168 ETHICS OF SPINOZA to sensual degradation, we are told that when Adam 1 came to believe that the brutes were like himself he immediately began to imitate their affections ' (passions). Thus he fell under inadequate ideas and lost his freedom. This freedom, however, was regained by the Patriarchs, who were ' led by the Spirit of Christ, that is to say, by the idea of God, which alone can make a man free, and cause him to desire for other men the good he desires for himself.' Sir F. Pollock seems to doubt whether Spinoza was serious here. I do not know why we should hesitate. Early habits of thought had a charm for him as for lesser men. And after all he only uses the myth as a sort of paradigm to explain what the con- dition of man would be on the impossible hypothesis of Prop, lxviii. lxix. The virtue of a free man is seen to be equally great whether in avoiding or in overcoming dangers. Abraham This may be illustrated by the attitude of Abraham slavery . aiU Lincoln towards slavery ; an attitude subject at the time of the war and after to undeserved criticism. He had no constitutional power to make the existence of slavery the gage of battle at the outset. And his virtue or his valour was seen in declining the danger which such an uncon- stitutional course would have involved. The Union alone could be legally alleged as the prize to be maintained at all costs. But when the conflict had reached the stage at which slavery was recognised on both sides as absolutely incompatible with a restoration of the Union, then Lin- coln's virtue, or valour, was equally shown in facing the danger of the emancipation proclamation as justified by the emergencies of war. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 169 A free man living among the ignorant 1 seeks as much as lxx. possible to avoid their favours. oVfev^SS This is because the servant of Eeason and the devotee worthless. of superstition estimate so differently things good and bad that there is between them hardly any current coin. Only free men are entirely congenial (gratissimi) toward bra. each other. The free man never acts with malignant deceit but always Ixxii. loyally. A man directed by Eeason has more freedom in a common- lxxhi. wealth (civitate), where he lives according to an agreed con- grea ter in stitution of things (ex communi decreto) than in solitude, where s ? cial . life r i t , ? i , ' than m ne obeys only himself. solitude. This looks paradoxical, but the explanation is that the man actuated by Eeason alone knows no fear, nor does he suffer compulsion, but from the free action of his essential nature seeks the good of his kind. For such free action there is more scope in a commonwealth than in solitude. The concluding Scholium is as follows : — 1 These and such-like principles of the true freedom 2 of man as hitherto expounded are related to Fortitude, that is, to Force of Mind and Generosity. Nor do I think it worth while here to exhibit separately all the properties of Forti- tude ; still less (to prove) that a brave man should hold no one in hatred, should feel anger toward no one, should not envy nor cherish indignation, nor feel contempt for any, and least of all should give way to Pride. For these lessons and everything concerning true life and Religion are readily 1 There is a doubt whether this is the word Spinoza wrote. A version taken direct from his autograph has ignavua — vile, or worthless — instead of ignarvs. 2 The avowed subject of Part iv. is human bondage. But by contrast the principles of liberty have necessarily been suggested. 170 ETHICS OF SPINOZA enforced by earlier propositions of this Part, 1 as for instance that hatred is to be conquered by love, and that every one guided by Reason desires for the rest of men the good he desires for himself. To which must be added what in many places we have remarked, that a brave man puts in the forefront of all his considerations the fact that all things follow from the necessity of the divine nature; and that accordingly whatever he thinks to be hurtful or evil, and also what seems impious, terrible, unjust, and vile, occurs to him in that form because he conceives the facts themselves in a disorderly, fragmentary, and confused manner. On this account he tries first of all to conceive things as they really are, and to free himself from hindrances to true knowledge, such as are Hatred, Anger, Envy, Derision, Pride and the like, which we have pointed out above, and so he endeavours, as much as lieth in him, to do good — as we have said — and to rejoice. To what lengths, however, human virtue may proceed in such attainments, and what is its power, I will show in the succeeding Part.' APPENDIX To this Fourth Part Spinoza adds an important ap- pendix. He seems to have been aware that his so-called ' mathematical ' method of proof must cause special diffi- culties to students of his system. And he apprehended, not without reason, that these difficulties would be speci- ally felt in regard to his method of discussing human bondage. He therefore added a kind oifHcis of the whole Part compressed into thirty-two paragraphs or chapters. Whether these are really much easier to understand than the propositions themselves, with such illustrations as above given, is a question on which opinions may differ. 1 Sc, Props, xxxvi., xxxvii., xlv., xlvi., etc. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 171 But I think it well to give the appendix without note or comment, only premising that the translation is in- tended as usual to exhibit the meaning clearly to English readers, and therefore does not adhere verbatim to the Latin where such a method would make the English obscure. My observations in this Part concerning the right principle The of living have not been so arranged as to be (readily) seen as J^sons* 5 one whole, but have been proved here and there according as for the I could more easily deduce one from another. I propose ppen therefore here to recapitulate them, and to arrange them under the most important heads. I. { All our efforts or Desires follow from the necessity (in- Theory of evi table tendency) of our own nature in such a manner that Desire - they may be understood either through that nature itself alone as their immediate cause, or else from our being a part of Nature which part cannot be adequately conceived apart from other individuals. II. * The desires which so spring from our own nature that Active and they can be understood through that nature alone, are such SJJST as belong to the Mind in so far as the latter is conceived to consist of adequate ideas ; but other desires do not belong to the Mind except so far as it conceives things inadequately ; and their force and growth is not to be determined by human power, but by the power of external things. Therefore the former desires are rightly called active (or actions), but the latter passions (i.e. passive). For the former indicate our power, and the latter, on the other hand, our impotence and fragmentary knowledge. 172 ETHICS OF SPINOZA III. Good and ■ Our activities (adiones), that is, those Desires which are determined by man's power or Reason, are always good. But the rest may be as often bad as good. IV. The chief ' Thus in life our prime advantage is as far as possible to end of Man. ma k e perfect the intellect or Reason ; and in this one thing the highest happiness or blessedness of man consists. That is to say, blessedness is nothing other than that very peace of mind which springs from the intuitive knowledge of God. Now to make perfect the intellect is nothing other than to understand God, and the attributes and actions of God which follow by necessity from His very nature. Wherefore the chief end of the man who is led by Reason, that is, his supreme Desire, by which he seeks to regulate all other desires, is to get an adequate conception of himself and of all those things which may fall within the scope of his intellect (intelligentiam). V. Good and ' There is therefore no reasonable (rationalis) life without bad- intelligence, and things are good only in as far as they help the man to enjoy that mental life which is measured by intelligence. On the other hand, those things only do Ave call bad which hinder a man from perfecting Reason and enjoying a reasonable life. VI. Evil from ' But since every thing of which a man is an efficient cause man lde * * ,s g°°d °f necessity, therefore nothing evil can happen to a man unless from outward causes ; that is to say, inasmuch as he is a part of all Nature whose laws human nature must obey, and to which it must conform itself in an almost infinite number of ways. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 173 VII. 1 Now it is impossible that man should not be a part of The natural Nature or not follow her usual order. But if he should dent oncir- have a position among such individual objects as accord with cumstances. his own nature, by that very fact will his power for action be aided and sustained. If, on the other hand, he lives among such objects as scarcely accord at all with his own nature, he will hardly be able without a great change in himself to accommodate himself to them. VIII. ' Whatever in Nature is met with that we judge to be evil, Prerogative or able to hamper our existence and enjoyment of a life serration?" according to Reason, this it is allowable for us to get rid of by such method as appears safest. And whatever, on the contrary, is met with which we judge to be good or useful for the preservation of our (essential) being and for the enjoyment of a life according to Reason, this it is allowable for us to take for our benefit and to use it in any way. And by the supreme right of Nature absolutely everything is allowable to each man which he judges to conduce to his welfare. 1 IX. ' Nothing can be more accordant with the Nature of an Place of (individual) thing than other individuals of the same kind, thTliie" of And therefore (see VII. above) a man can have nothing more Reason, suitable for the preservation of his (essential) being and his enjoyment of a life according to Reason than (another) man who is led by Reason. Farther, since among individual objects we know nothing more excellent than a man led by Reason, therefore in no way whatever can any one more clearly manifest his resources in skill and talent than by so 1 Any one who has followed the Ethics so far can scarcely need ;i reminder that no one acting according to Reason can judge anything to be good for himself if it injures another. 174 ETHICS OF SPINOZA moulding 1 men that they come at last to live under the direct authority of Reason. No enemy more fatal than man to the higher life. Such enmity- yields to Love. X. ' In proportion as men are mutually actuated toward each other by Envy or by some other passion of Hate, in that proportion are they contrary to each other, 2 and consequently the more to be feared inasmuch as they have more power than any other natural things. XI. 1 Minds, however, are conquered, not by arms, but by Love and Generosity. XII. Union is < To men it is above all things profitable to form com- strength munities and to unite themselves by such bonds as are best fitted to make of them all one man, and generally to do whatever serves for the strengthening of friendships. XIII. ineffective- « But for such purposes art and watchful care are needed. nunciation. For men are changeable — few indeed being those who live by the direction of Reason — and at the same time they are predominantly envious, and more inclined to vengeance than to pity. To bear with each, therefore, according to his disposition, and to refrain from imitating his passions, re- quires a rare strength of mind. But, on the other hand, those whose only skill is to criticise men, and to revile their vices rather than to teach virtue, and rather to break their spirit than to fortify their minds, are injurious both to themselves and others. On which account many of them, 1 Hominibus ita educandis. 2 This is not the truism that it looks. The underlying thought is always the development of man's highest good, the life according to Reason. It is with respect to this that men mutually envious and angry are 'contrary to each other.' Whenever the above becomes a truism there will be no more war. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 175 through excessive impatience and a false zeal for Religion, How false have chosen rather to live among beasts than among men ; renlfon just as boys and youths who cannot bear calmly the rebukes has°made of their parents, betake them to the army and choose the eranK discomforts of war and despotic command rather than home comforts with paternal reprimands; suffering any kind of oppression, if only they may spite their parents. XIV. Although, therefore, men generally bend everything to Moral claims society. their low desires, many more advantages than disadvantages cli arise from their social union. Wherefore it is better to endure with an equal mind the injuries inflicted by them, and to apply our minds to those things which make for concord and the confirmation of friendship. XV. ' The things that beget concord are such as belong to Moral justice, fairness, and honour. For besides what is unjust society? and unfair, men are revolted by what is accounted base, or by the contempt of any one for the established customs of the State. In order to win Love, our prime requirement is Religion and Piety, with all that they imply. On this point see, in this Part, Prop, xxxvii., Schol. 1 and 2 ; Prop, xlvi., Schol. ; Prop, lxxiii. XVI. 1 Concord, moreover, is often the result of fear ; but then it Neither is without good faith. It is to be observed, too, that fear g^5n«n t a arises from impotence of mind and therefore is of no service sufficient to Reason ; nor is pity, though it assume an aspect of piety, concord. XVII. ' Men are also conquered by bountifulness, especially those Care of the who have not the means of providing the necessaries of life. [[JtSness of On the other hand, to help every one who is in need, far the State, surpasses the resources and faculty of a private person. For 176 ETHICS OF SPINOZA the wealth of a private person is utterly insufficient to meet the demand. Besides, the capability of any one man is too limited to enable him to unite all the needy with him in friendship. So that the care of the poor is the business of the community, and concerns only the general welfare. XVIII. Gratitude ' In receiving favours and returning thanks, quite different has its considerations are necessary ; on which see Part IV., Prop. sideratkms. lxx. ; and Prop, lxxi., Schol. XIX. Illegitimate 'The love of a harlot, that is, the lust of sexual inter- love ' course, which is stirred by bodily form, and absolutely all love which recognises any cause other than the freedom of the mind, easily passes over into hatred ; unless indeed, which is worse, it is a sort of madness, and even then it begets discord rather than concord. XX. Marriage. 'As to marriage, it is clearly in accordance with Reason if the desire of corporal union is occasioned not merely by bodily form but by the Love of begetting and wisely educat- ing children ; and also on condition that the love of both the man and the woman has for its cause not merely bodily form but also and especially freedom of mind. XXI. Flattery. 'Flattery also produces concord; but only by the base vice of self-enslavement or by treachery. There are none, therefore, who are so easily taken by flattery as the proud who wish to be greatest and are not so. Self-depre- ciation akin to Pride. XXII. In self-depreciation there is a false colour of Piety and Religion. And although Self-depreciation is opposite to THE BONDAGE OF MAN 177 Pride, yet the self-depreciating man is next neighbour to the proud. 1 XXIII. ' Shame also helps concord, but only in such things as Shame, cannot be concealed. Moreover, since Shame itself is a kind of Grief, it is not adapted to the service of Reason. XXIV. ' The rest of the affections of Grief in their bearing on Grief men are directly opposed to justice, equity, honour, piety, £SpM and religion ; and although Indignation seems to have a indignation colour of equity, yet in a state of things where it is per- borders on mitted to every one to judge the deeds of another, and to vindicate his own or another's right, life is practically without law. XXV. 'Affability, that is, the craving to propitiate men, if it is Affability , determined by Reason, is related to Piety (cf. Pt. ix., ^ g and Prop, xxxvii., Schol. 1). But if it should arise from passion (ex affectu) it is Ambition, or a craving, by which men under a false pretext of Piety very often stir up quarrels and seditions. For he who desires to assist the rest of men either by advice or by his substance, in order that they may together enjoy the supreme good, will study above all things to win their love ; but not to draw them into admiration (of him) so that a system may be named after him ; and he will avoid giving any occasion whatever for envy. In ordinary talk, too, he will avoid mention of the vices of men, and will take care to speak only sparingly of human impotence. But he will talk at large of human virtue or power and of the means by which it may be perfected ; so that men, being moved not by fear nor by revulsion of feeling, but by the 1 The common phrase, 'the pride of humility,' shows that the same thing has been observed by the unphilosophie many. M 178 ETHICS OF SPINOZA affection of Joy alone, nay, as much as in them is, try to live by the Rule of Reason. XXVI. Our atti- « Excepting men, we do not know any individual object in tudetoward Man and Nature in whose mind we can take pleasure or that we can Nature. un ite to ourselves in friendship or in any kind of society ; 1 and therefore regard to our own profit does not demand that we should preserve anything which exists in Nature except men ; but such regard teaches us to preserve it or destroy it according as either course may be useful, or to adapt it to our own use in any way whatever. XXVII. Food, ' The profit which we derive from objects external to us, Mind. aUC over aR d above the experience and knowledge we obtain because we observe them and change them from their original form into others, is chiefly the preservation of the Body. And for this reason those objects are the most profitable to us which can feed and nourish the Body, so that all its parts may be able properly to perform their functions. For the more capable the Body is of being affected in many ways, and affecting external bodies in many ways, the more capable of thinking is the Mind. (Pt. iv., Props, xxxviii. and xxxix.) But of this particular character there seem to be very few things in Nature. Wherefore it is necessary for the requisite nourishment of the Body to use many foods of diverse sorts. That is, the human Body is made up of very many parts of diversified nature, which need constant and varied food in order that the whole Body may be equally adapted for all those things which naturally result from its constitution, and that the Mind also may by consequence be fitted for con- ceiving many things. 1 Presumably Spinoza never kept a dog. But the more liberal estimate formed in modern times of the intelligence and sympathy of higher animals does not directly contradict the above doctrine as to our right to use Nature. It only modifies it by bringing some non- human things within the outer circle of human sympathies. THE BONDAGE OF MAN 179 XXVIII. 1 In procuring all this the capacity of any one man would be insufficient if men did not mutually assist one another. But money has furnished a concentrated equivalent of all Money possessions. Hence it comes to pass that the idea of money ^ things. has such a hold on the Minds of common men ; because they can scarcely conceive any sort of Joy without the concomitant idea of money as its cause. XXIX. ' This, however, is a vice only in those who seek money Misers and not because of poverty nor because of urgent needs, but tnnlt « because they have learned the arts of gain, by means of which they make a grand appearance. As for the Body, they nourish it according to custom, but sparely, because they believe they entirely lose just as much of their posses- sions as they spend on the preservation of the Body. But those who know the true use of money and regulate the measure of their wealth according to their needs alone live contented with little. XXX. ' Since therefore those things are good which help the parts Joy, its of the body to perform their functions, and since Joy consists amfdan4i> in this, that the power of man, in as far as he is both Mind and Body, is aided, or increased, therefore all things which bring Joy are good. Yet since things do not work for the purpose of giving us Joy, nor is their power of action regu- lated by the consideration of what is profitable for us, and lastly, since Joy very often affects predominantly one part of the Body, it follows that the affections of Joy and by con- sequence the desires also suggested by it, run to excess, unless Reason and watchfulness are at hand. And we must add that we are most chiefly affected by what is sweet to us at the present moment, nor arc we able to prize the future with equal emotion. (Pt. IV., Prop, xliv., Schol. ; Prop, lx., Schol.) 180 ETHICS OF SPINOZA XXXI. Errors of < Yet Superstition appears on the contrary to make what- fciolTcon- ever brings sadness to be good and whatever brings Joy to cernmg Joy }-, e cv i\ t gut, as we have said (Pt. iv., Prop, xlv., Schol.), no being, unless affected by envy, is pleased by my impotence or misfortune. For the greater the Joy with which we are affected, the greater is the perfection to which we attain, and by consequence the more are we partakers of the divine nature. Nor can any Joy ever be evil when a sound con- sideration of our own profit controls it. But, on the other hand, he who is led by Fear and who shuns good as an evil thing is not guided by Reason. XXXII. The 'But human power is very limited and is infinitely over- Reason ° f P asse d by the power of external causes. And therefore we have no absolute power to fit to our needs the world around us. Nevertheless we shall bear with an equal mind what- ever happens contrary to our notions of our own welfare if we are conscious that we have done our duty, and that such power as we possess could not by any possible exertion have avoided those ills ; while at the same time we remember that we are part of the Whole of Nature and follow in its course. If we clearly and distinctly understand this, that part of us which is determined by intellect — the better part of us — will entirely acquiesce and will endeavour to hold fast that acquiescence. For so far as we live by the intellect we can only desire that which is inevitable, 1 nor can we at all acquiesce in anything but what is true. Thus in as far as we rightly understand these things, so far the better part of us is in harmony with the Whole of Nature.' 1 The ideal of the reformer or the philanthropist — if it be true to the nature of things, i.e. to the nature of God — is inevitable, though seldom realised in his personal lifetime. PART V THE POWER OF THE INTELLECT; OR, THE FREEDOM OF MAN To bring home to the modern English mind the practical Method ° or adopted. common-sense forming the core of Spinoza's teaching in the concluding Part of his Ethics, it seems best to abandon even more entirely than we have done in the immediately previous Parts, any attempt to fit together in their so- called mathematical order the successive steps of the argument. Instead of that, we may try to present the Practical practical results of the argument in such a form as may chiefly in be available for the guidance of daily life. 1 The first thing to be fixed in our minds is familiar Recapituia- enough if we have followed the Master to this point ; but doctrine of it may need reiteration. For the freedom expounded is not that of caprice or self-will, but simply action without compulsion or restraint from without. And by compul-l sion or restraint from without is meant any impelling or; deterring influence which is not spontaneously 2 generated within the area of the man's nature considered as a finite' 1 The preface may, for our purpose, be ignored. For it is mainly a discussion of Descartes' quite fanciful speculations on the pineal gland, and also of that illustrious philosopher's dualistic theory of body and soul, a theory utterly alien to Spinoza's doctrine of the identity of the two. 2 ' Spontaneously ' in the sense of John iv. 14: 'The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing upjaitojever- 181 182 ETHICS OF SPINOZA as indepen- expression of God. Thus no man is free who acts through dence of j * ° influences i 10 pe of Heaven or fear of Hell, or through the impul- outside oulr x #< ° \ proper I sion or restraint exercised by any other pleasure desired nature. or penalty feared. Because, of course, in any such case, the man affected would by hypothesis act quite differ- ently if the fear of punishment or the hope of reward were withdrawn. He cannot therefore be said to act freely. For that prerogative belongs only to the man who carries his essential being into action without being ' warped or thwarted by external influences. Thus, when Tenn)^son wrote : The Poet's ' I do but sing because I must, Afflatus - And pipe but as the linnets sing,' there was no thought of compulsion in the ordinary sense of imperious pressure from without, but only of an unimpeded issue into outward form of an impulse proper to his essential nature. According to Spinoza this is the S only freedom possible to finite beings, and is the assured and everlasting prerogative of God. Exuberance The sports of lambs on a spring evening, or the healthy of innocent . ,,".,, life. infants spontaneous gambols accompanied by trills ot laughter sounding like the song of the skylark, are also illustrations of Spinoza's idea of freedom. The inward nature, or ' essence/ in either case is a fathomless foun- tain from which joy in action bubbles forth without other apparent motive than itself. In other words, the little life is an 'adequate cause' of such displays, and there is lasting life.' The creature is not the source of the living water, but it wells up in him through his relation to the life of God. It cannot be traced to any finite cause outside the area of the man's own nature, though, of course, it is related to such untraced 'cause' or 'causes.' THE FREEDOM OF MAN 183 nothing else needed to account for them. Or if it be suggested that, according to Spinoza, there is no cause but God, this is perfectly consistent with all that has been said. For it is of course God — not as infinite, but as manifest in a finite mode of extension and thought or consciousness — who is the adequate cause of animal or infant spontaneity of joy. Our present object, however,' is to fix as definitely and clearly as possible Spinoza's idea of freedom, which is simply action from within and according to the divine nature in us, without interference by external causes. Thus the fully developed free man) is one who 'does justice, loves mercy, and walks humbly' with his God ' as spontaneously as the lamb frisks or the child plays. 1 The hindrances to such freedom are, in the ordinary Hindrances to freedom. man, mainly the passions, or, as St. Paul has it, ' the works of the flesh . . . adultery, fornication, unclean- ness, lasciviousness, idolatry, 2 witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strifes, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.' The Apostle did not pretend to give an exhaustive list. But 1 Readers of the previous Parts of the Ethics ought not to need any caution against the hasty and mistaken inference that action from conscious motive, or under external influence, forms no part of Spinoza's ethical system. As a discipline it was a conspicuous element in his plan of salvation (see Scholium to Prop. x. in this Part). But actual salvation, the higher life with its holy freedom, was, in his view, what is here set forth. 2 My inclusion of idolatry, witchcraft, sedition, heresies might seem foreign to Spinozism. But it is not so. For 'idolatry' includes the worship of a god framed out of our own sentiment of what he ought to be, as well as that of a god wrought out of wood or stone. ' Witch- craft' would include much of modern 'spiritism.' 'Seditions' and 'heresies' may mean any arbitrary rebellion of a part against the whole in a finite community. 184 ETHICS OF SPINOZA he gives us illustrations which suggest that his notion of spiritual freedom and its hindrances was in its essence St. Paul nearly akin to that of Spinoza. ' This I say then, walk Spiuoza. in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.' Surely the theological Aberglaube generated by tech- nical uses of the word ' spirit ' need not blind us to the fact that St. Paul's idea of freedom is spontaneous action issuing from the inner nature which is in touch with God, or is rather a manifestation of God, and is un- troubled by interference from without. And for St. Paul as well as for Spinoza hindrances to freedom were all those disturbing influences from without which thwart or distort the spontaneous action of the finite manifestation of God constituting the ' adequate idea ' of each individual man. The slave For instance, the raging man is not himself as he would of passion, ^ j^j. ag ^q [ s forced to be by the resistless impulse of an external provocation. And Spinoza's doctrine is that the raging man, for all his bluster, is not active but passive, suffering under the suppression of his true self by violence. It is easy to apply the same doctrine to all forms of passion which overmaster us. The ordinary notion is that they are states of morbid activity. But Spinoza's theory agrees with St. Paul's intuition * that they are rather states of morbid passivity in which we suffer under alien forces too strong for us. Shakespeare's King Lear affords a case in point. For one of the most pathetic elements in the tragedy is the raving king's shame that his true self is lost and that 1 See, in addition to the above-cited passage from Gal. v. 19, also Romans vii. 15, vi. 16. THE FKEEDOM OF MAN 185 with it is gone all real spontaneity of utterance and action : — ' Life and death ! I am ashamed King Lear. That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus ; That these hot tears, which break from me perforce, Should make thee worth them. 5 ' most small fault, How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show ! That, like an engine, wrenched my frame of nature From the fixed place, drew from my heart all love, And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear ! Beat at this gate, that let thy folly in, [Striking his head. And thy dear judgment out ! 5 These last lines describe exactly Spinoza's idea of ignoble passivity as contrasted with free action. It matters not that, to Shakespeare, philosophy came through imagina- tive insight into reality rather than through any process of reasoning ; except indeed that by this very triumph of imagination he proves Spinoza to have been as far from infallibility as any other great man. 1 However that may be, the fall of Lear is conceived as the dislocation of the true self with its spontaneity, and its subjec- tion to external influences that ought never to have the mastery. How then is such a bondage to be broken, and true^The plan of freedom achieved? There are many subsidiary sugges-, tions to which we may recur with advantage after we have grasped the main solution to which Spinoza leads up by his favourite method of successive propositions and proofs. But for our purpose it is best to state at once with such plainness as the subject permits, what is the 1 The ' imagination,' however, which Spinoza depreciates is scarcely that which was Shakespeare's glory. 18G ETHICS OF SPINOZA lies in main- Master's answer to the above question, or, as we may say, onrprero- his plan of salvation. In essence it is this. We should partakers of^abitually realise our prerogative as partakers of the nature mc divine nature. And the prerogative consists in this: ownikits ^hat w ^ nin limits we can make our lives in thought, word, and deed a finite but, within those limits, an adequate expression of God. For each individual man is a finite mode of divine Extension and Thought. Now \ the prerogative just mentioned is the capacity to mani- fest God within the limits of certain finite Modes while resisting the intrusion of other finite Modes of the divine Attributes. For such an intrusion, though it cannot mar the harmony of the Infinite Whole, can certainly disturb the self-contained inward concord of the individual life or finite expression of God. Case of For illustration of this view of moral evil we may recur to the raging King Lear, who, being a type, embodies in himself the experience of myriads of actual men. With the wickedness of the two daughters we are not concerned here, though, in the eclipse of the divine nature within them by the obtrusion of greed, ambition, and pride, they also illustrate Spinoza's theory of sin. But anger at their baseness, to which Lear's folly alone had given power, not only does the outraged father no good, but aggravates such^se" 1 his misery tenfold. His former slavery to ill-regulated to fiSte* ^ ove ^ as become now an even more hopeless slavery to andd° n s impotent hate. His madness does not, according to not affect Spinoza's system, mar the infinite peace and harmony of the Universe or God. But it does disturb within Lear's finite self the expression of God. Or we may put it thus : that to find the divine meaning of Lear's passion THE FREEDOM OF MAN 187 we have to go far beyond himself, and may be driven to imagine that an explanation might be found if the infinite scheme of things could be grasped by our minds in its totality. We return then to the main thesis that the prime con- Kesump- dition of freedom is the continuous realisation of our main thesis, prerogative as partakers of the divine nature. In the enunciation of this doctrine as taught by the Master in this part of his work there is a strain of poetry nobler than any conceivable by Lord Bacon, though Shakespeare attains it now and then. But it is found only in those passages where, instead of ' suiting the shows of things to the desires of the mind,' the great poet unmasks reality from all shows and gives us to feel eternal rest in God. 'Whosoever/ says Spinoza, 'clearly and distinctly under-, Self and stands himself and his own mental affections, loves Godj and all the more in proportion as he better understand^ self and its affections/ 1 The doctrine is that the confused and inadequate ideas associated with passion are ex- cluded. This being so, a man who clearly and distinctly recognises his place in the Universe, or God, necessarily regards God as the cause of whatever joy or satisfaction he has in existence; or if little of such pleasure has fallen to his lot, he can look beyond himself to ' the glory of the sum of things/ The glow of feeling with which such a man responds to the Universe is what I under- stand the Master to mean by ' the intellectual love of God.' ( inteiiect- Thelate Professor Huxley, in the meridian of his great gifts God.' and in the full career of joyful work, used to say that at the end of every day he felt a strong desire to say 1 Prop, xv., Tart v. 188 ETHICS OF SPINOZA 1 Thank you ' to some Power if he could only know to whom to say it. Now that seems to me the attitude of soul described by Spinoza in the above-quoted proposi- tion j and the fact that Huxley preferred to call himself an Agnostic rather than a Pantheist, scarcely detracts from the value of the illustration. The Pantheist does know to whom to say ' Thank you.' 1 But this difference in his theory of the Universe does not in the least pre- vent his cordial recognition of the devout Agnostic's loyalty to the unknown source of his joy. J The ' God-consciousness ' is for Spinoza the main con- dition of human freedom. But, as we noted above, there Subsidiary are many subsidiary and indeed precedent conditions to be dent condi- fulfilled before that state of blessedness can be reached. freedom. For instance, we have to remember that the passions under which we suffer are to a certain extent like physical forces, at any rate in this respect, that action and reaction are equal and opposite. This is the practical meaning of an axiom stated thus : ' If two opposite movements are excited in the same subject, there must of necessity arise (fieri) a change in both or in one alone until they cease to be opposed. 1 Here a concrete instance is not difficult to conceive. Mrs. Humphry Case of Ward's Eobert Elsmere was actuated at once by devotion Eismere. to truth and by loyalty to ecclesiastical tradition. Now, though he was not at first aware of the fact, these affec- tions were two contrary movements in the same subject, and one or other, or both, had to be changed before the inward discord could be attuned. In the supposed in- stance it was ecclesiastical tradition that had to give 1 This is very different from saying that he comprehends God. THE FREEDOM OF MAN 189 way. But in many real cases, as is well known, the other cases .in which reverse change takes place and ecclesiastical tradition doubt is j • i t i i i • i i i arbitrarily triumphs. 1 do not say that in the latter cases there is suppressed. any conscious disloyalty to truth. But what happens is that the mind in course of the conflict begins to divide truth into two sorts ; the one verifiable as in everyday life, the other transcendental, going beyond experience altogether, as, for instance, in the assumption that God must be a ' person who thinks and loves,' and that He must have given a supernatural revelation to man. This is quite sufficient to effect a change in one of the opposing affections or mental movements. Truth, as understood by common-sense, is ignored, and tradition is triumphant. Very different illustrations of Spinoza's axiom may be Contrariety • r» i i n more found in the struggle ot more commonly opposed pas- ordinary sions, such as drunkenness and family affection, love of ease and desire for success, philanthropy and sensual appetite, or a hundred other pairs of affections, or ' move- ments ' in the same mind. But the ultimate bearing, already anticipated, is the incompatibility of any base- ness with the intellectual love of God. A second axiom at the beginning of Part v. is the following: 'The power of a ' (mental or bodily) ' affec- Power of an ,..,,, . „ affection tion is limited by the power of its cause, so far as the limited by jfo C1USG essence of the affection is explained or limited by the essence of its cause.' This sounds very obscure, but I venture to think that a simple illustration may show that it sets forth a truth of common-sense. In these days The golf of golf many a business man is tempted by fine weather and first-rate links to spend more time on the amusement than is quite compatible with the interests of his 190 ETHICS OF SPINOZA business. But the power of the attraction — affection or passion — is limited by 'the essence of the cause,' the enjoyment of skilful action and emulation in an open- air game. Now let a messenger come with the tidings that a very important debtor is bankrupt. The clubs are dropped and the first train taken for the place of business. For the power of passion for the game is limited by the essence of the cause of that passion, as above described, a cause which after all touches only the fringe of the player's interests in life. But the claims of self-preservation are overwhelming, and an attraction which a moment ago seemed all-absorbing is now eclipsed and forgotten. A more general illustration may be found in the re- Is it worth curring question * Is it worth while ? ' which obtrudes itself in times of fevered and disproportionate exertion. The question ' Why do I labour and bereave my soul of good ? ' is perhaps more frequently asked now than it was in the days of Koheleth. And it generally signifies that the power of the affection which urged the labour tends to pass beyond the limits fixed by the essence of its cause. That cause may be a desire for honest independ- ence and for freedom from care. But should it lead to increase of care and intolerable pressure of demand for exertion, that cause has exceeded the limits of its essence, and the passion it has excited begins to pall. The applications of these salutary principles is facili- tated by the truth that the order or arrangement of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things. 1 Thus the order and connection of ideas and of bodily affections is the same. For example, in the morbid constitution of 1 Prop, vii., Part n. THE FREEDOM OF MAX 191 the wine-bibber the idea of the public-house is associated intercon- nection of with the craving for drink. And though this may seem ideas and . . affections to be a truism, it opens the way to some lessons of or passions practical value. For if we can remove a mental excite- cal issues ment or affection from the thought of an external cause mv ° xe and can join it to other thoughts, then Love or Hatred toward the external cause, as also the perturbation of mind arising from that particular affection, will be destroyed. 1 Which may be illustrated thus : The crav- ing for drink, though it is conceived as bodily, has its Alcoholic . excitement mental counterpart in the longing to pass from a less conceived perfect to a more perfect condition. And if this seem a drunkard paradox, let it be remembered that an erroneous con- perfect ception of a less perfect and more perfect condition con ltlon ' cannot cancel the fundamental fact that happiness is the passage from a less perfect to a more perfect state. True, the projected means of securing this are in the case in point entirely delusive. Nevertheless, the collapsed, trembling and thirsty drunkard clings to the delusion. For the contrast between his shrunken, nerveless, miser- able condition and that which he remembers to have been produced by fulness of wine is to him the differ- ence between a lower and a higher perfection. Hence the bottle as the means of passing from the one state to the other is an object of overwhelming attraction, or, in Spinoza's language, of desire and love. But now if, by some intervention of sufficiently pow T er- The delu- ful causes, the drunkard's longing for a more perfect m ay be" ie ° state can be connected with a more real object, as, for rinGrereai instance, the restoration to health and happiness of a ob J ect * suffering wife and perishing children, or the attainment 1 Trop. ii., Pt v. 192 ETHICS OF SPINOZA of a little heaven of a home such as he sees his sober and industrious neighbour to possess, then the love for drink and the perturbation of mind caused by the passion will be destroyed. All this seems perhaps too obvious to be the real meaning of a great philosopher. For it may be plausibly represented as a presentation in an obscure form of the common- Thisis place principle of counter-attraction. But this would more than * * x counter- certainly not be an adequate interpretation of Spinoza's attraction. J , , ,. meaning. If an angry baby wants to grasp a glittering knife, it is well to distract the infant's attention by dangling before its eyes a brightly coloured ball. But surely it is a higher spiritual process by which the mind of a mature man is disengaged from an illusive object and drawn into truer relations with things as they are, that is, with God. And the complications attendant on the application of the principle in daily life make such a moral maze that only a man of great genius could discern the unifying truth which, when discovered, appears so plain. An equally practical explanation may be given of Passion another proposition which directly follows : ' An affection reduced by , . , . clear ideas, which is a passion, ceases to be a passion as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it.' For example, a The miser, miser suffers from the passion of accumulation. But this passion is caused by an inadequate or confused idea of money apart from any realisation of its true relations to human life. If, however, the miser could get a clear and distinct idea of the proper place of money in the social system, that is, of its economic and philanthropic use, the desire for it may cease to be a 'passion,' and THE FKEEDOM OF MAN 193 become legitimately active. The relation of such prin- ciples to the main thesis that freedom is found in a realisation of our prerogative as partakers of the divine nature is surely apparent. For they point the way to our becoming consciously, and not merely as passive units, ' parts and proportions of one wondrous Whole.' Passing over some links in the argument which are Passions « « • assuaged by- important rather to Spinoza s ideal of intellectual com- realisation pleteness than to the practical purpose of this handbook, sequence. we must dwell for a moment on the suggestion of a rop " ' certain moral strength derivable from the doctrine of inevitable sequence. ' In proportion as the mind understands all things to be linked together in inevitable sequence, 1 in that proportion has it greater power over the affections (passions).' The Scholium following the so-called demonstration is worth quoting- though the latter part of it is somewhat Spinoza's . * . illustra- surprising as coming from a man who is said to have sat tionsof his in summer evenings on the door-steps with his land- lady's children, interesting them and teaching them many things. ' In proportion as this recognition that things are linked together in inevitable sequence has to do with matters of detail which we conceive very distinctly and vividly, in that proportion is the mind's power over the affections greater : which experience itself attests. For it is matter of observa- tion 2 that sorrow over a possession lost is assuaged so soon 1 ' Res omnes ut necessarian intelligit.' Tho translation of Hale White and Stirling has ' understands all things as necessary.' But the last word has so many connotations in English that it seems to be insufficiently exact here. At any rate, the phrase substituted above gives Spinoza's meaning. 2 Vidtmus. N 194 ETHICS OF SPINOZA as the loser reflects that by no possibility could the possession have been preserved. So likewise we observe that no one Strange mourns over 1 an infant because it cannot speak, walk, or about 8 1( 1 reason, and because, farther, it lives so long a time without infancy. f u \\ self-consciousness. But if most infants were born fully developed while only one here and there were born as a babe, then every one would mourn over x the babes ; because in that case the infantile condition would be regarded not as natural and inevitable but as a defect and fault of Nature. And we might note many other cases of the same kind.' itssignifi- Lovers of babies and children as they are, must not cance for „ . ., . , „ „ the argu- suppose for a moment that this great lover of all man- kind regarded undeveloped infancy with disgust. For he thought everything beautiful in its season ; indeed he considered every object in the Universe as perfect within its own range. But if the reader can get over an element of grotesqueness in the case put, he must recognise the truth of the lesson taught. For if Dogberry had been right, and ( reading and writing came by nature ' to all except a few unfortunate infants, the ignorance which we now regard with complacency because it is inevitable, would, if it were exceptional, be treated as one of the mysteries of Providence. We are not to let our atten- tion be engrossed by the fantastic mode of putting the case. The point is that men readily reconcile themselves to the inevitable, but accuse Nature when they fail to recognise inevitable sequence. Distinction At this point it may be well to protest against a plaus- Fate and ible but groundless inference that the doctrine here sequence, taught is ' sheer fatalism.' Not so ; for fatalism involves 1 Miseretur, miseret. But it is the pain involved in pity that is in the Master's mind. THE FREEDOM OF MAN 195 a fixed decree made by some mysterious Power beyond ourselves ; a decree ruthlessly carried out by the ministry of external causes directed by that Power, and over- ruling the spontaneity of man. But this is not the teaching of the Master at all. There is no external power overruling our destinies. There is no shadow of fate pursuing us. We are ourselves part of the eternal energy that moves the world. And if, to our finite in- tellect, all existence seems to consist in an innumerable and infinite series of interwoven sequences in which we and what we call our wills have place, this is not in the least inconsistent with the spontaneity which, as The former Spinoza insists, is the only reality in 'free will.' For the latter when we do what we would, the impulse arises within taneity. our own divine nature and is not forced on us from without. True, this impulse has its antecedents, rarely to be traced far back, in the chain of invariable sequences. But that does not interfere with our consciousness of spontaneity, a consciousness which is no fiction but most true and real. On the other hand, when, as St. Paul says, ' the thing that we would not, that we do,' we are warped by external influences, and do not act spon- taneously at all. The use made by Spinoza of this doctrine is, of course,\spinoza's to urge that in a world where all apparent successions doctrine! 6 are linked by invariable sequence, passion is out of place, at least in the ' free man.' For the Master holds that the free man, consciously a partaker of the divine nature, is more or less — and in case of ideal perfection, entirely — shielded from the impact of passion by the sense that all things are of God, and could not have been otherwise. 196 ETHICS OF SPINOZA impossible of course the obvious retort occurs that if indeed every - of adoption by those thing, whether bodily, mental, or spiritual, occurs by who want . more than invariable sequence, all this intellectual gospel of ity. freedom is vain, and exhortations to its acceptance thrown away. And to those who are not satisfied with the freedom of conscious spontaneity, a condition in which we do just as we want to do, though our will is a link in an endless series of untraceable sequences, I suppose this objection must still be final. But those who But not in- can accept the doctrine need have no fear that it is consistent . with moral inconsistent with the influence of exhortation, warning, and entreaty. For all moral influences are as much a part of the web of invariable sequence as are eclipses and tides. In fact, Spinoza's doctrine leaves the phenomenal action and interaction of what we call the ' moral world ' just as it is in the minds of the many. Hope and fear, aspiration and despair, love and hate, exultation in the right, repentance and remorse for sin remain in the world as conceived by Spinoza precisely as they do in the world of Christian Endeavour or of the Salvation Army. It is for the most part only in his explanation of the ultimate nature of such moral facts that he differs from church teachers. But the growing incompatibility be- tween the world as it is and the world as conceived by those teachers, seems to me to make some such explana- tion as his to be religion's most pressing need. The propositions immediately following are the last steps leading to the final enunciation of the main thesis Main thesis of the whole of the Ethics. This main thesis we have Ethics. already anticipated, thinking that the purpose of this handbook would be better served thereby. But we may THE FREEDOM OF MAN 197 remind ourselves that this thesis concerns the prevalence of reason through the attainment of a distinct conscious- ness of our divine nature. The propositions I have described as last steps toward that goal are necessary, as already said of others, to the completeness of Spinoza's ' demonstration.' But for reasons previously given I Omission f LUGO! 6 LI" pass them by. Our practical purpose is sufficiently caiiy neces- sary pro- secured by citation of the following : — positions. 1 So long as we are not oppressed by affections (passions) Prop. x. hostile to our (divine) nature, so long we have the power of ordering and arranging our bodily affections (passions) in due proportion in accordance with the intellect.' * That is, affections or passions are bad just in proportion True vision • i • incompat- as they hinder the mind from seeing things as they are, ibie with or in their due proportions to the Whole. But if such evil affections or passions are absent, the mind is serene, forming clear and distinct ideas. Of such ideas it may be said, as Tennyson sang of blessed spirits : ' They haunt the silence of the breast, Imaginations calm and fair, The memory like a cloudless air, The conscience as a sea at rest. ; The Scholium to this proposition, though long, is so practical that it must be quoted entire. • By this power of rightly ordering and co-ordinating the Scholium, bodily affections we are able to secure comparative immunity 2 rop ' x ' from evil passions. For more force is needed to overcome affections ordered and co-ordinated in due proportion accord- ing to the intellect than to overcome such as are loose and 1 Secundum ordinem ad intellect um. 2 Efficere possumue, ut non facile mails affectibus ajjkiamur. 198 ETHICS OF SPINOZA vague. Therefore the best thing we can do, so long as we lack a perfect knowledge of our affections, is to conceive a Need of a right rule of living, or definite maxims x of life, to commit these to the memory, and regularly to apply them to the particular affairs confronting us from time to time in life ; that so our imagination may be thoroughly saturated with them, and that we may have them always at hand. For instance, among the maxims of life we have reckoned this : that Hatred is to be overcome by Love, or Generosity, but not to be balanced by reciprocal Hatred. But that this Value of prescription of Keason may always be at hand when wanted, maxims. we mugt think of and often meditate upon the ordinary wrongs of the social state, and how and by what method they may best be warded off by Generosity ; for thus we shall connect the spectacle of the wrong with the recollection 2 of this maxim, and it will always occur to us when wrong is Overcoming j one to us. But if also we should have at hand a rational good. estimate of our own true profit, as also of the good which attends on mutual friendship and common fellowship, and likewise (should remember) that supreme peace of mind arises from a right rule of living, and that men, like the rest of things, act according to the invariable sequences of Nature ; 8 then the wrong, or the Hatred which usually arises from it, will have a very slight hold on the imagination, and will be easily overcome. Or if the anger usually excited by the greatest wrongs should be not quite so easily overcome, still it will be overcome, though not without fluctuation of mind, in a far shorter time than it would have been had we not these premeditated maxims at heart. 'To the strength of mind needed to put away fear the same rules apply. That is, the common dangers of life are 1 Dogmata. But the original sense of the word is obviously out of place here. What la meant is a familiar form of words. 2 Imaginationi — simply recollection here. 3 Ex natural necessitate. But there is no notion here, or anywhere in Spinoza's teaching, of compulsion from outside Nature. His idea is therefore best expressed by invariable sequence. THE FREEDOM OF MAN 199 to be reckoned up and often imagined, and (we must think) No freedom how by presence of mind and manliness they may best be fortitude. avoided and overcome. But an important point is that in ordering our thoughts and mental images we should always give special heed to the good features in everything, so that we may always be determined to action by an affection of joy. For example, if any one finds himself to be too much set upon Glory, let him meditate on the just use of Glory, and Think on for what purpose it is to be sought, also by what means it fj°° n evil. 61 may be acquired. But let him not reflect on its abuses, and its emptiness, and the fickleness of men, or other topics of this kind, since about these no one thinks, except by reason of sickness of mind. For with such thoughts excessively ambitious men do most afflict themselves, when they despair of achieving the honour they are seeking, and while only spitting forth their angry disappointment they assume the role of sages. 1 Indeed it is clear that those who are most greedy of Glory shout the loudest about its abuses and the vanity of the world. 1 Nor is this peculiar to the ambitious, but it is a common characteristic of all to whom fortune is unfavourable, and who are not fortified by Reason. 2 For the poor man also who is greedy of money never stops speaking about the abuse of money and the vices of the rich ; while by this he achieves Beware of nothing but to make himself miserable and to show that it is thattimu- 11 not so much his own poverty as the wealth of others which lates virtue, disturbs his mind. Thus again, those who have been coldly received by a mistress think of nothing but the fickleness and falsehood of women and other commonly quoted vices of the sex. But all this is forgotten at once the moment they 1 Dum iram evomimt sapientes videri volunt. Animo impotences sun/. The literal rendering, 'weak in mind,' does not give the connotation to be gathered from the whole treatise. Keats certainly was not weak in mind, but he was scarcely fortified by reason, when ho mourned that his name was 'written in water.' Many, if not most, of the kind of men described here by Spinoza have been conspicuous for mental power. 200 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Some con- nective pro positions and their bearing. Man and God the main sub- jects of thought. are again welcomed by the mistress. Whoever then seeks to regulate his affections and appetites solely by love of Freedom Avill endeavour as far as possible to recognise virtues and their causes, and to fill his mind with the joy that springs from their true appreciation. But he will shun the contemplation of men's vices, and will abstain from invectives against men, and will take no pleasure in a sham boast of liberty. Whoever then will assiduously study these lessons — for indeed they are not difficult — and will practise them, assuredly that man will within a short space of time be able generally to direct his actions by the dictates of Reason.' The next three propositions are perhaps, like others preceding, more necessary to the intellectual completeness of the Spinozan system than to the practical application of his doctrine ; but we may see how all bear upon his basic principle that the freedom of man depends upon a conscious realisation of his divine nature, 1 XL In proportion as a mental picture (imago) is related to a greater number of things, in that proportion is it more constant and claims more of the Mind's attention.' For instance, the mental picture of the human form is related to millions of individuals, and is therefore never out of our minds. But the thought of God is related to absolutely everything, and therefore claims perpetual attention. ' XII. The images of things are more easily united to images relating to things clearly and distinctly apprehended than to others.' In the 'demonstration' the things 'clearly and dis- tinctly apprehended ' are identified with ' common properties of things,' such as are gathered by reasoned THE FREEDOM OF MAN 201 experience (Prop, xl., Pt. II., Schol. 2) or proper deductions from them. E.g. gravitation, proportionate chemical Realms of exact and combination, the laws of motion would belong to the of inexact thought category of things ' clearly and distinctly apprehended, defined. But not so telepathy, though it may exist, nor the sea- serpent, nor so-called 'miracles.' The reason is that these latter things are not ' common notions ' ; the names may be in thousands of mouths, but the things re- presented are probably not identical in any half-dozen minds. The outlook of the Master in this proposition is toward that idea of God which is the summation of the whole order of Nature. For an infinite number {sit venia verbo) of infinite series of things which separately may be clearly and distinctly apprehended imply, in his view, Infinite Substance consisting of an infinity of Attributes subject to infinite modifications. ' XIII. In proportion as a conception is united with a greater number of others the more frequently it is in evidence.' 1 (Scepius viget.) In the proof of this we are referred to the law of Power of association treated in the First Part. If a number of especially impressions are made together at any one time upon the £ widely 16 mind, then if at another time one of these impressions * irowu< recurs, it will tend to revive some or all of the others which formerly accompanied it but are not now renewed from without. Thus the chamber of a sick man makes many impressions upon him — window, table, fireplace, pictures, and the faint odour of some disinfectant. The 1 Note that this proposition differs from xi. ahove in that it deals with conceptions or mental images not merely related to but 'joined with ' others. 202 ETHICS OF SPINOZA whole of these impressions may never come together again from the same external surroundings. But the odour of that particular disinfectant will at any time recall the entire scene to him. Now here the particular impression of an odour has a very limited set of associa- tions; and so with the sick-chamber to which it is Power of related. But now take the conception of home. The ciations. familiar chambers, the daily outlook, the loved forms of wife and children, the kindly mutual service, the sense of repose — all this is so widely human that, wherever the traveller goes, a hundred sights and sounds call up the picture of what he has left behind. No meeting of a father with his children in the evening but reminds the wanderer of his own life at home. No loving inter- change of word and look between man and wife but recalls the un forgotten image of her who is far away. A glimpse of river and woodland is like the outlook from his door. Some child Christ or girl Madonna of a picture- gallery seems to his transfiguring affection to portray his boy or girl at home. In fact, the idea of home has such universal associations that it is recalled at any moment. The point then made in the last -quoted proposition is that the more numerous the objects with which any conception is associated, the oftener will that conception be in the mind. And the bearing of this upon the conception of God is obvious ; for that should be associated with everything. Indeed this is the mean- ing of the proposition following. 4 XIV. It is possible for the mind to secure that all affections of the body or the images of things shall be referred to the idea of God.' THE FREEDOM OF MAN 203 That is, all that we feel or conceive or desire shall be consciously harmonious with the divine Whole. In what has been said so far, the soul developed by a parting Christian forms of devotion can find many points of p01 agreement and feel many impulses to good. But as we approach the final application of the principles so labori- ously expounded, our attitude will depend very much on the degree in which we can put truth beyond and above issue de- every other consideration. Now this is an effort of moral unbiassed courage not quite so easy as it seems. It would indeed truth! be much easier than it generally is, if only we were free in Spinoza's sense, that is, if the spontaneity of our divine nature were not subject to illegitimate influence from without. There are cases in which 1 eligible brides of high birth are given in marriage to royal religionists of illustration an alien church. And one of the essential conditions marriages of the contract is that the wife shall conform to her members husband's faith. Now if the reception of the distill- ° Dt d C om- guished convert into her new communion were avowedly munions - a legal form only, involving no pretence of personal conviction, it might perhaps be justified by expediency. But it is not so. The studious preparation under the direction of spiritual guides, the serious examinations, and the final declaration of personal belief make the pretence of a mere legal form a cloak for hypocrisy, unless the conversion is real, which I can well believe that Conversions it often is. For the experience of a hundred generations are often shows that it is difficult or impossible to analyse fairly aSysincere. 1 It may be as well to state that this was written some time before any announcement had been made of a recent royal marriage which has been the subject of some ill-natured and, as I venture to think, most unjustifiable criticism. 204 ETHICS OF SPINOZA the state of mind of the victim of such conventions, or to follow the subtle play of feelings which, after many windings in ' sub-consciousness,' finally emerge as sincere belief. Such a case is only an extreme instance of the fact that the wish to believe will, in nine instances out of ten, or perhaps in ninety-nine. cases out of a hundred, very quickly ensure belief. And the motives tending to facility of conviction may be conspicuously good. For, apart from ordinary human love, which may or not be involved, the peace of kingdoms, profitable intercourse between nations, the welfare of millions all have in past times been involved in such contracts, or at any rate were seriously thought to be so. And for a wavering conscience biassed by such tremendous issues much allowance must be made if the worse has sometimes too easily been allowed to seem the better reason. The digression is intended, if possible, to prevent any Application offence being given by our words above, that our apprecia- motives tion of Spinoza's highest teaching will depend very much agaSsi 1 ? on the degree in which we can put truth beyond and of C pan-° n above every other consideration. For we need not be theism. weighted with responsibility for national destinies in order to realise solemn or pathetic motives for bias toward particular religious dogmas. The recollection of childhood's prayers, the ineffaceable impression of a father's manly faith, the echo of a mother's voice as she sang of the ' wondrous, blessed Saviour,' or of - sweet fields beyond the swelling flood ' — all are spiritual lines of force to keep us within the halo of the Cross. And farther, through generations of tradition and years of training that seemed eternal, our souls have been so THE FREEDOM OF MAN 205 impregnated and saturated with belief in a personal God made after the image of humanity's best men, and with a fanatical repudiation of any possible morals without a future Heaven and Hell, that, when confronted with a denial of these things, we fling it off as white hot metal repels a spray of cold water-drops. Now it is obvious that such a frame of mind does not put truth beyond and above every other consideration, because it only lives after the tradition of the fathers and has taken no pains to seek and find for itself. If we must, at all cost of contradicting earth and heaven and history, imagine a personal God acting toward us precisely as a magnified father or nurse or Truth not teacher would do, and if this craving is regarded as the termmed highest utterance of reason, there is no use in attempting y to follow teachers like Spinoza. For their position is that cravings cannot determine truth, 1 and that if we follow truth, even against the clamour of unreasoned feeling, we reach at length a much higher life than that of common devotional fervour. But if it be asked why Nor by individual should we follow your Spinoza rather than our prophets men, how- 6V6T STG&t. and apostles ? we can only reply, we do not pretend to c follow ' him in your sense of the word. For he made no claim to infallibility or to any monopoly of truth ; and would have been the last man, as Sir Frederick Pollock says, to wish any one to be a ' Spinozist.' But he has much to teach that is of enormous moral and spiritual value, the preciousness of which we cannot appreciate 1 See an incisive article in the Hibbert Journal for October 1905, on ' The Inadequacy of Certain Common Grounds of Belief,' by Dr. J. Ellis M'Taggart. The reference is strictly limited to the par- ticular article. 206 ETHICS OF SPINOZA unless, without any reserve whatsoever, we put truth beyond and above everything else. On this understand- ing we proceed. In the First Part of the Ethics we had a definition of The love God which identifies Him with the Universe ; or all that is, of God. was, or can be. This is perfectly consistent, in Spinoza's Love to view, with the possibility of that ' intellectual love toward God' of which, with the purpose of making plainer the main practical objects of the Fifth Part, I have partly treated on an earlier page. I now give in its entirety the Proposition (xv.) enunciating the Master's doctrine : — 'He who clearly and distinctly understands himself and his own affections loves God, and all the more in proportion to the greater clearness of his understanding thereof.' In the demonstration we are referred to Proposi- tion liii., Part m., which declares that the mind re- The propo- joices in realisation of itself on its active side, and all toactivi- ' the more as it more distinctly conceives its powers of passions, action. We must not suffer ourselves to be confused by the substitution of 'affections' in the new proposition for ' powers of action ' in the former. It is true that 1 affections ' may include ' passions,' which are not active but passive. We have already learned, however, that an affection which is a passion ceases to be a passion so soon as ' we form a clear and distinct idea of it.' (Pro- position iii., Part v.) Therefore, when the Master here speaks of a man who ' clearly and distinctly understands himself and his own affections,' he means a man who realises his own powers and energies. The idea is not that of a self-denying hermit, still less that of a Corn- modus or Elagabalus. It is that of a man of action, THE FREEDOM OF MAN 207 who, whether the thought is articulately framed in his consciousness or not, has the joy of sounding a clear note in the grand harmony of the world. It is that of a great engineer like George Stephenson, of a great statesman like Concrete Peel, of a great poet like Milton. 1 For all such men, though reverence may forbid vanity, do clearly and dis- tinctly realise their own powers. And in so far as their theology allows them to refer all to God in whom ' they live and move and have their being,' their realisation of the joy of life is always accompanied by the thought of God, whom they must therefore love. But the purer their theology, the more intellectual is their love, and hence the freer from the passions that have polluted faith. It may be said that such men are few and can reflect Not wholly little light upon the common lot. But we might as well becanaeof say that the laws of light from the sun are inapplicable ceptfonai to the light from a glow-worm. For it is not their character - c exceptional brilliancy or strength which illustrates the teaching of the Master, but just their clear and distinct consciousness of active faculty and the place it gives them in the divine Whole. But precisely such clear and distinct consciousness may be eujoyed by the work- ing engineer whose hand on the valve wields the weight and speed of a rushing train, or by a letter-carrier who helps the intercourse of mankind, or a newspaper reporter who makes a meeting in an obscure, smoke-grimed town visible and audible to the whole civilised world. How- ever humble we may be, we have some active powers 1 In Spinoza'fl sense of the words Milton vr&8 a man of action even in his retirement and blindness. 208 ETHICS OF SPINOZA whose exercise may be for the good of all around us. And if, in faithful discharge of such a trust, we clearly and distinctly realise ourselves and our modest activities as of God and in God, our lives may be a continual hymn of praise, not indeed in the childish sense of obsequious homage, but in the sense of uttering forth that intellectual love which rejoices in the perfection of the Whole. The intel- This love toward God, says the Master, ought wholly of God to possess the mind. 1 For when once we realise that we should have n ., . c n i , r ,1 supreme are finite expressions of God, every movement ot the to55nd.° f bodv > in healthful activity, in honest industry, and in Prop. xvi. legitimate pleasure, is in the mind associated with the recognition of God as the Whole, of which our joyful activity is part. And if it be suggested that this is a mere theoretic love which never had and never can have any practical power, the example of the Master himself is a sufficient answer. For if he was, as Novalis said, a ' God-intoxicated man,' it was not in the sense of any fanatic zeal. The victims of ancient or modern super- stition have shrieked and torn themselves, or chanted pious blasphemies when their god has entered into them through mephytic vapours of a cave or through the nervous excitement of a stifled crowd in a chapel; but this, man was possessed of God as are the starry heavens or the calm, deep sea, or the snowy heights in Coleridge's The doc- vision of Mont Blanc. His life was brief and, at some by the life, crises, troubled and sorrowful. Cast out of the synagogue and cursed with a frightful curse that made him even to his own kin an object of horror, he yet retained the 1 Maxime occupare. THE FEEEDOM OF MAN 209 complete self-control to which vindictive thoughts are impossible. His life was so short that his doctrine of God and Man must have been practically completed within his own thoughts at the period when he might truly be described as 'destitute, afflicted, tormented.' Yet this ' intellectual love of God ' not only sustained his ' By their • fruits ye courage, but conquered irritability of temperament and shall know gave a sweetness of tone to his soul which made him beloved by the humble folk and children among whom he made his home. Nor was it any mere self-abnegation that kept him pure. For where right was concerned he could assert himself in the law-courts, and then instantly surrender almost all that justice awarded to his righteous claim. And though brought up in circumstances of con- siderable comfort, he could for the sake of independence content himself with the wage of a lens-grinder, and refused a proposed legacy to which he thought others had more claim. Enough : if there is any truth in the saying 1 By their fruits ye shall know them,' the ' intellectual love of God ' was to this Master a veritable inspiration. The utterances of saintly devotion and aspiration are often tuned in the key of human passion, and the rela- tions of the soul and its Saviour are sung in words taken from the vocabulary of earthly lovers. But Spinoza, whose love to God endured the tests we have described, will not permit such profanation. For no sooner has he claimed for love to God the sole dominion of the mind than he hastens to teach us that God is untouched by God uu- i i no i i r /-i • p -i touched by passion, and cannot be affected by Joy or Grief. And passion, there is added a corollary that, strictly speaking, God Prop- neither loves nor hates any one. o XV111. Milton's Satau. 210 ETHICS OF SPINOZA The intellectual love of God, at least in its highest form, has assuredly not been always possible to men. But even when they could not love as they ought, Spinoza No one maintains that no one could ever hate God. He did not God! iate know that about the very time when he wrote these words, a poet, of whom perhaps he had scarcely heard, Pf°P- was conceiving an Epic, of which the whole plot should turn on precisely such hatred burning in an archangel's soul. It must be conceded, however, that even to Milton's imagination such a conception would have been impossible had not his theology reduced the idea of the Eternal to that of a stupendous personality, greater indeed than all other personalities, yet still not so incommen- A concep- surable with them but that jealousies and mutual friction tion impos- ... _ Tr . . „ sibieto should be possible. Whereas if the great poet could have so far transcended his reputed 'Arianism' as to realise that ultimate Being must needs include all being, he would scarcely have ventured on so hazardous a plot. Unless indeed his intention had been to show that the myths of the Hebrews were woven out of human warp and woof, precisely like those of the Greeks, and were therefore fit material for similar poetic broidery. as ex- But now let us note how Spinoza sustains his confident pounded by t x Spinoza, denial that any one could ever hate God. His proof is indeed fine spun and technical, but as usual has common- p sense at the back of it. ' The idea of God which is in us ' xviii - is adequate and perfect. 1 Therefore, so far as we con- template God, we are active, not passive. 2 Consequently 1 Prop, xlvii., Pt. II. 2 'The mind's actions {i.e. spontaneous activities) spring only from adequate ideas; but passions {i.e. passivity to undue external influence) depend entirely on inadequate ideas.' (Prop, iii., Pt. in.) THE FREEDOM OF MAN 211 there can be no feeling of grief having the idea of God as its correlate. (Literally, with the concomitant idea of God.) That is, no one can hold God in hatred.' The practical bearing of this technical and abstract Expiana- ... tion. argument is surely not far to seek. For it is impossible for any one to hate the whole Universe. If a pessimist The Uni - ■* t x verse ade- thinks he does, it is because he is fixing his mind on a quateiy • p conceived part only — as, for example, on the incidence of death and cannot be suffering and unequal fortune. That is, in the Master's way of putting it, the pessimist suffers under inadequate, confused ideas — certainly f God is not in all his thoughts ' — and therefore he is passive to undue influence from without. But if such a man could enlarge his thought so as to get a more adequate idea of that perfect Whole in which the subjects of his confused thought are neces- sary incidents, his feeling would be changed. Nay, supposing him to see things as they are eternally, his inadequate ideas would be transfigured into intellectual love. Or if it be said that a Universe which involves in its necessary sequences much mental and physical suffer- ing must be bad, or at best imperfect, the answer is that such an argument assumes man to be the final cause of a Universe which has no final cause at all. And such an assumption is surely not one of reason but of passion. Whereas, if we would only follow out, as far as faculty allows us, the maze of sequences by which the things of which we complain do as a matter of fact — without being designed or intended for it — maintain natural order and, if we may so speak, keep the Universe together as an eternal Whole, we should to some extent understand the 212 ETHICS OF SPINOZA causes of sin and sorrow; and Reason would take the place of Passion. A hard it seems, however, a hard saying that he who loves God saying. Prop. xix. cannot strive to have God's love to him in return. But according to the Master such an endeavour would be contrary to the preceding proposition that God cannot be touched by passion, and therefore cannot love or hate. Many Churches have indeed authoritatively pronounced that God is ' without body, parts, or passions.' But they have not dared to be consistent in the application of their creed. Spinoza therefore makes no innovation in doctrine on this point. His only distinction is that he consist- ently adheres to what he says. For he maintains that for a man to desire that God should personally love him is only a proof that the man does not love God ; because it is a wish that the Eternal should cease to be God. Practical Let us try to put the truth more plainly, if with less meaning. severe accuracy than the Master. When a man desires that God should love him, he thinks of God as outside of him, a separate personality whose favour he would win. But such a thought is utterly and fundamentally opposed to Spinoza's central doctrine that God is not some one separate from us, but our essence and completion. As 'parts and proportions' we may very well love and worship the ' wondrous Whole ' ; for to our finite Mode of existence the joy we have in the Universe is accom- panied by the idea of an external cause, the majesty of heaven and earth. But the idea of the Whole severally considering and loving the 'parts and proportions' is much too anthropomorphic ; for it suggests a conscious- ness located in a brain and contemplating its body, a THE FREEDOM OF MAN 213 conception absolutely inconsistent with Spinoza's doctrine of God. And yet though this particular suggestion must be In wnat J . . sense we condemned as misleading, there is surely a sense in which may still • -n it t • • think of an we may triumph in an Eternal Love toward us. This is eternal love indicated in a brief passage toward the end of the book (Prop, xxxvi., Coroll.) : { God, inasmuch as He loves Him- self, loves men ' ; because men are parts and proportions of God ; ' and consequently the Love of God toward men, and the intellectual Love of the Mind toward God, are one and the same.' For the Infinite, at least to our com- prehension, is compact of innumerable parts which all draw toward each other. Gravitation, cohesion, chemical affinity in the physical world ; sympathy, brotherhood, the enthusiasm of Humanity in the spiritual world, are symbolic of forces beyond our imagination which keep all things eternally One. And by their means we sometimes attain heights of contemplation from which the inspira- tion of Love that saved Coleridge's Ancient Mariner represents a grander mood than mere love of bird or beast or man. It is a sense of all things working together in a perfection beyond our thoughts. And of the blessed influences here implied we are as much the objects as star or flower, landscape beauty or human genius. The complacency of the Universe in its self-awareness, the love of God toward Himself, as Spinoza has it, includes us in its embrace, and that is enough. These lessons on the soul's supreme good are concluded by a declaration of the spotless purity and broad human sympathies that always attend it. For ' this love toward The true God cannot be soiled by any passion of envy or jealousy ; 214 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Prop. xx. "but the more men we conceive to be united to God by the same bond, the more is this love strengthened.' 1 Lord, are there few that be saved ? ' asked one of the followers of Jesus, a question suggestive of a desire to magnify the preciousness of salvation by the extent of its contrasted denial to the many. Such was not the spirit of Jesus, spirit of though it is said that He made the question a text for an Tertullian. ° x exhortation to each man to make his calling and election sure. But Tertullian represented in himself too truly the tendency of the Church when he described the spec- tacle of Hell as heightening the ecstasies of Heaven. The better We must not, however, forget or minimise the generous spirit ot a ° our own sympathies of later churchmen, especially in our own day, who have striven to interpret the opinions of aliens and heretics as being fundamentally identical with the orthodox faith. But assuming the creeds to be true, and the Bible to be or contain 'God's Word written,' such efforts, generous though they may be, are a severe strain on veracity and common- sense. For the emphasis laid by the creeds on a right belief, an emphasis often taking an imprecatory form, makes the appreciation of any good- ness apart from right belief consciously inconsistent and halting. It is only Spinoza's ' intellectual love of God,' which, like a clear sunny sky, can receive and transform and adorn the clouds of sacred myth and even the smoke of superstition, so that we may come to love them as they are transfigured there. The laboured faith of Augus- tine, the bright common-sense and kindly feeling of Chrysostom, Wesley's zeal for the salvation of souls, are, no less than the altruism of Agnostics and the increasing mysticism of Science, germs of a higher religion which THE FREEDOM OF MAN 215 only find their final fruition in the intellectual love of God as All in All. In the Scholium following the above proposition, but which for our purpose it is not necessary to quote here, the Master tells us that he has now completed his doctrine of salvation from the Passions, and that he will proceed to treat of the immortality of the soul. This is Concerning r J lmmortal- not indeed his phrase ; for the thesis, as announced by ity. himself, is this : that the human mind cannot be utterly Prop. xxiii. destroyed with the body, but something of it remains which is eternal. Yet after all, the subject which he does discuss is that commonly described as the immortal- ity of the soul. Here occur three propositions dealing with that per- R f e ^ ons plexing antithesis between man as mortal 1 and man and soul. under the aspect of eternity, which has puzzled the most sympathetic students of the Master. I will first quote the propositions and then give my own view of the meaning. 1 Prop. XXI. The mind cannot imagine anything nor can it remember past events except while the Body continues to exist.' Now the whole spirit and purpose of Spinoza's teaching Notmateri- alistic. forbids us to tolerate for a moment anything like a ' materialistic ' interpretation of these words. For as the * demonstration ' shows, the proposition depends on the theory that the mind and the body are each respectively correlated finite modes of two Attributes — Thought and Extension — each of which expresses the same divine More properly — man as a finite group of apparent successions. 216 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Substance. They are therefore the same thing under different aspects. The Body « p r0 p # XXII. Nevertheless there is necessarily given in as a divine . * ° idea. God an idea which expresses the essential being of this and *v the other 1 human Body under the aspect of eternity.' For ' God is not only the cause of the existence of this and the other body ' — i.e. an appearance in temporal suc- cession — ' but also of its essential being, which must, of course, be conceived through God's own essential being,' and that because it is involved therein by a kind of eternal necessity. 2 But this proposition will be better discussed in connection with the following. 'Prop. XXIII. The human Mind cannot be entirely V/ destroyed with the Body, but of it something remains which is eternal.' To get at the common-sense underlying these transcen- dental utterances we must recall the Master's doctrine The truth that between Eternity and Time there exists no relation Eternity, at all. They are absolutely incommensurable. Eternity is not ' everlasting duration/ nor is Time a fragment of Eternity. As to duration, it is impossible to explain it except by the illusions 3 necessarily involved in finite con- sciousness. 3 But all philosophers and even contemplative 1 I.e. as I understand it, each several human body has its own several divine idea — or rather is that idea. 2 The latter words are a paraphrase, and not a rendering of idque cetema quadam necessitate. But I think I give the meaning. For we are referred to Prop. xvi. , Pt. I. , which teaches that by necessity of the divine nature an infinite number of things in infinite variety — that is, all things within the scope of infinite thought — must arise. 3 It is a very hasty and utterly baseless criticism on such a view of finite consciousness, to say that it 'makes all life a lie.' Illusions may be relatively true. Thus a ' straight staff bent in a pool ' is really bent THE FREEDOM OF MAN 217 poets have generally agreed that to the thought-attribute — or self-awareness — of God there can be no temporal succession. To say that Infinite Being lives in an 'eternal Fallacy of an 'eternal .Now may be equally futile. For the notion is generated now.' by our experience of a constant transition from past to future, and proverbially represents nonentity. For ' Now ' perishes when we think of it. Nevertheless, though Eternity may be to us only a dim but great sur- mise of truth, necessities of thought compel us to believe that in the self-awareness of the Eternal all things that we call past and present exist at once. And therefore all Bodies and all Minds of endless generations are unbe- gotten and imperishable ideas in Infinite Thought. Now this consentaneous being of all ideas at once is real, while Yetetemity the succession of generations is an illusion of finite con- sciousness. And it is this reality, unattainable to mortal wnile time is made up thought except in some momentary ecstatic glimpse, of illusions, which the Master has in view when he speaks of Body and Mind c in the aspect of eternity.' It is likely enough that this may bring small comfort to those who insist that the everlasting duration of a finite ' self ' is an essential condition of bliss. But for many, and for a rapidly in- creasing number, it will be sufficient to know that while their illusive duration is as the twinkling of an eye, they are eternal in the thought of God. so far as sight is concerned, and the artist so renders it. Only when the apparently bent staff has to be seized or handled below the water must a correction bo made. But the relative truth of the illusions of finite consciousness has an indefinitely wider range, and their relative truth can, within that range, always he verified. It is only when dealing with matters transcending sensuous experience, but not wholly beyond the interests of Reason, that the fact of those illusions be- comes clear. 218 ETHICS OF SPINOZA F. D. Maurice on eternal life. 1 Flower in the crannied wall.' Prop. xxv. Pt. L, Cor. The doctrine of the late F. D. Maurice and of other more or less orthodox Christians on the subject of eternal life is clearly allied to, if not influenced by, this teaching of Spinoza. For it insists on an incommensurable differ- ence between eternity and time. Not only so ; but devout holders of this doctrine have been entirely indifferent to the attractions of a narrower heaven. For the supreme blessedness according to them is to 'lay hold on eternal life/ and to live it now. The duration of the limited self is then a matter of quite secondary import. 1 To this view of eternal life everything is a mani- festation of God, and therefore ' the more we understand individual objects the more do we understand God.' (Prop, xxiii.) This follows from the truth enunciated in Part I., that ' individual things are nothing but affec- tions or Modes of the divine Attributes, by which God's Attributes are expressed in a particular and limited manner.' And Tennyson might have had the above pro- position in mind when he wrote his often-quoted lines to the flower in the crannied wall : 1 But if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is ! ' Yet how many have quoted with delight this mystical and musical lyric without ever suspecting its essential Pantheism ! The fane- But in order that this religious contemplation of indi- tionof & r intuition in vidual objects may attain the vision of God, it is neces- our Weltan- scliauuny , 1 To labour this point further here would be out of place ; but I maybe permitted to refer to The Religion of the Universe, Macmillan and Co., 1004. THE FEEEDOM OF MAN 219 sary that we should grasp things by the third kind of knowledge, that is, by intuition. c The highest attainment Prop. xxv. of the mind and its supreme virtue is to understand things by the third kind of knowledge.' Now, of course, it would be absurd to attribute to a man of such scienti- fic attainments as made him the valued correspondent of the foremost scientists of his time the crude notion that intuition can dispense with the labour of research. Jiut \s what he meant was that the recognition of ourselves and all things as 'parts and proportions of one wondrous Whole ' i s moE £~akin to the insight by which we grasp a ( universal truth than to the logical process of -induction. ) For, he adds, ' the apter the mind is to understand things hop. xxvi. by this third kind of knowledge the more does it desire J to understand ' them so. That is, it is a habit of mind / which consistently sees things in their divine relations. And then he tells us that ' from this thirdJdnd_of_know- Perfect ■ peace. ledge springs supreme contentment of the mind.' The Prop, religious faith here involved may be better discussed farther on under the final propositions of the book. Meantime, whether the 'demonstration' satisfies us or not, it is well to take note of it. ' The supreme virtue of the Mind is to know God or to understand things by the third kind of knowledge (intuition). And this virtue is all the greater in proportion as the Mind has a fuller knowledge of things by this kind of knowledge. Therefore he who knows things by this kind of knowledge passes into the highest perfection of man. Consequently (by the previous definition of joy) he is affected by supreme Joy which is accompanied by the idea of himself and his own virtue. Accordingly from this kind of knowledge springs the most perfect peace that can be given.' 220 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Points to Here note that the knowledge of God is treated as be noted ° in the simply another phrase for the intuition of things as they above. , are — in eternity, of course, and not m time. Note again that ' the idea of himself and his own virtue ' is not to be taken as suggestive of vanity or self-complacency. For throughout the Ethics man is treated as having no real self but God — i.e. as a finite modification of divine Attributes expressing the divine substance. The ' idea of himself and his own virtue' is therefore equivalent to the realisation of his place in the divine nature. Again, the word 'virtue' is not to be confined to its English connotations ; for it includes fulness of spiritual life, and moral force. These observations may help us when we consider the practical application of the truth. The next four propositions (xxviii.-xxxi.) may, for our purpose, be passed over with a mere mention of their general bearing. For while necessary in the Master's view to the Euclidean process of his argument, they do not obviously help the religious application we have in The tem- view. They turn upon the doctrine that all things may eteraai be regarded either under a temporal aspect, which has things. ° only relative truth, or under the aspect of eternity, that is, their unity in God. We then come to Proposition xxxii. : — ' We delight in whatever we understand by the third kind of knowledge (intuition), and our delight is accompanied with the idea of God as its cause.' No one can deny that there is force in the brief 'demonstration.' From this kind of knowledge arises the highest possible contentment, that is (by a previous THE FREEDOM OF MAN 221 definition), Joy, and this, moreover, accompanied by the j^$?J n of idea of one's self, and consequently accompanied by ' the alld its 9,Sp6CI» idea of God as its cause.' That is, every one who sees toward . eternity clearly a universal truth, even if it be only mathematical, and God. but much more if it be moral, finds a keen intellectual pleasure in it. This pleasure is inevitably accompanied by joy in the consciousness of possessing such a power, and the mind accustomed to see all things under the aspect of eternity necessarily refers both power and joy to its true self in God. The corollary here also has an obvious bearing on religion. 1 From the third kind of knowledge necessarily springs the intellectual love of God. For from this kind of knowledge springs Joy accompanied by the idea of God as its cause, that is to say, the love of God, not as though we regarded Him as present, but in so far as we realise His eternity ; and this is why I call the love of God "intellectual." ' We are then told that ' this intellectual love of God is eternal ' (Proposition xxxiii.) — that is, unrelated to time or succession. Then the Master seems to bethink him that this ' intellectual love ' might to some appear incon- sistent with his definition of Love as ' Joy accompanied ^mtions by the idea of external cause.' For God is not ' an fckras. • vi - external cause,' nor has He 'presence' such as a finite external cause can have. True, the epithet ' intellectual ' should guard against any confusion with temporal passion. But then how can an eternal love, having neither begin- ning nor end, be called by the same name as a passion that seizes us like a magic spell and to which the sweet uncertainties of hope and fear seem essential ? For answer a Scholium is added : — 222 ETHICS OF SriNOZA 'Although this Love toward God has had no beginning, yet it possesses all the perfections (charms) 1 of Love just as though it had an origin, as we supposed just now. 2 Nor is there any difference except that the Mind has possessed as eternal those perfections which we have supposed to accrue to it, and has possessed them with the accompanying idea of God as the eternal cause. Now if Joy consists in the passage to a greater perfection, surely Blessedness must consist in this, that the Mind is endowed with perfection itself.' Hoping that the difficulties of this utterance may be at any rate alleviated by concluding remarks to follow, I pass on. Anxious to keep his doctrine of eternal life apart from the carnal notion of immortality, the Master, in another proposition (xxxiv.), shows that only in con- nection with the body in its temporal aspect (durante) can the Mind be subject to passions; and he adds a Scholium : — 4 If we regard the ordinary opinion of men we shall see that they are conscious of the eternity of their Mind, but that they confuse this with duration and identify it with the imagination or memory supposed to remain after death.' Our Love Let us take together the two following propositions His i°ov e S to (xxxv. and xxxvi.), for the latter is the complement of the Himself. f ormerj an( j united they throw perhaps as much light as ^ our half-opened spiritual eyes can receive on eternal life and eternal love. 1 God loves Himself with an infinite intellectual love.' 1 The intellectual love of the Mind toward God is the very 1 Perfecliones ; but what arc the perfections of Love unless its charms which bind us in delight ? 2 In the corollary quoted above. THE FREEDOM OF MAN 223 love with which God loves Himself, not in so far as He is infinite, but in so far as He can be manifested through the essential being of the human mind viewed under the aspect of eternity. 1 That is to say, the intellectual love of the Mind toward God is part of the infinite love with which God loves Himself.' Perhaps the best way of dealing with these grand but difficult utterances will be to offer a paraphrase which a para- must go for what it is worth, though I think it presents offered. in contemporary forms of thought the real meaning of the Master. At the very beginning of this work we remarked that our difficulty in understanding Spinoza often arises from an erroneous assumption that be is using language familiar to theologians in approximately their sense of the terms. And this is the case here ; for Earthly rLSSOP13.tlOT1^ divine love — whether of man to God or God to man — lin^erm^ is — with reverence be it spoken — commonly supposed JJJvinc to have something in it akin to earthly passion. To love ' what an extent this was carried even among the most spiritual of the Hebrews is well known to students of the Prophets. And though Christianity exercised a highly refining influence, yet something of the old earthly asso- ciations remained. For St. Paul was not averse to pic- turing the union of the saints and their Saviour as a betrothal. And in Revelation the marriage supper of the Lamb is thought a fitting emblem of the blessed consum- mation of Christ's work. But against any such misinterpretation Spinoza guards Excluded by the saving epithet 'intellectual,' which is applied first pi^ he e t c in . to man's love toward God, and by implication to the love tellectua1 -' 1 Be it remembered that this essential behiL' is in God. 224 ETHICS OF SPINOZA of God for Himself, including man. 1 If it be asked how can Love be intellectual ? the reply is that the phrase is an adaptation of language to a transcendental idea, or let us say a modus loquendi. For the word Love, with its associations of admiration and satisfaction, and warmth of sentiment and self-devotion, comes nearest to what Spinoza wants to express. But its other connotations of passion — in the sense of passivity — and exclusive or peculiar possession of the beloved object, and longing for reci- procal exclusive love, must be shut out. Therefore it is that he uses the epithet ' intellectual.' Blessedness The idea thus becomes that of a joyful and even of peace . . . . with the triumphant contemplation of the Universe as a living Whole, one, undivided, indivisible and eternal; perfect as a Whole, and therefore perfect in every part. It is even perfect in ourselves, if we could see things aright. Because though it has not its being for us, that is, to gratify our whims, or even to fulfil our inadequate ideals, yet one way or another, even in our faults and pains, we do our infinitesimal part toward making the infinite Per- fection what it is. But the advantage of the free man over the unfree, or slaves of passion, is that he does this willingly, as an ' adequate cause,' not trespassing beyond the divine thought of himself into the divine thought of other things which are incomplete except upon an infinite survey. This Love ' There is nothing given (existent) in Nature that is SeT contrary to this intellectual Love or which could cancel 1 ' Hence it follows that God in so far as He loves Himself loves men, and consequently that the Love of God toward men and the intellectual love of the Mind toward God is one and the same thing.' (Prop, xxxvi., Coroll.) s 1111 THE FEEEDOM OF MAN 225 it.' (Prop, xxxvii.) For proof the Master is content to say that ' this intellectual Love follows inevitably from the nature of the Mind in so far as that nature is considered as eternal truth in and through the nature of God.' If, therefore, anything were conceivably able to cancel it, the result would be to make that false which, by hypothesis, is eternally true. Which is absurd. If we are unaffected, as probably we are, by such a ' proof,' may it not be because we are even yet insufficiently possessed of the Master's Gospel that we are one with God ? With a curious sensitiveness to any apparent break in the long chain of his argument, Spinoza here recalls the axiom in Part iv., which assumes that ' there is no individual thing in Nature which is not surpassed in potency by some other individual thing' capable of destroying it. But that axiom he now tells us does not affect the impregnable persistence of the intellectual Love of God ; for this is neither individual nor temporal, and that axiom obviously referred to individual things in their relation to time and place. The Master now recalls his promise, given in Part IV., Prop, xxxix., Schol., to say more on the problem of Problem of death. Those who insist on personal immortality accom- panied by a persistent sense of identity cannot derive from his words any support for their hope. ' In propor- tion as the Mind understands a greater number of things by the second and third kind of knowledge ' (viz. reasoned experience, i.e. induction, and intuition), 'in that propor- tion does it suffer less from the passions, which are evil, and the less does it fear death.' I shall try to paraphrase the proof and a following v 226 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Scholium. The second and third kinds of knowledge, especially the third, or intuition, confront us with eternity as incommensurable with time. But the more we realise the eternal life of the Universe or God, a life in which we share, the more constant is our better nature against Death the assaults of passion. Not only so, but the more we only our realise God's eternal life the less important do our inci- to the dental and temporal interests in the world of succession succession, appear to be. Or, in other words, what remains of us is of far more import than what seems to perish in death. Therefore it is well to cultivate those kinds of knowledge which confront us with eternity. On this we can only say, ' he that is able to receive it, let him receive it.' The same thing has had to be said of other gospels in times long past. But this involved no admission either of their falsehood or of their inadequacy to the needs of a more fully evolved mankind. Again, taking up the apparently dropped threads of Religious earlier argument, the Master now shows that a variously value of a . -- . - mobile and mobile and adaptable body is not only useful to temporal adaptable ' — - "Z '. ._ ... 1 " body. needs, as shown in Part iv., rrop. xxxvm., but that it makes for a better appreciation of eternal life and leaves less to perish at death. The argument is that to which we are now so much accustomed. As said before, we are not to leave out of account the nervous system and brain when interpreting the meaning of a variously mobile and adaptable body. Eemembering this, we may well agree that such a body, to which on Spinoza's theory the Mind corresponds, 1 will be a good instrument for the 1 That is, as a correlated finite Mode of another divine Attribute, that of Thought. THE FREEDOM OF MAN 227 work of the Mind in controlling evil passions according to the rule of the intellect, and of referring all bodily affections to the idea of God. Thus the love of God takes possession of the Mind, and whatever that Love possesses belongs to eternity. In asking whether any, and if so what amount of, comrnon-sense is at the root of such speculations, wejiad better not givejtoo rigid anjLntopjetatifln to the Master's V doctrine of the higher mind and its outlook on eternity. For thousands have preferred noble aims to mean ones How far and a larger spiritual to a lesser and lower good, who actual life, would have been shocked had they been suspected of sharing Spinoza's views of religion. And it will be found that among such men a considerable majority possessed a physical constitution of great mobility and adaptability. The statesman whose disappearance in the last year of the last century left a blank not yet filled, was admired by professional judges of the human frame even more for his physical than for his mental gifts. 1 This is not the place to pursue such a question ; I only suggest that there is more in the Master's theorem than airy speculation. The following Scholium may help to confirm the suggestion ; and the idea of education with which it concludes is well worth attention in these times. ' Since human Bodies are susceptible of very many adap- tations, wc cannot doubt the possibilit} T of their being 1 Apparent exceptions arc not always really such. There i pathos in the recollection that ]5enediet f a delicate handicraft showed that, notwithstanding disease, he possessed a variously mobile and adaptable body. 228 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Body and correlated with Minds which have a large knowledge of ftafree themselves and of God, and whose greatest or characteristic l man. part is eternal, so that they scarcely fear death at all . But to make this plainer, be it here noted that we live in a course of incessant change, and according as we are changed for the better or the worse we are said to be happy or unhappy. For he who from an infant or a boy is changed into a corpse is called unhappy. On the contrary, if we are enabled to live through the whole period of life with a sound Mind in a sound Body, that is counted as happiness. And truly he who like an infant or a child has a Body adapted to very few uses and mainly dependent on external causes, has a Mind which, considered in itself alone, 2 has scarcely any consciousness of itself or of God or of surrounding things. On the other hand, he who possesses a Body adapted to very many (actions) has (also) a Mind which, considered in itself alone 2 has a large consciousness of itself and God and of surrounding things. In this life, therefore, we endeavour as soon as possible that the Body of infancy, so far as its nature permits, and so far as is consistent with health (ei conducit), shall be changed into another Body such as may be adapted to many uses, and may be correlated to a Mind as fully conscious as possible of itself and of God and of surrounding things; the ultimate aim being that everything concerned (merely) with its memory of self or fancy shall in comparison with its intellect be of little consideration.' 1 Proicipua ; but the notion is not so much what is obviously chief or conspicuous as what makes the contemplative mind that which it is. Skilful movements, strenuous action, successes in management are temporal — of the season, the hour, or the moment. But that which is characteristic of the great mind is the outlook beyond narrow surroundings, or, as Spinoza says, on eternity. As to their attitude toward death, the reference is not to any lingering dread of ' the King of Terrors,' but rather to the apprehension of annihilation. It is this that almost vanishes when they realise how much of them is eternal as being one with God. 2 That is, apart from the impact of external impulse, or slavery to habit and routine. THE FEEEDOM OF MAN 229 In interpreting these last words it must be remembered that for Spinoza 'intellect' was not a mental logic- chopping machine, but the higher nature which sees things as they are. Imaginatio, which I have here rendered ' fancy/ was to him a process of fictitious image-making, a travesty of things as they are. And the memory of which he speaks as nothing worth is self- centred always, hovering about one's own achievements and feelings. If this be borne in mind we shall be no longer shocked by his exaltation of that ' intellect ' in which the love of God is enshrined. Still dwelling upon the Mind's eternity apart from personal immortality, the Master supports his idea with the following proposition (xl.). 1 In proportion as each thing has more of perfection, in Perfection that proportion it is the more active and the less passive ; activity, and contrariwise, the more it is active the more perfect it is.' We have learned as early as the beginning of Part II. Perfection • • n. depends on that perfection means reality, that is, identity with God, reality. not necessarily as infinite but as forming by a modifica- tion of some Attribute the essence of the 'creature.' Again, activity does not mean fussiness or even busy-ness, but spontaneity free of external compulsion. Suffering, too, may be more than passive. The martyrs were never more truly active in Spinoza's sense than when giving their lives for the faith. What the above proposition means, therefore, is that the more the Mind realises its place in Clod, the less is it passive to external influences and the more spontaneous are its functions. And contrariwise, the more spontaneous its functions are, the more does it realise its place in God. 230 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Case of For illustration let us a .of goodness novel or peculiar to himself m spinozas final assertion for its own of the measureless worth of goodness apart from reward tudly in- " for its achievement, or punishment for its neglect, yet spinoza's it is of great interest to see how appropriate the doctrine Et 1CS ' 1 Of. 1 Pet. i. 15, 22, 23; ii. 15-20; iii. 17; 2 Pet. i. 5-9; John xvii. 3, 22, 23; etc. etc. - Isaiah xxii. 13, etc. 232 ETHICS OF SPINOZA is as the topstone of his laboriously constructed temple of Ethics. 1 Even if we did not know that our Mind is eternal, yet we should regard as of supreme importance Piety and Re- ligion, and everything whatever which in the Fourth Part we showed to be correlated with strength of Mind and Generosity.' implied in The proof consists simply in recalling the high inter- trine of pretation put in the earlier Parts on self-preservation. vation, eSer It is the higher self, as recognised by Reason, that is to be preserved, not the lower self swayed by passion. And the claims of Generosity and strength of Mind as factors in the higher self were maintained altogether apart from questions of time or immortality. They therefore remain independent of either. The Scholium appended to the above is not very attractive, but it is of interest : — ' The ordinary creed of the multitude seems to be different. For most people appear to believe that they are free only so far as they are allowed to yield to lust, and that to whatever extent they are bound to live by prescription of divine law to this extent they give up their independence. 1 Piety, therefore, and religion, and everything whatever correlated with strength of Mind, they regard as burdens which they hope to shake off at death and to receive the reward of their slavery, that is, of their Piety and Religion. Nor is this hope alone their inducement, but also, and more particularly, in living so far as their frivolity and feebleness of mind allows, according to the prescriptions of divine law, they are 1 De suo jure cedere — the phrase 'give up their rights' may be more literal, but scarcely gives the spirit so well. Besides, to be 'sui juris' is to be independent. THE FREEDOM OF MAN 233 actuated by fear of being punished with dreadful torments after death. And if men were not pervaded by this hope and fear — if, on the contrary, they thought that Mind and Body perished together — that there remained no longer existence for wretches weary of the burden of Piety, they would return to their natural bent, they would take lust as the only guide, and would prefer the chances of fortune above (their better) self. Now this seems to be not less absurd than for a man, because good food will not preserve his body for ever, to betake himself rather to poisons, and stuff himself with deadly potions. Or it is as if, because a man finds the Mind to be neither eternal nor immortal, he should therefore prefer to be a fool and to live without Reason. But all this is so absurd that it scarcely deserves consideration.' The warmest admirers of this Master must wish that he had not written the above Scholium. It is true he does not, like St. Paul, appear to sanction the ignoble maxim, ' Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' a caveat But he attributes this meanness to the vast majority of mankind. And one wonders how many he expected to influence by his noble Ethics. Nay, we cannot believe that the kindly, gentle soul who could descend from the solitary chamber of his sublime musings and talk, at the evening meal, with landlady and children about the church service, and the sermon of the day, or even lesser interests of their daily life, could regard as mercenaries and cowards the good, humble people who loved him. Such a thought could not have been true then, and it is not true now. The fact is that Spinoza's valgus, Spinoza's or multitude, think very little indeed either of death or frJakof what comes after it. From the pulpit or religious tion a,gm platform we may occasionally — though much more rarely than of old — hear very emphatic or even lurid language 234 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Average on such subjects. But it is only hysterically inclined humanity wholly in- hearers who are much disturbed by it. The vast majority, perhaps ninety-five out of every hundred, go home to their dinner or their supper and enjoy their meal with as healthy an appetite as though they believed neither in heaven nor hell. Besides, medical men and other attendants on the dying know that not two out of a hundred are ever troubled by fears of a world to come. To what then is the average good conduct and kindliness of the vast majority of the multitude to be attributed ? It is un- deniable that religious traditions have a certain influence. But it is only so far as these traditions fall in with the course of moral evolution that advances almost inde- Proximate pendently of them. And the course of this moral evolu- causes of x ^ average -tion proceeds from experience of utility to contentment goodness. with results of useful maxims ; and from contentment with results to the formation of a standard ; and from the formation of a standard to the slow crystallisation of an ideal, which is not wholly wanting among the ' multi- tude,' but reaches effulgence only in solitary souls like Spinoza. The uncultured good people, the ordinary church and chapel goers who lustily sing about heaven on the Sunday and honestly mind their business during the week without much thought of things supernal, have their ideals, though these may be dim and veiled. Let any one propose to them a mean trick in trade, or treachery to a friend, and it will soon be proved that they, no less than Spinoza, though within a narrower horizon, value goodness for its own sake without the slightest reference to heaven or hell. THE FREEDOM OF MAN 235 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter ; for it is given in a nobler tone. ' Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself ; nor do we rejoice in that blessedness because we subdue our lusts ; but contrariwise, it is because we rejoice in it that we are therefore able to subdue our lusts.' The proof is as follows : — 'Blessedness consists in Love toward God, which Love springs from the third kind of knowledge (intuition); and therefore this Love is correlative with the Mind in as far as the latter is active ; and accordingly it is Virtue itself. 1 This was the first thing (to be proved). Next, in proportion as the Mind exults more in this divine Love or Blessedness, in that proportion it understands the more, that is, it has the greater power over the affections and also suffers the less from evil affections. Thus it is because the Mind rejoices in this divine Love or Blessedness that it has the power of restraining lusts. And because man's power of controlling his lusts is the prerogative of intellect alone, therefore no one exults in blessedness as a consequence of controlling the affections, but contrariwise, the power of controlling the affections springs from blessedness itself.' ' Thus I have finished all that I had wished to set forth concerning the power of the Mind over the affections and concerning its freedom. From all this clearly appears the surpassing worth of the Wise man as compared with the ignorant, who is driven by lust alone. For the lattei besides being distracted by a host of external influences, and 1 Because by Def. viii., Pt. iv., Virtue and Tower arc identical, i.e. power of effecting such things as can be accounted for by, or find their adequate cause in, man's (divine) nature alone. I interpolate (divine) because wherever Spinoza speaks of a finite being's own nature, he means the Mode or modification of divine Attributes which constitutes the essence of that finite being. 23G ETHICS OF SPINOZA constantly deprived of true contentment of soul, lives also without a true sense of himself, of God, and of the world, and at what moment he ceases to suffer he also ceases to be. Whereas the Wise man, so far as he is (rightly) considered such, is rarely shaken in mind ; but being conscious of himself and of God and of the world in an aspect of eternal necessity, he never ceases to be, but for ever enjoys true contentment of soul. If now the path which I have indicated to such an attainment should seem very hard, yet still it can be found. And indeed it must be hard, since it is so rarely discovered. For if salvation were ready to hand, and could be found without much trouble, why should it be neglected by almost all mankind 1 But all noble attainments are as difficult as they are rare.' An appar- ent incon- sistency found also in the Christian Gospel. Sir Frederick Pollock, while acknowledging with pro- found sympathy the exalted moral tone of these final words, observes that ' in their literal sense they are not quite consistent ' with the Scholium to Proposition x. of this Part. For there we are told that ' whoever will assiduously study these lessons — for indeed they are not difficult — and will practise them, assuredly that man will within a short space of time be able generally to direct his actions by the dictates of Reason.' Whereas here it would appear that the very arduousness of the pathway to the life of Eeason explains why ' few there be who find it.' In the Gospel of Christ, however, as indeed the last-quoted words remind us, there is a strictly analogous appearance of inconsistency susceptible, as I shall suggest, of a like explanation. For we are told on the one hand that the most suitable subjects of the kingdom of Heaven are little children and child-like men and women, an instruction certainly suggesting that the entrance to that THE FREEDOM OF MAN 237 kingdom is c indeed not difficult.' And this is confirmed by the saying, ' My yoke is easy and my burden is light.' Yet, on the other hand, we are told ' strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.' Nay, ' many will seek to enter in and shall not be able.' Now, whatever be the various theological interpretations of the ' strait gate,' no one, so far as I am aware, has held that it is in any way incon- sistent with the facility of entrance promised to the child- like and the meek. The only difficulty is found in the average moral condition of mankind, which indisposes them to ' strive to enter in,' and which indeed sometimes plucks them back when they are half-way through the gate. But the difficulty is not in the gate : it is in the half-heartedness of the would-be pilgrims. Perhaps the same explanation in principle is applicable The life of to the apparent inconsistency between the two passages its strait in this Part of the Ethics. For in the former passage ga comparative ease of entrance on the life of reason is con- ditional on assiduity of thought and diligence in practice. If only those be given, any man may ' in a short space of time be able generally to direct his actions by the dictates of Reason.' Yes ; but there is here too a ' strait gate.' Inadequate ideas must be abandoned, or at least appreciated at their true worth. There must be a sincere and earnest craving for salvation from passion. There must be a total surrender of self-assertion beyond the limits of that finite Mode of the divine Attributes which is our essence and only being. No wonder then that in his mournful remembrance of the aversion of Man in every age to heroic moral endeavour the Master should 238 ETHICS OF SPINOZA in his last words magnify the need of earnestness if freedom is to be attained. 1 Does Much harder to interpret are those sentences in the Spiuoza teach 'con- epilogue, which, if the idea were not so utterly contrary ditional im- . . , .. n . . mortality'? to Spinoza s whole philosophy, might at first sight appear to have anticipated a doctrine very popular some thirty or forty j^ears ago, and known as f conditional immortality.' For we are told that the ignorant man (i.e. the slave of passion) ceases to exist when he ceases to suffer, whereas the wise man (i.e. the free man) never ceases to exist. Now, to get the right point of view here, we must remember the Master's reiterated warning against our inveterate confusion of eternity with infinite duration. But the eternal life which he himself lives is not in time at all. For when he was phenomenally subject to time he fixed his mind on God as All in All, and recognised The true that his true self was a finite Mode of God. Now in God ness of " there is no past nor future. Therefore Spinoza thought of himself under the aspect of eternity as a finite Mode of God, and thus having neither beginning nor end. Not only so ; but from the bewilderment occasioned by 1 Sir Frederick Pollock thinks the apparent inconsistency may be explained by the assumption that Spinoza contemplated the possibility of two grades in the life of reason — the one ' a practical standard . . . attainable by ordinary men,' the other a higher life of strenuous thought and 'contemplative science.' The suggestion is amply justi- fied by the analogy of similar grades in the great religions. But I venture to think that if Spinoza had intended this he would have expressed it more plainly. For it would obviously have facilitated the acceptance of his ideas, as similar concessions to the practical and social dilliculties of 'ordinary men ' quickened the spread of Buddhism and Christianity. I cannot help thinking that the above analogy with a similar inconsistency in the Gospel fits in better with the whole scheme of the Ethics. conscious- ness of eternal life. THE FREEDOM OF MAN 239 successive experiences of parts only of the divine Whole he sought relief in a vision of the Infinite Living Universe, within which everything has its serviceable place, and in which all discords are reduced to harmony. Even his intellect was baffled by the insoluble problem of the Many and the One. But in his view the best approximation man can make to a vision of the co-exist- ence of innumerable parts in one perfect eternal Whole is the conception of inevitable sequence. That is to say, importance we cannot image the Infinite as it is, in what we may doctrine of call its eternal moment of being. Yet we are sure that if sequence we could in vision see it as it is, we should recognise that every part is necessary to all the rest, and could not be otherwise than it is — without changing the whole Universe — that is, the eternal and changeless. But this is just what the doctrine of inevitable sequence teaches as mediat- i ,i P . • mi i ing between under the aspect of time. I hat is, it instructs us that the eternal though the necessities of our finite nature compel us to temporal. see things under the aspect of time, or as subject to succession, we are not on that account justified in deny- ing the fixity of relationship which all parts of the Whole must have under the aspect of eternity. Spinoza's Spinoza's \y eternal life, therefore, is a consciousness o.Lhimself as a finite Mode of God, and of the Universe as an infinity of divine Modes, all together constituting absolute perfec- tion. 1 Into this consciousness no thought of death enters. In his contemplations all things, past, present, and to come, work together for good, that is, are essential elements in 1 Not, of course, in the sense of B finished work, but in the sense of such absolute eoncinnity, that an infinite intellect — if the term he allowed— would realise the impossibility, or rather the inconceivability, of any smallest part being other than it is. 240 ETHICS OF SPINOZA the perfect Whole! And the change from the illusion of succession to the reality of co-existence cannot pos- sibly make him 'cease to be.' Therefore there is no disturbance of his serenity ; but being conscious of God and the world with a sense of eternal necessity, he for ever enjoys contentment of soul. The (morally) ignorant man, the slave of blind desire, is not so. For knowing nothing of his true relations to things as they are, he has no consciousness of his true self — as a Mode of God — no realisation of the apparent The fate world as God-manifest. And though we are not to forget slavery. that the ignorant man's body and soul have * an aspect of eternity,' he is not aware of it. He has no power to 'lay hold on eternal life.' His notion of existence is gratification of a perpetual craving, a craving only aggra- vated by attempts to stay it. And for him, when craving ceases, existence ceases too. True, this 'inadequate cause/ the (morally) ignorant man, is in God. But his idea of himself is inadequate because he is not content with the divine idea of himself, but confuses it with other things which do not belong to it. 1 He therefore mars it, and can have no conscious part in the eternal life of God. Thus the difference between the free man and the slave of blind desire is not a matter of external destiny in heaven or hell. It is rather a subjective difference, inasmuch as the former is conscious of eternal life and the other is not. ' The Eternal hnoweth the way of the righteous ; but the way of the ungodly shall perish.' 1 Prop, xi., Pb. ii. THE FREEDOM OF MAN 241 CONCLUSION The liberalism of present-day theology and what we Changes in may call the mystical tendencies of contemporary science f thought indicate enormous changes in the world of thought since Spinoza's the seventeenth century. And those to whom Spinoza day# is not merely a philosopher, but a seer, can hardly help asking themselves as they lay down his Ethics, how far those changes have made possible, or may in the near future make possible, a wider human reverence for his great vision of God. Of course there is no question here of the adoption or propagation of a religion in the ecclesi- astical sense. For that Shechinah is the emblem of no d they sect. It is rather the infinite background, ' dark with S^mty 6 excess of light,' from which all faiths of the world of wid ^ r ° ' apprecia- emercre. Nor does reverence for that vision of God {JS?. of o the ° m Ethics? necessarily involve an entire rejection of historic re- ligions. Indeed, long before Spinoza's day many a devout Christian has, in the innermost shrine of his soul, cher- ished a Weltanschauung impossible to distinguish from Pantheism. At the same time it must be acknowledged that any forced and obstinate adhesion to any fragment- ary article of faith which has lost its hold on a man's reason must needs incapacitate that man from appreciat- ing the larger faith. ' Truth in the inward parts/ a pos- session which makes merely self-willed belief impossible, is essential to the realisation of Spinoza's vision of God. Relations ofSpmozas The question asked above, then, amounts to this, doctrine of Putting aside subsidiary details of definition and of man to method, are there any signs that the world is nearer than thought. Q 242 ETHICS OF SPINOZA it was in Spinoza's day to his essential doctrines of God and man ? I think the question may fairly be answered I- in the affirmative. For, first, the mystery of matter, Spiritual . tendencies which is now more widely recognised than ever before in all theacknow- the history of thought, has obviously a certain spiritual myftery of suggestiveness which points in the direction of Spinoza's Substance One and Eternal. For instance, contemporary science has made Dalton's atomic theory utterly un- tenable, except, of course, so far as concerns its doctrine of definitely proportional combinations. But though this latter part of the doctrine is unassailed, the explanation of it by the hypothesis of ultimate and indestructible atoms has been practically abandoned. For these atoms have been dissolved away into something indistinguish- Practicaire- able from Boscovich's c centres of force.' The latter most currence to Boscovich's original thinker knew nothing, indeed, of ' electrons.' of force. But the substitution of that mystic word for his centres of force is rather a change of terms than of theory. The believers in the finality of the new views of matter may indeed rejoin with some plausibility that the above substitution is more than a mere change of terms, because the action of the presumed electric force in the infini- Facilities tesimal vortices formed of electrons is calculable and tion C and *' verifiable, which could hardly be said of Boscovich's do r n h ot atl ° n vague ' centres of force.' But why not ? Boscovich was ass°ure the y a g reat mathematician in addition to his other scientific fandamen- attainments. And it is incredible that he should have tal truth oi the work- propounded a theory which he did not see his way to thesis on maintain on mathematical principles. Indeed the pre- which they ± x r are based, sumed ' force ' without the epithet electric at each infini- tesimal centre into which Boscovich dissolved matter THE FEEEDOM OF MAN 243 away, was just as much subject to measurement and verification as it is with the epithet added to it. Nor should it be forgotten that one main attraction of John Dalton's theory was the facility and apparent complete- ness with which it lent itself to measurement, calculation, and verification. Yet all the same, we now know that the fundamental truth, which makes these calculations and verifications possible, must be something very different from Dalton's idea of hard, indestructible atoms. We are now asked to recognise, as the really ultimate New work- constituent of matter, an infinitesimal vortex formed in thesis, the ether by enormous electric force. But experience of vanished finalities surely justifies a healthy scepticism even in regard to such brilliant and fascinating theories as this. For the only term which is knowable to us in this new theory, or which belongs to what Spinoza calls ' common notions ' — that is, the common stock of human experience — is ' vortex/ a thing that can at any time be The vortex, exhibited on a large scale by any popular lecturer on science, or even by a skilful smoker of tobacco. Yet even though the thing signified by the word be thus producible on what, comparatively, may be called a gigantic scale, it is not easy to see how these complex revolving rings, with no stability and but momentary continuity, can help much to make conceivable the infinitesimal vortices in the ether whose prerogative it is to simulate, for an indefinite period and in many cases for icons, the supposed indestructible atom of Democritus, Lucretius, and Dalton. But beyond that word ' vortex ' there is no single term in the newest theories of matter that presents any clear 244 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Ether. image whatever to the mind. For as to the ' ether,' no one, however learnedly he may be able to calculate its 1 stresses ' or ' tensions/ and its undulations or vibrations, can pretend to have the remotest conception of what it is. And the mere fact that certain working hypotheses about its properties have been found to accord with mathematical calculations about the movements and action of light and electricity, proves nothing whatever as to the fundamental essence of the thing itself. For, as already noted, Dalton's working hypothesis about atoms seemed for many years to be amply verified by the uniform results of physical and mathematical research into chemical combinations. And yet we now know that there are no such things at all as indestructible, indivisible, unchangeable atoms, and that the laws of chemical combination must depend upon something else. Electricity. Then again, Electricity, which plays so large a part in the latest theories of Matter, is just as unknowable as the Ether. Scientific men can indeed measure its force, calculate its action, and harness it to engines. But there is scarcely a teacher of its mysteries who does not begin his lessons with a warning to his students that, however much they may learn about electricity, they must not expect to know what it is. The bearing Under these circumstances it would be unreasonable mystery of to ask us to allow that the new theories of Matter have reached — or have any prospect of reaching — finality. For if the seemingly solid atom, for ages the stronghold of materialistic science, has been found to be a bewildering whirl of swift electrons, who is to guarantee us that the electron itself will not reveal some time a still inner THE FEEEDOM OF MAN 245 world of forces yet unnamed ? To assume the impossi- bility of this would be as irrational as the hope sometimes cherished in bygone days that some impossible increase of microscopic power would discover the innermost core of matter, whether atom or otherwise, and so make it obvious to sense. Whereas experience, according to the witness of science, lends no encouragement whatever to such hopes. For we only know that the more the powers of the microscope have been increased, the more perfectly continuous and the more exquisite in refinement are organic tissues made to appear. Nor do inorganic sections or granules give any encouragement whatever to the hope that a step has been made toward unveiling the ultimate constituent parts. The truth is that the most recent theories of Matter, Modem so far from giving us a sense of finality by clearness of matter not definition, rather open up unexpected vistas of specula- S^TraS. 76 tion. And far in the perspective of these vistas is the s estlve - revelation of a Universe at once material, spiritual, and divine, such as fascinated Spinoza. For he was not a dreamer who dissolved away the material world into fancies of the mind. Nor could he tolerate the harsh dualism which makes 'Mind 5 and 'Matter' essentially alien to each other and wholly incommensurable. To\ him they were different forms of the same divine Beingknd the and, together with other endless modes of unrevealedy>inttothe infinite Attributes, constitute the Universe. But od such questions argument is out of place except to prove tendencies of thought or probabilities of future advance. And so far as this limited purpose is concerned, I believe I have shown some reasons for thinking that most recent >pmoza. 246 ETHICS OF SPINOZA II. The idea of creation discredited. Theory of universal death through loss of heat. Not a certain conclusion. theories of Matter point to a conception of the material Universe such as may easily in the future merge in that of Spinoza. Secondly, it is impossible to disguise the fact that where theories of a Creation, and of a Creator entirely separate therefrom, are still held, they are either un- willingly accepted on account of certain now discredited doctrines of catastrophe and ruin leading to the final death of all worlds and thereby implying the birth of the Universe in time ; or else they are tolerated through an amiable desire to reassure the fears of the multitude for the mythology the latter hold so dear. Now as to the former notion of a Universe gradually aggregating itself into a huge, congealed sphere, its very grotesqueness always repelled reverence even where knowledge was lacking to show its fallacy. Surely where the scale is infinite, no mortal man should presume to propound such a theory merely because a few orbs have apparently collided, or because the existence of innumerable dark orbs seems probable. The supposed inevitable process of congelation alternating with vapour- isation caused by new collisions on a continually growing scale until there shall be left only one inconceivably vast frozen orb, may quite fairly be regarded as a nightmare of mortal ignorance, rather than as the conclusion of inexorable logic. 1 1 I have quoted elsewhere scientific authority for this opinion {Religion of the Universe, p. 129, etc.), and it would be out of place to repeat here what has been there said. It may suffice here to refer to Sir Norman Lockyer's suggested cycle of star life, and to the interest- ing theory of 'shearing' collisions propounded by Professor Bickerton of Now Zealand. Quite recently also Professor Robert K. Duncan of Jetferson College, U.S.A., in his work The New Knowledge (London, THE FREEDOM OF MAN 247 But granted that no one, not even the most competent and learned of our instructors, can yet speak with any absolute certainty upon ultimate questions concerning the material Universe, surely here is an opportunity for loyalty to that instinct of faith of which theologians have been loud in praise. Why may not those of us whose souls are repelled by the grotesque theory of a dying Universe take advantage of the recent doctrine of * the will to believe ' ? I am aware that this doctrine The will to has been formulated and maintained in the interest of the curious temporary reaction which has of late inclined many learned, philosophic, and scientific men to return to the mythology of the early Christian centuries. But that doctrine is a two-edged weapon. For if some have an emotional propension toward a religious system of a personal Creator, personal Providence, revelation, incarna- tion and miracles related thereto, why may not others have an emotional propension to a system that loyally takes things as they are, and excludes alike a beginning and an end ? Why may we not feel an emotional pro- pension toward a faith that admits only one Being manifested by infinite Attributes, such as are subject to infinite modifications all keeping an eternal and un- broken order ? Surely the vision of the Universe is not less, but more impressive, not less but more divine, if we regard it as in its totality immune from all processes of manufacture or decay, as being in itself both substance and life ; and as offering for study neither origins nor Hodder and Stoughton, 1900) has given in Part vn., Chap, iii., a very judicial statement of the position of this question. In his summing- up he regards the eternity of the Universe as the conclusion more acceptable 'to most people of scientific training.' 248 ETHICS OF SPINOZA ends, but only the actual relations of its apparent parts. The real Indeed there is only one worthy reason to be given motive of J J ° temporary for the favour at present accorded by men of intellect to 'the will to believe' the old mythology, and this reason is involved in the inveterate tradition that the interests of morality and of the higher or spiritual life Fear for are bound up with that belief. But to adhere to tradi- the founda- . tion of tion on such a subject, to the neglect or a human ex- ' perience which far outranges that tradition, is scarcely reasonable. We must admit indeed that, by the very nature of religious evolution out of Animism through Polytheism and Henotheism to Monotheism with an out- a fear not look toward Pantheism, it has been inevitable that the anywide by greater number of lofty and saintly characters should human ° f nave been found among those who have striven to experience. ex p an( j an( j exalt and refine the idea of a personal God and of His varied dealings with mankind. Inevitable, I say, because that was precisely the stage of evolution at which it became possible for the spiritual nature of man to disengage itself, at least in part, from the coarse influences of Animism and Fetishism. But on the other hand, there are two noteworthy facts of world-wide religious evolution which distinctly forbid any hasty judgment in favour of the exclusive claims of the Judseo- Christian tradition to the guardianship of morality. For, first, this process of moral and spiritual refinement went Pagan on ani ongst so-called ' Pagans ' such, for example, as saints. ° . Socrates, Plato, Seneca, Tacitus, Marcus Aurelius, and a countless multitude of others forgotten or unforgotten. And, secondly, one of the most remarkable and wide- THE FREEDOM OF MAN 249 spread of all religious revivals, that of the Buddha, without denying any theories of deity, simply ignored them as entirely irrelevant to moral issues. But in all these cases alike, high moral aspiration and 'the enthusiasm of humanity' were found quite compatible with entire ignorance of, or else complete indifference to, the creeds of Moses and the Church. As for the claims of Pantheism to be the ultimate religion, those have been largely the subject of the preceding Handbook, and cannot be repeated here. My point now is simply that the acknowledgment of those claims has been delayed, not so much by Eeason as by the preoccupation of even the most thoughtful minds with the essential necessity to morality of belief in Creation, a personal God, and man's personal immor- tality. Take away this supposed necessity, which the widest survey of human experience contradicts, and the inherent unworthiness, incongruity, and absurdity of the theory of an ojrifex deus, making, minding, and mending the world, becomes patent, glaring, and repulsive. That there is at any rate a current of feeling and Signs of a growing opinion tending toward a recognition of this incongruity repulsion to is made probable and even apparent by the extremely miracle, vague and indefinite form in which the doctrine of Creation and a personal God is held, even under the influence of ' the will to believe.' For it has little, if anything at all, in common with the definite Chalda?o- Hebrew cosmogony received of old and, until our own early days, held by the Christian Church. And no wonder ; because, to the compilers of the Bible cosmogony, the Universe lay within so small a compass, as compared 250 ETHICS OF SPINOZA with the outlook of modern knowledge, that the analogy between a human builder of a palace or city and a celestial builder of heaven and earth did not seem at all impossible or even difficult of conception. Indeed the analogy is carried so far that the celestial craftsman is described as doing his work in successive stages, his superior might being indicated by the swiftness with which each stage is accomplished, as they occupy only one day each. But the anthropomorphic analogy involved in this progress by diurnal stages is too obvious for denial. It is not characteristic of omniscience and omnipotence which, presumably, could just as easily have made in one moment heaven and earth and all that in them is. But the reminiscence of the human workman was too strong ; and therefore the work was done by stages. 1 Superiority True, this mythical story, which in its present form Hebrew is certainly a late document, and adapted to a more cultured age than that of the original Chaldee or Sumerian myth, does not presume to ascribe to Jahweh the use of tools or instruments, or even the application of hands 2 to the work. With a sublimity generally and deservedly recognised, the narrative makes the word of God the sufficient means for separating the light from the darkness, for dividing the ' firmament ' from the ocean, for establishing the bounds of sea and land, as 1 Any attempt to see in the creation days a forecast of evolution is surely a harsh and incongruous insult to the simplicity of the ancient tale. 2 In other parts of the Old Testament, however— mostly in parts older than the Priestly Code — creation is often spoken of as the work of God's hands. See Isa. xlv. 12 ; Ps. viii. 6 ; xcv. 5 ; cv. 25 ; Job x. 8, etc. etc. narrative. THE FREEDOM OF MAN 251 well as for all the other processes that culminated in the creation of man after God's own image. The whole story regarded as a poetic myth has a grandeur which gives it a high place in the literature of religion. But when we contrast this tale from the childhood Feebleness of the world with the vague, indefinite, and inarticulate attempts at ■n ,. j. -j.- u • • rationalism. allusions to creation in recent writing on world-origins, the change is like that from a child's fairy tale to a preacher's feeble attempts to moralise it. There is no real relation between the two things. The conception — if such it can be called — which unreasoning tradition would impose upon modern knowledge is wholly in- congruous with the latter. For the stupendous and infinitely varied Universe, to which no bounds have been or can be set, is really incommensurable with the two- or three-storied structure that constituted the Chaldseo- Hebrew world. Let us for a moment imagine that our knowledge of the material Universe had attained its present extent before the Chaldseo-Hebrew tradition had % been made known to Western races. Suppose that the poem of creation had been recited for the first time by Eastern missionaries to London, New York, Paris, and Berlin audiences familiar with the nebular hypothesis and with the theories of the Milky Way and with ball led efforts to count the stars, and with probabilities of innumerable repetitions of planetary systems like our own. Can any one sincerely doubt for a moment how such a message must have been received by even the most devout and religious hearers ? No candid or impressionable soul could have denied its charm, but the notion of accepting it as, in any sense whatever, a 252 ETHICS OF SPINOZA reasonable account of the actual origin of the world would not even have occurred to the hearers. Of course I may be told that, even though the story is with us a venerable tradition, no intelligent believer thinks of accepting it literally. Then why accept it at all ? Only because it gives a religious sanction to the dogma of creation in some sense, which dogma is supposed to be essential to the most important articles of the creed — a personal God, the Fall of Man, Incarnation, Atone- ment, and human Immortality. Hheoriz;i's idea of, obsolete, 35, 56. < 'ell, living, 133. Chance, 76, 85. See Contingency. 259 2G0 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Charles i., 103-4. Cheerfulness, 158. Chemical combination, 65. Childhood, influence of its beliefs, 204-5. Clifford, Professor, 19, 20, 55, 58. Cogitatio, meaning of, 17. wider than consciousness, 18. Coleridge, 20. Ancient Mariner, 213. Colour, 16. Commiseration, 116. Common notions, 63, 200-1. Confidence, 115. Consciousness, 18 et seq., 58. Consternation, 123. Contempt, 113. Contingency, 67, 76, 138. Contrat social, 155 to. Cosmogony, Bible, 249-50. cannot be rationalised, 251. Courtesy, 123. Cowardice, 123. Creation, 50, 246, 249. Crime, 156-7. Cruelty, 122. of Nature, alleged, 42, 84. Crystal, 133. Custom and morals, 118. Cyclopsean masonry, 136. Dalton, John, 242-3. Darwin, Origin, etc., 252. David's sin, 72. Dead worlds, 246. Death affects only finite relations, 226. not to be thought of, 167. not feared by Reason, 225-8. Depreciation, 117. See Self-. Derision, 114. Descartes, 17, 181 n. Design in Nature, fallacy of, 41, 46, 132. Desire, 97, 110, 163, 171. cause of anthropomorphism, 181. no test of truth, 205. Desire, use of, 136. when active, 171. passive, 171. Despair, 115. Devotion, 114. Dipsomaniac, the, 141. Disease, 135. Division, in what sense possible, 29. of substance impossible, 29. Dogberry, 194. Drunkard, his delusion and salvation, 191. Drunkenness. See Inebriety. Duncan, Professor R. K., 246 n. Ecclesiastes quoted, 34. Education, effects of, 118. Effort, place of, 137-8, 141, 143. Electricity, 244. Elsmere, Robert, 188. Emulation, 121. Entities of fancy, 48. Envy, 117. Eoliths, 128. Equanimity, 81. Essence {essentia), 13, 14. Eternal life, 59, 78, 79, 216, 218, 238. morals, 156 n. Eternity, 25, 78, 35, 216. Ether, the, 244. ' Ethics ' — anachronism of form, 2. how far in essence permanent, 3. how far original, 2. meaning of, 4. special difficulties of, 1-4. written for after-time, 1. Euclid and his critics, 11. Evil, in what sense an illusion, 135. knowledge of, 166-7. See Good. Evolution, 85. unknown to Spinoza, 52. Extension as Attribute, 14, 52-3. Falsehood, 71. Fatalism, 194, 255. Favour, 116. INDEX 261 Fear, 100, 115, 188. Ferocity, 122. Fetishism, 106, 248. Fiual causes. See Cause. Finite existence, 32-4, 50, 57. illusion inseparable from, 133. neither independent nor eternal, 6. mode implies infinite Attribute, 16-17. movement and infinite rest, 34, 254. Flattery, 176. Food, doctrine of, 178. Form, 16. Fortitude, 169. Freedom, 37, 40, 89, 104, 138, 168, 169, 181 etseq. and Peace, 239-40. Gladness, 116. Glorying, 120. God, adequate knowledge of, 78. all that is or can be, 25. — as necessary Being, 17. — as Substance, 8, 56. hatred of, impossible, 210-11. idea of, associated with every- thing, 202, 207. identified with Universe, 6. in creature life, 183. love of and to. See Love. man not final cause of His action, 41, 254. not subject to desire, 43. ■ peace of, 219, 224, 254. perfection of, 43. Spinoza's proof of, paraphrased, 6 et seq. reverence for, destroys hatred, 159-60. transcends consciousness, 18. but not the Universe, 23. God-consciousness, 188, 207, 228. Golf-passion, 189-90. Good and evil— relative, 40, 45, 46, 47, 88, 128, 135, 166, 172. Good, meaning of, 135, 166. Good, to be thought of more than evil, 199. Good-nature, 117. Goodness is blessedness, 230, etc. Gratitude, 122, 160. Gravitation, 65. Grief, 97, 111, 137, 157. Harlotry, 176. Hatred, 98, 114, 158. Hauser, Kaspar, 61. Heaven and Hell, 70, 182. Henry vm., 150. Hermits, error of, 174-5. Home, power of its associations. 202. Honour, sense of, 154. Hope, 100, 115, 158. Humility, 118, 160-1. Huxley, T. H., 187. I am— as divine name, 130. Idea, 54. adequate, 66, 70. clear, moral power of, 192, 197. distinct or confused, 200, 201. inadequate, 66, 70, 71, 133. Ideals, human, 129. Idolatry, origin of, 78-9. modern, 183 n. persistence of, 79. Ignorance, no foundation for faith, 42, 44. difference of, from recognition of Unknowable, 44 n. Inclination, 114. Indignation, 116, 160, 177. Inebriety, 124. Imagination depreciated, 229. Immortality, 215. Intuition, 63-4, 67-8. in Weltanschauung, 218-19, 221. Intellect, 31, 229. to rule the affections, 197. its perfection, 172. Intellectual love. See Love. 262 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Jahweh, 130. Jesus, teacher of goodness for its own sake, 230. Joy, 97, 111, 157. power of, 143, 144-5, 179. Judas Iscariot, 139. Just and unjust as terms of relation, 157. Kaaba, 106. Kepler, 165. Kingdom of God, 145. Knowledge, doctrine of, 63. and feeling, 143. adequate, excludes evil, 159-60. Law, 37 n. Lear, King, 184-6. Lockyer, Sir Norman, 246. Love, 98, 110, 113. selfish, 113. sensual, 158. to God (intellectual), 187, 206 et seq., 221,223,224. of God to man, 212, 213. Loyalty, social, 154. Lucretius, 106. Lust, 124. Luxuriousness, 124. Man, a finite Mode, etc., 52. chief end of, 172. dependent on man, 148. proper place of, 88, 96. not outside Nature, 84, 163, 173. not separate from God, 69. when an inadequate cause, 91. Many and the One, 239. Marriage, 176. royal and religion, 203. Mathematics, use of, 42. Materialism falsely imputed, 14. decay of, 21. Matter, and Mind, 10. mystery of, 242 et seq. Maurice, P. D.,218. Maxims, use of, 188. Mercy, 122. Milton, 106, 207, 210. Mind, human, a finite Mode of an in- finite Attribute, 52, 55. as idea of the Body, 54. benefited by things external, 148. its joy in activity, 106-7. knowledge of itself, 59. quickened by mobility of body 61. 1 Mind-stuff,' 19, 55. Miser, 192. Modes of Attributes, 15 et seq. , 33. Molecular mechanics, 21. Money, use and abuse of, 179. Monotheism, dangers of, 69, 131. why prolific in saints, 248. Moral incentives and deterrents, 45 n. , 91 n. Morality, evolved out of finite rela- tions, 157 n., 234. not weakened by Spinoza, 49, 89, 156 n. in what sense eternal, 156 n. Mountain mass, illustration from, 31. Music of the spheres, 47. Natura Naturans, 36-7. Naturata, 36-7. Natural selection, 132. Nature, imperfections alleged in, 48, 129 et seq., 162. critics of, 84, 87. no vice in, 88. state of, 154, 156-7. ' Object,' Spinoza's use of, 54. implies subject, 21-2. Origin, meaning of, 52. Over-estimation, 117. Pain, 135. Parmenides, 86. Passions, apparently active but really passive, 184. compulsory abstinence does not exorcise, 124. general nature of, 125. INDEX 263 Passions, how controlled and cast out, 188-9, 191. reduced by clear ideas, 192. Passivity, 140. Paul, St., 69, 70 n., 183, 195, 223. on Freedom anticipates Spinoza, 184. but not on eternal life, 231. Peace, perfect, 219, 224. Penitence, 160. Perfection, 128-9, 132, 136, 138, 229. Persistence of impressions, 62. removed by stronger impres- sions, 62. Personality, 29, 30. Pessimism and supernaturalism, 70. Piety defined, 154. Pineal gland, 181 n. Pity, dangers of, 159-60. Pollock, Sir Frederick, 26-8 n. } 30, 53, 74, 236, 238 n. Poor, properly the care of the State, 175-6. Praise, ethical use of, 45 n. Pride, 119, 161. Prophets, as practical moralists, 161. Protozoa, 57-8. Providence, 44. Purpose, as modus cogitandi, 132. Pusillanimity, 162. Reaction, religious, 248. Reality, 14 ; degrees of, 126, 133. Reason, nature of, 164. the practical, 146-7, 153. and virtue, 150, 154. as loyalty to the best, 153-4. triumph of, 180. Reasoned experience, 65. Reformation, Protestant, 146. Relativity of morals, 40, 45. Religion defined, 154. future of, 211 et seq^^ mercenary, 232. Religious conviction, moral inlluence of, 62. Repentance, 118, 161. Reproach, not useless, 45 n. Republic of Man, 145. Salvation, plan of, 185 et seq. Satan, Milton's, 210. Scepticism, 47. Schivarmerei, 117. Science not irreligious, 45. mysticism of, 214, 241. points to no finality, 215. Self-conceit, 159. Self-contempt, 159. Self-depreciation, 120, 161. akin to pride, 176. Self-preservation, 97, 138, 141, 147-9, 173. right of society to, 156. Self-satisfaction, 118. Seneca, 149. Sentiment, dangers of, 160. Sequence, invariable, 193. not fatalism, 194-5, 255. moral use of, 195. not inconsistent with moral influ- ence, 196. mediates between eternity and time, 239. Shakespeare, 184, 187. Shame, 120. Sin, 45. Social order, bond of, 81, 155. life essential to man, 148, 169, 173, 174, 175. Socrates, 94, 139, 230. Sorrow. See Grief. Soul, 52. Sound, 16. Species, 51. Spencer, Herbert, 8, 9, 11, 24, 59, 61, 74. Spinoza, his experience, 135, 143, 208-9. how far Agnostic, 67. influenced by Descartes, 17. not a 'fatalist,' 194-5. not founder of a sect, 205. • not ' materialist,' 14, 215. Spontaneity, 90, 181-2. 264 ETHICS OF SPINOZA Substance, 8, 10, 12. Succession, a necessary illusion, 217. Suffering, use of, 136, 143. Suicide, 147. Tennyson, lb' »., 33, 55, 79, 182, 197, 218. Tertullian, 214. Thankfulness, 122. Thing in itself, 24. Thought, as Attribute, 17 ct seq. Time. See Eternity. Timidity, 123. Tolerance, 81. 'Transcendency.' See God. Truth, absolute and relative, 31. but not two sorts, 189. and bias, 203. and falsehood, 71. clear consciousness of, 73-4. Types in Nature and Art, 129. Ugliness, 47. Unity, ultimate, 60. Universe. See God. Universe, perfection of, 43. self-awareness of, 21. under aspect of eternity, 78. Unknowable, the, 8, 9, 11, 42, 59-60. Vacillation, 100. Vainglory, 163. Vengeance, 122. Verification, test of reality, 14. Virtue and power, 139. not mercenary, 81, 149, 232, 235. Vortex theory of Matter, 243. Weight, 16. Wesley, 214. Will, 73, 79-80, 97. as affirmation, 80. See also Freedom. 'Will to believe,' 204, 247. Witchcraft, 66. 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