is no place for extended criticism; but it is possible, I think, to dissent from the statement that God is not intellect any more, or in a different sense, than he is motion-and-rest. For in self-consciousness, i.e., in thinking himself, God's intelligence or thought ceases to be merely coordinate with the other Attributes, overlapping them and ex- pressing in a more essential way the essence of his substance. And there is evidence too that Spinoza at least partially recognizes this distinction.
Mr. Duffs book is devoted to Spinoza's political and ethical ideas, a side of his philosophy that has been somewhat neglected in comparison with the attention which has been devoted to the metaphysical discussions of the Ethics. Mr. Duff insists that this neglect is an evidence of misunderstanding regarding Spinoza's main interest and purpose. "For it can be shown that Spinoza had no interest in metaphysics for its own sake, while he was passionately interested in moral and political problems. He was a metaphysician at all only in the sense that he was resolute in thinking out the ideas, principles, and categories which are interwoven with all our practical endeavor, and the proper understanding of which is the condition of human welfare. A true metaphysics meant to him true and adequate thinking of our own nature and of our place in the universe" (p. viii).
One may accept the latter part of this quotation, as well as the statement at the beginning of Chapter II that "the consideration of human utilitas is the dominating motive of all his [Spinoza's] speculation" (p. 12), without being prepared to grant "that Spinoza had no interest in metaphysics for its own sake." For this assertion seems to rest on an antithesis between the 'theoretical' and the 'practical,' that is false in fact and also entirely foreign to Spinoza's thought. For "the true and adequate thinking of our own nature and our place in the universe," is not an external means to some further independent end, but is rather an essential part of the end. Ultimately it is knowledge or complete understanding which gives permanent satisfaction to the deepest need of our nature; while, at the same time, knowledge is never dissociated as an abstract principle from our concrete life as a whole. It may, however, be granted that it has been common to concentrate attention in a too abstractly theoretical way on Spinoza's metaphysical doctrines, forgetting that for him these are always connected with man's practical life. He was doubtless intensely interested in working out the best form of the State, holding that the generality of men, at least, could only attain a knowledge of their true good through its instrumentality. But it also seems clear, when we
