this is illusion and error.
%(a) Substance, Attributes, and Modes%.--There is but one substance, and
this is infinite (I. _prop_. 10, _schol; prop_. 14, _cor_. 1). Why, then,
only one and why infinite? With Spinoza as with Descartes independence is
the essence of substantiality. This is expressed in the third definition:
"By substance I understand that which is in itself and is conceived by
means of itself, _i.e._, that the conception of which can be formed without
the aid of the conception of any other thing." _Per substantiam intelligo
id, quod in se est et per se concipitur; hoc est id, cujus conceptus
non indiget conceptu alterius rei, a quo formari debeat_. An absolutely
self-dependent being can neither be limited (since, in respect to its
limits, it would be dependent on the limiting being), nor occur more than
once in the world. Infinity follows from its self-dependence, and its
uniqueness from its infinity.
Substance is the being which is dependent on nothing and on which
everything depends; which, itself uncaused, effects all else; which
presupposes nothing, but itself constitutes the presupposition of all that
is: it is pure being, primal being, the cause of itself and of all. Thus in
Spinoza the being which is without presuppositions is brought into the most
intimate relation with the fullness of multiform existence, not coldly and
abstractly exalted above it, as by the ancient Eleatics.
Substance is the
being in (not above) things, that in them which constitutes their reality,
which supports and produces them. As the cause of all things Spinoza calls
it God, although he is conscious that he understands by the term something
quite different from the Christians. God does not mean for him a
transcendent, personal spirit, but only the _ens absolute infinitum (def.
sexta)_, the essential heart of things: _Deus sive substantia_.
How do things proceed from God? Neither by creation nor by emanation. He
does not put them forth from himself, they do not tear themselves free from
him, but they follow out of the necessary nature of God, as it follows from
the nature of the triangle that the sum of its angles is equal to two right
angles (I. _prop_. 17, _schol_.). They do not come out from him, but remain
in him; just this fact that they are in another, in God, constitutes their
lack of self-dependence (I. _prop_. 18, _dem.: nulla res, quae extra Deum
in se sit_). God is their inner, indwelling cause (_causa immanens, non
vero transiens_.--I. _prop_. 18), is not a transcendent creator, but
_natura naturans_, over against the sum of finite beings, _natura naturata_
(I. _prop_. 29, _schol_.): _Deus sive natura_.
Since nothing exists out of God, his actions do not follow from external
necessity, are not constrained, but he is free cause, free in the sense
that he does nothing except that toward which his own nature impels him,
that he acts in accordance with the laws of his being (_def. septima: ea
res libera dicitur, quae ex sola suae naturae necessitate existit et a se
sola ad agendum determinatur; Epist_. 26). This inner necessitation is
so little a defect that its direct opposite, undetermined choice and
inconstancy, must rather be excluded from God as an imperfection. Freedom
and (inner) necessity are identical; and antithetical, on the one side, to
undetermined choice and, on the other, to (external) compulsion. Action in
view of ends must also be denied of the infinite; to think of God as acting
in order to the good is to make him dependent on something external to him
(an aim) and lacking in that which is to be attained by the action. With
God the ground of his action is the same as the ground of his existence;
God's power and his essence coincide (I. _prop_. 34: _Dei potentia est ipsa
ipsius essentia_). He is the cause of himself (_def.
prima: per causam sui
intelligo id, cujus essentia involvit existentiam, sive id, cujus natura
non potest concipi nisi existens_); it would be a contradiction to hold
that being was not, that God, or substance, did not exist; he cannot be
thought otherwise than as existing; his concept includes his existence. To
be self-caused means to exist necessarily (I. _prop_.
7). The same thing
is denoted by the predicate eternal, which, according to the eighth
definition, denotes "existence itself, in so far as it is conceived to
follow necessarily from the mere definition of the eternal thing."
The infinite substance stands related to finite, individual things, not
only as the independent to the dependent, as the cause to the caused, as
the one to the many, and the whole to the parts, but also as the universal
to the particular, the indeterminate to the determinate.
From infinite
being as pure affirmation (I. _prop_. 8, _schol_. I: _absoluta affirmatio_)
everything which contains a limitation or negation, and this includes every
particular determination, must be kept at a distance: _determinatio negatio
est (Epist_. 50 and 41: a determination denotes nothing positive, but a
deprivation, a lack of existence; relates not to the being but to the
non-being of the thing). A determination states that which distinguishes
one thing from another, hence what it is _not_, expresses a limitation of
it. Consequently God, who is free from every negation and limitation, is to
be conceived as the absolutely indeterminate. The results thus far reached
run: _Substantia una infinita--Deus sive natura--causa sui (aeterna) et
rerum (immanens)--libera necessitas--non determinata_.
Or more briefly:
Substance = God = nature. The equation of God and substance had been
announced by Descartes, but not adhered to, while Bruno had approached the
equation of God and nature--Spinoza decisively completes both and combines
them.
A further remark may be added concerning the relation of God and the world.
In calling the infinite at once the permanent essence of things and their
producing cause, Spinoza raises a demand which it is not easy to fulfill,
the demand to think the existence of things in substance as a following
from substance, and their procession from God as a remaining in him. He
refers us to mathematics: the things which make up the world are related to
God as the properties of a geometrical figure to its concepts, as theorems
to the axiom, as the deduction to the principle, which from eternity
contains all that follows from it and retains this even while putting
it forth. It cannot be doubted that such a view of causality contains
error,--it has been characterized as a confusion of _ratio_ and _causa_,
of logical ground and real cause,--but it is just as certain that Spinoza
committed it. He not only compares the dependence of the effect on its
cause to the dependence of a derivative principle on that from which it is
derived, but fully equates the two; he thinks that in logico-mathematical
"consequences" he has grasped the essence of real
"effects": for him the
type of all legality, as also of real becoming, was the necessity which
governs the sequence of mathematical truths, and which, on the one hand, is
even and still, needing no special exertion of volitional energy, while, on
the other, it is rigid and unyielding, exalted above all choice. Philosophy
had sought the assistance of mathematics because of the clearness and
certainty which distinguish the conclusions of the latter, and which she
wished to obtain for her own. In excess of zeal she was not content with
striving after this ideal of indefectible certitude, but, forgetting the
diversity of the two fields, strove to imitate other qualities which
are not transferable; instead of learning from mathematics she became
subservient to it.
Substance does not affect us by its mere existence, but through an
_Attribute_. By attribute is meant, according to the fourth definition,
"that which the understanding perceives of substance as constituting the
essence of it" _(quod intellectus de substantia percipit, tanquam ejusdem
essentiam constituens)_. The more reality a substance contains, the more
attributes it has; consequently infinite substance possesses an infinite
number, each of which gives expression to its essence, but of which two
only fall within our knowledge. Among the innumerable divine attributes
the human mind knows those only which it finds in itself, thought and
extension. Although man beholds God only as thinking and extended
substance, he yet has a clear and complete; an adequate-
-idea of God. Since
each of the two attributes is conceived without the other, hence in itself
(_per se_), they are distinct from each other _realiter_, and independent.
God is absolutely infinite, the attributes only in their kind (_in suo
genere_).
How can the indeterminate possess properties? Are the attributes merely
ascribed to substance by the understanding, or do they possess reality
apart from the knowing subject? This question has given rise to much
debate. According to Hegel and Ed. Erdmann the attributes are something
external to substance, something brought into it by the understanding,
forms of knowledge present in the beholder alone; substance itself is
neither extended nor cogitative, but merely appears to the understanding
under these determinations, without which the latter would be unable to
cognize it. This "formalistic" interpretation, which, relying on a passage
in a letter to De Vries (_Epist_. 27), explains the attributes as mere
modes of intellectual apprehension, numbers Kuno Fischer among its
opponents. As the one party holds to the first half of the definition, the
other places the emphasis on the second half ("that which the
_understanding_ perceives--as constituting the _essence_
of substance").
The attributes are more than mere modes of representation--they are real
properties, which substance possesses even apart from an observer, nay, in
which it consists; in Spinoza, moreover, "must be conceived" is the
equivalent of "to be." Although this latter "realistic"
party undoubtedly
has the advantage over the former, which reads into Spinoza a subjectivism
foreign to his system, they ought not to forget that the difference in
interpretation has for its basis a conflict among the motives which control
Spinoza's thinking. The reference of the attributes to the understanding,
given in the definition, is not without significance. It sprang from the
wish not to mar the indeterminateness of the absolute by the opposition of
the attributes, while, on the other hand, an equally pressing need for the
conservation of the immanence of substance forbade a bold transfer of the
attributes to the observer. The real opinion of Spinoza is neither so
clear and free from contradictions, nor so one-sided, as that which his
interpreters ascribe to him. Fischer's further interpretation of the
attributes of God as his "powers" is tenable, so long as by _causa_ and
_potentia_ we understand nothing more than the irresistible, but
non-kinetic, force with which an original truth establishes or effects
those which follow from it.
As the dualism of extension and thought is reduced from a substantial to
an attributive distinction, so individual bodies and minds, motions and
thoughts, are degraded a stage further. Individual things lack independence
of every sort. The individual is, as a determinate finite thing, burdened
with negation and limitation, for every determination includes a negation;
that which is truly real in the individual is God.
Finite things are
_modi_ of the infinite substance, mere states, variable states, of God. By
themselves they are nothing, since out of God nothing exists. They possess
existence only in so far as they are conceived in their connection with the
infinite, that is, as transitory forms of the unchangeable substance. They
are not in themselves, but in another, in God, and are conceived only
in God. They are mere affections of the divine attributes, and must be
considered as such.
To the two attributes correspond two classes of modes.
The most important
modifications of extension are rest and motion. Among the modes of thought
are understanding and will. These belong in the sphere of determinate and
transitory being and do not hold of the _natura naturans_: God is exalted
above all modality, above will and understanding, as above motion and rest.
We must not assert of the _natura naturata_ (the world as the sum of all
modes), as of the _natura naturans_, that its essence involves existence
(I. _prop_. 24): we can conceive finite things as non-existent, as well as
existent (_Epist_. 29). This constitutes their
"contingency," which must
by no means be interpreted as lawlessness. On the contrary, all that takes
place in the world is most rigorously determined; every individual, finite,
determinate thing and event is determined to its existence and action by
another similarly finite and determinate thing or event, and this cause is,
in turn, determined in its existence and action by a further finite mode,
and so on to infinity (I. _prop_. 28). Because of this endlessness in the
series there is no first or ultimate cause in the phenomenal world; all
finite causes are second causes; the primary cause lies within the sphere
of the infinite and is God himself. The modes are all subject to the
constraint of an unbroken and endless nexus of efficient causes, which
leaves room neither for chance, nor choice, nor ends.
Nothing can be or
happen otherwise than as it is and happens (I. _prop_.
29, 33).
The causal chain appears in two forms: a mode of extension has its
producing ground in a second mode of extension; a mode of thought can be
caused only by another mode of thought--each individual thing is determined
by one of its own kind. The two series proceed side by side, without a
member of either ever being able to interfere in the other or to effect
anything in it--a motion can never produce anything but other motions, an
idea can result only in other ideas; the body can never determine the mind
to an idea, nor the soul the body to a movement. Since, however, extension
and thought are not two substances, but attributes of one substance,
this apparently double causal nexus of two series proceeding in exact
correspondence is, in reality, but a single one. (III.
_prop_. 2, _schol_.)
viewed from different sides. That which represents a chain of motions when
seen from the side of extension, bears the aspect of a series of ideas from
the side of thought. _Modus extensionis et idea illius modi una cademque
est res, sed duobus modis expressa_ (II. _prop_. 7, _schol_.; cf. III.
_prop_. 2, _schol_.). The soul is nothing but the idea of an actual body,
body or motion nothing but the object or event in the sphere of extended
actuality corresponding to an idea. No idea exists without something
corporeal corresponding to it, no body, without at the same time existing
as idea, or being conceived; in other words, everything is both body and
spirit, all things are animated (II. _prop_. 13, _schol_.). Thus the famous
proposition results; _Ordo et connexio idearum idem est ac ordo et connexio
rerum (sive corporum; II. prop_. 7), and in application to man, "the order
of the actions and passions of our body is simultaneous in nature with the
order of the actions and passions of the mind" (III.
_prop. 2, schol_.).
The attempt to solve the problem of the relation between the material and
the mental worlds by asserting their thoroughgoing correspondence and
substantial identity, was philosophically justifiable and important,
though many evident objections obtrude themselves upon us. The required
assumption, that there is a mental event corresponding to _every_ bodily
one, and _vice versa_, meets with involuntary and easily supported
opposition, which Spinoza did nothing to remove.
Similarly he omitted
to explain how body is related to motion, mind to ideas, and both to
actuality. The ascription of a materialistic tendency to Spinoza is not
without foundation. Corporeality and reality appear well-nigh identical for
him,--the expressions _corpora_ and _res_ are used synonymously,--so that
there remains for minds and ideas only an existence as reflections of
the real in the sphere of [an] ideality (whose degree of actuality it is
difficult to determine). Moreover, individualistic impulses have been
pointed out, which, in part, conflict with the monism which he consciously
follows, and, in part, subserve its interests. An example of this is given
in the relation of mind and idea: Spinoza treats the soul as a sum of
ideas, as consisting in them. An (at least apparently substantial) bond
among ideas, an ego, which possesses them, does not exist for him: the
Cartesian _cogito_ has become an impersonal _cogitatur_
or a _Deus
cogitat_. In order to the unique substantiality of the infinite, the
substantiality of individual spirits must disappear.
That which argues for
the latter is their I-ness (_Ichheit_), the unity of self-consciousness;
it is destroyed, if the mind is a congeries of ideas, a composite of them.
Thus in order to relieve itself from the self-dependence of the individual
mind, monism allies itself with a spiritual atomism, the most extreme which
can be conceived. The mind is resolved into a mass of individual ideas.
Mention may be made in passing, also, of a strange conception, which
is somewhat out of harmony with the rest of the system, and of which,
moreover, little use is made. This is the conception of _infinite modes_.
As such are cited, _facies totius mundi, motus et quies, intellectus
absolute infinitus_. Kuno Fischer's interpretation of this difficult
conception may be accepted. It denotes, according to him, the connected sum
of the modes, the itself non-finite sum total of the finite--the universe
meaning the totality of individual things in general (without reference to
their nature as extended or cogitative); rest and motion, the totality of
material being; the absolutely infinite understanding, the totality of
spiritual being or the ideas. Individual spirits together constitute, as
it were, the infinite intellect; our mind is a part of the divine
understanding, yet not in such a sense that the whole consists of the
parts, but that the part exists only through the whole.
When we say, the
human mind perceives this or that, it is equivalent to saying that God--not
in so far as he is infinite, but as he expresses himself in this human
mind and constitutes its essence--has this or that idea (II. _prop_. II,
_coroll_).
The discussion of these three fundamental concepts exhausts all the chief
points in Spinoza's doctrine of God. Passing over his doctrine of body (II.
between _prop_. 13 and _prop_. 14) we turn at once to his discussion of
mind and man.
%(b) Anthropology: Cognition and the Passions.%--Each thing is at once mind
and body, representation and that which is represented, idea and ideate
(object). Body and soul are the same being, only considered under different
attributes. The human mind is the idea of the human body; it cognizes
itself in perceiving the affections of its body; it represents all that
takes place in the body, though not all adequately. As man's body is
composed of very many bodies, so his soul is composed of very many ideas.
To judge of the relation of the human mind to the mind of lower beings, we
must consider the superiority of man's body to other bodies; the more
complex a body is, and the greater the variety of the affections of
which it is capable, the better and more adapted for adequate cognition,
the accompanying mind.--A result of the identity of soul and body is
that the acts of our will are not free (_Epist_. 62): they are, in fact,
determinations of our body, only considered under the attribute of thought,
and no more free than this from the constraint of the causal law (III.
_prop_. 2, _schol_.).--Since the mind does nothing without at the same time
knowing that it does it--since, in other words, its activity is a conscious
activity, it is not merely _idea corporis humani_, but also _idea ideae
corporis_ or _idea mentis_.
All adherents of the Eleatic separation of the one pure being from the
manifold and changing world of appearance are compelled to make a
like distinction between two kinds and two organs of _knowledge_. The
representation of the empirical manifold of separately existing individual
things, together with the organ thereof, Spinoza terms _imaginatio_; the
faculty of cognizing the true reality, the one, all-embracing substance, he
calls _intellectus. Imaginatio_ (imagination, sensuous representation)
is the faculty of inadequate, confused ideas, among which are included
abstract conceptions, as well as sensations and memory-images. The objects
of perception are the affections of our body; and our perceptions,
therefore, are not clear and distinct, because we are not completely
acquainted with their causes. In the merely perceptual stage, the mind
gains only a confused and mutilated idea of external objects, of the body,
and of itself; it is unable to separate that in the perception (_e.g._,
heat) which is due to the external body from that which is due to its own
body. An inadequate idea, however, is not in itself an error; it becomes
such only when, unconscious of its defectiveness, we take it for complete
and true. Prominent examples of erroneous ideas are furnished by general
concepts, by the idea of ends, and the idea of the freedom of the will. The
more general and abstract an idea, the more inadequate and indistinct it
becomes; and this shows the lack of value in generic concepts, which are
formed by the omission of differences. All cognition which is carried on by
universals and their symbols, words, yields opinion and imagination merely
instead of truth. Quite as valueless and harmful is the idea of ends, with
its accompaniments. We think that nature has typical forms hovering before
it, which it is seeking to actualize in things; when this intention is
apparently fulfilled we speak of things as perfect and beautiful; when it
fails, of imperfect and ugly things. Such concepts of value belong in the
sphere of fictions. The same is true of the idea of the freedom of the
will, which depends on our ignorance of that which constrains us. Apart
from the consideration that "the will," the general conception of which
comes under the rubric of unreal abstractions, is in fact merely the sum of
the particular volitions, the illusion of freedom, _e.g._, that we will
and act without a cause, arises from the fact that we are conscious of
our action (and also of its proximate motives), but not of its (remoter)
determining causes. Thus the thirsty child believes it desires its milk of
its own free will, and the timid one, that it freely chooses to run away
(_Ethica, III. prop_. 2, _schol_.; I. _app_.) If the falling stone were
conscious, it would, likewise, consider itself free, and its fall the
result of an undetermined decision.
Two degrees are to be distinguished in the true or adequate knowledge
of the intellect: rational knowledge attained through inference, and
intuitive, self-evident knowledge; the latter has principles for its
object, the former that which follows from them. Instead of operating with
abstract concepts the reason uses common notions, _notiones communes_.
Genera do not exist, but, no doubt, something common to all things. All
bodies agree in being extended; all minds and ideas in being modes of