Chapter I: The Metaphysics of the Understanding (2)

Universal reflections should have the first claim on our attention; but on the other hand the transition to the determinate is accomplished in a system of Physics which is the result of observations and experiences, and this is done entirely by means of the understanding. Descartes thus mingles many observations with a metaphysic of this nature, and to us the result is hence obscure. In this philosophy the thinking treatment of empiricism is thus predominant, and a similar method has been adopted by philosophers from this time on. To Descartes and others, Philosophy had still the more indefinite significance of arriving at knowledge through thought, reflection, and reasoning. Speculative cognition, the derivation from the Notion, the free independent development of the matter itself, was first introduced by Fichte, and consequently what is now called philosophic knowledge is not yet separated in Descartes from the rest of scientific knowledge. In those times all the knowledge of mankind was called philosophy; in Descartes’ metaphysics we thus saw quite empirical reflection and reasoning from particular grounds, from experiences, facts, phenomena, being brought into play in the naivest manner, and one has no sense of speculation in the matter. The strictly scientific element here really consisted mainly in the method of proof as it has long been made use of in geometry, and in the ordinary method of the formal logical syllogism. Hence it likewise happens that Philosophy, which ought to form a totality of the sciences, begins with logic and metaphysics; the second part is composed of ordinary physics and mathematics, mingled no doubt with metaphysical speculations, and the third part, ethics, deals with the nature of man, his duties, the state, the citizen. And this is the case with Descartes. The first part of the _Principia philosophiæ_ treats _De principiis cognitionis humanæ_, the second _De principiis rerum materialium_. This natural philosophy, as a philosophy of extension, is, however, none other than what a quite ordinary physics or mechanics might at that time be, and it is still quite hypothetical; we, on the other hand, accurately distinguish empirical physics and natural philosophy, even though the first likewise pertains to thought.

3. Descartes never reached the third part, the philosophy of Mind, for, while he made a special study of physics, in the region of ethics he published one tract only, _De passionibus_. In this reference Descartes treats of thought and human freedom. He proves freedom from the fact of the soul thinking that the will is unrestrained, and of that constituting the perfection of mankind. And this is quite true. In respect to the freedom of the will he comes across the difficulty of how to reconcile it with the divine prescience. As free, man might do what is not ordained of God beforehand—this would conflict with the omnipotence and omniscience of God; and if everything is ordained of God, human freedom would thereby be done away with. Yet he does not solve the contradiction contained in these two different aspects without falling into difficulty. But conformably to the method which he adopts, and which we pointed out above (pp. 238, 239), he says: “The human mind is finite, God’s power and predetermination are infinite; we are thus not capable of judging of the relationship in which the freedom of the human soul stands to the omnipotence and omniscience of God—but in self-consciousness we have the certainty of it given us as a fact. And we must hold only to what is certain.”[190] When he proceeds further much appears to him still incapable of explanation; but we see obstinacy and caprice likewise exhibited in his stopping short at the assertion as to the best of his knowledge. The method of knowledge as set forth by Descartes, takes the form of a reasoning of the understanding, and is thus without special interest.

These, then, are the principal points in the Cartesian system. Some particular assertions made by Descartes, which have been specially instrumental in giving him fame, have still to be mentioned—particular forms which have been formerly considered in metaphysics, and likewise by Wolff. For example, in the first place we gather that Descartes regarded animals and other organisms as machines moved by another, and not possessing the principle of the spontaneity of thought within them[191]—a mechanical physiology, a cut and dry thought pertaining to the understanding, which is of no further importance. In the sharp opposition between thought and extension, the former is not considered as sensation, so that the latter can isolate itself. The organic must as body reduce itself to extension; any further development of this last thus only proves its dependence on the first determinations.

In the second place, the relation between soul and body now becomes an important question, that is, the return of the object within itself in such a way that thought posits itself in another, in matter. As to this, many systems are offered to us in metaphysics. One of these is the _influxus physicus_, that the relation of spirit is of a corporeal nature, that the object is related to mind as bodies are to one another—a conception like this is very crude. How does Descartes understand the unity of soul and body? The former belongs to thought, the latter to extension; and thus because both are substance, neither requires the Notion of the other, and hence soul and body are independent of one another and can exercise no direct influence upon one another. Soul could only influence body in so far as it required the same, and conversely—that is, in so far as they have actual relation to one another. But since each is a totality, neither can bear a real relation to the other. Descartes consistently denied the physical influence of one on the other; that would have signified a mechanical relation between the two. Descartes thus established the intellectual sphere in contradistinction to matter, and on it based the independent subsistence of mind; for in his _cogito_ ‘I’ is at first only certain of itself, since I can abstract from all. Now we find the necessity of a mediator to bring about a union of the abstract and the external and individual. Descartes settles this by placing between the two what constitutes the metaphysical ground of their mutual changes, God. He is the intermediate bond of union, in as far as He affords assistance to the soul in what it cannot through its own freedom accomplish, so that the changes in body and soul may correspond with one another.[192] If I have desires, an intention, these receive corporeal realization; this association of soul and body is, according to Descartes, effected through God. For above (p. 239) we saw that Descartes says of God that He is the Truth of the conception: as long as I think rightly and consistently, something real corresponds to my thought, and the connecting link is God. God is hereby the perfect identity of the two opposites, since He is, as Idea, the unity of Notion and reality. In the Idea of Spinoza this is worked out and developed in its further moments. Descartes’ conclusion is quite correct; in finite things this identity is imperfect. Only the form employed by Descartes is inadequate; for it implies that in the beginning there are two things, thought or soul and body, and that then God appears as a third thing, outside both—that He is not the Notion of unity, nor are the two elements themselves Notion. We must not however forget that Descartes says that both those original elements are created substances. But this expression ‘created’ pertains to the ordinary conception only and is not a determinate thought; it was Spinoza, therefore, who first accomplished this return to thought.

2. SPINOZA.

The philosophy of Descartes underwent a great variety of unspeculative developments, but in Benedict Spinoza a direct successor to this philosopher may be found, and one who carried on the Cartesian principle to its furthest logical conclusions. For him soul and body, thought and Being, cease to have separate independent existence. The dualism of the Cartesian system Spinoza, as a Jew, altogether set aside. For the profound unity of his philosophy as it found expression in Europe, his manifestation of Spirit as the identity of the finite and the infinite in God, instead of God’s appearing related to these as a Third—all this is an echo from Eastern lands. The Oriental theory of absolute identity was brought by Spinoza much more directly into line, firstly with the current of European thought, and then with the European and Cartesian philosophy, in which it soon found a place.

First of all we must, however, glance at the circumstances of Spinoza’s life. He was by descent a Portuguese Jew, and was born at Amsterdam in the year 1632; the name he received was Baruch, but he altered it to Benedict. In his youth he was instructed by the Rabbis of the synagogue to which he belonged, but he soon fell out with them, their wrath having been kindled by the criticisms which he passed on the fantastic doctrines of the Talmud. He was not, therefore, long in absenting himself from the synagogue, and as the Rabbis were in dread lest his example should have evil consequences, they offered him a yearly allowance of a thousand gulden if he would keep away from the place and hold his tongue. This offer he declined; and the Rabbis thereafter carried their persecution of him to such a pitch that they were even minded to rid themselves of him by assassination. After having made a narrow escape from the dagger, he formally withdrew from the Jewish communion, without, however, going over to the Christian Church. He now applied himself particularly to the Latin language, and made a special study of the Cartesian philosophy. Later on he went to Rhynsburg, near Leyden, and from the year 1664 he lived in retirement, first at Voorburg, a village near the Hague, and then at the Hague itself, highly respected by numerous friends: he gained a livelihood for himself by grinding optical glasses. It was no arbitrary choice that led him to occupy himself with light, for it represents in the material sphere the absolute identity which forms the foundation of the Oriental view of things. Although he had rich friends and mighty protectors, among whom even generals were numbered, he lived in humble poverty, declining the handsome gifts offered to him time after time. Nor would he permit Simon von Vries to make him his heir; he only accepted from him an annual pension of three hundred florins; in the same way he gave up to his sisters his share of their father’s estate. From the Elector Palatine, Carl Ludwig, a man of most noble character and raised above the prejudices of his time, he received the offer of a professor’s chair at Heidelberg, with the assurance that he would have liberty to teach and to write, because “the Prince believed he would not put that liberty to a bad use by interfering with the religion publicly established.” Spinoza (in his published letters) very wisely declined this offer, however, because “he did not know within what limits that philosophic liberty would have to be confined, in order that he might not appear to be interfering with the publicly established religion.” He remained in Holland, a country highly interesting in the history of general culture, as it was the first in Europe to show the example of universal toleration, and afforded to many a place of refuge where they might enjoy liberty of thought; for fierce as was the rage of the theologians there against Bekker, for example (Bruck. Hist. crit. phil. T. IV. P. 2, pp. 719, 720), and furious as were the attacks of Voetius on the Cartesian philosophy, these had not the consequences which they would have had in another land. Spinoza died on the 21st of February, 1677, in the forty-fourth year of his age. The cause of his death was consumption, from which he had long been a sufferer; this was in harmony with his system of philosophy, according to which all particularity and individuality pass away in the one substance. A Protestant divine, Colerus by name, who published a biography of Spinoza, inveighs strongly against him, it is true, but gives nevertheless a most minute and kindly description of his circumstances and surroundings—telling how he left only about two hundred thalers, what debts he had, and so on. A bill included in the inventory, in which the barber requests payment due him by M. Spinoza of blessed memory, scandalizes the parson very much, and regarding it he makes the observation: “Had the barber but known what sort of a creature Spinoza was, he certainly would not have spoken of his blessed memory.” The German translator of this biography writes under the portrait of Spinoza: _characterem, reprobationis in vultu gerens_, applying this description to a countenance which doubtless expresses the melancholy of a profound thinker, but is otherwise mild and benevolent. The _reprobatio_ is certainly correct; but it is not a reprobation in the passive sense; it is an active disapprobation on Spinoza’s part of the opinions, errors and thoughtless passions of mankind.[193]

Spinoza used the terminology of Descartes, and also published an account of his system. For we find the first of Spinoza’s works entitled “An Exposition according to the geometrical method of the principles of the Cartesian philosophy.” Some time after this he wrote his _Tractatus theologico-politicus_, and by it gained considerable reputation. Great as was the hatred which Spinoza roused amongst his Rabbis, it was more than equalled by the odium which he brought upon himself amongst Christian, and especially amongst Protestant theologians—chiefly through the medium of this essay. It contains his views on inspiration, a critical treatment of the books of Moses and the like, chiefly from the point of view that the laws therein contained are limited in their application to the Jews. Later Christian theologians have written critically on this subject, usually making it their object to show that these books were compiled at a later time, and that they date in part from a period subsequent to the Babylonian captivity; this has become a crucial point with Protestant theologians, and one by which the modern school distinguishes itself from the older, greatly pluming itself thereon. All this, however, is already to be found in the above-mentioned work of Spinoza. But Spinoza drew the greatest odium upon himself by his philosophy proper, which we must now consider as it is given to us in his Ethics. While Descartes published no writings on this subject, the Ethics of Spinoza is undoubtedly his greatest work; it was published after his death by Ludwig Mayer, a physician, who had been Spinoza’s most intimate friend. It consists of five parts; the first deals with God (_De Deo_). General metaphysical ideas are contained in it, which include the knowledge of God and nature. The second part deals with the nature and origin of mind (_De natura et origine mentis_). We see thus that Spinoza does not treat of the subject of natural philosophy, extension and motion at all, for he passes immediately from God to the philosophy of mind, to the ethical point of view; and what refers to knowledge, intelligent mind, is brought forward in the first part, under the head of the principles of human knowledge. The third book of the Ethics deals with the origin and nature of the passions (_De origine et natura affectuum_); the fourth with the powers of the same, or human slavery (_De servitute humana seu de affectuum viribus_); the fifth, lastly, with the power of the understanding, with thought, or with human liberty (_De potentia intellectus seu de libertate humana_).[194] Kirchenrath Professor Paulus published Spinoza’s works in Jena; I had a share in the bringing out of this edition, having been entrusted with the collation of French translations.

As regards the philosophy of Spinoza, it is very simple, and on the whole easy to comprehend; the difficulty which it presents is due partly to the limitations of the method in which Spinoza presents his thoughts, and partly to his narrow range of ideas, which causes him in an unsatisfactory way to pass over important points of view and cardinal questions. Spinoza’s system is that of Descartes made objective in the form of absolute truth. The simple thought of Spinoza’s idealism is this: The true is simply and solely the one substance, whose attributes are thought and extension or nature: and only this absolute unity is reality, it alone is God. It is, as with Descartes, the unity of thought and Being, or that which contains the Notion of its existence in itself. The Cartesian substance, as Idea, has certainly Being included in its Notion; but it is only Being as abstract, not as real Being or as extension (_supra_, p. 241). With Descartes corporeality and the thinking ‘I’ are altogether independent Beings; this independence of the two extremes is done away with in Spinozism by their becoming moments of the one absolute Being. This expression signifies that Being must be grasped as the unity of opposites; the chief consideration is not to let slip the opposition and set it aside, but to reconcile and resolve it. Since then it is thought and Being, and no longer the abstractions of the finite and infinite, or of limit and the unlimited, that form the opposition (_supra_, p. 161), Being is here more definitely regarded as extension; for in its abstraction it would be really only that return into itself, that simple equality with itself, which constitutes thought (_supra_, p. 229). The pure thought of Spinoza is therefore not the simple universal of Plato, for it has likewise come to know the absolute opposition of Notion and Being.

Taken as a whole, this constitutes the Idea of Spinoza, and it is just what τὸ ὄν was to the Eleatics (Vol. I. pp. 244, 252). This Idea of Spinoza’s we must allow to be in the main true and well-grounded; absolute substance is the truth, but it is not the whole truth; in order to be this it must also be thought of as in itself active and living, and by that very means it must determine itself as mind. But substance with Spinoza is only the universal and consequently the abstract determination of mind; it may undoubtedly be said that this thought is the foundation of all true views—not, however, as their absolutely fixed and permanent basis, but as the abstract unity which mind is in itself. It is therefore worthy of note that thought must begin by placing itself at the standpoint of Spinozism; to be a follower of Spinoza is the essential commencement of all Philosophy. For as we saw above (Vol I. p. 144), when man begins to philosophize, the soul must commence by bathing in this ether of the One Substance, in which all that man has held as true has disappeared; this negation of all that is particular, to which every philosopher must have come, is the liberation of the mind and its absolute foundation. The difference between our standpoint and that of the Eleatic philosophy is only this, that through the agency of Christianity concrete individuality is in the modern world present throughout in spirit. But in spite of the infinite demands on the part of the concrete, substance with Spinoza is not yet determined as in itself concrete. As the concrete is thus not present in the content of substance, it is therefore to be found within reflecting thought alone, and it is only from the endless oppositions of this last that the required unity emerges. Of substance as such there is nothing more to be said; all that we can do is to speak of the different ways in which Philosophy has dealt with it, and the opposites which in it are abrogated. The difference depends on the nature of the opposites which are held to be abrogated in substance. Spinoza is far from having proved this unity as convincingly as was done by the ancients; but what constitutes the grandeur of Spinoza’s manner of thought is that he is able to renounce all that is determinate and particular, and restrict himself to the One, giving heed to this alone.

1. Spinoza begins (Eth. P. I pp. 35, 36) with a series of definitions, from which we take the following.

a. Spinoza’s first definition is of the Cause of itself. He says: “By that which is _causa sui_, its own cause, I understand that whose essence” (or Notion) “involves existence, or which cannot be conceived except as existent.” The unity of existence and universal thought is asserted from the very first, and this unity will ever be the question at issue. “The cause of itself” is a noteworthy expression, for while we picture to ourselves that the effect stands in opposition to the cause, the cause of itself is the cause which, while it operates and separates an “other,” at the same time produces only itself, and in the production therefore does away with this distinction. The establishing of itself as an other is loss or degeneration, and at the same time the negation of this loss; this is a purely speculative Notion, indeed a fundamental Notion in all speculation. The cause in which the cause is identical with the effect, is the infinite cause (_infra_, p. 263); if Spinoza had further developed what lies in the _causa sui_, substance with him would not have been rigid and unworkable.

b. The second definition is that of the finite. “That thing is said to be finite in its kind which can be limited by another of the same nature,” For it comes then to an end, it is not there; what is there is something else. This something else must, however, be of a like nature; for those things which are to limit each other must, in order to be able to limit each other, touch each other, and consequently have a relation to each other, that is to say they must be of one nature, stand on a like basis, and have a common sphere. That is the affirmative side of the limit. “Thus a thought is” only “limited by another thought, a body by another body, but thoughts are not limited by bodies nor” conversely “bodies by thoughts.” We saw this (p. 244) with Descartes: thought is an independent totality and so is extension, they have nothing to do with one another; they do not limit each other, each is included in itself.

c. The third definition is that of substance. “By substance I understand that which exists in itself and is conceived by itself, _i.e._ the conception of which does not require the aid of the conception of any other thing for its formation (_a quo formari debeat_);” otherwise it would be finite, accidental. What cannot have a conception formed of it without the aid of something else, is not independent, but is dependent upon that something else.

d. In the fourth place Spinoza defines attributes, which, as the moment coming second to substance, belong to it. “By attribute I understand that which the mind perceives as constituting the essence of substance;” and to Spinoza this alone is true. This is an important determination; the attribute is undoubtedly a determinateness, but at the same time it remains a totality. Spinoza, like Descartes, accepts only two attributes, thought and extension. The understanding grasps them as the reality of substance, but the reality is not higher than the substance, for it is only reality in the view of the understanding, which falls outside substance. Each of the two ways of regarding substance—extension and thought—contains no doubt the whole content of substance, but only in one form, which the understanding brings with it; and for this very reason both sides are in themselves identical and infinite. This is the true completion; but where substance passes over into attribute is not stated.

e. The fifth definition has to do with what comes third in relation to substance, the mode. “By mode I understand the affections of substance, or that which is in something else, through the aid of which also it is conceived.” Thus substance is conceived through itself; attribute is not conceived through itself, but has a relation to the conceiving understanding, in so far as this last conceives reality; mode, finally, is what is not conceived as reality, but through and in something else.

These last three moments Spinoza ought not merely to have established in this way as conceptions, he ought to have deduced them; they are especially important, and correspond with what we more definitely distinguish as universal, particular and individual. They must not, however, be taken as formal, but in their true concrete sense; the concrete universal is substance, the concrete particular is the concrete species; the Father and Son in the Christian dogma are similarly particular, but each of them contains the whole nature of God, only under a different form. The mode is the individual, the finite as such, which enters into external connection with what is “other.” In this Spinoza only descends to a lower stage, the mode is only the foregoing warped and stunted. Spinoza’s defect is therefore this, that he takes the third moment as mode alone, as a false individuality. True individuality and subjectivity is not a mere retreat from the universal, not merely something clearly determinate; for, as clearly determinate, it is at the same time Being-for-itself, determined by itself alone. The individual, the subjective, is even in being so the return to the universal; and in that it is at home with itself, it is itself the universal. The return consists simply and solely in the fact of the particular being in itself the universal; to this return Spinoza did not attain. Rigid substantiality is the last point he reached, not infinite form; this he knew not, and thus determinateness continually vanishes from his thought.

f. In the sixth place, the definition of the infinite is also of importance, for in the infinite Spinoza defines more strictly than anywhere else the Notion of the Notion. The infinite has a double significance, according as it is taken as the infinitely many or as the absolutely infinite (_infra_, p. 263). “The infinite in its kind is not such in respect of all possible attributes; but the absolutely infinite is that to whose essence all belongs that expresses an essence and contains no negation.” In the same sense Spinoza distinguishes in the nine-and-twentieth Letter (Oper. T. I. pp. 526-532) the infinite of imagination from the infinite of thought (_intellectus_), the actual (_actu_) infinite. Most men, when they wish to strive after the sublime, get no farther than the first of these; this is the false infinite, just as when one says “and so on into infinity,” meaning perhaps the infinity of space from star to star, or else the infinity of time. An infinite numerical series in mathematics is exactly the same thing. If a certain fraction is represented as a decimal fraction, it is incomplete; ⅐ is, on the contrary, the true infinite, and therefore not an incomplete expression, although the content here is of course limited. It is infinity in the incorrect sense that one usually has in view when infinity is spoken of; and even if it is looked on as sublime, it yet is nothing present, and only goes ever out into the negative, without being actual (_actu_). But for Spinoza the infinite is not the fixing of a limit and then passing beyond the limit fixed—the sensuous infinity—but absolute infinity, the positive, which has complete and present in itself an absolute multiplicity which has no Beyond. Philosophic infinity, that which is infinite _actu_, Spinoza therefore calls the absolute affirmation of itself. This is quite correct, only it might have been better expressed as: “It is the negation of negation.” Spinoza here also employs geometrical figures as illustrations of the Notion of infinity. In his _Opera postuma_, preceding his Ethics, and also in the letter quoted above, he has two circles, one of which lies within the other, which have not, however, a common centre.

“The inequalities of the space between A B and C D exceed every number; and yet the space which lies between is not so very great.” That is to say, if I wish to determine them all, I must enter upon an infinite series. This “beyond” always, however, remains defective, is always affected with negation; and yet this false infinite is there to hand, circumscribed, affirmative, actual and present in that plane as a complete space between the two circles. Or a finite line consists of an infinite number of points; and yet the line is present here and determined; the “beyond” of the infinite number of points, which are not complete, is in it complete and called back into unity. The infinite should be represented as actually present, and this comes to pass in the Notion of the cause of itself, which is therefore the true infinity. As soon as the cause has something else opposed to it—the effect—finitude is present; but here this something else is at the same time abrogated and it becomes once more the cause itself. The affirmative is thus negation of negation, since, according to the well-known grammatical rule, _duplex negatio affirmat_. In the same way Spinoza’s earlier definitions have also the infinite already implied in them, for instance in the case of the just mentioned cause of itself, inasmuch as he defines it as that whose essence involves existence (_supra_, p. 258). Notion and existence are each the Beyond of the other; but cause of itself, as thus including them, is really the carrying back of this “beyond” into unity. Or (_supra_, p. 259) “Substance is that which is in itself and is conceived from itself;” that is the same unity of Notion and existence. The infinite is in the same way in itself and has also its Notion in itself; its Notion is its Being, and its Being its Notion; true infinity is therefore to be found in Spinoza. But he has no consciousness of this; he has not recognized this Notion as absolute Notion, and therefore has not expressed it as a moment of true existence; for with him the Notion falls outside of existence, into the thought of existence.

g. Finally Spinoza says in the seventh place: “God is a Being absolutely infinite, _i.e._ a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses an eternal and infinite essence.” Does substance, one might here ask, possess an infinite number of attributes? But as with Spinoza there are only two attributes, thought and extension, with which he invests God, “infinite” is not to be taken here in the sense of the indeterminate many, but positively, as a circle is perfect infinity in itself.

The whole of Spinoza’s philosophy is contained in these definitions, which, however, taken as a whole are formal; it is really a weak point in Spinoza that he begins thus with definitions. In mathematics this method is permitted, because at the outset we there make assumptions, such as that of the point and line; but in Philosophy the content should be known as the absolutely true. It is all very well to grant the correctness of the name-definition, and acknowledge that the word “substance” corresponds with the conception which the definition indicates, but it is quite another question to determine whether this content is absolutely true. Such a question is not asked in the case of geometrical propositions, but in philosophic investigation it is the very thing to be first considered, and this Spinoza has not done. Instead of only explaining these simple thoughts and representing them as concrete in the definitions which he makes, what he ought to have done was to examine whether this content is true. To all appearance it is only the explanation of the words that is given; but the content of the words is held to be established. All further content is merely derived from that, and proved thereby; for on the first content all the rest depends, and if it is established as a basis, the other necessarily follows. “The attribute is that which the understanding thinks of God.” But here the question is: How does it come that besides the Deity there now appears the understanding, which applies to absolute substance the two forms of thought and extension? and whence come these two forms themselves? Thus everything proceeds inwards, and not outwards; the determinations are not developed from substance, it does not resolve itself into these attributes.

2. These definitions are followed by axioms and propositions in which Spinoza proves a great variety of points. He descends from the universal of substance through the particular, thought and extension, to the individual. He has thus all three moments of the Notion, or they are essential to him. But the mode, under which head falls individuality, he does not recognize as essential, or as constituting a moment of true existence in that existence; for it disappears in existence, or it is not raised into the Notion.

a. The main point then is that Spinoza proves from these Notions that there is only One Substance, God. It is a simple chain of reasoning, a very formal proof. “Fifth Proposition: There cannot be two or more substances of the same nature or of the same attribute.” This is implied already in the definitions; the proof is therefore a useless and wearisome toil, which only serves to render Spinoza more difficult to understand. “If there were several” (substances of the same attribute) “they must be distinguished from one another either by the diversity of their attributes or by the diversity of their affections” (modes). “If they are distinguished by their attributes, it would be directly conceded that there is only one substance having the same attribute.” For the attributes are simply what the understanding grasps as the essence of the one substance, which is determined in itself, and not through anything else. “But if these substances were distinguished by their affections, since substance is by nature prior to its affections it would follow that if from substance its affections were abstracted and it were regarded in itself, _i.e._ in its truth, it could henceforth not be regarded as distinct from other substances.” “Eighth Proposition: All substance is necessarily infinite. Proof: For otherwise it must be limited by another substance of the same nature, in which case there would be two substances of the same attribute, which is contrary to the fifth proposition.” “Every attribute must be conceived for itself,” as determination reflected on itself. “For attribute is what the mind conceives of substance as constituting its essence, from which it follows that it must be conceived through itself,” _i.e._ substance is what is conceived through itself (see the fourth and third definitions). “Therefore we may not argue from the plurality of attributes to a plurality of substances, for each is conceived by itself, and they have all been, always and at the same time, in substance, without the possibility of the one being produced by the other.” “Substance is indivisible. For if the parts retained the nature of the substance, there would be several substances of the same nature, which is contrary to the fifth proposition. If not, infinite substance would cease to exist, which is absurd.”[195]

“Fourteenth Proposition: No other substance than God can either exist or be conceived. Proof: God is the absolutely infinite substance, to whom can be denied no attribute which expresses the essence of substance, and He exists necessarily; therefore if there were a substance other than God, it must be explained by means of an attribute of God.” Consequently the substance would not have its own being, but that of God, and therefore would not be a substance. Or if it were still to be substance, “then there would necessarily follow the possibility of there being two substances with the same attribute, which according to the fifth proposition is absurd. From this it then follows that the thing extended and the thing that thinks” are not substances, but “are either attributes of God, or affections of His attributes.” By these proofs and others like them not much is to be gained. “Fifteenth, proposition: What is, is in God, and cannot exist or be conceived without God.” “Sixteenth proposition: By the necessity of the divine nature infinite things must follow in infinite modes, _i.e._, all that can fall under the infinite understanding. God is therefore the absolute First Cause.”[196]

Spinoza then ascribes freedom and necessity to God: “God is the absolute free cause, who is determined by nothing outside of Himself, for He exists solely by the necessity of His nature. There is no cause which inwardly or outwardly moves Him to act, except the perfection of His nature. His activity is by the laws of His Being necessary and eternal; what therefore follows from His absolute nature, from His attributes, is eternal, as it follows from the nature of the triangle from eternity and to eternity that its three angles are equal to two right angles.” That is to say, His Being is His absolute power; _actus_ and _potentia_, Thought and Being, are in Him one. God has not therefore any other thoughts which He could not have actualized. “God is the immanent cause of all things, not the transient (_transiens_),” _i.e._, external cause. “His essence and His existence are the same, namely, the truth. A thing which is determined to perform some action, is, since God is cause, necessarily determined thereto by God; and a thing which is thus determined cannot render itself undetermined. In nature nothing is contingent. Will is not a free cause, but only a necessary cause, only a mode; it is therefore determined by another. God acts in accordance with no final causes (_sub ratione boni_). Those who assert that He does so, appear to establish something apart from God, which does not depend on God, and which God in His working keeps in view, as though it were an end. If this view is taken, God is not a free cause, but is subject to fate. It is equally inadmissible to subject all things to the arbitrary pleasure of God, _i.e._, to His indifferent will.”[197] He is determined solely by His own nature; the activity of God is thus His power, and that is necessity. He is then absolute power in contrast to wisdom, which sets up definite aims, and consequently limitations; particular aims, thoughts of what is about to come to pass, and the like are therefore put out of the question. But beyond this universal, no advance is made; for it must be noticed as specially singular, that Spinoza in the fiftieth Letter (Oper. T. I. p. 634) says that every determination is a negation. Moreover, if God is the cause of the world, it is implied that He is finite; for the world is here put beside God as something different from Him.

b. The greatest difficulty in Spinoza is, in the distinctions to which he comes, to grasp the relation of this determinate to God, at the same time preserving the determination. “God is a thinking Being, because all individual thoughts are modes which express God’s nature in a certain and determinate manner; there pertains therefore to God an attribute the conception of which all individual thoughts involve, and by means of this they also are conceived. God is an extended Being for the same reason.” This means that the same substance, under the attribute of thought, is the intelligible world, and under the attribute of extension, is nature; nature and thought thus both express the same Essence of God. Or, as Spinoza says, “The order and system of natural things is the same as the order of the thoughts. Thus, for instance, the circle which exists in nature, and the idea of the existing circle, which is also in God, are one and the same thing” (they are one and the same content), “which is” merely “expressed by means of different attributes. If we therefore regard nature either under the attribute of extension or of thought, or under any other attribute whatever, we shall find one and the same connection of causes, _i.e._, the same sequence of things. The formal Being of the idea of the circle can be conceived only by means of the mode of thought, as its proximate cause, and this mode again by means of another, and so on infinitely; so that we must explain the order of the whole of nature, or the connection of causes, by the attribute of thought alone, and if things are considered by the attribute of extension, they must be considered only by the attribute of extension,—and the same holds good of other causes.”[198] It is one and the same system, which at one time appears as nature, and at another time in the form of thought.

But Spinoza does not demonstrate how these two are evolved from the one substance, nor does he prove why there can only be two of them. Neither are extension and thought anything to him in themselves, or in truth, but only externally; for their difference is a mere matter of the understanding, which is ranked by Spinoza only among affections (Eth. P. I. Prop. XXXI. Demonst. p. 62), and as such has no truth. This has in recent times been served up again by Schelling in the following form: In themselves, the intelligent world and the corporeal world are the same, only under different forms; so that the intelligent universe is in itself the whole absolute divine totality, and the corporeal universe is equally this same totality. The differences are not in themselves, but the different aspects from which the Absolute is regarded are matters external to it. We take a higher tone in saying that nature and mind are rational; but reason is for us no empty word, for it means the totality which develops itself within itself. Again, it is the standpoint of reflection to regard aspects only, and nothing in itself. This defect appears in Spinoza and Schelling in the fact that they see no necessity why the Notion, as the implicit negative of its unity, should make a separation of itself into different parts; so that out of the simple universal the real, the opposed, itself becomes known. Absolute substance, attribute and mode, Spinoza allows to follow one another as definitions, he adopts them ready-made, without the attributes being developed from the substance, or the modes from the attributes. And more especially in regard to the attributes, there is no necessity evident, why these are thought and extension in particular.

c. When Spinoza passes on to individual things, especially to self-consciousness, to the freedom of the ‘I,’ he expresses himself in such a way as rather to lead back all limitations to substance than to maintain a firm grasp of the individual. Thus we already found the attributes not to be independent, but only the forms in which the understanding grasps substance in its differences; what comes third, the modes, is that under which for Spinoza all difference of things alone falls. Of the modes he says (Ethic. P. I. Prop. XXXII. Demonst. et Coroll. II. p. 63): In every attribute there are two modes; in extension, these are rest and motion, in thought they are understanding and will (_intellectus et voluntas_). They are mere modifications which only exist for us apart from God; therefore whatever refers to this difference and is specially brought about by it, is not absolute, but finite. These affections Spinoza sums up (Ethices, P. I. Prop. XXIX. Schol. pp. 61, 62) under the head of _natura naturata_: “_Natura naturans_ is God regarded as free cause, in so far as He is in Himself and is conceived by Himself: or such attributes of substance as express the eternal and infinite essence. By _natura naturata_, I understand all that follows from the necessity of the divine nature, or from any of the attributes of God, all modes of the divine attributes, in so far as they are regarded as things which are in God, and which without God can neither exist nor be conceived.” From God proceeds nothing, for all things merely return to the point whence they came, if from themselves the commencement is made.

These then are Spinoza’s general forms, this is his principal idea. Some further determinations have still to be mentioned. He gives definitions of the terms modes, understanding, will, and of the affections, such as joy and sadness.[199] We further find consciousness taken into consideration. Its development is extremely simple, or rather it is not developed at all; Spinoza begins directly with mind. “The essence of man consists of certain modifications of the attributes of God”; these modifications are only something related to our understanding. “If we, therefore, say that the human mind perceives this or that, it means nothing else than that God has this or that idea, not in so far as He is infinite, but in so far as He is expressed by the idea of the human mind. And if we say that God has this or that idea, not in so far as He constitutes the idea of the human mind, but in so far as He has, along with the human mind, the idea of another thing, then we say that the human mind perceives the thing partially or inadequately.” Truth is for Spinoza, on the other hand, the adequate.[200] The idea that all particular content is only a modification of God is ridiculed by Bayle,[201] who argues from it that God modified as Turks and Austrians, is waging war with Himself; but Bayle has not a trace of the speculative element in him, although he is acute enough as a dialectician, and has contributed to the intelligent discussion of definite subjects.

The relation of thought and extension in the human consciousness is dealt with by Spinoza as follows: “What has a place in the object” (or rather in the objective) “of the idea which constitutes the human mind must be perceived by the human mind; or there must necessarily be in the mind an idea of this object. The object of the idea which constitutes the human mind is body, or a certain mode of extension. If, then, the object of the idea which constitutes the human mind, is the body, there can happen nothing in the body which is not perceived by the mind. Otherwise the ideas of the affections of the body would not be in God, in so far as He constitutes our mind, but the idea of another thing: that is to say, the ideas of the affections of our body would not be likewise in our mind.” What is perplexing to understand in Spinoza’s system is, on the one hand, the absolute identity of thought and Being, and, on the other hand, their absolute indifference to one another, because each of them is a manifestation of the whole essence of God. The unity of the body and consciousness is, according to Spinoza, this, that the individual is a mode of the absolute substance, which, as consciousness, is the representation of the manner in which the body is affected by external things; all that is in consciousness is also in extension, and conversely. “Mind knows itself only in so far as it perceives the ideas of the affections of body,” it has only the idea of the affections of its body; this idea is synthetic combination, as we shall immediately see. “The ideas, whether of the attributes of God or of individual things, do not recognize as their efficient cause their objects themselves, or the things perceived, but God Himself, in so far as He is that which thinks.”[202] Buhle (Geschichte der neuern Philos. Vol. III. Section II. p. 524) sums up these propositions of Spinoza thus: “Thought is inseparably bound up with extension; therefore all that takes place in extension must also take place in consciousness.” Spinoza, however, also accepts both in their separation from one another. The idea of body, he writes (Epistol. LXVI. p. 673), includes only these two in itself, and does not express any other attributes. The body which it represents is regarded under the attribute of extension; but the idea itself is a mode of thought. Here we see a dividing asunder; mere identity, the undistinguishable nature of all things in the Absolute, is insufficient even for Spinoza.

The _individuum_, individuality itself, is thus defined by Spinoza (Ethic. P. II. Prop. XIII. Defin. p. 92): “When several bodies of the same or of different magnitudes are so pressed together that they rest on one another, or when, moving with like or different degrees of rapidity, they communicate their movement to one another in a certain measure, we say that such bodies are united to one another, and that all together they form one body or individuum, which by this union distinguishes itself from all the other bodies.” Here we are at the extreme limit of Spinoza’s system, and it is here that his weak point appears. Individuation, the one, is a mere synthesis; it is quite a different thing from the Ichts or self-hood of Boehme (_supra_, pp. 205-207), since Spinoza has only universality, thought, and not self-consciousness. If, before considering this in reference to the whole, we take it from the other side, namely from the understanding, the distinction really falls under that head; it is not deduced, it is found. Thus, as we have already seen (p. 270) “the understanding in act (_intellectus actu_), as also will, desire, love, must be referred to _natura naturata_, not to _natura naturans_. For by the understanding, as recognized for itself, we do not mean absolute thought, but only a certain mode of thought—a mode which is distinct from other modes like desire, love, etc., and on that account must be conceived by means of absolute thought, _i.e._ by means of an attribute of God which expresses an eternal and infinite essentiality of thought; without which the understanding, as also the rest of the modes of thought, could neither be nor be conceived to be.” (Spinoza, Ethices, P. I. Propos. XXXI. pp. 62, 63). Spinoza is unacquainted with an infinity of form, which would be something quite different from that of rigid, unyielding substance. What is requisite is to recognize God as the essence of essences, as universal substance, identity, and yet to preserve distinctions.

Spinoza goes on to say: “What constitutes the real (_actuale_) existence of the human mind is nothing else than the idea of a particular” (individual) “thing, that actually exists,” not of an infinite thing. “The essence of man involves no necessary existence, _i.e._ according to the order of nature a man may just as well be as not be.” For the human consciousness, as it does not belong to essence as an attribute, is a mode—a mode of the attribute of thought. But neither is the body, according to Spinoza, the cause of consciousness, nor is consciousness the cause of the body, but the finite cause is here only the relation of like to like; body is determined by body, conception by conception. “The body can neither determine the mind to thought, nor can the mind determine the body to motion, or rest, or anything else. For all modes of thought have God as Cause, in so far as He is a thinking thing, and not in so far as He is revealed by means of another attribute. What therefore determines the mind to thought, is a mode of thought and not of extension; similarly motion and rest of the body must be derived from another body.”[203] I might quote many other such particular propositions from Spinoza, but they are very formal, and a continual repetition of one and the same thing.