with its infinite powers, the parts are modified in an infinite number of ways, and compelled to pass through an infinity of variations. Moreover, when I think of the universe as a substance, I conceive of a still closer union of each part with the whole; for, as I have elsewhere shown, it is the nature of substance to be infinite, and therefore every single part belongs to the nature of the corporeal substance, so that apart therefrom it neither can exist nor be conceived. And as to the human mind, I think of it also as of part of nature, for I think of nature as having in it an infinite power of thinking, which, as infinite, contains in itself the idea of all nature, and whose thoughts run parallel with all existence.”
From this point of view it is obvious that our knowledge of things cannot be real and adequate, except in so far as it is determined by the idea of the whole, and proceeds from the whole to the parts. A knowledge that proceeds from part to part must always be imperfect; it must remain external to its object, it must deal in abstractions or mere The whole
dominates
the parts.entia rationis, which it may easily be led to mistake for realities. Hence Spinoza, like Plato, distinguishes reason whose movement is regressive (from effect to cause, from variety to unity) from scientia intuitiva, whose movement is progressive, which “proceeds from the adequate idea of certain of God’s attributes to an adequate knowledge of the nature of things.”[1] The latter alone deserves to be called science in the highest sense of the term. “For in order that our mind may correspond to the exemplar of nature, it must develop all its ideas from the idea that represents the origin and source of nature, so that that idea may appear as the source of all other ideas.”[2] The regressive mode of knowledge has its highest value in preparing for the progressive. The knowledge of the finite, ere it can become perfectly adequate, must be absorbed and lost in the knowledge of the infinite.
In a remarkable passage in the Ethics, Spinoza declares that the defect of the common consciousness of men lies not so much in their ignorance, either of the infinite or of the finite, as in their incapacity for bringing the two thoughts together, so as to put the latter in its proper relation to the former. All are ready to confess that God is the cause both of the Finite things
modes of
infinite
substance.existence and of the nature of things created, but they do not realize what is involved in this confession—and hence they treat created things as if they were substances, that is, as if they were Gods. “Thus while they are contemplating finite things, they think of nothing less than of the divine nature; and again when they turn to consider the divine nature, they think of nothing less than of their former fictions on which they have built up the knowledge of finite things, as if these things could contribute nothing to our understanding of the divine nature. Hence it is not wonderful that they are always contradicting themselves.”[3] As Spinoza says elsewhere, it belongs to the very nature of the human mind to know God, for unless we know God we could know nothing else. The idea of the absolute unity is involved in the idea of every particular thing, yet the generality of men, deluded by sense and imagination, are unable to bring this implication into clear consciousness, and hence their knowledge of God does not modify their view of the finite. It is the business of philosophy to correct this defect, to transform our conceptions of the finite by relating it to the infinite, to complement and complete the partial knowledge produced by individual experience by bringing it into connexion with the idea of the whole. And the vital question which Spinoza himself prompts us to ask is how far and in what way this transformation is effected in the Spinozistic philosophy.
There are two great steps in the transformation of knowledge by the idea of unity as that idea is conceived by Spinoza. The first step involves a change of the conception of individual finite things by which they lose their individuality, their character as independent substances, and come to be regarded as modes of the infinite. But secondly, this negation of the finite as such is not conceived as implying the negation of the distinction between mind and matter. Mind and matter still retain that absolute opposition which they had in the philosophy of Descartes, even after all limits have been removed. And therefore in order to reach the absolute unity, and transcend the Cartesian dualism, a second step is necessary, by which the independent substantiality of mind and matter is withdrawn, and they are reduced into attributes of the one infinite substance. Let us examine these steps successively.
The method by which the finite is reduced into a mode of the infinite has already been partially explained. Spinoza follows to its legitimate result the metaphysical or logical principles of Descartes and Malebranche. According to the former, as we nave seen, the finite presupposes the infinite, and, indeed, so far as it is real, it is identical with the infinite. Application
to nature
of matter.The infinite is absolute reality, because it is pure affirmation, because it is that which negationem nullam involvit. The finite is distinguished from it simply by its limit, i.e. by its wanting something which the infinite has. At this point Spinoza takes up the argument. If the infinite be the real, and the finite, so far as it is distinguished therefrom, the unreal, then the supposed substantiality or individuality of finite beings is an illusion. In itself the finite is but an abstraction, to which imagination has given an apparent independence. All limitation or determination is negative, and in order to apprehend positive reality we must abstract from limits. By denying the negative, we reach the affirmative; by annihilating finitude in our thought, and so undoing the illusory work of the imagination, we reach the indeterminate or unconditioned being which alone truly is. All division, distinction and relation are but entia rationis. Imagination and abstraction can give to them, as they can give to mere negation and nothingness, “a local habitation and a name,” but they have no objective meaning, and in the highest knowledge, in the scientia intuitiva, which deals only with reality, they must entirely disappear. Hence to reach the truth as to matter, we must free ourselves from all such ideas as figure or number, measure or time, which imply the separation and relation of parts. Thus in his 50th letter, in answer to some question about figure, Spinoza says, “to prove that figure is negation, and not anything positive, we need only consider that the whole of matter conceived indefinitely, or in its infinity, can have no figure; but that figure has a place only in finite or determinate bodies. He who says that he perceives figure, says only that he has before his mind a limited thing and the manner in which it is limited. But this limitation does not pertain to a thing in its ‘esse,’ but contrariwise in its ’non-esse’ (i.e. it signifies, not that some positive quality belongs to the thing, but that something is wanting to it). Since, then, figure is but limitation, and limitation is but negation, we cannot say that figure is anything.” The same kind of reasoning is elsewhere (Epist. 29) applied to solve the difficulties connected with the divisibility of space or extension. Really, according to Spinoza, extension is indivisible, though modally it is divisible. In other words, parts ad infinitum may be taken in space by the abstracting mind, but these parts have no separate existence. You cannot rend space, or take one part of it out of its connexion with other parts. Hence arises the impossibility of asserting either that there is an infinite number of parts in space, or that there is not. The solution of the antinomy is that neither alternative is true. There are many things “quae nullo numero explicari possunt,” and to understand these things we must abstract altogether from the idea of number. The contradiction arises entirely from the application of that idea to the infinite. We cannot say that space has a finite number of parts, for every finite space must be conceived as itself included in infinite space. Yet, on the other hand, an infinite number is an absurdity; it is a number which is not a number. We escape the difficulty only when we see that number is a category inapplicable to the infinite, and this to Spinoza means that it is not applicable to reality, that it is merely an abstraction, or ens imaginationis.
The same method which solves the difficulties connected with the nature of matter is applied to mind. Here also we reach the reality, or thing in itself, by abstracting from all determination. All conceptions, therefore, that involve the independence of the finite, all conceptions of good, evil, freedom and responsibility disappear. When W. Blyenburg accuses Spinoza of Nature of
mind.making God the author of evil, Spinoza answers that evil is an ens rationis that has no existence for God. “Evil is not something positive, but a state of privation, and that not in relation to the divine, but simply in relation to the human intelligence. It is a conception that arises from that generalizing tendency of our minds, which leads us to bring all beings that have the external form of man under one and the same definition, and to suppose that they are all equally capable of the highest perfection we can deduce from such a definition. When, therefore, we find an individual whose works are not consistent with this perfection, straightway we judge that he is deprived of it, or that he is diverging from his own nature,—a judgment we should never make if we had not thus referred him to a general definition, and supposed him to be possessed of the nature it defines. But since God does not know things abstractly, or through such general definitions, and since there cannot be more reality in things than the divine intelligence and power bestows upon them, it manifestly follows that the defect which belongs to finite things, cannot be called a privation in relation to the intelligence of God, but only in relation to the intelligence of man.”[4] Thus evil and good vanish when we consider things sub specie aeternitatis, because they are categories that imply a certain independence in finite beings. For the idea of a moral standard implies a relation of man to the absolute good, a relation of the finite to the infinite, in which the finite is not simply lost and absorbed in the infinite. But Spinoza can admit no such relation. In the presence of the infinite the finite disappears, for it exists only by abstraction and negation; or it seems to us to exist, not because of what is present to our thoughts, but because of what is not present to them. As we think ourselves free because we are conscious of our actions but not of their causes, so we think that we have an individual existence only because the infinite intelligence is not wholly but only partially realized in us. But as we cannot really divide space, though we can think of a part of it, so neither can we place any real division in the divine intelligence. In this way we can understand how Spinoza is able to speak of the human mind as part of the infinite thought of God, and of the human body as part of the infinite extension of God, while yet he asserts that the divine substance is simple, and not made up of parts.
