A study of the Ethics of Spinoza (Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata) / Joachim, Harold H. (Harold Henry), 1868-1938

PREFACE 

THE Ethics is a work which presents many per 
plexities to the interpreter. Barren abstractions, 
tortured into the form of geometrical demonstra 
tions J by a pedantic logic, appear to constitute the 
larger portion of it : and the remainder has been 
taken for poetry pure and simple. It has seemed 
easy to annihilate the first with a few catchwords 
of criticism, dismissing the second as the dreams of 
a mystic. In the following exposition I have tried 
to interpret the Ethics as a whole. I have assumed 
that the poetry and imagination which breathe 
through its pages are as in a great thinker they 
must be in the service of a mind, which is pe 
dantic only in its endeavour to think clearly and 
reason logically. The so-called f mysticism must, 
I am convinced, be read as part and parcel of 
Spinoza s metaphysical views ; and the God of 
the earlier parts of the Ethics must be interpreted 
in the light of the whole work. In the course of 
my exposition many difficulties and criticisms forced 
themselves upon me ; but I have endeavoured so to 
arrange their discussion that it may interrupt the 
statement of Spinoza s views as little as possible. 



vi PREFACE 

Where it seemed important, I have traced the 
historical relation between the theories of Spinoza 
and those of Descartes ; but I have made no 
attempt to give a general sketch of the latter s 
philosophy. It would have to be more than a 
sketch to be of value, and for a complete exposi 
tion I have no space. 

In the desire to avoid needless obscurity I have 
sometimes passed over the views of well-known 
commentators in silence, and I hope this omission 
will not be attributed either to ignorance or to 
conceit. Wherever it was possible for me to trace 
a creditor I have acknowledged my debts, and in 
the appended list of References and Abbrevia 
tions I have mentioned those commentaries which 
have helped me most. 

In common with all English students of Spinoza, 
I am greatly indebted to the works of Sir Frederick 
Pollock, the late Principal Caird, and the late Dr. 
Martineau ; and my obligation does not end where 
my interpretation differs from theirs. But, so far 
as I am aware, no English book appeals only to 
readers who wish to make a special study of 
Spinoza s philosophy ; and I venture to publish this 
attempt at a critical exposition of the Ethics in 
the hope that, whatever its shortcomings, it may 
help to fill a gap. 

I owe the interpretation of two of Spinoza s 
geometrical illustrations (below, p. 32 note 2 and 
p. 223 note 2) to the kind help of my colleague, 



PREFACE vii 

Mr. A. L. Dixon, Fellow and Tutor of Merton 
College : and I am glad to have this opportunity 
of thanking my friend, Dr. Eobert Latta, Professor 
of Moral Philosophy in the University of Aberdeen, 
who read nearly the whole of this book before it 
was printed, and made many valuable suggestions 
and criticisms. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGES 

INTRODUCTION . . 1-13 

The Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione. The Geo 
metrical Method. 



BOOK I 
THE GENERAL NATURE OF REALITY . . 14-9 7 

CHAPTER I 



1. MEANING OF THE ANTITHESES : 

(i) Substance and Mode 14-17 

(ii) Substance and Attribute I7~ 2 7 v" 

2. INFINITE AND INDEFINITE 27-3$ 



CHAPTER II 
REALITY AS A WHOLE OR GOD 36-64 

1. SUBSTANCE IS GOD 36-38 

2. GOD IS THE ENS PERFECTISSIMUM OB REALIS- 
SIMUM : INCLUDES ALL AFFIRMATIVE BEING : 
SUBSISTS OF INFINITE ATTRIBUTES . . . 38-4! 

3. SOME OF GOD S PROPERTIES. GOD IS ONE, 
UNIQUE, WHOLE, SIMPLE, INDETERMINATE, AND 
CONCRETE 41-45 



CONTENTS 

PAGES 

\ 4. NATURE, VALIDITY, AND VALUE OF SPINOZA S 
ARGUMENTS TO PROVE THAT GOD EXISTS OF 
NECESSITY . ._^. ..... 45-58 

5. THE CAUSALITY OF GOD . } 58-64 



CHAPTER III 
GOD AND HIS ATTRIBUTES (NATURA NATURANS) 

1. THE ATTRIBUTES AS * LINES OF FORCE, OR FORMS 
IN WHICH GOD S OMNIPOTENCE MANIFESTS ITS 
FREE CAUSALITY TO AN INTELLIGENCE 

2. THE ATTRIBUTE OF EXTENSION. SPINOZA AND 
DESCARTES 

3. THE INFINITY OF ATTRIBUTES. THE ATTRIBUTE 
OF THOUGHT. GOD IS SELF-CONSCIOUS 



CHAPTER IV 
GOD AND HIS MODES (NATURA NATURATA) 

4*) 1. DEGREES OF PERFECTION OR REALITY 

2. FORMAL STATEMENT OF THE ORDER OF THE 
MODAL SEQUENCE 

(i) Immediate and Mediate infinite and eternal modes 
(ii) Particular things 

3. MODAL SYSTEM OF THE ATTRIBUTE OF EXTEN 
SION. WHOLE AND PARTS * 

4. MODAL SYSTEM OF THE ATTRIBUTE OF THOUGHT 



APPENDIX TO BOOK I 

DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS . QS-IIQ 

NOTE ON NATURA NATURATA AND THE WORLD OF 

PRESENTATION . . . .... . . lig-122 



CONTENTS xi 

BOOK II 

PAGES 

THE HUMAN MIND . * . . . . 123-219 

CHAPTER I 
SOUL AND BODY 123-145 

1. INTRODUCTION 1 23-125 

2. THE HUMAN MIND AS THE IDEA OF THE BODY . 125-132 ^ 
3. CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS . . 132-134 
"HflTsOME DIFFICULTIES I34~I45 

CHAPTER II 
THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE . . . . . . 146-185 

1. IDEA AND IDEATUM . .... 146-152 

^2. THE THREE STAGES OF HUMAN PROGRESS AS A 

DEVELOPMENT OF KNOWLEDGE . . . .152-185 

(i) Imaginatio 152-170 

(ii) Ratio .... .... 170-180 

(iii) Scientia Intuitiva . . . . . .180-185 

CHAPTER III 
THE EMOTIONAL NATURE OF MAN .... 186-219 

PREFATORY NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION OF THE TERM 

1 AFFECTUS *86 

1. METHOD OF TREATMENT 187-190 

2. THE CONATUS ^9^~ 1 93 

3. WILL AND DESIRE I93 -I 99 

47~ACTION AND PASSION . ~. 199-2 

5. AFFECTUS AND IDEA. THE THREE PRIMARY 

PASSIVE EMOTIONS 2OI-2O8 

6. DERIVATIVE AND COMPLEX PASSIVE EMOTIONS . 2O8-2I8 
7. ACTIVE EMOTIONS 2l8~2l9 

APPENDIX TO BOOK II 

ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE -^THE CONATUS CUPIDIT AS - 
FREEDOM TELEOLOGY EMOTIONAL AND COGNITIVE 
IDEAS , . * 22 - 2 37 



xii CONTENTS 

BOOK III 

/ PAGES 

THE IDEAL LIFE FOR MAN .... 238-309 

CHAPTER I 
MEANING OF A STANDARD OF MORAL VALUE . . 238-254 

CHAPTER II 

MAN AS A MEMBER OF THE COMMUNIS ORDO 

NATURAE : THE BONDAGE OF MAN . . . 255-263 { 

4 1. THE STRENGTH OP THE PASSIVE EMOTIONS, AND 
THE RELATIVE POWERLESSNESS OP THE ACTIVE 
EMOTIONS 255-261 

2. THE LIFE OF MAN AS INTELLECTUALLY AND 

MORALLY IN BONDAGE 261-263 

CHAPTER III 

THE MORAL LIFE AS THE LIFE OF REASON . . 264-291 

1. INDIVIDUALITY IN THE GRADE OF RATIO . 264-268 

2. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE LIFE OF * REASON, 

VIRTUE, OR FREEDOM* 268-273 

3. APPLICATION OF THE ABOVE PRINCIPLES . . 273-280 
4. THE POWER OF REASON 280-29! 

CHAPTER IV 
THE IDEAL LIFE AS CONSCIOUS UNION WITH GOD 292-309 

I 1. INTRODUCTION 292-294 

2. THE CONCEPTION OF ETERNITY* . . . 294-298 
3. THE ETERNITY OF THE HUMAN MIND . . . 298-306 
4. REVIEW 306-309 



REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS 

1. DESCAETES. 

Desc. Medit. = Eenati Des Cartes Meditationes de Prima Philo 

sophia. 
Desc. Princ. Kenati Des Cartes Principia Philosophiae. 

Where the page is given, the reference is to the Latin 

edition of Descartes* works, published at Frankfort in 

1692. 
Desc. Epp.= Kenati Des Cartes Epistulae. 

2. SPINOZA. 

WlL=Van Vloten and Land s edition of Spinoza. Two 
volumes. The Hague, 1882. 

rd!e = Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione. 

rr. P.=Tractatus Politicus. 

Fr. Th.=Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. 

Ph. D. = Principia Philosophiae Cartesianae (Spinoza s version). 

0. M.=Cogitata Metaphysica. The section-numbers referred 
to are those of Bruder s edition of Spinoza. 

Epp.= Epistulae. 

E.=Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata. 

K. V. = Korte Verhandeling van God, de Mensch, en deszelfs 
Welstand. 

K. V. S. = Sigwart s German translation of the Korte Ver 
handeling. 

3. COMMENTATORS ON SPINOZA. 

A.venarius= Richard Avenarius, Ueber die beiden ersten Phasen 
des Spinozischen Pantheismus, &c. Leipzig, 1868. 

Brunschvicg= Professor Leon Brunschvicg, Spinoza. Paris, 
1894. 



xiv REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS 

Busolt=Dr. GeorgBusolt, Die G-rundzuge der Erkenntnisstheorit 

und Metaphysik Spinoza s. Berlin, 1875. 
Caird= Principal John Caird, LL.D., Spinoza. Edinburgh, 

1888. 
Camerer Theodor Camerer, Die Lehre Spinoza s. Stuttgart, 

1877. 
Elbogen=Dr. Ismar Elbogen, Der Tractatus de intelkctus emen- 

datione, &c. Breslau, 1898. 
Erdmann, ii=Dr. J. E. Erdmann, G-rundriss der Geschichte der 

Philosophic, vol. ii. Berlin, 1878. 
Erdmann, V. A. = Dr. J. E. Erdmann, Vermischte Aufsatze. 

Leipzig, 1846. 
Grzymisch=Dr. Siegfried Grzymisch, Spinoza s Lehren von der 

Ewigkeit und UnsterUichJceit. Breslau, 1898. 
Joel=Dr. M. Joel, Zur Genesis der Lehre Spinoza s. Breslau, 

1871. 
Loewe = Dr. Johann Heinrich Loewe, Die Philosophic Fichte s, 

&c. (with an appendix on Spinoza s conception of God). 

Stuttgart, 1862. 
Martineau Dr. James Martineau, A Study of Spinoza. Third 

edition. London, 1895. 
Pollock = Sir Frederick Pollock, Spinoza: Us Life and Philo 
sophy. Second edition. London, 1899. 
Sigwart, Tr.=Dr. Christoph Sigwart, Spinoza s neuentdeckter 

Tractat von Gott, &c. Gotha, 1866. 
Sigwart, Sp.=Dr. H. C. W. Sigwart, Der Spinozismys, &c. 

Tubingen, 1839. 
Thomas = Dr. Karl Thomas, Spinoza als Metapliysiker, &c. 

Konigsberg, 1840. 
Zulawski=Dr. Jerzy Zulawski, Das Problem der Kausalitat lei 

Spinoza. Bern, 1899. 




S- 3 



A STUDY OF THE 

ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



HENRY FROWDE, M.A. 

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 

LONDON, EDINBURGH 

NEW YORK 




A STUDY OF THE 

ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

(ETHICA ORDINE GEOMETRICO 
DEMONSTRATA) 



BY 



HAROLD H. JOACHIM 

FELLOW AND TUTOR OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD 




OXFORD 
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 



1901 



: 



DATE 



BY 

PRESERVATION 
RVICES 

JAN 2 1992 



OXFORD 

PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 

BY HORACE HA-RT, M.A. 
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 



3 
397 4- 



INTRODUCTION 



THE early and unfinished Tractatus de Intellectus The 
Emendatione is invaluable to students of the Ethics, 
As a fragment of a treatise on Method, it supplements 
Spinoza s theory of knowledge. But it has greater 
claims on our attention than this. For the treatise 
on Method is set in a framework, which exhibits the 
central ideas of Spinoza s philosophy with remarkable 
clearness. The writer of the Ethics comes before the 
world with a finished system : but the writer of the 
Tractatus allows us to see this system in the making, 
and shows us the motives which inspired it. __ 

Philosophy is for Spinoza certain, demonstrable, and 
demonstrated knowledge. It is a system of necessary 
truth, whose consummation is the complete under- j 
standing of ourselves, and our place in the universe 
the most that we are or can be. In other words, 
philosophy is for him the complete knowledge of 
human nature and life ethics scientifically demon 
strated. t But it is also a great deal more. It is the 
ijdeal_human life : for, in the complete understanding 
which is philosophy, we enjoy the only permanent 
satisfaction of our nature. This conception of philo 
sophy as the full knowledge, which is perfect life 
is developed in the opening pages of the Tractatus as 
the outcome of Spinoza s personal experience 1 . 

Experience he tells us has taught him that none 

1 W1L. i. pp. 3-5. The tone stress of the struggle, and at- 
of the Tdle is that of a man tained peace. Cf. Avenarius, 
who has passed through the p. 46. 
SPINOZA B 



2 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

of the objects which men usually set before themselves 
can yield complete satisfaction of desire. Pleasure, 
power^wealth all fail^fco serve as a source of permanent, 
unblroken ^ni oy mentT 3joH~~tn"eir fail " "tJSSause of their"" 

~ . _ *i~M. - - . i . i i.j.1 . K n - .......1.1111. 

nature. It isjjheir natur^toj^e^^e^is^a/ble and finite ; ^ 

byJLjDern^c^J^ 

itself permanent an! uncEangeable. To set one s heart 

on "^o^Setntng*e r Eernal and "infinite this feeds the mind 

with unmixed joy : an object of this kind can never 

be the source of sorrow and disappointment V 

So long as our mind is set on the pursuit of finite 
objects, it is impossible to fix our thoughts seriously 
on anything else. Yet, so far as they go, these objects 
satisfy desire and are good indeed the only goods 
which experience affirms to us. Are we then to sacrifice 
a certain for a chimerical good ? But further reflection 
shows that this is not the alternative that confronts us. 
We are in search of something completely good, as the 
sole remedy for the fatal disease 2 of unsatisfied desire : ) 
and this the good itself is certain and real, and in no 
way chimerical. Our attainment of it is uncertain 
but this uncertainty diminishes with increased re 
flection. The eiid, then, is not chimerical, nor does its 
attainment necessarily involve the sacrifice of goods 
we already possess. The pursuit of power, riches, 
pleasure is not in itself incompatible with the pursuit 
of the supreme good : it becomes incompatible and 
a hindrance only if we make these objects ends 
desirable for their own sake. But to surrender these 
as the ultimate ends of life is to surrender certain evils, 
and not to sacrifice goods. For pursue any of these 
objects as your ultimate end, and you will inevitably 
be led to despair and destruction. But it is not necessary 

1 Sed amor erga rem aeternam est expers. VV1L. i. p. 5; cf. 
et infinitam sola laetitia pascit K. V. S. 2. 7, 3. 
animum, ipsaque omnis tristitiae 2 Cf. the simile, VV1L. i. p. 4. 




INTRODUCTION 3 

(nor indeed feasible) to mortify all desires of the flesh, 
in order to strive after complete happiness. 

What, then, is in outline the nature of this supreme 
object of desire, attainment of which must afford perfect 
and permanent satisfaction? 

To perfect knowledge, or in reality, 
I/ no perfection or~ iii 

.aa~a. necessary consequence of the Border 

of tjie^jinraarse,! or the /laws of nature. But human 

knowledge knows only in part, sees things only from 
certain points of view and not in their unbroken and 
necessary coherence. And for that knowledge, good 
and bad, perfect and imperfect, express adaptation 
or non-adaptation to purpose. Since the purpose is not 
in the things, but in our view of them ; and since our 
views are only partial and therefore many, good bad, 
perfect imperfect, are relative terms : and relative to 
such an extent that the same thing may rightly be 
called both good and bad, both perfect and imper 
fect in accordance with our varying points of view 1 . 

Now, in searching for the supreme good, we are 
considering things as objects of human desire. Good 
is that which satisfies the desires of human nature ; 
absolutely good ( the supreme good ), that which com 
pletely satisfies those desires ; relatively good (a true 
good ) that which leads to this satisfaction. 

But a good of this kind is a state or condition of 
human nature itself. A good state is one which we 
conceive to be far stronger 2 , and more stable than our 
own, and which for all we know to the contrary 
is within our powers of attainment. A good, in fact, 
is a better state of ourselves. The supreme good for 
a man is to attain to such a development that he if 
possible in common with his fellows may enjoy 

1 See below, Bk. III. ch. I ; and 2 Multo firmiorem more self- 
cf. E. iv. praef., K. V. S. i. 6, 7-9. sufficient or self-dependent. 

B 2 



4 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

a permanent realization (in his own person and in 
theirs) of ideal human nature, i. e. of that state which he 
conceives as the best human state. And to anticipate l 
we can say in general terms that this ideal state of human 
nature is thaJLin w^i^b w ft Vr>A W f.frq rmin-n r>f mfl.-n s 
mind with^thejwhole of nature/ To know and under- 
stand this, would be to understand (and therefore to love) 
the eternal and necessary order of things. And full con 
sciousness of this (and of our place in that order) would 
be perfect and permanent satisfaction of our desire 2 . 

This being the ultimate aim of all our efforts, we have 
next to consider the means. Of these the first and most 
important is to clear our intellect from error. Passing by, 
for the present, all other needs, we must turn our atten 
tion to the discovery of a method for removing the pre 
liminary obstacles to the attainment of truth : a method 
to remedy the defects of our intellect, or to render it fit so 
to understand things that we may attain our supreme good. 

1 W1L. i. p. 6. * Quaenam au- compulsion of unreasonable pas 
tern ilia sit natura ostendemus sion as mentis libertas seu 
BUO loco, nimirum esse cogni- beatitudo. 

tionem unionis, quam mens cum If Spinoza s design had been 

tota Natura habet. Footnote of completed, we should have in the 

Spinoza s Haec fusius suo loco Tdle the Logica to purge the mind 

explicantur. of erroneous ways of thinking, 

2 This conception of the su- that it may be fitted to attain 
preme good for man is the same the perfect state ; and we should 
as that elaborated in the Ethics have in other treatises the Medi- 
(cf. E. v. praef., and Descartes, cina for the body, the Theory of 
introductory letter to the Prin- Mechanics for increasing the con- 
cipia}. Both in the Ethics and veniences of life, the Theories of 
in the Tdle, the supreme good Moral Philosophy and of the Edu- 
for man is the attainment (by cation of the Young for the forma- 
oneself and others) of such de- tion of a suitable political society, 
velopment of our human nature and the Theory of Physics for 
as will enable us to know, and an adequate knowledge of our 
therefore to love, God, i.e. corporeal selves and material 
Nature. In both works this know- things. (Cf. VV1L. i. p. 6, 
ledge is conceived as freeing the Descartes I.e., and E. ii. Lemma 
mind from the external or alien 7 S.) 



INTRODUCTION 5 

At this point l the treatise on Method proper begins. 
Its details belong to Spinoza s theory of knowledge; 
and we need not treat of them here. But his conception. 
nf flm <yp,T]A r p1 -nat.nrp. r>f thft method is all-important 
for the iTnHp.raf.fl.Ti ding pf the Ethics. 

The aim of the method is to fit the intellect for the 
attainment of the best 5 knowledge of things. What 
then is the bestlJbiowledge in what form of appre 
hension do we most fully understand? 

If the object to be known is self-dependent (and in 
that sense causa sui 2 ), we must, in order to understand 
it, grasp it solely by its own essential nature : if the 
object is dependent, we must grasp it by knowledge 
of its proximate cause. For to understand a thing 
is to know why it is what it is to see the necessity 
of its being. The method therefore must prepare the 
intellect for knowing under this form of apprehension 
the form whereby we understand things per solam suam 
essentiam vel per cognitionem suae proximae causae. 
And our task in this treatise is to lay down the method 
or way of thinking under this form of apprehension 3 . 

For let us be quite clear what a method is. The 
method of knowledge is that knowledge reflected on 
itself the thinking of our thinking, cognitio reflexiva 
or ( idea ideae. If this were not so, we should never 
attain to any knowledge at all ; we should be committed 
to the infinite process before we could begin to know. 
We should require a new method to test the truth of the 
first, and again a third to test the second, and so on. The 
case may be roughly illustrated from man s productive 
activities. To beat iron we require a hammer ; to make 
a hammer we need another hammer and so on (it might 
be thought) ad infinitum. And yet men, by the use of 
the simple tools with which nature provided them (e. g. 






1 YV1L. i. p. 7. 2 VV1L. i. p. 30 ; see below, p. 53, note I. 

3 Ib. pp. 10 -16. 



6 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

hands and raw material), have advanced step by step. 
through the perfecting of more complicated tools, to the 
most elaborate artistic products. So, the mind by the 
careful employing of its tools (the true thoughts which its 
inherited power has enabled it to fashion l ) can advance 
step by step to a more perfect understanding. 

"We are not here concerned with the question as to 
* how ideas arise in our mind at all. It is enough for us 
at present that the mind has ideas, some of which are 
true : i. e. it thinks and can think truly. The aim of the 
treatise on Method is to trace reflectively the way in which 
we apprehend in true thinking : for the clear consciousness 
of the course of our thinking when we apprehend things 
through their essential nature or through their proximate 
cause this itself is the method we are seeking. 

We shall understand this more clearly, if we consider 
for a moment the nature of an idea/ An idea is an act 
of thought : to have an idea is to think. Now an 
idea must be distinguished from its ideatum. The 
true idea of Peter, e.g., is not Peter himself: it is the 
objective essence of Peter, i. e. Peter as he is for thought. 
And the idea of Peter, qud an act of thought, has a dis 
tinctive being of its own which can in turn be the object 
of another thought the * ideatum of another idea which 
presents the first idea objectively/ or is its essentia obiec- 
tiva. .Every idea thus exhibits a double character. As 
presentative of an original, it is the objective essence 
of its ideatum ; and, as an act of thought, it possesses 

1 So the intellect by its inborn vestigations yet further ; and thus 

power (by which I mean that it advances step by step until it 

which is not the effect in us of reaches the pinnacle of wisdom. 1 

external causes) fashions for itself VV1L. i. p. n. 

instruments of understanding: In the footnote read non causa- 

these give it strength for further tur. W1L. omit non : but it is 

works of understanding; from the a necessary emendation of Paulus, 

latter it gains other instruments adopted by Saisset and Bruder ; 

or the power of pushing its in- cf. Elbogen, p. 13, note 3. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

a peculiar nature of its own (a real, or formal essence), 
which may in turn become the ideatum of another idea 1 . ; 
This latter process may be repeated indefinitely, as is 
matter of common experience. Thus we all recognize 
that we know that we know, and again know that we 
know that we know, and so on ad infinitum. But we 
also recognize and this is the important point that 
knowledge has no need to wait for the completion of 
this infinite process. On the contrary : this indefinite 
regressive reflection itself postulates as its starting-point 
and condition the first idea or act of thought. In other 
words applying this to our present purpose all methods 
postulate the knowledge of which they are the methods ; 
all reflection on the truth of an idea postulates the first 
idea or act of thinking. -3^e-eannot advance a step i 
A can start - wit.H an idea which is 



f.T*np ( fljirl tliA crna.rfl.nf.AA c\f it^t oiyn faT^li Th ft tfts \, 

fof truth must M_giY.en in the ant-of thinking: it. r.a.TiTiQt 
be aiiDli0ci eytftrripilly by ft separate act of tho^iffhti Our 
knowledge or certainty of truth is our knowing truly. 
If I think truly, I shall eo ipso be conscious that my 
thought is true : for to think truly is to have in idecc 
the real nature of the object of thought to have oMective 
the essentia formalis of that which we are thinking. If 
I have a true idea, or think truly, I am, in the very act of 
thinking, convinced of the truth of my thought : and this 
conviction is but my way of feeling (being conscious of) 
the essentia formalis of the object of my thought 2 . 

A method, then, postulates as its starting-point true 
knowledge or a true thought of some kind. And the 
best method will be that which reflects upon the truest 

1 On this subject, and on an nihil sit praeter ipsam essentiam 
ambiguity in the expression * esse obiectivam ; id est, modus, quo 
obiectivum ideae, see below, pp. sentimus essentiam formalem, 
70ft 7 . est ipsa certitude. W1L. i. 

2 Hinc patet quod certitude p. 12. 



8 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

idea the most perfect knowledge. But there is only one 
idea, the grasp of which is absolute certainty : only one 
object of thought, the thinking of which is the complete 
guarantee of its own truth. For there is only one object 
of thought which is absolutely self-contained or self- 
dependent : only one object, therefore, which we can 
grasp fully and wholly in an act of thought. Everything 
except this is dependent for its being upon something 
other than itself: the thought therefore of everything 
except this calls for the thought of other things to 
guarantee its truth. Reality, God, Nature, the Most 
Perfect Being however we name it this alone is self-_ 
dependent and self-contained. This and this alone is^ 
an * ideatum, the clear thought of which gives complete 
certainty of truth. The true idea, which the method 
must usea-s^a ^oxmj tq test the truth of all other know 
ledge, isjthe Ideaof the whole| the ultimate test of 
all our knowledge and all reality is the complete system 
of experience. That alone is completely real, of which 
we can say If anything in any sense is, this must most 
assuredly 6e as the absolute prius of the being of every- . 
thing. And that alone is completely true of which we 
can say either this is true, or there is no truth. 

We can now shortly sum the principles of the most 
perfect method : 

(i)vlt must enable us to distinguish true from false, 
fictitious and dubious ideas, and (2) thus to keep our- 
minds from the latter. (3) It must give us rules for 
apprehending things according to the norm or standard 
i. e. for testing all our knowledge by the idea of the 
most perfect iSbing, the source of all reality. (4) It must 
teach us to follow out our investigations and deductions 
from this idea in a due order : i. e. so to arrange and 
connect our true ideas as to reduce them to dependence 
on the one idea which reflects the absolute prius of all 
being :,ibr thus, and thus only, will our understanding 




INTRODUCTION 9 

represent, as far as possible, obiective the nature of Reality, 
both as a whole and in all its parts \ 

It follows that a system of philosophy in its most The ethics 
finished expression must rest upon the idea of the Most amn^of 
Perfect Being that Being which is unique and infinite, the most 
i. e. which is all reality, beside which there is no reality 2 . method. 
The only true understanding of things is that which 
begins and ends with the idea of God or Reality. Hence, 
the Ethics begins with the idea of substance, or self- 
dependent being that which is in se^and therefore is 
conceived p^r^se. It shows that the whole Eeality (and 
only the whole j^is in this sense : and it explains the 
world by showing how it is the inevitable consequence of 
this idea : how if you develop or think out the character 
of the self-dependent being, the full nature of things will 
reveal itself to you as an intelligible system : a system as 
necessarily coherent as the space which you learn to know 
__in its essential features by geometrical thinking. 

The last illustration is not chosen at haphazard. The The ordo 
title of Spinoza s work is Ethica ordine geometrico geometricus 
demonstrate, and the method of demonstration is not, 
for Spinoza, merely an external form into which the 
matter is forced. In adopting this method of ex 
position he is following, no doubt, in the footsteps of 
Descartes at least he is carrying out a half-formed 
project of the latter but he had very good grounds on 
his own theory of things for this proceeding. Descartes 
in the Principia professes to treat physics as geometry. 
Corporeal matter is simply that matter * which is divisible, 
figurable, and movable in all ways that which geo 
meters call " quantity." It is only with the divisions, 
figures, and motions of this matter that he is concerned ; 
and he will admit nothing as true of these, unless it can 
be deduced from those common notions (Axioms), about 
whose truth we cannot doubt, with the evident certainty 
1 VV1L. i. p. 16 and p. 30. 2 VV1L. i. p. 26. 



io THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

of mathematical demonstration. All the phenomena of 
nature, he maintains, can be explained in this way 1 . 

The next step is obviously to put the Principles 
of Philosophy into geometrical form and Spinoza, 
in his textbook of Descartes 2 , has done so. But Des 
cartes himself was prepared to treat metaphysics 
with certain reservations in this method, and has 
actually left us a fragmentary (and rather imperfect) 
specimen. In the second set of Objections to the 
Meditations, the objector urges Descartes to treat the 
subject more geometrico a method in which he is 
so great a master for the better convincing of his 
readers. Descartes reply is very instructive 3 . In the 
geometrical method, he says, the order and the mode 
of demonstration should be distinguished. As regards 
the order, the essential characteristic of all geometrical 
exposition is that nothing should be put forward which 
rests upon what follows. The earlier propositions must 
be intelligible without the later, the later must not be 
advanced until their grounds have been stated. This is 
obviously a requisite of all satisfactory exposition, and 
Descartes points out that he has observed this order in 
his Meditations. But as regards the mode of geometrical 
proof ; this is of two kinds, analytical and synthetical. 
The analytical method works back to the elements from 
the starting-point of the ordinary mind, and thus, if the 
reader will but attend, carries him to the truth over 
the road by which it was (or might have been) first 
discovered; but it does not compel an inattentive or 
hostile reader to accept its conclusions. This is the 
method of the Meditations * the best method for teach 
ing and the method of Spinoza s Tractatus. But the 
ancient geometers make no open use of it; not, Descartes 
says, that they were ignorant of it, but because (as I take 

1 Desc. Princ. ii. 64. 2 Ph.D.; see Meyer s Preface. 

3 Desc. Medit. Resp. ad sec. obiect. 



INTRODUCTION n 

it) they valued it so highly that they wished to keep it 
to themselves as a professional secret. 

Hence, when mention is made of the geometrical 
method, people are thinking of the synthetical mode 
of demonstration : that which starts from the elements 
(definitions, axioms, postulates), and builds up its con 
clusions out of them in a growing series of more and 
more complex propositions. It compels the reader s 
assent to its conclusions, by showing that they are 
involved in its premises the elements, which he has 
admitted. And in geometry this method is very power 
ful ; for the first notions on which it depends are 
in accordance with our sensible experience, and therefore 
readily admitted by all. But in metaphysics, the clear 
and distinct apprehension of the first notions is the 
most troublesome work of the whole science ; for it 
involves a complete liberation from the prejudices of 
the senses. Still, to satisfy his objector, Descartes 
subjoins a specimen of the synthetic geometrical treat 
ment of metaphysical subject-matter; a specimen, which 
is as he admits tentative and fragmentary. 

Spinoza s use of the geometrical method may, no 
doubt, be regarded as a development of these hints 
of Descartes. The cogency and certainty of the syn 
thetic form of geometrical demonstration must have 
appealed to him: its complete disregard of all teleo- 
logical explanation we know strongly attracted him 1 . 
If the success of this method was so well established 
in geometry and in physics, why should it not prove 
equally powerful in metaphysics? To Spinoza there 
could be no doubt of success. Since for him the cor 
poreal is the spiritual universe since the series of . ; 
physical causes and effects is the same (as an order ) (// 
as the series of ideas a method, which attained such 
brilliant results in the first, must succeed, if properly 
1 Cf. E. i. App. 



12 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

applied, in the other systems of Reality. If the geo 
metrical method explains the universe qud extended, 
it must explain it also qud thinking or qud conceived 
under any other Attribute l . 

No doubt the actual order of demonstration, the actual 
series of propositions in the Ethics, does not represent the 
order of discovery: that is perhaps exhibited rather in the 
Tractatus. Nor does it give us the only possible method 
of exposition. Nor again is it, simply as geometrical 
demonstration, a guarantee of the truth of the system 2 . 

Still, the method is, in Spinoza s view, adequate to 
the subject-matter ; and, however it may appear to us, 
Spinoza never for one moment imagined himself to be 
torturing his material into an alien mould. Through 
out, he makes it clear that in his opinion ^the-most 
adequate scientific way of conceiving Reality is an exten 
sion of the geometer s method of conceiving space. Jt 
is under the categories of geometry that Reality must 
be thought. Cause and effect, e. g., to Spinoza, mean 
ground and * consequent ; efficient and formal cause 
are one and the same. To say Mjo.d is *-Tii 



rcause of Jjll t-hiTigs is 4o say all things flow from 

the nature of God with the same timeless ^necessity as 

i that with which the properties nf a. f.rjyynglp. eternally 

I flow from its nature V So, if we are to understand 

* "human passions and emotions, we must study them as 

they really are, not as we, with our human prejudices, 

estimate them to be. But as they really are they flow 

from the nature of things with the same necessity with 

which all other consequents result. Accordingly, 

1 See below, ch. 3. Science for science a demonstrable body of 

Descartes and Spinoza was practi- truth. 

cally equivalent to mathematics. 2 For the Ph.D., which we know 
To treat philosophy in the geo- Spinoza did not wholly accept, is 
metrical method is therefore the also in geometrical form, as Pol- 
natural result of their determina- lock well points out. (Pollock, 
tion to regard philosophy as p. 29.) 3 E. i. 17 S. and often. 



INTRODUCTION 13 

Spinoza says *, c I shall treat of the nature and strength 
of the passions, and of the mind s mastery over them, 
by the same method which I have hitherto adopted 
in this work : i. e. I shall consider the actions and 
emotions of man precisely as if I were studying the 
nature of lines, planes, and solids V 

It would be premature to enter into the problems to 
which Spinoza s use of the geometrical method gives 
rise. The consequences of his geometrical view of 
things are to a large extent the main features of his 
philosophy, and must be considered in their proper 
place, as parts of his system. His conception, e. g., of 
eternity and of necessity : his rejection of all teleo- 
logical explanation ; these are at once dominant charac 
ters of his philosophy, and, if not the direct outcome 
of his geometrical view, at least largely coloured by 
it. Neither shall I attempt to criticize the method, or 
to point out its disadvantages which lie, indeed, mostly 
on the surface, plain to view; our first task is to try 
to understand, and criticism at this stage would be worse 
than premature. But it is important to emphasize what 
I have already laid down : the form of Spinoza s ex 
position is essential to its matter. He casts his system 
in- a geometrical mould, because the subject-matter, as 
he conceives it, demands such treatment. If, and in 
so far as, the method breaks down, we shall expect to 
find the inadequacy of the form revealing a correspond 
ing defect in the matter : i. e. the geometrical method 
will fail, because Eeality is more than the subject-matter 
of geometry, and therefore cannot be apprehended under 
geometrical categories 3 . 

1 E. iii. praef. ; cf. E. iv. 57 S. connexion, notice how Spinoza 

2 It is not necessary to multi- throughout his writings chooses 
ply illustrations of that which his examples from geometry ; cf. 
every student of Spinoza can e. g. Ep. 56, Ep. 73. 

see for himself. But, in this 3 Cf. below, pp. 115 ff. 



BOOK I 

THE GENEEAL NATURE OF EEALITY 
CHAPTER I 

1. MEANING OF THE ANTITHESES SUBSTANCE AND MODE 
and SUBSTANCE AND ATTKIBUTE. 

BOOK i. THE first part of the Ethics is concerned with the 
general nature of Eeality 1 . Spinoza starts with the 
conception of Substance ; proves that Eeality_jjLJj- 
absolute completeness (Deus sive Natura 2 ) is the only 
Substance ; and thence deduces his fundamental meta 
physical positions. 

Substance and Mode. 

We have learnt from the Tractatus that a philosophical 
interpretation of things must begin with the idea of self- 
dependent or self-subsistent Eeality. The subject-matter 
of philosophy, the Real, falls apart into two great divi 
sions: that which is in itself, and that which is in 
something else 3 . That, which is in itself/ i. e. that, the 
reality of which is self-dependent, is what Spinoza calls 
Substance 4 : that, which is in something else, i. e. 

1 Cf. its title (de Deo) and E. i. 3 Cf. E. i. Ax. i. Omnia 

App. sub init., ii. Praef. quae sunt vel in se vel in alio 

3 For the actual expression cf. sunt. 
E. iv. Praef. * E. i. def. 3. 



SUBSTANCE AND MODE 15 

jgkoag) roalifryUa-jd^ondonfr, -recalled. aJLmocter"trf CHAP. 
state of Substance}. "We begin therefore with the anti- 
thesisoT^Substance and its states or modifications 2 
a more precise formulation of the popular antithesis of 
thing and properties, the metaphysical (though not the 
co-extensive 3 ) correlate of the logical antithesis of subject 
and predicates 4 . 

It is important to bear in mind from the outset, that 
the division is within, or of, the real 6 : .the modes or 
states of substance are not illusions ; they are real, 
though their reality is dependent on/the reality of Sub 
stance in which they are 6 . 

Further, it is to be noticed that the antithesis between 
Substance and modes does not correspond to the later 
distinction between the thing-in-itself and its appear 
ances. Modes to Spinoza are not { that which we know> 
of Substance, and Substance that which we may think 
but cannot know/ There is, in Spinoza, no divorce 
between what is and what is known 7 , though there 
is a constant distinction between complete and partial 
knowledge. For the present (if we are content with 
a rough and partly inaccurate statement of his position) 
we may say that, to Spinoza, the completely real is the 
object of complete knowledge, and knowledge is of the real. 
This is the general conception, which underlies the defi 
nitions of Substance and mode, and links the second half 
of each definition with the first. The second half 8 

1 E. i. def. 5. 6 This statement will be con- 

2 Spinoza discards the form of siderably modified below, cf. pp. 
the antithesis Substance and 107 ff. It is, I think, true of 
accidents 1 (which he had used, Spinoza s intention, as revealed 
e.g. Ep. 4), as likely to mislead, in the definitions. 

cf. C. M. i. i, ii. 7 The difficulties, in this re- 

3 Cf. Lotze, Logik, ch. i, 4ff. spect, to which Spinoza s con- 

4 Cf. e.g. Ph.D. i. def. 5, and ception of the infinite attributes 
K. V. S. i. ch. i, note to 7. gives rise, will be considered 

8 Cf. E. i. Ax. i quoted in note below. 
3 P- 14- 8 E. i. deff. 3 and 5. 



16 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. asserts : if anything is real in the sense of being self- 
dependent, then knowledge of it means the conceiving it 
in its self-dependence or through itself. And : if any 
thing is real in its dependence on something else, then 
knowledge of it means the conceiving it through the 
- conception of that on which it depends. Substance, 
therefore, is that which is in itself and is conceived 
through itself; Mode, that which is a state of Substance 
and therefore is in something else and is conceived 
through that other. Hence it is one and the same thing 
for Spinoza to say that all Eeality ultimately rests upon 
what is self-dependent ; and that all true knowledge must 
depend upon a conception which is not itself dependent 
on any other l . 

From these definitions of the two sides of the anti 
thesis it follows immediately 2 that Substance is naturally 
prior to its states. For the being and conception of Sub 
stance is independent of the being and conception of 
modes. To think Substance in its self-dependence is the 
only way to think it truly 3 . Not that modes are unreal, 
or that Substance exists in no state of itself. lhe_jmre 
we understand the modes, the more we understand Sub- 
..stance ; for jmiodes ,are ways_in_which Substance is ex 
pressed 4 . The understanding of modes will teach us the 
understanding of Substance ; for to understand modes 

k is to know them in their being, L e. in their dependence 

on Substance. But the idea of Substance cannot be put 

~ : *" "" "- * . JT 

^~ together out of the ideas of its modes : the idea of a mode 

1 Cf. above, p. 5. Substance is 2 E. i. i. 

that which we must in the most 3 E. i. 5 dem. . . . depositis ergo 

perfect form of apprehension affectionibus, et in se considerata, 

grasp per solam suam essentiam. hoc est (per def. 3 et axiom. 6) 

Modes must be grasped per cog- vere considerata . . . (The italics 

nitionem suae proximae causae, are my own.) 

i.e. (as we shall see presently) 4 Cf. E. v. 24 (with i. 25 C, 

through the knowledge of Sub- to which it refers for its 

stance. proof). 



SUBSTANCE AND ATTRIBUTE 17 

involves the idea of Substance, because the reality of CHAP. 
a mode involves the reality of Substance. The general 
character of Substance is not altered by the particular 
forms which it assumes in its modes, but the general 
nature of modes is through and through determined 
by Substance. Jo conceive Substance through the 



conception of its modes, would be to conceive it as 







dependent for its being on their being. And this would 
be a misconception, for we should be endeavouring to ]/ / 
grasp the whole through the grasp of its parts or 
partial expressions, forgetting that these parts are 
themselves unintelligible except in the light of the 
whole- 1 . 

If you ask { "What is that, the reality of which is self- 
dependent ? you will find yourself forced to the con 
clusion of Spinoza. Nothing short of the complete 
Reality is self-dependent, i. e. * God or Nature or the 
absolutely complete Reality alone is in se/ or has 
substantial being; everything else is adjectival in 
its nature or has a reality dependent on that of the 
one Substance. But before following Spinoza to this 
conclusion, it is necessary to examine his conception of 
Attribute. 

Substance and Attribute. 

At first sight it would seem as if Substance and its 
modes together exhausted Reality ; and this is in a sense 
true. In the nature of things there is nothing given 
besides Substances and their states, as is clear from 
Ax. i and deff. 3 and 5. (E. i. 6. C.) All things which 
are, are either in themselves or in something else (by 
Ax. i) ; that is (by deff. 3 and 5), outside the intellect 
there is given nothing besides Substances and their 
states. (i. 4 dem.) But the same demonstration proceeds : 
nothing therefore, which could serve as a ground of 

1 Cf. below, p. 65, note i. 



SPINOZA 



i8 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. distinction between two or more things, is given outside 
the intellect besides Substances, or what (by def. 4) 
is the same thing besides the Attributes, and states of 
Substances. 

It seems clear, then, that in some sense Attributes and 
Substances are the same thing. Turning to the defini 
tion of Attribute, we find: ( By "Attribute" I mean 
that which intellect perceives as constituting the essen 
tial nature of Substance 1 . The Attributes of a Substance, 
therefore, are the essential nature of that Substance so far 
as it is understood. 

A slight historical digression will confirm this state 
ment, and at the same time prepare us for a more 
accurate examination of Spinoza s conception of Attribute. 
In the letters 2 , and in an early draft of the beginning 
of the Ethics 3 , Spinoza had actually defined Attribute 
in the same terms as Substance. By "Attribute" 
I mean everything which is conceived through itself 
and in itself, in such a way that its conception does 
not involve the conception of anything else. E. g. Ex 
tension is conceived per se f et in se. But motion is 
conceived in alio, and its conception involves Exten 
sion 4 . This apparent identification of Substance and 
Attribute seems to have given some difficulty to certain 
students of Spinoza, and we find him returning to the 
subject in Ep. 9 5 . 

1 E. i. def. 4. Per attributum sunt dari duae aut plures sub- 

intelligo id quod intellectus de stantiae eiusdem naturae sive 

substantia percipit tanquam attributi. 

eiusdem essentiam constituens. 2 Cf. e. g. Epp. 2, 4 and 9. 

Constituens is accusative neuter 3 So we gather from Epp. i, 2, 

agreeing with quod as we 3, 4, 8 and 9. 

learn from ii. 7 S. Intellectus, * Ep. 2, Sept. 1661. 

which I have translated intellect, 6 Simon de Vries (Ep. 8) had 

means any act of intelligence or written (on behalf of a society 

understanding : see below. Cf. of students who met to study 

i. 5. * In rerum natura non pos- Spinoza s manuscript writings) 



SUBSTANCE AND ATTRIBUTE 19 

After giving the definition of Substance, as we have CHAP. I 
it in E. i. def. 3, Spinoza proceeds (quoting from the 
MS. draft which he had sent to these friends), J By 
fc Attribute " I mean the same, except that it is called 
"Attribute " in respect to the intellect the intellect as v 
: attributing " to Substance the distinct nature in question. 
This definition, I assert, explains quite clearly what 
I mean by Substance or (sive) Attribute. Since, / 
however, you desire it, I will add two examples to show 
how one and the same thing can be stamped with two 
names, (i) " Israel " means the third patriarch ; so does 
Jacob," but he was called Jacob because he had " taken 
hold on his brother s heel." (2) A " plane surface " 
means that which reflects all the rays of light without 
deviation ; so does a " white surface," but it is called 
" white " in respect to the man who is looking at the 
surface. 

It follows, I think, from these and other passages in 
the same letters, that Spinoza, in his original draft of the 
Ethics, had retained the terminology of Descartes more 
closely than is sometimes supposed. Descartes, whilst 
admitting that God alone the absolutely self-depen 
dent Being was in strictness entitled to be called 
* Substance, yet does not hesitate to call extended and 
thinking things (bodies and minds) Substances, so far 
as they are independent of everything created and 
dependent only on God. Originally, I think, Spinoza 
was prepared to speak of the extended and thinking 
worlds indifferently as the Attributes of Extension and 
Thought, or as Substantia extensa and Substantia 

to formulate certain difficulties to Oldenburg, see Sigwart, Tr. 

amongst them, this of Sub- pp. 137 ff. Simon de Vries (in 

stance and Attribute. Spinoza Ep. 8) is referring to a modified 

answers in February, 1663 (Ep. form of this Oldenburg draft : a 

9). For a reconstruction of the form which approaches more 

definitions, axioms, and proposi- nearly to the text of E. i, as we 

tions originally sent by Spinoza have it. 

C 2 



20 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. cogitans : and to define God as ens absolute infinitum 
constans infinitis substantiis sive attributis. It was only \ 
to avoid misunderstanding l that he adopted the stricter 
terminology of the Ethics, according to which God is 
the i Substantia constans infinitis attributis. Traces of 
the older inaccurate terminology survive in the early 
letters : and E. i. 15 S. contains a direct reference to it 
Hence we have inferred that the (so-called) " extended 
Substance" is (really) one of the infinite Attributes of 
God. 

But the change of terminology marks a real change in 
point of view an advance on Descartes. However much 
Descartes might insist that God alone was strictly 
self-dependent, strictly Substance ; yet the bodies and 
minds, the things which supported Extension and 
Thought as their adjectives, acquired in his Philosophy 
an independence of each other which amounted to a 
self-dependence of their own, and therefore required 
to be re-united externally. Spinoza, on the contrary ,-fl 
never for one moment allows himself to regard the 
particular bodies and minds as Substance* 2 : and from 
the first grasps firmly the dependent nature of all 
being even the extended and thinking worlds as 
wholes on the one self-dependent being. Everything 
except the one Substance is for him adjectival in its 
nature. The res extensa and the res cogitans are (not 
two Substances with different Attributes, but) the one 
self-dependent Substance under two of its Attributes 3 . 
In framing the stricter terminology of the Ethics, 
Spinoza gets rid, once for all, of a twofold misinter 
pretation. His students can no longer suppose either 
that he agrees with Descartes in attributing a quasi- 
independence to the particular bodies and minds : or 
that he regards the worlds of Extension and Thought 

1 Such misunderstanding, e. g., 2 Cf. e. g. Ep. 4. 
as Oldenburg betrays (Ep. 3). 3 Cf. E. ii. i and 2. 






SUBSTANCE AND ATTRIBUTE 



21 



as in any sense self-dependent because mutually inde- CHAP. I 
pendent *. 

To return to Spinoza s definition of Attribute. For 
the present, for the sake of clearness, we will confine our 
attention to the two Attributes which the human intel 
lect perceives as constituting the essential nature of 
the one 2 Substance : Extension and Thought 3 ^ two < 
of the fundamental" characters of the ultimate Reality. 
So_J&r as we can grasp the essential nature of Reality 
at all, we must conceive it under these Attributes. "What 
is ultimately real manifests for our intelligence an 
extended and a thinking character. Now with ; 
regard to these two Attributes, there are four chief points 
to be observed : 



1 Descartes (Princ. i. 51 ff.) ex 
plains that Substance means 
1 a thing which exists without 
requiring the support or help 
of anything else. Strictly, God 
and God alone is absolutely in 
dependent, and therefore Sub 
stance. But besides God (the 
Substantia cogitans increata 
atque independens ) there are the 
created works of God, which so 
far as they are independent for 
their existence of everything ex 
cept God may be called Sub 
stances. Thus the mind, or that 
of which all modes of thought 
(e.g. imaginatio, sensus, voluntas) 
are the properties, is Substantia 
cogitans creata : the body, or that 
of which all modes of extension 
( e. g. figura, motus) are the pro 
perties, is Substantia extensa 



creata. They are both entitled 
to the name Substance in a 
sense not univocal with that in 
which it is applied to God 
because they both are res quae 
solo Dei concursu egent ad exis- 
tendum. 

2 Strictly speaking, Substance 
is not one, because that would 
imply that it was distinguished r >. 
from other Substances, or could 
be counted as one amongst several 
realities (see below). 

3 Extensio and Cogitatio. What 
Spinoza understands by these will 
become clearer as we proceed. 
There is no single antithesis 
which can adequately represent his 
meaning. Ideal and real is in 
some ways satisfactory: but it sug 
gests that Cogitatio is not real, 
and is therefore misleading. 













22 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK i. (i) Each Attribute is a real character of what is. 

It is no arbitrary characterization of ours which 
asserts these Attributes of the Eeal. ~W"e do not fancy 
or imagine that the real exhibits these features. Eeality 
is an * extended Reality a corporeal,, material, figured 
universe, a universe whose parts are solid, are in 
motion and at rest, and so forth ; and it is a * thinking 
Eeality, a universe in which there is life, feeling, 
volition, thought. These characters, in whatever terms 
we express them, are the characters of Reality, which we 
find in it, but do not invent or make for it. 



(2) Each Attribute is an ultimate character of the Real. 

They are ultimate characters of Eeality, in the sense 
that neither can be reduced to terms of the other. Ex 
tension is not * Thought, nor Thought * Extension. 
However we may regard the relation between them, 
it is undeniable that neither is the other; no acts of 
thinking or feeling, e.g., are the modification of the 
cerebral matter or the tremor of the nerves which in 
evitably accompany them 1 . Each attribute is thus 
complete in itself : it * is and must be * conceived 
independently of any other Attribute of Eeality. It is 
impossible to understand Extension in terms of Thought, 
or Thought in terms of Extension. Extension and 
Thought are mutually exclusive ; but each is internally 
complete, or all-inclusive in its own kind. Whatever 
is in any sense extended contains no positive char 
acteristic which is not comprised in the Attribute of 
Extension : and all that is in any sense thought, or ex 
hibits any of the positive characteristics of thinking, 
is wholly comprehended under the Attribute of Thought. 

1 Cf. especially Ep. 4. 



SUBSTANCE AND ATTRIBUTE 23 

(3) Each Attribute includes the whole character which it CHAP. 
expresses, and excludes all other characters. 

n this sense each Attribute is infinite in suo genere : \ 
it is in itself the full, all-inclusive, expression of that 
character of Reality which it is. So far as extension 
means anything or is anything real, that significance 
and that being are the significance and being ex 
pressed in the Attribute of Extension ; and so, mutatis 
mutandis, with the Attribute of Thought. .4- single 
extended thing a particular body e. g. is finite and 
dependent : a fragment torn from its context, in which 
alone it has its being and significance. Neither in 
its existence nor in its nature has it any independence. 
It owes its, existence to an indefinite chain of causes, 
each of which is itself a finite body and the effect of 
another finite body: it owes its}nature\to its place in the 
whole system of bodies which together constitute the 
corporeal universe. Any attempt to explain it to under 
stand its essential nature would carry you at once 
outside it, or would force you to take it as having in 
itself no essential nature or individuality : for * it is 
through and through constituted by its relations, and if 
you include these in its nature, it will have become 
merged in the whole Attribute of Extension which 
comprises within itself the system of extended ( relata 
and relations. A body, as Spinoza expresses it J , is 
finite or limited in its own kind. It is not all that it 
professes to be we can, e. g., always conceive a bigger 
body and thus it is finite in a sense in which the 
Attribute of Extension is not limited. A body is, as it 
wereJa "jpayH a limited fragment of the Attribute of 
Extension. It is a mode of Extension, or of Substance 
conceived under the Attribute of Extension ; for it can 
neither be nor be conceived except in and through Exten- 
1 E. i. def. 2. 



24 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. sion. On the other hand, no body is { finite in the sense 
that it is limited by a thought, that it might be 
expanded so as to include thinking in its corporeal 
nature. In the chain of causes to which it owes its 
existence all are bodies, not one is a thought : and in. 
the system of relations and relata which form its con 
text, the relata are always bodies and not thoughts, the 
relations ways of corporeal interaction and not connexions 
of ideas. Its incompleteness or limitations as a body 
are due (not to its exclusion of thoughts, but) to its 
exclusion of what is implied in the character which it 
professes the character of Extension. The Attribute of 
Extension is * infinite, because it involves all the char 
acters of extension : it exhausts the whole of Reality so 
far as it is an extended Reality. To conceive Reality 
under the Attribute of Extension, would be to conceive 
completely whatever positive character Reality possesses 
qud extended. Jhe Attribute of Extension is infinite 
(not, of course, as the sum of the indefinite number of 
extended things, but) as the complete exhaustive expres 
sion of the essence, or positive character, of the Real 
qud extended. 

And the same applies, mutatis mutandis, to the Attri 
bute of Thought. 

A thought e. g. an idea which is an act of my think 
ing, or again the complex idea which constitutes my 
mind l owes its existence to a chain of prior thoughts 
(a chain which unrolls itself indefinitely backward), its 
being, or essential nature, to its coherence with the whole 
Thought-Universe. Any single thought is terminated 
by other thoughts in a twofold sense. Jts genesis de 
pends upon a series of thoughts, which can never be 
completed in regress and yet demands completion : and 
its - being i.e. its content, what, or meaning is but 
a fragment of the complete whole of Thought, and is 
1 See below, Bk. II. ch. I. 



SUBSTANCE AND ATTRIBUTE 25 

through, and through constituted by that which, as. a CHAP. ] 
fragment, it attempts to exclude. 

A single thought, or a complex of single thoughts, is 
but a^mode of Reality qud Thinking Reality a mode 
of_the one Substance conceived under the Attribute of 
Thought. That Attribute is * infinite in its own kind : 
it is the complete, exhaustive, expression of a certain 
positive character of the Real its character qud spiritual 
or thinking. The Attribute of Thought is everything 
that Thought is : all consciousness, all living, willing, 
feeling, &c., is comprehended in it. 

(4) Each Attribute is coextensive - with Substance ; or 

I ftyfifttanr.* is irJic^lp. fin all its ^.tributes ^ though different 
in each. 

Each Attribute then Extension and Thought as 
complete, exhaustive, or infinite in its kind, is coexten- 
siveQ/ with the Reality under that Attribute. There is 
no body which is not a mode of Substance under the 
Attribute of Extension ; no * thought which is not a 
mode of Substance under the Attribute of Thought. And, 
conversely, Thought and Extension are essential to the 
being of Substance ; i. e. Reality is through and through 
an extended and a thinking Reality. It is one and 
the same Reality which manifests both characters, and 
there is nothing real which is not both extended and 
ideal. There is no lifeless matter, no immaterial 
spirit 2 . 

\^/ Coextensive implies a spa- below, pp. 134 ff. *t" f ^ 
tial metaphor, and becomes mis- 2 Any two terms inadequately 
leading if its meaning is pressed, represent the antithesis of Ex- 
All that is said here as regards tensio and Cogitatio. Perhaps it 
the coextensiveness* of the At- is best to say simply everything 
tributes with one another (their extended ie at once also thinking 
so-called parallelism ) and with and everything thinking is at 
God, is to be taken as provisional once also extended. For further 
and subject to correction. See developments, see below. 



26 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. What has been said of the Attributes of Extension and 
Thought applies in principle to any and every Attribute. 
We can therefore sum up our results as follows: By 
* Attribute Spinoza means any character which is com 
prehended by intellect as (i) essential to Reality, i. e. as 
coextensive with it and necessary to its being x ; and as 
(ii) complete in itself, or incapable of being reduced to 
terms of any other character. 

It is, therefore, essential to Spinoza s conception of 
Attribute that it should be that which intellect per 
ceives . . . ^Attribute is not extra intellectum, but is 
essentially Substance as known or apprehended. On the 
other hand, it is no less essential that, while intellect 
apprehends, it should not be inventing. Attribute is 
not merely in intellectu not a mere way in which 
we happen to fancy Reality. It is no ens rationis or 
imaginationis : for it constitutes the essential nature 
of Substance. When, in fact, Spinoza says, * there is 
nothing given " realiter sive extra intellectum 2 " besides 
Substances and their modes ; Attribute, as the what 
of Substance, is not excluded from Reality. 

It is no mere creation of our minds, no arbitrary 
fancy, and in that sense it is extra intellectum. But 
it is the Reality as known, and therefore if intellectus 
is taken strictly 3 it is not * extra intellectum. 

The conception of Attribute is Spinoza s way of ex 
pressing that the Real is what is known. Commentators 
have simply stepped outside this attempt to identify 
what is and what is known, and have said brutally 
Either Reality or what is known or knowable. There 
are difficulties enough in Spinoza s conception : but it is 

1 The essence of a thing is Reality in this sense, 
that, the presence of which posits, 2 Ep. 4. Cf. E. i. 4 dem. ; i. 6 C. 
the absence of which removes, 3 See below (Bk. II. ch. 2) for 
the thing. E. ii. def. 2. Each the distinction between Intel- 
Attribute is coextensive with lectus and Imaginatio. 



INFINITE AND INDEFINITE 27 

no use to begin by postulating dogmatically the ultimate CHAP. 
severance of that which he conceives as fundamentally 
one. Attribute is neither the Eeality apart from know 
ledge, nor knowledge apart from E/eality ; but that which 
is known or knowable of Reality. And, for Spinoza, 
Reality is what is known or knowable the content or 
what of Substance is its Attributes ; and it is a false 
abstraction which gives isolated being to either side of 
the antithesis. There is no Attribute which is not an^ 
Attribute of a Substance ; no Substance which has not) 
some Attribute. The more real a thing is, the more 
positive character it comprises i. e. the more content 
it has for knowledge 1 . And, on the other hand, the 
more positive character a thing has (the more content it 
reveals to knowledge), the more self-dependent, the more 
substantial, or fully real, it is 2 . 

2. INFINITE AND INDEFINITE. 

The antithesis between infinite and finite plays so 
large a part in Spinoza s philosophy, that it is necessary 
to understand clearly what meaning he gives to it, and 
in what sense every Substance is ( necessarily infinite V 
every Attribute infinite in its own kind. 

The problem of the Infinite so Spinoza writes to 
Meyer 4 appears insoluble, because certain distinctions 
are apt to be confounded. People do not commonly 
distinguish between : 

(i) That, the infinity of which follows from its own 
nature, i. e. from the implications of its definition : and 

1 Cf. E. i. 9. * Ep. 12 (April, 1663). E. i. 

2 Cf. Ep. 9, the more Attri- 15 S. is virtually a restatement 
butes I attribute to a thing, the of the thoughts on the infinite 
more I am compelled to attribute expressed in this letter, so far as 
existence to it; i.e. the more I they affect the question of the 
conceive it sub ratione veri . . . . indivisibility of Substantia ex- 

3 E. i. 8. tensa. 



28 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

I. that which has no limits (not owing to the inherent 
quality of its self, but) in virtue of its cause ; 

(2) That which is called f infinite/ because it has no 
limits: and that which, although contained within 
known limits, cannot have its parts expressed com- 
mensurately by any number; 

(3) That which we can only think, not picture : and 
that of which we can also form an image. 

"MVvcy j-.lift oyJafAnP.ft r>f Snhgfa;nP.A ia Hf-fiffp?ndent, 1.6. 

follows from its paffentjftl pa.f.nrft or__defiiution 1 . A 

consequence of this is that Substance is unique, i. e. there 
cannot be more than one Substance of the same essential 
nature 2 . And it results from these two propositions 
that Substance must be conceived as infinite 3 . 

Substance, therefore, is infinite, because existence 
follows necessarily from its nature, and because that 
nature is all-inclusive or self-contained. Substance is 
not limited either in essence or in existence : and this 
its completeness or infinity follows from its self, and 
not from the infinity of an external cause. The existence 
of Substance follows from the nature of Substance ; or 
Substance is, in this sense, { causa sui, and its infinity 
depends upon itself as the cause of itself. Further, 
since Substance must exist, and since the must indicates 
(3) an immanent (and not an external or contingent) neces 
sity: it follows that the existence of Substance cannot 
be conceived as the lasting for a time, even for an 
indefinitely long time. rPr4tsLjeLxisence is the necessary 
consequence of its jaatur.e_ _qr definitional, e. (E. i. def. 8) 
is eternal. We" can conceive its existence only as an 

1 Cf. E. i. 7, and below. either as finite or as infinite. But 

2 Cf. Ep. 34, E. i. 5, and below, it cannot be finite, for that would 

3 Cf. E. i. 8, Ep. 34, and below, destroy its uniqueness : for the 
E. i. 8 argues: Substance is finite (E. i. def. 2) is that which 
unique of its kind and must exist, is limited by another thing of 
But if it must exist, it must exist the same nature. 



INFINITE AND INDEFINITE 29 

infinite fruition of existing, or rather of being. Its CH. 
being is the being, which e.g. attaches to an eternal 
truth. 

An { eternal truth is one which must be true by its 

own internal necessity : its being is its truth, and its 

w truth is its self. . gimi larly gubstance must exist, because 

its existence aacLits essential nature are one: its exist- 

gsATip.A ia itajaelf 1 . But tlie 

case is different with modes. They are states of Substance, 
and their definition so far as it is not simply the 
definition of Substance cannot involve existence; for 
otherwise they would be self-dependent, i.e. Substances, 
not modes. IL .follows that, even though they exist, 
Wje can conceive them as not existing. No doubt v if we 
conceive modes is .states c 



on that which gives them their reality, we grasp them 
in their eternal necessity. ..-We-... r,a,n not than conceive 
them as not. existing, even though they exisV because 
we are moving in the region of scientific truth, for 
which * must and can not have taken the place of 
may .or may not. "We have substituted a systematic 
knowledge of the precise conditions of the change and 
contingency of the modes, for the fragmentary experience 
which viewed their existence here and now as an 
isolated and arbitrary fact. But so far as this is the 
case, we are not apprehending the modes as such : we 
are apprehending the order of the whole of Nature, 
grasping the essential being or definition of Substance. 
But so long as we attend to the modes themselves, or try 
to grasp their own essential nature, their isolated being, 
we cannot infer from the fact of their existence now that 
they will or will not exist in the future, nor that they 
have or have not existed in the past. The existence of 
a mode is therefore the lasting for a .period, and .is 
conceived in a manner toto genere different from that 
1 Cf. E. i. 20. 



THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

ich the existence of Substance must be conceived. 

ifinity of modes when they are infinite is the 

of the cause on which they demand". a.nrl 



(not themselves, but) Substance. 

It follows that so long as we confine our attention to 
the nature of the" modes in isolation from the order 
of the whole Nature in which they are we G^ndetermine 
their existence and duration: i.e. we can conceive their 
existence (the period of_jbheir lasting) .as greater or 
smaller, and divide it into parts. But to do this in 
the case of Substance and eternity to conceive the 
nature and being or existence of Substance as admitting 
of more and less, as divisible into parts is impossible, 
unless we totally alter our conception of e parts, greater 
and less duration, &c. Hence jthe absurdity of supposing 
* that extended Substance is made up of parts, that Sub-,, 
stance under .the Attribute of Extension is an aggregate, 
of bodies really distinct from one another 1 :. It would 
be no more ridiculous to suppose that the mere addition 
or aggregation of many circles could produce a square 
or a triangle, or anything else of totally distinct essential 
nature. All the so-called proofs that Substantia extensa 
is finite rest upon a misconception of this kind 2 . 

4nd yet the error is natural to us; we are naturally 
inclined to divide Substantia extensa. "Why ? Because 
it is easier to use our imagination than our thought ; 
a/nfl o WA p.nrrfiiaA the infinite of imagination with the 
infinite of thought^ 3 , the indefinite, (or false infinite) 
with tha compleli^or truadnfinitje).. -Taking the general 
term quantity to express the characteristic of Sub 
stantia extensa its continuous magnitude we must 
distinguish between^ a true and a false method of 
conceiving it. / -Quantity^ if we conceive it by thought, 






1 Spinoza is attacking Des- And see below for the object of 
cartes : cf. Desc. Princ. i. 23. this polemic. 

2 Cf. E. i. 12, 13, and 15 S. 3 Cf. above (3), p. 28. 



v 



INFINITE AND INDEFINITE 31 

as it really is as Substance (i.e. Substance under the CHAP. 
attribute of Extension) * is infinite, unique, indivisible. 
But if we conceive it abstractly, superficially as we 
have it in our imagination, as^ we picture it by the help 
of the senses it shows itself finite, divisible, made up 
of parts, and of many kinds. Hence, if we conceive 
quantity in abstraction from Substance, we can, so to 
say, cut it up into any lengths we please make portions 
of it : and thus we get measute* which is simply a device 
to enable us so to determine quantity/ that we may 
picture or * image it as easily as possible. Similarly, 
if we take duration as the general term to express 

__ .^.. ... .. ;* _ 

existence or being, we may form a corresponding imper 
fect or imaginative notion of it. For, if we conceive 
duration in abstraction from Substance ; if we consider 
the existence of modes in abstraction from their necessaxy_ 
interdependence in the orttef~oT~ the ^ whole of Nature ; 
if wejaeglect their necessary sequence from the essential 
na.tliraoSftbstanoe, wbic^ necessary sequence nonstijrntfts 
theirj_ eternity then we are conceiving their duration 
abstractly,,_ox_ aiipPTfirMly.-^We. can 
duration or la&tiiig i 

a device to enable us so to determine duration, that 
we may picture it as easily as possible^/ Lastly, 
) i-JKe_take thn stffl fQ fl o** Snhptn.nca in abstraction from 
Substance itself, and bring them under classes, so that 
we may picture them as easily as possible we regard 
each state as a separate thing, and as one amongst * ,- t 
majny * fbjcming---ar -e-lass L. and so we get. the notion of 

1 Cf. Desc. Princ. ii. 8. Quanti- quam illam omnimodedivisibilem, 
tas a substantia extensa in re figurabilem et mobilem, quam 
non difFert, sed tantum ex parte geometrae quantitatem vocant, 
nostri conceptus. . . . For the et pro obiecto suarum demon- 
meaning of the term quantitas strationum assumunt ;.... 
cf. Ib. ii. 64. Nam plane profi- On Spinoza s conception of 
teor, me nullam aliam rerum cor- duration 1 and eternity, see 
porearum materiam agnoscere, below, Bk. III. ch. 4, 2. 




32 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



BOOK I. number. Measure, Time, and Number are thus nothing 
but ways oF thinking, or rather picturing, things 1 . 
And since they are but helps to the imagination they 
cannot be infinite : for if they were, they would cease 
to be Number, Measure, Time. Hence those, who have 
confused these aids to picture things with the real 
things, have denied that there can be an infinitum actu. 
You never can have an infinite number, an infinite 
measure, an infinite period : though you can always go 
on adding, go on extending, go on imagining a greater 
and indefinitely greater lapse of time. But all this 
proves nothing as to the things. It is a fallacy to 
suppose that all things admit of imaginative expres 
sion : and again a fallacy to suppose that all things 
which can be expressed in terms of Number, Measure, 
and Time, can be adequately or commensurably so 
expressed. This is clear even to geometricians. They 
are aware that many things do not admit of nu 
merical expression at all; and further, that many 
which do, exceed any number which can be given. 
You can have in geometry an actually infinite dis 
tance i. e. one which, though given and real, is 
yet incapable of being adequately expressed by any 
measure or number of parts an infinite, therefore, 
which does not depend for its infinity upon the 
multitude of its parts, but upon its nature : for such a 
distance would cease to be itself if it became measurable, 
i.e. if it could be expressed as a finite number of 
parts 2 . 

1 Cogitandi, seu potius imagi- you can never have an infinite 
nandi, modi : number or an infinite measure 

Entiarationis, seu imaginations for then vou would not have a 
auxilia. Ep. 12. number or a measure at all- 

there is no such thing as an 
Cf. Desc. Prine. i. 57, 58. actual infinite. The infinite 

2 The people, against whom means the indefinite that to 
Spinoza is arguing, urged * Since which you can always add, beyond 



INFINITE AND INDEFINITE 



33 



Similarly with < Substantia extensa : to attempt to { de- CHAP, i 
termine all the motions of matter which have hitherto 
which you can always go : but the nature of the space included 
which, wherever you take it, is between the circumferences is 
finite though not exhausted. To such, that, unless it were to cease 

to be itself (or a circle to be 
a circle), no number can ever 
commensurately express the di 
vergences of distance within it- 
no unit, e.g., of which AD is a 
multiple, can be used as a mea 
sure to express by addition of 
itself any other distance between 
the circumferences, e. g. EB or FC. 
Or if we suppose some material 
e.g. a fluid starting at AD, to 
flow round the space, no number 
could adequately express all the 
varying expansions and con 
tractions which it would have to 
adopt in order that it might 
always fill the space. And this 
(the infinity or indefiniteness 
of the inequalities of the space 
interposed between the two cir 
cumferences, or the infinity of 
the variations of expansion or 
contraction which a material 
flowing through it would have 
to undergo) is demonstrated 
mathematically from the nature 
of the space in question. It does 
not depend on the excessive size 
of the space : nor upon the fact 
that we have no minimum or 
maximum, no measurable start 
ing or ending point. For the 
property belongs to any the least 
portion of the space (e. g. to that 
included between EB and FC) ; 
and we have a minimum and a 
maximum, viz. FC and AD. 

For the fluid in Spinoza s illus 
tration, cf. Ph.D. ii. 9, 10, ii. 



this he answers : (i) 
Measure are not things, but ways 
of thinking or picturing things. 
No inference can be drawiTfrom 
them to the nature of things. 
There are many things which 
cannot be expressed in terms of 
number or measure at all. (ii) 
Further, mathematicians are 
familiar with many things which 
are not commensurate with any 
number, but exceed any number 
which can be given. Yet they 
infer this property of these things 
not because of the multitude of 
their parts (i.e. not from an 
attempt and a failure to sum 
their parts) ; but from the fact 
that the nature of the thing does 
not admit of being numbered 
c 




without a manifest contradiction. 
K. g., describe two circles with 
different centres one inside the 
other, ABC, DBF : join AD, FC so 
that AD represents the greatest, 
FC the least, perpendicular linear 
distance between the circumfer 
ences of the two circles. Then 

SPINOZA 



34 



THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



BOOK I. occurred i. e. to express them by a definite number, their 
duration by a definite time would be to attempt to make 
corporeal Substance cease to possess its own nature 1 . 

Putting results together, we can state Spinoza s view 
of the infinite thus: It is not true, as Descartes had 
seemed to say 2 , that the human mind, since it is 
finite, is incapable of comprehending what is infinite. 
But it is true that we cannot comprehend the 
U^jie.r_thpse categories which enable us to picture 
finite.- The... JSJBJiifi-^fig^got be regarded as merely a 
bigger, or a more lasting, or a numerically greater 
finite,: ,^ite.natii rfl is in no SP.TISPI Tnadft np rdLfinite parts. 
It must be conceived in a manner toto genere different 
from that in which we conceive the finite. A continuous 
length is not made up of discrete points, nor a period 
of moments : in the same way, iS^b^ta""^ "Ttr! ftr tj 
attribute_of^ Extension can never be mrnjirp^ ^ f] ^ . if, 
we regardit as made up s , of bodieg^Jjjritfr 



be measured, infinite duration (eternity) nan not h^ ex 
pressed in years and day s ? infinite Reality ( { 
V qannot be explained as a nrn of 



Every measure, every time, and every number are finite 
measure, time, and number are applicable only to 
what can be pictured as well as thought : infinity 
belongs only to what can be thought and not pictured, 

1 Spinoza s words are these: porea must exist and its existence 

Ho attempt to reduce all the is eternal; if its states are reduced 

motions of matter which have to a finite number and their 

hitherto taken place, and their existence to a limited time, its 

duration, to a definite number and eternal existence is, as it were, 

a definite period of time, is left in parts bare of modes or 

simply to attempt to deprive states, ^he limjjb&l -supply_.0f 

corporeal Substance which we actual changes or corporeal events 

cannot conceive except as exist- would not suffice to fill out the 

ing of its states, and to make it eternal being of corporeal Sub- 

cease to have the nature which it stance. 
has : i. e. since Substantia cor- 2 Cf. e. g. Princ. i. 41. 



INFINITE AND INDEFINITE 35 * 

The infinite is that which hasjQO limits : ag,^ gubstance CHAP. ] 
is~ vn"fiTnt.ft in this sflrififl.j_Ar it alone iff afrsnlnte 
.tnm l i.e. includes within itself every 
thing that is ; or is that on which all being depends. 
Every Attribute, of .Substance is * infinite in it* 
tyind] for, though it excludes every other Attribute, 
and therefore is not them or { is limited in^that respecTT 
yet within^its own kind of Ijoing it is all-inclusive and 
The_nipdes of Substance are * inrinite^so far 



as they are conceived as inherent in Substance ; for in 
that inherence in their infinite cause they are complete. 
But it is possible to conceive modes. .^abstractly. ? : i. e. 
apart from the Substance of which they are the states ; 
"^s ifVthey were independent things ___ , And when we 
do^this, they become [fragments torn from their context,/ 
isolated, mutilated, incomplete portions separated froj^ 
the order which^ gave them a borrowed completeness. 
They claim an independence without the right: and 
their spurious independence reveals its contingency, its 
limitations and shortcomings on every side. In fact, 

*"* 



f.rnft infj-nite na,Tinnt have its na.frirft 

is fl. Vinrl 



\the indefinite^^which gets its name because it cannot 
be commensurately expressed in any number. Thus, the 
space between the circumferences of two circles with 
different centres belongs to the sphere of the measurable : 
and yjet it is infinite (i.e. indefinite) hecansft V>y its v_pry 
nature it excludes all possibility of complete mi marina.! 
expression. There is no number which can serve as 
a least common measure for any two of the different 
perpendicular linear distances from circumference to 
circumference : nor is it possible to complete the sum of 
all the inequalities of such a space, to express them 
in a finite number. 

1 Cf. (for the phrase) Ep. 36. 
D 2 



CHAPTER II 

REALITY AS A WHOLE OR GOD 
1. SUBSTANCE IS GOD. 

HITHERTO we have made a preliminary examination of 
some of Spinoza s fundamental technical terms Sub 
stance, Mode, Attribute, Infinite. "We have now to 
study the use he makes of them in his attempt to under 
stand the universe. Like Descartes, Spinoza finds that 
God 1 , and God alone, is absolutely self-dependent, 
or has substantial reality. But there the agreement 
ceases. The God of Spinoza s philosophy is something 
very different from the God of Descartes. 

The Ethics starts with the conception of God already 
formed 2 , although Spinoza does not explicitly identify 
Substance and God in the definitions. 

1 As a rule I shall translate translation, if it were not for its 
Spinoza s Deus as God : but later associations, 
the reader must not understand 2 Spinoza seems to have reached 
by it the God of any religious this conception quite as much 
sect whatever. The Universe, from the side of a philosophy of 
Reality, The Uniformity of nature, as from the side of a 
Nature (which various commen- theology. Cf. K. V. S. i. 2, 12, 
tators have suggested as alterna- From all this it follows that 
tive renderings), are all of them all-in-all is predicated of Nature, 
sometimes useful: but much of and therefore that Nature con- 
Spinoza s language becomes sists of infinite Attributes, each 
meaningless or fantastic, if re- of which is perfect in its kind : 
ferred to them. The Uniformity which completely coincides with 
of Nature, e.g., can hardly be the definition usually given of 
said to love itself. The Abso- God. Cf. also K. V. S. i. 2, 
lute would be by far the best 17. 2. 



THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 37 

It is not till E. i. 14 that we have the express pro- CHAP. I] 
position, praeter Deum nulla dari neque concipi potest 
substantial * God is denned l as one Substance 
amongst others : a view which no doubt reflected popular 
opinion. The first fourteen propositions develop the 
definitions of God and Substance, and thus show that 
the popular view is untenable 2 . God and Substance 
so the argument really runs are, if you think out 
their definitions, coextensive or identical. Think out 
the conception of Substance, and you will find that in 
the nature of things there can be no Substance but 
God ; think out the conception of God, and you will find 
that God alone exhibits the characteristics of Sub 
stance. Put into modern terminology, the argument 
would be : The conception of self-dependent Reality 
forces us to the conclusion that there is nothing self- 
dependently real except the Absolute,, the -whole..s.ySitejn ; \ 
and .tha r.rmpnptirm of ,fche_ Absolute forces us to conclude 
that it. al on ft is sp>1f-rlpipendeatly.rea.L The line of thought 
in these propositions merely brings together explicitly 
two conceptions which from the first were not two, but 
one. The progress, therefore, is an advance only in clear- 
rfess, in bringing out the writer s meaning ; it consists 
in the removal of misunderstandings. Hence the argu 
ment is in one sense no advance at all. It is, in fact, 
simply the development of what Spinoza stated at the 
beginning : its application to the nature of things. 

Starting with the conception of Substance, as defined 
in def. 3, we get (E. i. 5) : In the nature of things there 

1 E. i. def. 6. By "God" I or eight propositions .... can 
mean a Being absolutely infinite, only be explained if we assume 
i.e. a. Substance consisting of. ior that Spinoza is attacking the 
finite Attributes, each of which ordinary conception of Substance. 
expresses an eternal and infinite To any one who has Spinoza s 
essential nature. own conception of Substance in 

2 Cf. Sigwart, Sp., note (in the his mind, they cannot but ap- 
Appendix) 85. The first seven pear almost ridiculous. 



38 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

cannot be two or more Substances of the same nature or 
Attribute. This really depends on the relation between 
Substance and Attribute. The proof runs thus : .For, if_ 
the Substances are distinct, they.. muskxliffer ; and, if they 
differ, they must differ either in their modes or states, 
or in .their .nature .or Attributes (E. i. 4, i. 5 dem.). But 
a difference in Attributes is excluded ex hypothesL And 
if they differ only in their modes, then they are really 
the same i. e. the same in their permanent nature, the 
same qua Substances/ Far a difference, in $iifrst.n.n&>. with 
identity of nature ?> meanfaglessjLJljSuhstance apart from 
its nature or Attributes is nothing. 

In E. i. n, starting from the conception of God, we 
get: God, or a Substance consisting of infinite Attributes, 
each of which expresses an eternal and infinite essential 
nature, exists of necessity. Putting these two proposi 
tions together, it follows that there can be no Substance 
other than God. For a Substance including in itself all 
forms of reality, all Attributes, exists and must exist : 
and (since there can be no duplicate of any form of 
substantial reality) TadialeYejr substantial reality -there is 
must be God, or be included in the substantial reality 
of God. 

2. GOD IS THE ENS PEKFECTISSIMUM OR REALISSIMUM : 
INCLUDES ALL AFFIRMATIVE BEING : SUBSISTS OF INFINITE 
ATTRIBUTES. 

The conception of God is the conception of complete 
Reality. God is the ens perfectissimum or realis- 
simum, that which includes in itself all reality or 
positive being. In the Tractatus 1 God is said to be 
All being; that besides which there is no being. The 
definition of the Ethics gives the essential nature of 
God, and thus, in place of this somewhat vague expres- 

1 Tdle, W1L. i. 26. 



THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 39 

sion, attributes to God everything which expresses CHA I 
essential nature, and involves no negation V 

Everything, then, of which we can say * it is/ is to 
be taken as real as possessing some degree of perfection 
or real being and therefore as belonging in some sense 
to God. Wherever we introduce negation wherever ^ 
we predicate limitation or finiteness we are so far 
denying reality: and_God is in no sense^lTnreaT/ of 
nothing unreal belongs to God *. Jr^dJJmr^fr VQ "i T^ 1 " ^ p,fl 

ftVAryf.hiTig~ rP.fl.l nr mrflryf.LiTig gn far a. if. ]> rpa.1 grtf^ 

the essential nature of God includes everything whichj 
ejsjxresses essential nature, ^nr! ^Hv^9 ^o rmg^fyjflTi. In 
other words, God is a substance (consisting 3 jof infinite^ 
npli nf whip.}) Cypresses an eternal and in 



finite essential 



In E. i. 14 C. 2, we learn that * the extended Thing 
and the thinking Thing are either Attributes or modi 
fications of the Attributes of God : and later we hear 
definitely that Extension and Thought are Attributes 
of God 4 . Bujb Extension and Thought, though Attri 
butes of God, do not exhaust GnrTs 



more ^a-n Thrmghf, a.nrl "Ryf ftn gi nn ; fhpnprTi nnr intftl- tf 

only thmn 5 . 



1 E. i. def. 6 Expl. apparent when we consider his 

2 * Negation does not of course treatment of the problems of sin, 
mean merely grammatical nega- error, and individuality. 

tion : grammatically e. g. finite * 3 Constans perhaps sub- 

is an affirmative, infinite a sisting would be a better trans- 
negative term. But really infinite^ lation. but the Latin expression 

is. affirmative, finite a limitation I is unsatisfactory, and needs 

and thftrp.forft a negation of it. / further explanation. 

(Cf. Tdle, VY1L. i. p. 32.) The 4 E. ii. i and 2. 

importance of Spinoza s sharp 6 The K. V. is very instructive 

antithesis between affirmation on this point, cf. K. V. S. p. 9. 

and negation which yet, as we Zusatz 3 (evidently of later date 

shall see, does not exclude degrees than the text) . . . Hitherto we 

of affirmative being, degrees of have been able to find in nature 

perfectionor reality will become no more than two Attributes 



40 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

For the more real a thing is, the more Attributes it 
has : i. e. the richer or more concrete its essential nature l . 



which belong to this most perfect 
Being. And these give us no 
satisfactory assurance that they 
are all the Attributes of which 
it consists : on the contrary, we 
find in ourselves something which 
obviously announces to us (not 
only more, but) infinite perfect 
Attributes, which must be proper 
to this perfect Being before it 
can be called " perfect." And 
whence is this idea of perfection ? 
It cannot come from these two 
Attributes: for two give only 
(the idea of) two and not (of) in 
finite Attributes. Whence, then? 
Certainly not from myself: other 
wise I should have to be able 
to furnish of myself that which 
I have not got. Whence then, 
unless from the infinite Attributes 
themselves, which tell us that 
they are there, without also tell 
ing us what they are: forjve 
only know- "what ..they are" in 
the case, of two.* K. V. S. i. 7, 
note i: As regards the Attri 
butes of which God consists, these 
are nothing but infinite Sub 
stances, each of which must itself 
be infinitely perfect. ... It is 
true however that, as yet, of all 
these infinite Attributes only two 
are known to us through their 
own nature, viz. Thought and 
Extension. These passages alone 
seem to me to establish beyond 
reasonable doubt (i) that infi- 
nita attributa means an infinite 
number of Attributes though 
we shall see presently how this 



expression must be understood: 
(2) that it still seemed possible 
to Spinoza (at least when he wrote 
the late note to the K. V.) to dis 
cover other Attributes of God 
besides Thought and Extension. 

Ep. 56 shows in what sense 
Spinoza conceived it possible to 
have a clear idea of God, even -r 
though we know only two of 
God s Attributes. 

I have, he_there_..w_rites .to 
Hugo^Boxel, as. clean_an idea 
of God^ as I have of ^triangle. 
But this..jiaes not-mean that-4 
have as clear an image^pi God 
as of a triangle : for we cannot 



And I do not mean to say that 
I know the whole nature of God ; 
but only some of his Attributes 
not all, nor the greatest part. 
Ignorance of most does not pre 
vent my having knowledge of 
some. When I~~bega-~ to learn , 
the. Elements of Euclid, I had a 
"clear perception" (knowledge) 
of that property of a triangle in 
virtue of which its three angles 
are equal to two right angles, 
although I was still ignorant of 
many of the other properties of 
a triangle. 

1 E. i. 9. Cf. especially K. V. S. 
p. 12, note i. " Nothing " cannot 
have any Attributes, the universe 
( de Al, das All) must have all 
Attributes. " Nothing " has no At 
tributes because it is " nothing " ; 
and so "something" has Attri 
butes because it is " something " : 



SOME OF GOD S PROPERTIES 41 

Though we cannot comprehend, or even name, all the CHAP, i 
essential forms of God s being, yet ss.cannolb conceive 

We must say therefore, 



(zod subsists of all Attributes, or (since all seems to 
imply a sum] and therefore finiteness) of infinite Attri 
butes. 

But we know that there is no such thing as an infinite 
number. Every actual number is always finite. We 
cannot therefore strictly mean that God s Attributes 

form an infinite number: we mean simply that ...no 

number can express them. Nor does this force us to 
admit that God s nature is indefinite : indefinite is 
that which, whilst belonging to the sphere of number or 
measure, is yet not capable of exact numerical expres 
sion \ AH that we really mean to assert ..of God,, when 
we attribute infinite Attrib^t f aB"tg JP 171 ) is therefore that 
his nature is absolutely complete, includes all essential 
positive forms of being, and cannot be conceived as 
in any way limited or finite. If we will endeavour to 
enumerate God s Attributes, we shall find that no number 
can exhaust them : but this indicates no indefiniteness 
in God, but simply the absurdity of conceiving him 
under ^ modes of Ima^inatTonJr- n v . ,^ j, 

3. SOME OF GOD S PBOPEETIES. 

We must leave for the present the problem as to in 
what sense God constat infinitis attributis, and consider 
certain general properties of God -. 

and therefore, the more a thing is l Above, p. 35. 

something the more Attributes it z Cf. K. V. S. i. i, 9. 

must have. God therefore, who It is clear that man has the 

is the most perfect, the infinite, idea of God, because he knows 

the all "something," must have God s Attributes. Then, in a 

infinite, perfect, and all Attri- footnote, Better: because he 

butes. knows what is proper (proprium) 



42 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

i. God is one, unique and whole. 

God, as the only Substance, is] r one 7 or funiquel 
(E. i.^r^C. i) ; and,, as L 



s he Whole ot which all tilings are 
Yet it is only with much hesitation, and after careful 
discussion, that Spinoza calls God unique, 5 and regards 
him as a whole. For a ^whoLeI,im^iesj^^^and^arts 
would seem to admit of existence in some sense in 
dependent of the whole. A whole of parts appears 
capable of division. And what is one or unique 
must come, it would seem, under a real or possible class. 

/ foiJLQod ^ absolutely indivisible, and ha,a jao-^agts : for, 
if the parts retained the character of the whole and were 
themselves infinite substances, then there would be more 
than one God ; but, if not r then, jQod s, substantial nature 
would vanish- into, nonraiibstan.tia.1 com pon ents, and he 
would cease to be. To destroy a thing is, in fact, to 
resolve it into parts of such a kind, that none of them 
expresses the nature of the whole 1 . Indeed z a_lpart of 

,s a Substance jjan_ mean jio^iing Jbut a finite Substance 
but in God (or indeed in any Substance)^here is no 
limitation .ox,niteness 2 . And it is only by a very 
improper use of the terms that God can be called one 
or ( unique. We call a thing one only in respect to its 
existence, not to its essence: it is only when we have 
grouped things of a similar nature under a common class 
that we conceive them as numerable, instances of a type. 

to God : for such things (e. g. plained. Spinoza seems to have 

infinity, perfection, immutability) derived his distinction between 

are not Attributes of God. God, Attributes and Propria from 

no doubt, is not God without Chasdai Creskas (Rab Chasdai) : 

them : but it is not through them cf. Joel, pp. 19 ff. 

that he is God ; for they reveal l E. i. 13 dem. and C., and cf. 

nothing substantial. They are Ep. 36 to Huyghens. 

only adjectives, which require 2 E. i. 13 S. 
substantives in order to be ex- 



SOME OF GOD S PROPERTIES 43 

But God s essence and existence are identical, and we CHAP I] 
cannot form a universal conception of his essence : it is 
not an instance of a type l . 

Yet in a sense God is one and unique * one/ so far as 
we regard Mm. as distinct from other things : unique 
so far as we reflect that there are no other things ; none, 
at least, real in the same sense^asJIod. God therefore 
is unique as comprehending in himself all. reality,..or as 
being the only Substance 2 . And, however Spinoza may 
hesitate, God is conceiyed by_jiim_as a wliole^ the^ totality^ 
of alL being ; though the parts are not independent, in 
real. Between the finite and the in 



finite * nulla est ratio : and yet, again and again, the 
infinite shows itself as the system in which the finite 
is though as in the system it is no longer finite. Thus, 
our minds are parts or fragments of the infinite intelli 
gence of God 3 . . The AjjtriJmtfi^^ 

whole or system which sustains in itself all * ideae or 
modes of Thought, which apart from the system are 
finite. The corporeal universe is a complete whole or 
system, of which all bodies or modes of Extension are 
parts, in which they have their being, abstracted from 
which their being is partly negated or finiteT] We shall 
meet with this conception (of whole and parts as 
applied to each Attribute and its modes) again: and 
shall then consider Ep. 32, in which Spinoza gives full 
expression to his views. 

2. God is simple, indeterminate and concrete. 

1 Of God s essence we can form no universal idea 4 
i. e. God is no abstraction, but the most concrete reality. 
We do not reach the conception of God by abstracting, 

1 C. M. i. 6, 2. Ep. 50 (to 3 Cf. E. ii. n C., v. 40 S., and 
Jarigh Jelles). below. 

2 C. M. 1. c., E. i. 10 S., i. 14 C. i. 4 Ep. 50. 



44 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK i. leaving out, characteristics peculiar to the different forms 
of being (Extension and Thought, e. g.), and so postu 
lating a being as such which is nothing in particular. 
We start with the conception of the most concrete being, 
the fullest and richest nature. The Attributes, or forms 
of being, are limitations of this, or (if you like) its parts. 
They are coextensive with it, and yet coextensive only 
with, as it were, a layer of it. Thought e.g. is all 
thinking, or is coextensive with Substance qud thinking, 
and so far is infinite or not determinate : but it is not 
Extension, and so far it is determined ; though the deter 
mination does not affect its nature qud Thought, but 
leaves it infinite in its own kind 1 . But God, though 
simple (i. e. not put^together of parts) is absolutely 
infinite or all-inclusive, and therefore no determination 
applies to. him. For determinate signifies nothing 
positive : it denotes only a privation of existence in that 
nature which is conceived as determinate. The nature, 
e. g., of Extension involves duration, position, quantity. 
4 Imperfection therefore or determination of Extension, 
must mean that the imperfect or determinate extension 
might last longer, might keep its place, or might be larger. 
But God s nature is not confined to any department of 
Reality : and therefore it requires if it is to be perfectly 
indeterminate, as its conception demands everything 
that expresses being 2 . 

So far therefore is Spinoza from regarding God as the 
widest and emptiest abstraction of being as that which 
is absolutely indeterminate in the sense of absolutely 
characterless that he insists on the exact opposite. God 

IS q.bgn1nf.Aly..iTirlftf.ftrTm Tifl.f.ft ; VtP.ppmsP. >IA .ftXGl^gff "rmfhing 

real, or comprises in himself all character. Hence to 
conceive God (or Substance) as he really is ( in se ) is 
to conceive him in the fullness of his being: and this 

1 Cf. above, pp. 22 ff. 2 Cf. Ep. 36 (to Huyghens). 



GOD EXISTS OF NECESSITY 45 

involves the setting aside all limitations, and therefore CHAP, i 
all modes as such 1 . 



4. NATUEE, VALIDITY, AND VALUE OP SPINOZA S ARGU 
MENTS TO PEOVE THAT GOD EXISTS OF NECESSITY. 

i. The four proofs all exhibit the same fundamental 
type of inference. 

That there can be no Substance except God followed 
it will be remembered from the two propositions 
(i) that in the nature of things there cannot be two or 
more Substances of the same Attribute, and (ii) that God, 
i. e. a Substance including within itself all Attributes- 
all forms of positive reality necessarily exists 2 . Of this 
latter proposition Spinoza gives four alternative proofs 3 , 
which we must now examine. The proofs appear to 
differ considerably : thus e. g. proofs i, 2, and 4 are 
a priori? proof 3 l a posteriori : proofs 3 and 4 rest 
upon the non-Spinozistic supposition that there are or 
may be more Substances than one, or that God is the 
most real amongst other real (self-dependent) beings 4 
a supposition which, if maintained, would destroy the 
validity of the arguments : and yet in the main the 
thought at the bottom of them all is one and the same. 
It is this : once grant that anything is actual, and you 
must grant that God necessarily is actual. The argument 
is in fact transcendental in form, and shows that if any 
thing in any sense real be admitted to be actual, its 
existence involves the necessary existence of the Spino- 
zistic God. The validity of this reasoning depends upon 
what Spinoza means by God : its value depends upon 
what is understood by the necessary existence of God. 

1 E. i. 5dem. 2 Cf. above, p. 33. s E. i. n and S. 

4 Cf. Spinoza s own words in E. i. n S. 



46 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. Both these questions the validity and the value of the 
argument will occupy us presently. In the meantime 
we have to show that this is the nature of the inference 
involved in all four proofs. 

Proof 4 l argues a priori, from the conception of 
God s absolute reality as identical with absolute power. 
It says that if anything draws its existence from its own 
intrinsic force, a fortiori must God the being who has 
absolutely unlimited reality and therefore absolutely 
unlimited intrinsic force do so. The argument therefore 
is: admit that anything exists necessarily, i.e. as the 
consequence of its being what it is, and you must admit 
that God (the being which is most and therefore has 
most ground for self-dependent existence) exists neces 
sarily. 

Proof 3 2 argues a posteriori, from the same funda 
mental conception as proof 4. It points to the facts. 
"We exist at this moment, and our existence is either the 
necessary result of our own intrinsic nature (in which 
case we are Substances), or the necessary result of some 
thing else which exists because it is itself (in which case 

1 E. i. ii S. necessity. ( Ergo vel nihil ex- 

2 As the third proof is some- istit, vel ens absolute infinitum 
what obscure in the Latin, I give necessario etiam existit : the 
a full paraphrase of it : To be argument and the * etiam re- 
able to exist is a power, to be quire us to understand Ergo vel 
capable of not existing is a want nihil necessario existit. ) But 
of power. So far, therefore, as the first is false : for we exist, 
anything must exist, it shows and exist of necessity. For we 
power. But at the present exist either as Substances or as 
moment many finite beings exist modes (Ax. i). If as Substances, 
and must exist : if, then, nothing then we are self-determined : if 
besides them were now existing as modes, then we are dependent 
of necessity, they the finite on something else which is self- 
beingswould be more powerful determined. In either case, some 
than God, the absolutely infinite existence is necessary. And, there- 
being. Which is absurd. Either, fore, God too must necessarily 
therefore, nothing now exists of exist. 

necessity : or God too exists of 



GOD EXISTS OF NECESSITY 47 

we are modes and imply a Substance). In either case, CHAP. ] 
our existence as a fact shows that something is now 
necessarily existing. But if so, then that which is 
infinite in being, viz. God, cannot be able not to exist 
for that would mean that the infinite being had less 
power than things (or a thing) which are finite. (If the 
something on which our existence depends is infinite, 
then cadit quaestio for it is God.) 

In other words, the argument runs : admit, as you 
must, that some thing or things exist necessarily, and 
you must admit that God too exists necessarily. 

Proof 2 argues d priori, from the conception of self- 
conditioned, as distinguished from contingent, being. 
There is no such thing (so the line of thought runs) 
as chance, or absolute contingency. There must be an 
assignable cause or reason for the present existence , 
or non-existence of everything. But if the existing 
or non-existing thing is contingent, then the reason or /> 
cause of its existence or non-existence will lie outside 
it in something else. If, on the contrary, it be self- 
conditioned, then the reason or cause will lie within it. 

"* ^L^_ 

A substance, e. g., is * in se, self-conditioned ; and there 
fore the reason or cause for its existence or non- existence 
must lie within its own nature. But a circle or a triangle 
is * in alio/ contingent : and therefore the reason or 
cause why this or that circle or triangle now exists or 
does not exist will lie without it in the nature of space, 
in the order of extended nature as a whole. If, for 
example, there is here and now a triangle, that factual 
existence must be the necessary consequence of that on 
which the triangle is contingent e.g. the nature of 
space. If there is here and now no triangle, that must 
be because, owing to the nature of space, it is impossible 
that a triangle should exist here and now. If therefore 
there is no reason or cause why God should not exist 
now, then God does and must exist now. And if it is 



48 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. impossible that any such cause should be given, then 
it is impossible that God should not exist i. e. he exists 
of necessity absolutely. But this is the case : it is 
impossible that there should ever be given any cause 
or reason to hinder God from existing. For such a cause 
would have to be (i) either in God s nature, or (ii) out 
side his nature. The first alternative is impossible, for 
it would make God self-contradictory i.e. defective in 
reality or perfection. But the second is equally impos 
sible. For where could the cause be? Not in another 
Substance of the same nature as God : for then, cadit 
quaestio : the other Substance would be God and would 
exist of necessity. Nor in another Substance of different 
nature from God : for then it could have no possible 
effect upon God (cf. E. i. 2). 

In other words: All contingent being is but the 
necessary consequence of self-conditioned being. Admit 
contingent being, and you must admit the existence 
of self-conditioned being. But if the self-conditioned 
being is all-inclusive and perfect, then its existence is 
absolutely necessary. For no self- conditioned being 
can be destroyed from within, unless it is imperfect. 
And an all-inclusive self - conditioned being is all 
within. 

Lastly, proof i argues a priori from the conception 
of modal as distinguished from substantial being. It is 
in fact a more formal statement of the same thought as 
that expressed in proof 2, and runs thus : 

God is a Substance, and not a mode. But the essential 
nature of a Substance involves its existence, and there 
fore God cannot be conceived except as existing, or God 
exists of inherent necessity. 

The proposition to which this proof refers (E. i. 7), 
and the Scholium (E. i. 8 S. 2) which explains its 
significance, together express the thought of proof 2 in 
a somewhat different form. "We see from them that 



GOD EXISTS OF NECESSITY 49 

the real line of argument implied in proof i is as CHAP, n 
follows : 

Mode was distinguished from Substance, as that which 
is in alio from that which is in se. That which is 

* in alio is also conceived through that other on which 
it is dependent : and we can therefore form a clear and 
distinct (i. e. a true) idea of the essential nature of 
a mode, even though the mode itself has no actual 
existence at the moment 1 . 

The truth e. g. of our conception of triangle is in no 
way affected by the actual existence or non-existence of 
a triangle here and now. But the truth of that concep 
tion would be destroyed, if our conception of space were 
untrue : for it is as a modification of space, as a figure 
capable of construction according to the laws of space, 
that we conceive triangle 2 . And our conception of 
space, again, would be untrue if it did not ultimately 
rest upon a conception of substantial Reality i. e. a 
Reality which is not possibly a fiction, but necessarily 
and permanently actual. It is possible, then, to conceive 
a mode truly, without implying its actual existence : the 

* ideatum of an idea of a mode is not necessarily an 
actually-existent thing, but is that of which the mode is 
a modification conceived under the conditions of its 
modification. Hence the possibility of such a conception 
of a mode rests upon the fact that it is a mode, i. e. that 
its real being is to be in alio. The conception of this 
aliud ultimately depends upon the conception of 
substantial E-eality, and this the true conception of any 
thing substantial implies the existence of its * ideatum. 

1 We shall meet with most of triangle would mean to be 
important developments of this able to formulate the exact con- 
conception in E. ii. ditions of spatial construction 

2 Cf. the conception of the under which a triangle would 
Universal in modern Logic. To result; cf. e.g. Lotze, Logik, 
have a true universal conception 30 ff. 

SPINOZA E 



50 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

c I. The truth, of our conception of a mode (where the mode 
is not actually existent) is guaranteed only by the actual 
existence of the * ideatum, the ultimate aliud/ which we 
conceive as that of which the mode is a modification. 
Substance is in se and can therefore only be conceived 
per se : hence, if it does not actually exist it cannot 
be conceived truly. For, if it does not actually exist, 
there is nothing else in which it is involved, nothing 
from the conception of which its conception can be 
derived, nothing the reality of which guarantees its 
reality. To think therefore of Substance, if there is 
no Substance, is to think of something self-dependently 
real which yet is not to have an idea to which no 
ideatum corresponds, an idea which is the idea of 
nothing, or false. It is, in fact (not to think of Substance, 
but) to create a self-contradictory and fictitious idea l . 

In other words : it belongs to the nature of Substance 
to exist 2 : a Substance which is not, is not Substance at 
all. An unreal, non-existent, Substance is a contra- 
dictio in adiecto. Either, then, you must give up the 
idea of Substance, or you must admit that Substance (i. e. 
as we learn in the sequel, the one Substance, God) neces 
sarily exists. But, if you give up the idea of Substance, 
you must give up the idea of mode as well. Either, 
therefore, nothing exists, or God exists of necessity. 

2. Validity of Spinoza s arguments 3 . 

There is thus a common thought running through all 
four proofs, and it is simply this : If anything in any 
sense is, then God is and is of necessity: his existence 

1 E. i. 8 S. 2. Dialectic, especially p. 72, and 

2 E. i. 7. R. L. Nettleship, Philosophical 
8 I have to express a special Lectures and Remains, vol. i, 

obligation to Bradley, Appear, though these writers must not 
ance and Reality, pp. 394 ff., be held responsible for what 
McTaggart, Studies in Hegelian I say. 



GOD EXISTS OF NECESSITY 51 

is necessary as the inevitable implication of his nature. CHAP. II. 
"We have an indication that this was Spinoza s meaning 
in Ep. 12 l : and it is most clearly shown in proof 3. 
But indeed the first two proofs leave no room for doubt 
as to Spinoza s line of thought. Because modal being 
implies substantial, because the contingent involves the 
self-conditioned, therefore the substantial, self-condi 
tioned must be ; and the must expresses an inherent 
necessity and not a necessity which depends on tem 
porary conditions. And since for Spinoza substantial 
or self-conditioned being is one and one only since God 
is the only and all self- conditioned Reality it follows 
that the existence of modal or contingent being involves 
the necessary existence of God. The necessary existence 
i. e. not the necessity which is contingency, not God s 
existence now as the consequence of some present set of 
conditions, but his existence as the inevitable conse 
quence of what is immutably the same, his own essential 
nature. The necessary existence of God is his eternity 2 ; 
for he is incapable of contingent necessity, since there is 
nothing real beside him on which he could be con 
tingent. 

Except in the third proof, Spinoza has not expressly 

1 Ep. 12. The modern Peri- the former supposition." 

patetics have, I think, misunder- Hence the force of the argu- 

stood the demonstration by which ment lies (not in the impossibility 

the ancients endeavouredto prove of an actual infinite, but) in the 

the existence of God. For that absurdity of supposing that things 

demonstration (as I find it in the which exist, but not by the 

writings of a certain Jew, Eab necessity of their own nature, 

Chasdai ) runs thus : are not determined to exist by 

1 " If there is a regress of causes something which does exist neces- 

in infinitum, all things which sarily of its own nature ; i. e. the 

are will be effects. But no effect nerve of the proof lies in the ab- 

can exist necessarily of its own surdity of supposing that there can 

nature : therefore there is nothing be contingent without self-dependent 

in nature whose essentia is such reality. 

that it must of necessity exist. 2 See E. i. def. 8 ; and below, 

But this is absurd: therefore also Bk. III. ch. 4, 2. 

E 2 



52 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK L supplied the minor premiss for this reasoning, and hence 
he has been misunderstood. The first proof, as expressly 
stated, says simply God is Substance and therefore, since 
his existence is self-determined, he must exist : but the 
cogency of the argument depends upon the unexpressed 
postulate something at any rate some contingent or 
modal being, some being therefore which implies self- 
determined or substantial being does exist. But this 
is a postulate if indeed it can be called a postulate at 
all which assuredly did not require explicit statement. 
For deny that anything in any sense is, and in your 
denial you assert at least your own existence. And this 
was a turn of the argument which Spinoza could assume 
to be familiar to the contemporaries of Descartes. 

It will perhaps make the matter somewhat clearer, if 
I put Spinoza s reasoning as I conceive its general 
purport to be in a different form. He is really insisting 
upon the continuity of all experience : and he assumes, 
as he is most certainly entitled to do, that every one 
admits that something is in some sense real, that some 
experience is actual. Once grant that and to deny it, 
you must be and so stultify your denial and it follows 
that God eternally is, that God has necessary existence, 
or an existence which is the consequence of his nature 
and of it alone. For the reality and the contingency of 
a thing are precisely in inverse ratio. The more real 
a thing is or the more content or essence its self con 
tains then the more it depends upon itself, or can and 
does stand in its own right ; and therefore the less it 
is dependent upon external causes, things other than 
itself the less contingent its existence. On the other 
hand, so far as anything is contingent, so far its 
nature is dispersed into the other things upon which 
its existence depends ; and thus the less there is of it 
in its self/ or the less real content its self includes. 
Now take any thing which is start from any existent 



GOD EXISTS OF NECESSITY 53 

fact you please from any piece of experience, however CHAI. u 
trivial and thin its content: and think out all that its 
being involves. If you do so, the thing s reality 
will expand in your hands : more and more will force 
itself into its being. Or, indeed, the thing and its 
being will dissolve, until you find yourself ultimately 
forced to conceive (as that which you are really ex 
periencing) the whole nature of things; until you are 
compelled to realize that the experience with which you 
started was a fragment and a fragment which involved 
as its context the whole. The contingency and the 
finiteness (or defective reality) with which you started 
must (in the attempt fully to experience it) vanish : and 
in its place you will have the self-conditioned necessity 
and the complete or infinite reality, which Spinoza calls 
God. And it is because the Spinozistic God is (not 
merely one amongst other self-conditioned Reals, but) 
the only and all substantial Eeality, that his proof of 
the necessary existence of God is valid. Experience as 
a Whole must be, because it is a whole because it is 
through and through of one texture, because therefore 
every piece of it continuously implies the whole fabric : 
and therefore unless the Whole is and must be, nothing 
can in any sense either be or be conceived. 

We can understand in what sense such a God is c causa 
sui, 1 or in what sense his essentia involves (or is iden- 

1 On the development of God is the cause of all things 
Spinoza s use of the expression only as the conception of a 
causa sui/ see Avenarius, p. 67, triangle is the cause of its pro- 
note 109. perties. (Spinoza, it is true, 

But Avenarius is wrong when frequently speaks of God as the 

he says (I.e.) that Spinoza in efficient cause of all things; but 

the K. V. rejects the expression efficient is little more than another 

though not the thought of expression for not-final.} So God 

" causa sui " ; cf. K. V. S. i. i, 10. is the cause of himself only in this 

God is causa sui in the same geometrical sense. Substance, 

sense in which he is the cause Spinoza reasons, E. i. 7 dem., 

of all things (E. i. 25 S.). But cannot be produced by anything 



54 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

tical with.) his * existentia. He is causa sui, because 
there is nothing real except himself on which his being 
could depend. He is therefore not contingent, and if 
he is at all his existence must be conditioned by himself 
or identical with his essentia. But to deny that he is 
at all, is to deny that anything is; ( and such a denial 
stultifies itself. 

So understood, the ontological argument is valid, and 
does not come under Kant s criticism. And its validity 
depends upon the unique nature of the idea of God. If 
you apply the ontological argument to anything except 
the whole and unique system of experience, Kant s 
criticism is unanswerable. If existence is necessarily 
included in the idea of God, then God must exist is an 
analytical judgement. It is contradictory to think the 
subject without the predicate : but as Kant pointed 
out it is not in the least contradictory to think neither 
subject nor predicate. You cannot conceive God without 
conceiving him to exist, if existence is included in the 
content of his idea: but you need not conceive God 
at all. But the cogency of this reasoning disappears the 

else: therefore it is the cause no place in Spinoza s Philosophy 
of itself. But, as he goes on to (cf. Erdmann, ii. 272, para- 
point out, this the negative graph 3), nor does he intend it 
conception of not being produced to be understood in a sense imply- 
by anything other than itself ing temporal sequence. Cf. Tdle 
becomes, if given a positive ex- (VV1L. i. p. 30), si res sit in se, 
pression, simply the conception sive, ut vulgo dicitur, causa sui 
of God as himself the sole con- . . . and in the Ethics, where he 
dition of his own reality. uses the phrase without express 
As, with Spinoza, Deus agit qualification, he yet carefully ex- 
is equivalent to * ex Dei natura plains his meaning. By the con- 
sequitur, so causa is identical ception of God, as the cause of 
with ratio (cf. E. i. n dem., himself and of all things, he 
aliter, and iv. praef., Ratio seu means really to conceive God not 
causa, cur Deus seu Natura agit asthemwsayz0wfo ,butasthecawsa 
et cur existit, una eademque essendi, to employ a distinction 
est ) ; and the term causa, in which Schopenhauer has made 
its more ordinary meaning, has familiar. 



GOD EXISTS OF NECESSITY 55 

< moment that God stands for the whole Reality. Then CHAP- ! 
you cannot get rid of the subject of your analytical 
judgement without removing that which all and any 
experience involves : you cannot refuse to conceive God 
without ceasing to think or doubt or feel, in short, 
without ceasing to be. Hence, there is obviously a funda 
mental connexion between the uniqueness and the self- 
determined existence of God. In Epp. 34, 35, 36 (to 
Huyghens) and the substance of these letters is repeated 
in a more compressed form in E. i. 8 S. 2 Spinoza proves 
God s uniqueness from his self-conditioned or necessary 
existence : but, as we have seen, the latter really follows 
from the former. The two properties are, in fact, con 
vertible. Only the whole and unique Eeality is self- 
conditioned in its being : and only the self-conditioned 
is the whole and unique Eeality. God as the only indi 
vidual is alone at once self-dependent and completely 
real. Self-dependence and all-inclusiveness imply one 
another, and attach only to the completely individual 
the Whole. Contingency and finiteness go together, and 
stamp that of which they are the predicates as frag 
mentary as only partially real. 

3. Value of Spinoza s proof. 

But the question still remains What has Spinoza 
proved of God ? For indeed we seem to have justified 
the validity of the inference at the cost of its value. 
What do we mean by existence, when we predicate it y 
of the Spinozistic God? Presence in the spatial and 
temporal series possible or actual presentation to sense 
this is no doubt in some way predicable of God. For we 
have the fact of * actual existence in this sense of the 
words, and if this were not at least an appearance of God, 
it would be in no sense fact. God does show himself 
in an existence of this kind : but this showing himself is 



56 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. but a fragmentary, a miserably inadequate, self-revela 
tion. Facts of perception are real, but they are not 
x the whole nor the highest degree of reality. 

It would be ludicrous to maintain that God s exist 
ence was exhausted in this appearance of a portion of 
himself in space and time. This is not the existence 
which is involved in God s essential nature ; God s 
essential nature is not the being of a fact or a series of 
facts. God s existence is as we learn l identical with his 
essentia : follows from it therefore (not as a weakened 
and remote effect, not as a partial property which God 
has amongst other properties, but) as an equivalent ex 
pression for, as another side of, the same reality. God, 
that is, has and must have that existence, that actuality, 
of which his being is capable. Everything is as real (i. e. 
as actual) as its self can be ; and God s self can be 
absolutely real real with all or the fullest degrees of 
actuality because it is absolutely complete. The actu 
ality of a finite thing is as much or as little as its essential 
nature. Existence in space and time, and no higher 
degree of actuality, is the full and adequate expression only 
of things whose self is poor and limited : things, indeed, 
whose self is for the most part a pin-point centre for 
the attachment of relations to other things. "We shall 
find Spinoza showing that so-called things (things which 
1 exist, i. e. which we can see, hear, handle, or which are 
born, grow, and die : or again perceptions, emotions, 
ideas which occur as events in an individual s con 
sciousness) are what they are, and therefore exist as they 
exist, simply as links in an indefinitely extending chain 
of other things or links. But as a thing becomes more, 
as its self becomes fuller, its content more immanent, so 
its actuality (or its existence) ceases to be exhausted in 
1 occurrence in the temporal and spatial series. The 
actuality, for example, of an ideal of conduct, or a law of 

1 E. i. 20. 



GOD EXISTS OF NECESSITY 57 

physics, is not confined to the sensible presence of this or CHAF 
that example of its working, nor to its occurrence as an 
event in an individual thinker s mind. Nor is its exist 
ence fully expressed in the institutions or systems which 
embody it. And when we come to the being which has 
absolute or complete reality in its self, whose self is all 
immanent, then the actuality or existence which is 
adequate to it, or which its essential nature carries with it, 
cannot be identified with any limited form of actuality 
any limited power of working, or influencing, or mani 
festing its self. God s nature and his existence are one 
and the same ; and God s power omnipotence is but ^ 
another name for this union, for his essentia in its 
actuality l . 

Hence the value which attaches to Spinoza s demon 
stration that God necessarily exists, depends upon the 
development of his conception of the essentia, and there 
fore of the existentia and potentia, of God. The whole 
of his system is the explication of the conceptions which 
he is here establishing. To learn in what sense God 
necessarily exists, we must learn what God is ; i. e. we 
must try to understand how Spinoza conceived the funda 
mental nature of the universe. Then, and not till then, 
we shall be able to see in retrospect the significance of 
the terms in which he now expresses God s being and 
existence. Already, it is true, he tells us that the exist 
ence of God, since it is the inevitable implication of his 
essentia or indeed convertible with it, shares with God s 
nature the character of eternity. God s existence and 
God s nature are eternal truths 2 . But we can draw 

1 Cf. E. i. 20 ; i. 34 ; and ii. * eternal truth is one which can 
3 S. Deinde, prop. 34, part, i, never cease to be true. Thus, 
ostendimus, Dei potentiam nihil e.g., The interior angles of a 
esse praeterquam Dei actuosam triangle are together equal to two 
essentiam. right angles is an eternal truth 

2 E. i. 19 ; i. 20 C. i. An because it can never cease to be 



5 8 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

no further significance from this statement at present: 
it means at the point we have reached simply that 
God s nature is self-determined, and of its own inherent 
necessity is God s actuality. 



5. THE CAUSALITY OF GOD. 

God is the cause of himself and of all things: the 

Cause rmf. rmly nf ijhfflV pftTning fp be, bnt fllfrft ftf foeir 

persistence in being : the cause of their " essentia " as well 
as of their " existential. " : But Spinoza has to guard his 
conception of God s causality against certain misinter 
pretations. 

A * cause/ in the ordinary sense of the word, is itself 
an effect; its agency at least is caused, determined, 
elicited by something else. But there is nothing else 
beside God 2 : and God is in no sense determined or 
forced db extra to be or to act 3 . Yet { jB.11 t,"h \ n 



are, are in God, and can neither be nor be conceived 
except in and through Go.d : God therefore is the 
efficient, the essential (and not the accidental), the im.- 
manent (and not the transient), the first (and not jbhe 
remote) cause of all things 4 . And since there is no cause 
or ^jj^ZJLJ^ ^ ( g *V?ft rnily t.hft perfection or 



reality of his own nature) which stimulates him to action, 
te.ia-.thja JfejaJLjafflflfi-fif -all -things 5 . God therefore is 



true ; and it can never cease to and 3 ; i. 18 ; i. 24 C. ; i. 25. 

be true because its truth is 2 E. i. 15. 

immanent, i.e. if the predicate 3 E. i. 17 C. i. 

ceased to attach the subject * E. i. 16 C. i, 2, 3 ; i. 18. 

would cease to be. Eternity* 6 E. i. 17 C. i and 2. The 

therefore and immanent necessity, various epithets which Spinoza 

or self-dependence, would seem to gives to God as a cause refer 

be coextensive conceptions. We to a classification of the various 

shall have to consider Spinoza s kinds of cause, which we find in 

conception of eternity more fully the K. V., part i, ch. 3. This has 

below (cf. Bk. III. ch. 4, 2). been traced by Trendelenburg to 

1 Cf. e.g. E. i. 15; i. 16 C. i, 2 Heereboord s Collegium Logicum, 



THE CAUSALITY OF GOD 59 

not subjected to Fate: for there is no external order CHAP 
which .controls his action or incites it to begin *. The 
activity of God is entirely his own : it is absolutely 
spontaneous or free. But, just because it is free, God^s 
causality is absolutely necessary. The necessary is not 
opposed to the. free: and the. free does not mean the 
lawless. The free is the self-determined or fully neces- v 
sary_ It^is oo^gteftit. ab extra necessity in the sense j)f 
external compulsion which is opposed to freedom or 
necessity in the sense of self-determination 2 . 

"We must therefore, in conceiving God s causality, 
guard, against several errors. All things follow in- 
evitaJbly from the .nature of God, but -they follow from it 
alona There is no inscrutable Fate, which binds even. 
God to follow its laws. God is governed by nothing 
save his own nature, not even by the conception of an 
ideal to be attained by his activity. Tt is a -.perversion, 
of the divine nature to represent it as acting sub 
ratione boni, as striving to realize an aim or pattern. 
If God s activity were .determined by an ideal if h,e 
were working for the realization of a better or a best 
that would mean that his nature is now defective, imper 
fect, worse than the ideal But God s nature is always 

cf. K. V. S., p. 171 (Sigwart s from God s nature with an in- 

notes on K. V. i. ch. 3). Zulawski evitable necessity, just as every- 

gives a careful account of the body conceives it to follow from 

various senses of causa to which God s nature that he thinks him- 

Spinoza refers ; but his interpre- self. Nobody denies that this is 

tation of causa transiens (pp. a necessary consequence of God s 

49 ff.) is very doubtful. nature ; and yet nobody conceives 

1 Spinoza protests vehemently that God is compelled to think 

against the misinterpretation himself by some Fate. On the 

which treats him as a Fatalist, contrary, everybody conceives that 

* There can be nothing more God thinks himself absolutely 

absurd than to subject God to freely although necessarily (Ep. 

Fate (E. i. 33 S. 2). I in no 75). 

sense subject God to Fate : but 2 E. i. def. 7 ; Tr. P. ch. 2. 
I conceive that all things follow 



60 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

OOK I. in every way absolutely: complete l . God s causality 
must be conceived on the analogy of geometrical ground 
and consequent. From the supreme power of God 
that is, from his infinite nature an infinite number of 
things have necessarily flowed in an infinite number of 
ways. All things, i.e., have flowed for rather always 
are flowing with the same necessity^ from the divine 
nature ; in the same way as it follows from eternity and 
to eternity from the nature of the triangle that its three^ 
internal angles are equal to two right angles. God/s 
omnipotence has been actual from eternity, and to eter 
nity will persist in the same actuality 2 ,. And the same 
necessity or self-determination, which makes GooVs 
causality free, destroys all contingency in the essential 
nature and in the existence of things 3 . There is no 
chance, no possibility. ,tL- -any thing ..having- been (or 
being) otherwise ; and thera.Js.no arbitrariness, na irra 
tional fiat in the decrees of God. The existent .or dor " 
of the universe, and the existent nature of its component 
elements, not only is but must be what it is: and not 
only must be granting certain starting-points, bub must 
have been could not possibly have been otherwise. The 
laws of nature are the decrees of God, and the 
1 decrees are the expression of his nature^ are..~CQfiyal 
and coextensive with it,,, necessary and immutable as 
it 4 . * Contingent taking the word in a wide sense as 
including possible 6 is a term expressing only our 

1 Cf. E. i. 33 S. 2, and Appendix ix. p. 162). 

. . . si Deus propter finem agit, 6 E. i. 33 S. i. A thing is 

aliquid necessario appetit, quo called contingent simply so far 

caret/ as our knowledge is defective. 

2 E. i. 17 S. For if we do not know that its 
8 E. i. 29. essential nature is self-contra- 
4 Cf. e.g. E. i. 33 S. 2. Spinoza dictory, or if, though we know its 

is arguing against views like essential nature to be free from 
those Descartes urges, e.g. Ep. self-contradiction, yet (because 
i. no, 115 (Cousin, vi. p. 305; we are ignorant of the order of 



THE CAUSALITY OF GOD 



61 



defective knowledge. To take refuge in the will CHAI 
the inexplicable and irrational good pleasure of (Jod v- 
for the explanation of anything, is to fly to the Asylum 
of Ignorance. Necessary and impossible alone ex 
press what is and what is not 1 . 

We must. then t cast into the lumber-room of theo 
logical prejudice the notions that God acts from final 



from will JwVnV. h ip 



ir> fha cmft nf 






The latter view 
is perhaps less mischievous than the former 2 : but both 
are false. Either view argues a total misconception of 
the divine nature ; fnrjjnf.li 
in_Ood 3 . 



causes) we cannot make any 
certain assertion with regard to 
its existence then we cannot 
regard that thing either as neces 
sary or as impossible, and so we 
call it either contingent or 
possible. 

In E. iv. deff. 3 and 4, Spinoza 
distinguishes between contin 
gent and possible. In E. i. 
33 S. i, he says, I made no dis 
tinction between the "possible" 
and the " contingent," because 
there was then no necessity for 
that distinction. But now he 
explains that (i) Contingent 
things are those which, so long 
as we attend exclusively to their 
essential nature, show us nothing 
which forces us either to posit or 
to negate their existence ; and 
that (2) the same things are 
said to be possible in so far as, 
when we attend to the causes 
which must produce them, we 
are left unaware as to whether 
those causes are or are not 
determined to produce them ; 



cf. below, p. 259, note 7. 

1 Cf. E. i. 33 and S. i and 2 ; 
also Appendix. For the con 
nexion of Spinoza s views (as to 
the causality of God, &c.) with 
those of Maimonides and other 
Jewish writers, cf. Joel, op. cit. 
And for Spinoza s conception of 
God s causality, cf. K. V. S. i. 
ch. 4 ; Tr. Th. ch. 6. 

2 E. i. 33 S. 2. 

8 Ib. Spinoza is partly argu 
ing against Descartes, cf. e. g. 
Desc. Ep. i, no, and 115 ; Princ. 
and Medit. passim, where he con 
stantly insists that God is infinite 
and therefore incomprehensible ; 
and often has recourse to the ways 
of God which pass understand 
ing, in order to explain away 
manifest difficulties. Whether 
the orthodoxy of Descartes is any 
more sincere than Hume s pious 
horror of Spinoza s hideous hypo 
thesis, is a question to be deter 
mined by writers on the Cartesian 
Philosophy. 



62 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

. In fact, these errors have both sprung from the anthro 
pomorphism of theology. Though most people reject 
the coarser view, which conceives God as a larger man 
with body and mind, with human passions, intellect, and 
will yet they retain part of this misconception. They 
deny, indeed, that God has a body ; and they carry their 
denial so far as to fall into a gross error. They do not 

V see that Extension is an Attribute of God, that though 
God has not a finite body, yet God is extended as well 
as thinking that the corporeal extended universe is real 
and so belongs to God s nature 1 . 

AniLwith this limited conception nf fhft diving na.f-.nre, 
there goes the fatal error whinh p.nnp.mvp.s intellect and 
will as somehow more essential to God than the other 
modes. The^-u]^o^-4h^ JJ^ 

tellect; and that by his. intellect he conceives and plans, 
by his will he chooses to realize, a divine work of 
art the Worl4. And though they suppose that God s 
will and intellect are perfect that he is omnipotent 
and omniscient yet their human conceptions cling to 
them in their theology. They conceive God s will and 
intellect, and his action, under the same ignorant mis 
conceptions which have vitiated their understanding of 
human action. For they suppose and their supposition 
is due solely to ignorance of the real causes of human 
action 2 that man acts from final causes, and that his 
actions are free because proceeding from an inde 
terminate will : and in like manner they attribute to 
God a similar though an enlarged causality and a 
similar freedom. But the truth is that their whole 
conception of final causes and of freedom is erroneous. 
Man never acts freely in this sense of the word : and 

1 E. i. 15 S. Again a polemic the Freedom of the Will and 
against Descartes 1 conception of Final Causes, see below, Bk. II. 
matter ; see below. ch. 3, 3, and Appendix. 

2 On Spinoza s polemic against 



THE CAUSALITY OF GOD 63 

causes^forit would imply defect CHAP. 



in_his.. nature. Nor is God a person, if that term be ** 
used to express a being in whose nature are united and 
yet distinguished two powers only, intellect and will l . 
For God is much more than a thinking and a willing 
being. And if we keep the names will and intellect, yet 
God s will and intellect differ toto caelo from man s. As 
applied to man and to God they are homonymous terms 2 . 
Nor again does God first conceive, then will, and then 
create. "Will a,nfl in tall not are modes of God on the 

1 Ay f^] n.s nf.li pr TYinrl PS nf hi g n fl.f n J*L And Since no 

-or- self-determined, no mode as sucji 



It is no more possible to ..sayJLGod acts from 
the liberty of his will, than to say God acts from the 



liberty of motion-a/rid^rest-. Innumerable things follow 
from God s will and intellect and innumerable things 
from the modes of his extended being, from motion-and- 
rest as a mode of the Attribute of Extension. But 
1 motion^and-rest/ jnt-fl IWV .r>rl .will flyp nothing but 
modes of God f and as modes they are dependent and 
determined. God s freedom consists in the absolute self- 
determination of his whole nature and in that alone 3 . 

NOTE. For Spinoza s attitude to the prevalent Christianity, cf. 
especially Epp. 43, 73, 75, and of course, above all, the Tr. Th. Also, 
on Evil and Error, see below, Bk. II. ch. 2, 2 (i C) ; Bk. III. ch. T ; 
and the correspondence between Spinoza and de Blyenbergh, Epp. 
18-24, an d 2 7 (Spinoza s Letters are 19, 21, 23 and 27) ; also cf. 
Ep. 78. 

Ep. 73 was written in answer to Ep. 71, in which Oldenburg had 
asked Spinoza for a clear statement of his opinions on certain 
subjects, so that the Tr. Th., if republished with such a statement, 
might give no offence. The letter is so important that I append 
a translation. * With regard to the three heads, on which you beg 
me for an open expression of my opinion, I reply : (i) My views as 
to God and Nature are very different from those which the modern 
Christians are wont to maintain. For I hold God to be the immanent 

1 Cf. perhaps C. M. ii. 8, i. 3 Cf. e.g. E. i. 32 and C. i 

8 E. i. 17 S. and 2. 



64 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. cause of all things, and not (as they say) the transient cause a . 
I affirm with Paul that all things are in God and move in God. 
Perhaps in this I agree with all the ancient philosophers, though 
they expressed it differently: and (so far as one can conjecture from 
certain traditions, much adulterated as they are) with all the old 
Hebrew masters. It is a complete mistake to suppose, as some do, 
that the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus tends to identify God and 
Nature, understanding by " Nature " (as these critics do) an (inert) 
mass or corporeal matter. 

(2) I am persuaded that the authority of the divine revelation can 
be supported solely by the wisdom of its doctrine, and not by 
miracles, i.e. by ignorance, as I have explained at sufficient length 
in Tr. Th., ch. 6. I content myself here with adding that the main 
difference which I recognize between Religion and Superstition is, 
that Religion is based on wisdom, Superstition on ignorance. And 
it is because people defend their creed by miracles, and so turn even 
a true faith into superstition, that the Christian is distinguished 
solely by the opinion he holds, instead of by Faith, Charity, and the 
other fruits of the Holy Spirit . . . 

(3) Lastly, it is not, as I believe, absolutely necessary to salvation 
to "know Christ according to the flesh" : but it is necessary to know 
the eternal Son of God, i.e. God s eternal wisdom, which has 
manifested itself in all things, especially in the human mind, and 
most of all in Jesus Christ. For this wisdom alone teaches what is 
true and false, good and bad : without it, therefore, no one can 
attain to the " state of blessedness." . . . But that God took upon 
himself the nature of man, as some churches have added to this 
doctrine : this, as I explicitly stated in the Tr. Th., I cannot under 
stand. To confess the truth, such an assertion seems to me as self- 
contradictory as it would be to say " the circle has put on the nature 
of the square." 

a * Transient is to be under- who interprets it as a cause 

stood literally as a cause which whose action is momentary and 

passes over into an effect outside fleeting, 
itself. Contrast Zulawski, I.e., 



CHAPTEE III 



GOD AND HIS ATTRIBUTES (NATURA NATURANS) 

1. THE ATTRIBUTES AS f LINES OF FORCE, OR FORMS 
IN WHICH GOD S OMNIPOTENCE MANIFESTS ITS FREE 
CAUSALITY TO AN INTELLIGENCE. 

GOD in his free causality, as natura naturans 1 , CHAP. Ill 
is absolute power which is always in action in all 



1 On Natura Naturans and 
Naturata, cf. K. V. S. i. 8 and 9 
(below, p. 88, note 3). Spinoza 
makes a somewhat different use 
of this old Scholastic Antithesis 
in the Ethics. There (E. i. 29 S.) 
he explains the distinction as 
follows : 

In God, as the free cause of 
himself and therefore of all 
things, we must distinguish two 
aspects. God, as the free cause, 
as "id quod in se est et per se 
concipitur," is Natura Naturans. 
God, as the inevitable conse 
quence of his own essential being, 
as self-caused, is Natura Naturata. 
God therefore (or his Attributes), 
as the ground of God (or his 
modes in their eternal and 
necessary coherence), is Natura 
Naturans : the eternal system of 
God s modes, which is the con 
sequent of the free causality of 
Natura Naturans, is Natura Natu 
rata. 

SPINOZA 



Cf. E. I.e., Per Naturatam autem 
intelligo id omne, quod ex necessi 
tate Dei naturae, sive unius cuius- 
que Dei attributorum sequitur, 
hoc est omnes Dei attributorum 
modos, quatenus considerantur ut 
res, quae in Deo sunt, et quae 
sine Deo nee esse nee concipi 
possunt. Erdmann (V. A. p. 134) 
strangely stops the quotation at 
res, and so misinterprets Spinoza. 
Natura Naturata is not the world 
of sense-perception : but the 
universe in all its articulation as 
a perfect understanding would 
grasp it, if that understanding 
apprehended it as the effect of 
God s causality. 

Logically, God as cause or 
ground is prior to God as effect 
or consequent. Deus omnibus 
rebus prior est causalitate (E. i. 
17 S. ; cf. also K. V. S. ii. Praef. 
5). Natura Naturans is logic 
ally prior to Natura Naturata, 
or could be conceived without 



66 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. ways *. It is his actuosa essentia which all things express 
or rather, are in various determinate forms. The force 
to be and to persist in being which each thing has the 
living energy which constitutes each thing s individu 
ality 2 is but a fragment, as it were, of the omnipotence 
of God. And the actual present existence or non- 
existence of any thing its coming to be or ceasing to 
be in the communis ordo naturae, as an event in the 
spatial and temporal series this too is the effect of God s 
omnipotence. For God is the efficient cause of the 
* essentia and of the existentia of all things 3 : and 
he is the causa essendi, the cause which sustains them 
in being 4 . God is thus the inner vital force of the 
world 5 ; but he is more, for he is also that which the 
force animates. There is no matter on which God works, 
or which he informs. All that is, is God : and God is all 
that is. 

TVift Afr.rjjfa]f,fta nr forms nf fi-nrl g rmrrmpntArmA STA nnf. 

it, though not vice versa : just render possible a complete know- 
as the nature of a triangle, as ledge of God and his Attributes. 
given in its definition, is logically This, at any rate, seems to be 
prior to the properties which flow Spinoza s meaning, though his 
from it, or to that which it is words at times suggest that 
understood by the developed geo- Natura Naturans is prior really 
metrical intelligence to be. But and not merely logically io Na- 
the full being (and therefore the tura Naturata, so that the full 
full understanding) of the ground being and the full understanding 
is impossible without the full of God as ground would not 
being (and understanding) of require the being or the under- 
the consequent. The triangle s standing of God as consequent, 
nature would cease to be itself * Zulawski brings out the iden- 
if its properties were to change tity of God s essentia with his 
or vanish ; nor could it be under- power extremely well ; cf. e. g. 
stood if we were ignorant of Zulawski, i, 6, &c. 
them. So Natura Naturans has 2 E. iii. 6, 7, and 8 ; and see 
its fulfilment in Natura Naturata ; below, Bk. II. ch. 3, 2. 
and it is only the full under- 3 E. i. 25. 
standing of the eternal system * E. i. 24 C. 
of God s modes which would 6 Camerer, p. 2. 



NATURA NATURANS 67 

n-F n-n^ g na^ire they are that nature : CHAP. II 



under some one of its ultimate (Vha,rfl.p.tftrs (above, pp. 22, 
ff.). NVijAjjvrib-nte therefore ifl derivfld from any other, 
nor is any deuced from the nature of God. TTWh i 

coextensive with God, each is exclusive of every other, 
and each must .b.e conceived c per se_J It is essential to 
Substance that ea.p>i of its Atf,n"hnfftg glimild be conceived 
" per se." For all t-hf Attri^i^-Q^ wh^h it hnn, have 
always bp.p.-n tngetTier in if. (" simul in ipsa semper 
fuerunt "), nor could one have been 



another: hnt ea.ch one expresses the reality or being of 
Substance. (E. i. 10 S.) 

But within -the- world as-we~-toow^~4tj God & -nature 
is manifested in, iwo distinct systems; or. . (jQd &. fx& 
causality, hia omnipotencej is aciujli]i_tw), separate- lines 
of forca As a res extensa/ God. is tha Jrea.cau&-^f 
the system which we know, as the corporeal universa; 
its inner constitution, its movements, changes and 
properties are simply the effects of God s omnipotence 
working in a single line of force. Ajijj G<">rl is y-nmmi-fcA 
us as a Being infinite in his power of thinking 1 : gts 
a res cogitans/ God is tha frea p.a.nsA nf ^Om-^luxU 
system which necessarily flows from- -4he- - Attobt~ of 
Cogitatio. 



2. TTTTC ATTP.TBTTTV. ffP TT.ynp-R-NrSITnf^ SPINOZA 
AND DESCAKTES. 

Spinoza, although he attacks the Cartesian conception 
of * Extension, yet develops his own view from the 
starting-point of that of Descartes. 

tn Dftgpflrf^ J? 



1 Cf. E. ii. i S., ens virtute est ipsius actual! agendi poten- 
cogitandi infinitum ; E. ii. 21 S., tiae ; K. V. S. i. Dial, i, u, and 
cogitandi potentia ; E. ii. 7 C., ii. 19, 6. 
Dei cogitandi potentia aequalis 

F 2 



68 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA. 

Book I. or_ftTH-.pmdfld for f.Tifl corporeal is divisible, and divisi- 



But God created-jmatter. and at the same time im- 

it a dftfinita. quaii tity-.o -motion . and, rest 



a quantity which he maintains always the same 2 . The. 
fundamental olmracters of the material universe arft 
its^Bxtension in three dimensions, its divisibility (which 

follows from its extension), the mobility of its parts 
(which is due to the motion and rest which God im 
planted in it), and the variation of its figuration which 
is the consequence of this mobility 3 . All the__x)tTier 

qn fll jfjftg gfjn g^r th P. sflnrvn ri a ry qn q 1 i ti PS T) psp.fl.rtp.s 

rejects : th^^^re-simply appe^raneesJjOL-iivproduced by 
(indicative only of) extension together with the motion 
and figuration of the parts of the extended 4 . 



qualities nn^ing real in the corporeal 

figures and motion a, p.nrrftHpon^p; f.n thgiX) 5 and there 
fore in calling the corporeal or material universe res 
extensa. IRirh the res extensa is no creation. 6 of God : 

fl.n Af.f.rihnf.A nf H-nrl^ natur^, a form, of his 
As tmdn it ja not drri^HQ 7 . Nor is if. fl. 1ifp.lp.as 



1 Desc. Princ. i. 23. rate " is to cause a thing to come 

2 Ib. ii. 36. On motion and to be only as regards its existentia. 
rest, and quantity of motion, (Hence there is now in nature no 
as Descartes held these concep- creation, but only generation.) 
tions (and as Spinoza in the main If then God creates, he creates 
followed him), see Pollock, pp. the nature of the thing together 
103 ff. And see below, ch. 4, 3. with the thing ---- But we cannot 

3 Ib. ii. 23; cf. above, p. 31, strictly say that creation has ever 
note i. taken place. , 

* Cf. e.g. Ib. i. 69 ; ii. 4 ; iv. 7 It is only imperfect appre- 

197 ff. hension the attempt to picture 

5 Cf. e.g. E. i. App. to which we are so prone which 

6 Cf. K. V. S. i. 2, 5, note 3. leads us to regard corporeal Sub- 
To " create " is to posit a thing stance as divisible. In its real 
both as regards its essentia and nature, as properly apprehended 
as regards its existentia: to " gene- by Intelligence and not by 



NATURA NATURANS 69 

-fl-Ti rl rest. As CHAP. 



an Attribute, it is a fonn of God s actuality a. line jrf 
force in which his omnipotence manifests itself 1 . And 
motion and rest^jjnjJik^J^ ind^d all 

the properties of the material universe depend, are not 
put into it ab extra, but together are the primary or most 
fundamental mode of its being 2 . 

3. THE INFINITY OF ATTEIBUTES. THE ATTRIBUTE OF 
THOUGHT. GOD IS SELF-CONSCIOUS. 

Tha^ajafiJzo.d_wha-is to .our- intelligence, .an extended 
thing^r-a~-corporeal universe is also to our intelligence 
a thinking thing,. a spiritual or ideal universe. His om 
nipotence manifests itself to us in a second line of force, 
which is articulated in the system of souls or conscious 
nesses. Every mode of God, every thing, which we see 
and feel as a body, is also a soul 3 : though it does not 
follow that we as a fact experience both the extended 
and the soul-side of all the modes which come within 
our range. 

Since Q-od s^omnipotence is absolutely^ unlimited, his. 
nature absolutely complete, a complete!] 



gnngrngQ in "him nil. Aff.n"h^fflg in his active Causality 

all lines of force 4 . Nn mi-m hfvivcaii exhaust tJn s c a.TI:nes ; 



Imagination, it is Substance 1 See Epp. 81 and 83 (in answer 

under one of its Attributes ; and, to Tschirnhaus). 

as Substance, necessarily indi- 2 See below, ch. 4, 3. 

visible. All the arguments against 3 Cf. E. ii. 13 S. Omnia, 

the corporeal nature of God show quamvis diversis gradibus, ani- 

only that if you misapprehend mata . . . sunt. In the context 

Substantia extensa if you try this applies to the individuals 

to divide it you get into in- or complex bodies (see below, pp. 

extricable confusion; they do 82 ff.); but it is true, according 

not show that Extension in its to Spinoza s position, of all bodies 

real nature is not an Attribute whatever, and indeed of all modes 

of God. Cf. above, pp. 30 ff ; E. i. of any and every Attribute. 

13 and C ; E. i. 15 S. 4 Cf. above, pp. 38 ff. 



70 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



BOOK I. we must sa^..sijiLply-4kar^43Fe4-Viiarture or omnipotence s 
complete, ..... ox J. -consists -of. -^n infinity ~of Attributes or 
lines of force. And, since this is so, every mode of God 
as it really is, for a complete experience l would be 
{ expressed in an infinity of ways. JBut whilst j^eradon 
and Thought can be understood by a human intelligence, 
the other Attributes cannot. The spiritual and corporeal 
sides of things are at least possible objects of our gx- 
perience-j but we cannot experience the other ways of 
expression of God s modes. "We do not find in our 
experience, e.g., creatures which show themselves as 
modes of three or more Attributes in the same way as 
man shows himself as a mode both of Extension and of 
Thought. The p/)no,1nsion tha/h (Ind o.onstat infinitis 
ajjgibpi-.ia * is not. reached empirically, b]]f. a prinri frnm 
the conception of an absolutely rnfim f.A. "Rnj-pg 2 .- 

She, _pri m ary -Characteristic o Cogitatio is. thought 
proper. The Intellectus (intelligence or understa/n ding 
,ia_ihe_jfiindamental mode^of which all 



the other modes of Thought (e. g. volition, desire, passion) 

3X6 dependents*. All fl,pf r rvfTyill r>-p {^ r ^P.Sirp. prpjgnppnsA l r> 

the subject an { idea 9 a conception of the object willed 
or_desirfid-L_ Now . jj^ is the distinctive feature of an 



idea/ or act of th^^Tip:, that it exhibits two sides of 

1 Cf. E. ii. 78. ... Quare rerum, pudiates it. The doctrine of the 
ut in se sunt, Deus revera est Infinity of Attributes, though 
causa, quatenus infinitis constat Spinoza could not logically discard 
attributis. . . . it, remains incompletely assimi- 

2 See Ep. 64 in answer to lated in his philosophy, and serves 
Schuller, who had propounded only to project shadows of confu- 
problems suggested by Tschirn- sion within it. Tschirnhaus, with 
haus. Although, when Spinoza singular acuteness, pointed out 
wrote the K. V. (above, p. 39, these difficulties from the first, 
note 5), he seems to have thought and Spinoza never adequately 
that we might in time learn some answers them. See below, Bk. II. 
other Attribute of God, no trace ch. i, 4. 

of this belief survives in the 3 E. ii. Ax. 3. 
Ethics, and Ep. 64 directly re- 






NATURA NATURANS 71 



Its formal or real b^g is i te being as an act CHAP. 
of ihauglit : and for this it depends entirely upon other 
acts of thought : the system of ideae (like that of 
* corpora ) is a closed system, complete within its own 
Attribute, Cogitatio. But^ every jdea/ is also, by its 
very nature, an idea, of a.n ideatum* : it_J^flejlts_-JCai 
represents_or expresses gmnftf. Mpg other than _ ths 
act of thinkmg_which it is its formal essence is the 
objective essence of its ideatum, just as it itself may 
have an objective essence as the ideatum of another 
idea *. 

Thus the idea * -the_ac^_Q.G:^d > s thinking wVn p.Kis 
the soul * of an extended thing, at the same time reflects 
thai, thing. Grpd, in being the soul* of a. tiling thinks 
the thing, whose soul his act of thought is. The idea, 
which in its formal being is a mode of God s thinking, 
a fragment of the spiritual or soul universe, has a content 
which expresses a corresponding extended side of the 
same mode or is the objective being of a mode of 
Extension. It is the same thing, one and the same mode 
of God, which is both body and soul (and an infinity of 
other expressions ), both ideatum and idea. The intelli 
gence of God is thus one and the same as its objects : it.v 
ijf the soul-side of them, and is thereby, for God, the 
reflection or apprehension of them 2 . And since for 
a complete experience every mode of God would exhibit 
all forms of being, God s intelligence, which is complete, 

1 Cf. above, p. 7, and E. ii. phrase * esse obiectivum ideae is 

8 C. On Esse formale and Esse slightly ambiguous. It may mean 

obiectivum, see especially Desc. (i) the being of a thing as it is in 

Medit., Resp. ad primas obiect., its idea, i.e. the content of an 

andResp. ad secundasobiect.,p.75 idea; or (2) the objective being 

(specimen of synthetic geometrical of an idea, i.e. the idea as it is 

method), def. 3, Per realitatem when it forms the content of 

obiectivam ideae intelligoentit&tem another idea. 

rei repraesentatae per ideam, qua- 2 Cf. E. ii. 7 S. 
tenus est in idea. . . . Hence, the 



72 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. is the reflection or apprehension of all God s Attributes 
and all the modes in which they are articulated. 

Thus th ft Af.friVmf.ft r>f TjhrmgTit. nn if. foryna.] sirJq ia 

coextensive with__Substance in thft qp.-mft ffiMft y 
every other Attribute 1 . . But since, as thought, it 
necessarily has a QO^teTl* nv 1>g thft 



of^its ideata -it is, in_a_seTisp> r .. < wider than any o 
Attribute: in_fa.^, coextensive with all f.ViR Attrihnt.es 



God, in his being as a res cogitans, is thus aware 
of himself and all that follows from himself: and since 
all consciousness involves self-consciousness, since in 
thinking or knowing we necessarily know that we 
know 3 , God is aware of his own thinking : or is self- 
conscious in the sense that he is conscious of his con 
sciousness of himself 4 . 

1 Cf. E. ii. i S. all the modifications of all the 

z Cf. Ep. 70, Tschirnhaus s criti- infinite number of Attributes, 

cism, stated by Schuller. For a have their soul, which is an idea, 

consideration of this criticism, i.e. a modification of the Attribute 

see below, Bk. II. ch. i, 4. Cf. of Thought. 

also the very important statement 3 Cf. above, p. 7, and E. ii. 21 S ; 

in K. V. S. App. 2, 9. Not only ii. 43 and S. 

the modifications of Extension, * See Loewe, pp. 287 ff., and 

Spinoza there says definitely, but below, Bk. II. ch. i, 3. 



CHAPTER IV 

GOD AND HIS MODES (NATURA NATURATA) 
1. DEGREES OF PERFECTION OR REALITY. 

GOD, as the necessary consequent of fris own free cans.- CHAP. 

"NTfl.f,nra, TJqfnrqlg-^aji nrfjpred System of modes, 

following with, coherent necessity from Natura ISTaturans. 
But, though all things follow with the same inevitable 
necessity from God s nature, they differ from one another 
in degree of perfection or reality; and indeed the 
difference is one not only of degree but also of kind. 
For although a mouse and an angel, sadness and joy, 
depend equally on God, yet a mouse cannot be a species 
of angel, nor sadness a species of joy V * The criminal 
expresses God s will in his own way, just as the good 
man does in his ; but the criminal is not on that account 
comparable with the good man. The more perfection^. 
a. thmg Jias, the japra it__particrpates in the. _ .divine 
nature 2 and the more it expresses God s perfection. 
The good have incalculably more perfection than, the 
vicious ; and therefore their " virtue " is not to be com 
pared with the " virtue " of the vicious . . . 

It is in na.-hirfl. nfl.fnrfl.fA/ thft P.t.ftmal system of mndfts 3 
that these degrees,.of perfection or reality are exhibited. 
For there is an order in the sequence of the modes from 
God s nature, and on that order their degree of perfection 

1 Ep. 23. Deitate participat Of. E. iv. 

2 Ep. 19 . . . eo etiam magis de App. cap. xxxi. 



74 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

depends. The order is not a temporal, but a logical one. V 
There is no before and after, no temporal succession, in 
the relation of the modes to God ; all modes are the 
eternal consequents of God s causality. But there is 
a logical priority and posteriority; and on this their 
degrees of reality depend. That effect is the most 
perfect which is produced by God immediately ; and the 
more mediating causes which any effect requires, the less 
perfect it is V 



2. FOEMAL STATEMENT OF THE OEDEE OF THE MODAL 
SEQUENCE. 

(i) TvMrnwJt&atfi Jnf.ntt* and Ktp.rnn! Mndp.s. 

Any thing which is the direct conspfpftnf. nf a.n 
Attribute of Godjjwill share the_ Attribute s eternity and 
infinity : i.e. since it follows iTnmAHia.fply -Pm _ the 

Attrihqf,fl t 



of being in itself, the mode s reality within the Attribute s 
field of being will not be limited. Its being will express 
itself fully: its existence will not be circumscribed in 

time or space, or by any limiting condition 2 . Thus, 

1 E. i. App. immediately from the Attribute, 

2 E. i. 21. Omnia quae ex are coextensive with it. Their 
absoluta natura alicuius attributi existence is not duration for a 
Dei sequuntur, semper et infinita limited time, but never begins 
existere debuerunt, sive per idem or ceases (semper). [On Eternity 
attributum&eiern&et infinita sunt. 1 and Duration, see below, Bk. III. 
(The italics are my own.) ch. 4, 2. See also A. E. Taylor 

Absoluta, as opposed to * quid- in Mind, N. S. no. 18.] They have 

quid ex aliquo Dei attributo, the infinity of which modes are 

quatenus modificatum est aliqua capable (see above, p. 29) i. e. 

modificatione, sequitur : the they are infinite vi causae cui 

modes, therefore, of which Spi- inhaerent, or infinite per idem 

noza is talking, are the direct uttributum. And they are eternal, 

or immediate consequents of the so far as their existence follows 

Attribute. Their existence and from the Attribute s essence in 

their nature, since they follow which their essence is involved. 



PARTICULAR THINGS 75 

e.g^. if- motion 1 follows directly from Extension, orj 
is the immediata-Jiicde- -ia-the- Attribute of Extension, 
there will be nothing; ftxtepded which is not whatever 
else it nifty be besides a.ii_ nr>y m.t.o in - motion, ;_arul 
motion can never cease to be within the sphere of 
Extension. 



(ii) Mediate Infinite (**><! TZternn! 

Any thing which, follows- from am Attribute of Gfod 
by an Afof^al nrl infinity gn^jjffofrjami, rrmsi-. 



itself be infinite and necessary in its existence 2 . 

Thus, if e.g. in the extended universe there is a direct 
consequent of the totality of motion and rest, that con 
sequent will itself be infinite and eternal ; i. e. its being 
and its existence will be coextensive with motion and 
rest, and, so far, with the Attribute. 

(iii) Particular Things. 

1 Particular things are nothing but states or modes of 
God s Attributes in which these are expressed in a certain 
and determinate manner V "What is their place in the 
modal system of natura naturata ? Are they infinite or 
finite modes ? Eternal or contingent in their existence ? 
We are here face to face with the central difficulties of 
Spinoza s system. Much in his theory will receive its 
fuller development in the course of subsequent chapters : 
much is undoubtedly open to criticism ; and much must 

1 I say motion (and not tas : E. i. 23 dem.) 

motion and rest ) merely for E. i. 23 is the converse of i. 21 

simplicity : see below. and 22. Omnis modus, qui et 

2 E. i. 22. Quidquid ex aliquo necessario et infinitus existit, ne- 
Dei attributo, quatenus modifi- cessario sequi debuit, vel ex abso- 
catum est tali modification, quae luta natura alicuius attributi Dei, 
et necessario et infinita per idem vel ex aliquo attributo modificato 
existit, sequitur, debet quoque et modificatione, quae et necessario 
necessario et infinitum existere. et infinita existit. 
(Necessitas existentiae = aeterni- * E. i. 25 C. 



76 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

JOOK I. remain obscure from difficulties of interpretation. Mean 
time I will try to state as clearly as possible the double 
conception of particular things and of their dependence 
on God which Spinoza develops 1 . 

(A) Particular things as infinite and eternal. 

So long as the causality of God works through the 
mediation of infinite and eternal modes, its consequents 
must themselves be infinite and eternal 2 . Now in a sense 
particular things are infinite and eternal i. e. vi causae 
cui inhaerent. As modes their reality is dependent upon 
the Substance of which they are the affectiones, or 
which sustains them. Their reality in that dependence 
is timelessly actual : their essence * in and through the 
modal system or the Attribute involves their existence : 
and in and through the modal system their essence is 
complete or infinite. 

The particular bodies and ideas, that is, so far as they 
are comprehended in their respective Attributes viewed 
by reason in their modal systems have an actuality 
which flows timelessly and necessarily from their essential 
nature : i.e. an existence which is eternal. This actuality 
or existence is not indeed the inevitable consequent of 
the essentia of each single thing by itself for then 
each would be a Substance 3 : but it follows inevitably 
from the Substance in which the * essentiae of all par 
ticular things are sustained. The actuality of each 
particular thing thus seems to be the necessary con 
sequent of the whole modal system, or natura naturata, 
through the one Substance which this implies. The 
essentia of each particular thing is eternal, or inevitably 
is actual, only in so far as it is involved in the whole 

*~~~- * I am indebted to Camerer in 2 E. i. 22. 

this section perhaps more than s E. i. 24 (cf. especially the 

usual, though I have not entirely dem.) is directed against this 

followed his views. misinterpretation. 



PARTICULAR THINGS 



77 



system of essentiae which together express, and neces- CHAP. ] 
sarily express, some Attribute of God l . 

And in this necessary coherence of their modal system, 
the essentiae of particular things are complete or infinite. 
Their infinity is the infinity of the system which 
sustains them, of the context apart from which they are 
not capable of full reality : and their eternity is the 
necessity of their actuality as the consequence of the 
system in which their essentiae are complete 2 . 

If, then, we regard the particular things as forming 
natura naturata i.e. as they in their reality are, as 
expressing God s nature in a coherent and inseparable 
modal system we must conceive them as sharing the 
infinity and eternity of the Attributes and immediate 
modes. Their existence or actuality, from this point of 
view, is not occurrence in the time and space series, but 
the timeless being or self-assertion which they possess as 
expressions of God s power 3 . 



1 Spinoza says (Ep. 10) that he 
does not call the essentiae of 
particular things aeternae veri- 
tates, because he does not wish 
to imply that they have no exist 
ence outside the mind. They 
are eternal truths, i. e. eternal 
realities. Cf. e.g. E. i. 17 S., 
where the * essentia of a man is 
called an aeterna veritas : and 
i. 20 C. i, where Spinoza says 
that the existence of God, like 
his essence, is an eternal truth. 

It clearly will not do to use 
the conception of the eternity of 
the body of scientific knowledge 
the reciprocal maintenance of 
true principles in a systematic 
explanation of the world as 
more than a very inadequate 
illustration of the kind of reality 



and actuality of which Spinoza 
is thinking. Natura naturata is 
not a system of thoughts, but a 
system of things which amongst 
other characteristics have an 
ideal (or thought-) side. Perhaps 
Spinoza s meaning is best illus 
trated I can hardly say eluci 
dated by a reference to Tdle, 
WlL.i.pp.33ff. 

2 Cf. E. v. 40 S. Ex quibus, et 
simul ex prop. 21, part, i, et aliis, 
apparet, quod mens nostra, qua- 
tenus intelligit, aeternus cogi- 
tandi modus sit, qui alio aeterno 
cogitandi modo determinatur, 
et hie iterum ab alio, et sic in 
infinitum; ita ut omnes simul 
Dei aeternum et infinitum intel- 
lectum constituant. 

* E. v. 29 S. ; ii. 45 S. 



78 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

But the particularity of the particular things, when 
they are so regarded, seems to vanish in the system. 
Completely real and eternal they may be, but indi 
vidually distinct they are not. In the timeless actuality 
of the modal system, in the completeness of natura 
naturata, there is no individual essentia or existentia 
except that of the whole system. 

The * essentia of every thing, as a mode comprehended 
in one of the Attributes of God, is, it is true, on its actual 
or existing side, a force which makes for assertion of the 
thing s individual self: a conatus, quo unaquaeque res 
in suo esse perse verare conatur V But this individual 
istic force is what it is, only as a partial expression of 
God s actuosa essentia or potentia : just as the indi 
vidual essentia of the thing is only a mode or partial 
expression of God s essentia. Individuality of essence 
and existence belongs in any real sense to God, and to 
God alone 2 . 



(B) Particular things as finite and transitory. 

On the other hand, if you tqke the particular things 
out of the system j fl- 11 ^ v egard thfvm 
completeness vanishes and 



For although their essence is in its actuality a force 
which makes for self-assertion, and though that force is 
not in its self limited for its activity to a finite period of 
time 3 ; yet no single thing can, taken by itself, maintain 
its individuality through all time, nor resist indefinitely 
the action of the other single things against which it has 
to assert itself. ^jxrT thmigh P.vftry thing in if.s 
in its flftpfi-nrJp.Tip.p. n-p its modal jgystgrn i s 
every thing by itself is but a part which is incomplete in 

1 E. iii. 7. 2 For developments and modification, see below. 

3 E. iii. 8. 



PARTICULAR THINGS 79 

6SS6ELC6 ind. power or finite in nature and. transitorv in_CiiAp. 1 
existence. I. 

The same abstraction, therefore, which holds the modes 
apart from their system, and which gives them indi 
viduality, seems necessarily to destroy the fullness and 
permanence of their being. If we treat the parts of 
{ natura 11^1^,1,3. a.s indp.pATidftTit of the whole, as having 
rihflTfl.P.tftr of fhair nwr> Wft a.v 



negating anmp> of fhmr rpfl.1 V>P.ing- ajnd that means that 
they have become to us fim to nv i-nr>nTnpW.A vAaliHag 2 

It is in this incompleteness and transitoriness that 
particular things appear to us in our ordinary experience. 
The communis ordo naturae 3 presents itself to us as 
a complex of particular things acting and reacting on 
one another, coming into being and passing away, the 
products of infinite series of finite causes, and the starting- 
points of similar infinite series of finite effects. The 
ways of picturing things, the categories of measure, 
time, and number, form the framework of the experience 
in which we arrange these events. The e real world, as 
we thus apprehend it, is a world of separate things, of 
a definite size and shape, occurring at definite places and 
at definite times. In place of the unbroken unity of 
Substance a unity which was maintained in the modal 
system of c natura naturata, and so seemed to render the 
individuality of the modes of that system impossible we 
have the multiplicity of the phenomenal world, in which 
the distinct character of each part and its occurrence at 
a particular time and place seem unintelligible and for 
tuitous, although the interaction of the parts is ascribed 
to necessary and universal laws. 

This world of isolated and perishable things, with its 

1 Cf. e. g. E. iv. 4 dem. affirmatio existentiae alicuius 

2 Cf. e. g. E. i. 8 S. i. Quum naturae. . . . 

finitum esse revera sit ex parte 8 For the phrase, cf. E. ii. 29 
negatio, et infinitum absoluta S. and C., ii. 30 dem. 



8o THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. apparently arbitrary sequences arbitrary as regards the 
natures of the connected events this world of the 
unscientific experience is largely illusory. "We shall find 
that Spinoza places it as the object of the lowest grade 
of apprehension 1 . But it is not through and through 
illusion : or, if it is, there must at least be a real basis 
of the illusion. It must in fact be explained as the 
inadequate and partial appearance of ; natura naturata. 
It will become intelligible only in so far as it is traced 
to the intelligible system of modes 2 . 

(C) The twofold causality of God. 
The essentiae of particular things which have a time 
less actuality in the Attributes of God, have also an 
actuality or existence which shows itself as their 
appearance in the temporal and local series 3 : and their 
distinctive nature as it appears, and their actions in this 
phenomenal world, are the inevitable consequents of the 
causality of God, just as is their permanent essentia. 
The causality of God determines not only the essentia * 
and existentia of every mode in the system of natura 
naturata, but. also, the determinate state of ea-ch thing 
from which its actual existence here and now, and its 
actual operation, inevitably flow 4 . 

1 I have been obliged to an- naturae. But in the Tdle, Spi- 
ticipate Spinoza s theory of know- noza is still very strongly under 
ledge, and must refer the reader the influence of Bacon, from 
to the chapter on that subject which he has almost completely 
for fuller explanation of what I freed himself in the Ethics. See 
have said here. however Pollock, pp. 140 if. On 

2 Of. Tdle, VV1L. i. pp. 33 if. the whole question see below, 
The series rerum fixarum aeter- pp. 119 if. 

narumque, on which the series 3 Cf. E. ii. 8 and C; v. 29 S. 

rerum singularium mutabilium On the whole subject, cf. K. V. S. 

depends, seems partly to corre- ii, Appendix 2, n, with Sig- 

spond to the conception in the wart s notes. 

Ethics of natura naturata as 4 E. i. 26 and 27 ; i. 28 ; i. 29 

the basis of the communis ordo dem. 



PARTICULAR THINGS 81 

As members of natura naturata, the particular things CHAP. 
exhibit a complete and timeless essentia, which is 
mediated by mediate and immediate eternal and 
infinite modes. How they can yet maintain their indi 
viduality in that system is a question which forces itself 
upon us already, and which will recur with increased 
difficulties when we come to consider Spinoza s ethical 
doctrine. 

At any rate, this their eternal nature, with its time 
less actuality or force of self-assertion, expresses itself 
imperfectly in a temporal and local existence : and its 
occurrence with all the characteristics attaching to it 
(its special present nature, the time and place of its 
manifestation, its actions and passions, &c.) is determined 
by a system of necessary law, or by a causality of God, 
which cannot be reduced to the causality exhibited in 
* natura naturata. The particular things as they appear 
in the phenomenal world cannot be regarded as medi 
ated by infinite and eternal modes ; for they themselves 
are finite and transitory in their appearances. If you 
endeavour to trace the cause of the occurrence here and 
now of this particular thing or this particular event, you 
are led backwards from finite to finite thing or event ; 
and your explanation resolves itself into an infinite chain 
of causes and effects, each one of which is itself finite. 
Or, as Spinoza expresses it 1 , every single thing which is 
finite and has a determinate existence, must have fol 
lowed from God or one of his Attributes so far as it 
was affected by a modification itself finite and deter 
minate in existence. And this again must have been 
determined by a similar finite and determinate mode or 
cause, and so on in hifinitum. 

NOTE. The difficult Scholium to E. i. 28 is intended to emphasize 
the absolute causality of God in all his works, even the most mediated 
of them. God, as Spinoza puts it elsewhere, is the immanent and 

1 E. i. 28 dem. 

SPINOZA Q. 



82 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

not the transient cause ; or he is the cause of all things in the same 
sense in which he is the cause of himself. In this Scholium, Spinoza 
divides the effects of God into two classes : (i) those things which 
follow of necessity directly from his nature (i.e. the immediate 
modes N ; (ii) those things which cannot be or be conceived without 
God, but which are mediated in their necessary sequence by the 
immediate modes (i. e. the mediate infinite and eternal modes ; and 
also the particular things, so far as they are distinguished from 
these). 

With regard to (i), God is their absolutely proximate cause, though 
not as is sometimes said 1 a cause the same in kind as its effects 
(cf. E. i. 17 S.) For whereas God can be and be conceived apart from 
his effects, they cannot be or be conceived apart from God. With 
regard to (ii), God may be called the remote cause of the single 
things only in the sense that they follow mediately and not immedi 
ately from his nature. God cannot be called their remote cause, 
if by that term we understand a cause which is in no way conjoined 
with its effects. 



3. THE MODAL SYSTEM OP THE ATTEIBUTE OF EXTENSION. 
WHOLE AND PARTS. 

(i) Modal System of Extension 2 . 

ft a modes of thft AffriWft pf "Extension, all bodies 
have a certain magnitude, i. e. they are all extended in 
three dimensions. This their extension constitutes. 
their substantial nature, and they do not differ in sub 
stance from one another.. The division of corporeal 
Rn hsf.fl.-np.A is nnf. a, division of it, but in it; the parts* 
of it, the separate bodies, Differ from one another not 
really or anbsta.Titia.nyj T^it. only iflgflfrHy. The dift- 
tinctness of separate parts of the corporeal Substance rests 
upon the diverse states of those distinguished parts, and 
not upon divisions of that substratum which sustains the 
states 3 . 

1 Is Spinoza thinking of the Hebraism Sons of God. 

orthodox doctrine of Angels ? cf. 2 Cf. E. ii, after prop. 13 (VV1L. 

K. V. S. i, ch. 9, where the im- i. pp. 88 ff.). 

mediate modes are called by a 8 Cf. E. i. 15 S. sub fin. 

v 



MODAL SYSTEM OF EXTENSION 



which the various CHAP. ] 



< hnrh>.s 

not. 1 . 



may rHflp.ir, T^f, ifs THnrl pr quality floes 



1 E. ii. (after prop. 13) Lemma 
i. Corpora ratione motus et 
quietis, celeritatis et tarditatis, 
et non ratione substantiae ab 
invicem distinguuntur. Lemma 
2 dem. In his enim omnia cor 
pora conveniunt, quod unius 
eiusdemque attributi conceptum 
involvunt . . . i.e. they are all 
modes of Extension, and have 
therefore a certain varying 
magnitude. 

On the whole subject of Spi 
noza s Physics, see Thomas, pp. 
153 IF., Camerer, pp. 61 ff., 
and Pollock, pp. 1036. Pollock 
is particularly clear and con 
vincing on motion - and - rest, 
for which cf. also K. V. S. i. 2, 
19, note 6, and ii. 19, 8. 

Though there is some difficulty 
with regard to Spinoza s concep 
tion of the simplicissima corpora 
the elementary corpuscles I 
cannot admit that Spinoza s 
words are so obscure or incon 
sistent as Camerer maintains. 

Spinoza says definitely in two 
places that these corpora simpli 
cissima differ from one another 
solo motu et quiete, celeritate 
et tarditate, i. e. in the degrees 
of their motion- and-rest. And, 
in view of this distinct declara 
tion, the definition of Composite 
Bodies, which immediately fol 
lows (W1L. i. 90), must be 
interpreted to cover all kinds of 
Composite Bodies ; i. e. those in 
which the components are them 



selves composite, as well as those 
in which the components are 
the elementary corpuscles. Those 
words of the definition, which 
at first sight seem to imply that 
the elementary corpuscles differ 
in magnitude ( Quum corpora 
aliquot eiusdem aut diversae mag- 
nitudinis . . . ), must be taken to 
refer to those composites whose 
components are composite. The 
words of the Scholium (W1L. 
i. 91), Atque hucusque Individuum 
concepimus, quod non nisi ex 
corporibus, quae solo motu et 
quiete, celeritate et tarditate inter 
se distinguuntur, hoc est, quod 
ex corporibus simplicissimis com- 
ponitur, must not be unduly 
pressed. The fact that Spinoza 
reiterates his declaration that the 
elementary corpuscles differ only 
in motion - and - rest ought to 
suffice to prevent a too pedantic 
interpretation of hucusque. * Up 
to this point Spinoza has treated 
of primary compounds with the 
single exception of the two words 
( aut diversae ) introduced to 
render the definition of Compo 
sites wide enough to cover all 
classes of Composites. And though 
the hucusque is a little incautious, 
yet the reiteration of his view of 
elementary corpuscles in the very 
same sentence leaves no doubt of 
Spinoza s meaning. 

I cannot think that Camerer 
is right in the difficulties which 
he finds in Ax. i. (VV1L. i. p. 89). 



Q 2 



84 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

Further, as modes of Extension, all bodies are actually 
in motion or actually at rest, and are capable of various 
degrees of motion J . 

The conception of motion and rest was borrowed as 
Pollock shows from Descartes, and in Descartes it 
appears to be the direct descendant of the Aristotelian 
KLvrja-is and fjpepia 2 . From certain expressions of Spinoza 
cf. e. g. Ax. 2 with Ax. i and Lemma 2, dem. (VV1L. 
i. p. 88) we might suppose that motion and rest is 
only an inexact expression for various degrees of speed. 
But, strange and obscure as the conception may be, he 
seems to have followed Descartes in regarding rest as 
the contrary (not the contradictory) of motion 3 , and any 
given degree of motion in any body (i. e. its velocity) 
as the resultant of the combination of that body s motion 
and rest 4 . If a body moves more slowly than another, 
that means that in the proportion of its motion to its 
rest, the rest-factor is relatively predominant. 

nf.~FVrf.ftTi sj^n , jmnjjnn 



nn immediate infinite a,nd eternal mode 5 . 
its extendedness f must (however 
PvHVnf. fl , pertain vfllomt.y g.r>d 
resultant of the co-operation of if. ( -mr>t,irm 
whioH belong to it because, it is a mode of 



It is no doubt true that Spinoza in matter or connected with it 

does not explain how motion through the mediation of a 

is involved in Extension, or how Creator. (Cf. above, p. 69.) 

the nature of an elementary x E. I.e. Ax. i and 2 (VV1L. i. 

corpuscle is its degree of motion- p. 88), Lemma 2, dem. 

and - rest. But that is because 2 Cf. Desc. Princ. iv. 200. 

Extension is for him an Attribute 3 Desc. Princ. ii. 37. Cf. K. V. S. 

of God, and therefore a form of ii. 19, 8, note 3. 

God s omnipotence ; or (in other 4 Desc. Princ. ii. 44. 

words) because motion-and-rest 5 Ep. 64. In K. V. S. (ii. 19. 8, 

is for him the immediate mode and App. 2, 14, 15) Spinoza 

of Extension, and not (as with speaks of motion and rest as two 

Descartes) something implanted modes. 



MODAL SYSTEM OF EXTENSION 85 

Extension 1 . The differences of all the hnrh fla in 



extended universe nltima.fftly depend upon the differ 
ences of their clegvp.ftg of mot-ion, i. p. upon thft giin.nf.i- 
ties of inof.inn fl.nrl rp.sf. a.nrl th Q prop^rti^ri hntw nf> Ti t"Hfim ; 
which they, or f.nftir nlf.ima.fft component corpuscles, 
contain 2 . 

Tf. is in this sense, that all bodies are mediated by 
the mode nf c mof.inn-fl.nrl-rest > ; for their distinctive 
*- n , A Jr iTninnj f.np.ir c fhingnpss anrl 



sensible properties, are ultimately all derived from the 
variations of their motion-and-rest. 

Thus, when two or more corpuscles, which are at rest,\ 
whether of the same or of diverse magnitude, are pressed 
together by the surrounding corpuscles, so as to lean on 
one another or, when two or more corpuscles, which are 
in motion, whether their degrees of velocity be the same 
or different, so combine their motions that they form 
a- system of motions balanced in a definite proportion 
in either case we have what we call one composite 
body, or an individual formed by the union of these 
corpuscles 3 . 

Hardness, Softness, Fluidity, of bodies depend 
upon the stability of this coherence. Thus, if the com 
ponent particles lean upon one another in respect to 
large surfaces, the combination is stable, and we call the 
body hard ; if in respect to small surfaces, it is un 
stable, and we call it f soft.* For the component particles 
can then shift their position ; i. e. though they still rest 
upon one another and therefore still form a single 

1 Spinoza as we have already 2 E. ii. Lemma i. Cf. K. V. S. 

seen (above, p. 69) rejects the 14 of App. 2 to Part 2; also 

view of Descartes that God at the interesting and important 

the Creation implanted motion Zusatz to the Preface to Part 2. 
and rest in extended matter. 8 Def. of composite bodies, 

Motion and rest are a mode, VV1L. i. p. 90. See above, p. 83, 

which is the direct consequent note i. 
of the nature of Extension. 



86 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

I. individual thing, the shape of the whole can easily be 
changed. If within the system of balanced motions the 
separate motions of the component particles have free 
play, the individual is called fluid V 

The hardness or softness/ therefore, of bodies 
depends upon the magnitude of the conjoined surfaces 
of corpuscles in a state of rest. If the surfaces are 
not contiguous if the corpuscles are not leaning 
upon one another, but in motion then, so long as 
the particles are kept united in a system by the balance 
of their motions, we have an individual which is 
fluid. 

One Thing/ therefor a } is nnf. .mio r> r Rl f,Tiir>g ITT, 
virtue of some mysterious gnhafcrnfaiTn nr i-.hinghnflfl : 
its unity, its individuality is constit.ptp.^ so1ftlyjhy_thp, 
ooEerence_j^f its parts -So long as this coherence is 

AVft r| thnngTi^snTYTB^ of the parts rlrnp pnf, 



and jptliacs-J&ke their place, its ujutv and individuality 
will persist 2 . ftj^J^g ftfr t-h munpi J^alance of the 
f motion to rofifr in ^fche parts is_maiii- 



tained, those parts may grow larger or d< 



with pn i-. fl.ffftp>qng_ the nature r> 



vidual 3 ; and^ under the same condi 



retain. if inrlivirlna.1 -pft^rft sa\i\ fnrni t ^yen though 

some parts of it change the diraciion. of their motions- 4 . 
Finally, the whole body can change the direction, and- 
the amount of its total motion e.g. it can walk in, .any.. 
direction or be at rest without losing its individuality, 
provided that the component motions of its parts can 
still maintain their relative directions and their relative 
degrees of velocity 5 , 

Thas_aii jndividtiaL^which is but a compound of the 
primary Qorpuaolee. can yet maintain its identity_unde 

1 W1L. i. p. 90, Ax. 3. 3 Id. ib., Lem. 5. 

2 VT1L. i. p. 90, Lem. 4 and * Id. p. 91, Lem. 6. 
dem. 5 Id. ib., Lem. 7. 



MODAL SYSTEM OF EXTENSION 87 

considerable variations of its campiments : it^ can bq CHAP. 
affected. ijLFiany ways/ without. losing Its characteristic 
unity. It is held together by mechanical laws \ and yet 
can fulfil the functions of an organism. Still more is 
this the case with individuals of the second and third 
and more complex grades, i. e. those in which the 
component parts are themselves complex bodies or 
* individuals. These can be affected in still more ways/ 
admit of still greater variations, without losing their 
identity. If we proceed on this plan, through more 
and more complex grades of individuals in which the 
unity comprehends more and more complex and arti t 
culate subordinate individuals as its parts, we shall 
ultimately conceive the whole extended universe as a 
single individual, whose form and nature is constituted 
by the balance of the motions of all bodies* Within 
Jtfi idA^^l a;nrl persistent individuality it will com 
prehend the infinite variety of changes and prnp.ftsap>a 
which make up { the face of the corporeal universe V 

Since every single hnrly hag i>,g TYint.irm and its in- 
divifhrnHty in r)p,pp.nrlflnnfl on this total ordp.r or systp.n), 

thia the facies foxing universi ? must fa* 



a mode which follows from the nature of God in priority 

to the pin gift "jWjifts It is in fact a mediate infinite 

1 This statement will undergo facile concipiemus, totam Natu- 
some modification later on. The ram unum esse Individuum, cuius 
individuality of a compound body partes, hoc est omnia corpora, 
is due to the balance of the infinitis modis variant, absque 
motions of the parts, and appears ulla totius individui mutatione. 
as a conatus, quo unaquaeque Cf. Ep. 32 (below, pp. 92, 93). 
res in suo esse perseverare cona- In Ep. 64, Spinoza gives as an 
tur. The distinctive character instance of a mediate infinite 
of every individual thus super- and eternal mode facies totius 
venes on the combination of its universi, quae quamvis infinitis 
parts, and is not simply and en- modis variet,manettamen semper 
tirely given in the parts as such. eadem ; and refers his corre- 

2 E. ii. Lem. 78. Et si sic spondent to the Scholium just 
porro in infinitum pergamus, quoted. 



88 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. and eternal mode in the Attribute of Extension 1 ; 



and-rest \\^ infinite and eternal* became the direct necessary 

consequent of this immediate infinite and eternal mode. 

It is mdeed_as__fche direct consetpprnf. of flm 

motion-and--rest.^wliic]i is always constant in 

that the ( facies totius universi * retains its identical 

character manet semper eadem V 

Thus, all the properties of bodies depend upon the 
varieties of their motion-and-rest, and must be referred 
ultimately to the immediate infinite and eternal mode 
in the Attribute of Extension, viz. motion-and-rest. 

But thft Tnotion-a.nrUrQgt ftf ATVJT single body is not 
directly from the. jmTn^ifl.^ mnrlp^ >mf f i ff 
for it by an JTtfjfljfa ^^JJB ^ nfli AT- 



p.yhibitJTig Tnnf.inn-a.TiH-rp<if.;-. i ft 



single body gets its properties (not ... directly from the 
mode of motion.-and.--rest, bub) -mediately through the 
mediate infinite and eternal mode of the Attribute of 
Extension the facies totius universi, of which all single 
bodies are parts. The particular proportion of motion 
to rest which characterizes each single body is transmitted 
to it through an infinite chain of finite corporeal 
causes 4 . 

1 Ep. 64, loc. cit. of natura naturata, and as the 

2 Cf. Pollock, pp. 103 ff. Desc. cause of the particular part, 
PHnc. ii. 36. C. M. ii. n, 2. i. e. the res particulares. Motion 
K. V. S. i, 9, 2 ; and Ep. 32. is treated provisionally as an im- 

3 It is instructive to compare mediate effect, creature, or son 
K. V. S. Part I, chs. 8 and 9. of God : but in a late footnote 
The distinction between mediate we are told that Spinoza * hopes 
and immediate infinite and eter- to find the cause of motion, i. e. to 
nal modes is not expressly drawn mediate it. The authenticity of 
there. The (immediate) infinite this footnote has been questioned : 
and eternal modes, which Spi- but see Sigwart, Tr., p. 58, note. 
noza calls Sons of God motion 4 Cf. VV1L. i. p. 88, Lem. 3, 
and the infinite intellect are and E. iii. 2 dem. 

regarded as the universal part 



MEANING OF < MODAL SYSTEM 89 

(2) Whole and Parts 1 . CHAP. 

It is only within the modal apprehension of Reality, 
that the conception of corporeal nature as a single 
individual, of which all bodies are parts, is legitimate. 
The category of Whole-and-Parts does not apply to 
Reality as such : for there are no departments or frag 
ments of Reality whose being is sufficiently independent 
to make them its parts. 5 Spinoza will not allow that 
1 whole is anything more than an * ens rationis (= ens 
imaginationis ), or that it is a less abstract conception 
than that of universal V 

But the modal apprehension of Reality, though not 
an ultimate or completely adequate way of regarding 
it, is valuable and necessary. The universe is a whole 
of parts from one point of view, though this category 
does not completely express its nature. 

And as the conception of the Attributes as Systems of 
Modes, or Wholes of Parts, is vital to Spinoza s philosophy, 
it will be as well to consider in this place Spinoza s most 
complete statement of his views on the subject. This is 
to be found in Ep. 32 (Nov. 1665). A month or two 
before, Spinoza 3 , in referring to the miseries of the war 
between England and Holland, had observed to Olden 
burg that he had learnt to study human nature in all 
these troubles without applying praise or blame, without 
either laughing or weeping at men s follies. He had 
reflected that man, like everything else, was but a part 
of Nature ; that we are ignorant as to the way in which 
each part is congruent with its whole, and all the parts 
cohere with one another ; and that this ignorance and 

1 On the conception of Whole the cautious language even of 

and Parts in Spinoza cf. Busolt, Ep. 32, which expressly treats 

pp. 144 ff. of Nature as a whole of parts. 

* Cf. above, p. 42 ; K. V. S. i. 3 Ep. 30. 
ch. 2, Dialogue 2, 9; and note 



go THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

5ooK I. this alone encourages the mistaken notion that there 
is good order and * confusion in the universe. Because 
we see ^Q world! iTifl.rlftqnat.ftly anfl in a. mrif.i1fl.fp.d 
view, some things appear to us useless, ..disordered,- and 
absurd. We first impose our limited notions of order 
and value, and then condemn what does not fit in 
with them. In response to an appeal from Oldenburg \ 
Spinoza (in Ep. 32) explains why he believes that each 
part of Nature is congruent with its whole, and coheres 
with all the other parts of Nature within the Whole. 
First, he reiterates his warning : there i no beauty. 

nor ngliTiftgg, r""> gnnrl nrrlftr nnr nrmfngirm jn NflitflTTft 2 - 

It is our Imagination, which finds .things beautiful 
or ugly, * well-ordered or confused, .. But there is 
all-peryading-X)xde,in things in a different non-teleo- 
logical sensed All things da - as ..ja matter of fact 
cohere, as modes, to form a single system within their 
Attributes ; and we may distinguish parts and wholes 
subordinate systems within this totality, according to 
the degree of coherence exhibited; according ... to the 
internal congruence, or absence of friction, which forms 
a sort of natural grouping. I regard things as parts of 
a whole, Spinoza says, so far as their natures recipro 
cally are congruent, thus producing an inner agreement 
so far as is possible ; on the other hand, so far as 
things are discrepant with one another, each of them 
forms a distinct idea of itself in our mind, and each 
therefore is regarded as a whole, and not as a part. 
Thus e.g. the constituent elements of the blood lymph, 
chyle, &c. are regarded by us as its parts, simply 

1 Ep. 31. catastrophe that extinguished life 

* Spinoza s meaning may be on the surface of the globe . . . 

illustrated by a sentence which no more disorder than in the 

Bosanquet (Logic, ii. p. 106) quotes sabbatical peace of a summer sea. 

from Huxley. For Spinoza s philo- Cf. also E. i. App. 

sophy, as for purely physical 3 Cf. Oldenburg s remarks in 

science, there would be in a Ep. 33. 



MEANING OF < MODAL SYSTEM > 91 

because the motions of their particles so fit in with CHAP. 
one another in proportion with the respective magni 
tudes and figures of those particles that they obviously 
combine together to form a single fluid. But so far 
as we regard the particles of lymph as discrepant in 
their figure and motion with the particles of chyle, 
we consider lymph and chyle each as a whole and not 
as a part. Now, suppose a worm living in the blood, 
endowed with sight to discriminate the particles of 
lymph, chyle, &c. x ; and with reason .to observe how 
each particle rebounds from the impact of another, or 
communicates a part of its motion to the other, &c. The 
life of such a worm in the blood would correspond to our 
life in this part of the universe. Each particle of the 
blood would be to it a whole, and not a part ; and it 
could not know how all the parts were regulated by the 
general nature of the blood, and forced to accommodate 
themselves to a mutual congruence on a definite propor 
tion as that nature demands. For, if we suppose (in 
order to make the analogy complete) the blood to present 
the nature of a closed system ; clearly its general state 
would persist for ever, and its particles would undergo 
no variations, except such as could be explained as the 
consequents of the nature of the blood alone, i.e. from 
the proportion of the motions of the lymph, chyle, &c., 
to one another; and so the blood (which the worm 
cannot conceive as a single whole) would be in reality 
a whole always, and never a part. 

But, as a matter of fact, the blood is not a closed or 
self-dependent system. There are very many other 
external causes, which modify the laws of its nature 
(and which are in turn modified by it) ; hence other 
motions and variations arise in the blood, i.e. motions, 
which are not the consequents solely of the proportion 

1 I follow the reading of the Autograph in the possession of the 
Royal Society. 



92 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

I. of the motions of its parts to one another, but of the 
proportion of the motion of the blood as a whole to 
the motions of the external causes. And therefore the 
blood gets the position of a part, and not a whole. 

Now all the bodies of Nature ought to be considered 
in a similar way. For all of them are surrounded by 
other bodies, and all are reciprocally determined to exist 
and work in a certain and determinate manner, viz. so 
that in the whole universe the same proportion of motion 
to rest is always maintained \ Hence it follows (i) that 
every body taken as a particular thing existing here 
and now 2 is a part of the whole universe, is congruent 
with the whole, and coherent with all the other parts of 
the whole ; (ii) that since the nature of the universe is 
not, like that of the blood, limited, but absolutely infinite 
the changes of the parts of the universe, which can 
follow from this its infinite (nature, or) power, must 
be infinite. 

But if we regard each body in its relations to its 
Attribute, as regards its substantial nature 3 , then each 
part has a still more intimate union with its whole. For 
(cf. Ep. 4, to which Spinoza refers) since Substance is 
essentially complete, each part of the whole corporeal 
Substance belongs to the whole Substance, and can 
neither be nor be conceived apart from the rest of that 
Substance. 

This is why I hold the human body to be a part of 
the universe : and as regards the human mind, that too 
I conceive as a part of the universe. For I maintain 
that there is given in the Nature of Things an infinite 
power of Thinking, which, qua infinite, comprehends in 

1 Cf. above, pp. 87, 88, on the catum existit. 

direct dependence of the facies 3 * Ratione substantiae con- 

totius universi on the immediate trasted with * quatenus certo rnodo 

mode of motion-and-rest. modificatum existit. For this 

2 Quatenus certo modo modifi- distinction, cf. above, pp. 76 ff. 



MODAL SYSTEM OF THOUGHT 93 

itself ideally 1 the whole of Nature its thoughts proceed- CHAP. 
ing in the same manner as Nature itself, its " ideatum." 
And I hold the human mind to be this same power (not 
qua infinite and perceiving the whole of Nature, but) qud 
finite, i.e. so far as it perceives only the human body: 
and it is in this sense that I conceive the human mind to 
be a part of a certain infinite intelligence. 

4. THE MODAL SYSTEM OF THE ATTRIBUTE OF THOUGHT. 

The modal system of Thought is exactly parallel 2 to 
the modal system of Extension, as Spinoza always in 
sists. But we have not the data which would enable 
us to trace the correspondence with any certainty in 
detail : in particular, we are not told what is the mediate 
infinite and eternal mode in Thought, corresponding to 
the facies totius universi in Extension. We can, 
however, sum up what Spinoza says completing the 
account to some extent conjecturally as follows : 

The Attribute of Thought comprehends fn itself all 
fnrrns nfprmgm nrig nr gpirifiTal irfym>y 



desiring, fen- ; but just as all mnd^s of 
mately presuppose fl.s f.hp.ir ground thft mo^a of 
and-rest. so a.11 thft rnnHpa nf TV) Q^ g-h t L presuppose that 

nails { intellectus. Tin A rimar 



of Thrmffht in thn id^a volition, feeling;, desire. 
ivai vASL^n..apprehension 1 in the sense that 
ftfojeot rnnflt be logically prior to 



any feeling,, willing,, or-dosiring 3 . All the other modes 

1 Obiective. ut amor, cupiditas, vel quicunque 

2 Or rather, the two systems are nomine affectus animi insigniun- 
one and the same from different tur, non dantur, nisi in eodem 
points of view. The so-called individuo detur idea rei amatae, 

,* parallelism of the Attributes is desideratae, &c. At idea dari 

a misleading term ; see below, potest, quamvis nullus alius detur 

pp. 134 ff. cogitandi modus. 

3 E. ii. Ax. 3. c Modi cogitandi, 



94 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

of Thought are, in fact, as we shall learn, confused forms 
of the idea. Hence the primary nTia.ra.nf.ftriaf.in wTnV.li 
constitutes the soul-side of things is their * apprehend 
ing ; the intellpfttna iTfi-mfng (in distinction e.g. from 
voluntas, cupiditas, amor, &c.) is the immediate eternal 
and infinite mode ir, the AttriVmf.n ^f Tii Bright, 1 . As, in^ 

nf T&rf.ftTigim 1f if we nonp.P.ivA +JIA 



constituent modification from which all qualities of. 
nU.ima.fpTy foUrr^ ^Q of thp nntiori of 



* motus-et-quies/ or the unvarying quantity of rnotkm- 
and-rest : so, in the Attribute of Thought, if we conceive 

primary form nf flngi+.a/h n from wTnV.li a.11 nil q,r q.p.toj- 
of thinking things are ultimately derived, we get 
the notion of thft { infi-nitns intellectus * the complete- 
ness of an act of apprehending which would comprehend 
all reality 2 . 

The mediate infinite and eternal mode of Thought, 
which corresponds to the facies totius universi in 
Extension, is I think the infinita idea Dei. God, 
as Thought, can think an infinity of things in an infinity 
of ways ; i. e. can form an idea of his own essence and 
of all things which necessarily follow from it. But what 
lies in God s power is necessarily actual. There is, 
therefore, necessarily given in God such an idea (E. ii. 
3 dem.). And this idea is, and must be, unique (E. ii. 4). 
In other words God necessarily has a complete and 
unique apprehension of the universe, both in its eternal 
coherence and in its temporal order. This unique 
infinita idea is the thought-side of all bodies and all 

1 Ep. 64. It follows (cf. aboye, 2 Cf.-the significant expressions, 

pp. 70 ff.) that the soul or idea, E. i. App. sub fin., omnia quae 

which every thing is as a mode of ab aliquo infinite intellectu con- 

Thought, is at the same time the cipi possunt ; i. 16, omnia, quae 

apprehension of the corporeal side sub intellectum infinitum cadere 

of the thing. The human soul, possunt. (The italics are my 

e.g., is by its very nature the own.) 
apprehension of the human body. 



MODAL SYSTEM OF THOUGHT 



95 



the modes of all Attributes : it is the complete system CHAP. I 
of all the souls/ the ideal counterpart of the facies 
totius universi 1 . 

Now our body, both in its eternal and in its temporal 
being, is a part of the facies. Similarly, we should 
expect our mind, both in its eternal being (as an intelli 
gence) and in its temporal being (as an emotional and 
volitional consciousness), to be a part of the infinita 
idea Dei. But at this point Spinoza s language becomes 
inconsistent and obscure. Our mind in its eternal 
being quatenus intellegit is a part of the eternal 
and infinite intelligence of God (E. v. 40 S. ; cf. ii. n C) ; 
or again, the human mind is a part of a certain infinite 
intelligence (Ep. 32). 

To some extent no doubt current theological language 



1 Cf. E. ii. 3, 4, 7 C, 8 and C. 
In this connexion, cf. the remark 
able note to the Preface to Part 2 
of the K. V. Spinoza there refers 
to a complete idea which ap 
prehends the nature of all beings 
in its totality their nature, 
as it is comprehended in their 
essence ; and he expressly dis 
tinguishes this idea from the 
apprehension of each particular 
thing which comes to actual 
existence, which is the soul of 
that thing. 

Sigwart (in his notes ad loc.) 
rightly recognizes in this late 
addition to the K. V. an important 
anticipatory sketch of the earlier 
propositions of E. ii (cf. also 
below, p. 128, note 3). But I 
cannot agree with him when he 
identifies the idea Dei of E. ii. 
3 and 4 with the complete idea 
of the K. V., and says that the 
ideas of actually existent things 



are considered for the first time at 
E. ii. 9 ff. For this interpretation 
seems to me to make a sharp 
severance between Idea of 
Essence and Idea of Existence, 
which is neither the doctrine of 
the Ethics, nor necessarily implied 
in the passage of the K. V. in 
question. In the Ethics, at any 
rate, and probably also in the 
K. V., the idea Dei is the com 
plete apprehension both of the 
eternal essences and of the exist 
ences of things. 

It is true that there is in the 
K. V. a greater appearance of such 
a severance than in the Ethics. 
But that appearance is precisely 
a mark of the comparative im 
maturity of this anticipatory 
sketch. 

On the whole question of 
essence and existence, see also 
below, Appendix to Bk. II, pp. 
221 ff. 



96 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

would lead Spinoza to speak of the infinitus intellectus 
Dei, where his strict terminology would have required 
* Dei infinita idea. But the real source of the incon 
sistency lies deeper. There is a fatal trend in Spinoza s 
philosophy towards abstraction, in spite of all his 
struggles towards the conception of a concrete unity. 
Thus, things in their temporal being the actual world 
of the perceptive consciousness either turn into illu 
sions, or slip back into the world of eternal timeless 
necessity, the universe of science. And it is only a 
symptom of this general tendency that the mediate 
infinite and eternal modes resolve themselves into the 
immediate. The facies, indeed, presents a brave appear 
ance of comprehending in its systematic unity all the 
varieties of the phenomenal corporeal world. But look 
closer, and it is nothing but a balance of motions. The 
secondary qualities and the thingness of the distinct 
bodies have, as we know, long been resolved. The im 
mediate mode, motus-et-quies, alone remains. And the 
case is the same with the mediate mode of Thought, 
except that it makes even less show of resistance. Our 
actual mind with its emotions, volitions, desires, is qud 
passional unreal. In its reality it is a part of the in 
finita idea Dei ; but in the completeness of that c idea all 
passion vanishes. The complete consciousness, therefore, 
of which ours is a fragment, is a purely active (i. e. 
a purely thinking) consciousness an infinitus in 
tellectus V 

The fact that Spinoza is all the time struggling to 
avoid an abstraction of this kind, increases the difficulties 
of interpretation, though it adds incalculably to the 
value of his work. In his intention at least the conscious 
ness, of which ours is a fragment, fuses in its single 
intuition all the variety of the lower forms of Thought. 
The infinita idea Dei is the infinite love, as well as the 
1 See below, pp. in ff., ii9ff. 



MODAL SYSTEM OF THOUGHT 97 

infinite intelligence, of God not the abstraction of CHAP. 
intelligence without emotion or volition, but the fusion 
(so to say, at a higher power) of all forms of conscious 
ness. But this is a subject the full consideration of which 
will occupy us in the sequel 1 . 

1 See below, Bk. III. 



SPINOZA 



APPENDIX TO BOOK I 

DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS 

BOOK i. J T w ju be convenient to pause at this point in our 
hi.Aj exposition of Spinoza. "We have attempted to state his 
endix. general conception of the ultimate nature of Reality 
to explain his fundamental metaphysical positions. The 
attempt has led us a little beyond the limits of the 
First Part of the Ethics. For the conception of Attri 
butes and Modes, and of degrees of perfection and 
reality in the modal sequence, would have been unin 
telligible without an outline-sketch of the inner articu 
lation of Extension and Thought. To this extent, 
therefore, we have been compelled to treat of Spinoza s 
physics and psychology in order to give a clear account 
of his metaphysical principles. "When we again take up 
the thread of the Ethics, we shall find ourselves occupied 
with Spinoza s physics and psychology so far as he 
expressly applies them to the nature of man to serve as 
a basis for his ethical theory. The attempt to present 
Spinoza s thoughts as far as possible without interruption 
has led to the suppression of a great deal of criticism 
which inevitably suggests itself. But though I have 
not constantly formulated objections to Spinoza s views, 
I have felt them perhaps as strongly as the reader ; and 
I propose to devote this appendix to expressing some at 
least of the difficulties in question. 

Two considerations render this criticism especially 
difficult. In the first place, I can but repeat in the main 



DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS 99 

what other and more capable writers have said before APPENDIX. 
me. By making my statement as short as possible, 
I hope to earn the reader s pardon for this repetition. 
After all, it is impossible to pass over essential criticisms 
merely because they have been made before. In the 
second place, I can but criticize Spinoza as I interpret 
him ; and I am deeply sensible of the inadequacy and 
probable erroneousness of my interpretation. Still, 
this is a risk which all history of philosophy must run. 
If I have blundered in my interpretation, my errors will 
stand out clearly in this attempt at criticism ; and so 
other writers will, it is to be hoped, avoid similar 
pitfalls. 

It is the object of philosophy to interpret experience Principle 
so as to render it intelligible. A philosophy is successful Criticism 
so far as it enables us to think experience, i. e. to take 
it in as a coherent system, as a whole which is inter 
connected by an immanent necessity. This I have 
assumed was the object of Spinoza, and it is from this 
point of view that I propose to examine the results we 
have reached. But the demand for intelligent appre 
hension, which we have made on philosophy, requires 
further explanation. A philosophy is not necessarily 
condemned, if it fail to * think experience through and 
through, to render it intelligible in all its details. 
Such a demand would be preposterous, and would con 
demn all philosophies in advance. The detail of 
experience cannot be rendered transparent for human 
knowledge. Nothing short of infinite or absolute know 
ledge could completely apprehend the infinite or whole 
Reality. What we can attempt, and what all philosophies 
claim to do, is to gain a rational and consistent view of 
the general nature of E-eality to render experience 
intelligible in its main outline. And so far as a philo 
sopher fails to do this, he may justly be criticized. But 
failure does not consist merely in leaving details un- 

H 2 



ioo THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. explained and in their special nature unconnected with 
the general principles. Deficiencies of this kind are 
inevitable ; in a metaphysical theory ; and since they 
detract nothing from its value, it need fear no criticism 
on thi&r account. No one, e. g., can be expected to show 
exactly how and why finite existence, error, evil, change, 
are and consist with the general nature of Reality. To 
attempt to deduce the finite from the infinite if 
Spinoza had really attempted anything of the kind 
would betray a serious misunderstanding of the powers 
of human thought. Or again it would be a mistaken 
zeal which, assuming a finite piece of experience, should 
endeavour to show in detail its exact coherence in the 
nature of things. So long as it can be shown that the 
detail of experience does not positively collide with 
the general conditions of Reality as established in a 
theory, but is in principle consistent with an intelligible 
view of things so long, the existence of outstanding 
facts, the failure to resolve them, to render them trans 
parent, does not of itself destroy the value of the general 
theory. If the general nature of Reality has been 
consistently and intelligibly thought out, and if it has 
been shown that the features which are not in detail 
comprehended in the general theory are yet in principle 
not hostile then so far the theory maintains itself 
against criticism. But a philosopher lays himself open 
to attack if his general theory is inwardly inconsistent, 
or and this is another side of the same fault is incom 
plete, inadequate to comprehend the whole outline of 
Reality. And again he may justly be criticized if he 
offers an explanation of the details which conflicts with 
his general principles. Or, lastly, his theory is un 
tenable if it forces us to conceive the general nature of 
Reality in such a way that the details of experience 
all or some of them cannot conceivably for any appre 
hension be intelligible : if, that is, we can see that 



DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS 101 

even the fullest understanding would but render the APPENDIX. 
discrepancies and the conflict between details and general 
theory more certain 1 . 

Now, at first sight, Spinoza s doctrine seems to fulfil Does 
the task of philosophy in an eminent degree. All the uJJJJ ** 8 
manifold of experience, all the apparently isolated satisfy the 
fragments of the world, would seem, for his theory, to ments^t 
fall into place as the necessarily interconnected content a meta- 
of an unbroken unity. So continuous, so absolutely of theory 
one piece (it would seem) is the fabric of experience, 
that no part or parcel of it can be or be conceived 
without carrying with its being and intelligibility the 
being and intelligibility of the whole. Indeed, the 
theory goes further : it gives us (not a system of neces 
sarily co-active members, but) a Substance of which all 
things are but phases or states, whose distinctness and 
independence are only apparent. For such a theory, the 
necessary interconnexion of the manifold is but the un 
folding of the immanent being of the One. Reality, so 
apprehended, offers to thought s passage a reflex of 
thought s own nature. To think Reality if such were 
its being would be possible through and through; for 
thought would pass from point to point without ever 
meeting with an obstacle, without ever crossing a chasm. 
The limits, which constitute the particularity of the 
different elements of experience, will if properly under 
stood carry the Spinozist over the differences of things, 
and show him that these so-called things are but 
modes or states of the self-identical, continuous, and all- 
inclusive Substance. For they are but limits, and 
a limit is but a negation : it leaves the positive Real 
untouched in its complete or unlimited being. To 
think the universe in the spirit of Spinoza, is (it would 

1 I am indebted to Bradley, in this section. Cf. App. <Sr R. 
Appearance and Reality, more 2nd edition, pp. 562 if., pp. 184 tf., 
than usual for the view developed &c. 



102 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. seem) to grasp its multiplicity in so coherent and trans 
parent an apprehension that the multiplicity transmutes 
itself in the process into absolute unity: unity so 
absolute, that unity and wholeness are terms in 
adequate to express it 1 . 

But to a closer inspection, the apparent coherency of 
the Spinozistic E/eality seems to vanish. Elements show 
themselves as not intelligibly connected confront us 
as mere data, which (not only are not mediated, but) 
refusing to enter into the general harmony of the 
doctrine, stand out as features which can be shown 
to be discordant with Spinoza s conception of the 
general nature of Reality. The texture, which seemed 
so absolutely of one piece, reveals itself as a patchwork, 
and the colours of the patches (if the metaphor will be 
excused) swear with the ground of the pattern. 
This, at least, is a criticism for which there seems to be 
justification in Spinoza s doctrine. How far the criticism 
really applies will be discussed in what follows. 

I proceed to examine Spinoza s theory in detail so 
far, that is, as my exposition has advanced. 

(i) Substance and Attributes. 

Spinoza IT> his conception of Attributes, Spinoza has attempted 
not render ^ reconc ^ e the absolute unity of Reality with its absolute 

1 I hope I may be permitted to which the Many subsist. The 
quote a paragraph which seems process of the Many, and the 
to me to express the essence of total being of the Many them- 
Spinoza s doctrine. I do not selves, are mere aspects of the 
wish for a moment to imply that one Reality which moves and 
the views of the author are those knows itself within them, and 
of Spinoza, but the paragraph apart from which all things and 
taken by itself puts one essential their changes and every knower 
side of Spinoza s theory more and every known is absolutely 
clearly than anything I have nothing. Bradley, Appearance 
seen. For me every kind of and Reality, 2nd Edition, Ex- 
process between the Many is a planatory Notes, p. 609. 
state of the Whole in and through 



DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS 103 

fullness of content. God, or the Eeality, is wholly and APPENDIX. 
transparently One : yet in that Oneness he comprehends intern- 
all the ultimate characters which complete knowledge <togeth.-r- 



could find in the Eeal. It will not do, therefore, to 
conceive his nature as exhausted in any one or two or butes in 
finite number of ultimate characters. The Reality is not 
merely extended (material), nor merely spiritual (ideal), 
nor merely both : it is all forms of positive being. But 
neither will it do to conceive the irreducible variety of 
these ultimate characters as a variety of God s unity ; for 
that unity is unbroken. How, then, does Spinoza con 
ceive the relation of the Attributes to one another and to 
.God ? A later philosophy might have thrown the variety 
upon the apprehending consciousness ; but this resource 
was not available for Spinoza. It is the ultimate nature 
of the Eeality which is concerned. To appeal to the 
apprehending consciousness, would reduce the Attributes 
to Appearance, and God to the Thing-in-itself. Spinoza 
therefore insists that the Attributes express God s essential . 
.nature. The variety is somehow God s variety. And, 
since we are here dealing with the general theory of the 
nature of Eeality, we have a right to demand that the 
f somehow should be made consistent and intelligible. 
But to the question How? we can find no answer in 
Spinoza : he merely asserts the fact. It is essential to 
Substance, that each of its Attributes should be conceived 
per se ; for all the Attributes, which it has, have always 
been together in it, nor could one have been produced 
from another ; but each expresses the reality or being of 
Substance V The unbroken unity of Substance, then, has 
an infinite variety of sides of its being. It is extended, 
ideal, and so forth ; but there is no principle on which 
this variety is intelligible as the variety of the one 
Substance. We have seen that it will not do to lay 

1 E. i. 10 S. 



104 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

I. stress on the relation of the Attributes to the appre 
hending consciousness for that would reduce them to 
Appearance ; or, if not, would at any rate merely throw 
the problem a step further back. If the variety is unin 
telligible as the variety of God s unity, how does it 
become more intelligible when variety alone or variety 
and unity together are made the objects of an intelli 
gence ? We must therefore admit that there is a serious 
defect in Spinoza s general theory of the nature of 
Reality. The unity of Substance which seemed so 
absolute the unity which was more than the unity of 
a system resolves itself into a mere togetherness of an 
infinite multiplicity. The Reality falls apart into a sub 
stratum without character, and characters which have no 
principle of coherence in a substratum l . 

Nor The failure of the theory so far is a failure to render 

havlfd^ne ^ e momen ^ s f the conception of the general nature of 
so, with Reality intelligibly connected as the moments of a single 
ception" of principle. Spinoza s starting-point, his fundamental con- 
God as ception, shows an inner disruption, contains elements 
negation, which, as a matter of fact, he has not made rationally 



c h eren t- Could they be dissolved in intelligible union ? 

complete Or is there an insuperable contradiction within Spinoza s 

kind* Wn conception of God ? 

This is a difficult question to decide, but on the whole 
the answer must be that the moments of the conception, 
as Spinoza defines them, are irreconcilable that there . 
is an inner contradiction in his conception of God. God 
is conceived by him as absolutely positive because abso 
lutely real : as excluding all negation from his being. 
And this exclusion of negation or determination conflicts 
with the conception of God as comprehending all the 
ultimate characters of affirmative being within himself. 

1 The difficulties connected with Attribute of Thought will be con- 
the infinity of Attributes and sidered below, pp. 134 ff. 
with the preponderance of the 



DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS 105 

This is the general conclusion to which, I think, we must APPENDIX. 
come ; but some explanation is required. 

The criticism based on Spinoza s exclusion of negation 
from God may easily be carried too far to portions of 
Spinoza s theory where it no longer applies 1 . But it 
does apply here, because the Attributes are not only in 
a sense determinate, but further must retain that deter- 
minateness in the unity of God s nature. 
The Attributes, though complete or indeterminate in 
their own kind, are not absolutely indeterminate or 
complete, for they are distinct from one another, and 
therefore involve a certain negation of reality 2 . Now if 
the Attributes were not ultimate forms of God s being 
if, in fact, they were Modes and not Attributes there 
would be no necessary contradiction here. For though 
each Attribute would be distinct, defined, and thus, in 
a sense, negative in relation to God, God would not be 
negative in himself. The Attributes would not carry 
negation into the nature of Substance. For Substance 
would possess all positive forms of being, and in that 
totality of affirmative essence all limitation would have 
been absorbed. But with that absorption, all would 
have become one ; i. e. the unity of God s nature would 
be a unity without differences. The distinctions which 
the intellect apprehends in conceiving the Attributes 
would be distinctions which it makes, and does not find. 
The Attributes would have no more reality than the 
Modes. As Attributes, as distinct ultimate characters of 
Substance, they would come to be when the intellect 
apprehends ; they would not always have been together 
in Substance, nor would each express the reality or 
being of Substance. 

God we may repeat with Spinoza is completely 
real, and comprehends in himself all affirmative being. 
And in God there can be no defect, no limitation, no 
1 See below, pp. 108 if. 2 Cf. Ep. 36. 



io6 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. imperfection. Somehow in him all negation is absorbed 
and overcome. But so far as this is our conception of 
God, all forms of being all distinct and therefore limited 
characters must be, as such and in themselves, only 
partly real. They cannot retain their character as 
features of God ; and in their distinctness they are partly 
unreal. God is neither an extended nor a thinking 
thing : and God does not subsist of an infinite number 
of Attributes. And each Attribute is not complete 
even in its own kind ; for, if it were, it would remain 
a distinct independent feature in the nature of God, and 
the unity of all the Attributes would of necessity be 
external. God would be Extension and Thought : and 
in being Extension he would not be Thought, in being 
Thought he would not be Extension. Extension and 
Thought would lie together in his being, and his nature 
would hold them conjoined, but not intelligibly as one. 
; To sum up what has been said : (i^ Substance and 
Attributes, the two moments in Spinoza s conception of 
God, involve the fusion of al^splute unity and complete 
variety of character. Spinoza merely states the together 
ness of the Attributes in God as a fact ; and again he 
merely states as a fact that God comprehends in unbroken 
unity infinite variety of ultimate characters. (2^ And 
Spinoza s conception of Attributes, or again of Substance, 
renders the intelligible coherence of the two moments of 
his complete conception of God impossible. There is an 
inner contradiction in his conception of God as at once 
excluding all determination and comprehending an 
infinite diversity of ultimate characters. Either the 
Attributes are not ultimate characters not each complete 
in its own kind, not forms of the essence of God or God 
involves negation, i. e. is not absolutely one, but 
a togetherness of many. To accept either limb of this 
antithesis would destroy essential parts of Spinoza s 
doctrine. It seems, therefore, that Spinoza has failed 



DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS 107 

to give us a consistent theory of the general nature APPENDIX. 
of Reality. f 

(2) Substance and Modes. 

In the conception of natura naturans, there is thus 
a combination of two conflicting moments a combina 
tion which Spinoza simply asserts as a fact, and could not 
render intelligible and consistent. Is there a similar 
defect in Spinoza s conception of modes? 

Spinoza seems to maintain that natura naturans both The 
is and is conceived apart from natura naturata, whilst 
the latter can neither be nor be conceived apart from Substance. 
the former; i.e. that whilst God in his substantial nature 



is absolutely prior to and independent of his modes, they stance 
are wholly dependent upon him *. But this is logically could not 
untenable, as indeed Spinoza himself clearly shows in 
another connexion 2 . If the modes are the necessary 
consequents of God, God EimselFinliis "substantial" nature 
(as natura naturans ) must in some sense be characterized 
by the modal being which expresses his causality. The 
moctes are states of Substance : and somehow Substance 
must contain within its unity the ground for its modal 
multiplicity. I have spoken of natura naturata as a 
system of modes, and again of the modal systems 
of Extension and Thought. But the notion of system, 
though Spinoza seems to avail himself of it, is not 
logically possible to him, at least as anything more than 
a provisional, inadequate, and misleading conception of 
the coherence of modes in Substance. * Natura naturata 
is not a system. For the modes are nothing but states 
of Substance ; and Substance is not differentiated still 
less divided in them. A system seems to postulate 
some sort of independence in its members, but here all 
independence vanishes when the modes are conceived as 
they really are in the Attributes of God, i. e. as natura 
1 See above, p. 65, note i. a E. i. 33 deni. and S. 2. 



io8 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. naturata. * As they really are they merge themselves in 
the undifferentiated unity of Substance, and we are left 
And there with no rational answer to the question How on what 
teiHgibVe principle can Substance, in spite of its unity, reveal 
expiana- itself in an order of diverse states? We are told simply 
thTpossi- that Substance is modified, or that the modes are in 
Cod y f ^d- But it is precisely this having states or * being 
having modified that is so inexplicable, this being of a multi- 
* being r plicity in an absolute unity which requires explana- 

modified. tion. 

But to Yet it is possible to press this line of argument too far, 

a- an( ^ ^- think myself that this criticism is mistaken. It is 



tion in true that without negation you cannot have articulation, 
mistaken, and that without articulation you cannot have systematic 
* n ? unity. And it is true that Spinoza sometimes speaks of 

has indi- natura naturata as if, it ...were, a, system, and of God or 



God s Attributes in relation to the modes as if they were 
principle, wholes of parts. But he has taken care to guard himself, 
and expressly disclaims the conception of whole and 
parts as an ultimate category \ And the real significance 
of his conception of modes is just that it implies a unity 
which is more than systematic indeed above the 
relational form altogether. Spinoza s Substance is one 
(not as a unity of diverse but related elements, but) as 
a unity which has overcome and taken into itself the 
distinctness of its diverse elements, and this absorption 
is so complete that in it there remain no elements, 
no distinctness, no articulation. How in detail this is 
accomplished we are not told 2 , nor is it fair to demand 
an explanation of this kind. But Spinoza has given 
us the general principle, and in the main and up to 

1 Above, pp. 89 ff. absorbed and expanded into the 

2 Spinoza s treatment of error positive completeness and perfec- 
and evil indicates the way in tion of the Reality. See below, 
which the negation and imper- Book II. ch. 2 ; Book III. ch. I, 
fection in a partial reality is i. 



DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS 109 

a certain point I do not think we have a right to APPENDIX. 
complain x . 

The general principle rests on the conception of degrees 
of Reality or Perfection ; and this again is made possible 
for Spinoza by the distinction which he draws between 
Negation and Privation 2 . And though Spinoza does not 
attempt to work out in detail the conception of the modal 
Reality as the self-evolution of God, yet some such view 
seems to be indicated by various passages to which I have 
referred 3 ; and in his theory of knowledge and conduct 
we find him applying a principle of estimation which 
involves a conception of this kind 4 . 

Piif. shortly whfl.t api nf>. TnftUrf.a.ins is this : all things 

are absolutely dependent on God, and in that dependence 
absolutely reaL; and yet there are grades of perfection or 
reality in things, and so far therefore there is variety 
within the unity of God. God is absolutely complete 
and positive in his being ; and yet that being is not 
abstractly one, for it is manifested in forms which are 
limited and finite, and there are infinite degrees in 
their relative perfection. And Spinoza can consistently 

1 Cf. Ep. 21 and Sigwart, Sp., nes non ita creavit, ut solo rationis 
pp. 130 if. ductu gubernarentur ? nihilaliud 

2 Ep. 21. Adeo ut Privatio respondeo, quam quia ei non de- 
nihil aliud sit, quam aliquid de re fuit materia ad omnia, ex summo 
negare, quod iudicamus ad suam niinirum ad infimum perfectionis 
naturam pertinere, et Negatio gradum, creanda ; vel magis pro- 
nil aliud, quam aliquid de re prie loquendo, quia ipsius Naturae 
negare, quia ad suam naturam leges adeo amplae fuerunt, ut 
non pertinet. sufficerent ad omnia, quae ab 

3 Cf. e. g. E. i. 28 S ; Epp. 19, aliquo infinite intellectu concipi 
23 ; E. i. Appendix ; above, p. possunt, producenda. . . . But 
73. this disclaimer applies only to an 

Yet, at the end of E. i. App., attempt to render the degrees of 

Spinoza seems expressly to dis- reality in the universe intelligible 

claim any attempt to show any in detail. 

principle for the infinite variety * See below, Book II. ch. 2, i ; 

of God s works. lis autem, qui Book III. ch. i. 
quaerunt, cur Deus omnes homi- 



no THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA. 

BOOK I. maintain this position, because the conflicting aspects of 
it depend upon different points of view a difference 
which he has explained 1 . 

If we have a scale of more and more complex natures, 
we, in comparing the richer with the poorer, regard the 
latter as deficient, i. e. as deprived of what they ought to 
have. But from the point of view of the whole order of 
things there is no privation in the lower grades _of being, 
but bare negation. A stone, e.g., does not see : vision is 
denied of it, because vision (Joes not belong. to its nature. 
And we should not think of regarding the stone as 
defective, i. e. as deprived of vision. But from the point 
of view of the whole order of things the same applies 
e.g. to a blind man to cases where we, with our partial 
knowledge, should suppose privation or defect. jn 
reality, it is simply a fact that a blind ina^ ^fflg flflt gfrfl : 
Tiis blindness is absence of vision, because vision does not 
belong to his nature^ in thejel^erjaalj^ _In 

that order, he is not deprived of vision, bub vision is 
simply negated of him. And the negation does not 
attach to the Reality^ for n.ot it has_ anything negated of 
it : to its nature belongs everything, and nothing therefore 

1 The same line of argument untrue and partly illusory) falls 
will not reinstate Spinoza s theory is another question, which will 
of Attributes, because they are be considered presently. The 
moments in the ultimate con- reader will observe that I have 
ception of Reality. Substance been obliged to modify the state- 
and Attributes is an attempt to ment of the antithesis of Sub- 
hold together unity and diversity stance and Mode, with which I 
where each is taken as absolute started. Cf. (and contrast) above, 
and ultimate. Substance and p. 15. That statement represents, 
Modes is an attempt to hold to- I think, the conception of the 
gether the unity and diversity of antithesis which Spinoza origin- 
Reality from different points of ally formed and endeavoured to 
view, one of which alone is taken maintain, but if we are to de- 
as absolute. Whether Spinoza fend him at all we must shift 
succeeds in finding any place for our ground as he himself shifts 
the modal view of the Reality with the development of his 
where its illusion (for it is partly system. 



DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS in 

can be negated of it. There is, then ? in the whole Reality, APPENDIX. 
an infinite variety of grades of being r every one of which 
is free from defect, although as compared with others it 
may ^o^witTiout some forms of positive fcemg^ ""^nilst 

* in God himself there is neither negation nor privation, 
yet in the works of God, looked at in comparison with 
one another and with his completeness, there is negation 
(determination), though not privation. 

Hence privation or defect in things, is due simply 
to our abstract and imperfect apprehension. It is an 
illusion to suppose that things are in any sense 

* deprived of what they might have possessed. But 
negation (or degrees of reality) in things is true for 
the modal apprehension, though not the ultimate truth ; 
for to the ultimate apprehension, there are no things, 
one all-complete Reality. 

God we may perhaps express Spinoza s position 
is absolutely one and perfect in all the states of himself. 
Everything that is and works reveals the being and 
working of God. In God s essentia or potentia, all 
the multiplicity of his states, and all their degrees of > 
perfection, are comprehended and sustained. And in that / 
comprehensive being their distinctions are absorbed, but / 
not left out The potentia of God is actual in all the I 
grades of Reality, but it is not divided in them still less j 
is it outside or alongside of them. 

How in detail this is possible, we cannot explain. 
But the principle of the union of oneness and variety is 
that the limitations and distinctions are defects and 
unresolved differences only for an imperfect appre 
hension ; that in God, of whom the modes are states 
or degrees, all such limitations are overcome, since for 
a true apprehension they are bare negations which are 
not negations of God. 

But the difficulty still remains : what is the ground 01 Yet the 
the modal apprehension ? And this is a problem for 




BOOK I. 
what is 
the ground 
of the 
(illusory) 
modal 
apprehen- 



U2 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

no satisfactory solution is (or can be) given by Spinoza. 
The modal apprehension is in part illusory, and the 
illusion is a fact and yet a fact for which no place can 
be found in Spinoza s conception of the ultimate nature 
of things. He describes the fact in terms of his general 
theory, but his description is no explanation; and if 
taken as an explanation it conflicts with his statement 
of the general nature of God. 

For consider : is natura naturata an appearance only 
to us ? If so, how do we come by it ? For we are our 
selves modes indeed, in our actual existence, modes in 
the communis ordo naturae. 

Or is natura naturata an appearance of God to him 
self ? That is true, no doubt, for Spinoza, in the sense 
in which our apprehension is God s apprehension so 
far as he constitutes our mind V But to describe natura 
naturata as the product of God s apprehension so far 
as he constitutes the human mind, is to express the 
fact in the words of the general theory, but not to 
explain it. It is to transfer the problem with all its 
contradictions unsolved to a region where they become 
fixed and insoluble, and conflict with the general prin 
ciples of the philosophy. 

For in order to constitute our mind so far as that 
is distinct or has a finite apprehension, God himself must 
enter into the indefinite complex of finite modes 2 . And 
so we turn in the well-known circle. Natura naturata 
as truly apprehended sinks back into natura naturans/ 
but in its distinction from natura naturans as the 
timeless order of distinct degrees of Reality it is the 
product of a partial apprehension, which itself, as the 
apprehension of a finite mind, implies the world which 
it constructs. i^vo^f^V 

And the case is worse with the world of pifcsentation 

1 See below, pp. 127 ff. 

2 E. i. 28 dem. ; cf. above, pp. 80 ff., and below, p. 128 and note. 



DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS 113 

the world of things in time and place l . This is not, APPENDIX. 
it seems, ever more than a mere illusion. It is the 
illusory apprehension of a mind, so far as that itself 
is a member of the illusory world which it constructs. 
It is expressed by Spinoza in terms of his general 
theory, when he says that it depends on God so far as 
he is affected by an indefinite series of finite modifica 
tions. But this expression is only a description ; and it 
is a misleading description in so far as it poses as an 
explanation. An illusion must fall somewhere ; for 
Spinoza, therefore, it must be in God. And the ques 
tion is how this is possible. It is no answer to this 
question to say that it is in God so far as God is himself 
the product of an illusory apprehension, and yet God 
as affected in infinitum by finite modifications is not 
consistent with God as the absolutely complete positive 
being which Spinoza has shown us an ultimate appre 
hension demands. 

It seems clear, then, that the world of presentation and 
* natura naturata as an order of distinct modes are in 
some sense facts, which Spinoza has not brought into 
harmony with his general principles. And so far as his 
conception of the infinity of completeness is irrecon 
cilable with the indefinite infinity of the finite so 
far as there is a gulf fixed between the two forms of 
God s causality 2 these facts appear for Spinoza under 
a form which comes into positive collision with those 
general principles. 

In support of the criticism which I have just ad- Spinoza 
vanced, there are some confirmations which it will be readyto 
well to adduce. Briefly, the point of the criticism was dismiss 
this : that the modal apprehension of the Eeality is (at as mer 
least in part 3 ) illusory, and that Spinoza either attempts i 

1 See below, pp. 119 if. s A complete apprehension of 

2 Cf. above, pp. 80 ff., and God would, I presume, apprehend 
Camerer, pp. 2off. his infinite multiplicity in its 



mere 



SPINOZA 



1 1 4 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. no explanation of the fact of the illusion, or if you 
take his description as explanation involves himself in 
inconsistency in attempting to explain it. Now, if my 
interpretation of the immediate and mediate infinite 
and eternal modes l is correct and I am unable to see 
my way to a better one all the distinctive features of 
the worlds of Extension and Thought seem to vanish as 
illusions one by one, until you are left with the single 
ness of the Attributes: a singleness not concrete, but 
abstract. Spinoza is indeed far too ready to dismiss 
things as mere illusions. The secondary qualities of 
the extended world vanish in his system with hardly 
a struggle to mark their extinction. The distinctive 
figures and motions of the particular bodies disappear 
in the permanent unity and identity of the facies totius 
universi ; and that again, on inspection, shows itself 
as a mere balance in the proportions of motion to rest. 
So the complexity of the individual soul reduces itself 
to forms of the idea proper. Its passions and desires 
are but confused ideas ; its assertions and negations are 
but the self-assertions and negations involved in its 
ideas 2 . And the clear or adequate ideas of the indi 
vidual soul are but thoughts in the idea infinita Dei, 
and this in turn since it excludes passions as confused 
thoughts reduces itself to the * intellectus absolute in- 
finitus. Or are we to suppose that God s infinita idea 
includes in itself all (even the confused) ideas all finite 
souls with their characteristic particularities, without 

single unity without collision or But so far as natura naturata is 

confusion. It would see God as seen as an order or a system or 

One and as Many, as natura natu- a whole of parts, we have de- 

rans and as natura naturata : scended at once into a relational 

and there would be no irrational (and so far an illusory) view of 

at once or together in this God. 

apprehension, but somehow 1 Above, pp. 82 ff., 93 ff. 

in a way beyond our experience 2 Below, p. 132. 
the intuition would be intelligent. 



DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS 

transmuting them into adequate ideas ; and that, simi- APPENDIX. 
larly, the facies totius universi sustains in its unity, 
without merging or transforming them, the infinite 
variety of distinct particular bodies? Such an inter 
pretation is not supported by Spinoza s words, and it 
would leave the Reality in a far more conflicting and 
unintelligible confusion than before, f The fact seems to Conflict in 
be that Spinoza, while struggling to express the concep- between 
tion of God as concretely One, constantly lapses into abstra c* 
language which implies that God s unity is abstract. So crete^on- 
far as the latter tendency controls his exposition, differ- ^[? on of 
ences are dismissed as illusions/ and his theory becomes unity, 
hopelessly unintelligible and inconsistent. So far as 
the former tendency prevails, his philosophy assumes 
the permanent value which belongs to it. But to a great 
extent it seems to be true, that Spinoza was unable to 
develop this the genuine tendency of his theory 
with anything like the requisite consistency and full 
ness ; whilst, unfortunately, the philosophical termi 
nology which he adopts, and especially the geometrical 
method, rendered it only too easy for him to develop 
the abstract conception of God s unity clearly and con 
cisely l . 

In order to explain my meaning I must remind The < geo- 
the reader o,f a familiar truth. The cogency of all method 1 
geometrical reasoning depends upon the assumption of tend sto 
the nature of space. The connexions which the geometer Spinoza s 
finds or demonstrates, are connexions of parts within oncep ~ h 
a whole ; and they hold only within the sphere of in- unity of 
fluence of that whole only because of its controlling j^ 
nature. In outward form the method, e. g. of Euclid, 
is synthetic. He appears to define the isolated elements 
and to build them into the fabric of geometry. But in 

1 See an interesting article on Leibniz by Professor Robert Latt a 
4 The Philosophy of Spinoza and in Mind (N. S. No. 31). 

I 2 



n6 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK i. reality of course his method is also analytical. He starts 
with the conception of space and unfolds the threads of 
relational necessity within it. Hence the conclusions 
which seem to follow, e.g., from the definitions of triangle 
and right angle and the axioms, really follow from the 
whole nature of the triangle, of which the definition 
expresses only a selected part ; or from the whole nature 
of space, which the axioms partly express, and of which 
the definitions outline some of the elementary forms. 
Thus geometrical proof, like all proof which works with 
the category of ground and consequent, is at once syn 
thetic and analytic. It is abstract and hypothetical, for 
in all its process it is but tracing threads of necessary 
interconnexion between abstracted portions of its Reality. 
And so far as the whole which it is analysing has a unity 
which is more than systematic or relational, its synthesis 
can never completely reconstruct the whole which its 
analysis breaks up. This is a characteristic common to 
all forms of demonstration, but the defects of the pro 
cedure are concealed in geometry. The whole which is 
there being analysed and constructed can (so far as 
geometry is concerned) remain a relational unity of its 
manifold, and the destruction of its life which dis 
section involves is at any rate for geometry of no 
importance. 

But the characteristics of geometrical demonstration 
survive in Spinoza s geometry of Reality, where their 
inadequacy becomes at once apparent. He seems to be 
arguing purely synthetically, to start with definitions 
of the simple elements and to construct the whole out 
of them. The definition of God seems to define one 
simple element amongst others, and to be used like them 
as a part which combines with the other parts to construct 
the whole. Really, he is arguing analytically at the 
same time, and God is the whole which he is analysing. 
He is working within the general conception of the 



DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS 117 

concrete Eeality and establishing the relations finding APPENDIX. 
the necessary interconnexions between its parts. And 
it is a more than doubtful proceeding to work with the 
definition of God at all. That definition of course in 
reality is intended as a preliminary statement of 
Spinoza s general conception of the whole within which 
he is to demonstrate connexions, not as a definition 
of one element of the whole amongst others. But it 
inevitably suggests the latter interpretation, and Spinoza 
himself has, I think, been misled by this procedure. 
All things in a sense follow from the nature of God, just 
as all geometrical properties follow from the nature of 
space, or, inaccurately, all the properties of a triangle 
follow from the nature of the triangle. But they follow 
from the concrete complete nature of God, space, triangle, 
and not from the selected abstract nature which is 
expressed in the definition at least not in the same 
sense. A triangle is in relation to space an abstracted 
portion of a whole with which other abstracted portions 
are connected as consequents with ground ; and the 
definition or essential nature of a triangle is, in 
relation to the concrete whole triangle, in a similar 
position. Space itself so far as it is treated as the 
ultimate subject-matter of a science is a whole within 
which all spatial connexions are, and in whose unity 
spatial relations disappear. Spatial properties and rela- 
tions * follow from the nature of space in_a ^iflferp.-nt, 
f sense from that in which one spatial element is the 
-t^nsequent of another. No spatial property can be 
1 deduced from space as a whole, in the way in which 
it can be deduced from other properties or parts within 
the whole. For all such deduction rests upon the 
controlling conception of the whole, and is valid only 
within it. And the whole itself cannot appear as one 
term in the series of conditions and conditioneds. 

Now, for Spinoza, God is the ultimate whole within 



n8 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. which all connexions are, and in whose unity all rela 
tions disappear or are absorbed. Hence no details no 
characters or connexions of the finite can be * deduced 
from God, in the way in which they can be deduced from 
one another under the controlling conception of God. 
But Spinoza certainly speaks as if he were deducing all 
tnings from God, in the sense in which the geometer 
deduces its properties from the definition or essential 
nature of a triangle. And so far as he does so, the God 
he works with is an abstract God, the creature of an 
arbitrary selection, constituted by a definition : one part 
of Reality amongst other parts. Hence, if I am not 
mistaken, the rejected elements in the nature of God 
reassert themselves alongside of the abstract God of the 
definition : and we get two Gods, each an abstract, partial 
aspect of the God whom Spinoza is really analysing.,/ 
The God so far as he is affected by finite modifications" 
in infinitum confronts the God who is absolutely com 
plete and subsists of an infinite number of complete 
Attributes. And these two abstractions conflict with 
one another, and refuse to re-create the living God in 
whose unity all differences are sustained and all relations 
absorbed. The complete God cannot be a union of two 
abstractions ; his unity once broken cannot be put 
together out of distinct still less out of conflicting 
elements. 

The categories of ground and consequent, cause and 
effect, are quite inadequate to express the immanence of 
a whole in all its parts ; and the immanence of God in all 
his modes is (as Spinoza has insisted) too intimate to be 
conceived even under the category of whole and parts. 
Ground and consequent, cause and effect/ are the 
very scheme of all relations, and hold only of the 
interconnexions of elements within a unity. But ele 
ments and interconnexions of the Real exist only for an 
inadequate apprehension: anapprehensionwhichassum.es 



DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS 119 

the unity as a background and works from point to APPENDIX. 
point within it. So long therefore as we employ 
these forms of synthesis, we are confined within the 
conception, at best, of a relational or systematic unity ; 
and, at worst, are driven to an abstract, hypothetical 
view of things. We are mechanically constructing a 
whole out of its separate parts ; or we are following the 
grooves of necessary connexion within a whole, which 
must lose its living unity as a condition of the process. 
So long, therefore, as Spinoza works with geometrical 
forms of expression and of proof, with geometrical 
principles of connexion, he falls a victim to the inherent 
defect of all scientific explanation. He cannot ade 
quately represent the coherence of Reality, or satisfy 
the demand of thought for an intelligible view of things. 
And his failure is aggravated by the geometrical method, 
because it tends to conceal its own deficiencies to make 
him forget that a unity which is sufficient for geometry 
is totally inadequate for metaphysics. He is compelled 
to choose between a conception of God s unity as rela 
tional, and a relapse into the notion of God as a unity \ 
below relation, i.e. the abstract God who maintains his 
transparent unity by excluding all diversity. 



Note on l natura naturata and the world of 
presentation. 

In this note I propose to indicate briefly how I interpret 
Spinoza s conception of the relation between natura 
naturata and the world of presentation ( imaginationis )*. 

1 Since the * world of presenta- as the mind perceives them ex 

tion is the world of things so communi naturae ordine (cf. E. 

far as we conceive them to exist ii. 29 S. & C., 30 dem.), I shall 

in relation to a certain time and not hesitate to use the common 

place (cf. E. v. 29 S.), or so far order of nature, the world of 



120 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK I. Spinoza does not attempt and fail to deduce existence 
from essence or the finite from the infinite 1 . But 
there is undoubtedly considerable obscurity (and perhaps 
inconsistency) in his language as to what degree of 
reality he attaches to things in the temporal and spatial 
order. The inconsistencies, if there are any, will engage 
us later in their proper place. In the meantime, I will 
state dogmatically the outline of Spinoza s view as I take 
it to be. 

(i) Natura naturata and natura naturans together 
exhaust Reality ; outside them there is nothing. Natura 
naturata is to include the whole nature of God in its modal 
being ; i. e. it is God the consequent, God, as a complete 
modal apprehension would conceive him. The modes are 
conceived as dependent on God for their being and 
conception, and neither as identical with God the ground, 
nor as abstracted from their timeless, necessary, and 
coherent order and as separate things and events in 
space and time 2 . Further, natura naturata is not a mere 
world of thoughts, but a world of realities. The essences 
of things which it comprehends are not to be confused 
with aeternae veritates, so far as these are the mere 
thoughts of a mind. Nor again must the essences of 
things be confused with the mere existence of things, 
so far as that means their presence to and action upon 
a sensitive subject 3 . (2) But if so, then temporal 
existence things in the temporal order, the communis 
ordo naturae* is from one point of view nothing (bare 
illusion), whilst from another point of view it is compre 
hended and absorbed in natura naturata. The temporal 
being of things is an abstract moment of their reality, 
which, along with their abstract thought being, is corn- 
presentation, the world of time 2 E. i. 29 S. 
and place, &c., as equivalent ex- s Cf. above, p. 65, note i ; 
pressions. p. 77, note i. 

1 Cf. above, pp. 99 ff. 



DIFFICULTIES AND CRITICISMS 121 

prehended in their total being as members of natura APPENDIX. 
naturata. 

Their temporal being is as such illusory. Time is a 
mere * auxi Hum imaginations 1 ; and indeed the whole 
framework of the world of temporal and spatial things 
vanishes in illusion too 2 . It is, e. g., a part of this 
illusion when we conceive things as contingent and 
liable to birth and decay. Change and happening, being 
born and dying these are illusory products of the 
illusory auxilia imaginationis which the whole world 
of presentation involves 3 . But the illusion or error, like 
all error, is the partial apprehension of the truth. It is 
deceptive only if taken for the whole truth, and it can 
become the whole truth by supplementation. If we fill in 
our defective apprehension, we shall see the contingent 
as a link in the necessary order, the changing as a 
partial manifestation of the permanent, the limited 
temporal duration as our mutilation of eternal actu 
ality 4 . 

Thus the temporal being of things their existence in 
the communis ordo naturae is the product of a partial 
apprehension. It is really absorbed in natura naturata/ 
though in that absorption its character is transcended 
and its illusoriness vanishes in truth. And the same 
applies in principle to the thought-being of things. As 
conceived e.g. in a scientific understanding, things are 
not real with the full reality which they possess as modes 
of natura naturata. The mere conception of things 
their being as expressed in a scientific apprehension 
of the general laws and conditions of the world is an 
abstract, relatively unreal, moment in their full being. 
Actual existence in the world of presentation is the 
complementary moment which completes their modal 



1 Cf. above, p. 31. s Cf. E. ii. 31 C. ; ii. 44 C. i & S. 

3 Cf. above, pp. 78 ff. 4 Cf. e. g. E. ii. 17 S. ; ii. 45 S. 



122 



THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



BOOK I. reality ; the idea of which completes and renders concrete 
their conception l . 



1 Cf. E. ii. 8 and C. and S. 
Hinc sequitur, quod, quamdiu 
res singulares non existunt, nisi 
quatenus in Dei attributis com- 
prehenduntur, earum esse obiec- 
tivum, sive ideae, non existunt, 
nisi quatenus infinita Dei idea 
existit; et ubi res singulares 
dicuntur existere, non tantum 
quatenus in Dei attributis com- 
prehenduntur, sed quatenus etiam 
durare dicuntur, earum ideae 



etiam existentiam, per quani 
durare dicuntur, involvent. And 
cf. K. V. S. ii. 20, p. 125, Note 
3 (No. 6) : There is no thing 
in nature, of which there is not 
in the Thinking Thing an idea 
which proceeds from the essence 
and the existence of that thing 
together} (The italics are my 
own.) On the whole question, 
see also below, Appendix to Bk. 
II, pp. 221 ff. 



. I. 



BOOK II 

THE HUMAN MIND 
CHAPTER I 

SOUL AND BODY 
1. INTRODUCTION. 

IN the preface to Part II of the Ethics, Spinoza CHAP. i. 
indicates the plan of the rest of the work. He will 
proceed to explain those necessary consequents of God s 
nature which will lead us to the knowledge of the 
human mind and its supreme happiness. Wfijiave left 
the general theory nf "R^lity^ n.^d passed to Spinoza ^ 
application_of his metaphysical principles to the, nature 
a^d^life_ofjaaiL. But no philosopher interweaves meta 
physics, ethics, psychology, and physics so inextricably 
as Spinoza. Hence, the later books will modify and 
supplement the metaphysical theory which I have so 
far endeavoured to sketch ; and, on the other hand, 
I have been obliged (e.g. in treating of the modal system 
of Extension) to anticipate some of Spinoza s applica 
tions of his general principles. So far as possible, I will 
endeavour to avoid unnecessary repetition. The reader 
on his side must postpone his criticism of Spinoza s 
metaphysical theory until he has followed it in its appli 
cations, and studied it in the modified form which they 
give to it. 



I22 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK 7. We have seen that, strictly speaking, nothing short 
of the Whole is self-contained, self-dependent, and indi 
vidual. From an ultimate point of view there are no 
parts, no things, no persons. Yet any theory of know- - 
ledge or of conduct, or again of physics, must treat the 
conception of Deus as involving articulation, as a whole * 
of parts. Human apprehension is essentially discursive ) 
and relational, even if at its best and ultimately it is 
also intuitive. And any such theories are bound to 
have at least a working conception of parts of the 
Whole. In anticipating Spinoza s outline of physics, 
we saw that he postulates certain elementary corpuscles ; 
i. a that he works with conceptions of distinguishable 
single things, which are relatively independent and 
individual. In the course of this book we shall have 
to follow him still further in his development of the 
conception of individuality. The force of self-main 
tenance, in which each thing exhibits God s omnipotence, 
will expand in significance until it serves to stamp a 
genuine self-dependence and an individual character on 
the particular things. It may be that this expansion 
is irreconcilable with the consistency of his meta 
physical doctrine ; but it is necessary for his ethical and 
psychological theories. In the meantime, Spinoza him 
self gives us a working definition of a thing V By 
" single things " I understand things which are finite 
and have a determinate existence. But if several 
individuals so concur in a single action that all together 
are the cause of a single effect, so far I consider all of 
them as one single thing. Vague as this statement is, 
it is clear at least that by single things Spinoza under 
stands things actually existing in the spatial and 
temporal series: modes, not in their eternal order in 
* natura naturata, but taken in isolation and abstraction, 
as ordinary experience takes them. Presumably, limita- 
1 E. ii. def. 7. 



SOUL AND BODY 125 

tions of space and time are to be regarded as marking CHAP. i. 
off things in this sense of the word. A body, e. g., is 
to be counted as a thing/ if it has no internal lapse of 
its appearance or presentation, and no inner break in its 
extension; any break or lapse would indicate that we 
have passed to a new thing. The second half of the 
definition provides for an extension of this conception, 
primarily in order to meet the case of the human 
body. The elementary corpuscles which compose an 
organ, the organs which compose the body, are to be 
taken from some points of view as together consti 
tuting a single thing. A complex individual can be 
regarded as a single thing, so far as it works as a single 
cause to produce a single effect. "What precisely a 
c single effect means is not, and could not be, defined. 
But, for Spinoza s purpose, the definition he has given 
indicates sufficiently the popular conception of a single 
thing which he wishes to adopt \ 



2. THE HUMAN MIND AS THE IDEA OF THE BODY. i 

Everything has a soul-side, or is a moda nf f.frft Attri 
bute of Thought 2 . Every bndy is an 



ride is at once its soul and the apprehension of its 
body 3 . This general principle holds of man as of other 

1 In E. iv. 39 S., Spinoza just illness, forgot his whole past life, 

touches on the question of what and could not believe he was the 

constitutes * personal identity, author of his stories and tragedies. 

He explains that when the parts And, if this appears incredible, 

of the body are so rearranged what shall we say about infants ? 

that their inner ratio of motion- A grown-up man regards their 

and-rest changes, the body has nature as so different from his 

died, i.e. become another body, own, that it would be impossible 

even though it is not a corpse, to persuade him he had ever been 

And, in support and explanation a baby, unless he inferred it from 

of this conception, he appeals to his experience of other men. 

an instance of double personality 2 Cf. above, p. 69. 

a Spanish poet who, after an 3 Cf. above, pp. 70, 71. 



126 



THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



BOOK II. things ; his soul or mind l is .an idea or mode of 
Thought, which at once is the ideal side of his body and 
in some sense apprehends the body, its ideatum/ Thus 
Spinoza s conception of the mind rests upon his con 
ception of the interrelation of the Attributes 2 , which 
indeed he fully develops for the first time in the opening 
propositions of E. ii. The modal system of each Attri 
bute is complete within that Attribute ; the chain of 
does not cross from one Attribute to another. 
Attribute, coextensively expresses Jihe 
The inner articulat 

each Attribute is one and the same ; or there is, in 
reality, one modal system, and one only, expressed in 
an infinite number of irreducible characters 3 . Hence it 
follows : (i) that thaJbumaiL JQ^^ 
Th2ft_t). i* Timf.Tiftr f>fl.i]Sft TlQrjeJfect of the human body 



causes 



same 



of 



(a, -pnnrlft Qf_ElYtATisi on^j__and (ii) that the hurnfl.Ti 
(as an idea) is iJie soul-ad fTnfl?forh 11 Trm.-n bnrlyj thA. 
spending mode of Extension. IVTa/p. that is 1 is a finite 

in two_onl of its Attri- 



.fl, Extern rnrm a,Tid Thought 4 . 
is_ modaL noi^.^nbstaTitifl.1 5 . ( He consists of mind and 
body, and the human body exists just as we are aware of 
it 6 ; i. e. the mo^s p^ngf.ifjif^rr frig "bain g n.T^n. mode 



1 Spinoza seems to use anima 
as the more general term to cover 
all the grades of soul or life ; cf. 
E. ii. 13 S. Nam ea, quae hucus- 
que ostendimus, admodum coin- 
munia sunt, nee magis ad homines 
quam ad reliqua Individua per 
tinent, quae omnia, quamvis di- 
versis gradibus, animata tamen 
sunt. Mens is confined to that 
degree of besouledness which 
belongs to beings like man. 

2 Cf. above, pp. 22 ff., 656. 



3 E. ii. 5, 6, 7, and C. (In ii. 7 
Spinoza is thinking primarily of 
Extension and Thought; but of 
course the doctrine holds of all 
the Attributes.) 

*-Cf. E.ii. 78.; ioC.; 11,12,13 
and S. For the difficulties, see 
below, 4. 

5 E. ii. 10 ; cf. Ep. 4. 

6 E. ii. 13 C. Hinc sequitur, 
hominem Mente et Corpore con- 
stare, et Corpus humanum, prout 
ipsum sentimus, existere. 



SOUL AND BODY 127 

CHAP - 



xtension. 



Man, therefore, is a single thing in the sense ex 
plained. His unity, individuality, and self-dependence 
are, at any rate so far as we have gone, to be taken 
merely as postulated for the purposes of scientific inves 
tigation, and not in the least as ultimately real. It is 
an abstraction which cuts off man as the perceiving 
subject from the rest of the universe as his object. 



--- 



God who is and moves injaUjiia modea-i and 



sense, it in (rorl irhff is p^r^Q.ivftr and perceived. 
Hence Spinoza^ thr on gh^ntf ftTnp1 n ysf-ft^*1on1 1 H J hnr^rm-gQ ; 
tie.speaks^ e. g., now of man as thin^ijig^]iQw--ef-^o^ qud 
constituting thejiuman mind as thinking.- and~.ihe lQ l iQ 
form of expression is the acciirp^ A n-nQ For every i 
and every body, as-modes of Thought ^1^ T|T 
are states of God, and it is only by a necessary abstrac- 
tion that they can, be treated as independe 



made i__the .suj^ecfc-crf --a- judgement. It will therefore be 
best, before proceeding, to translate what has been said 
into the more accurate form of expression. 

The modes of Thought, which are the souls o 
things, are the ideas which God has or is. God, in, 
thinking this or that thing, constitutes its soul j)r 
mind. The totality of God s nature is expressed ideally 
or objectively in the Attribute of Thought; and to 
the mediate infinite and eternal modes in each Attribute 
there corresponds the mediate infinite and eternal mode 
of Thought, the idea Dei V Now this infinita idea 
Dei God s complete apprehension of himself includes^ 
and sustains in its timeless coherence all the modes of 
Thought, whether they are further * existing in the_ 
temporal order or not. The Mens, that is, of any being 
(whether now living or not) is, as part of God s appre- 

1 E. ii. 3, and cf. above, pp. 94 ff. 



I 2 8 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. tension, eternally comprehended (timelessly actual) l in 
the infinite idea of God ; and in that context it is the 
idea of its * ideatum (the body) as itself involved in the 
coherent totality of which it is a mode. Tjie idea which 
forms the mind of a man, as a mode of natnra naturata/ 

< jp g>Tf .n rq n Q f^ra f ^ 2 ; and this being or actuality of mind 
and body is not determined to any particular time or 
place. But any body which has an actual presence for 
us in time and place which enters into our experience, 
affects our senses has acquired actual existence in 
a further sense. It exists for us not, or>1 y T ^ 1>r>TTnlTTnrl 

in tVift Af.f.ri hnf.ft nf F/yf.P/nfliryn, >>nf. a.1n a. a. ^ plr in t.hft 

chain of causes and effects which forms the corporeal 
^ *dr ngh-irao And the same 



applies to every mind with which we come into contact. 
Thus, the esse of the mind of this actually existent 

man is that ftnrl fliinVg a. irmrlft nf Ey f.ftr> HI rm (not. Trip/mly 
in the context of fy s? ftll-nnniprftTiftTidiTigr ^p^ f.i rn ftl ftag^ 

/ Thought, but also) in a thought in some sense torn from 
>!! its unalterable context, and appearing as the idea~oLaiL- 
\ actually existent mode of Eyf.pmainn. God, as Spinoza 
says, constitutes the actual mind of this or that actually 
existent thing, not so far as he thinks in his infinite and 
eternal nature, but so far as he is considered a^ fl.ffi^iAd-. 
tnz-the idea of another single thing actually existent, of 
which idea again hevis the cause so tar as he is affected 
by the idea of a third actually ^xistenjLsi^g^ 



so on in infinitum (E. ii. 9) 



1 Cf. E. v. 29 S. ii. Pref. note i, and Append. 2, 

2 Cf. v. 23 and S. 10 ff. The first passage is 

3 I have been following E. ii. so important that I will add a 
8 and S. See above, pp. 119 ff. translation of it. Having proved 
On the whole conception of soul that our soul is a mode of God s 
as the idea of an actually existent complete Thinking, an idea not 
mode of Extension, cf. K. V. S. of the essential nature of things, 



SOUL AND BODY 



129 



Thus the independence, the personal being, which we CHAP. i. 
attribute to any man, is never strictly real. If it were, 



but of an actually existent thing 
(cf. above, p. 95, note i), Spinoza 
continues : 

7. Every particular thing 
which comes to actual existence, 
becomes what it is through motion 
and rest. This applies to all the 
modes in substantial Extension, 
which we call " bodies." 

8. Their difference from one 
another arises solely through the 
different proportion of motion and 
rest, whereby the one is thus and 
not thus, the other this and not 
that. 

9. The existence of this our 
body, too, springs from this pro 
portion of motion and rest ; and 
of ?.t just as of all other things 
there must be an idea in the 
xbinkmg Tiling which idea is 
our soul. 

10. This our body, when it 
was an unborn child, was in a 
different proportion of motion 
and rest ; and when we are dead 
it will be in yet another. But 
none the less, there was an idea 
of it in the Thinking Thing before 
we were born, and there will be 
when we are dead just as there 
is now : though by no means the 
same idea, for our body is now 
otherwise proportioned in motion 
and rest. 

ii. Thus, in order to cause 
such an idea in the substantial 
Thinking as this our soul is now, 
there is required ... a body pro 
portioned in motion and rest 
precisely as ours is, and no other. 

SPINOZA 



For as is the body, so is also the 
soul. . . . 

I2 - * I therefore, such a body 
has and maintains its proportion 
(as, e.g., a proportion of one to 
i&ree tlier tis bo 



soul) .will be as ours is nnw. . It 
will be subjected, no doubt, to 
constant change, but to none so 
great as to exceed the proportion 
of one to three. But just so much 
as the body changes, the soul also 
changes on each occasion. 

13. This change in us, which 
arises from the action of other 
bodies upon ours, cannot take 
place without our soul which 
likewise constantly changes 
becoming aware of it. 
change ft, a t?1P Bnnl >fl 



what wjB_call " agnation " [i. ft 
".sensation" is that 



the soul which is its 



of a change in the 

14. But if other bodies act 
so violently upon our body, that 
the proportion of its motion (one 
to three) cannot persist : that is 
death, and an annihilation of our 
soul, in so far as it is only an 
idea ... of this thus-proportioned 
body. 

15. Yet, since the soul is a 
mode in the Thinking Substance, 
it might have known and loved 
the latter as well as the Substance 
of Extension : and through union 
with Substances which always 
remain the same, it might have 
made itself eternal. 






I 3 o THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK IT. it would imply that some one of God s thoughts could 
be out of relation to its context that God could throw 
himself completely into a single finite mode of his 
Attribute of Thought and into a single finite mode of 
his Attribute of Extension : and man would be Substance. 

Of P r mOT i g always a. pn.rf n 



lect l of God (E. ii. n C.), as his body is a part of the 
faftifls totins universi^: he himself (as a whole of body 
and mind) is and remains a pars naturae 2 . Such 
relative independence as we attribute to his mind and 
body, can only be described and inaccurately described 
by saying God, so far as he is expressed by the nature 
qthe human mind, has this orjhatidea. So far as that 
is so and it never is strirfly and rnm/plp.tf>Iy ^SQ^ we / 
are said to have adequate knnwIpApea., t.r> V>q 



fro reveal ( nnrsfllypff in action The contents of our 
mind are really ours, we have a character and a per 
sonality. But so far as God in thinking any finite 
thought is inevitably thinking the other thoughts on 
which it depends (so far, in fact, as God s thought can 
never be finite or incomplete), God s knowledge is dis 
tributed as it were over all the finite minds which his 
thoughts constitute, and any one of those* rm-n^s Tms ]rirh 

f ra.gTYi ATI f. rvf fliA g.r1 ftqri n f g TmnwIftdgA wT-i|(Vli 

In proportion, therefore, as there is absolute 
continuity in all being as no single thing can really 
be separated from its context the human mind and the 
human body are devoid of distinct being : their indi 
viduality is illusory and untrue 4 . 

Some of ^tlmjQhief further deformi nations nf 

iis 



the_human body*- The iuman- Jx>.dyj^_i?jQm.plax:_ aggre^ 



1 intellectus here = idea 3 See below, pp. 165 ff. 
Dei, if my interpretation is cor- 4 For developments and mo- 

rect. difications, cf. below, Bk. III. 

8 E. iv. 4. ch. 4. 



IDEA IDEAE 



133 



side of its being is (or may become) the content of CHAP. 1. 
another thought. In God- in, the-aoTTipleteTioss of the, 

of Th miht th^rp mngf. bft fl.n irlp.a of every 



idea^JEvervthing is T on one side of itself, a.n 

JbhrmgVif fliQ nnnfATif nf a. f.Vinnglif. of God, q,pr] t,n this 

principle the modes of Thought itself form no exception. 
Hence there must be an idea of the idea which consti 
tutes the human mind : and so far as the latter idea has 
an independent existence, the idea of which it is the 
object has a similar independent existence. If in any 
sense the mind of any man has an individuality, in the 
same sense the idea of that mind will exist in separation 
from the total context of God s thought 1 . And ( this h 
idea of the mind is united to the mind, in the same wayl 
as the mir.fl itself is united to the body V As the 
is b its ver nature on its ideal side thn -miprJ, so 



y its vp.ry nature jp 



V>P,vn thp. 



idea of the mind: i.e. t^fi mind 



is th ft 



body is aj +h(*za:mfi f f inift hy its very nature the idea of fo 

We may reach the same result from a different point 
of view. The assertion of a content is an act of thought, 
and thought by its very nature is reduplicated in hifinitum 
on itself. We cannot have an idea without knowing 
that we have it, and knowing that we know that we 
have it, and so on in infinitum. If we imagined ^ 
an idea as a something, a picture e. g., present in our 
mind at which we gaze, we might suppose ourselves 
to have an idea without knowing that we have 
it. But a,-n jflea is__thjB-very uct-JiLtiiinking: ; and jthe 
charagter^ which distinguishes Thought from all the 
AjfTJjfllfeg^ ia its fl.wfl.rp.Tipsa of jtfl^tf and its awareness 
of that awareness -in infinitum 3 . The human min<J, 
therefore, just because it is an idea, is also the idea of 
that idea. 

1 E. ii. 20. 3 Cf. Tdle, VV1L. i. p. 12; above, 

2 E. ii. 21 and S. p. 7 ; E. ii. 21 S. ; ii. 43. 



I 34 TfIE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK ii. This awareness of their thinking the form of self- 
consciousness is inseparable from all ideas or minds. 
But its fullness and importance will vary paripassu with 
the fullness of the first ideal content which is its object. 
In the higher grades of knowledge, our consciousness 
of our mind expands with the growth of our conscious 
ness of our body and all that the latter consciousness 
involves and develops l . 



4. SOME DIFFICULTIES. 

It will be as well to consider some difficulties at this 
point. Their discussion will clear the ground for the 
further exposition of Spinoza s theories. 

la And, first, there is a difficulty to which I have 

JJJS?? already referred 2 the difficulty as to the Attribute of 

than the Thought. 

Attri- The Attribute of Thought reflects in its idaas f,hf> modes 



butes? nf fl.11 thp ot/hftr Af.j-.rihnf,pp of GocL Does each idea 
reflect all the corresponding modes in all the Attributes ? 
Or do ideae and ideata run in pairs, so to say is there 
a distinct idea for every mode of every Attribute ? There 
is no doubt as to which conception Spinoza himself 
adopts ; but on either interpretation as Tschirnhaus 
acutely points out 3 there seem to be insoluble diffi 
culties. 

(i) If the Attribute of Thought is, so to say, formally 
coextensive with each Attribute, but intensively or in 
content as rich as them all: then it is impossible to 
understand why or that the human mind should appre- 

1 For the difficulties of this in a circle to support E. ii. 21 S. 

whole question (the Idea Ideae), But this is not so. ii. 43 is an 

see below, pp. 138 ff.; and cf. application of the general doctrine 

Erdmann, V. A. pp. 174 ff., though of ii. 21 S. to the special case of 

I do not altogether endorse his true ideas. 

views. 2 Above, p. 72. 

E. ii. 43 looks like an argument 3 Epp. 65, 70. f^gg 



SOME DIFFICULTIES 135 

hend only the body. In the content of the idea which CHAP. r. 
constitutes our mind would necessarily be given the 
objective being of its corresponding mode in all the 
Attributes. 

(2) Spinoza will not admit this, and his answer 1 
shows that he conceived each idea of the Attribute of 
Thought to correspond to one mode in one Attribute ; 
i.e. for Spinoza s own interpretation ideae and ideata 
run in pairs. It is true, Spinoza admits, that each 
thing is expressed in an infinite number of ways in 
the infinite intellect of God. But since every Attribute 
is complete in itself and must be conceived per se *, the 
ideas of these infinitely-different expressions of a mode 
have no interconnexion with one another. Hence the 
infinity of ideas, which reflects each thing, cannot con 
stitute one and the same mind of a single thing, but 
constitutes an infinite number of minds. The idea, 

therefore, whj^h ftQ-ng*.ii-.n*,PS r>n v mi-nrl j ra-flflpfg anrj 

bench, only "nr 1d.y. 1>, ( idfta.i-.rmn is a mode nf 

jgion. It is not intensively correspondent to a mode of 

Substance in all its Attributes. 

But, if so Tschirnhaus urges 3 the Attribute of 
Thought is no longer coextensive with each of the 
other Attributes, but with all together. It is * wider 
than any of them taken singly ; and this seems to collide 
with the definitions of Attribute and of God. 

And we may carry this criticism further, if we will. 
Let us dismiss the postulate of the infinite number of 
Attributes : still the problem breaks out anew within the 
Attribute of Thought itself. For we must remember 
that Thought reflects itself in infinitum. Are we to con 
ceive this reduplication of the idea as merely intensive 
are we to suppose that every idea, formally one, is, 
in its content and intensively, turned upon itself in 

1 Ep. 66. 2 E. i. 10, to which Spinoza refers in Ep. 66. 

3 Ep. 70. 



i36 



THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



BOOK II. infinitum ? Even tlien whatever the value of such a 

solution the Attribute_of Thought would * extend more _ , 
widely than the Attribute of Extension. For every idea 
would be obliged to split itself internally into subject 
and obiecTCidea and ideatum/ esse formale and { esse_ 
7)T)iecHgLim ideae J, a.n^ this fissnrA wp^id have to repeat 



The criti 
cism is 
inapplic 
able in 
the form 
in which 
it is ex 
pressed, 



JM-infinitwn.. Is this fissure grounded on a differ 
ence within the idea? Then at once for every single 

mode of Ext-finRIO n W Q MY fV" i-nfinifn 



of Thought. Or is the fissure grounded on no difference 
in the idea? Then the fissure has no meaning and is 
inconceivable. Hence it would seem that even if we 
disregard the infinite number of Attributes Spinoza is 
involved in difficulties. For by his definition Thought 

.must be formally nnftxtftnaiyft with "FVyfpmgirm - and ypf. 



K 



rv 



pn 



rlnrpf n -nr|r f 



e . 



I have set out this criticism at some length, because 
most of the commentators on Spinoza seem to believe it 
to be valid. And yet I cannot help thinking that it 
betrays a serious misunderstanding of Spinoza. * Attri- 
butum cogitationis se multo latins quam attributa caetera 
extendere . . . , Tschirnhaus complains. Spinoza never 
answered this objection. Thought is wider than the 
other Attributes, the modern commentators echo. But 
how can modes of extension (* wider, narrower, co 
extensive ) apply to the relations of one Attribute to 
another? Hiejdiek^criticism ^s^-on the abuse of 
a spatia^inetaphor. The Attributes are in God, but 
God is not a spatial whole, even though Extension is one 
of his Attributes. God is extended ; but his Extension 
is not comprised along with Thought within a wider 
Extension. All the Attributes together exhaust God s 
essential nature, but they are not (except metaphor 
ically) spatially conterminous with it. Such expressions, 
however useful and however indispensable, are mere 



SOME DIFFICULTIES 137 

metaphors and give rise to ludicrous misunderstanding CHAP. I. 
if pressed. 

But it remains true that Spinoza does not (and cannot) but it 
render intelligible the being of the Attributes in God 1 . 
Since Thought and Extension as Attributes express ulti 
mate characters of the nature of God and since the 
complete nature of the E/eal is not Thought and Extension 
Spinoza is obliged to postulate an infinite number of 
other ultimate characters. But, because they are ulti 
mate, he cannot admit that in the Reality all these 
distinct characters are as such transcended and absorbed ; 
and so he is left with a plurality in * an absolute Unity, 
and the metaphorical in leaves the conception totally 
unintelligible. Thus the criticism is valid, though it 
has been expressed in a misleading form. It is a mis 
taken wording of this objection to say that Thought is 
wider than the other Attributes. But it is true that 
things is thft f)hjf>nf.ivp> Trait) g of. ikft 



modes of Substance i^ncjer nil thn Attributes. Henna, 
either the thought-Side of a body (e.g. Tna.n> nn nrl) mil ftf. 

apprehend its { ideatum in all the Attributes and this is 
not the fact, nor will Spinoza admit it as a logical con 
sequence of his doctrine or the * order and connexion 
of thoughts mnat p.nrrftspnnd (not, to the order and 
connexion of the modes of Extension, but) to the order 
and connexion of the modes in all the Attributes ; i. e. 
there are modes of Thought which are not the thought- 
side of modes of Extension, and the completeness of 
the Attribute of Thought is more full than the com 
pleteness of any other Attribute. 

To talk of the parallelism of the Attributes, their 
coextensiveness with God and with one another, their 
being in God all this, we have seen, is a mere meta 
phor which becomes misleading if pushed home. To 
some extent we may justify our use of such metaphors 
1 Cf. above, pp. 102 ff. 



138 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK ii. by Spinoza s own language, by his treatment of Eeality 
as the subject of the geometrical method, and by his 
failure to reconcile the plurality of the Attributes as 
ultimate characters of God with his transparent unity. 
Still we must not abuse this license. For Spinoza 
(at times in expression, and always in intention) rises 
above the spatial way of representing the relation of 
the Attributes to one another and to God. 

Idea In connexion with this subject, it will be well to 

consider some of the difficulties in Spinoza s theory of 
the idea ideae. At the basis of the conception of idea 
ideae lies the conviction not won without a long 
mental struggle (cf. below, chap. 2, i) that adequate 
thought and its object are one and the same, and that, 
therefore, thought is its own criterion. 

But this does not mean that thought is identical with 
any and every object with which we, in our imperfect 
apprehension, choose to identify it. _The idea which 
constitutes the mind of Peter is Peter s body ; i. e. so 
far as Peter s consciousness goes, it is his self for him and 
apprehends his body prout ipse sentit. The object of 
Peter s thought is his body so far as his thought appre 
hends it. And the idea, which in God s complete 
intelligence constitutes the mind of Peter, is identical 
with Peter s body as it really is: it is Peter s self for 
God, and apprehends his body both in its eternal actuality 
in the Attribute of Extension and in its temporal exist 
ence in the communis ordo naturae. The object of 
God s thought of Peter is Peter s body as it really is. 
But the idea of Peter which Paul has is not identical 
with Peter ; for the ideatum of that idea is not Peter 
as he is (either for himself or for God), but as he is for 
Paul : i. e. Paul s idea of Peter is adequate only as the 
idea of an ideatum which is not Peter, not what the 
idea professes (to Paul s mind) to represent. In Paul 
the idea of Peter is inadequate, for Paul refers it wrongly 



SOME DIFFICULTIES 139 

to Peter as he is really and unaffected by his relation CHAP. I. 
to Paul 1 . 

Now when we talk of thought and its object, we 
usually are concerned with an idea referring to a part 
only of its ideatum/ or referred for us not to its com 
pletely adequate ideatum. And when that is the case, 
thought is (and ought to be) distinguished from its 
{ object. Paul s idea of Peter is not Peter in rerum 
natura, but it refers to Peter and is more or less true 
of him. And in anything p"hoH- < r > 



a. Always in this way 



distinct .. frn-m nr>ft another, They agree with one 
another in various degrees, but never coalesce and be 
come one. So far as our mind is the inadequate thought \ 
of our body (and it always is so to some extent) 2 , our V 
mind or our ideas are, as it were, set over against our 
body, distinct and distinguished from it. We know 
our body, not as being it not from within but as 
having knowledge about it ; and such knowledge 
remains always to some extent inadequate and untrue 
and different from its * object. In anything short of 
perfect apprehension, therefore, thought always implies 
a distinction between itself and its object, and this 
distinction is never completely overcome. Thought is 
one with its object in a very imperfect and ambiguous 
sense. The oneness is a relation between two distincts ; 
a oneness of two, which never by complete coalescence 
justify the oneness which we ascribe to them. 

And even in the oneness of adequate thought and its 
object, the oneness is a unity of two, though a unity 

1 .11.178. By Peter I mean tion, I have hitherto spoken as 

Peter, body and mind. Paul s if Peter meant Peter s body, 1 

idea of Peter is not the same as and as if Paul s idea of Peter 

Peter s idea of his own body, nor meant Paul s idea of Peter s 

as Peter s idea of his own mind, body. 
To avoid unnecessary complica- 2 Cf. above, p. 130. 



I 4 o THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. which overcomes and sustains the differences. For 
though in reality my body and my mind are one and 
the same mode of Substance, yet they are that mode 
differently expressed, and the different expressions 
are separated by the absolute separation which (for 
Spinoza) divides each Attribute from every other. How 
the identity of these absolute distincts is possible in the 
t j transparent unity of Substance this (we know) is unin 
telligible in Spinoza s system. But it is a postulate of 
his theory, which for our present purpose we must simply 
accept. 

But in his conception of idea ideae, Spinoza renders 
it impossible to maintain any difference between thought 
and its object. The unity of idea ideae is not a unity 
of two, but a blank unity. And, as such, it does not 
answer to any possible form of self-consciousness or even 
self-feeling. Mentis idea, Spinoza says (E. ii. 21 S.), 
4 et ipsa Mens una eademque est res, quae sub uno 
eodemque attribute, nempe Cogitationis, concipitur. But, 
if so, the idea which is the object is identical with and 
indistinguishable from the subject-idea. The identity 
of subject- and object-idea is so absolute, that all possi 
bility of regarding it as a unity of two has vanished. 
In fact, so absolutely one are they, that they cannot even 
be conceived as identical : for identity with no difference 
is a meaningless term. 

Yet if we ask what Spinoza intended to establish by 
his conception of idea ideae, the answer can hardly be 
doubtful. He intended to restore that unity and con 
tinuity in all our thinking, which his conception of the 
mind as a complex of ideae seems to have destroyed 1 . 

1 Cf. Camerer, pp. 53 ff. ; and tains combined in itself) all the 

below, ch. 2. Throughout, Spinoza ideae which form the complex of 

implies that we have an experi- our mental life. Cf. e. g. the 

ence : that a single and continuous significant expression l simulac 

consciousness combines (or con- enim quis aliquid scit, eo ipso 



SOME DIFFICULTIES 141 

"Without some unity, without some self, Spinoza s CHAP. i. 
theory of conduct and of knowledge could not advance 
a step : and it does not seem erroneous l to suppose that 
Spinoza intended to find such a unity in the idea ideae 
the consciousness of our thinking which every act of 
thinking involves. But if this was his intention, it 
must be confessed that he has failed. The process in 
infinitum, which the idea ideae involves 2 , augurs ill for 
such a project. And since the subject-idea is one and 
the same mode of Thought as its object-idea, the former 
is no more continuously one than the latter, but resolves 
itself, like that, into an aggregate of many * ideae. And, 
finally, an idea which is in no sense distinguishable 
from its ideatum has lost the character of a mode of 
Thought, and cannot possibly do the work of a feeling 
of self, or a consciousness of one s thinking. 

Man, as the identity of mind and body, is a mode of The ques- 
Substance in two only of its Attributes. He is therefore j^whaf 
even as a mode imperfectly real. And the unity of degree of 



mind and body, which constitutes his phenomenal being, 



is no unity of a self. His self is a complex of such for him - 

self ? 

unities ; but the complex remains a complex for him and 
for us, and cannot be anything more even for his thought 
of himself. For that thought of himself the idea 
mentis or * ideae is- one and the same as the mens 
which it apprehends ; i. e. in any case, it is a complex of 
1 ideae idearum and not a single idea ideae. So far as 
for our experience we are one possessed of a continu 
ous consciousness of an individual self that experience 
to some degree is illusory 3 . The question really is : * How 

scit, se id scire, &c. (E. ii. 21 S., even be the victims of illusion 

and often). such questions cannot be answered. 

1 Yet see note 3. For to answer them would be to 

2 Cf. e.g. E. ii. 21 S. apprehend completely the Reality, 

3 How there comes to be a we and from the point of view of that 
at all how we can experience, complete knowledge to show the 



I4 2 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. far can we approximate to that complete experience, 
in which the individual unity which we are in God is 
realized for ourselves ? And the answer is not doubtful. 
The corpuscles which form man s body are linked together 
in the Attribute of Extension, and for a complete under 
standing: and the ideae which form man s mind are 
united in the chain of ideas which are the content of the 
1 idea infinita Dei. In and for God man is one, has a real 
being and individuality : but in and for God man is no 
longer what he is for himself and for other men. His 
real being and individuality is God s being and indi 
viduality, and is his own only in the sense in which 
God is all things and all things are in God. 

In the actual living man, the ideae, which form the 
complex of his mind, are associated in various ways ; 
and the corpuscles, which constitute his body, cohere 
according to an order external to themselves and imper 
fectly apprehended by man s mind. IJy training and 
reasonable living, man may approximate to the experi- 

ground of finiteness and appear- presented). The difficulty may 

ance. Spinoza s atomistic ex- be put thus : from a complete 

planation of the body and mind point of view, there is no indi- 

if we take it as anything more vidual save God ; from the pro- 

than a provisional theory seems visional atomistic point of view, 

to render all unity of man s con- there is no individual (except in 

sciousness impossible (not merely a loose sense) but the elementary 

to leave it unexplained, but to corpuscles and their ideae. Yet 

cut away all possibility of its the individuality of man is neither 

being), and his theory of idea one nor the other, and is (and 

ideae cannot restore such unity, must be) taken by Spinoza as in 

But in that theory he evidently some sense a fact. The doctrine 

assumes that man is in some sense of idea ideae cannot justify 

one, has a self (above, p. 140, this fact, cannot bring it into 

note i), and his atomistic doc- consistent coherence either with 

trines are avowedly provisional Spinoza s Atomism or with his 

only (cf. the way in which they metaphysical theory. Yet if this 

are introduced into the Ethics, is not its object, what place has 

and the obviously unfinished and it in the system ? 
outline form in which they are 



SOME DIFFICULTIES 143 

ence and realization of the more real union which. Jie CHAP. i. 
has in God. The chance association of ideas may give 
place to a reasoned concatenation on intelligible prin 
ciples: the imperfect coherence of his bodily components 
may grow in organic unity. He may become less the 
plaything of agencies external to himself, less the 
passive theatre in which ideas come and go and group 
themselves, and more of an agent and a thinker. In 
as he does so, he becomes for himself what 



he in reality is : a state of God, a mode with the 
reality which belongs to modes in their eternal order. 
In this advance he wins freedom and knowledge. He 
acts instead of being the meeting-point of external 
agencies ; he thinks instead of receiving impressions. 
He becomes a person : a being with a * self and a self- 
knowledge which is less illusory as the process advances. 
But this development means the merging of man in 
God. It is a development only in this sense, and in 
its completion the developing self is, as an independent 
self, absorbed. There is no relation of two : no survival 
of man over against God, no reconciliation of two inde 
pendent beings or persons. Man is man, only so far as 
he is God in a state of himself. He becomes real for 
himself, only in becoming for himself a mode of God. 
He wins independence and individuality only in the 
self-dependence and individuality ofjjrqd. In that 
absorption, man s being has transcended itself; and yet, 
except in that transcendence, man has no being. That 
paradox is the paradox of the finite. Qud finite, it is in 
part unreal ; qud real, it is not finite. In getting reality, 
it ceases as such to be. It is the nature of the finite 
to be for ever moving restlessly beyond itself for com 
pletion ; in that completion, it as such has vanished : 
and yet except in * its absorption, * it is nothing real. 

The course of man s progress towards freedom and 
knowledge towards that absorption in God which is the 



I 4 4 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. realization and the transcendence of man s self is traced 
by Spinoza in his ethical doctrine and in his theory of 
the stages of knowledge. The progress exhibits two 
sides the growth of man s individuality as an agent 
and as a thinker and Spinoza s exposition of each side 
involves his exposition of the other. The ideal of know 
ledge and of conduct is one and the same, and the paths 
of its attainment are indissolubly intertwined 1 . 
God self- A word of caution is necessary with regard to the 
conscious. se }f_ consc i ousness o f God. The question has been much 
debated as to whether Spinoza s God is personal, is 
self-conscious, has intellect and will. In one sense 
all these predicates belong to God, so far as they 
express anything real. But God is not a person, nor is 
he self-conscious, nor has he intellect and will, in the 
sense which those terms would bear if unqualified. "We 
have seen already (above, pp. 62 ff.) that intellect and 
will, in the sense in which they are ordinarily attributed 
to man, do not belong to God. The same is true of per 
sonality 2 and of self-consciousness. Any of these 
terms, if applied to God, lose the distinctive meaning 
which popular thought gives them in their application 
to man. God indeed is not without these qualities 
in the richness of his nature he is not less, but more 
than human : so far as any human properties express 
reality, they must be absorbed in God s completeness. 
Thus God s understanding and its objects are one and 
the same, for God s understanding is complete 3 . And 
God s infinite idea of himself (his self-consciousness ) 
is * unique and absolutely one 4 , and somehow it includes 
in itself all the finite minds which are ( parts of it. 
But in its uniqueness and absolute self-identity it is 

1 Cf. Brunschvicg, p. 103 ; 8 Cf. e.g. E. ii. 7 S. 

below, ch. 2, i and 2; above, 4 E. ii. 3 and 4; cf. C. M. ii. 
pp. 3, 4. 7, 6 ; and above, pp. 94 ff. 

2 Cf. C. M. ii. 8, i. 



SOME DIFFICULTIES 145 

altogether different from the self-consciousness of finite CHAP. i. 
minds. And in any case the intellect and self-conscious 
ness of God belong to him in his modal nature ; i. e. he 
is not intellect, any more than he is motion-and-rest. 
They are but partial expressions of his being, consequents 
of his substantial nature, and that nature is not ex 
hausted in any or all of them. 



SPINOZA 



CHAPTER II 

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 
1. IDEA AND IDEATUM. 

BOOK II. SPINOZA S conception of truth passes through an 
interesting development. In his earliest philosophical 
work 1 , the external object implants itself, so to say, in 
the mind as an idea. Thinking is a passion 2 . The 
reality acts upon (or impresses itself in) the mind, and 
truth is pure receptivity. This point of view is over 
come in the Tractatus de Intellectus JEmendatione. though 
there are indications there of its partial survival. True 
thought, indeed, is pure spontaneity: but the thought 
which is false or partial seems (according to some pas- 

1 In the K. V. ; cf. Avenarius, etwas von einer Sache bej alien 
pp. 40, 45 ff. Traces of this view oder verneinen, sondern die Sache 
survive even in the Ethics. Cf. selbst ist es, die etwas von sich in 
e.g. the axiom (E. i. Ax. 6), A uns bejaht oder verneint. Yet, 
true idea must agree with its if we compare K. V. S. i. 2, 24 
"ideatum", and its translation (see Joel, pp. 62 if.), it would 
into technical (Cartesian) termin- seem that Spinoza speaks of know- 
ology (E. i. 30 dem.), that which ledge as a passion only in the 
is contained objectively in the sense that it is objective, forced 
intellect must necessarily be given upon us, necessary truth not 
in nature. arbitrarily created by our own 

2 Cf. e.g. K. V. S. ii. 16, 5 imagination. But Spinoza s lan- 
(dass) das Verstehen ein reines guage in the K. V. and in the 
Leiden ist, das ist ein Gewahr- Tdle is at least less clear than 
werden (perceptio) der Wesenheit that of the Ethics, and seems to 
und Existenz der Dinge in der betray a certain wavering in his 
Seele ; so dass wir selbst niemals own view. 



IDEA AND IDEATUM 147 

sages) to be caused by the action of external bodies *, CHAT. II. 
and not to spring from the spontaneity of the mind. 
There is thus, it would seem, one kind of thinking 
( perception or idea ) which is not the activity of the 
mind, but forced upon it from without. 

But in the Ethics, notwithstanding some ambiguous 
and perhaps inconsistent statements, Spinoza maintains 
that all ideas (all thinking of any kind), as modes of -~? 
Thought, are caused by ideas and not by their * ideata 
not by any objects or bodies. And he expressly 

idea as fr P.nnp.p.pf.in-n of f-hft .Tqi-pfj, whip.li t.Vi 
forms in virtue of its nature as a. thi-nking thing ; and 
he adds I say " conception " rather than " perception," 
because the latter term seems to indicate that the mind 
is acted upon by its object. But " conception " seems to 
express an action of the mind 2 ."^~ 

An idea is true if it agrees with its "ideatum", but 
this is only an external mark, a relation, which tells us 
little of the nature of a true idea 3 . If, however, we ask 
what this * convenientia means, the answer is at once 
simple and difficult. An idea is its ideatum : thought 
and its object are in a sense one and the same 4 . Every 
thought (we have learnt already) is a single event 
.with two sides, or every body is a single thing with 
two aspects. It does not matter which way you put it. 
4 Body is at once body and thought, and thought is at 

1 Cf. W1L. i. pp. 23, 28 if., and quam perceptionem, quia percep- 
p. 30. These and other passages tionis nomen indtcare videtur, 
imply that the objects perceived Mentem ab obiecto pati; at con" 
set up * corporeal motions or ceptus actionem Mentis exprimere 
changes in our body, and hence videticr. 

determine us to perceive or have z Cf. E. ii. def. 4, Explic., and 

ideas. Ep. 60. For the meaning of * de- 

2 E. ii. def. 3 and Expl. Per nominatio extrinseca ( = rela- 
ideam intelligo Mentis concep- tion ), see Busolt, p. 104, note i ; 
turn, quern Mens format, pro- and cf. Port-Royal Logic, Part I. 
pterea quod res est cogitans. ch. 2. 

4 Expl. Dico potius conceptum, * E. ii. 7 S. 

L 2 



148 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK ii. once thought and body. And though so intimately one 
that each involves the other, yet on the other hand 
neither is the cause or the effect of the other. If you 
emphasize thought-side only or body-side only, you must 
keep consistently to that emphasis in your explanation. 
On its thought-side, the mode is causally connected with 
thoughts (i. e. with other modes on their thought-side) ; 
on its body-side, it is causally connected with bodies. 
Hence an idea is at once identical with its ideatum, 
and absolutely distinct from it ; for the different Attri 
butes, e. g. the Attributes of Thought and of Extension, 
are absolutely distinct from one another. It would seem, 
therefore, that it is strictly impossible for Spinoza to talk 
of an * agreement between idea and ideatum. For, 
from one point of view, they are so completely one, that 
no relation between them is possible their unity is in 
no sense a relational unity. And, from another point of 
view, they are so absolutely two, that they cannot have 
any community of being whatever. But a relation, 
even if you call it * purely external/ implies some com 
munity of being in the related terms. 

No idea, then, we must say, agrees with its ideatum, ^ 
but every idea is its ideatum. And every idea is true. 
But since every idea is a mode of Thought, no idea is 
capable of being per se : its being and its truth belong 
to it only in the complete context of God s infinite idea 
or intellect 1 . No partial idea can (except in that con 
text) be true, for it comprises no content purely in itself: 
it is not separable as the idea of a separable ideatum, 
but has its being and its truth only in natura naturata. 
The only idea, therefore, which is ultimately true, is the 
infmita idea Dei. And that is true, because it sustains 
in itself all ideae. It is its ideatum : it is identical 
with the modal Reality on its formal side. And its truth 
is its reality or completeness, its self-containedness. Its 

1 Cf. E. ii. 7 C. ; ii. 32 dem. 



IDEA AND IDEATUM 149 

truth, therefore, depends upon its own inner nature, CHAP. n. 
and not upon its object. It is true because it is inwardly 
real, complete, coherent, adequate, not because it agrees 
with something outside it. No doubt, it does agree 
with its ideatum in the sense that it is the ideal side 
of its ideatum ; but it involves all the marks of a true 
idea, regarded simply in itself. 

We have thus reached the conception of truth which 
Spinoza developed partly in the Tractatus de Intellectus 
Emendatione, and fully in the Ethics. 

Since an idea is simply an action of the mind s spon- 77^-^ 
taneity, its character must be dependent upon the mind 
and not upon its object. "We must therefore neglect 
the external denomination of convenientia, and seek 
the criterion of truth where alone it is to be found 
within the idea itself *. Truth is the criterion of itself 
and of the false, as light reveals itself and darkness 2 , in 
the sense that our QWJQ f^rjffij^ty (which is our true 
thinking) is the guarantee that we are thinking truly. 
We can know that we have an idea which agrees with 
its ideatum, only by having such an idea 3 . Certainty 
is the essentia obiectiva, i. e. it is the way in which we 
feel or experience the essentia formalis 4 . 

Hence, for the conception of a true idea as that which 
agrees with its ideatum, we can substitute the concep 
tion of an adequate idea. An ade.quate idea contains 
in itself all the marks or properties of a true idea, so far as 
that is considered in itself without relation to its object V 
An idea is not made true by being brought into agree 
ment with an object. Its truth is something belonging 
to it internally ; a character, which constitutes its real 

1 Cf. Tdle, W1L. i. p. 23. K. V. S. ii. 15, 3. 
Spinoza s view is summed up in " Cf. e. g. E. ii. 43 S. 

the expression * Verum, sive in- 4 Cf. above, p. 7 ; VV1L. i. 
tellectus. p. 12. 

2 Cf. e.g. E. ii. 43 S.; and cf. 6 E. ii. def. 4. 



150 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

being and distinguishes it from false ideas, as ideas 
which (qud false) are not real or are deficient in being \ 
And this internal character of a true idea its adequacy/ 
shows itself in the coherence, the clearness and dis 
tinctness, of its content. So long as we conceive clearly 
and distinctly so long as the content of our conception 
is coherent we conceive truly. An idea is adequate so 
long as what^jt affirms does not extend beyond, or fell 
sh<5rt of, what iscomprised within its conception. Hence 
if wlTconceive an absolutely simple idea an jdea involv- 
ing an affirmaj;ion_coextensive with its content our idea 
must be adequate and true 2 . And so long as the affirma 
tions involved in a complex idea do not extend beyond, 
or fall short of, its conceived content so long, that is, as 
we conceive clearly and distinctly each and all of the 
simple ideas which the complex idea involves our com 
plex idea must be true 3 . But^not to conceive a simple 
idea or again to conceive a complex idea inadequately 

1 W1L. i. pp. 23 ff.; cf. E. ii. The idea of a corpuscle is far 
43 S. from simple ; it involves an 

2 VV1L. i. pp. 24 ff., * Unde infinite number of ideas of other 
sequitur, simplices cogitationes atoms. They are ideas, e.g., of 
non posse non esse veras, ut sim- Attributes and infinite modes, 
plex semicirculi, rnotus, quanti- i.e. the simple moments in 
tatis, &c., idea. Quicquid hae complex conceptions. Hence in 
affirmationis continent, earum the Ethics, e.g., the conception 
adaequat conceptum, nee ultra of God is constructed out of 
se extendit . . . . * simple ideas, viz. out of the 

3 WlL.i.p.23. We can see how ideas of Substance, Attribute, &c. 
this view of Spinoza connects with (cf.Busolt,p. 146, note 56). (2) The 
the conception of an Alphabet of simple ideas are not abstract uni- 
Reality, each letter of which is versals. Their objects or ideata 
affirmed (so to say) in a simple are singular individual realities, 
idea. Two mistakes must be which by their omnipresence 
avoided in the interpretation and eternity play the part of 
of Spinoza s doctrine : (i) The universals, but which are not 
simple ideas are not the ideal reached by abstraction from 
side of corpuscles or extended particulars; cf. Tdle, VV1L. i. 
atoms. Spinoza is not an atomist. pp. 32 ff. 



IDEA AND IDEATUM 151 

(indistinctly and inarticulately) this is simply defect of CHAP. n. 
knowledge: and in this defect the falsity of false ideas 
consists. A complete intelligence is incapable of such -j&Jtyi 
defect, for the intellect qud intellect forms conceptions, 
and qud conceiving conceives adequately or truly *. The 
defect is in us, only because we are but a part of a com 
plete intelligence, and the ideas, which it forms whole 
\ and in their adequate context, appear in us mutilated 
and disconnected 2 . 

As in reality all things and all thoughts constitute 
a complete unity which has no distinct or separable 
parts, the only completely adequate idea will (as we saw, 
p. 148) be the infinita idea Dei. But there will be degrees 7^ ^ 
of adequacy or truth in the subordinate ideas or minds. 
A finite mind will attain to truth, so far as its thoughts 
are conceived by it in their coherence in the system of 
complete thought. And so far as any thought of a finite 
mind can be in that mind what it is in God s mind so <r 
far as the whole of a thought of God can in any sense be , , 71 
comprised in the thought of a finite mind to that 
degree that thought will be adequate or true even as the 
thought of a finite mind 3 . 

Thus we may say that the more of God there is in man 
(the more the thought of God enters into the mind of -n^ ^ 
man, or the more man apprehends God, experiences 
things from God s complete point of view) the more 
man attains to truth, and man s mind to its full being 
or reality. And we must remember that this will involve 
an increase in fullness of being or reality of man s 
corporeal nature 4 . Further, it will mean that man does 
more, acts from within or of himself, is spontaneously 

1 Cf. K. V. S. i. 9, 3 ; Tdle, 3 This is the case with the 
W1L. i. pp. 24, 25, 35 ; and Communes Notiones ; see below, 
Ethics, passim. 2. 

2 Tdle, 11. cc.; and E. ii. n C., * Cf. E. ii. 13 S. 
29 C. and S., 43 S., &c. 



152 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK ir. the source of more, thinks more and suffers less, 
i. e. is less the plaything of external agencies. And 
this will mean that man realizes more fully his union 
with God his oneness with the whole order of things ; 
and finds his peace and happiness in that experience. 

Spinoza traces three main degrees or stages of realiza 
tion of this end. They are degrees at once of man s 
power of knowing, his freedom or power of action, and 
his reality or oneness with God 1 . For the present, we 
have to consider them on their intellectual side, as grades 
of increasing knowledge. 



2. THE THEEE STAGES OF HUMAN PEOGEESS AS A 
DEVELOPMENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 

I. Cognitio primi generis, Opinio, or Imaginatio. 

The human body is in r,R 11ga1 l-*.^ with "ther (ulti 
mately With all) V>0rh p.s 3 a.nd if. is snKjp.p.f. fa f.TiQ qnHrm r>f 

ttese bodies. "What we call our body is a complex of 
corpuscles, all of which are constantly changing acting 
upon one another, being acted upon from without. 
Owing to its complexity, the human body is able to 
undergo a great variety of changes, to be affected in very 
many ways : and so long as the balance of the motions of 
its constituents is maintained, it keeps throughout these 
changes that unity which, however imperfect, is suffi 
cient to enable us to regard it as a * single thing. The 
subordinate c individuals of which the body is composed 
are of various character, and may be grouped as l flmdj 
soft and hard. Not only are all the parts of the human 
body subject to the action of external bodies, but the 
body itself can act upon move and arrange and alter 
external bodies in very many various ways 2 . 

1 Cf. above, pp. 141 ff. 

2 E. ii. Post. 1-4, and 6 ; above, pp. 82 ff., 123 ff. 



IMAGINATIO 153 

And our mind is the ideal side of the actually- CHAP. II. 
existent body. The mind is a complex of ideas, each of HW - ^ 
which is the ideal side of a component corpuscle of the ***- "f ^ 
body. The e unity of the mind is the ideal counterpart 
of the unity of the body. What applies to the body 
the variety and change of its parts applies also to the 
mind. Its component ideas are as various as their 
ideata : with every change in the body there is at once 
a change in the mind, with every change in the mind a 
change in the body 1 . 

A change of state in body or mind, as presented to the 
imaginative consciousness, throws us back for its explana 
tion ad infinitum along the chains of corporeal and 
mental causes respectively. In order truly to understand I 
such a presented change, we should have to rise above ^ 
the imaginative apprehension, and trace the eternal or c+*u.<i < 
necessary coherence of the modal systems of Extension x [ f 
or^ Thought. But, apart from that complete under 
standing, we have a two-sided event or change, the ^ 
occurrence of which we cannot fully explain : from , -, ***w 
one side of which, however, we can (and do) make an e 
inference to the other. Thus, given a change in a bodily 
state, there must be, as it? ideal side, a change in the ~^ -"4* 
component ideas of our mind. Or, given a change in our } 
mental state, there must be, as its corporeal side, a change j 
in the component corpuscles of our body. Neither \ 
change is the cause or the effect of the other. The two I 
changes are the double effect of a two-sided cause; and - 
the^chain of causal connexion is confined to either side 
of the double series of events. Yet, since for our im 
perfect apprehension the complete tracing of the threads 

1 Above, pp. 125 ff.; and cf. E. in all its detail nor are all the 
v. i for the latter half of this ideae, which really constitute our 
statement. Of course, our body mind, our thoughts in the sense 
is not to our ordinary experience that we in our finite being con- 
distinctly and fully apprehended sciously think them; cf. p. 131. 



THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. of causal connexion is impossible ; since, moreover, some 
times one, sometimes the other, side of the events is 
more conspicuous to us, we inevitably fill in the links 
of explanation as is most convenient. We ought to 
remember that to intercalate corporeal links in a series 
of mental changes (or vice versa) is erroneous, and 
justifiable only so far as each change under one Attribute 
postulates a corresponding change under the other 
Attribute. But even Spinoza himself is not always clear 
and consistent in emphasizing this 1 . As a rule, the 
bodily changes are most conspicuous, and mental changes 
are therefore most readily 6 explained as e effectsj_of 
a chain of bodily changes. E/eally, they are effects of 
a chain of mental changes which we cannot exhibit, but 
of which the bodily side is clear to us. We must bear 
Spinoza s general position in mind, and interpret occa 
sional obscurities and lapses simply as lapses : as survivals 
from his earlier mental history, partly caused, no doubt, by 
the influence of those popular notions of the relation of 
body and soul which in his explicit theory he has rejected. 

When an external body acts upon the human body N 
and alters its state, that alteration will be on its ideal V 
side an alteration of the mind ; i. e. our mind will have I 
formed an idea, which Spinoza would call a c percep- \ 
tion, except that he wishes to emphasize that it originates J 
in the mind and not in its ideatum 2 . If we abstract such 
an idea from its whole context and causal connexion, its 
ideatum will be a state of body correspondingly isolated 
(in a more or less arbitrary manner) from its context. 
Now every change of state in any body, which is caused 
by the action of another body, will depend for its 

1 Cf. e.g. E. i. App., where iudicasse, vel potius imagina- 

Spinoza corrects his own hasty tionis affectiones pro rebus ac- 

expression : Quae omnia satis cepisse. 

ostendunt, unumquemque pro 2 E. ii. def. 3, Expl.; cf. also 

dispositione cerebri de rebus e.g. E. ii. 48 S., 49 S., &c. 



IMAGINATIO 155 

character upon the nature both of the affected and of the CHAP. ir. 
affecting body l . Hence, a change of state in our body, 
which is caused by the action of an external body, will 
possess a character which is the joint product both of the 
nature of our own body and of the nature of the external 
body. The idea of such a change of state will con 
sequently reflect, more or less adequately, the nature of 
both bodies so far as that is involved in their inter 
action 2 . _. 

Changes in our body, produced by the impact of ex 
ternal bodies, Spinoza calls rerum imagines, although 
he expressly repudiates the notion that they are copies 
(reproduce the figures) of the external bodies. They are 
rerum imagines in so far as their ideal sides give us 
external bodies as present 3 . So far as these changes 
persist in our body after the actual contact with the 
external body is over, Spinoza calls them vestigia quae- 
dam corporis externi impellentis 4 . 

The ideas of these * imagines or vestigia, Spinoza calls 
imaginationes mentis/ and we are said imaginari so 
far as we form ideas which are the counterpart or cor 
relates of such bodily affections 5 . 

1 E. ii. Ax. i (after Lemma 4 Cf. E. ii. Post 5. 

3C.). 5 Imaginationes originally 

2 E. ii. 16. The proof rests seems to have- meant ideas as 
upon E. i. Ax. 4. The know- distinguished from impressions, 
ledge of an effect depends upon i.e. ideae of vestigia as dis- 
and involves the knowledge of its tinguished from ideae of the 
cause. actual present interaction of our 

3 E. ii. 17 S. Spinoza retains body and the external body. But 
the term partly as a concession the term includes both in Spinoza s 
to popular language : Porro, ut usage ; cf. e. g. E. ii. 40 S. 2. 
verba usitata retineamus, Cor- Spinoza is not always quite 
poris humani affectiones, quarum clear or quite consistent in his 
ideae corpora externa velut nobis terminology. In the following 
praesentia repraesentant, rerum passages, e. g., imagines seems 
imagines vocabimus, tametsi to stand for mentis imagina- 
rerum figuras non referunt. tiones : E. iii. 18 dem. ; iii. 35 



156 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK it It is, then, the general character of every imaginatio 
to be an idea which pictures an external body as actually 
existent, i. e. as present to us. So far, the world of 
lx * imagination may be called the world of presentation 
:*5* world which we picture as a complex of external 
things acting upon one another and upon us. One 
imaginatio persists until another drives it out of the 
mind ; i. e. we go on * picturing a thing as present until 
another picture occurs in our mind which excludes the 
first. And this persistence of the picture-idea need not 
cease, even though the external body which initiated 
our corporeal change is no longer acting upon us ; for 
that change was in part due to our own corporeal nature, 
and may survive in it (or be reproduced by inner 
conditions of our body), when its other part-cause is 
gone *. 

So far as the occurrence of the various imaginationes 

-t+t* Hu. happens in our mind so far as we do not regulate its 
order or (to put the matter inaccurately 2 ) so long as 
the mind perceives things according to the common 
order of nature, i. e. so long as it is determined from 
without (from the fortuitous concurrence of things) to 
contemplate this or that we are said to be passive in 
imagination. The imaginationes are indeed (as we 
shall see) only fragments of ideas : our mind does not 

>t;.*tf* form the ideas of which they are mutilated portions. 
They occur in our mind like conclusions apart from their 
premisses : the chain of ideal causes which forms their 
context is not present as a whole in our mind, but only 
in some dissociated links 3 . 

Spinoza s account of the survival of imaginationes and 

dem. and S. ; ii. 40 S. i sub v. i, and elsewhere. 

fin. ; v. 12. On the other hand, * E. ii. 17. 

imagines is clearly distinguished 2 E. ii. 29 S. ; cf. above, pp. 

from imaginationes in E. ii. 153, 154. 

17 S. ; ii. 40 S. i ; ii. 48 S., 49 S. ; 3 Cf. below, and E. ii. 28 dem. 









IMAGINATIO 157 

their recall by c memory (association) is involved with a CHAP. II. 
Cartesian theory which has long been rejected 1 . But 
Spinoza is careful to guard himself. Though his theory 
(he says) gives a possible explanation, he does not insist^ 
on it as the only possible one 2 . 

An external body * determines a fluid part of the 
human body, so that the latter impinges upon a soft 
part ; i. e. the Animal Spirits are set in motion by the 
action of an external body on our organs of sense, and in 
their motion they impinge upon the nerves and brain. 
If this takes place frequently, the surface of the brain is 
altered, and thus (as it were) certain f tracks of an im 
pellent external body are printed in it 3 . The alteration 
of the surface of the brain causes the Animal Spirits to 
be reflected from it at a correspondingly different angle 4 . 
If therefore the Animal Spirits impinge once more 
upon the brain, whilst its surface is still in this altered 
state even though their impact is not caused by an 
external body, but by their own spontaneous motion 
they will be reflected from that altered surface in the 
same way (at the same angle) as if they had been impelled 
against it by the external body. Hence we can imagine 
a body as present, even though it is not acting on us, 
provided that it has acted on us sufficiently often in the 
past to cause a more or less permanent alteration of 
surface in our brain : i. e. we can call up (or have called 

1 Cf. K. V. S. ii. 19, 9 ; Mar- aberrare . . . 

tineau, pp. 134 ff. Spinoza s criticism of Descartes 

2 E. ii. 17 S. c Videmus itaque conception of the * seat of the 
qui fieri potest ut ea, quae non soul (E. v. Praef.) no doubt 
sunt, veluti praesentia contem- rendered him cautious in his use 
plemur, ut saepe fit. Et fieri of the Cartesian theory of the 
potest, ut hoc aliis de causis * Animal Spirits. 5 

contingat ; sed mihi hie sufficit 3 And we have a * dispositio 

ostendisse unam, per quam rem cerebri ; cf. E. i. App. (VV1L. 

sic possim explicare, ac si ipsam i. p. 74). 

per veram causam ostendissem ; 4 E. ii. 17 C. dem. ; cf. ii. Ax. 2 

nee tamen credo me a vera longe (after Lemma 3 C.). 



158 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. up in us) a mental picture of an external object without 
its actual presence. Some kinds of subjective illusion, 
and some kinds of Redintegration, are thus explicable 
consistently with Spinoza s general theory of imagina- 

tive experience. 

The con- To the class of imaginationes there belong all sense- 
imagina- perceptions every kind of direct consciousness of 
tive ex- external bodies and of our own body and every aware 
ness of our self as actually existent. Of external bodies 
and of our own body or again of our own self ( mind ) 
as now thinking and feeling we can have no direct 
or immediate knowledge, except that which is (or is 
based upon) the idea of an affection of our body l . No 
doubt the idea, which gives us an external body as 
actually existent, involves an inference. It is primarily 
the idea of a state of our own body, and only secondarily 
an idea of an external body, viz. only in so far as the 
^/^idea of the cause is involved in that of the effect. But 
l^in the state of imagination this inference is never com 
plete -"Its" premisses are never clearly nor completely 
present to the imaginative consciousness, and for that 
very reason all imaginative knowledge is inadequate^. 
I have called this^EaowTe~3ge * direct or "* immediate, 
because the inference on which it rests is not recognized 
by the mind in the state of imagination, and is in any 
case very inadequately performed. In imagination we 
picture states of our body and interpret them as external 
bodies acting upon or modifying our own body. But we 
are not aware that we are making an interpretation, and 
we stop arbitrarily and erroneously in our regress from, 
effect to cause wherever it pleases us. Thus we suppose 
ourselves to see an external body A acting upon our 
own body. This sight is an inference, which (if per 
impossibile it were completed) would lead us through the 
whole infinite chain of external bodies (B, C, D, . . . . oo) 

1 E. ii. 19, 23, and 26. 2 Cf. E. ii. 28 dem. 



IMAGINATIO 159 

whose changes of motion are implied in that change of CHAP. n. 
motion which constitutes our bodily modification, and is 
the conclusion from which we are inferring some of 
the premisses. But we are content to regard A as the 
source of the change in our body, as the premiss of the 
presented conclusion, and we suppose ourselves to see 
A, and not merely to infer it as a condition of our 
changed state. 

The content of the imaginative consciousness grows by 
accretion and association into an experience which, in 
its internal order and in its colouring, is peculiar and 
personal to each mind. Such an experience Spinoza 
calls Cognitio primi generis, Opinio, or Imaginatio. The 
matter of its content (as we have seen) is given to it as 
ideas of the affections of the body ; i. e. may be said to 
depend upon the position of the percipient s body in the 
communis ordo naturae, upon its power of being affected, 
its opportunities and its modes of receptivity. Relatively 
to the mind itself, the matter of such an experience is 
due to chance. And Spinoza goes further. For, relatively 
to the nature of the mind which consists in the power 
of thinking, i. e. connecting its ideas in an intelligible ( nj 
order the same for all minds J the form, in which the 
matter of imaginative experience is arranged, is due to 
chance. There is an accretion of the imaginationes of 
the single imagines into abstract universals (class-ideas), 
and into the still more abstract transcendental terms * 
(ens, res, aliquid), in which, if the mind is not exactly 
passive as Spinoza s words suggest it at any rate does 
not control the growth by any principles of synthesis 
which could properly be called its own. Such universals, 

1 Of. E. ii. 18 S. Dico secundo, tinguerem a concatenatione idea- 

hanc concatenationem (i. e. * me- rum, quae fit secundum ordinem 

moriam ) fieri secundum ordinem intellectus, quo res per primas 

et concatenationem affectionum suas causas Mens percipit, et qui 

Corporis humani, ut ipsam dis- in omnibus hominibus idem est. 



160 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. moreover, vary in each mind with respect to the slight 
meaning which they possess for it, and the peculiar 
colouring of this meaning depends on conjunctions which 
(relatively to the mind) are due to chance. 

Imaginative experience is natural to man, in the 
sense that he is (and must remain), as an actually- 
existent mode, a pars naturae, subject to the communis 
ordo naturae 1 , and that his mind is the idea of an 
actually- existent mode of Extension. But in so far as 
it owes its being (both its matter and its form), to 
anything rather than the mind of man alone, it is far 
from expressing man s nature, or being natural to 
him. It is the product of man s mind under circum 
stances which annihilate its individuality. It is the 
resultant of the whole environment in which man 
necessarily exists, but which decidedly is not his 
self/ 

Let us see how the universals of imaginative experi 
ence are formed 2 , 
(i) termini The human body a finite mode with a limited 
dewfoXT capacity can form in itself only a limited number of 
(e. g. ens, distinct imagines at the same time. If this limit is 
exceeded, the images (bodily modifications) will run 
together and become blurred. Now, at any one time 
there will be present in the body an enormous number 
of such imagines both those which are at that moment 
being produced, and those which have survived as 
vestigia of the agency of external bodies in the past. 
The imaginationes, which are the ideae of these 
imagines, will run together be confounded and 
blurred in the mind, just as their ideata/ the imagines/ 
coalesce in the body. The mind, therefore, will picture 

1 Cf. E. iv 4 and C. the counterpart of the psychical 

2 Cf. E. ii. 40 S. i. Spinoza s formation of abstract universal 
account is expressed in terms ideas. 

of the physical process which is 



IMAGINATIO 161 

e.g. all bodies confusedly, without distinct perception CHAP. II. 
of any, under a single vague concept e.g. ens, res. 
Such concepts are ideas in the highest degree confused, 
abstract, and empty of meaning. And they may be 
said to form themselves in the mind, inasmuch as the 
mind does not attempt to synthesize the differences, 
or to keep the single imaginationes distinct in their 
unity. There is no mental grasp of the particulars as 
differencfia_o a universal. The mind is simply over 
powered by the multiplicity of impressions and memory- 
images, lets the distinct features fall, and takes refuge in 
an abstract notion, which succeeds in covering the whole 
field only by leaving most of its significant elements out 
of account. 

The same is true in a less degree of notiones universales 



(e.g. homo, equus, canis), the abstract class-ideas of formal w 
^ Logic, If the number of distinct imagines is not suffi 
cient entirely to overwhelm the body s capacity for 
receiving clearly- stamped impressions, but is sufficient 
to obliterate the smaller characteristic differences, there 
will be a corresponding loss of distinctness in the mind s 
formation of imaginationes. Thus, e.g., the innumerable 
distinct imaginationes of different individual men will 
coalesce in a single imaginative universal man. The 
central part, as it were, of this universal picture the 
portion in which the single picture-ideas agree will be 
clearly stamped, and so far the notion of man will have 
distinct significance. But the periphery will be blurred ; 
for the points of difference in the single ideas will cancel 
one another. Hence man will be an abstract notion, 
and in it much of the characteristic significance of single 
perceptions of individual men will have vanished. 

Thus the uni^firsals, under which the matter of jma- 
i grouped, are the products of 



a blfvnrHng whio.h ia dnp> fn f.hft limited na.pa.p.ity nf rmr 
mind and body. They are confused, abstract, and_less 

SPINOZA M 



162 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. fljgriifinft""t- thnn th^ particular ideas which coalesce to 
orm_them. And the mode of the blending must be 
regarded (not as a mode of the mind s activity, but) as 
due to the feebleness of our mental grasp. The mind 
does not stamp its own form its intelligible connexions 
or principles of synthesis upon the materials of its 
experience : it simply admits them as parts of its single 
consciousness in the manner which calls for least exertion 
of its own. The formation of such universals can hardly 
be called a logical process at all. Spinoza treats it as 
a mechanical coalescence in the mind, not as a synthesis 
by the mind. 

The significant nucleus of each universal varies with 
each subject, and Spinoza explains to what this personal 
colouring is due. The peculiar colouring which ideal 
conjunctions assume in any given person s mind, depends 
upon the mode in which, in his past experience, ideal 
elements have been associated in his mental states. In 
E. ii. 18, Spinoza shows that (according to his general 
theory) If our body has ever been affected by two or 
more external bodies simultaneously, we cannot in future 
"imagine" one without the other ; i.e. any element of 
a single perceptive state, if reproduced, will reinstate 
the remaining elements l . In the Scholium attached to 
this proposition Spinoza explains that memoria -(asso 
ciation) is a redintegration of this kind. Memoria is, 
he says, simply a certain concatenation of ideas, which 
involve the nature of things external to the human body 
a concatenation which takes place in accordance with 
the order and concatenation of the affections of the human 
body. Involve, i. e. they do not adequately express 
the ideas of the external things, but contain them con 
fusedly within the ideas of our own corporeal affections 2 . 

1 Cf. Bradley, Principles of non autem . . . explicant, &c. 
Logic, p. 278. The italics in the above quotation 

2 E. ii. 18 S. . . . involvunt ; are my own. 



IMAGINATIO 163 

And the concatenation is not the product of a rational CHAP. IL 
function, but due to the conjunction of bodily images and 
their ideas in the past. Hence this associative repro 
duction will vary in every man according to his cir 
cumstances his profession, his past environment, &c. ; 
and on this variation the differences in the personal 
colouring of the abstract universals will depend 1 . The 
emphasis of the significance of every single idea will lie 
with each person where such associations place it, and 
thus the emphasis of the significance of the communis 
imago the nucleus of the abstract universal will vary 
with every man * pro dispositione sui corporis, prout 
rerum imagines consuevit hoc vel alio modo iungere et 
concatenare 2 , pro dispositione cerebri 3 , &c. 

Tlift TmrnylprggA nf ftvp.ry-rlfl.y lifo is -for the pinsf. pfl/rt 

nothing but imaginative experience. The rules whick 



we apply to guide our actions, the universal judgem^ntR ,,.H, 
under which we bring every nftw pp.rr.pption, rnirl whioh 
form the tissue of our ordinary thinking, are derived 
from the two sources of the cognitio primi generis, 

- ----- * 

i. e. from signa or from experientia vaga. We have 
either fa.T?An tViftm on tyBpfa nn fe earsa yi_ f r Qffi_ bgftks QT 
tradition; or we have formed them by- an uncritical 
induction based, on .incomplete ejiiiin^.rajion^ If, e.g., 
I am given three numbers, and wish to find a fourth 
which shall be to the third as the second is to the first, 
I shall either apply the rule of three without question 
a rule I have learnt and remembered, but do not under 
stand or perhaps I shall first test the rule in a few 
instances, and, finding that it works in these, shall then 
trust it in all others. If my house is on fire, and I pour 
water on the flames, this is the application of a universal 
judgement (that water extinguishes fire) which I may 
have heard from others or made for myself by an 

1 Cf. E. ii. 40 S. i. 2 E. ii. 18 S. 

8 E. i. App. 

M 2 



164 



THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



BOOK II. uncritical induction based on my personal observation. 
"gitf. in np.if.W p.asfft at least^ in the ordinary course of 
t-h* a "y rftaj knowledge, any rational- intelli 



gence, guiding my conduct \ 

1 Cf. K. V. S. ii. i, 3; Tdle, 
VV1L. i. pp. 7, 8 ; E. ii. 40 S. 2. 

From a comparison of these 
passages (which do not altogether 
agree) it is clear that experientia 
vaga corresponds to Bacon s ex 
perientia vaga, 1 and is the know 
ledge which rests upon the in 
ductions of an uncritical mind. 
In the Tdle (Lc.), Spinoza de 
fines it as experientia, quae 
non determinatur ab intellectu, 
sed tantum ita dicitur, quia casu 
sic occurrit, et nullum aliud 
habemus experimentum, quod 
hoc oppugnat, et ideo tanquam 
inconcussum apud nos manet. 
And his instances make his mean 
ing clear; e.g. I know that I shall 
die by experientia vaga, i. e. 
1 because I have seen other people 
like myself die, although they 
have none of them lived for the 
same length of time, nor died of 
the same disease. Such universal 
judgements rest upon an observa 
tion which makes no attempt to 
discover the cause of the con 
nexions asserted, or to purify 
the connexion from irrelevant 
detail. 

* Ex auditu aut ex aliquo signo 
is illustrated thus : I know " ex 
auditu" my birthday, who my 
parents were, and the like. But 
under this head, Spinoza includes 
allknowledge derived from written 
and spoken words, so long as it 
rests upon the authority of the 



speaker or writer; i.e. he in 
cludes not merely knowledge 
of particular facts, but know 
ledge of rules and of general 
principles, so long as these are 
taken on trust (cf. K. V. S., I.e.). 

In the Ethics (I.e.), Spinoza 
treats cognitio ex signis as a 
case of memoria (association). 
A word, like an imago, is in 
itself a purely corporeal thing 
a modification of extension. Its 
essentia is constituted solely by 
corporeal movements, and it must 
not be confused with the idea 
which it excites, or with the thing 
which it signifies (E. ii. 49 S.). 
As, however, the corporeal change 
set up by a word was accompanied 
in our body by another bodily 
modification caused by an external 
body, the idea of the word and 
the idea of the external body 
formed elements in a single 
mental state. If therefore one 
is reproduced, the other will be 
reinstated with it. Thus, e. g., 
the word pomum is in itself 
simply a corporeal mode its 
essentia is constituted by certain 
corporeal motions and its effects 
are similarly corporeal, changes 
of motion in the body of the 
person who hears it. But a 
Roman, on hearing the word 
pomuin, at once forms an idea 
which reinstates the imaginatio 
of the fruit ; although the idea 
of the word is not like the idea 



IMAGINATIO 165 

fimdfl.Tnp.nf.fl1 P.Viq,ra,r,tP.ritV of t-"hft ima-gina.- CHAP. II. 

tive consciousTipss jfi^its want of independejiCQ*^ Its. 

*Ulfl th ft ^dp.g nf mf-ftrnrmnftTrin-n in if.a r.rvntp.-nf. 
are peculiar and personal to each mind. But this pecu 
liarity fc n t ^ ne mark of fl. sf.rnng individiifllif.y. Qn 
the contrary, it shows weakness of mind, absence of 
originative TiVn -nVi-ny. Tfrfl grdn mf.ftTlftnf.Ti is one 



ML- ^ 



the same in all men ; but the arrangement of the con 
tents of imaginative experience varies with the environ 
ment of the individual, and this, so far as he is 
concerned, is a matter of chance, 

So far q, f-hft idp.a.a of imagi nation gn ? f.rift-y a.rp. f,rnp u The value 

I we take thexa-^as_. wliat Jihfi^..i^3J^aj^^f_jRe_-jla 
not attempt to find.morft.-in their, revelations than, they 
really contain, we are not deceived. To,,, be-., able to ** 
picture absent things as vividly as if they were present, 
provided we are aware that they are not present pro- 
vicled we do not wrongly objectify our pictures ,tjaisjs 
a positive power of the mind, and so far reveals a fuller 
degree of. being or reality in it : or would do so, if this 
power of picturing could be attributed to the mind 
itself, and not merely to the agency of the total environ 
ment or system of which the mind is a part 1 . Hor__js__ 
there any illusion in our perceptions, provided we do_ 

of the fruit, nor has anything in the past affected our body simul- 

conimon with it, except that his taneously with the word : the idea 

body has often been affected by of the word, and the idea of the 

these two together (i.e. by the thing, formed parts of a single 

word and the fruit), i.e. that he mental state in our past experi- 

has often heard the word whilst ence. So far, therefore, as we 

perceiving the fruit (E. ii. i8S.). trust to tradition to written or 

Words, then, are signs of spoken words we are trusting 

things, in the sense that the idea to our past mental states, the in- 

of the bodily modification, pro- terconnexion of the elements of 

duced by the written or spoken which may have been arbitrary, 

word, tends to reinstate the idea and (so far as our own efforts go) 

of the bodily modification pro- was arbitrary, 
duced by the thing which in l E. ii. 17 S. 



166 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. not_misinterpret .them. We perceive, e. g. ? the snn 3.3 if_ 
if. w^rp. about snn fop.t from the earth. Thfire-isjiQ_firror. 
in_-this picturing as~ sucli. ______ Terror Gmrip,a in 3 "wh. ft n.__jw ft 

fr position and appearance^ 



which, belongs to . it only in its relation to our organs 
ofjzisipru The imaginative perception of the sun is the. 
adequate idea of its ideatum, viz. of the bodily affection 
which the action of the sun s rays produces in us. This 
affection involves the nature of the sun (not per se, 
but only) so far as that communicates with our ...body. 
If we know and remember this if we understand of 
what ideatum our imagination is the idea we are not 
deceived. And the imaginative idea itself is true and 
not contrary to any true idea..- It does not vanish before 
the knowledge of the real distance of the sun. Even an 
astronomer will see the sun as 200 feet distant, but 
the perception will not mislead him, nor (if he knows its 
nature and cause) will he regard the perception as an 
illusion to be rejected. It belongs to its own sphere of 
truth ; and, so long as it is not referred where it has no 
place, it has its own value and in no way conflicts with 
other true ideas l . 

In their own context and order, then, all the imagina 
tive ideas are true and valuable.. And, though in us 
they appear in an arbitrary and contingent series, in 
God or in the nature of things they follow eternal and 
necessary laws of production and sequence. There is no 
chance, no arbitrariness, no error and no falsehood 
except from the point of view of finite minds with their 
partial reality and mutilated knowledge 2 . 

But since we are finite since our minds are fragments 
of God s Thought, our bodies fragments of God s Exten 
sion contingency and error find their inevitable home 
in our lives and in our knowledge. In the stage of 
imaginative experience (so far as that is taken to include 
1 Cf. E. ii. 35 S. ; iv. i S. 2 E. ii. 32, 33, and 36. 



ERROR 167 

the whole mental being of any man), the mind is not CHAP. II. 
conscious of its own limits, nor of the sources and true 
reference of its ideas. An imaginative idea in us is the 
presentation of a bodily modification which involves 
the nature of our own and of an external body, but 
involves their natures only so far as they interact. The 
full nature of our own and of the external body is con- iJH^ 
tained in the whole complex of bodies, of which the *<*% #* H 
* facies totius universi is the complete modal expression. L*J 
The momentary interaction of two fragments of this 
totality (two fragments which have no independent sub- 
sistence) is an infinitesimal revelation of the natures 
from which it springs. Yet so far as we imagine or 
* perceive it is from the ideas of such momentary ^T~ 
changes in our bodily state that we derive all our know- ^ ^ 
ledge of our bodies, our minds, and external bodies. We ^ 
construct, without criticism or hesitation, our view of 
ourselves and of the external world on these miserably 
inadequate data. The whole imaginative experience is 
built at haphazard upon ideas of affections of our body 
1 ideas and affections which * occur according to the 
order and laws of the universe as a whole, and not 
according to laws regulating our mind and our body 
alone. We suppose ourselves to be framing our views, 
but these are framed in and for us by influences and 
upon data of which we can have at the best a fractional 
and confused apprehension. Hence imaginative experi 
ence gives us a very partial knowledge of ourselves, our 
bodies, and external bodies, and this partial knowledge 
turns to error so far as we are unaware and heedless of 
its fragmentariness l . 

Further,, the ina.dnf|ria.f*y of t.hia Imowlodga prevents 

US JTOm Understanding fhft ^fo^al Tiflnflgaify (vpfhfl nrrlftr 

ifl things. The temporal existence of our own and of 

external bodies is the appearance of a timeless actuality, 

1 Cf. E. ii. 29 C. 



168 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. but the * how and why of this appearance would be 
manifest only to a complete apprehension. For our 
partial view, the appearance is taken for the reality. 
Things come to be and last and pass away without any 
inevitable necessity, and this we take as the truth of 
the matter. Why they should come to be here and 
now ; how long they will last, or why they should last 
so long ; or, again, when and why they will pass away 
all this for us is purely arbitrary. Hence we look at the 
things of our experience as in truth and in reality 
1 contingent and corruptible : we have only a quite 
inadequate knowledge of the duration of our own and 
of external bodies. Such knowledge as we possess in 
the stage of imagination depends upon inferences illo- 
gically drawn from conjunctions in our past experience 
imperfectly understood and erroneously interpreted *. 

The conceptions under which we group our imagina 
tive ideas are themselves mere generalized abstractions 
from those ideas, and are less presentative of the Real 
than they. Thus we measure and count and arrange in 
Time ; but Time, Number, and Measure are but * ways 
of imagining abstract conceptions, empty forms for 
holding together the single imaginative ideas. In them 
selves, these * modi imaginandi J have but a slight signi 
ficance, and they distort the Reality which they are used 
to represent 2 . And the case is worse with the termini 
transcendentales, and little better with the notiones uni- 
versales 3 . 

In the Appendix to E. i, Spinoza treats all aesthetic 
and moral conceptions, and all perceptions of secondary 
qualities, as so many modi imaginandi erroneous, 
therefore, so far as they are referred to Reality as expres- 

1 Cf. E. ii. 30, 31, and C. ; ii. and on Time, cf. also E. ii. 44 S. 
44 C. i and S. (on the S., cf. (with Camerer s note, 1. c.). 
Camerer, pp. 85, 86). 3 Cf. above, pp. i6off. 

2 Cf. above, pp. 30 ff., 78 ff., 



ERROR 169 

sing the nature of things. Most of them rest upon CHAP. II. 
the fundamental idea expressed or implied that all 
things are made and arranged for the benefit of man ; 
the moral conceptions involve besides the erroneous 
notion that man is a free agent. 

thft r^TT^W-n "f an 



teleology fln/j of ti 1 *" 1 freedom 1 are both ima.gi -na 
tive, and both attributed to Reality (as adequately 
representing the truth of things) becanae of the de- 
ficiencies of our knowledge. 

"We are aware of our desires that we act in order to 
secure what we want but we have no knowledge of the 
efficient causes of our desire. We suppose ourselves to 
be moved to action by final causes, and we acquiesce in 
a teleological explanation of human action. As we are 
unaware of the ways in which God acts, we attribute 
human modes of action to him ; and we suppose him to 
be determined by final causes, since under a teleological 
form of explanation human actions appear to us intel 
ligible. 

External bodies, affecting our body by working on our 
sensory nerves, give us sensations of heat, cold, sound, 
light, and taste. But of the mechanism which produces 
these effects we are ignorant ; and in our ignorance we 
attribute these qualities of sensation directly to the 
external bodies, which are at most their part-causes. 
And what conduces to our health, or gives us pleasure, 
we unhesitatingly affirm to be really and in itself 
beautiful or good, since (we are persuaded) man is 
the centre and aim of the universe. 

Hence we make for ourselves each his own personal 
world, built around our own convenience, our likes and 
dislikes, our arbitrary fancies. And through ignorance 
of the limitations of our imaginative apprehension, we 

1 On the conception of freedom, cf. below, ch. 3, 3, and 
Appendix to Bk. II, pp. 228 ff. 



1 7 o 



THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



BOOK II. turn this private world into the Reality. But we thus 
become the victims of illusion 1 . For the Nature of 
Things is neither good nor bad, neither well-arranged 
nor disordered. It has no beauty and no ugliness ; it 
does not strive to realize our ends, nor fight against 
them. Sweet tastes and sounds, virtuous conduct and 
good intentions, no more belong to Things as they really 
are, than the iniquities of the criminal or the horrors 
of putrefaction. 

2. Cognitio secundi generis, Ratio. 

^rigin. The mind is the idea of an actually existent mode of 
j^ffif^" Extension. All our experience must ultimately come in 
scientific and from that apprehension of the body, which this 
le^gei" union of mind and body renders necessary. As a thing 
"""* in the complex of things, each body is affected in various 
ways, and in the ideas of these changes of bodily state, 
in this * feeling of the present states of our body, we have 
the basis or first materials of experience. Out of them 
we make a whole experience, or form our world ; out of 
them our world grows together. One way of such an 
accretion or construction we have just considered. 
Imaginative experience makes its world out of these im 
pressions and ideas of our bodily states; it extends, 
interprets, and connects them on the threads of personal 
reminiscence, in an order which reflects the groupings 
and conjunctions which have happened in the subject s 
past life ; on principles of synthesis (if we can call them 
{ principles ) which are foreign to the nature of the mind 
itself as an intelligence. If we treat such an experience 
as knowledge of the Reality, we are interpreting the 
universe from the centre of our personal prejudices, our 
likes and dislikes, our partial and arbitrary fancies. We 
have as yet no notion of a world the same for all an ex 
perience which is objective and universal. Our interests 
1 Cf. Tr. P. ch. 2, 8. 



SCIENCE 171 

are not in the nature of things, but in the eccentric one- CHAP. n. 
sided appearances which that nature presents to our 
partial view. Yet, in a sense, we are in direct contact 
with Reality. We perceive, and our perception is a fact 
and is real so far as it goes. But our interpretation or 
development of the given follows no universal principles 
of reason, and reaches no true and universal result. If 
we could fully understand our data, we should know the 
Reality. But, for imaginative apprehension for the 
mind whose only resource is to picture the data 
present an infinite series of causes and effects, each of 
which is unintelligible by itself, the totality of which 
cannot be grasped by a finite mind. "We cannot complete 
the series, and apart from its completion it is, in every 
part of itself, unintelligible. And yet, so long as we 
* imagine, we are confined to the series. 

Nor do the Auxilia Imaginationis bring us any help. 
Our hasty generalizations, our abstract groupings and 
uncritical reliance on our experience of past associations, 
do but fill in the gaps of our world with error. We 
make a whole of experience with these aids, but the 
whole is a jumble and a distortion. 

Is there any escape ? Can we get any firm basis from 
which to construct a permanent, universal, and true view 
of things ? And, granted the basis, can we develop a true 
experience from it are there any principles of construc 
tion which are not arbitrary and personal, but necessary 
and universal ? 

Spinoza answers these questions in the affirmative. If ^^ t ^ 

WB___COuld start with rmft or TTtorft fl.dftqna.tft iflflfl.Sj WA i ^*r<, ,4 

should be able to construct -a_true-system-o. knowledge ( 
by deduction from them in- tha.joxder, and on thaprior ^^^ 
ciples of reason. For the order of the. -intellect-- is tha. 
same in all men, and corresponds to the order of Eeality }. 

1 Cf. above, p. 8 (VV1L. i. 18 S. . . . [concatenatio idearum], 
p. 16, p. 30) ; E. ii. 29 S. ; ii. quae fit secundum ordinem in- 






I 7 2 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK if. T>> p. pri-np.ip1p.s of synthesis which scientific reasoning 
exhibits jg-re not thp> prnrhinta of r.ha.r>ne association, but 
flTft f.fofl nnfnlfjiny nf flip, nature of the rm Tif] itself : and 
that nature is one a""^ -^ ft a.mA in all TT>Q,P J q,^ \$ f.frp 
^ truth, tkfr-eooaterpart of the Reality 1 . But it e"$ possible 
amongst the data of perception, amongst the e ideae of 
the bodily affections,to find some which must be adequate, 
and which can therefore serve as the starting-points for 
the premisses of scientific inference. For x if we consider 
the cause of the inadequacy of our imaginative ideas, 
we shall see that with regard to some of those ideas 
inadequate conception is impossible. 

An idaa-of-a -kAfli ly TnnrlvfWkifvn wan inorlp.qna.f.ft >>P.p.fl.r|gft 

^ftei^KT/PWi^ f ^ ne ^ u ^ nature of that modification involved 
\ the full nature of our own and of external bodies 
\ ultimately it involved the full nature of the universe of 
bodies. Its adequate apprehension was comprised in the 
! "intelligence of Grod so far as he constituted the minds of 
,, ,r.ifan infinite number of finite things. In our mind a muti 
lated portion of that adequate idea had to do duty for 
the whole, and we had no logical justification to argue 
- -from this shred to the whole. For if our knowledge had 
been supplemented, if the partial idea in us had been 
restored to its context, in that supplementation and 
restoration the nature of the partial idea would for all 
we could tell have been indefinitely altered. 

But now suppose that there is some character or property 
which is present in all bodies, and present equally in the 
whole and in each, and in every part of each, of them. 
A perception of a fragment of such a property is equi 
valent to a perception of the whole. "Whether we per 
ceive it in our own body or in external bodies, in one or 
more, in a fragment or in a whole, it is impossible to 

tellectus, quo res per primas suas a Cf. above, pp. 149 ff. ; Tdle, 
causas Mens percipit, et qui in VV1L. i. pp. 23, 24, &c. ; E. ii. 40 
omnibus hominibus idem est. and dem. 



SCIENCE 173 

apprehend it except adequately l . If we perceive it at CHAP. II. 
all, we must perceive it in its true and complete nature. 
For since it is common to all bodies, we cannot err by 
attributing to the external body what is partly due to the 
nature of our own : in us and in the external body the 
property is the same. Nor can we err by extending to 
the totality of bodies what is given to us only in our 
interaction with one or a part of one. For our idea may 
be extended and supplemented, but its character will 
remain unaltered. The property in question is of one 
piece and texture throughout the corporeal universe. 
Apprehend any portion of it, and you have apprehended 
the essential nature of it all. And your knowledge of it 
will be universal, without being abstract. For it is 
knowledge of what is present everywhere in the same 
character, and yet it is knowledge of a concrete singular 
affirmative being, not of an ens rationis or * imagina- 
tionis constituted by arbitrary abstraction 2 . 

But We knowthg-tf ftti 1 * T>A snr>ln 



and must be perceived by us. For all things are modes 
of Substance. and fll tyiinda are modes of Thought. Ancjl 
all bodies are modes of Extension, and as such exhibit 
in all their parts and as jwholes certain identical and 

uniform properties 3 . 

It is on this identical basis of corporeal nature that the 
so-called axioms of mathematics and physical science 
rest. They are < notiones communes (KOLVO. aficojxara), 
which all men share, and as such they can form a common 
starting-point for an objective and universal knowledge 4 . 

1 E. ii. 38. noza extends it to cover anyjudge- 

2 Cf. Tdle, W1L. i. pp. 32 ff. ments expressing fundamental, 

3 Cf. E. ii. 38 C. with Lemma 2, universal, and self-evident truths 
to which Spinoza refers. truths e.g. concerning God, 

4 The term notiones com- Thought, and any Attribute or 
munes was primarily applied to eternal and infinite mode. Cf. 
the axioms of mathematics and E. ii. 46 dem. with ii. 38 and C., 
mathematical physics. But Spi- and ii. 47 S. 



174 



THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



w/< 



BOOK ii. Further, suppose that a property is confined to our body 
and a closed system of external bodies, with which our 
body interacts. If this property is present in all the 
members of the system (and in our own body), and 
present equally in the whole and in each body and in 
every part of each so far as we perceive it at all, we 
must perceive it adequately. For if we perceive it at all, 
we perceive its character completely, since its character 
is confined to the system of bodies in question, and is 
equally present in every .portion of that system. And 
when any member of the system affects our body in 
virtue of this common property, our idea of that bodily 
affection will be a perception of that property : for the 
two factors which combine to produce that affection are, 
qud interacting, one and the same in character, viz. the 
common property in us and in the external bodies 1 . 
From this there follows the important corollary that the 
more properties which our body has in common with 
other bodies, the more apt is our mind to form a greater 
number of adequate ideas 2 . 

The contents of scientific knowledge are therefore the 
communes notiones, which express the common proper 
ties of things so far as these are present in an equal degree 
in every portion of everything ; i. e. the axioms which 
lay down the fundamental truths as to the nature of God, 
Thought, Extension, Intelligence, Motion, &c. : further, 



1 E. ii. 39. The object of this 
proposition is clearly to establish 
the possibility of the adequate 
perception of propria. All that 
Spinoza says is: l lf our body is 
affected by external bodies in 
respect of a property common 
to it and them, peculiar to 
it and them, and equally pre 
sent (or of one texture) in the 
closed system, then our percep 
tion of that property must be 



adequate. Of course, if into the 
bodily affection the other (not 
common) properties of our body 
entered, then we should not get 
an adequate idea of the pro- 
prium. But, under the hypo 
thesis which Spinoza lays down, 
the adequate perception of pro 
pria is necessary on his prin 
ciples. 
2 E. ii. 39 C. 



SCIENCE 175 

the ideas which express those properties of any system CHAP. II. 
of bodies which are in like manner equally omnipresent 
within that system and peculiar to it and to our own 
body: and lastly the deductions from these axioms and 
notions of propria V 

The COntenJL n? sniP.-np.ft with its nrrlftrp.rl system. -Of Character 
g * 



a coherent system of adequate ideas, the same for alL tificknow - 
men so far as they reason and think clearly. There is, 
no error within the sphere of Eatio 2 . - For the * notiones 
communes are given to all men in their sense-perception, 
and their truth is guaranteed by their own clearness and 
distinctness of conception 3 . From these adequate ideas, 
science constructs its universe by deductive inference, the 
truth of which is guaranteed by the nature of the intel- 
lectus itself. For it is the essential nature of the in- 
tellectus to deduce truly : a true system of knowledge is 
the unfolding of the intellectus in its own spontaneous 
activity according to its own order, and the order of 
the intellectus is the same in all men and represents the 
order of Reality 4 . We have as good a guarantee of the 
truth of what rests on reasoning as of what rests on 

1 Cf. E. ii. 40 S. 2, and v. 12 ference after the pattern of 

dem. Res, quas clare et distincte mathematics or mathematical 

intelligimus, vel rerum communes physics. It must be remembered, 

proprietates sunt, vel quae ex iis however, that some elements in 

deducuntur (vide Rationis defin. the philosophical system of the 

in 2 Schol. Prop. 40, p. 2) . . . Ethics are the products of scien- 

The communes notiones are tia intuitiva : see below, and cf. 

called by Spinoza * fundamenta E. v. 36 S. 
rationis, * ratiocinii nostri funda- 2 E. ii. 41. 
menta (E. ii. 44 C. 2 dem. ; ii. s Cf. above, pp. 148 ff. ; E. ii. 

40 S. i). The Ethics itself is for 43 and S. 

the most part the product and * Cf. above, pp. 1496., p. 171. 

the example of Ratio ; and the For the phrase * ordo intellectus 

geometrical method is the method or ordo ad intellectum, cf. 

of science as Spinoza conceived e. g. E. ii. 18 S. ; ii. 40 S. 2 ; 

it, i.e. a deductive body of in- v. 10. 



176 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. reminiscence, for demonstrations are in fact the eyes of 
the mind, with which it sees and observes things V 

Science starts with * notiones communes ultimately 
with the axioms based on the adequate knowledge of 
God s complete and necessary nature which is involved 
in all men s every perception 2 and its inferences move 
within this sphere. But the characters which such 
notiones communes comprehend are equally present in 
all things which exhibit them, and therefore can be and 
be conceived apart from any particular one. Hence they 
* do not constitute the essence of any single thing V It 
follows, that science comprehends Reality under the 
form of necessary interconnexions of content, and not as 
a complex or a system of particular things. The object 
of imaginative experience the world of things, with its 
changes in time and place, its rich variety of individual 
colouring, its manifold life becomes for science a timeless 
system of necessary laws. It is of the nature of Reason 
to perceive things under a certain form of eternity, viz. 
as the necessary consequents of God s eternal nature 4 . 
For scientific experience Eeality exhibits that timeless 
necessary coherence, in which there are no coming-to-be 
or passing away, no contingency or possibility, no distinct 
or separable parts, no individual things. 

And we have here at once the characteristic advance 
of science on imaginative experience, and its limits. 
Scientific truth is universal and necessary ; and it is our 
very own the product of the mind s intimate nature, its 
own act of thinking. So far it is immeasurably superior 
to imaginative experience, for that is personal and 
arbitrary, and does not reveal our own power of thought. 
But scientific truth is also abstract : not, indeed, in 

1 E. v. 23 S. Mentis enim 2 E. ii. 45-7. 

oculi, quibus res videt observat- 3 E. ii. 37 ; cf. ii. 10 C. S. 

que, sunt ipsae demonstrationes. * E. ii. 44 C. 2 and dem. 
Cf. Tr. Th., VV1L. i. p. 533. 



SCIENCE 177 

the sense that it treats of unreal abstractions ; but in the CHAP. II. 
sense that differences of temporal and local existence do 
not exist for it. It has no concern with the individuali 
ties of which they are the appearance. It comprehends 
the eternal order and coherence of the permanent omni- 
present properties of the Real : but it cannot give us an ^ e JT 
understanding of the intimate individuality of any thing, 
nor of the exact unique mode of coherence of that thing 
in the "Whole 1 supposing, that is, that such an individu 
ality is, and is not a mere illusion. 

In a word: science begins the work of intelligible 
reconstruction of the world of perception, but it. cannot 
complete it. Its analysis has allowed the breath of life 
to escape from the world, and its reconstruction is 
powerless to restore it. 

The progress from imagination to c science is not the The mind 
shifting of ideas within an unchanging subject We do f^of 
not remain the same, and merely exchange one set of the body, 
ideas for another. The we of science is very different 
from the we of imaginative experience. Scientific 
knowledge is on a higher plane than imaginative 
apprehension, and the mind that knows has a greater 
degree of reality or being than the mind that merely 
* imagines. Our mind is still the idea of our body in its 
actual existence, and all our scientific knowledge is 
ultimately based on our knowledge of our body. But, 
whilst in imagination our body exists as we feel it, in 
the stage of scientific knowledge our body exists as we 
know it, or is actual with the actuality which belongs 
to the objects of knowledge. We are moving in the 
world of eternal truths or essences : the body, so far as 
its knowledge is the basis of our science, is a mode of 
Extension conceived in its dependence on its Attribute. 
It exists for us no longer as this unique portion of matter, 

1 E. ii. 44 C. 2 dem. Cf. and contrast scientia intuitiva, E. v. 

36 s. 

SPINOZA N 



178 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. occupying this space, occurring at this time, acting and 
being acted upon by the complex of bodies in the 
* communis ordo naturae. Our idea of it is not an 
imperfectly-unified complex or succession of feelings 
peculiar and personal, but an impersonal and universal 
knowledge. Its properties are those which it shares 
with all the modes of Extension or with a connected 
system of such modes : its existence (or its actuality) 
is its dependence on the eternal nature of things, its 
being involved in the necessity of God s nature l . And 
our mind (as the idea of this body) is a corresponding 
eternal mode of Thought, which apprehends as its 
1 ideatum the essence of the body sub specie eternitatis 2 . 
We construct our universe no longer round a self such 
as imaginative experience constitutes. The centre of 
our world is not the personality which has grown out 
of chance impressions and conjunctions, moulded by 
arbitrary reminiscence out of the products of fortuitous 
influences. The self, which is the centre of scientific 
experience, is a self which is constituted by the permanent 
and necessary properties common to all modes of Exten 
sion and of Thought. Body and mind we have become 
identified in our intellectual activities with the general 
interests of knowledge. Nothing is a constituent part of 
(or concerns) us, except so far as it exhibits the universal 
nature of some feature of the universe of science. Our 
being has become intelligible and necessary: but it has 
identified itself with the being of all intelligences. In 
attaining to permanent and genuine individuality, we 
have become absorbed : our body in the Attribute of 
Extension, our mind in the Attribute of Thought, * our 
self in the being of God. The essence of our body 
and mind, as forming this single thing, cannot be consti 
tuted by the common properties which are the Reality 

1 Of. E. ii. 45 S. ; v. 29 S. ; v. 31 dem. 

2 Cf. E. v. 40 S., and see below. 



SCIENCE 



179 



for science. It would seem, therefore, that scientific CHAP. n. 
knowledge inevitably destroys its basis: for in the 
Reality of science there is no room for an individual 
body or mind. As we attain to scientific knowledge, 
1 we (it would seem) must disappear : science can neither 
recognize nor justify the distinct being of the man of 
science. The * essentia of the body and of the mind of 
this man does not fall within the ken of scientific know 
ledge. It knows body and mind so far as they exhibit 
the features common to all modes of Extension and 
Thought, and not so far as they have a characteristic 
individuality. * Scientia intuitiva * and it alone can 
hope to complete the work of science, and to give us *; 
a concrete knowledge of the Reality in its living fullness, 
by restoring the individuality from which ratio of 
necessity abstracts. 

This conclusion, indeed, requires some modification. 
The statement l that the * fundamenta rationis nullius 
rei singularis essentiam explicant must be taken in its 
context. It means that for science differences of time do 
not exist, and that therefore single things, so far as their 
essential nature involves such differences, cannot be ex 
plained or justified by science. But the { conatus (which 
is the expression of the essentia of things) does not in 
volve any determinate time 2 . It would seem, therefore, 
that for science there may be (and is) the individuality 
of the aTOfjLov clbos. Thus, Humanity (although not 
1 Peter and Paul ) would be recognized and justified by 
the scientific understanding as an individuality with an 
essential nature distinct from (e. g.) the essential nature 
or individuality of * Plant. This is the essential nature 
which is the actuality of things in the Attributes of 
God 3 : and this is the individuality of the scientific 

1 E. ii. 44 C. 2 dem. For modifications, see below, Ap- 

2 Cf. e. g. E. iii. 8. pendix to Bk. II, and Bk. III. 

3 Cf. E. ii. 8 C. ; above, pp. 76 ff. ch. 4. 

N 2, 



180 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. thinker and rational agent. Science, therefore, in its 
least abstract form, would apprehend the essential nature 
of man s body and mind i. e. body and mind so far as 
they exhibit the properties common to all human bodies 
and minds : though this essential nature of the human 
body and mind would tend for science to merge itself in 
the conception of the properties common to all bodies 
and minds i. e. science would tend to conceive Humanity 
merely as exhibiting the properties common to all modes 
of Extension and Thought . 



3. Tertium cognitionis genus, Rt$t>ntia. 



No full We have described imaginative and scientific experience 
*scientia f as stages in the advance of man as an intelligence a 
intuitiva purely cognitive being. In reality, man is also an emo- 
given yet. tional and an active being, and no feature of his nature 
can be safely abstracted from the rest. The stages in his 
development are not purely and simply stages of increas 
ing intelligence, though they may be regarded from 
that point of view. The progress is far more complex. 
"We must hope to correct and supplement our account in 
the sequel. 

<^f But the abstraction, which has enabled us to treat 
* imagination and science independently of the prac- 
*V" tical attitudes which they respectively involve, is no 
longer possible in the case of * scientia intuitiva. 

Philosophy was to Spinoza the outcome of a long and 
painful struggle for satisfaction of his nature. The 

1 The Life of Reason, or the but, how far such a personality 

Life of the Free Man (which could be reconciled with the cha- 

is the practical side of the stage racteristics of scientific experience 

of experience here considered) as Spinoza describes them, is 

will occupy us presently. It cer- another matter. Of. below, Bk. 

tainly implies a strong person- III. ch. 3, i, for further deve- 

ality in the man who lives it : lopments. 



SCIENTIA INTUITIVA 181 

problem of philosophy was to him the problem of life l . CHAP. II. ^ 
And he found the solution of that problem in an ideal * 
which was at once an ideal of knowledge and of conduct, j? 
The good for man, he believed, is that complete realization 
of the nature of things which is the conscious oneness 
with Grod 2 . Permanent satisfaction for human nature 
involves that perfect knowledge which is at the same 
time perfect fullness of being. To lrT]ryyy th^ T?.p.fl.1if.y a.nrl 

to be One _wjjJLJ ll ^- P An - ll f y krrvnm^f]iflsp, fl.rft th 



sides of thp> on ft snprftmp. idfta.1. In the earlier stages of 
man s progress, these two moments of the ideal, since 
they are realized in imperfect forms, fall more or less 
widely apart : but in the consummation of man s nature 
they come completely together. The full description of 
scientia intuitiva will not be possible for us any more 
than it was possible for Spinoza until we have followed 
him in his conception of the emotional and practical 
nature of man. The ideal development of l"im an 
in which we have scientia intuitiva/ is at thp. 
that grade of Tinman Vp.jp.g in which we are absorbed in 
the amojjptft11ftnf.rifl.1jfi pp.i/ The perfect peace of mind 
which arises from this third kind of knowledge 3 implies 
the complete satisfaction of our emotional nature. Spin 
oza s conception of scientia intuitiva is unintelligible 
apart from his conception of the Freedom, Happiness, 
or Salvation 4 of man, i. e. man s attainment of the 
practical ideal. Philosophy in fact, in its highest form, 
is to Spinoza at the same time and essentially the noblest 
form of human life : the life of religion. 

At present, therefore, we must content ourselves with 
a meagre outline of the formal nature "of scientia intui 
tiva. Correction and supplementation will come later. 

In E. ii. 40 S. 2 Spinoza says Besides these two kinds Formal 
of knowledge, there is given a third as I shall show in f^^tia* 

Of. above, pp. iff. *E.v. 27 . intuitiva/ 

3 Cf. above, p. 4. * E. v. 36 S. 



182 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. the sequel which I shall call " scientia intuitiva." And 
t hijskilld of knowing prnp.p.flf|s from flip fl.rtc>q^g.te idea, Q 
the formal essence of some of (rod s Aft-Hl^tes to the 
adequate knowledge of the essence of .things 1 .* And in 
E. v. 36 S. he says C I thought it worth while to note 
this here, in order that I might show by this example 
how great is the power of the knowledge of single things, 
which I have called " intuitive knowledge," and how 
much more valuable it is than the universal knowledge, 
which I attributed to the second grade. Lastly, in E. ii. 
47 S. he says Hence we see that God s infinite essence 
and his eternity are known to all men. But since all 
things are in God and are conceived through God, it 
follows that from this knowledge we can deduce very 
many things so as adequately to know them, and thus 
form that third kind of knowledge 

From these passages we can lay down a few general 
propositions with regard to the third grade of experience, 
(i) Like the second grade, ^.involves deduction: but 
whereas the second grade is content with inferential or 
deductive knowledge as its end, this uses deduction solely 
as a means to its final intuition. 

(2) Like the second grade, intuitive knowledge rests 
upon the adequate idea of God or of some of his 
Attributes. But the second grade is content to develop 
this initial conception in a system of universal or hypo 
thetical laws. The third grade seeks to attain to an 
adequate vision of the concrete natures of the single 
things : i. e. essences, things as modes of natura natu- 
rata 2 . No universal knowledge of the fundamental 
properties of things satisfies it : it demands nothing less 
than the complete realization ( intuition ) of the intimate 
essential being of all things. It thus aims at restoring 

1 E. 1. c. Atque hoc cognoscendi attributorum ad adaequatam co- 
genus procedit ab adaequata idea gnitionem essentiae rerum. 1 
essentiae formalis quorundam Dei 2 Cf. Tdle, VV1L. i. pp. 32, 33. 



SCIENTIA INTUITIVA 183 

the living individuality of imaginative experience at a CHAP. II. 
higher level : a level where contingency is banished, and 
the certainty and necessity of scientific demonstration 
unite with the immediacy and concreteness of perception 1 . 

(3) The third grade presupposes the second, and (in a 
sense) rests upon it : yet (in a sense) the second grade 
starts from conceptions which are apprehended by scien- 
tia intuitiva. 

The latter point seems clear. The adequate ideas, the 
communes notiones, with which our scientific demon 
strations start, are apprehended immediately, by an act 
of intuition. They form the basis of scientia intuitiva 
as well as of ratio, and I do not see how we can attri 
bute their apprehension to anything but a knowledge 
of the third grade. 

But the former point is no less clear, and is emphasized 
by Spinoza 2 . It is the completion of inferential know 
ledge, which Spinoza calls intuitive science : not an 
intuition prior to, or independent of, reasoning. Hence, 
if the communes notiones are apprehended intuitively, 
their apprehension, it would seem, is not in the full sense 
scientia intuitiva. 

Yet the examples which Spinoza gives of intuitive 
science are not so clear 3 . 

We may find a fourth number where three are given 
which shall be related to the third as the second is to 
the first, by deduction from a universal rule ; e. g. from 
the common property of all proportionals which is de 
monstrated by Euclid (Book VII, prop. 19). But in the 
case of the simplest numbers e. g. i, 2, 3 every one 
sees at a single glance (uno intuitu) the proportion of the 
first to the second number, and so requires no deduction 
to find the fourth number, viz. 6. 

1 Cf. K. V. S. ii. 2, 2. s Cf. E. ii. 40 S. 2, and the 

2 E. v. 28 and dem. ; and ii. corresponding passages, K. V. S. 
47 S., quoted above. ii. ch. i, and Tdle, VV1L. i. p. 9. 



184 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. But here too there is an inference, and the intuition 
rests on it. For it is the fourth proportional, viz. 6, which 
scientia intuitiva is supposed to give us ; and this 
is inferred from the relation of i to 2 which ( we see 
at a single glance. The point of the illustration is 
brought out more clearly in the Tractatus de Intellectus 
Emendatione (1. c.) than in the Ethics. Spinoza wishes 
to distinguish a case where we perceive a thing by its 
own essential nature from a case where we infer a thing 
from something other than it. There is an inference in 
* scientia intuitiva : but the inference is immanent and 
absorbed in the final intuition. In ratio, the inference 
remains external to the conclusion, and the knowledge of 
the conclusion therefore remains discursive. Hence, in 
the illustration given in the Tractatus, stress should be 
laid on the words * nullam operationem facientes. The 
mathematicians do not require to move outside the 
terms, but their inference or discursive movement re 
mains within the whole given to them. The same 
applies to the other instances in the Tractatus, and (still 
more clearly) to the instance in E. v. 36 S. 

Spinoza remarks *, Ea tamen, quae hucusque tali 
cognitione potui intelligere, perpauca fuerunt : and the 
truth is that such knowledge is strictly only possible for 
a mind which apprehends the whole Eeality. For there 
are absolutely no closed systems in Eeality, and the 
popular instances of scientia intuitiva which Spinoza 
gives (e. g. the instance of the numbers) are misleading. 
Fully to c see the interrelations of the numbers by an 
immanent inference which is absorbed in the intuition, 
would be possible only for a mind which apprehended 
uno intuitu the whole numerical system (and ulti 
mately the whole Eeality or God) in all its articulation. 
The immanence of the inference, the ( completeness of 
the intuition within the conception of the numbers 

1 Tdle, 1. c. 



SCIENTIA INTUITIVA 185 

themselves this, strictly speaking, is apparent only. CHAP. n. 
Similarly, the intuitive knowledge of the human mind 
in its essence and in its individual dependence on God 
(which Spinoza claims in E. v. 36 S.), if it is to answer 
to the ideal of intuitive science, presupposes a complete 
apprehension of the total nature of the universe, and 
a complete scientific demonstration of the coherence and 
inner articulation of all its properties. 



CHAPTER III 

THE EMOTIONAL NATURE OF MAN 

BOOK II. IT is not always possible to find satisfactory English 
The trans- equivalents for Spinoza s terms. The difficulty makes 
the term itself felt especially with regard to his psychology : for 



aff ectus. ^Q k roa( j division into Will, Feeling, and Cognition is 
subsequent to Spinoza \ Thus, we have seen already 
that the terms voluntas/ volitio in Spinoza do not 
correspond to our will, volition 2 . And the term affectus 
defies translation. Feeling will not do ; for under 
* affectus Spinoza includes cupiditas, which compre 
hends desire as at any rate one of its main meanings. 
Nor can we render affectus as passion ; for Spinoza 
recognizes some affectus as actions V Nor, lastly, 
will the term affection help us : for setting aside the 
ambiguity of the word we need it to translate Spinoza s 
affectio. I have selected emotion as on the whole 
the least misleading term, if it is understood as roughly 
equivalent to the German Stimmung the change of 
consciousness to a different pitch or intensity, or the 
being of consciousness at a determinate pitch. No doubt 
it sounds strange to talk of active and passive emo 
tions, or of emotions of desire (* cupiditatis affectus ) : 
still, if we take the word in its widest meaning, we shall 

1 It seems to date from Tetens 2 Above, p. 132. 
and Mendelssohn : see Stout, Ana- 3 Cf. E. iii. def. 3 Expl., and 
lytic Psychology, i. p. 38. below. 



METHOD OF TREATMENT 187 

not go very far wrong. Spinoza himself uses the kindred CHAP. III. 
word * commotio as equivalent to affectus 1 . 

1. In approaching the subject of human conduct it Method of 
is necessary once more to consider what shall be our 
method of treatment 2 . Already we have been forced 
into conflict with certain popular prejudices. Standards 
of value resting on an arbitrary teleology, anthropo 
morphic conceptions of God and of Nature these we 
have rejected as fatal to an adequate theory of the 
nature of things. Against all such prejudices Spinoza 
has set his face. Reality in its general nature is abso 
lutely self-determining and self-determined. Human 
standards of value, human conceptions of action and 
motives of action, are not ideas which are valid of 
Reality. The nature of things is through and through 
intelligible there is neither caprice nor blind fate in 
the universe. But it is through and through necessary 
God is not influenced by human notions of good and 
bad, right and wrong: he does not act sub ratione 
boni ; his action is the inevitable expression of his own 
eternal nature. That eternal nature is a living activity, 
which in its freedom or self-dependence reveals an 
immanent order or system of laws; an order which is 
geometrical or * logical not teleological in its 
coherence 3 . 

But human emotions and conduct have claimed ex 
ceptional treatment. In them morality has its life : to 
them moral judgements apply: they are the sphere of 
moral valuation. Hence writers have treated the emo 
tional nature and the conduct of man as a subject for 

1 Cf. e. g. E. v. 2 animi com- Praef. ; iv. 57 S. ; Tr. P. ch. i, 
motionem seu affectum ... * iii. i and 4 ; Ep. 30, &c. 

Aff. deff., 27 Expl. < tristitiae ... 3 Cf. above, pp. 58 if., and be- 
laetitiae commotiones. 1 low, Appendix to Bk. II. 

2 Cf. above, pp. 12, 13; E. iii. 



i88 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. praise and blame, for pity or satire, for exhortation and 
command : but not as the subject-matter of a science, not 
as facts to be explained. They have given us no objec 
tive theory of the passions, no scientific treatment of 
this side of human nature. They have written as though 
man formed a unique and isolated kingdom within the 
kingdom of the universe: as though his conduct were 
ruled by laws of its own, and were independent of the 
general laws of things. 

Their praise and blame, their moral judgements, have 
been based on ideals of conduct which they have neither 
examined nor justified. The * goodness or badness of 
a passion from their point of view tells us nothing of 
the nature of the passion itself. Yet the * passion is 
an event in nature. As a modification of a mode of 
Substance, it is in some sense a part of the Reality 
and must have its necessary coherence in the order of 
things. Its being what it in reality is can be under 
stood only in so far as we can trace its necessary 
dependence as a consequent of the eternal causality of 
God. If we subsequently set up a standard of moral 
estimation, and consider the value of the passion as an 
element in our ideal human life that is legitimate 
enough, provided we remember what we are doing. But 
we can expect no profit from such a valuation, until we 
understand what we are going to value. 

Accordingly, Spinoza proposes to ..treat the emotions 
(passions, desires, motives of action, &c.) as a subject- 
ma^tter of scientific investigation : to explain them by 
the same method which has served in his hands to 
explain the general nature of Reality and the human 
mind. The sphere of human conduct is a part of the 
general nature of things: it is governed by the same 
laws, intelligible under the same categories. The facts of 
man s emotional nature and the facts of human conduct 
must be investigated in the light of the general laws which 






METHOD OF TREATMENT 189 

have already been demonstrated. "We must trace the CHAP. ill. 
emotions and actions of man as inevitable consequents 
of the nature of man conceived as itself the inevitable 
consequent of the nature of God. 

Against any moralistic treatment of the emotions 
Spinoza s criticisms are obviously valid. It is no part 
of a scientific or philosophic treatment to thrust an 
uncritical standard of value upon the facts of conduct, 
and, in place of a theory of human life and nature, 
to write a satire or preach a sermon. But it seems as 
if Spinoza wishes to exclude not merely this or that 
ideal, but all ideals whatever, as subjective and arbi 
trary. To understand the emotions, he urges, we must 
consider them as they really are : and really they 
are effects whick, follow from the nature of God with 
a necessity which is * geometrical and in no sense 
teleological. Emotions and the facts of conduct must 
(like everything else) be conceived under the category 
of ground and consequent: all conceptions of purpose 
or final causes are alike arbitrary, subjective, ficti 
tious. If we frame ideals and apply them to regulate 
our lives, that is for our own convenience only. The 
ideals are in no sense constitutive of the material to 
which they are applied. It must be investigated without 
their help. 

If this were Spinoza s meaning, there could hardly be 
two opinions as to its erroneousness. The value of an 
emotion is not something which is merely added to it 
from the .outside. Its value is an essential constituent 
of its being. A * geometrical explanation of the emotions 
would explain (not them, but) a mutilated and abstract 
portion of them. Their esse is their place in human 
life, their contribution to human development, their 
1 value as constituents of the moral ideal. To conceive 
things under the category of geometrical necessity alone, 
is to conceive them abstractly, partially and therefore 



igo THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. untruly : to conceive man in Ms conduct in this way is to 
make the abstraction glaring. 

But here, as elsewhere, Spinoza in part himself breaks 
through the abstract rigidity of his logical forms and 
methods, and in part has been misunderstood. 

He does not wish to protest against all ideals or 
standards of value, but against all specifically human 
standards and ideals ; i. e. against a method of explanation 
which would separate man from the rest of the universe. 
The ideal, which he himself applies in his moral theory, 
is rooted in his conception of the general nature of 
things. It is justified for his theory as the legitimate 
consequence of his metaphysics. His treatment of con 
duct rests upon his conception of the ideal human nature : 
an ideal, which is the logical outcome of his view of the 
place of man in the nature of things. The * goodness * of 
an emotion or a line of action is its contribution to the 
ideal for man : but that means for Spinoza its reality or 
perfection, the degree of being which it expresses. He 
has, indeed, protested against the extension of human 
conceptions of convenience or goodness to the explana 
tion of Reality. The universe is not made for man, nor 
is it intelligible in the light of human purposes. But the 
sphere of human life and conduct shares in the reality 
or perfection of the universe. Hence Spinoza does not 
hesitate (is, indeed, logically bound) to apply his con 
ception of degrees of reality to it as to all other spheres. 
And since for him the reality of man is the reality of his 
mind and body i. e. his power to think, and know, and 
do he is able to give a concrete significance to his ideal 
standard for human conduct, without introducing into 
his moral theory a set of conceptions foreign to his 
metaphysics *. 

1 See below, Bk. III. ch. i, i. 



SINGLE THINGS 191 

2. THE CONATUS. 

God is in virtue of the necessity of his own nature : CHAP. III. 
and the omnipotence wherewith God acts or works is 
only another name for his essence in its actuality 1 . 

Now, single things are modes of God which express 
his Attributes in a certain and determinate manner 2 . As 
states of God. they are absolutely dependent on him. 
They are what they are, as effects of God s omnipotent 
causality. Their essence is a modification of God s essence, 
their existence or actuality a modification of his actuality, 
their power of action a portion of God s omnipotence. 
God,_that is, is the efficient cause of the essence, the 
existence, and the persistence in being (duration) of all 
things. No particular thing exists in virtue of the 
necessity of its own essence : its essence and its actuality 
are derivative. It exists or is actual with a necessity 
which is not its own 3 . 

But, if now we look at the matter from a somewhat 
different point of view, we shall reach further results. 
The essential nature of any thing short of the complete 
Reality is in the end derivative and not self-sustaining. 
But, apart from this ultimate reduction, things have a 
relative independence, a modal distinctness of being which 
expresses itself in their existence and actions in time and 
space. From this point of view, the essential nature of 
a thing is that, the being and conception of which reci 
procally imply the being and conception of the thing 4 . 
Though, that is, the essence of no particular thing involves 
its existence absolutely, yet, given the essence, you must 

1 Above, pp. 55 ff. dato res necessario ponitur, et 

3 E. i. 25 C. quo sublato res necessario tolli- 

3 Cf. above, p. 56 ; E. i. 24 C. ; tur ; vel id, sine quo res, et vice 
i. 25 ; i. 26 ; ii. Ax. i. versa quod sine re, nee esse nee 

4 E. ii. def. 2. Ad essentiam concipi potest. Cf. above, pp. 
alicuius rei id pertinere dico, quo 123 ff. 



I 9 2 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. have the thing, unless the position of the thing, which 
its essence involves, is counteracted by some external cause. 
So far as the essence of the thing is concerned within 
the four corners of its essence, so to say there is nothing 
which can destroy the thing : there is pure affirmation of 
the thing s being 1 . For otherwise the thing s essence 
would be inwardly self-contradictory, and the thing 
could never be at all. _We may express this by saying 
that everything, so far as lies in itself, tends to persist 
in its own being V This * tendency or effort, there 
fore the conatus is simply another name for the 
given or * actual essence of the thing 3 . It is in the 
end a portion of that complete affirmation of God s 
essence, which is his omnipotence. 

Things in their relative independence manifest them 
selves in the temporal and spatial order : they come into 
being, endure for a time, and pass away. Their essences 
(we have seen) cannot involve their own negation ; nor 
can the mere lapse of time destroy them. What destroys 
them is the more powerful self-affirmation of other 
particular things. For they have to maintain themselves 
over against an infinity of things, each of which is 
struggling to assert itself in the same way. The modes 
of God we may say in their temporal appearance 
conflict with one another: or God to the imaginative 
consciousness passes through ever-varying states of 
himself. Hence the affirmation, which the essence of 
a particular thing involves, is only a conatus: a force, 
whereby it strives to persist in its being. Hence, too, 
it is in its nature temporal, though it does not involve 
a determinate period of time 4 . The actuality of things 

1 E. iii. 4. 4 E. iii. 8. * Conatus, quo una- 

2 E. iii. 6. Unaquaeque res, quaeque res in suo esse perse- 
quantum in se est, in suo esse verare conatur, nullum tempus 
perseverare conatur. . finitum, sed indefinitum involvit. 

3 E. iii. 7, and dem. 



WILL AND DESIRE 193 

regarded in their relative independence is temporal CHAP. III. 
actuality, and not eternity. Man is a particular thing, 
whose essence is constituted by modes of Extension and 
Thought. So far therefore as lies in him, man will tend 
to persist in Efs corporeal and mental being. And this 

man s 



appetitus is simply his essence from which there 
necessarily follow all those actions which tend to his 
self-maintenance. As man s essence is mental as well as 
corporeal, and as thought is by its very nature turned 
upon itself, this effort in man is often an object of his 
consciousness : i. e. man not only tends to maintain his 
corporeal and mental being, but is (or may be) also 
conscious of this tendency. In order to mark this 
characteristic of man s conatus, Spinoza uses the term 
c cupiditas (desire) in preference to appetitus. For the 
presence of self-consciousness, he thinks, makes no 
difference. Desire like any blind effort is merely 
the tendency to self-affirmation which the essence of the 
desiring thing involves. Hence the term cupiditas 
covers the whole range of human self-affirmation. It 
includes all so-called efforts, instincts, impulses, desires, 
and volitions 1 . 

3. WILL AND DESIRE. 

Man s cupiditas is his essential nature, so far as that 
is conceived as determined by a given modification of 
itself to do a definite thing 2 . * Cupiditas therefore 
the tendency to self-affirmation and self-maintenance 
which is involved in human nature takes the place in 

1 E. iii. 9 S. ; iii. Aff. deff., I is the purely mental^intellectual) 

Expl. . . . Cupiditatis nomine side of cupiditas : * volitio is 

intelligo hominis quoscumque the act of affirmation or negation 

conatus, impetus, appetitus et which every idea as such involves ; 

volitiones . . . The term voluntas cf. above, p. 132; E. iii. 9 S. 

(or volitio ), when used strictly, a E. iii. Aff. deff., i. 

SPINOZA O 



194 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. Spinoza s system of * will in the broadest sense of the 
term. So far as any action is referred to a man s 
cupiditas as its cause, it js_. an act B qf w his _ will, the 
inevitable consequent of his essence : if it is intelligible 
as the effect of man s cupiditas alone if it is the in 
evitable consequent of his essential nature only, so that 
mean s essence is its adequate cause it is a * free act/ an 
act of free-will on man s part 1 . 

In view of Spinoza s polemic against the freedom of 
the will, this latter statement requires explanation. In 
order to understand in what sense Spinoza can admit 
a free action, it is necessary to recapitulate the views of 
Descartes ; for it is mainly against Descartes conception 
of free-will that Spinoza s polemic is directed. 
Descartes. The freedom of the will was one of the three Articles 
of Faith which Descartes accepted one of the three 
facts which philosophy must believe though it cannot 
understand 2 . Accordingly, Descartes does not attempt 
to deduce his conception of freedom. Its justification for 
him is that, without it, his system could not stand. For 
he bases his reconciliation of human error and sin with 
the omnipotence and goodness of God on this miracle 
of the indeterminate will. He reasons thus 3 : I derive 
my existence and my being from God. God has created 
me and endowed me with certain faculties, and it is his 
power that sustains me in existence. But God is omni 
potent, all -wise and all-good : he cannot deceive and 
cannot be the cause of error or sin in his creatures. Yet 
1 do fall into error and sin ; and the explanation must 
lie in my nature. Of the faculties, wherewith God has 
endowed me, my intellect is indeed finite (for a created 
intellect must be finite, and its limitation conflicts neither 

1 Cf. below, 4. arbitrium, et hominem Deum. 

2 Cf. the saying (quoted by s Cf. Descartes, Med. Quarto, \ 
Joel, p. i) : * Tria mirabilia fecit Spinoza, Ep. 21 (W1L. ii. pp. 
Dominus : res ex nihilo, liberum 94, 95). 



i 



WILL AND DESIRE 195 

with the omnipotence nor with the goodness of the CHAP. III. 
Creator): but it is not misleading. So far as it goes, 
my intellect contains nothing but true ideas ; whatever 
I conceive clearly and distinctly, is true. But God 
endowed me further with a faculty of choice, or free 
will : a faculty of assent and dissent, assertion and denial. 
And this of necessity is unlimited, formally infinite, 
indeterminate. For to limit it in its form would be to 
destroy its nature, since its whole nature consists solely 
in this that, in virtue of it, I can either do or not 
do a certain thing, can affirm or deny, pursue or avoid 
a given thing : or rather that I feel myself compelled by 
no external force to affirm or deny, to pursue or avoid, 
what the understanding puts before me. This jnde- 
terminate faculty of choice is, no doubt, infinitely more 
perfect in God than it is in me: for in him it is 
combined with infinite knowledge, infinite power, &c. 
But in its form it is identical in me and in God : as the 
abstract disjunction of Yes or No, it cannot be increased 
or lessened (as e. g. my intellect is infinitely increased in// 
God) without ceasing to be itself. Our freedom is 
grounded on this abstract or indeterminate power of 
choice, though it is not necessary that our actual choice 
should be indifferent (indeterminate) in order to be free. 
On the contrary, an indifferent choice is the lowest 
grade of liberty. The less indifferently I exercise my 
choice, the freer I am. The more I identify myself 
in choosing with reasonable motives, the more liberty 
I exercise. 

Since I possess a finite faculty of knowing (which in 
itself involves neither affirmation nor denial of the 
contents known), and an unlimited faculty of choosing 
(which, in itself indifferent, has no natural bias to 
assert or deny any one content rather than any other), 
error becomes possible for me. I may commit error, 
when I affirm or deny beyond the limits of my know- 

02 



196 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. ledge. For, in that case, I extend my power of choice to 
alternatives to which I am indifferent (i. e. I affirm or 
deny, where I have no clear knowledge to guide my will) ; 
and since there is nothing to direct my choice, it may 
light on the wrong alternative as easily as on the right 
one. 

But error in respect to God is mere negation: for it 
cannot be attributed to a defect in his nature, that he 
has granted me the liberty of affirming or denying those 
things, of which he has not put a clear idea in my 
intellect. 1 In respect to me, error is privation : for it is 
a defect in me that I do not make a good use of my 
power of choice; that I rashly affirm or deny, where 
I have no clear idea. For I have the power of suspending 
my judgement altogether. I may prohibit my voluntas 
from playing outside the limits of my intellectus. 
Spinoza s Now Spinoza s account of voluntas completely cuts 
criticism. ^ ground from under this Cartesian explanation of error, 
and at the same time shows the absurdity of an indeter 
minate faculty of choice or judgement 1 . For, in the 
Scholium -to E. ii. 49, Spinoza maintains (i) that our 
power of understanding is not confined to the intellect, 
if by * intellect we mean the complex of adequate ideas. 
But if by intellect we mean our whole power of 
apprehension, then our faculty of assent or dissent is 
coextensive with it : (ii) that our faculty of assent or 
dissent is no more * free or unlimited than our faculty 
of sensation or perception. "We can perceive an infinite 
number of bodies, just as we can affirm or deny an 
infinite number of things i. e. one after another. And 
in no other sense have we an infinite or unlimited 
faculty : (iii) that there are no faculties at all. A 
faculty is nothing real: it is simply an abstract 
universal conception. It is the single acts of perceiving 

1 Cf. above, p. 132 ; E. ii. 48 and S. ; 49 and C. and S, ; and 
cf. also Meyer s Praef. to Ph.D. 



WILL AND DESIRE 197 

and judging which are real : (iv) that the single acts of CHAP. ill. 
thinking, or perceiving, essentially are (or involve) single 
acts of assertion or denial. For indeed to have an idea 
is to assert or deny something. There is therefore no 
free power of suspending our judgement. An act of 
suspending our judgement is itself an act of perception 
or thought, and consequently an act of judgement. 

We can now see exactly what Spinoza has denied in 
his polemic against the freedom of the will. There is 
he maintains no faculty of assent and dissent : no power 
in the mind which issues decrees out of the blank of its 
mysterious indeterminateness. There are single affirma 
tions and negations, mental decrees l : but these are 
involved in the ideas, which are determined by the 
infinite chain of ideal causes. Each so-called act of 
choice is in reality a necessarily determined assertion 
or denial. There is no choice in the matter. The 
affirmation .. or negation is an essential feature in the 
content affirmed or negated, and the content (idea) is 
determined as to its nature and occurrence by the 
necessary series of ideal causes and effects which consti 
tute the modal system of Thought. The volitio, or 
mentis decretum, is thus like any ideal or extended 
event absolutely determined and necessary. And if 
we regard it from the point of view of the mind of 
a single thing, such as man, it is none the less 
necessary. It is then the necessary consequent of the 
essence of the man s mind ; it is the expression of the 
man s essence in its tendency to self-assertion, so far as 
that tendency is considered on its ideal side alone, and 
not also on its extended side. For that tendency to 
self-assertion, which is the actuality of man s essence, 
is expressed also in his extended nature. So far as any 
manifestation of it is regarded solely as expressed in his 
extended being, it reveals itself as a determination of his 

1 Cf. E. iii. 2 S. sub fin. 



198 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. body ; and it is the necessary consequent of the laws of 
motion-and-rest, or follows from the nature of his body as 
a mode of Extension l . And, lastly, so far as we regard 
any determination of man s total nature as what it is 
viz. as a modification of his corporeal and his ideal 
essence at once we then refer the conatus to both 
body and mind, and speak of its manifestation as an 
appetitus, or for the reason already given 2 as a 
* cupiditas 3 . 

And it is to be observed that on Spinoza s principles 
it is absurd to regard either factor in * cupiditas as 
the cause of the other. The volitio does not cause the 
bodily determination, nor does the latter cause the 
former. They are one and the same modification, one 
and the same mode, expressed under two Attributes. 
Hence we have (E. iii. 2) nee Corpus Mentem ad 
cogitandum, nee Mens Corpus ad motum, neque ad 
quietem, nee ad aliquid (si quid est) aliud determinare 
potest. Thus the last vestiges of the popular conception 
of free-will disappear. The mind does not possess a 
spontaneous power of decision. And the * decisions of 
the mind do not move the body. Nor does the body 

1 E. iii. 2 S. sub fin. Quae ipsum explicatur, Decretum ap- 

omnia profecto clare ostendunt, pellamus, et quando sub Exten- 

Mentis tam decretum, quam ap- sionis attribute consideratur, et 

petitum et Corporis determina- ex legibus motus et quietis de- 

tionem, simul esse natura, vel ducitur, Determinationem voca- 

potius unam eandemque rem, mus... 

quam, quando sub Cogitationis 2 Above, p. 193. 

attribute consideratur et per 3 The scheme is 

Corpus = Mens 

Corporis determinatio quae = Mentis Deere- 
ex legibus motus et quietis turn sive 

deducitur Volitio 

I I 

Appetitus cum eiusdem 
conscientia seu Cupiditas, 



ACTION AND PASSION 199 

act upon the mind and cause it to think. The truth CHAP. in. 
and the reality is simply a necessarily determined 
succession of modes of man s tendency to self-affirmation. 
So far as man is aware of these, so far as he feels them 
as desires, but is not aware of their causes, he traces his 
actions to his desires and his desires to his own essential 
nature. He cannot see the dependence of his essentia 
(and therefore of his conatus ) on the universe of bodies 
and minds, its coherence with the Nature of Things : and 
he therefore supposes that his will-to-be, his desires and 
actions, originate spontaneously in himself. The notion 
of our freedom, when traced from its crudest to its 
ultimate form, is thus the result of that partial or 
inadequate knowledge which characterizes imaginative / 
experience *. 

4. ACTION AND PASSION. 

"Within the absolute dependence of all modes, within 
the .necessary determination .of all events, there is yet 
for Spinoza a distinction between action and passion, 
freedom and slavery. Man is a mode i. e. through and 
through dependent on Substance of which he is a state. 
Everything that occurs in man s mind or body is there 
fore dependent for its being and occurrence on the nature 
of God. It is the necessary consequent of God so far as 
he constitutes man. All our " conatus " or desires follow 
from the necessity of our nature : but they follow in 
such a way that * either they can be understood through 
that nature alone as their proximate cause, or through us 
only in so far as we are a part of Nature a part which 
cannot be adequately conceived by itself without other 
individuals V 

1 Cf. E. i. App. ; above, pp. terminology (cf. above, pp. 127 
169, 170. ff.), the distinction would be be- 

2 E. iv. App. cap. i. Put in tween (i) cupiditates, 1 of which 
the more accurate Spinozistic God is the cause so far as he is 






200 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. A cause is said to be adequate to an effect which 
can be clearly and distinctly conceived through it alone : 
inadequate or partial in relation to an effect which 
cannot be understood through it only 1 . So far, there 
fore, as any occurrence in our mind or body can be 
understood clearly and distinctly as the effect of our own 
\ x essential nature alone, we are its adequate cause. We 
are then said to * act the occurrence is the necessary 
consequent of our agency, we (and we alone 2 ) are its 
authors : we are * free in respect to it. So far, on the 
other hand, as any occurrence requires for its clear under 
standing the conception of more than our own essential 
nature, we are its partial or inadequate cause : and 
inasmuch as agencies other than ours contribute to it, 
we are partly negated in it, or are partly passive in 
respect to it 3 . God is its author so far as He constitutes 
other beings besides ourselves. 

Man, therefore, is an agent or * free in respect to 
those occurrences which can be clearly conceived as the 
effect of his own nature (as their proximate cause) alone. 
He is passive, externally determined, or a slave, in 
respect to those occurrences which require for their clear 
apprehension the conception of other causes besides his 
own nature. Amongst the ideas, which together consti 
tute the complex idea which is the mind, some we 
know are adequate. So far as any desires can be 
referred to such adequate ideas in us as their adequate 
causes, they are the necessary consequents of our own 
nature only ; i. e. we are agents or free in respect to 
them 4 . 

conceived as constituting our 2 i.e. God, so far as he con- 
mind (and body) alone, and (2) stitutes us, is its author. 
4 cupiditates, of which God is the 3 E. iii. def. 2 ; iii. 3 S. ; iv. 2. 
cause so far as he is conceived as 4 Tr. P. ch. 2, 7ff. ; E. iv. 
constituting other minds (and App. cap. 2. For developments, 
bodies) besides our own. see below, Bk. III. ch. i. 
1 E. iii. def. i. 



EMOTION AND IDEA 201 



5. AFFECTUS AND IDEA. THE THEEE PKIMAKY CHAP. III. 

PASSIVE EMOTIONS. 

By emotion Spinoza understands primarily those 
modifications of the body, whereby the efficiency of the 
body itself is increased or lessened, helped or hindered, 
together with the ideas of those modifications V An 
4 emotion is an action, if we are the adequate cause of 
such modifications : otherwise, it is a passion V 

Every idea in our mind is at the same time a modi 
fication of our body, and vice versa. The word idea 
denotes only the psychical modification, the word affectio 
only (or primarily) the corporeal event. * Aifectus 
strictly denotes both the whole two-sided occurrence 3 . 

As, however, for psychology and ethics the event is 
important chiefly on its psychical side, * affectus is used 
by Spinoza mainly to denote the psychical modification. 
His chief concern is with the nature of the mind, and he 
treats the concomitant bodily modifications for the most 
part as secondary 4 . 

Taking affectus, therefore, to denote the psychical 
modification only, it (like other modes of Thought) will 
be an idea with an ideatum. How, then, does Spinoza 
distinguish the emotions from the modes of Thought 
which enter into knowledge and have hitherto been 
treated by us as the only ideae 5 ? 

1 E. iii. def. 3. poterimus. . . . Affectus, qui 

2 Ib. Expl. animi Pathema dicitur. . . . 

3 Cf. above, p. 186. 6 Cf. E. ii. Ax. 3. * Modi cogi- 

4 Thus, e. g., in the Aff. gen. tandi, ut amor, cupiditas, vel 
def. (at the end of E. iii) Spi- quicunque nomine affectus animi 
noza defines solely the psychical insigniuntur, non dantur, nisi in 
side of the double event and eodem Individuo detur idea rei 
moreover the psychical side of amatae, desideratae, &c. At idea 
the passive emotions only. dari potest, quamvis nullus alius 

. . . affectus, quatenus ad solam detur cogitandi modus. 
Mentem referuntur, hie definire 



202 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. All ideas of bodies all modes of Thought which, 
are the apprehension of external things, and give us 
knowledge of the world are modifications of our mind, 
which correspond to bodily modifications derived from 
the interaction of external bodies with our own body. 
They reflect both our own body and the external bodies 
acting upon it. It is to this that their inadequacy (so 
\ far as they are to reveal to us the nature of the external 
bodies) is due : for they indicate the actual constitution 
of our own body rather than that of the external bodies V 
Such adequate ideas of bodies as we form, are adequate, 
because in revealing the constitution of our own bodies 
they eo ipso reveal that of the external bodies ; i. e. 
what they reveal is a property common to our own and 
to the external bodies 2 . 

Ideas, as entering into knowledge, claim to reveal to 
us the nature of their objects claim to be true ; and 
are valued according as they are adequate or inadequate, 
true or false (less true). 

Bui^ an emotional idea is simply the reflection of the 
tone of life in our body or in some part of it. It is the 
degree of mental being which that tone of life involves, 
and it claims only to be the consciousness of the lowering, 
raising, or actual pitch of the vital energy of our body. 
Its truth or adequacy does not come into consideration at 
all. The question with regard to it is How real or 
perfect a state of vitality does it indicate ? Is it a feel 
ing of heightened, or of lessened vital energy a feeling 
of pleasure or of pain ? Or How great a degree of 
being is summed up in it considered as the feeling from 
which activities result ? What amount of reality is press 
ing to assert itself in this desire 3 ? And, lastly, Does 
the emotion result from our own spontaneous self-asser- 

1 Cf. E. iii. Aff. gen. def., Expl. s Cf. E. iii. Aff. gen. def., 
and E. ii. 16 C. 2, 24-29. Expl. 

2 Cf. above, pp. 172 ff. 



PRIMARY EMOTIONS 203 

tion ; are we, our essential nature, its adequate cause ? CHAP. III. 
Or is it due to the combined activity of other agencies 
besides our own, so that we are " passive " only a factor 
in the totality of conditions which is its adequate cause 1 ? 

But, if the affectus animi must thus be distinguished 
from the * ideae which enter into knowledge, the con 
nexion between them is none the less important. The 
ideae are the primary constituents of the human mind, 
and all the other modes of Thought * ideae in the 
sense of emotions are dependent for their nature and 
occurrence upon them 2 . Our immediate consciousness 
of the level of vitality in our body and mind (our emo 
tions of pleasure, pain, and desire) is dependent upon 
a reflective idea of our bodily modification and its cause : 
and the nature of our emotion the particular kind of 
pleasure, pain, or desire which we experience is deter 
mined (in part at least) by the contents of this reflective 
idea 3 . And it is because the * ideae which constitute 
the mind are some * adequate and some inadequate, that 
the emotions, which depend upon them, fall into two 
classes actiones and passiones 4 . 

For the present we will consider Spinoza s conception 
of the passive emotions. The life of passive emotion 
is the necessary pendant to the first stage of knowledge 5 ; 
the passive emotions themselves are the ideae imagina- 
tionis in so far as these reflect the constitution of our 
own body 6 . 

Spinoza recognizes three passive emotions, of which 
all the others are derivatives : three primary passions, 
which cannot themselves be further reduced or analysed 7 . 
So far as man is a mode actually-existent in the * com- 

1 Cf. E. iv. App. cap. i. c Cf. above, pp. 180 ff., and see 

2 E. ii. ii dem., and ii. Ax. 3. below, Bk. III. ch. i, 2. 

3 See below. 6 Cf. E. iv. 9 dem. 

4 E. iii. i, 3, and 9; iv. App. 7 E. iii. ii S. ; iii. 56; and iii. 
capp. i, 2. AS. deff. sub fin. (VV1L. i. p. 185). 



204 THE ETHICS QF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. munis ordo naturae, his body and his mind are subject 
to innumerable influences of which they are only the 
partial or inadequate cause ; i. e. he is constantly under 
going modifications in body and in mind, in respect to 
which he is passive. Such ideae such mental modifi 
cations are confused ; for they are not the effect of 
man s mind alone \ And they are passions just so far 
as they are confused. They are emotional (and not 
reflective ) ideas, inasmuch as they are the immediate 
consciousness of his own bodily state and do not claim 
to reflect theoretically the nature of his environment 2 . 
Now his own bodily state at any moment is the con 
sequent of the infinity of influences acting upon his body, 
and not solely of the conatus of his own essential 
nature. In these emotions, therefore, man becomes 
aware of his own vital energy, his own reality or power- 
to-be, not as it is in its purity, but as it is under the 
conditions of the medium of his actual existence 
conditions which may hinder, as well as help, his self- 
realization. So far as he feels an increase of his being 
a transition to a higher pitch of his reality he is said 
to have the emotion of laetitia : pleasure,, feeling of 
heightened power. So far as he feels a depression or 
diminution of his being a transition to a lower pitch 
of his reality his emotion is tristitia : pain, feeling of 
lessened vitality 3 . And so far as his feeling is simply 
the consciousness of his actual pitch of being, as the 
determinate source of this or that definite thought or 

1 Descartes (Princ. iv. 190) observe) has modified this con- 
calls Love, Hate, Fear, Anger, ception of the passions as con- 
fee., confused ideas or ( animi fused ideas, to meet his own 
pathemata in so far as the theory of the union of body and 
mind gets them not from itself mind. 

alone, but because the body, 2 E. iii. Aff. gen. def., Expl. 

with which it is intimately con- 3 E. iii. n S. and Aff. deff., 

joined, is in some way acted 2, 3 and Expl. 
upon. Spinoza (the reader will 



PRIMARY EMOTIONS 205 

activity, lie is said to desire to be under the emotion CHAP. in. 
of cupidttas 1 . 

Spinoza is careful to warn us that the emotions of 
pleasure and pain, though they are confused ideas, 
which affirm a greater or a less vital force of our body 
(or of some part of our body) than it had before/ do not 
imply an act of reflective comparison. We do not 
compare our present with our past bodily state in the 
emotion of pleasure. It is not a reflective, but an im 
mediate awareness of an altered pitch of our being. The 
mode of consciousness which is the emotion of pleasure 
or pain * affirms something of the body which involves 
greater or less reality than it had before ; and the 
mind, in this mode of its consciousness, itself passes to 
a greater or less degree of its being. But the knowledge 
of the greater or less shows itself in the form of the 
emotion, the direct feeling : not in the form of a reflec 
tive comparison. We are conscious of increasing or 
diminishing vitality simply as feelings of pleasure and 
pain. We are not unless we also theorize and reflect 
aware of the reason 2 . 

Desire (* cupiditas ), though itself a primitive form of 
emotion, is yet determined as regards its content by 
preceding pleasure or pain. Man s awareness of his 
actual pitch of vitality as the determinate ground of 
action, is always the consequence of a transition which 
reveals itself to his emotional consciousness as some kind 
of pleasure or pain. Desire is not a kind of pleasure or 
pain it cannot be reduced to them: but it involves 
pleasure or pain as its condition, it is coloured and 
modified according to the pleasures or pains which have 
conditioned it, and its intensity varies with the intensity 
of the pleasures or pains, loves or hates, which have 
given it birth 3 . 

1 E. iii. 9 S. ; Aff. deff., i and 2 E. iii. AS. gen. def., Expl. 
Expl. ; Aff. gen. def., Expl. 3 Cf. E. iii. 37. 



206 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. But this does not mean that man reflects on past 
pleasures and pains, and forms his desires with a view 
to secure similar pleasures or avoid similar pains in the 
future. We do not desire anything because we think 
it good : on the contrary, we think a thing good because 
we desire it V It means simply that the present state of 
man s self-realization (his present feeling of himself as 
a source of activity) is dependent upon his past states. 
Man s conatus is always fluctuating with the varying 
influences of his environment. Each fluctuation is. on 
its psychical side an emotion of pleasure or pain a feel 
ing of heightened or lessened energy an awareness of 
the transition of his body and mind to greater or less 
degrees of being. And the momentary, determinate, 
static pitch of his vitality which, as the proximate 
cause of what he does, is his appetitus or cupiditas 
is the resultant of the preceding transitions. 

The conatus is the basis of all the emotions. The 
felt transition to a greater or less degree of reality in 
body and mind (pleasure or pain) presupposes as its 
foundation the effort at assertion or maintenance of our 
bodily and mental being. But it is this same effort 
(at a determinate state or pitch of itself) which as the 
proximate cause of what we do is our cupiditas. 

As all the emotions are ultimately derived from these 
three, and as these are ultimately forms of man s * conatus, 
it follows that every emotion in every individual and 
in every sentient creature has a peculiar characteristic 
tone of its own. The animals feel pleasure and pain, 
and are moved by appetite: but their pleasure, pain, 

1 E. iii. 9 S. Constat itaque conamur, volumus, appetimus, 

ex his omnibus, nihil nos conari, atque cupimus. Spinoza is at- 

velle,appetere,nequecupere,quia tacking Descartes : cf. Descartes, 

id bonum esse iudicamus; sed Passiones Animae, ii. 57, and 

contra, nos propterea aliquid K. V. S. ii. 3, 9. 
bonum esse x iudicare, quia id 



PRIMARY EMOTIONS 207 

and appetite are as different from those of man, as their CHAP. in. 
essential nature is different from his. And the emotions 
of each man differ as the nature of each. Each has 
his own life, his own happiness, with which he lives 
content : but it is * happiness to him, just because it is 
his, is the expression of his nature. His life and happi 
ness are his idea ; i. e. his soul. 

And, further, the difference of the objects in which 
we feel pleasure and pain reflects itself in these emotions 
themselves, in the desires based on them, and in all the 
passions which are derived from them. The ultimate 
ground of passion in us is that we form inadequate 
ideas; i. e. that we have imaginative experience. Now 
that experience rests upon an interaction between our 
body and external bodies, and reflects the nature of the 
external bodies as well as the nature of our own. Hence 
the emotions, which that experience brings with it, will 
get their specific quality not only from the varying 
nature of the subject, but also from the varying nature 
of the object. The pleasure which A feels in his expe 
rience of anything differs from B s pleasure in the same 
thing, because A differs from B : and the pleasure of A 
in one thing differs from his pleasure in another, because 
they are different things 1 . This double difference 

1 In support of the above, cf. cunque eius constitutione deter- 

e. g. E. iii. 37. Cupiditas, quae minata concipitur ad aliquid 

prae Tristitia vel Laetitia, prae- agendum. . . . Dantur itaque tot 

que Odio vel Amore oritur, eo est species Cupiditatis, quot sunt spe- 

inaior, quo affectus maior est. cies Laetitiae, Tristitiae, Amoris, 

iii. 51. * Diversi homines ab uno &c., et consequenter (per iam 

eodemque obiecto diversimode ostensa) quot sunt obiectorum 

affici possunt, et unus idemque, species, a quibus amcimur. 
homo ab uno eodemque obiecto iii. 57 dem. Laetitia deinde 

potest diversis temporibus diversi- et Tristitia passiones sunt, quibus 

mode affici. uniuscuiusque potentia seu co- 

iii. 56 dem. . . . Cupiditas est natus in suo esse perseverandi 

ipsa uniuscuiusque essentia, seu augetur vel minuitur, iuvatur vel 

natura, quatenus ex data qua- coercetur (per Prop. n. huius et 



208 



THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



BOOK II. based on the varying nature of the sentient subjects and 
on the varying nature of the objects runs through the 
whole emotional life of each man. It causes that infinite x 
complexity in man s emotional nature, which renders 
a complete description of the emotions impossible. But 
Spinoza is mainly concerned to understand the emotions, 
in order to get a basis for his moral theory 1 : and for 
this purpose it is sufficient to understand the common 
properties of the emotions and the mind, without attempt 
ing to attain to a concrete knowledge of the nature of 
any individual mind and its emotions 2 . 

/ 



6. DERIVATIVE AND COMPLEX PASSIVE EMOTIONS 3 . 

(A) Corol- The mind tends to affirm its being in all its thoughts 
from 8 whether adequate or inadequate and is conscious of 
Spinoza s this its tendency 4 : i. e. the conatus in man takes the 

COHCGT)* 

tion of the form of cupiditas and extends over his whole psychical 

conatus. being. 



ems Schol.}. At per conatum . . . 
Appetitum et Cupiditatem intel- 
ligimus . . . ; ergo Laetitia et 
Tristitia est ipsa Cupiditas sive 
Appetitus, quatenus a causis ex- 
ternis augetur vel minuitur . . . , 
hoc est, ... est ipsa cuiusque 
natura ; . . . 

iii. 57 S. * Hinc sequitur, affectus 
animalium, quae irrationalia 
dicuntur (bruta enim sentire 
nequaquam dubitare possumus, 
postquam Mentis novimus origi- 
nem), ab affectibus hominum 
tantum differre, quantum eorum 
natura a natura humana differt. 
. . . Quamvis itaque unumquodque 
individuum sua, qua constat, 
natura contentum vivat eaque 



gaudeat, vita tamen ilia, qua 
unumquodque est contentum, et 
gaudium nihil aliud est, quam 
idea seu anima eiusdem individui, 
atque adeo gaudium unius a 
gaudio alterius tantum natura 
discrepat, quantum essentia unius 
ab essentia alterius differt. 

iv. 18, 58 S., 60. App. cap. 
30, &c. 

1 Not, of course, that he allows 
his moral theory to prejudice his 
theory of the emotions. See 
above, pp. 187 ff. 

2 E. iii. 56 S. 

3 In this section I have made 
a free use of Pollock s transla 
tion. Pollock, pp. 216 ff. 

4 E. iii. 9. 



DERIVATIVE EMOTIONS 209 

Hence (i) The mind endeavours to picture everything CHAP. III. 
which increases or aids the body s efficiency 1 ; for that 
which aids the body s efficiency, on its ideal side aids the 
mind s efficiency or power of thinking 2 . 

(ii) When the mind * pictures anything which lessens 
or hinders the body s efficiency, it endeavours to call up 
pictures which seclude the existence of the hindrance. 
The mind, therefore, shrinks from * picturing anything 
which lessens or hinders its own and the body s efficiency 3 ; 
or, more generally, (iii) we endeavour to promote the 
occurrence of everything which we imagine to conduce 
to our pleasure, and to remove or destroy everything 
which we * imagine to conflict with our pleasure or to 
lead to pain 4 . 

These principles serve to explain the characteristics of A 



Love and Hate, and the desires which they involve and l 
which are based upon them. Thus, Love is simply 
pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause ; 
Hate pain accompanied by the idea of an external 
cause 5 . In Love, the heightening of the body s efficiency 
is the effect of an external body, and the heightening of 
the mind s efficiency (i.e. the emotion of pleasure) is the 
effect of our idea of that external body ; i. e. we refer our 
pleasure to an external object as its source. In Hate, we 
refer our pain to an external object as its source. Such 
being the essential nature of Love and Hate, it necessarily 
follows (from the principles just stated) that the lover 
desires in every way to preserve and foster the idea of 
the external object, and therefore the external object 
itself; whilst the man, who hates, desires to remove that 
idea and consequently the external object itself. Hence 
the desires (i) of doing good to the persons we love, (ii) of 
harming the persons we hate; (iii) of returning benefits Ira: Gratia. 

1 E. iii. 12. 4 E. iii. 28. 

2 E. iii. ii. 6 E. iii. 13 S. ; AS. deff., 6, 7, 

3 E. iii. 13 and C. and Expl. 
SPINOZA P 



210 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK ii. where the love is reciprocal ; (iv) of returning injuries 

Vindkta. where the hate is reciprocal 1 . 

Certain emotions can be traced as further consequences 

Commise- of these principles. Thus, Pity is a pain felt at another s 
misfortune ; i.e. the pain which we feel when we picture 
the pain of somebody we love, or on a principle to be 
stated presently 2 when we picture the suffering of 

Benwo- any creature like ourselves 3 . Benevolence is the desire 
of doing good to a person whom we pity 4 . 

Corresponding to Pity this sympathetic pain at 
another s pain there is the sympathetic pleasure which 
we feel at another s pleasure. Both these sympathetic 
emotions are ultimately due to the increase or diminu 
tion of our own vitality, which the c picturing another s 
pleasure or pain originates 5 . For similar reasons, we 
shall be Well- Disposed to any one, if we imagine him 
to cause pleasure to a person whom we love or whom 

indignatio. we regard as like ourselves ; and we shall be Indignant 
with any one whom we imagine to cause pain under the 
same conditions 6 . 

Connected with these emotions, and partly explicable 
on the same principles, are invidia and misericordia 
Envy (or Malice) and Kindliness (or Goodwill). Envy is 
hatred so far as that disposes us to feel pleasure in 

1 Spinoza has no special name do good or injuries to the per- 

for the first cupiditas, but he sons loved and hated ; cf. E. iii. 

recognizes it as involved in Love ; 41 S. i. 

cf. E. iii. 13 S., 25 and 39. The Cruelty or Barbarity (Crudelitas 

second cupiditas is called ira sen Saemtia) is the desire of doing 

(E.iii. 40 S. 2; Aff. deif., 36). The harm to a person whom we love 

third is gratia or gratltudo (E. iii. or pity (Aff. deff., 38). 
41 S. i ; Aff. deff., 34), and the 2 Below, p. 215. 
fourth is vindicta (E. iii. 40 S. 2 ; s E. iii. 21, 22 S. ; Aff. deff., 

Aff. deff., 37). 18. 

These names cover the whole * E. iii. 27 S. 2 ; Aff. deff., 35. 
emotional state, i. e. both the B E. iii. 21 dem. 
feelings of love and hate (plea- 6 E. iii. 22 S. ; Aff. deff., 19, 20. 
sure or pain) and the desires to 



DERIVATIVE EMOTIONS 211 

another s pain, pain in another s pleasure. Since, how- CHAP. III. 
ever, we cannot picture the pain of a being like our 
selves without ourselves feeling pain, the pleasure of 
Envy is always tinged with pain l . A Kindly Disposition Miseri- 
is the general state of mind, of which commiseratio m 
is the single manifestation, and is thus the opposite 
emotion to Envy 2 . 

Further, from the general tendency of our mind to 
affirm itself, and to remove all ideas which lessen or 
hinder its being, there follow the emotions of Self-love 
or Self-complacency, Humility and Eepentance, Self- 
conceit and Self-depreciation, Over-esteem and Dis 
paragement of others. 

"We are for the most part ignorant of the nature of 
things, and apt to take our uncertain and fluctuating 
opinions for the truth. Since, moreover, we tend to regard 
ourselves as free agents, it is not surprising that our 
own actions should cause us pain or pleasure ; i. e. that we 
should * feel emotions of pleasure and pain accompanied 
by the idea of ourselves as their cause 3 . Self-love 



Self-complacency is pleasure bred of a man s contem- s Jntiain se 



plating himself and his own active power/ and Humility 

-U J J? > i j.- T-- HumUitas. 

is pain bred of a man s contemplating his own impotence 
or infirmity V Repentance is * pain accompanied by the Poenitentia. 
idea of some action which w suppose ourselves to have 
done by a free resolve of the mind, and is the opposite 
emotion to that Self-complacency which is due to the 
consciousness of an action similarly supposed free. It 
depends upon custom (i.e. chiefly upon a man s education) 
what actions are subjects of complacency or repentance to 
him 5 . 

1 E. iii. 23 and S. ; 24 and S. ; 4 E. iii. Aff. deff., 25 and 26 
Aff. deff., 23. (Pollock s translation) ; iii. 51 S. ; 

2 E. iii. Aff. deff., 23 Expl. ; 24 53, 54, 55 and S. 

and Expl. ; 18 Expl. 6 E. iii. Aff. deff, 26 Expl. ; 27 

8 E. iii. 51 S. and Expl. 

P 2 



212 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. Self-conceit is a consequence of Self-complacency. It is 
an emotion of pleasure which, is due to our picturing 
our own power or efficiency as greater than it really is. 
It may be denned as Self-love, so far as that leads us to 
think too highly of ourselves. Strictly speaking, there 
is no contrary to this emotion. For, if we picture our 
own efficiency as low, the act of so picturing it really 
lowers it, and so we cannot think too lowly of our 
selves. Yet we may under-estimate the opinion which 
others have of our powers, or we may hold back where 
our equals do not hesitate, and in this sense we may be 
said unduly to depreciate ourselves. Such Dejection or 

Abiectio. Self-depreciation is the contrary of Self-conceit, and it 
arises from true Humility as Self-conceit springs from 
Self-complacency *. 

Existi- Over-esteem of others is a consequence of Love for 

another, just as Self-conceit is a consequence of Self-love. 
It is Love, so far as that leads us to think too highly 

Despectus. of the person we love/ Its contrary emotion is Dispar 
agement (or Undue Contempt) of others. This may be 
defined as Hatred, so far as that leads us to think too 
lowly of the person we hate 2 . 

(B) Con- The association of emotions follows the same law 
as ^ ne association of ideas 3 . An element of a single 



associa- perceptive state, if recalled, tends to reinstate the re- 
emotions. mainder. But the perceptions of imaginative experience, 
in so far as they reflect the vital tone of our own body, 
are emotions 4 . Hence we may express the principle 
so far as it applies to emotions thus : an element of 
a single emotional state, if recalled, tends to reinstate 
the remainder 5 . It follows that anything may be the 
accidental cause (i.e. the cause by association ) of pleasure 

1 E. iii. Aff. deff., 28 Expl.; 3 Cf. above, pp. 162 ff. 
29 and Expl. ; iii. 26 S. * Above, p. 204. 

2 E. iii. Aff. deff., 21, 22, and 5 E. iii. 14 and dem. 
Expl. ; iii. 26 S. 



DERIVATIVE EMOTIONS 213 

or pain ; and, consequently, the accidental object of Love CHAP. III. 
or Hate, and therefore also the accidental object of the 
various forms of Desire *. 

This is the meaning of the emotions of Instinctive Sympathia 
Attraction and Aversion, and explains how emotions can 
be excited in us by objects like those which give us 
pleasure or pain and excite our desires 2 . or Aversio - 

Further, an object may combine in itself properties 
which are the direct cause of pleasure and the accidental 
cause of pain, or vice versa. Our feeling towards them 
will be mixed : we shall both love and hate them. This 
emotional Wavering corresponds to the intellectual state Animi 
known as doubt or hesitation. Moreover since the human FluctuaU - 
body is highly composite, and since what raises the vitality 
of one part may diminish the being of another, it is quite 
possible for the same object to be the direct cause of 
conflicting emotions 3 . From such an emotional tension 
arises Jealousy. Zeiotypta. 

Jealousy is a state of emotional tension, in which love 
towards an object is combined with hatred towards the 
loved object, and hatred or envy towards the person who 
has supplanted us in that object s affections. The most 
conspicuous instances of Jealousy occur in the relations 
of a lover to his mistress, and the passion is intensified 
when it is reinforced by the emotion of E/egret. If we Desiderium. 
. have once enjoyed a thing, in our thoughts of that thing 
we desire to re-enjoy it with all the circumstances of our 
first pleasure. So far as any such circumstance is absent 
or different, we feel the pain of Longing or Regret. But 
a lover, whose mistress has proved faithless, is no longer 

1 E. iii. 15 and C. quite unsuitable objects. Cf. E. 

2 E. iii. 15 S. ; Aff. deff., 8 and iii. 16. 

9. Since the efficient causejof the 8 E. iii. 17 S. The emotional 

emotions need not be the point and the intellectual wavering 

of similarity (or the associative or state of tension differ from 

cause), associational emotions of one another only in degree. 1 
this kind may be directed to 



214 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK ii. welcomed by her with the same countenance as formerly, 

and his Jealousy is intensified by Eegret l . 

(C) Pre- The actual picture of anything is in content the 
umfc^the same 5 whether we refer it to past or future time ; for to 
form of picture a thing is always to contemplate it as present, 
its influ- The perception of a thing as past or future is a complex 
ence on idea, in which the image of the thing is conjoined with 
tions. the image of past or future time 2 . The same applies to 
the emotional tone of an imaginative idea. The imagina 
tive idea affects us with the same emotional state of 
pleasure or pain, whether we refer it to a past, future, 
or present occurrence : for as such and per se as an 
emotion it is always actually felt. But, in associating 
the image with that of past or future time, we bring 
it into a multiplex and conflicting context. Hence in 
tellectually imagination of past or future events is apt to 
be inconstant, uncertain, hesitating ; and emotionally our 
state in reference to events which we picture as past or 
future is one of fluctuation or wavering 3 . 

spes. Hope and Fear 4 are the wavering and uncertain emo 

tions of pleasure and pain, which arise from the image of 
a future or past event of whose issue we are doubtful. 
When the doubt is gone, Hope becomes Confidence, Fear 
Desperation. Disappointment is the emotion of pain, 
which arises from the image of a past event, about 
whose issue we had hopes which are now frustrated. 
The opposite emotion of pleasure, which arises from the 
image of a past event about whose issue we had fears 
now shown to have been groundless, is called by Spinoza 
gaudium an agreeable surprise 5 . 

1 E. iii. 35 and S.; 36 C. and pleasure and pain, and must be 
S. ; Aff. deff., 32 and Expl. distinguished from timor (see 

2 E. ii. 44 S. ; cf. above, p. 168, below, p. 217, note i), which is 
notes i and 2. a form of cupiditas or rather of 

3 E. iii. 18 dem. and S. i. checked desire. 

4 Metus is a form of mixed 6 E.iii. i8S. 2; Aff. deff., 12-17. 



DERIVATIVE EMOTIONS 215 

In imaginative experience, the ideas which are the CHAP. in. 
psychical expressions of affections of our body reflect ( D ) Con - 
external bodies as present to us; i.e. the ideas ofofthe"* 
imagination involve both the nature of our own bodies ^^f 
and the actual nature of the external bodies. If the the emo- 
extemal body has a nature like our own, the idea of that tlon3 * 
external body will involve an affection of our own body 
which is like the affection of the external body. Con 
sequently, if we imagine some one like ourselves to 
suffer any emotion, that imaginative idea will involve an 
affection in our own body like the affection in his ; and, 
therefore, our emotion (the idea of our bodily affection) 
will be like his. Hence the mere picturing the emotion 
of a being like ourselves will rouse a like emotion in us \ 

This explains that form of Pity (and kindred and 
dependent or corresponding emotions) which refers to 
all beings like ourselves 2 ; Pity of this kind is simply 
a pain which arises in us from picturing a pain in a 
being like ourselves. Emulation is derived from the Aemuiatio. 
same principle : it is the desire for a thing which arises 
in us, because we picture the same desire as influencing 
others like ourselves 3 . From this principle (of the 
imitation of the emotions), combined with the pre 
ceding principles, certain further forms of emotion can 
be explained. 

Thus, we feel pleasure in what we picture as pleasing 
our fellow men, we dislike and avoid what we picture 
others as disliking and avoiding. Ambition is the 
desire of winning popularity at all costs, Civility or 
Deference the desire of conforming to public opinion 4 ; 

1 E. iii. 27 and dem. ambitio (E. iii. Aff. deff., 48 Expl.). 

2 Cf. above, p. 210. So, too, the desire of making 

3 E. iii. 27 S. i ; Aff. deff., 33 every one agree with you in your 
and Expl. likes and dislikes, adopt your 

4 E. iii. 29 and S. ; Aff. deff., 43, opinions and ideals, is really a 
44. Modestia is thus a species of form of Ambition (E. iii. 31 C. 



216 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. Approbation and Disapproval are the emotions of pleasure 
Laus: vitu- anc [ p a i n wn i c h we feel in picturing the actions of 
others, according as they have endeavoured to please 
us, or not J . 

Gloria : Hence, too, the reflective emotions of Self-satisfaction 
and Shame ; i. e. the pleasure or the pain with which we 
contemplate ourselves as the source of an action which 
we picture others as approving or disapproving 2 . 

It is this imitation of the emotions which intensifies 
our Love, Desire and Aversion, when we picture others 
as influenced by the same feelings towards the object 
of these emotions. This is the characteristic of human 
nature which is the common root of Good-nature and of 
Envy and Ambition: it is owing to it that mankind 
for the most part pity those who are in trouble, and envy 
the fortunate. A study of the psychology of children, 
Spinoza adds, would afford convincing evidence of its 
prevalence and power 3 . 

(E) LU- Luxury, Drunkenness, Lust, Avarice and Ambition are 
simply names to express immoderate degrees of Love 
or -^ es ^ re f r cert ain objects and actions. Temperance, 
Amutio! Sobriety and Chastity are not passive emotions at all. 
mX~ Tll ey express the power of the mind so far as it mode- 
sobriet rates the above-mentioned forms of Love or Desire. 

Mas. 






and S.). Contrast modestia as (verecundia) is the fear of feeling 

a form of generositas ; below, shame which restrains a man from 

p. 219. acting wrongly ; whilst pudor is 

1 E. iii. 29 S. the shame itself, which we feel 

2 E. iii. 30 S. (where Spinoza when we have done wrong. Shame- 
distinguishes pudor and gloria lessness (impudentia), which is 
from aquiescentia in se ipso and usually regarded as the contraiy 
poenitentia. The former emotions of verecundia, is not, properly 
arise from sympathetic apprecia- speaking, an emotion at all. 
tion of the moral judgements laus, 3 E. iii. 31, 32 and S. 
vituperiumof others), Aff. deff., 4 E. iii. 56 S.; Aff. deff., 44- 
30 and 31. In Aff. deff., 31 Expl., 48, and Expl. The term libido, 
Spinoza explains that Modesty Spinoza explains, is applied to 



DERIVATIVE EMOTIONS 217 

We are said to experience Wonder or Fascination, CHAP. in. 
when our attention is held by the imaginative idea of Admirati - 
something new or unique : whilst the idea of something 
common is called Contempt. A thing which we have never Contemptus. 
seen before, or which contains unique features, is apt to 
attract and hold our attention, whilst a thing which is 
neither unique nor new calls up in our mind the images 
of the other things which it resembles, and sets our 
attention wandering to them. Hence the presence of 
a common or familiar object sets us thinking of what it 
is not, rather than of what it is. Since the imagination 
of something new or familiar is not, qud imagination, 
different from any other imaginative idea, Fascination 
and Contempt are not emotions, but simply imaginative 
ideas directed to objects which are to us of a certain kind. 
But when those objects are the objects of our Love, Hate, 
or Desire, these latter emotions are coloured by this pecu 
liar nature of our imagination. Thus, e. g., Fascination 
by an object which we fear is called Consternation, which Conster- 
is a species of Cowardice 1 9 its distinctive character being natw 

any desire for sexual intercourse, ness b is that form of Desire which 

and is not confined to immoderate incites a man to act in spite of 

degrees of such desire. perils which his fellows fear to 

1 Cf. E. iii. Aff. deff., 42 and face. And Cowardice is predicated 

Expl. ; 39-41 and Expl. ; iii. 39 S. of the man whose Desire is checked 

and 51 S. Timidity a is a special by the fear of a danger which his 

case of Fear (metus, see above, fellows are not afraid to face. 

p. 214). It is * Fear, in so far as (Though Cowardice, as an emo- 

that disposes a man to avoid by tional state, is opposed to Bold- 

a lesser evil a greater one which ness, it is really a form of Fear, 

he judges to be imminent. By i.e. of pleasure pain, whilst Bold- 

evil Spinoza means any form of ness and Timidity are forms or 

pain or anything which frustrates states of Desire.) A man is said 

a man s Longing (desiderium). to be in a state of Consternation, 

Hence, the timid man is in the so far as his desire to avoid an 

contradictory state of not willing evil is checked by the fascination 

what he wishes for, and willing of another evil which he fears to 

what he does not wish for. Bold- undergo. Consternation d , there- 

* Timor. b Audacia. c Pusillanimitas. d Consternatio. 



2i8 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. that the evil in question fascinates our attention and 
prevents us from thinking of remedies. Wonder at a 

Veneratio. man s surpassing prudence or industry is called Worship ; 

Horror. Fascination by his anger, envy, &c., is called Horror. 
Wonder at the industry, prudence, &c., of a man we love 

Devotto. i s Devotion. Contempt of a thing we hate or fear gives 
rise to Mockery or Derision, Contempt of folly to Scorn l . 



7. THE ACTIVE EMOTIONS. 

Pleasure is the awareness of a heightened vitality, and 
desire is the consciousness of our being as the determinate 
source of activity. Both . these ground-forms of emotion 
may depend in us on our adequate ideas, i. e. may 
follow from the nature of our own mind only, and may 
therefore be .lactiones and not passiones in us. For 
the mind, so far as it thinks truly or adequately, is 
necessarily conscious of its own true thinking, or power ; 
and in such consciousness it is aware of a heightened 
being which springs from itself alone, i. e. it experiences 
an emotion of pleasure which is * referred to it, so far as 
it is active. And the mind necessarily tends to persist 
in its being not only so far as it thinks confusedly, but 
also so far as it thinks adequately ; i. e. the mind 
experiences desire as an intelligence, or so far as it 
manifests its being in true thinking or in activity 2 . 
All the active emotions are the effect of, and reveal, 
our power the realization of our own nature. Hence 
all of them are forms of desire or pleasure: none of 

fore, although it is a species of l Cf. E. iii. 52 S. ; Aff. deff., 4 

Cowardice, may be most simply andExpl.; 5; 10 and Expl.; n 

defined as Fear (metus), which and Expl. 

keeps a man so stunned or stupe- a *. . . Cupiditas ad nos refer- 

fied or so undecided between tur, etiam quatenus intelligimus, 

two equally torturing evils that sive quatenus agimus. E. iii. 

he is unable to remove an evil 58 dern.; cf. also E. iv. App. 

from which he is suffering. cap. 2. 



THE ACTIVE EMOTIONS 219 

them are forms of pain. For pain implies a decrease CHAP. III. 
of vitality in body and mind, the consciousness of a 
lessened power of thought. But so far as our power or 
our being is lessened or hindered, we are * passive not 
* active V 

The actions which follow from the active emotions are 
all consequences or manifestations of the mind s power to 
think truly, i. e. of our mind as an intelligence. Spinoza 
includes them all under the head oj[qtitudo, i.e. he 
regards them as expressing Strength of Mind. A strong 
character in its relations to other men is Nobleness 
(generositas) the steadfast and intelligent endeavour to 
help others and make friends of them. The same strength 
of character shows itself also as Strength of Purpose 
(animositas) the steadfast and intelligent endeavour to 
promote our own best welfare. Forms of Nobleness of 
Mind are e. g. modestia^ dementia, &c. ; forms of Strength 
of Purpose are e.g. Temperance, Sobriety, Presence of 
Mind in dangers, &c. 2 

1 E. iii. 59 and dem. larity. 1 Here he evidently intends 

2 E. iii. 59 S. ModestiaSiS it to mean * deference to others 
Spinoza defines it elsewhere is so far as that results from an 
a passive emotion, a form of intelligent endeavour to help 
Ambition (p. 215, note 4): it them and make friends of them ; 
means deference or civility to cf. E. v. 4 S. ; iv. 37 S. I ; iv. App. 
others in order to attain popu- cap. 25, and below. 



APPENDIX TO BOOK II 

ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE THE CONATUS CUPIDITAS 
FREEDOM TELEOLOGY EMOTIONAL AND COG 
NITIVE IDEAS 

BOOK II. i. IN th s appendix I propose to consider certain diffi- 
ofthis Cities both of interpretation and of doctrine which, 
appendix, are involved in Spinoza s account of the nature of man. 
It was convenient to postpone their discussion in order 
not to interrupt an exposition already sufficiently com 
plicated, but it will not be unprofitable to examine them 
here. For such an examination, even if it should force 
us to admit that Spinoza s views are exposed to un 
answerable criticisms, will at least show us where we 
stand. It will throw our interpretation into relief, and 
thus clear the ground for the exposition of Spinoza s 
ethical theories. 

The reader will perhaps expect some apology for a dis 
cussion which must repeat in its main features the 
criticisms I have already set out at length 1 . In one 
sense, it is true, the whole problem of the Ethics is 
summed up in the question How can we conceive the 
being of a multiplicity in God ? "What is the good, it 
. may be said, of criticizing the details, when the principle 
has already been condemned ? If the basis of a philo 
sophy is inwardly contradictory, the contradiction must 
reveal itself also in the superstructure. 

1 See above, App. to Bk. I. 



ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE 221 

But the real problem for Spinoza is not adequately APPENDIX. 
formulated in a question of this kind. His subject- 
matter is the concrete unity of Reality in the various 
degrees and forms of its manifestation. To have criticized 
his conception of the general principle of that unity 
cannot absolve us from an examination of his theory in 
its details. For the full significance of the general 
principle is revealed only in the complete theory ; and it 
would be rash to assume, without confirmation, that our 
earlier criticism was sound. It may be that the flaws of 
the basis will repeat themselves in the superstructure ; or 
perhaps a study of the latter will modify our views of the 
former. These are questions which critical inquiry alone 
can determine. And even if after all we encounter the 
old problem in fresh forms, these forms have an interest 
of their own, and the examination of them is certainly 
not a useless labour. 

2. I will begin with a difficulty on which we have Is there a 
touched more than once. We have maintained that ^ ver 
Spinoza does hot sever existence and essence. Natura essence 
naturata the Reality as consequent is not a world of 
shadowy essences confronting a world of temporally- 
existent things. The mere existence and the mere essence 
of a thing (its temporal-being and its thought-being) 
are abstract moments of its full modal being. Natura 
naturata is the concrete modal system in which the 
essences maintain themselves with a timeless actuality. 
Its unity sustains within itself the individual distinctness 
of the modes: their distinctness does not break the 
wholeness of natura naturata, but constitutes it 1 . 

And this interpretation was confirmed by Spinoza s 
theory of knowledge. Science apprehends the universal 
nature of things : but it remains abstract, in so far as 
the adequate knowledge of the essence of things 
their intimate individuality escapes it. It grasps at 

1 Cf. above, p. 95, note i; pp. 119 ff. 



222 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. most the specific, not the individual, nature of the 
modes. * Natura naturata is incompletely comprehended 
by science as a system of universal law, a universe of 
common properties. For complete truth we must look to 
intuitive science or philosophy. It alone can grasp the 
intimate individuality of each thing as the inevitable 
consequent of the nature of God. In that complete 
apprehension * natura naturata is fully understood. The 
temporal actuality of things receives its recognition as 
the partial manifestation of their timeless self-main 
tenance. Things retain their unique individuality with 
out losing their necessary coherence in God. The 
essences of things reveal the actuality which is 
adequate to them. The mere essences and the mere 
1 existences are viewed as what they really are, abstrac 
tions from the concrete being of things 1 . 

This is, I believe, in outline Spinoza s view; a view, 
which as I hope to show is elaborated in the fifth 
part of the Ethics 2 . But Spinoza is far from consistent ; 
and if this is the theory he intended to express, some 
times, it must be admitted, the intention is very im 
perfectly realized. For there are passages which cannot 
be reconciled with this general tendency of his thought. 
If they stood uncontradicted, they would force us to^a 
widely different interpretation of the Ethics. As it is, 
we have to face inconsistencies which it is impossible to 
override, however liberal the use we make of the distinc 
tion between intention and actual expression. In 
other words, an honest interpretation of the Ethics is 
compelled to recognize here, as elsewhere 3 , two con 
flicting lines of thought. In my exposition as a whole 
I have followed what I take to be the main stream of 
Spinoza s philosophy. But it is now my duty to point 

1 Cf. above, pp. 175 ff. 2 Cf. below, Bk. III. ch. 4. 

3 Cf. above, pp. 



ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE 



223 



out some of the evidences for the undercurrent/ if I may APPENDIX. 
so call it. 

In E. ii. 8 we read : The ideas of the single things or 
modes which are not existing must be comprehended in 
the infinite idea of God, just as the formal essences of 
the single things or modes are contained in God s 
Attributes. The corollary adds : Hence it follows that 
so long as single things do not exist, except so far as 
they are comprehended in God s Attributes, their " esse 
obiectivum" or ideas do not exist, except so far as the 
infinite idea of God exists ; and when single things are 
said to exist not only so far as they are comprehended in 
God s Attributes, but so far also as they are said to 
endure (i. e. exist in time), their ideas too will involve 
an existence in virtue of which they are said to endure. 
Now, apart from the use of the expression infinita idea 
Dei, these passages create no special difficulty. For they 
could be interpreted simply as distinguishing the con 
ceptual being and the temporal actuality of things as two 
aspects or factors of their full modal being. And it was 
in this sense that I understood them, when I quoted this 
very corollary to support my interpretation of Spinoza s 
conceptions of natura naturata and the world of pre 
sentation \ Moreover, the Scholium confirms this. For 
the illustration, which it offers 2 , clearly indicates that the 



1 Cf. above, p. 122, note i. 

2 E. ii. 8 S. Having warned 
us that any illustration is neces 
sarily inadequate, Spinoza pro 
ceeds : * I will try to illustrate 
the matter as best I can. The 
nature of a circle is such, that 
the rectangles formed by the 
segments of all its chords, which 
intersect in the same point, are 
equal. Therefore, a circle con 
tains an infinity of equal rect 
angles. But none of these can 



be said to exist, except so far 
as the circle exists ; nor can 
the idea of any of them be said 
to exist, except so far as it 
is comprehended in the idea of 
the circle. Now suppose that two 
only of these innumerable rect 
angles . . . exist. The ideas also 
of these two exist now, not only 
so far as they are comprehended 
in the idea of the circle, but 
also so far as they involve the 
existence of the rectangles in 



224 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. essences of things which are not existing (of which the 
proposition and corollary speak) are the abstract con 
ceptual essences things in their potential being, as 
involved in the common properties or universal laws 
which the scientific consciousness would apprehend. 

But the use of the expression infinita idea Dei if 
we are to take it precisely suggests a very different 
interpretation. The infinita idea Dei is, as we have 
seen x , a mediate infinite and eternal mode of Thought 
natura naturata on its ideal side. The ideas, therefore, 
so far as they are comprehended in the infinite idea of 
God, are modes of Thought in their eternal being as 
modes of natura naturata ; and the formal essences of 
things so far as they are contained in the Attributes of 
God are modes of the other Attributes in their eternal 
being as modes of * natura naturata. Unless, then, we 
regard the expression infinita idea Dei as a mere 
mistake on Spinoza s part which is assuredly not a likely 
hypothesis we must recognize in this proposition and 
corollary an undercurrent which conflicts with the main 
stream of his thought. "We must see in them one more 
evidence of that tendency to an abstract conception of 
the unity of things, which, as we have maintained, 
constantly thwarts Spinoza s effort to conceive God as 
a concrete unity 2 . For, follow out the interpretation 
which is thus suggested, and natura naturata at once 
becomes a world of shadowy essences, in which the dis 
tinctness of the modes is absorbed in a vague identity. 
And, as the inevitable retribution, a second world of 
bare existences rises over against the world of essences. 
A world of actual things, that is to say, acquires a being 
independent of natura naturata which was to have 
included all modal reality in itself. The members of 

question, whereby the ideas of maining rectangles. 
these two are distinguished from l Cf. above, pp. 94 ff. 
the remaining ideas of the re- 2 Cf. above, pp. 



THE CONATUS 225 



* natura naturata the shadowy essences or potentialities APPENDIX. 
of things step into actuality in the world of temporal 
existence : and (most strange of all) this process confers 
upon them an additional reality which distinguishes 
them from their less fortunate fellows the modes which 
remain in posse as mere essences. Thus the world of 
temporal existence, if it is not itself real, at any rate 
confers an additional privilege, a distinctness and in 
dividuality, on the essences which are the modal Reality. 

And yet, if we ask what is it that is existing in the 
world of temporal existence ? the answer can only be 
Hhe essences of things. It is the infinity of possible 
equal rectangles which acquires * actual existence when 
the intersecting chords are drawn ; the infinity of 
formal and ideal essences which also exists in time. 
There are no two worlds for Spinoza. The inaccurate 
language of the proposition and corollary in question is 
evidence, not that he intended to assert this inconsistent 
confusion as his philosophical theory, but that he was 
struggling against a conflicting tendency in his thought 
which he had only partially overcome when he wrote the 
Ethics. 

3. A certain ambiguity in the conception of the cona- The 
tus confirms the conclusion we have just reached. The m 
effort at self-maintenance, which is the individuality of 
things, manifests itself in their temporal being, and is 
as we have seen 1 itself temporal, though not involving a 
determinate period. Yet it is also, and essentially, a part 
of the omnipotence of God, and follows from the eternal 
necessity of his nature. It is thus the force wherewith 
each thing persists in its eternal actuality the timeless 
existence which it has in God 2 . For though the term 
conatus and its implication of time make it clear that 
Spinoza conceives it primarily as the source of the actual 

1 Cf. above, p. 192. 

2 Cf. E. ii. 45 S.; also iii. 6 dem., 7, 8, and 9. 

SPIHOZA Q 



226 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. existence of things in the temporal world, yet he never 
loses sight of its ultimate derivation from the omnipotence 
of God. And the conatus is thus, in the end, the 
effort which imperfectly expresses under the conditions 
of temporal actuality the full self-affirmation of things in 
their timeless coherence. The two senses of * existence 
or actuality, which Spinoza recognizes l , are not inde 
pendent of one another, nor on the same level of reality. 
However obscurely Spinoza may express himself, temporal 
existence is an incomplete manifestation of eternal actu 
ality ; and the conatus is, in its ultimate conception, 
the complete self-maintenance which the modes of God 
involve in their full or eternal being : not merely their 
effort at self-assertion in the temporal series. 

Spinoza s 4. To regard * temporal existence as a partial manifes- 
ofthe 1611 * Cation of the actuality of the modes in God ; to speak of 
relative their effort at self-assertion as the incomplete revelation 
time IB ^ their timeless self-affirmation, and of the world of 
imsatis- time and place as a partly illusory appearance which 
adequate understanding would supplement and resolve 
into the reality of natura naturata : all this, no doubt, 
tells us very little. Such phrases cannot pretend to solve 
the problem as to how a timeless B-eality comes to show 
itself under the imperfect form of a temporal succession. 
They cannot pretend to explain how or why the illusion 
of time, like other illusions, infects our imaginative 
experience: for as we have seen the mutilated ex 
perience, which for Spinoza s theory is the ground of 
illusion, itself is a product of the illusory world which it 
creates 2 . Nor can Spinoza even claim to have inquired 
what degree of truth is expressed in the illusion of 
temporal succession, what rank of reality attaches to the 
world of time and place. Whether or no such questions 
can be asked of any philosophy whether or no any 
answer can be made to them Spinoza, it is clear, never 
1 Cf. E. v. 29 S. 2 Cf. above, pp. in ff. 



IMPULSE AND DESIRE 227 

makes any attempt to formulate them. The complete APPENDIX. 
Reality is, for him, a timeless fulfilment of being, within 
which there is neither succession nor change as such. 
Temporal succession and determinate duration are ap 
pearances of the Eeal, but appearances which in their 
distinctive character are misleading : i. e. which possess 
a low degree of reality. The supplementation, which 
would render them adequate expressions of the Real, 
would so modify their character that nothing distinctive 
of them would survive. 

It is not a satisfactory treatment of the subject, we 
may agree ; but I do not think that more can be gathered 
from the Ethics l . 

5. The conatus of man, as the determinate state of Appetitus 
his being from which activity follows, is called by Spinoza 
cupiditas desire. This term is intended to cover all 
forms of human impulse : the strivings of which man is 
conscious, as well as those instincts and tendencies which 
are not present to him, but present in him as mere vague 
feelings 2 . We are not to suppose that desire is any 
thing specially distinctive of man. All things in our 
experience are modes of Extension and Thought ideae 
of corporeal ideata and there is no ground for limiting 
Thought s reflection upon itself to the human soul, the 
idea of a human body 3 . On the contrary, Spinoza ex 
pressly tells us that the substitution of cupiditas for 
* appetitus is a mere convenience of terminology. The 
term " cupiditas " is generally used of men in so far as 
they are conscious of their " appetitus " 4 : but there is 
no real difference : * for whether man is conscious of his 
" appetitus," or whether he is not, the " appetitus " itself 
remains one and the same 5 . 

1 Cf. also below, Bk. III. ch. 4. below, p. 257, note 4. 
8 See above, p. 193. * E. iii. 9 S. 

3 On the reflection of Thought 5 E. iii. Aff. deff., i Expl. 
on itself, cf. above, pp. 132 ff. ; 

Q 2 



228 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. These statements can only mean this : all modes ex 
hibit an effort at self-affirmation, which may be called 
a will-to-be or appetitus V The fact that in some 
modes e. g. in man this will-to-be is often not a mere 
instinctive impulse, but a desire (i. e. an impulse of 
which they are reflectively conscious) makes no difference 
to its character. It remains what it was as a blind 
striving. Reflective consciousness supervenes without 
modifying it, or is a mere epiphenomenon. 

The * will-to-be, then, of all modes is one and the same 
in character: and that character is revealed as fully 
where no reflective consciousness is present, as where it 
is. The significance of this doctrine can hardly be 
doubtful. Its object is to admit the fact of conscious 
desire, whilst denying the reality of purposive action. 
We desire, and our desire involves the consciousness 
of purpose which distinguishes reflective from instinctive 
effort. But the effective factor in our desire is the blind 
impulse : the reflective consciousness the conception of 
a purpose may seem to the agent to condition his 
action, but in reality it is the otiose accompaniment of 
the propelling force 2 . The motives, which condition 
our action, may include in their content the conception 
of an end to be realized : but, if so, it is not as such -not 
by their complete content that they move. The real 
motive force works in the depths unaffected by the 
surface-play of our thought. 

Spinoza s 6. Before we can discuss the question at issue, it is 
tionof necessary to show how this conception of cupiditas con- 
cupiditas nects with the polemic against the * freedom of the will/ 
his with which we are already familiar. Spinoza s polemic 

& summe( l U P tnus : we act " purposively " in 



1 The conatus is no doubt plants, animals, and men. 

called appetitus primarily in 2 Cf. e.g. E. iv. def. 7. Per 

reference to what ordinary expe- finem,cuius causa aliquid facimus, 

rience regards as living things * appetitum intelligo. 



DESIRE AND ACTION 229 

the sense that we do that which we consciously desire : APPENDIX. 
but our action is not "free" in the sense supposed, the 
because the conscious desire itself is produced in us by 
non-purposive causes. Man thinks he acts purposively : wil1 - 
and man s conception of an end, or the desire which 
involves it, is the next link determining his action. 
Purposive action, in this sense, is a fact. But it is not 
an ultimate fact : for the desire from which action 
springs is not itself freely formed, but is determined 
by an indefinite chain of causes which are not teleo- 
logical in their nexus. Hence man s * freedom is 
illusory : for the basis of the so-called free action, is 
itself necessarily determined a tergo by forces over 
which man has no control *. But what about the nexus 
between the desire and the action ? Is that teleo- 
logical is the action done in order to realize the de 
sire ? If so and Spinoza s polemic against freedom 
left the question undecided, or indeed suggested an 
affirmative answer there is a break in the causal 
chain. For the nexus up to the desire was throughout 
mechanical, or at least not teleological : whilst at the 
desire we suddenly cross over into a different kind of 
causation. It is here that the conception of cupiditas 
completes Spinoza s theory and removes the obscurity. 
The nexus between * desire and * action is the same 
in character as that between all the other links in the 
chain. There is no teleological determination no acting 
in order to carry out a purpose no freedom in this 
sense of the word. Desire moves to action a tergo in 
the same way in which the antecedent ideas called up 
desire. 

Spinoza s own conception of action is thus cleared of 
ambiguity. Body does not determine mind, nor mind 
body : but one determinate state of mind and body is 
the ground of another. A given action, then, is the 

1 Cf. E. i. App., hi. 2 S. 



230 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. resultant of an indefinite chain of conditions (each of 
which is both corporeal and mental): and the nexus 
between the links of the chain is throughout * geome 
trical never teleological or purposive. So far as 
a determinate state of our own body and mind is the 
adequate ground of an action, we are said to be * free/ or 
8 agents : so far as the environment has to be taken in 
to complete the ground, we are * passive or not free. 
But ultimately in any case- the only completely adequate 
ground, and the only * agent, is God \ 

<Geo- 7. We are now in a position to examine Spinoza s 

Sequence, conception of desire and the motive force which deter 
mines action. The first criticism which suggests itself 
touches a difficulty we have already discussed 2 . Of 
what nature is this * geometrical coherence the only 
type of causal nexus which Spinoza admits ? His own 
words throw but little light on the subject. It is clear 
that he intends to contrast it with teleological con 
nexion 3 ; and it is clear also that he conceives it as a 
connexion by content, and not by external colligation. 
By this I mean that the natures of the cohering elements 
contribute essentially to the coherence*, and that the 
connexion is not of the type sometimes called mechani 
cal 5 . But it is not clear whether Spinoza was folly 

1 Cf. above, pp. 197 ff. tion, in which the natures of the 

2 Cf. above, pp. nsff. conjoined elements contribute 

3 It is hardly necessary to quote nothing totheircoherence. That 
passages in support of this point : the geometrical coherence is 
but I shall have to inquire pre- not mechanical in this sense of 
sently what kind of teleological the term, but logical, is (I think) 
connexion Spinoza criticizes and placed beyond a doubt by the 
rejects. whole tenor of the Ethics. Cf. 

4 In this sense I have spoken e.g. the identification of causa 
of the geometrical coherence and ratio, the constant employ- 
as a logical nexus. ment of the example of the 

6 A connexion may be called triangle as the ground of its 
mechanical in proportion as it properties, and the distinction 
approximates to a mere conjunc- between memoria and intellectus. 



GEOMETRICAL SEQUENCE 231 

aware what a logical nexus implies. One property of APPENDIX. 
a spatial figure follows from another, because the 
positive character of the figure demands for its con 
struction and maintenance precisely these spatial elements 
with their distinctive characters and mode of intercon 
nexion. The conclusion follows from the premisses, 
because the positive character of the whole of significance 
which they express requires for its construction and 
maintenance precisely these elements with their dis 
tinctive significances and mode of coherence. In other 
words : every connexion by content (every geometrical 
or logical nexus, therefore) implies a significant whole 
dominating significant elements. And the coherence 
of the elements is the expression both of the reciprocal 
implications of their own natures and of the character 
of the whole ; for it is only within that character that 
the reciprocal implications are. Now, if this is so, 
every connexion by content implies a domination 
essentially ideological in character. For the significant 
whole conditions the contents and reciprocal implica- 

In memoria ideas are mechani- v. i refers). The order and con- 

cally conjoined, in intellectus nexion of l ideas and of things 

they are logically coherent ; (i. e. bodies and modes of Attri- 

and the Reality is re-presented by butes other than Thought) are 

the intellectus not by the associa- the same : the order (and con- 

tional reminiscences of memoria. nexion ) of the modes of Reality, 

The well-known proposition (E. though differently expressed in 

ii. 7) taken in conjunction with the different Attributes, remains 

the outline of physics in E. ii. fundamentally one. But we are 

and with the theories of Descartes not told what the nature of that 

seems to have led to the too identical order is, nor how far its 

frequent assumption that Spinoza different expressions adequately 

regards all laws of necessary con- reveal its ultimate character. All 

nexion as conforming to the type we know is that it is geometrical, 

of the laws supposed to regulate and we have certainly no right to 

the transference of motion. But identify it with the form which 

E. ii. 7 gives us only one side of it assumes in one Attribute, i.e. 

his theory : the converse is given as the order of the modes of Ex- 

in E. v. i and E. ii. 6 C. (to which tension. 



232 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. tions of the component elements as that to which they 
are the indispensable means. Its being requires their 
being : and they are what they are, and are reciprocally 
interrelated as they are, because it is what it is. It is 
not a mere resultant which they happen to produce, 
nor an end external to them to which they lead ; but 
an individuality which stamps them with its character. 
It is the immanent end, which they constitute and main 
tain, but which determines what they are. 

What The final causes, which Spinoza contemptuously 

iogy e *does rejects, are external ends : ideals not yet real, but to be 
Spinoza realized. The purposive action which he discredits, is 
action with a view to the attainment of an unpossessed 
better. God does not act purposively, or from final 
causes, because that would imply that God is now 
defective 1 . But the necessary and timeless sequence* 
or coherence of the modes in God is the articulation 
of the divine nature. It is stamped with God s indi 
viduality, and draws its being and significance from the 
totality of significant being which is God. And in this 
sense God acts purposively, or the internal coherence 
and reciprocal implications of his states are teleo- 
logical in character. The best is not an ideal towards 
which God is progressing: still less an archetypal per 
fection alien to his nature, to which he endeavours to 
conform. But the complete [Reality, which all things 
conspire timelessly to express, is the most perfect being. 
The nature of the universe is not the gradual realization 
of a plan, which God s intelligence has first conceived 
and which his will puts bit by bit into execution : but 
it is the timelessly actual manifestation of an ideal 
Reality, and an ideal Reality which is completely signi 
ficant as the object of God s intelligence 2 . ^The modes 
of God are what they are, and cohere as they cohere, as 
the necessary expressions of God s individual nature 
1 Cf. e.g. E. i. App. 2 Cf. above, pp. 144, 145. 



FREEDOM 233 

as the indispensable means of its eternal self- fulfilment ; APPENDIX. 
whilst that individuality is in no sense the ( resultant 
of them. 

I am aware that this interpretation will seem para 
doxical, and I am not prepared to maintain that Spinoza 
distinctly still less, consistently expresses such a view. 
But I think it is implied in the general tenor of the 
Ethics, a great deal of which seems to me unintelligible 
without it J . It is wiser, perhaps, in view of Spinoza s 
own use of the terms and in order to avoid misunder 
standing, not to call God s activity teleological or 
purposive/ It does not much matter, so long as we are 
clear what the geometrical coherence involves. And 
unless I am mistaken it does involve that which, 
for want of a better name, I have called an immanent 
teleology. 

8. Coming now to the subject before us, much that is < Free- 
implied in Spinoza s polemic against * freedom (and ? r * nd 
especially his conception of the nexus between desire sive 
and action ) is irreconcilable with the causality of ac 
God as we have been forced to interpret it. It is 
true that man is never completely free, and that his 
action is not really purposive in the sense in which 
he imagines it to be so. But man s freedom is incom 
plete, because it is a derivative of God s * freedom : and 
we have seen that God s * freedom or self-determination 
is in the end teleological. As a derivative portion of 
God s freedom, the freedom which Spinoza attributes 
to man should exhibit a corresponding character; i.e. 
man s * free action must follow from J his nature, as 

1 Cf. e.g. E. v. 408.; and the of the Ethics as mysticism 

whole conception of the amor (i.e. unintelligible dreams which 

intellectualis Dei, on which see please the fancy), because they 

below, Bk. III. ch. 4; cf. also have committed themselves to 

Epp. 19, 21, 23. Many commen- mistaken interpretations of the 

tators find themselves compelled * causality of God as expounded 

to dismiss most of the fifth part in the earlier parts of the Ethics. 



234 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

God s action * follows from the divine nature. Man, 
that is to say, is free in so far as he possesses an 
individuality which stamps itself on his * ideas and 
movements/ which dominates his desires and activi 
ties and their mode of interconnexion. Action follows 
from desire, not because * desire includes an impulse 
which moves a tergo, but because both desire and its 
issue cohere as states of an individuality, which im 
presses its significance on them and yet requires their 
distinctive characters to constitute it. And man s action 
is not purposive in the way he imagines. For he does 
not first conceive and then will; nor does his mental 
volition determine his bodily movement. But it is pur 
posive in a different sense. For the total state (of 
which the consciousness of an object as desirable is 
the ideal side) and the total state (of which the bodily 
movement the conspicuous feature in an action 
is the corporeal side) cohere with a nexus, the ulti 
mate ground of which is a dominating individuality. 
Because man is what he is, he desires (and conceives), 
he acts (and moves), as he does. His character is 
not the chance resultant of blind impulses externally 
associated with activities. It determines the nature 
and the mode of coherence of the elements which con 
stitute it. 

Keflective 9- We can deal briefly with the remaining difficulty in 
ne"s C i US " Spinoza s conception of cupiditas. Every appetitus, 
desire. as a modification of our mind as well as our body, is of 
course felt or experienced by us : it is present in us as 
a determinate state of feeling. But in * desire we are 
conscious of an impulse as ours : the appetitus is pre 
sent * to us, in the sense that we are conscious of 
ourselves as experiencing a determinate state of feeling. 
We have seen that Spinoza s account of self-conscious 
ness is unsatisfactory: for he treats it as merely the 
reduplication ad infinitum of idea on idea in such 



SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 235 

a way that idea and ideatum always remain indis- APPENDIX. 
tinguishably one 1 . Self-consciousness, thus conceived, 
becomes the otiose epiphenomenon of consciousness ; the 
reflective idea is the idle duplicate of the idea 
reflected. And it is an inevitable corollary of such a 
view that reflective consciousness can make no differ 
ence to the * appetitus which it reflects. To be aware 
of ourselves as feeling an impulse thus becomes identical 
with feeling an impulse. 

But we have seen that, in spite of his theory of idea 
ideae, Spinoza himself constantly implies a very different 
conception of self-consciousness 2 and clearly the self- 
consciousness, which is in some sense a fact,, is not the 
idle shadow which * idea ideae would make it. Indeed, 
Spinoza s own theory should have led to different results. 
All bodies are ideas : but the ideal side of a body makes 
a difference. For the idea of a body is its soul or life. 
The first idea is thus not the otiose duplicate of its 
* ideatum. "Why then if idea is related to idea 
exactly as idea is related to body should the second 
and succeeding ideas leave their ideata unaltered ? It 
may seem to add nothing to an idea, that we should have 
an idea of it, and so on indefinitely. Yet in knowing 
that we know, we refer our knowledge to a central unity 
we constitute a self. Similarly, in reflecting on our 
impulses and thus * desiring, we adopt them as our own, 
as parts of a coherent and centralized plan of life. And 
this vitally distinguishes them from mere appetitus/ 
Spinoza does in fact make use of this difference due to 
self-consciousness, although he denies its existence. The 
different grades of perfection or reality in man and 
animals or * stocks and stones are differences in the 
grades of their soul-life ; and the different degrees 
of self-dependence or freedom in different men are 

1 Cf. above, pp. 138 ff. 2 Cf. above, p. 140, note i. 



236 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK II. differences in the coherence of their ideas and, in the 
end, of their self-consciousness l . 

Cogni- 10. It remains to point out an obscurity in Spinoza s 

* emo- and accoun t of the relation and distinction between reflective 

tionai (i. e. cognitive) 2 and emotional ideas. 

Emotions are secondary thoughts which presuppose 
the primary or reflective thoughts, though the latter may 
be present without the former. Active emotions are 
derivatives of clear thinking. Passive emotions are con 
fused secondary thoughts ; i. e. passions are derivatives of 
imaginative thought 3 . In what sense are the emotions 
derivative ? As portions, it would seem, of a total con 
scious state 4 . Thus, a passion is a part of a total 
imaginative idea. We are affected in our body by the 
action of an external body. The result is a modification 
of our body, which is eo ipso a modification of our mind ; 
i.e. an imago which is also an imaginatio. As a 
cognitive (or reflective) idea, this imaginatio is a con 
fused notion of the external body and a confused notion 
of our own body. As an emotional idea or passion, this 
same mental modification (or imaginatio ) is a feeling 
of our bodily state. 

It is a feeling of * pleasure if it is more real, of pain 
if it is less real, than the modification immediately pre 
ceding it ; i. e. it is an emotion of pleasure or ( pain 
according as we, body and mind, are more or less alive 

1 See below, Bk.I II. chs. i and4. English term in a correspondingly 

2 I have not hesitated to em- wide sense. 

ploy the term reflective ideas * 3 Cf. E. ii. Ax. 3 ; E. iv. 9 dem. 
to include both cognitive ideas (above, p. 203). Emotions here, 
and the ideas which reflect as elsewhere, are loosely taken as 
ideas; but I do not think that mental modifications only; cf. 
my use of the term is anywhere above, p. 201. 
ambiguous. Spinoza s theory of 4 Cf. also E. v, where the 
idea ideae, which admits no passions resolve themselves by 
distinction between the two, supplementation into clear re- 
renders it desirable to use some flective thoughts. 



EMOTION AND IDEA 237 

in it than we were. And it is a e desire, so far as it is APPENDIX. 
the feeling of a determinate pitch of mental and bodily 
vitality as the source of activities. 

But what distinguishes the part-idea, which is a 
passion, from the part-idea of our own bodily and 
mental state or transition which remains a cognitive 
thought? For obviously the imaginative idea may 
and often does stop short at the awareness of the modi 
fication as a change in me, without going on to refer the 
change to the presence and action of an external body. 
This would then be a part-idea; and yet it would be 
a cognitive or reflective, not an emotional, thought. 

The only answer which Spinoza gives is that the 
emotional idea is immediate, does not imply comparison ; 
i. e. is a feeling, not a reflective thought \ But (i) this 
merely states a difference without explaining how two 
things, apparently so different, are yet both entitled to 
the common name, idea 2 : and (ii) it suggests that the 
emotional ideas are prior to the cognitive ideas, which 
is contrary to Spinoza s explicit doctrine. The total 
modification (bodily and mental) is no doubt the first 
condition both of emotion and of thought : but 
emotions would seem to be the simplest and most 
direct resultants of this, reflective ideas its secondary 
and derivative consequents. 

The whole subject is, however, so vague in Spinoza s 
statement, that it is wisest to be content with pointing 
out that considerable obscurity does exist. 

1 Cf. E. iii. Aff. gen. def. Expl. because it means for him both 
8 In this respect, Pollock s con- soul and thought of the body, but 
tention (Pollock, pp. i24ff.; above, because it means both reflective 
p.i3i , note 3) seems to be justified, thought and feeling ; and be- 
But I cannot altogether accept cause he has not made it clear 
his views. Spinoza s use of the how he conceives the relation 
term idea is ambiguous, not and difference between them, 



BOOK III 

THE IDEAL LIFE FOE MAN 
CHAPTEE I 

THE MEANING OF A STANDARD OF MORAL VALUE 

BOOK in. IN the preceding Books we have sketched Spinoza s 
theory of Eeality and of the nature of man. We have 
now to consider the ethical views which he bases on 
that theory to examine his conception of the ideal life 
for man. But what right has Spinoza to talk of an ideal 
life, or an ideal human nature, at all ? * Good and 
< bad, perfect and imperfect/ as we know, are terms 
which have reference to our partial apprehension, and 
which do not express the nature of things. Neither 
is there any teleological process in Eeality. Final 
causes and * purposive action are mere phantoms of the 
imaginative consciousness. The Eeality is through and 
through determined with an immanent necessity. There 
is no progress, no striving to become better : everything 
which is in any sense real, is eternally what it is as the 
inevitable consequent of the unalterable and complete 
nature of God. 

Before, therefore, we can attempt to deal with 
Spinoza s ethical theory, we must review his conceptions 
of perfection and goodness. We must ask in what 
sense he allows himself to speak of good and bad, 
perfect and imperfect/ of an ideal human nature 



1 PERFECT AND IMPERFECT 239 

and life, of error and moral evil, of virtue and CHAP. I. 
vice. He himself is explicit on the subject, and there 
is no lack of material for answering the question *. 

(i) To begin with, we must reaffirm the conclusions of 
Spinoza s metaphysics. In truth and in reality there is 
no perfection and imperfection, no good and bad. The 
ultimate nature of things is completely real, and its 
reality is an eternal necessity. There is no possibility 
or contingency ; no ideal, which, as yet unrealized, is 
capable of realization. Reality is throughout its in 
finite variety absolutely all that it has in it to be. This, 
its absolute necessity and fullness of being, constitutes 
its perfection or completeness. It is not perfect 
in any sense which would imply the successful realiza 
tion of a best over against a possible failure 2 . 

And an examination into the origin of our notions 
of * perfection and imperfection will but confirm this 
conclusion 3 . In their original significance, the terms 
perfect and imperfect seem to have been applied to the 
products of the arts and crafts. A work was adjudged 
perfect if it completely fulfilled, imperfect if it failed to 
fulfil (or did not yet completely fulfil), its maker s 
design. Thus, in order to judge a work perfect or 
* imperfect in the strict and primary sense of the terms, 
it was necessary for the critic to know the mind of the 
maker. But the terms have acquired a wider and less 
accurate signification. "We have learnt by experience 
to form universal ideas. We have acquired a general 
notion e. g. of what a house should be by comparison 
of actual houses and architects plans, and by abstraction 
and generalization from the data compared. Hence, 

1 On ( error, cf. above, pp. of this correspondence Spinoza 

165 ff. On the whole subject, cf. refers to them in Ep. 23. 

E. iv. Praef., and Spinoza s cor- 2 Cf. above, pp. 59 ff., 232 ff. 

respondence with de Blyenbergh, 3 For what follows, cf. E. iv. 

Epp. 18-24 and 27. The Ethics Praef. 
were already written at the time 



240 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK ill. a perfect house comes to mean one which answers to 
our ideal pattern, our universal idea of a house : and 
a house is imperfect for our judgement if it fails to 
realize our ideal, however completely it may fulfil its 
builder s design. A further (and an illegitimate) exten 
sion of these notions to the works of nature soon follows. 
We talk of failures or faults of nature, so far as any 
natural product does not realize the universal idea of 
its class which we have formed by imaginative abstrac 
tion ; and we use this universal idea as a pattern or type 
to which every member of the class in question ought 
to conform. 

Now in the case of human works the so-called ideal 
or final cause is when it is operative at all the desire 
or motive of the workman. The builder e. g. * pictured 
to himself the comforts of a house, and this imaginative 
idea was in its emotional effect upon him the basis of 
the specific desire which issued in the building of the 
house l . 

If he had had sufficient knowledge, he could have 
traced the series of conditioning ideae (from which 
this desire on its ideal side inevitably followed) in 
infinitum backwards. As it is, he is aware only of his 
ideal his imaginative idea of home comforts, e. g. and 
of his desire as an effort to realize it : and, since he is 
ignorant of the real determinants of the one and the 
other, he supposes himself to originate action with a view 
to an end : and in this supposition of his own freedom 
he is deceived by partial knowledge 2 . But to the pro 
cesses of nature we cannot ascribe any purposiveness, 
not even this illusion of purposive activity which 
dominates the operations of man. Nature does not 
* picture an ideal and then strive or suppose itself to 

1 Of. above, pp. 203 ff. polemic against final causes, cf. 

2 For a criticism of Spinoza s above, pp. 227 ff. 
conception of * cupiditas and his 



GOOD AND BAD 241 

strive for its attainment. Natural effects all follow CHAP. i. 
inevitably from their efficient cause. And so far as there 
is any consciousness in nature, it is nature s (i. e. God s) 
consciousness, which is never partial and inadequate or 
imaginative ; never, therefore, the victim of any illusion 
as to the character of the causation which controls its 
processes. Nor is any natural product for and in itself 
* imperfect or faulty/ We class all natural products 
under the abstract universal idea of being : and hence 
for us they are perfect or imperfect, according as 
they exhibit more or less being or * reality in com 
parison with one another. But in reality in and for 
itself every natural product is of necessity all that it 
has in it to be. What it has not in comparison with 
others, is only for us and is no part of its nature. It is 
not deprived of the greater possession. The greater 
possession is not its portion, precisely because it is no 
part of its nature to have it. 

The same applies to the terms good and bad. Goodness 
and badness are simply modes of our thought, imaginative 
ideas, notions which spring from the comparison and 
generalization of an inadequate apprehension. In and 
for themselves, things are neither good nor bad, but 
all alike necessarily what they are. For us in relation 
to our arbitrary types and patterns, as means to our 
purposes one and the same thing is good, bad, and 
indifferent, according to our present circumstances and 
requirements. 

(ii) For the purposes of an ethical theory, the terms 
good, bad, perfect/ imperfect are convenient and 
legitimate, provided we define the sense in which we 
use them. They do not express the nature of things as 
they really are in and for themselves : but they express 
that nature as it is for us under the determinate circum 
stances of the task in which we are engaged. "We (in 
the Ethics) are endeavouring to form an ideal of human 

SPINOZA -R 



242 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK in. nature, a pattern for our life and conduct : and good or 
bad, perfect or imperfect, express things as they are 
for us so^far as we judge them with reference to this 
pattern or ideal. The term good is to be applied to 
anything which we certainly know to be a means by 
which we can approximate to the realization of this 
ideal : anything, which we certainly know to be a hin 
drance to its attainment, is to be called evil. Similarly 
men are to be called more or less perfect (or imperfect ) 
according as they approximate more or less (less or more) 
to our ideal. A man, therefore, is perfect in proportion 
as he is and does what adequately expresses our ideal 
human nature. This ideal nature itself (which thus 
determines the use of the terms good and bad/ 
perfect and imperfect J within an ethical theory) is to 
be called perfect in the wide sense of the term. 
A thing is perfect in this general sense in so far as 
it is real: its perfection is its essential being, or the 
totality of its determinate actuality and activity. All 
that the thing of necessity is and does, so far as de 
pends upon itself, is the manifestation of its affirmative 
being, its essence or perfection 1 . The ideal human 
nature, therefore, is ideal or perfect simply because 
it represents the essential being of man as adequately 
and fully as possible. We conceive as completely and 
adequately as possible all that man, so far as follows 
from within the four corners of his essential nature, of 

1 Cf. E. iv. Praef. Denique rerum duratio ex earum essentia 
per perfectionem in genere reali- determinari nequit ; quandoqui- 
tatem, uti dixi, intelligam; hoc dem rerum essentia nullum cer- 
est, rei cuiuscunque essentiam, turn et determinatum existendi 
quatenus certo modo existit et tempus involvit ; sed res quaecun- 
operatur, nulla ipsius durationis que, sive ea perfectior sit, sive 
habita ration e. Nam nulla res minus, eadem vi, qua existere 
singularis potest ideo dici per- incipit, semper in existendo per 
fectior, quia plus temporis in severare poterit, ita ut omnes 
existendo perseveraverit ; quippe hac in re aequales sint. 1 




THE MORAL STANDARD 



243 



necessity is and does. This conception serves as a CHAP. I. 
pattern by which we estimate the goodness or badness 
the .moral value of everything which comes under the 
scop"e of our ethical investigations. 

. (iii) But we have not yet freed Spinoza s position from 
obscurity. For from what has been said it would seem 
to follow that Spinoza regards the ideal human nature, 
and the distinctions between * good and bad which 
rest upon it, as purely arbitrary. We conceive a com 
pletely real essential nature of man : we take this as our 
pattern of perfection : we value all things by its standard. 
But every man, and everj~thing, is in and for itself 
completely and affirmatively real, and therefore com 
pletely * perfect. "What right have we to select our 
conception of human nature as most real, to take our 
type as the standard of perfection ? All forms of human 
nature and indeed all forms of modal being seem 
equally real and equally perfect; and all standards 
appear equally arbitrary and false. 

These objections rest upon a misunderstanding. Spinoza 
does not hold that all things in and for themselves are 
equally and completely real, or equally and completely 
perfect. Things are modes, and no mode in and for 
itself can be completely real or perfect. On the other 
hand, he does hold that all things in and for them 
selves are of necessity as real (and therefore as perfect) 
as they can be : and further, he maintains that Eeality 
taken in its total being (i. e. all things conceived in God) 
is completely real and perfect. 

But so long as we are treating of things ( parts of 
nature), we are not conceiving Reality in its completeness 
and totality, but as a system of modes : and for the modal 
apprehension (Spinoza always insists) there are degrees 
of reality or perfection, and indeed specific differences 
between the parts of nature or the essences of things *. 

1 Cf. above, p. 73, and pp. 108 ff. 

K 2 




244 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK ill. * In his controversy with de Blyenbergh, Spinoza 
develops this conception of degrees (and specific 
differences) of reality as the basis of his ethical doctrine. 
All things depend absolutely upon God, and in that 
dependence alone they are real and perfect. But it 
does not follow as de Blyenbergh had supposed that 
all things are therefore reduced to a colourless uniformity. 
To make man real only in his dependence upon God does 
not make man like the stocks and stones : it does not 
deprive man of his essential nature his power of self- 
conscious thought. On the contrary, it is in his depen- 

mce on God that man s essential being is realized. 
^ The essential being the distinctive character of all 
/ things is realized in their dependence on God. And the 
/ nature of the dependence of all things on God is most 
/ clearly manifested in the dependence of the most real 

and perfect and intelligible things on God. God is a 
I God of the living more than of the dead. His absolute 

\ power is manifested most clearly in his control of the 
relatively self-dependent things. Now, the being of 
man is primarily the power to think * : and this, his 
essential being, is most fully realized in his dependence 
^y on God. Man attains to the fullest personality, or 

reality, or perfection, of which his nature is capable, in 
\ so far as God thinks in him ; i. e. in so far as man is 
I clearly conscious of himself and of all things in their 
union with God. In this consciousness of the union 
which his mind has with the whole of nature 2 / man 
V realizes his essential being ; and in this realization, there- 
"iqre, Spinoza finds the ideal pattern of humanity. From 
this knowledge of God in which man s dependence 

1 i. e., the being of man s mind, with the nature and ideal state 

This perfection of the mind is of the mind, 

also of necessity a certain condi- 2 Cf. above, p. 4. Tdle, W1L 

tion of the body. But Spinoza i. p. 6. 
is throughout primarily concerned 



THE MORAL STANDARD 245 

on God (and therefore man s essential nature) is realized CHAP. I. 
in its completest form there necessarily flows the love 
of God/ in which man s supreme happiness consists ] . 
In proportion, therefore, as knowledge and love of God 
are absent, man misses his happiness, and his dependence 
on God sinks to a lower (non-human) level: or his 
reality is less. Thus, in falling short of the ideal human 
nature, man is missing (not an arbitrarily-conceived 
perfection, but) the full realization of himself. 

Hence Spinoza in answer to de Blyenbergh s chal 
lenge places the difference between the good man 
and the criminal precisely in this difference of level 
(or rather, of kind) of their dependence on God. In 
a sense, both are absolutely dependent on God. What 
they do, they do necessarily, and realize themselves in 
so doing : more, they both serve God, or fulfil their 
function in the universe by their works. But there is 
all the difference in the world between the levels of 
their dependence ; in the value and importance of their 
service, in the value of the virtus which each ex 
hibits, and in the degree of being or perfection which 
the nature of each expresses 2 . For the criminal, who 
neither knows nor loves God/ is in his dependence 
on God like an instrument in the hand of the crafts 
man, which serves his purpose unwittingly and is con 
sumed in the service. He has no insight into his own 
nature or into the nature of things. But the good 
man in his dependence on God is and knows himself 
to be at one with the necessity which governs him. 
He is aware of the real significance of his actions, and is 
filled with the knowledge and love of the universe, in 
the order of which he is playing a necessary part. The 
good serve God consciously, and by serving him become 
more perfect ; for their knowledge and love are increased, 

1 Cf. Ep. 21, and below, ch. 3 and 4. 
8 Cf. Epp. 19, 23. 



246 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK HI. and their being or perfection is knowledge. Hence 
there is more of God in the good than in the wicked, 
just as there is more of God in the most perfect and 
intelligible things than in stocks and stones V 

(iv) To the question why should I obey the laws 
of morality ? it is sometimes answered, to reap the 
rewards of the righteous, and escape the penalties of 
guilt : i. e. to please God, enter into the joys of heaven, 
and avoid the torments of hell. But God is not a judge 
not a human lawgiver and ruler magnified in wisdom 
and power. The question indeed, as formulated, is 
unanswerable, for it involves misconceptions as to human 
agency and freedom which we have already discarded, 
and it implies gross misunderstanding of the nature of 
happiness. The happiness or bliss of the righteous is 
not a state of being which may be added to them as the 
reward of their goodness : it is their goodness itself. 
The good man does not restrain his evil desires, and live 
a joyless life in this world, in order that he may attain 
to a happiness hereafter. The happiness or bliss, which 
is his in his knowledge and love of God, fills his mind 
and thus enables him to restrain his lusts 2 . The good 
man is good, because it is his nature to know and love 
God, and therefore to live in accordance with that 
knowledge. And the criminal is evil, because it is his 
nature to live by the half-light of imagination and 
to act accordingly. The upright man is he who stead- 

1 Cf. E. iv. App. cap. 31. In his clings to the above sketch of 
controversy with de Blyenbergh, Spinoza s position. But Spinoza 
Spinoza to some extent accoinmo- himself is fully aware (and warns 
dates his language to the theo- de Blyenbergh) that all such ex- 
logical position of his opponent, pressions are from his point of 
Hence e. g. he talks of man view highly metaphorical. And, 
serving God, and compares God in fact, they can be disregarded 
to the artifex, man to the without essentially affecting Spi- 
instrumentum.* Some of this in- noza s arguments, 
accurate phraseology necessarily 2 Cf. E. v. 42. 



THE MORAL STANDARD 247 

fastly desires that each should have his own : and in CHAP. I. 
those, whose lives are guided by reason, this desire as 
I prove in my " Ethics " follows of necessity from their 
knowledge of themselves and of God. And since the 
thief has no such desire, he is necessarily so far without 
the knowledge of God and of himself, i. e. without that 
which principally constitutes our humanity. If you ask 
further " what can move me to do the works which you 
call virtue rather than anything else?" I reply that 
I cannot possibly know which way out of the infinity 
of ways God may employ to determine you to act thus. 
It may be that God has impressed on you a clear idea of 
himself, so that you forget the world for the love of him, 
and love all other men as yourself: and it is plain that 
such a state of mind conflicts with all the other states 
which are called " evil/ and therefore cannot coexist with 
them in one and the same subject 1 . 

* The man, who avoids crime solely from the fear of 
punishment, in no sense works from love, and in no 
sense embraces virtue. As regards myself, I avoid or 
rather strive to avoid crimes, because they directly 
conflict with my own particular nature, and would make 
me to wander from the love and knowledge of God V 

Thus the difference between the good and the bad 
man is a difference of their nature. It is not a difference 
in the prudence of their calculations, nor a difference 
which depends upon their choice of the course to attain 
their happiness. The path which each follows is the 
inevitable result of the nature of each. Its goodness 
or badness depends upon the goodness or badness 
of the nature which it expresses : and the * goodness or 
badness of that nature means its relative humanity 
the degree of human reality which it contains. I do 
not introduce God as a judge; and therefore I value 
actions by their quality, and not according to the power 

1 Ep. 23. z Ep. 21. 



248 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK III. of the agent. And the reward, which follows the action, 
follows it as necessarily as it follows from the nature 
of a triangle that its three angles must be equal to two 
right angles 1 . 

The line of thought, which has just been sketched, 
will occupy us in its development during the following 
chapters. But it is already clear what Spinoza under 
stands by his standard of moral value. Every man acts 
of necessity according to his nature ; and his actions 
are explicable either as the joint-effects of his own nature 
together with an infinity of other co-operative causes, 
or as the effects of his own nature only. The actions 
of the good and of the bad are alike necessary. They 
follow inevitably from the nature of the agent in the 
medium in which he lives and works. But the actions 
themselves differ inestimably in value according to the 
richness of being the humanity of the nature which 
they reveal. And though we cannot blame the criminal 
(for he acts necessarily and his nature is not of his own 
making), yet we can most certainly pity him : i. e. we 
must estimate his nature as infinitely less real, less 
human, than the ideal pattern of manhood. 

(v) But once more we must remember that this 
difference in value, although not arbitrary, is yet 
dependent upon our comparison. In the light of a 
philosophical view, Reality is one and positive through 
out. Every c part of nature is all that it can be is real 
so far as lies in it to be. There is no defect, no error, no 
evil. Every part (i) in its dependence upon the Whole is 
absolutely and completely real, and (ii) taken by itself is 

1 Ep. 21 ; of. E. v. 42 S. therefore opposes God in every 

Cf. also K. V. S. ii. 25, 2. If way, then the Devil is assuredly 

we suppose as some do that the very miserable, and if prayers 

Devil is a thinking thing, who could help we ought to pray for 

neither wills nor does anything his conversion. 
whatever in any sense good, and 



THE MORAL STANDARD 



249 



all that it claims to be. It is evil or defective to us, CHAP. I. 
because we neither take it as it is, for what it asserts 
itself, nor in its necessary union with the Whole. We 
* compare it, and in the comparison throw it together 
with other things with which it has no real coherence : 
and then, in so far as it has not what they have, we 
suppose it to be a mutilated or defective instance of the 
nature which reveals itself more perfectly in them. 

Thus, e.g., the action of Nero in killing his mother, 
taken simply as something positive as an external action 
realizing a determinate intention was not a crime. 
Orestes had a similar intention and realized it ; yet 
Orestes is not accounted criminal, or at least not to 
the same degree as Nero. The crime of Nero consists 
in the ingratitude, pitilessness, disobedience which we 
attach to his action when we consider it as the behaviour 
of a son to his mother; but these defects or negations 
form no part of the positive nature of the action 1 . 
Looked at from the point of view of a clear and 
a complete apprehension, there is no moral quality in 
Nero s action: it is simply the expression of a certain 
human nature under the conditions of its medium. But 
if we look at it from the partial point of view of 
morality if we compare it with the actions of other 
men in the light of the moral standard, and consider how 
much humanity it reveals then we are bound to attach 
negations and defects to it ; i. e. we are bound to 
condemn it. 

Thus, it seems, there is nothing arbitrary in the moral 
standard. If you apply a moral standard at all, you must 
apply the standard Spinoza adopts ; i. e. the conception of 
the most fully real human nature. But if you apply the 
moral standard, you are not considering the nature of 
things as such, or as it is for complete knowledge : you 
are considering their nature from a special point of view. 
1 Cf. Ep. 23. 



250 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK in. The moral categories (we may perhaps express it) are 
not ultimate, not valid as metaphysical categories. But 
they are valid and objective within the limits of human 
conduct and life. 

Yet the conceptions of good and bad, perfect and 
imperfect, true and false, are not for Spinoza on the 
same plane of validity. Goodness, perfection, truth have 
a real significance which he denies to evil, defect, and 
error. For the goodness of the good action (or the truth 
of the true idea) is its positive being. Every idea in its 
proper place and relations is true/ everything in its 
proper focus and position is perfect : for the truth of 
the idea is its positive content, the perfection of the 
thing is its being or reality. But every idea (except the 
idea of the "Whole) and every thing (except the Whole) 
may be confusedly taken ; taken for more than it is, or 
really claims to be ; taken in wrong relations. And so 
far as it is not clearly conceived, not rightly apprehended, 
not what our expectations demand of it, it is false/ 
defective/ or bad. Thus falsity or badness is no 
part of the essence of the false idea or the bad thing. 
The form of evil, error, and crime does not consist in 
anything which expresses essence or being, and therefore 
God cannot be called its cause V Sins and evil are 
nothing positive 2 . 

The badness, therefore, which from a moral point of 
view we attribute and attribute rightly to certain 
actions, is no part of the actions themselves. The error 
or falsity, which a fuller knowledge discerns in the 
confusions of a lower grade of apprehension, is no part of 
the content of that apprehension itself. A false idea is 
taken up into a wider or more adequate one : but the 
falsity vanishes in that supplementation (if that can be 
said to vanish which never was), for it was nothing but 
absence of what the supplementation supplies. Similarly, 
1 Ep. 23. 2 Ep. 19. 



EVIL AND ERROR 251 

the desires, which in a poorer nature issue in actions that CHAP. I. 
we from our richer humanity condemn as bad/ are 
absorbed in the fuller being and enter into the completer 
activity of the richer human nature. In that absorption 
the desires retain what reality they possessed : but they do 
not appear as * bad, for badness was no part of them. 
It is in this way that the passional content of the imagi 
native life is transformed into the life of reason in which 
all passion has become free activity \ 

Thus, whereas complete knowledge is completely true/ 
and whereas everything in so far as it involves any 
affirmative being is perfect ; falsity and evil (or 
imperfection) do not belong even to partial knowledge 
and partial or finite being. .They are mere negations and 
defects which attach to partial knowledge which poses as 
complete (or completer than it is), and to imperfect forms 
of humanity which yet claim to be human : claim to be/ 
that is, for us who group all men under the universal idea 
of humanity, and compare them with our conception of 
the pattern of manhood 2 . 

(vi) The finite and the infinite, the false and the true, 
the evil and the good, are not on the same level of being. 
There can therefore be no relation and no conflict 
between them, nor again any progress from one to 
the other, nor any deduction of one from the other 3 . 
The only Eeal is the infinite, which as completely real 
is completely perfect, and as infinite apprehension is 
completely true. The finite and imperfect, the partial 
and erroneous apprehension, are not as such real, but 
limitations of the Real. Man, qud imaginative/ qud 
working towards true knowledge and his ideal perfection 
in his finite humanity, in short is not himself. His 
self/ his reality/ or his truth is the divinity which he 

1 Cf. above, pp. 165 ff., and 3 Cf. above, pp. 141 ff. ; Brun- 
below, ch. 3 ; E. iv. i ; iv. 59, schvicg, pp. 178 ff. 

2 Cf. e.g. E. ii. 35, 438. 



252 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK ill. expresses : expresses clearly in his complete self-realiza 
tion, in his imperfection obscurely and imperfectly. As 
full knowledge contains within itself in a harmonious 
form the truth of the lesser apprehension, and is all that 
there was of positive thought in that lower stage ; so the 
human mind in its complete activity (in that intuitive 
understanding which is God s thought thinking in man) 
absorbs and sustains, whilst it completes and renders 
fully true, the inferior stages of imaginative experience 
and the abstract scientific consciousness. Thus, what 
appears as a progress from imaginatio through ratio to 
cognitio intuitiva, is the gradual self-revelation of the 
complete human mind. The lower stages are absorbed in 
the * progress : for the progress is the negation of the 
limitations which constituted them. 

The movement from imaginatio to cognitio intuitiva 
may correctly be called dialectical 1 , inasmuch as the 
advance annihilates its starting-point. It is not a progress 
from one positive state to another, but the freeing of the 
only real and positive state by the removal of the barriers 
which obscured its expression. It is the breaking of 
complete knowledge through the form of incomplete 
apprehension: the manifestation of the nothingness of 
the imaginative stage so far as it was imaginative, i. e. 
incomplete. 

The same principle applies to every side of Spinoza s 
theory. The world of imaginative experience the world 
of things/ the communis ordo naturae is real only in so 
far as it is obscurely and in part natura naturata. When 
its limitations are removed, it shows itself first as the 
world of science a world of objective necessary universal 
laws. A further removal of unreal (and therefore obscur 
ing) negations shows the world of science as what it 
really is. Freed from the abstraction of its universality, 
it reveals itself as the eternal concrete being of God, the 
1 Brunschvicg, 1. c. 



EVIL AND ERROR 253 

Reality apprehended by cognitio intuitiva. So, the ideal CHAP. I. 
life for man (his life as an immediate modeToF state of 
God, the life in which God lives in him and he knows 
himself one with God) is^the reality of human nature. 
It is this, of which the lower stages of apparent human 
personality are the obscure and imperfect manifestations. 
From the lowest grade, in which (as e. g. in the criminal) 
there is hardly a human self at all through the grades 
of increasing being, in which man wins himself and 
becomes an agent, instead of being the mere plaything 
of forces alien and unintelligible to himself the 
progress is unreal : for the forms, which the developing 
nature puts off, are constituted by negations which do 
not really belong to it. It is the real humanity which 
is breaking through in the apparent development: and 
that from which it develops is a stage of itself, which 
(so far as it is anything real or positive) is no starting- 
point distinct from the final perfection, but is that final 
perfection itself. 

(vii) But though I believe that this interpretation of the 
Ethics is right, I do not for a moment imagine that the 
result is an adequate theory of things. On the contrary, 
if we have cleared away some superficial difficulties and 
misunderstandings, we have also thrown into relief the 
main problems which beset Spinoza s position. 

I do not wish to dwell on a point which I have already 
emphasized too often. Illusion, error, and evil are facts 
in some sense real, and facts which will not come into 
harmony with Spinoza s conception of the general nature 
of Reality. Absence of knowledge becomes error/ imper 
fection of human nature becomes sin, only when the one 
pqses as complete, the other claims to be human. The 
pose and the claim constitute the distinctive characters of 
error and sin ; and they are not mere negations. We, 
in our error and sin and suffering, are not merely without 
fuller knowledge and a larger humanity. The defects 



254 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK III. involve a positive character in us : and we, in our actual 
limitations and shortcomings, with our prejudices and 
obstinate self-will, are something for ourselves. And even 
if this experience of ourselves is illusory, the illusoriness 
itself is part and parcel of the experience and cannot be 
conjured away. For, since we are parts of the Eeality, 
our experience illusoriness and all is in the end a 
portion of God s experience. But the God, who is time 
less complete and positive Reality, cannot be conceived 
as the ground of evil, error, or illusion 1 . As we ex 
perience them, they are in respect to such a God mere 
negations : and yet as we experience them, they have a 
distinctive character and are in some sense real. Nor 
will it help us to regard evil and error as incomplete 
stages of life and knowledge which are mere moments 
in a dialectical process. For even a dialectical process 
must fall within the Reality. If the process is illusory, 
some one must experience the illusion. His illusory 
experience is a fact, and must be grounded in a positive 
feature of the Reality. In short, error and evil are 
not mere negations as Spinoza himself is well aware 2 . 
They involve a pose and a claim which distinguish them 
from the less adequate truth and the less complete good. 
But this pose and claim, which constitute the distinctive 
nature of error and evil, can neither be grounded in the 
Reality as Spinoza conceives it, nor be dismissed as mere 
illusions. For the former alternative would bring imper 
fection and defect into the nature of God, whilst the 
latter would leave the illusion itself as inexplicable as 
the facts it was intended to explain. 

1 Cf. above, pp. in ff. 2 Cf. e. g. E. ii. 35 dem. 



CHAPTEE II 

MAN AS A MEMBER OF THE COMMUNIS ORDO 

NATURAE THE BONDAGE OF MAN 

1. THE STRENGTH OF THE PASSIVE EMOTIONS, AND THE 
EELATIVE POWERLESSNESS OF THE ACTIVE EMOTIONS. 

WE are said to suffer passive emotions in so far as CHAP. n. 
we jire only the partial or inadequate cause of what we 
feel and do 1 . We are therefore inevitably liable to the 
passions, so far as we are a part of nature, which cannot 
be conceived by itself in separation from other parts 2 / 
And it is impossible that man should ever cease to be 
a part : impossible, therefore, that he should ever attain 
to a state in which all the changes that he experiences 
in himself, and all the actions which follow from him, 
should be explicable as the effects solely of his own 
nature 3 . 

In other words, man can never entirely rise above 
the common order of nature, and become an un 
affected spectator of the infinite complex of causes and 
effects which determines all the events in the world of 
imagination. He can never cease to follow and obey 
the common order of nature, and to accommodate himself 
to it so far as it requires of him V Man is, and must 
always to some extent remain, a plaything of the forces 
of his environment, at the mercy of the changes and 

1 Above, pp. 199 ff. 8 E. iv. 4. 

2 E. iv. 2. 4 E. iv. 4 C. 



256 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

III. chances of the order of the world in which as an 
imaginative being he lives 1 . 

The essential nature of man is a force which makes 
for self-assertion : so far as man is anything at all, he 
tends to affirm and maintain his being. But everything 
which in any sense is, tends in the same way to affirm 
its being. Hence man s conatus is a striving-to-be/ 
which is in conflict with an infinity of other strivings- 
to-be. Moreover, since there can be no single thing 
in nature than which there is not another single thing 
more powerful and stronger 2 , the force, whereby man 
perseveres in existence, is not only limited, but also 
indefinitely surpassed, by the power of external causes 3 . 
Now the passive emotions owe their origin and essential 
being (and therefore also their force, their development, 
and their persistence) chiefly to the nature of the ex 
ternal causes which excite them in us. Hence the 
strength and persistence of a passion is determined (not 
by our limited power of self-assertion, but) by the power 
of the external causes : and this power, in comparison 
with our own, is indefinitely great. Consequently, a 
passion may completely overwhelm us. It may entirely 
dominate our personality and we may become its 
slaves 4 . 

Since an emotion is an affection of the body as well 
as an ideal modification 5 , it follows that to check or 
remove an emotion requires a contrary and stronger 
emotion; mere knowledge, an idea qud idea, is of no 
avail. On its psychical side, an emotion is an idea 
whereby the mind affirms a greater or less vitality of 
its body : but the psychical side of an emotion is never 
present apart from the corporeal modification which, 
together with it, constitutes the whole emotional state. 

1 Cf. above, pp. 141 ff. ; pp. 166 ff. ; pp. 177 ff. 

2 E. iv. Ax. s E. iv. 3. 

4 E. iv. 5, 6. 5 Above, p. 201. 



BONI ET MALI COGNITIO 257 

No reflective idea, therefore, except in so far as it is also CHAP. IT. 
itself a factor in an emotional state the ideal modifica 
tion which expresses a modification of the subject s 
body can suppress or eradicate any emotion 1 . 

Now anything which helps or hinders our being, or 
which increases or lessens our power of acting, is neces 
sarily an object of our desire or aversion. And what we 
desire is good/ what we avoid 6 evil \ But so far as 
we feel pleasure or pain, and so far as we desire, we can 
also be aware of these our feelings and desires : for con 
sciousness in man can always be turned upon itself, 
and become self-consciousness 3 . Hence an emotion of 
pleasure or pain may carry with it the reflective idea of 
that emotion ; and the * knowledge of good and evil is 
simply an emotional state of which we are reflectively 
conscious 4 . Here, then, we seem to have a remedy to 
check or suppress the overmastering passions. "We have 
a reflective idea as to our good and evil which may 
become a true knowledge, i. e. a reflective idea of what 

1 E. iv. 7, and C. On the ob- tur, nisi solo conceptu ; ergo haec 
scurity in Spinoza s account of cognitio boni et mali nihil est 
emotional ideas, cf. above, pp. aliud, quam ipse affectus, quatenus 
236 ff. eiusdem sumus conscii. Q. E. D. 

2 E. iii. 98.; E. iv. deff. I, 2. Spinoza is concerned to show 

3 Above, pp. 132 ff. that self-consciousness is a neces- 

4 Cf. E. iv. 8, and dem. . . . sary result of consciousness: 
atque adeo boni et mali cognitio i. e. that the idea ideae requires 
nihil aliud est, quam Laetitiae only the first idea for its expla- 
vel Tristitiae idea, quae ex ipso nation. He does not consider 
Laetitiae vel Tristitiae affectu whether actual human conscious- 
necessario sequitur (per Prop, ness is necessarily also self-con- 
22. p. 2). At haec idea eodem sciousness. But in God i. e. in 
modo unita est affectui, ac Mens the completeness of the Attribute 
unita est Corpori (per Prop. 21. of Thought every idea is neces- 
p. 2] ; hoc est (ut in Schol. sarily turned upon itself. The 
eiusdem Prop, ostensum), haec mind of man, so far as it is a self- 
idea, ab ipso affectu, sive (per gen. contained thought of God, is neces- 
Affect. Defin.) ab idea Corporis sarily self-conscious. Cf. above, 
affectionis, revera non distingui- pp. 132 ff., below, p. 302. 

SPINOZA S 



258 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK in. is really good and bad for us. And this knowledge is 
on one side of itself an emotional state, and therefore 
capable of fighting against the passive emotions. 

But the value of this knowledge of good and evil to 
a man who is struggling with the passions is not so great 
as at first appears. So far as it is merely a reflective 
emotion, it is on the same plane as the other passions, 
each of which in man is (or may be) an object of reflective 
consciousness. Inasmuch, indeed, as the reflective know 
ledge which it involves is adequate, it is an emotional 
state directed to our true good. The actions, which follow 
from it, are our actions ; and in carrying out the desires 
based upon it l , we are free. But its power to control 
our lives does not depend in the least upon its truth or 
reflective character : its strength in the conflict with the 
other competing affectus is measured solely by its emo 
tional intensity 2 . And its emotional strength is merely 
that of one amongst an indefinite number of emotional 
forces, which, under the circumstances of our imaginative 
life, are for many reasons liable to overcome it. 

For (i) the desires, which are based upon the passive 
emotions, draw their strength from the external causes 
to which they owe (in part) their origin: whilst the 
desire based upon the true knowledge of good and evil 
derives its emotional intensity solely from our own 
essential being. Its force, therefore, is measured by the 
limitations of human nature 3 . (ii) The constant changes 
and chances of the present are always rousing passive 
emotions in us. As felt at what is present and actual, 
these are more intense and occupy our attention more 
than any emotion connected with a future occurrence. 
The quality of the emotions, it is true 4 , remains un 
altered, whether they are presented under the form of 

1 For from it, as from every 2 E. iv. 14, and dem. 
affectus, there necessarily arises s E. iv. 15, and dem. 
a cupiditas ; cf. E. iv. 15 dem. * Cf. above, p. 214. 



<BONI ET MALI COGNITIO 259 

present, past, or future time : but their intensity is CHAP. II. 
greatly affected \ An emotion felt towards an object, 
which is pictured as past or future, is ceteris paribus 
weaker than an emotion felt towards an object actually 
present ; and its intensity fades directly in proportion to 
the remoteness in time of the object. The only qualifica 
tion of this rule is that, when a certain degree of remote 
ness in time is passed, all objects beyond are pictured 
as equally distant, and all emotions connected with them 
become indistinguishably and equally faint 2 . 

It follows that the desire for our true good, which is 
based upon adequate knowledge, so far as it has reference 
to a future state or occurrence, is proportionally fainter 
than our desires for things which appeal to us immediately 
as pleasant 3 . 

And (iii) an emotion towards a thing which we picture 
as necessary is ceteris paribus more intense than an 
emotion towards a thing which we picture as possible 
or contingent L e. a thing, which we do not know 
to be necessarily existent or necessarily non-existent, 
whether we consider the external causes which determine 
its existence or its own essential nature 4 . And an 
emotion towards a thing which we know not to be actual, 
but which we picture as possible, is ceteris paribus more 
intense than an emotion towards a thing which we know 
not to be actual, but picture as contingent 5 . A fortiori an 
emotion towards an object pictured as present is much 
stronger than an emotion towards an object which we 
know not to be present, but picture (not as possible, but 
merely) as contingent 6 . Indeed an emotion towards 
a contingent object is the weakest of all ; weaker even 
than an emotion towards a past event 7 . 

1 E. iv. 98. 4 E. iv. ii ; iv. deff. 3, 4. 

2 E. iv. 10, and S. ; iv. def. 6, 5 E. iv. 12. 
note. 6 E. iv. 12 C. 

3 E. iv. 16. 7 E. iv. 13. Things are con- 



2 6o THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK in. So far, therefore, as our desire which is based on the 
true knowledge of our good and evil has reference to 
objects pictured as merely contingent, it is most easily 
repressed by any chance desire excited in us by objects 
presented as actual x . 

We can now understand why the true knowledge of 
good and evil/ though it has an emotional basis, influ 
ences us so little in our actual life. True knowledge 
is unaffected by time, and if we were living a purely 
intelligent life, we should have a just appreciation of the 
relative significance of all its events. Their existence and 
duration would be adequately apprehended: and the 
imaginative distinctions of past, present, and future 
would not deceive us in our judgements of the intrinsic 
qualities of our experiences./ The * knowledge of our true 
good would exercise an emotional power corresponding 
to its truth. 

But in our actual lives we are influenced by things 
which we apprehend imaginatively and not intelligently. 
For such an imaginative apprehension it makes all the 
difference whether the object which excites emotion is 
pictured as past, present, or future. These temporal 
differences are the forms in which our imaginative 
consciousness confusedly apprehends the duration or 
existence of things 2 , and the intensity of our emotional 
states depends largely upon them. Hence the true 

tingent, possible, and actual it, or again to exclude its ex- 

(as contrasted with necessary) istence. The degree of ignorance, 

only for the imaginative con- which is involved in the concep- 

sciousness. A thing is contin- tion of a thing as contingent, 

gent for us, so far as we know is thus greater than that involved 

merely that there is no inherent in the conception of a thing as 

impossibility in its conception: possible. Cf. above, p. 60, 

possible, so far as in addition note 5. 

the causes, which determine its l E. iv. 17. 

existence, are not known to be 2 Cf. above, p. 168. 
actually determined to produce 



BONI ET MALI COGNITIO 261 

knowledge of good and evil does not penetrate below CHAP. II. 
the surface of our actual lives. It remains an abstract, 
universal, scientific truth, which is not realized or felt by 
us in the details of our emotional struggles. We desire 
our true good and are reflectively aware of this desire. 
"We formulate this as a general principle : but it remains 
a mere general principle, a pious wish. Hence it has 
but little influence on the actions of our everyday life. 
For we picture our true good as future and merely 
contingent : and the emotional force of this idea is over 
whelmed by the more intense emotions excited by the 
objects, which we picture as present 1 . 

It would seem, therefore, that such knowledge is useless 
where it is most required. It cannot check the passions 
of the moment ; for it does not teach us to weigh proba 
bilities and to sacrifice the momentary pleasure to the 
more permanent satisfaction, which we can picture only 
as contingent. And where the knowledge is powerful 
i. e. when it is the reflective consciousness of our desire 
for a present good the desire itself does all the work, 
the reflective idea is (for practical purposes) a mere otiose 
accompaniment. The true knowledge of good and evil, 
indeed, not only often succumbs to all the forms of lust ; 
it actually increases our trouble and pain, by stirring up 
unprofitable conflict in our souls ; a conflict in which it, 
as an emotional state, is too weak to win the victory \^ 



2. THE LIFE OP MAN AS INTELLECTUALLY AND 
MORALLY IN BONDAGE. 

Imaginative experience is characterized by its arbi 
trariness. So far as we are confined to imaginative 
apprehension, our views of things are formed in us and 
not by us, and formed with a personal and peculiar 

1 Cf. E. iv. 62 and S. a Cf. E. iv. 17 S. 



262 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK III. colouring which depends in the main upon our past 
circumstances and present environment. The imagina 
tive consciousness is in fact a consciousness without 
principles of synthesis or order of its own. Its contents 
are incoherent, or at least their coherence is so far as 
the subject is concerned arbitrary and contingent. And 
the world, as it exists for such a mind, is correspondingly 
unintelligible, arbitrarily coherent, devoid of rational 
order and law. In imaginative experience each man 
lives in his own personal world, which has been con 
structed for him by chance conjunctions and on principles 
of which he is in no sense the originator and which he 
cannot grasp. He lives in a world centred if for Mm it 
is centred at all round his personal prejudices, his likes 
and dislikes. The distinctive advance of the scientific 
consciousness lies in the substitution of universal, 
necessary, objective principles of construction for these 
subjective, arbitrary, and personal rules of synthesis ; in 
the conception of a Reality one and the same for all 
thinking beings, and in the attempt to grasp the 
principles of its interrelation and necessary coherence l . 
Now the life of passion is the practical side of imagina 
tive experience, the intellectual aspect of which Spinoza 
has described in Part II of the Ethics. In the * life of 
passion the same characteristics, which marked the 
imaginative apprehension, reveal themselves. So far as 
men are controlled by the passive emotions, they live in 
(possible and probable) isolation. Each is driven by the 
influences which happen to affect him; and there is 
nothing to guarantee harmony and agreement in their 
lives. On the contrary, there is every chance, not only 
that they will come into hostility one with another for 
many of the passions are directed to objects, the joint 
enjoyment of which is impossible but also that they 
will live in constant conflict with themselves 2 . They 

1 Cf. above, pp. 170 ff. 2 E. iv. 32-4. 



THE LIFE OF PASSION 263 

have, in fact, no real self, no genuinely unified person- CHAP. n. 
ality. They are individuals and one through an 
aggregation and coherence of their elements, which is 
brought about by the chance pressure of their environ 
ment, rather than through any inner principle of union. 
For they do not control their own lives by the rational 
and adequate knowledge of their true good; they are i/ 
the victims of every fresh desire, as it arises from the 
feelings of pleasure or pain which the influences of the 
moment excite in them 1 . 

It is this want of personality, this nightmare-like 
subjection to any and every chance influence, which 
makes the life of passion so unsatisfactory. There is 
a want of reality in us, a want of consistency and unity 
in our being, and a complete absence of conscious control 
of our lives. We are slaves of innumerable and con 
stantly-changing masters. Add to this, that we are 
driven as much by pain in all its forms as by pleasure 
(our desires are based on emotions of tristitia as much as 
on those of laetitia), and the picture is nearly complete. 
Nearly ; but not quite. For there is a yet more miserable 
form of the life of passion, in which all humanity seems 
to be lost. 

It sometimes happens that one passion becomes over 
mastering. A man becomes ridden by e. g. lust of money, 
lust of power, or sexual lust, just as a madman becomes 
possessed by a fixed idea. In such a case the victim is 
really insane. Avarice, ambition, lust, &c. are forms of 
madness, although they are not commonly counted 
amongst the diseases 2 .*/ 

1 The pleasure which they feel hilaritas, the term which Spinoza 

is as a rule the increased vitality employs to express the laetitia of 

of some part of their body and the man who lives the rational 

mind at the expense of the whole : life. Cf. E. iv. 42, 43. 

titillatio as distinguished from 2 E. iv. 44 S. 



CHAPTEK III 

THE MORAL LIFE AS THE LIFE OF REASON 
1. INDIVIDUALITY IN THE GKADE OF e EATIO. 

BOOK HI. REALITY for the scientific consciousness is an objective 
system of necessary laws. Distinctions of time and 
place, and the uniqueness of being in the parts of the 
Whole which these distinctions indicate, have vanished. 
And the mind of the man of science has undergone 
a corresponding change. It is no longer the associated 
complex of unique feelings and opinions the acci 
dentally-coloured aggregate of reminiscences which 
constituted the loose personality of the stage of 
imagination. All the feelings and ideas which were 
uniquely ours which were due to the unique set of 
conditions in which each of us had lived and developed 
have been purified away as such. Our mind, in the 
stage of ratio, is an organized system of coherent 
truths, the principle of their coherence being the com 
mon principle of all legitimate deductive reasoning. 
We/ so far as our mind is concerned, are simply and 
solely the intellectus : i.e. the necessarily-interconnected 
logical system of adequate ideas. And (since our cor 
poreal being is that of which our mental being is the 
idea) we, body and mind, are resolved into the 
Attributes of Extension and Thought : our body and 
our mind are modes of Extension and Thought conceived 
in their necessary modal dependence, as essences. Our 
mind, or our self, is that common permanent being, 



INDIVIDUALITY 265 

which characterizes all intelligences in their essential CHAP. III. 
nature : our body is that common extended nature, of 
which all human intelligences are as such the appre 
hension l . 

Our self therefore (as the self of ratio ) is the 
reality, of which the self of imagination was the partly- 
illusory appearance. We have gained reality and perma 
nence : but we have also gained universality. What we 
are is now identical with what every one, so far as he 
is in the stage of ratio, is. The element of ratio 
is common to all rational beings, and their essential 
being is one and indistinguishable. Their intellectual 
life is one and the same, and their practical life exhibits 
a corresponding identity. Imaginative individuality, 
which separated man from man, was constituted by 
peculiarities ultimately due to differences of time and 
place. These have revealed themselves as not real as 
mere negations and have therefore vanished. And it 
seems as if they have carried with them all individuality : 
as if, when once the illusory barriers have fallen, nothing 
remains but the all-complete Thought and Extension of 
God. Or at least it seems as if human nature in the 
abstract, human intelligence as such, the human body in 
general alone are left to constitute man s * individuality. 

Now, if * individuality means that which separates 
from everything else, it is certainly true that, so far as 
man lives in the stage of * ratio, he has lost his indi 
viduality. The more man is what he is for science, the 
more he reveals his identity with all other men, and 
the more his being is (for himself and for others) the 
1 humanity common to all men. 

And further, it is true that for science this humanity 

remains to a great extent an abstraction. The essential 

nature of the mind and the essential nature of the body 

are so far as the scientific consciousness can carry us 

1 Above, pp. 175 ff. 



266 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK in. universals which, have not revealed their concreteness. 
If, in the stage of ratio, man becomes one with all men ; 
if, in his scientific intelligence, he becomes one with 
God s Thought, and in his corporeal being one with 
God s Extension, this oneness is the unity of mere 
absorption. Man s being is merged in the nature of 
things: and the nature of things, so to speak, does not 
give him anything back. Man s * self is swallowed up 
in that abyss of abstract identity which, as some critics 
would have us believe, Spinoza calls God. 

But these difficulties disappear on a more careful 
consideration of Spinoza s conception of ratio. Science 
is the first attempt to think clearly: and the universe 
of science is the first intelligible reality ; i. e. reality 
as it first emerges for a consciousness which has begun 
to think, to construct a consistent experience. Hence, 
as we saw l , the scientific consciousness, though true so 
far as it goes, goes a very small way in understanding 
the nature of things. Science is abstract : not, indeed, 
in the sense that its universals are mere abstractions (like 
the notiones universales of imagination), but in the sense 
that their concrete content remains for it implicit. Thus 
e. g., the essential nature of man or * humanity is not 
for science a mere picture-universal : it is not obtained 
by superimposing the images of this, that, and the other 
man, omitting the differences of the fringe, and empha 
sizing the central portion in which the pictures coalesce. 
It is a genuine universal conception, constructed by 
deduction from the laws of Thought and Extension: 
a synthesis (on logical principles) of the simpler ideas, 
the common properties of minds and bodies. But 
science cannot articulate this universal into the concrete 
system of * essential natures, which would explicitly 
express its content. Such an articulation would reveal 
the intimate individuality of each man as an essential 
1 Above, pp. 175 ff. 



INDIVIDUALITY 267 

character, which, contributed its distinctive share in the CHAP. III. 
formation and maintenance of the common medium 
of all jaiaa s being the essential nature of man or 
c humanity 1 . 

So again, for science the essential nature of the human 
mind remains adequate thinking, the intelligence as 
such. Science cannot articulate this universal. It can 
not show how the adequate thinking, which constitutes 
this and that mind, contributes its own significance to 
the totality of true thought; how this, its distinctive 
significance, together with all other distinctive intelli 
gences, constitutes the complete content of God s complete 
understanding 2 . It is scientia intuitiva the complete 
knowledge of the philosophic consciousness which 
fulfils the work of science by the intelligible reconstruc 
tion of the universe in some such way as this. And 
we shall see that in the stage of scientia intuitiva man is 
real with a permanent and genuine individuality 3 . 

Hence,, the scientific consciousness is a half-way stage 
in the emergence of perfect understanding; and the 
life of reason is a half-way realization of ideal human 
nature. The scientific thinker or rational agent has 
not, as such, realized his complete and permanent 
being. He has not attained to the * individuality with 
which he consciously fulfils the unity of God, and, in so 
doing, grows to his full stature, his distinct (though not 
separate or isolated) self. On the other hand, he has 
not shaken himself entirely free from his imaginative 
individuality which separates him from other men. 
His scientific thinking and his reasonable or moral 
conduct take place on an imaginative or passional 

1 The essentia of a thing is 2 dem.). Cf. also above, pp. 

exactly coextensive with it (E. ii. 177 ff. 
def. 2). The common notions 2 Cf. E. v. 40 S. 
of science nullius rei singularis 3 Cf. below, ch. 4. 
essentiam explicant (E. ii. 44 C. 



2 68 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK III. background. In the Fourth Part of the Ethics, Spinoza 
is describing the knowledge and life of man at a stage 
in which adequate ideas control his conduct, but do not 
fill his whole consciousness : at a stage in which he has 
neither left imaginative experience completely behind 
him, nor passed beyond the abstract truth of science 
to the concrete truth of scientia intuitiva. 



2. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE LIFE OF c REASON, 
VIRTUE, OR FREEDOM. 

The (i) It is the essential nature of everything to strive 

isthe f r *^ s own maintenance. In asserting itself, it exhibits 
moral or its power : and its power is its virtue 1 . The ultimate 

free life. , ""*""". , n , , . . . , r . -, 

and unique basis of all virtue in man is therefore the 
conatus sese conservandi : on the natural and inevitable 
tendency to self-affirmation is grounded the whole moral 
life of man. If we desire to be happy, we must first 
desire to be. And this desire to be to secure our own 
advantage, to maintain our life and health is the in 
evitable expression of our nature. We show our power 
(and therefore our virtue) in this endeavour and its 
success 2 . 

But in so far as what we do follows from inadequate 
ideas in us, it is in part the expression of what is not 
ourselves. It manifests, therefore, not our power or 
virtue, but the power of external causes. Man exhibits 
his true nature, power or virtue, only in so far as his 
actions follow from his intelligence or reason from his 
adequate ideas. The life of virtue is thus for Spinoza 
the life of reason : the moral life is the practical aspect 

1 E. iv. def. 8 : Per virtutem quatenus potestatem habet quae- 

et potentiam idem intelligo ; hoc dam efficiendi, quae per solas 

est (per Prop. 7. p. j), virtus, ipsius naturae leges possunt in- 

quatenus ad hominem refertur, est telligi. 
ipsa hominis essentia seu natura, 2 E. iv. 20, 21, 22 and C. 



THE LIFE OF REASON 269 

of the scientific apprehension. And it exhibits a cor- CHAP. in. 
responding independence in the agent. The scientific 
thinker constructs his world for himself in accordance 
with the laws of his own (and all) intelligence. The 
morally-good agent lives the life of freedom, i. e. the life 
which is controlled by the laws of intelligence or reason. 
The moral life is that in which our mind controls all 
that we do l . And our mind is our intelligence, for it is 
ours in so far as its ideas are adequate. For when we 
think adequately (and only then), God is thinking in us 
in so far as he constitutes the essential nature of our 
mind 2 . 

In living the life of reason, therefore, we are mani 
festing our power and our virtue, our freedom and our 
agency : we are realizing and asserting our own nature. 
And, since reason (which is our self) can demand nothing 
contrary to nature 3 , in following the guidance of reason 
we are inevitably seeking and securing our true, advan 
tage. Hence Spinoza can say, Ex virtute absolute 
agere nihil aliud in nobis est, quam ex ductu Rationis 
agere, vivere, suum esse conservare (haec tria idem signi 
ficant) ex fundamento proprium utile quaerendi 4 . And 
hence we have a perfect right an absolute natural 
right to remove what we judge to be bad (i. e. 
a hindrance to our true expediency, the rational life), 
and to secure and use what we judge to be c good (i.e. 
useful to maintain our being and our enjoyment of the 
rational life) 5 . 

1 Cf. afetve, pp. 199 ff. ; 218 ff.; terminetur. Nam libertas . . . 

E. iv. 23; Tr. P. 2, ii Atque agendi necessitatem non tollit, 

adeo hominem eatenus liberum sed ponit. 1 

omnino voco, quatenus Ratione 2 Cf. above, p. 130, and E. ii. 

ducitur, quia eatenus ex causis, ii C. 

quae per solam eius naturam s E. iv. 18 S. 

possunt adaequate intelligi, ad 4 E. iv. 24. 

agendum determinatur; tametsi 5 E. iv. App. cap. 8. 
ex iis necessario ad agendum de- 



270 



THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



BOOK III. (2) The end, which a man sets himself, is the content 
of he h ei free or w ^ at ^ ^is desire : and his desire is the expression 
man is to of his nature. The nature of the free man is intelli- 
d gence. His desire is the expression of his intelli 
gence or adequate ideas. His end/ therefore, is the 
maintenance and development of his intelligence. 

For man that is truly advantageous, which tends to 
promote his enjoyment of the life of his mind : i. e. 
which serves to advance his power of true thinking, to 
maintain and expand his intelligence. The ultimate 
end of the man who is guided by reason (i. e. the supreme 
desire by which he studies to control all his other desires) 
is to conceive adequately himself and all things which 
can fall under his intelligence 1 . 

But adequate knowledge implies knowledge of God: 
for without God nothing can be or be conceived. The 
supreme good of the mind, therefore, is the know 
ledge of God, and its supreme virtue is knowing God V 
Hence the ultimate end of the free man is to know 
God. 

Further, in the consciousness of his own intelligence, 
man is conscious of his own power, i.e. of his own 
increasing vitality. This consciousness is an active 
emotion of pleasure. In it he realizes that peace of 
mind which arises from clear knowledge and is the 
highest form of self-satisfaction, the supreme happiness 
which man can enjoy 3 . And, since the perfection of 
the free man s intelligence involves the knowledge of 
God as the ground of all things, in the increase of his 
intelligence his love of God increases. For, the more he 
knows, the more he enjoys his own power and the more 

1 E. iv. App. capp. 4, 5 ; iv. 26, ea sola acquiescentia, quae ex 
and dem. ; iv. 27. Ratione oritur, summa est, quae 

2 E. iv. 28, and dem. potest dari. Ib. iv. 52 S. : Est re- 

3 E. iv. 52: Acquiescentia in vera acquiescentia in se ipso sum- 
se ipso ex Ratione oriri potest, et mum, quod sperare possumus. 



THE LIFE OF REASON 271 

he_knows God as the source of that power, i.e. the more CHAP. in. 
his mind is filled with the love of God 1 . 

Thus, the end of the free man is the * knowledge of 
God, the adequate knowledge of himself and of all 
things which can come under his intelligence/ or the 
knowledge of the union which his mind has with the 
whole of nature V In the attainment of this end, he 
enjoys the highest and most permanent happiness of 
which human nature is capable, the most perfect peace 
of mind for which we can hope ; and he is filled with 
the love of God as the author of that happiness. 

(3) This ideal is one in which all men can share. It The end 
is, indeed, an essential feature of the free man s end fr e e h man 
that all other men should, so far as may be, attain to is com - 
the same level of being as himself. The knowledge of a ii men. 
God is a * good, which all men, so far as they are men, 
can enjoy : for it belongs to the essence of the human 
mind to have an adequate knowledge of the eternal and 
infinite essence of God 3 . The good, which the free or 
rational man desires, is good for human nature as such. 
Hence, so far as men are guided by reason, they neces 
sarily agree in their natures. There is nothing in the 
nature of things more serviceable to man than his 
fellow men, so far as all are controlled by reason ; and the *-^ 
more each seeks his own good, the more all forward one 
another s true interests 4 . The shallow misanthropy of 
the pessimists, the empty ridicule of the satirists, and the 
othejrvworldliness of the priests, all are refuted by the 
facts. A sane judgement of life bears irrefutable wit 
ness to the need of men for one another, and to the 
value of human society for the realization of the ideal 5 . 

1 Cf. E. iv. App. cap. 4 (which 2 Cf. above, p. 4. 
refers to the intuitive know- 8 E. iv. 36 and S. ; above, p. 4 

ledge which is the completion (VV1L. i. pp. 5, 6). 
of ratio ) ; v. 15-20, and 20 S. 4 E. iv. 35, with C. i and 2. 
Cf. also below, ch. 4. 6 E. iv. 35 S. ; App. cap. 7. 



272 



THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



BOOK III. 



The basis 
and 

motives 
of the 
rational 
life are 
emo 
tions of 
pleasure. 



It is the passions which, isolate men and bring them into 
conflict. It is finite goods which arouse jealousy and 
anxieties 1 . The knowledge and love of God unite all 
men in their pursuit. So far as any man lives the life 
of reason, power, virtue or freedom, and sets knowledge 
before him as his good, he must by the nature of the 
case endeavour to further the attainment of the same 
good in other men ; and the more, the more he himself 
has attained 2 . 

From this point of view, certain terms acquire a 
definite meaning. "We are said to be religious, so far 
as our desires and actions originate from the know 
ledge of God. We are said to manifest a love of duty 
(pietas), so far as reason governs our endeavours to 
benefit our fellow men 3 . The desire which impels a 
man, who lives by the guidance of reason, to win the 
friendship of others is called a sense of honour*. Honour 
able means that which men, who live by the guidance 
of reason, approve : disgraceful or base that which con 
flicts with the friendly relations of such men 5 . 

(4) If we feel sorrow or pain, our vitality or power 
is being diminished. If we feel pleasure or joy, our 
vitality is being increased : we are more real, more our 
selves, or have a greater share in the divine nature 6 . 
All pleasure (provided it indicates an increased vitality 
of our whole being, and not merely of a part at the 
expense of the rest) is good. The rational life is the 



1 E. iv. 37 S. i, and VT1L. i. 

P-5- 

2 E. iv. 37 : Bonum, quod 

unusquisque, qui sectatur virtu- 
tern, sibi appetit, reliquis homi- 
nibus etiam cupiet, et eo magis, 
quo maiorem Dei habuerit cogni- 
tionem. 

8 A form of pietas is mo- 
destia : cf. above, p. 219, note 2 ; 



and E. iv. 37 S. i, App. cap. 25. 
Patriotism covers a part of the 
meaning of pietas : but there is 
no satisfactory English equiva 
lent. 

4 Honestas the impulse of 
fairness or honourable dealing, 
which wins respect. 

6 E. iv. 37 S. i. 

6 Cf. e. g. E. iv. App. cap. 31. 



THE LIFE OF REASON 273 

life of freedom or action. It presupposes, therefore, CHAP. ill. 
as its condition increased vitality in the agent, and as 
its motive the agent s consciousness of his increasing 
vitality, i. e. active emotions of pleasure. 

Hence the motive and basis of all actions of the 
rational life is the positive desire for good, and not the 
negative avoidance of evil. For, so far as our motive 
is the avoidance of evil, we are influenced by feelings 
of pain ; i. e. we are not * active/ not manifesting our 
power or virtue, but controlled by passive emotions, 
exhibiting want of power, depression of vitality 1 . It 
is the sick man who eats from fear of death : the healthy 
man enjoys his food. So it is the diseased moral nature 
that does good from fear of evil. The free man acts 
from the joy of acting. His e wisdom is a meditation of 
life, and not of death V 

It is superstition (not true religion) that advocates 
self-abasement, that regards this world as a place of sin 
and sorrow, and that frowns on the pleasures of life. 
The free man will endeavour, so far as in him lies, * bene 
agere et laetari 3 . 



3. APPLICATION OF THE ABOVE PEINCIPLES. 

The rational life is the life of intelligence, i. e. the 
life in which all man s desires and actions are based 
on his adequate ideas, or follow from his own essential 
nature as a thinking being. Everything of which man 
is, in this sense, the efficient cause, is necessarily * good 
for him ; for it is the expression of his own self-assertive 
force, the explication of his essential being. No harm or 
evil can befall a man, except from external things, i. e. 
from the conflict of the other parts of nature with his 

1 Cf. above, p. 218. 3 E. iv. 50 S.; 73 S. ; App. capp. 

8 E. iv. 67 ; iv. 63 and S. I 22, 24, and 31. 
(with the C.) and S. 2. 



274 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK ill. own self-assertive force. If we were purely intelligent 
beings, we should be completely active or * free : no 
longer at the mercy of external causes, but self- sufficient. 
Our whole life would be a sense of increasing vitality, 
continuous pleasure. "We should suffer nothing; and 
good and bad would have no meaning for us. For 
knowledge of good implies knowledge of evil; and 
knowledge of evil is the reflective consciousness of 
a diminished vitality, i. e. an inadequate idea, which, 
as such, could not enter into the mind of a purely 
intelligent being. 

Hence the parable of Genesis embodies a philosophical 
truth. To know good and evil implies a lapse from the 
ideal state of freedom: a lapse, however, which is not 
historical, since men never were (and never could have 
been) perfectly self-sufficient, intelligent, active, or 
free 1 . 

We are, and necessarily remain, subordinate and 
dependent parts in the complex of causes and effects 
which Spinoza calls the common order of nature. To 
some extent, therefore, we are at the mercy of external 
things, i. e. things governed by laws which have no regard 
to our convenience. We are obliged to accommodate 
ourselves to this order, and the rational life involves 
a constant intelligent subservience to it. Keeping our 
ideal in view, we can trace the maxims of this intelligent 
accommodation. 

The free i. There is nothing in nature (except our fellow men) 

attitude whose converse and society can forward our intellectual 

to his non- life. We have no need, therefore, to preserve the things 

environ- an ^ creatures of our environment. Our expediency 

ment. requires that we should employ them to serve our 

purposes. We have a perfect right (since reason demands 

it) to make such use of animals, plants and natural 

1 E. iv. 64 and C. ; 68 and S. ; App. capp. 5, 6. 



THE LIFE OF REASON 275 

objects generally, as will best further our own develop- CHAP, in 
ment 1 . 

In the first place, then, we (not only may, but) ought 
to exploit our environment for the study of the nature of 
things and of ourselves. Observation and experiment are 
indispensable for the acquisition of the crafts and arts, 
and these are necessary to the rational life ; for, without 
them, self-knowledge and knowledge of things would be 
impossible to us 2 . 

And, secondly, we have a right to use animals for food. 
It is a mere superstition, and no sound principle of reason, 
which would forbid the slaughter of animals. Everything 
is, as we know, be-souled 3 . Animals are not as the 
Cartesians supposed 4 mere machines without feeling. 
But, none the less, we have a right to treat them as 
serves our true convenience. Now, the attainment of 
our ideal involves the perfect development of our body. 
For a mind which is powerful to think is a body which 
is powerful to move and act. But the human body is 
a complex individual, compounded of many and diverse 
complex individuals. The being of each of the subordi 
nate complexes (or organs) has to be maintained : their 
constitutive proportion (that between the movements of 
their component corpuscles) has to be preserved ; and the 
constitutive proportion of the whole body (that between 
the movements of all the subordinate complexes) has to 
be kept unaltered. All this requires constant care of our 
body, constant nourishment of the most various kinds, 
constant restoration and substitution of the component 
corpuscles 5 . 

The care of the body is a necessary means to the free 

1 E. iv. 18 S. ; 37 S. i ; App. the edition of Charles Adam and 
capp. 26, 27. Paul Tannery, Paris, 1898). 

2 Cf. e.g. E. iv. App. cap. 27. 5 Cf. e.g. E. iv. 38, 39; App. 

3 E. ii. 13 S. cap. 27. 

4 Cf. Descartes, Letter 113 (in 

T a 



276 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK III. man s end, and it gives a value to certain other human 
pursuits. Thus, e. g., it explains the need of mechanics 
and medical science, it justifies the pursuit of money up 
to a certain point, and it renders it right and necessary 
for the wise man to enjoy the pleasures of life good 
food and drink, beautiful scenery, exercise, theatres, &c. 
provided he does no injury to his fellows 1 . It is 
superstition to suppose there is any merit in mortifying 
the flesh. Cheerfulness is good as a necessary condition 
of the higher life. 

The life of the rational man, in his relations to his 
non-human environment, is determined through and 
through by his desire, as an intelligent being, to main 
tain and develop his intelligence. Everything is good, 
useful or expedient, so far as it subserves this end : and, 
so far as it subserves this end, everything is, and ought to 
be, done by the free man. The moral law is no arbitrary 
code, ordaining this and forbidding that. It is the law 
which reason makes for itself to express its own inner 
most being. The passions are excluded only so far as 
they involve either a diminution of our total being, and 
therefore of our intelligence, or a sacrifice of our general 
vitality to that of a part, and so again a hindrance of our 
intelligent activity. The rational life is a free life ; for 
it is the life of an intelligence moulding its environment 
into an expression of itself. It is reason shaping itself 
in an order foreign to it, converting the external 
order of nature into the living revelation of our inner 
most self. 

The free 2. There is no single thing with which our nature 

attitude agrees so intimately as with our fellow men. From 

to his them we can derive most furtherance or hindrance 2 

in the ideal life. Union is strength : the union of 

two individuals of the same nature doubles the power of 

1 E. iv. 45 S. 2 ; App. capp. 28-31 ; VV1L. i. pp. 6 and 7. 
2 Cf. E. iv. App. cap. 10. 



THE LIFE OF REASON 



277 



each \ And, so far as men are guided by reason, their CHAP. III. 
interests are identical, their natures are the same. Only 
in the common life of a society of free men, living for 
the common ideal of reason according to laws which the 
society has framed in the interests of all, can we attain to 
complete freedom. Under such conditions we are more 
free than if we were to live in a desert with nobody to 
humour but ourselves 2 . 

It is true, indeed, that for the most part men are not 
guided by reason, but governed by passions : and, so far 
as this is the case, their interests tend to diverge and to 
bring them into hostility with one another. Yet even 
then they remain men : and are, as such, able to help and 
comfort one another in their needs as nothing else in the 
world can 3 . 

Clearly, therefore, if we are to live the rational life, we 
must endeavour to win the friendship of our fellow men 
by every means in our power. Above all, we must try to 
lead them to live the rational life themselves, in order 
that we may be strengthened by common pursuit of our 
true good 4 . 

The maintenance of outer concord and peace depends 
upon the state, and so far as we obey the ordinances 
of the state and respect its decrees, we contribute to 
preserve union from whatever motives our actions may 
proceed. But, in order to lead our fellow men to live 
the rational life, we must win their love. And for this 
purpose, the most essential requirements are that we 
should live a life of religion and duty 5 : i. e. our 
fulfilment of the law of the state, and our treatment of 
our fellows, must spring from motives of reason, or be 

1 E. iv. 18 S. the superlative merit of the true 

8 E. iv. 35 C. i and 2, and S. ; educator. 

iv. 73 ; App. capp. 7, 9, 26. * E. iv. App. cap. 15. See 

3 E. iv. 70 S. ; App. cap. 14. above, p. 272. 
* E. iv. App. capp. 9, 12. Hence 



27 8 



THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



Condem 
nation 
of the 



BOOK in. based on true knowledge of the value and significance 
of human existence 1 . 

3. As a general principle, all forms of laetitia, since 
they indicate heightened vitality, are good ; and all 

passions, forms of tristitia, since they indicate diminished vitality, 
are bad. This condemnation of the forms of tristitia 
remains almost unqualified. But the approval of laetitia 
is very much restricted. For a pleasure may indicate 
heightened vitality of a part only of our being, and may 
involve diminished vitality in the rest of our body and 
mind; or, again, a present enjoyment may lead to a 
greater subsequent depression. All such pleasures are 
hindrances to the ideal, and, so far, bad. They are said 
to e admit of excess : i. e. per se, as pleasures, it is a gain 
to experience them, but we can have too much of them 
in relation to the proportions of the rational life. As 
Spinoza expresses it, they, on their corporeal side, may 
violate the constituent balance between the motion and 
rest of the parts of the body. And as remedies for these 
partial or excessive pleasures, partial pains may be 
good : good/ i.e., as correcting a disturbance, restoring 
the balance 2 . The general sense of well-being or vitality, 
which Spinoza calls cheerfulness (hilaritas), alone, of 
all the forms of laetitia, is always without qualification 



1 For an excellent account of 
Spinoza s political philosophy, 
gee Pollock, ch. 10. Spinoza s 
theory of the state is sketched 
very lightly in E. iv. 37 S. 2. The 
only point, with which we are 
here concerned, is Spinoza s con 
tention that the state has come 
into existence to promote and 
maintain concord ; and that, with 
tKis object, it overrides the diverse 
passions which govern man in a 
state of nature by the more 
powerful and uniform passions of 



hope of reward and fear of punish 
ment. The majority of citizens 
respect the law and keep the 
peace, because they believe that 
the violation of the state s ordin 
ances would on the whole be to 
their detriment. The free man, 
of course, respects the law from 
intelligent motives ; i. e. because 
he realizes that the order, which 
the state maintains, is the indis 
pensable basis of the ideal life. 

2 Cf. the Aristotelian doctrine, 
Nicom. Ethics, Bk. VII. 



THE LIFE OF REASON 



279 



* good ; and the general sense of depression, which CHAP. III. 
he calls melancholia, is always without qualification 
bad 1 . 

Further, most of the forms of tristitia (and of the 
cupiditates based on them) are always bad 2 . And, 
lastly, all those emotions whether they are forms of 
laetitia or tristitia which depend upon ignorance of 
ourselves and of things, are always bad 3 . 

4. A hasty reading of Spinoza s account of the rational Result, 
life is apt to leave a negative impression. It seems as 
if, in condemning the majority of the emotions, he has 
left the mere skeleton of a life for the free man : a formal 
reasonableness without concrete filling. But this is 
erroneous. For the passions, which have been swept 
away, we must substitute the motives which really 
actuate the free man. "We must not conceive the reason 
of the free man as an abstract principle, but as a living 
knowledge which expands and grows in him to meet 
the concrete demands of life. We can be determined 
by reason apart from passion to do all those actions, 
to which we are determined by passion V Spinoza s 
condemnation of the passions excludes from the free 
man s life only those acts, which are not his actions 
at all, but reactions to stimuli in which he plays the part 
of a patient. Thus, e. g., pity is condemned as bad 
or * useless for the rational life. All that is valuable 
in pity is the generous help of which it is the source. 
But the free man will give the same generous help and 

1 E. iv. 42 ; cf. iv. 41 and 43. * badness of Commiseratio is that 

2 e.g. Odium (E. iv. 45), In- it involves ignorance of things, 
vidia, Irrisio, Contemptus, Ira, For the Cupiditates, cf. E. iv. 58 
Vindicta, and the other passions S. and 60. 

which arise from Odium (E. iv. 3 e. g. Existimatio and De- 

45 C. i), Poenitentia (E. iv. 54), spectus (E. iv. 48), Superbia and 

Indignatio (E. iv. 51 S.), Humilitas Abiectio (E. iv. 55 and 56). 

(E. iv. 53), Commiseratio (E. iv. 4 E. iv. 59. 
50). An additional reason for the 



28o THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK in. will give it more effectively from motives dependent 
upon clear knowledge l . 

The free man s whole being is interpenetrated with 
the love of God which arises from the clear knowledge of 
himself and of all things. He realizes his place in the 
scheme of things, and his mind is filled with the peace 
that comes of this understanding. Fully conscious of 
the supreme value of this peace of mind and of the 
intelligence which it implies, he endeavours, without 
passion and without prejudice, to fulfil it in himself 
and in all men. His life is an unswerving effort towards 
this end: he does not adopt inconsistent means how 
ever plausible they may seem 2 to attain it. He is 
not misled by the pleasure or pain of the moment to 
underestimate or overvalue a future good or evil 
For his whole activity is the expression of clear know 
ledge ; and for clear knowledge or science what is true 
once is true always. Hence he sees things as they are 
in their eternal necessity, their intrinsic value not as 
they illusorily appear in the shifting lights of temporal 
contrast. And inasmuch as his whole being is filled 
with the joy of realization, the consciousness of doing 
his utmost for an ideal which he knows to be the true 
one, he is untouched by remorse, or by shame. He neither 
frets nor fears, but is at peace. 



4. THE POWEE OF REASON. 

We have spoken of the ideal as the rational or free 
life, and we have followed Spinoza in his condemnation 
of the passive emotions, and his demand that self- 
control (i. e. the control of reason or intelligence) shall 
be substituted for the motive power of the passions. 

1 E. iv. 50 S. (E. iv. 72), flattery (iv. App. cap. 

2 Thus, e.g., he does not try to 21), or giving of doles (App. 
win men s friendship by deceit cap. 17). 



THE POWER OF REASON 281 

But how is this possible ? In what sense, and by what CHAP. in. 
means, can the intelligence conquer the passions and 
control our conduct? 

It belongs to a treatise on medical science to explain 
how the body is to be developed to its best state of 
health, and to a treatise on logic (or method) to indicate 
how to emend and perfect the intelligence. But it is 
part of our task to show how granted a healthy body 
and a sane intellect the mind has power over the 
passions. For we have rejected the current opinions. 
We have denied any absolute power of the mind over 
the passions ; we have proved that the will is not free. 
And with this rejection, we must also reject the acute 
(but untenable) hypothesis of Descartes as to the way in 
which our volitions are communicated to our nerves and 
muscles. We cannot originate volitions ex niJiilo, nor, 
given a volition, can we transfer it to determine our 
bodily movements in the way Descartes supposed. He 
imagined that the soul, though united to the whole 
body, has its special seat of operations in the pineal 
gland J . On this gland, the soul he thought acts 
immediately, producing changes in its position by bare 
volition. Aiid, through such changes of position, the soul 
can modify and control the motions of the animal 
spirits, and their action on the muscles ; and so bare 
mind can determine bare body 2 . 

Now, we have shown that the t power of the mind is 
identical with its intelligence: that the mind is power 
ful in so far as it thinks clearly. And it is a matter 
of common experience that we can in some sense 
control our passions. It remains for us to show how 
this possibility of control follows necessarily from the 



1 Descartes, Passiones, i. 30, 31. 

2 Cf. E. v. Praef., with its clear criticism of the theory of 
Descartes. 



282 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK III. nature of our mind ; i. e. from its * power, essence, or 
virtue/ viz. its adequate knowledge. 

I. A passion is a * confused idea. It is the immediate 
consciousness of a change in our bodily being, which is 
at the same time eo ipso a change in our psychical being. 
"We are conscious of the two-sided change ; but only as 
an occurrence, an isolated something which happens in 
us. In reality, it is due to an infinity of bodily and 
psychical conditions, which determine and constitute 
its why and its what ; but we are aware of it solely 
as a change in or of us, without apprehending its causes 
or recognizing that it had any causes. We have a con 
fused or inadequate apprehension of it : we merely 
* suffer it as a passive emotion \ 

This is true even of those passions which refer to 
an external object. The causal connexion, which we 
recognize in their case, falls within the passion: we 
do not recognize the passion itself as the effect of 
its necessary conditions. Thus, e. g., we love or hate 
a person, because our increased or diminished vitality 
is in the total confused state of mind, which is 
our passion associated for us with the idea of that 
person as its cause. Our love or hate is the confused 
consciousness of this causal connexion, and is at best 
a partial (and therefore, inadequate) apprehension of 
the conditions of the change of vitality which we are 
experiencing. Z, e.g., is the object of our love; in our 
confused emotional state, the idea of Z is * associated 
with our heightened tone of being as its cause. But 
Z is no isolated, originative centre of activity. What 
Z does, is really done through Z by the infinite chains of 
causes and effects which constitute the order of nature. 
If our emotional state were to clarify, if we were to get 
an adequate apprehension of our feeling of increased 
vitality, we should shake ourselves free from the asso- 
1 Cf. above, pp. 201 ff. 



THE POWER OF REASON 283 

elation of the idea of Z. We should refer the change CHAP. in. 
of our vitality to its complete totality of conditions ; i. e. 
we should, in feeling the pleasure, refer it to God as its 
cause. "We should love God. But then our love would 
no longer be a passive emotion : it would depend upon 
clear and adequate knowledge in us, and would therefore 
be the necessary expression of our nature qud intelligence. 
Our^ love would be an * active emotion, the clear out 
come of the activity of our very self. 

Hence we can say, generally, that * any passion ceases 
to be a passion (and becomes an active emotion) the 
moment we form a clear and distinct idea of it V The 
moment we cease to have experiences formed in us, the 
moment we are clearly conscious of our own experiences, 
we have taken our life firmly into our hands : we have 
begun to live ourselves, to act, and have ceased to be the 
passive theatre in which the forces of our environment 
sustain the persons of the drama. In proportion as we 
understand the changes of our vitality, we have freed 
ourselves from imaginative experience, and are moving 
in the world of science. Error (or inadequate ideas) and 
passion have clarified to truth (or adequate ideas) and 
action. Hence an emotion is more in our power, and 
our mind is less passive in regard to it, the more we 
know it V 

As regards love and hate and their derivatives, clear 
thinking of this kind dissociates the changes of vitality 
from the imaginative idea of their external cause, and 
connects them with their full and complete conditions. 
And this means that love and hate as such towards this 
or that particular person, e. g. and the anxieties and 
doubts which arise from them, will vanish. If our 
pleasure and our pain are clearly apprehended as due 
(not to Z, but) to the eternal and necessary order, in 
which Z is a dependent and determined link, we can no 
E.v.a. 2 E.v. 3 C. 



284 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK in. longer love or hate Z, nor feel anxiety or doubt as to his 
behaviour 1 . 

But every passion without exception may be trans 
formed at least in part into an active emotion, by the 
clarification of confused into complete knowledge. For 
every passion is, on its corporeal side, a modification of 
our body. And our body, as a mode of Extension, shares 
the common properties of all extended things. At least, 
therefore, to this extent we can form an adequate idea of 
every passion 2 . "We can, that is, apprehend our passions 
from the point of view of science, as resultants on their 
corporeal side of the universal and necessary laws of 
Extension, motion and rest. And so far at least we can 
attain to an objective view of our passions: so far at 
least they cease to be passions. 

No doubt, a scientific knowledge of this kind remains 
abstract: it does not exhaust the whole content of the 
passions. They are not wholly transformed for us, but 
remain in part unclarified, not the objects of intelligence, 
mere personal experiences. Yet, to some extent, we are 
no longer the playthings of external forces: to some 
extent we have taken a firm grip of our own experiences. 
"We are less the victims of what is not ourself, we are less 
dominated by passions. 

And what is true of pleasure and pain and their deri 
vatives, is true also of desire. The desire, which draws 
its material from our pleasures, will be a desire which 
results in action (and not in passion), in proportion as 
those pleasures are dependent on adequate (and no longer 
on inadequate) ideas 3 . For in so far as a desire is rooted 
in clear knowledge, it and its results are explicable as the 
effect of ourselves alone : we are its adequate cause, or 
we are c agents and free in respect to it. Thus e. g. 
the desire to make others live after our humour, if based 
on inadequate ideas in us, is a passive emotion, which is 
1 E. v. 2. 2 E. v. 4 C. and S. 8 Cf. E. iv. 59. 



THE POWER OF REASON 285 

called ambition and is a form of pride. But, if based CHAP. in. 
on adequate ideas, it becomes the desire to lead others to 
live the rational life, and is a form of nobleness of mind 
pietas V 

2. To know means to apprehend things in their 
eternal or timeless necessity. If, therefore, we form a 
clear idea of an emotion of pleasure, we cannot refer it 
to a series of temporal and local conditions : still less can 
we regard a single object, pictured in isolation as merely 
there, as its cause. "We must take the passion in our 
thought out of the imaginative series, and conceive it 
in its necessary and timeless determination. Or, if we 
remain within the imaginative series, we must at any 
rate carry the causal reference indefinitely back along 
the infinite chain of causes and effects. But this means 
that we cannot regard the things or persons, to whom we 
attribute the origin of our emotions, as free or responsible ; 
i. e. we cannot love or hate them, at least not with the 
same intensity as before 2 . And, generally, in proportion 
as we apprehend the necessity of things, we acquiesce in 
the changes of our experience. Our pains and our 
pleasures become for us what they really are part of the 
eternal order of nature and we cease to fret over what 
we understand. The intensity and the bitterness of a 
passion depend for the most part upon the erroneous idea 
that all might have been otherwise. Knowledge brings 
with it the full understanding of the conditions of our 
pain or pleasure. We know that what is, must be. The 
useless regrets of imagination give place to the en 
deavours to make the best of what is, which result from 
reason 3 . 

Wfr 

1 E. v. 4 S. ; cf. above, pp. 215, difficult to express this thought 
219, 272. of Spinoza without making him 

2 E. v. 5 dem. ; and cf. above, appear inconsistent. In reality 
pp. 282, 283. and for knowledge what is, must 

3 E. v. 6 and S. It is very be : the endeavour * to make the 



286 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK III. 3. The emotions which depend upon adequate ideas in 
us, so far as they are contrary to the passive emotions, 
cannot coexist with the latter in our minds. One or 
other set of contrary emotions must give way, or change 
until they no longer conflict 1 . Now the adequate ideas 
in us are the ideas of the common properties of things : 
ideas, therefore, whose objects are always and every 
where present. So far as we picture 5 these common 
properties, we picture them always the same and always 
with equal vividness 2 . On the other hand, the passions 
depend upon inadequate ideas: ideas, whose objects vary 
with the constantly-shifting environment. We cannot 
always picture these objects (for they are not always 
present), nor always with the same vividness. In the 
conflict, therefore, the active emotions have to this 
extent the advantage. The issue is more likely to modify 
the passions into conformity with them, than vice versa 
especially when the objects of the passions are no longer 
actually present 3 . 

Further, the active emotions are referred to more 
causes than the passions. For the objects of the adequate 
ideas, on which the active emotions depend, form the 
interconnected whole of Extension and of Thought : 
whilst the objects of the inadequate ideas, on which the 
passions depend, are bodies and ideas torn from their 
context and pictured as isolated, independent things and 
persons. Hence the active emotions as having for the 
consciousness which experiences them a wider reference, 

best of what is, is itself a part of tion it is freed from the bondage 

what is and must be. And the of the passions. The imaginative 

confused pictures of contingency, consciousness is without this re- 

with the vain regrets which they cognition, and in its privation it 

engender, are themselves for the is the victim of error and passion, 

knowledge of science necessary l E. v. Ax. i. 

elements in what is and must 2 E. v. 7 dem. 

be. The scientific consciousness 3 E. v. 7. 
recognizes this, and in its recogni- 



THE POWER OF REASON 287 

and as depending for it upon more causes tend to main- CHAP. III. 
tain their power and freshness more than any passions, and 
are more easily excited than the latter. In the conflict, 
therefore, the active or rational emotions are more likely 
than the passions to predominate. They tend to occupy 
our minds more 1 / 

Lastly, we can give to the rational emotions the 
strength which comes of systematic interconnexion. 
They will thus occupy our mind more and more, and (as 
it were) crowd out the passions. 

For the order of our thoughts is the ideal expression 
of the order of our bodily modifications 2 . Now, as 
intelligences, we can form adequate ideas and deduce 
other adequate ideas from them, thus constituting an 
intelligible system of truth, which is the expression of 
the nature of the intellect 3 . So long as we are not the 
sport of external impulses not buffeted by emotions 
contrary to our nature we can think clearly and con 
nectedly. And this is at the same time the production 
of a sequence of bodily modifications according to the 
same order, viz. the order of the intellect. (Thus when 
we think confusedly, or picture, 5 our bodily modifications 
succeed one another in the order of the to us arbitrary 
connexion of external causes. And, speaking inaccu 
rately, we say our environment acts on our body, and 

1 E. v. 8; ii ; 208. A passion nature of a passion, than is an 

tends more than an active equally intense emotion, which 

emotion to restrict our thought, refers to a greater number of 

It ties our mind down to the causes (E. v. 9). 

contemplation of a single cause, 2 E. v. I. Trout cogitationes, 

whilst an active emotion stimu- rerumqueideae, ordinantur etcon- 

lates our thought to apprehend catenantur in Mente, ita Corporis 

the interconnexion of things. A affectiones, seu rerum imagines, 

passion is thus a hindrance to ad amussim ordinantur et conca- 

thought. And, conversely, so far tenantur in Corpore. This is the 

as an emotion is referred to one exact converse of E. ii. 7, so far 

or a few causes only, it is more as the doctrine applies to man. 

pernicious or is more of the 3 Cf. above, pp. 171 ff. 



288 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK III. calls up changes in its being which are also changes 
in our mental being, or we suffer passions. But, when 
we think clearly, our intelligence forms thoughts in its 
own order the order of every intelligence and our 
bodily modifications succeed one another in exactly the 
same order. And, speaking inaccurately, we may say 
we control our thoughts, and thus control our bodily 
affections, or we experience active emotions. ) 

In the * calm intervals of our life, therefore, we can, 
by clear and connected reflection, increase and strengthen 
the active emotions, thus forming a consolidated bulwark 
against the assaults of passion l . Spinoza draws a prac 
tical corollary from this: whilst we are still striving 
after complete knowledge of our passions, our best course 
is to learn a certain rule of life, or certain practical 
maxims. If we constantly repeat such maxims, reflect on 
them, and apply them to actual or imaginary situations 
in our lives, we shall give them a greater influence over 
our imaginative consciousness. They will become familiar 
to us, and ready to our hand when occasion arises. Such 
a maxim, e. g., is Do not repay hate with hate, but 
conquer it with love or nobleness of mind V 

If, in our calm moments, we constantly reflect on 
wrongs and insults, and consider how a noble generosity 
or love overcomes them, we shall render this abstract 
maxim highly concrete. The picture of an insult will, 
for us, become associated with the picture of this 
maxim : and when we are insulted, we shall straightway 
act according to the maxim. But Spinoza adds a warn 
ing. In reflections of this kind, we should dwell on the 
good side of all these experiences, not on the evil. For 
this will increase our consciousness of power, our joy, and 
so our active emotions : whilst meditation on the evils of 
life, as such, will lessen our power and produce a fictitious 

1 E. v. 10 and S. * E. iv. 46 and S. 



THE POWER OF REASON 2 & s T 

self-control. A man, e. g., who has been ill-treated by his CHAI-. 
mistress, is apt to console himself with thoughts of the 
proverbial fickleness of woman, &c., &c. But the moment 
his mistress smiles on him again, he forgets his philo 
sophy/ and is again the slave of his passion. He has 
never won true liberty : for liberty means full knowledge 
of our own power, or * virtue, whilst he has but prided 
himself on his experience of the vices and weaknesses of 
human nature. 

As our intelligence grows in power by constant reflec 
tion, our knowledge of things becomes more and more 
complete and coherent. As regards the passions, this 
means that we get a more and more adequate scientific 
understanding of them and their conditions. And this is 
the same as to say, that we refer all the corporeal 
modifications, which the passions involve, to the idea 
of God as an extended Substance : we understand all 
that occurs in us as the inevitable consequence of the 
complete nature of things \ The emotional aspect of 
this knowledge is an active emotion of joy accompanied 
by the idea of God as its cause : i. e. our emotional state 
will be love of God 2 . Thus, the increase of scientific 
knowledge is the increase of our love of the intelligible 
order which we apprehend. And, since this love is 
associated with all the corporeal modifications which we 
experience, it will fill our mind to the exclusion of all 
other emotions, and will persist and expand in us so long 
as our body exists 3 . If it cannot absolutely destroy all 
the passions, at least it will occupy the greatest part of 
our mind, and reduce the passive emotions to the least 
part of consciousness 4 . 

Nor is it infected with the evils which attach to other 
forms of love. Love towards a finite and changeable 

1 E. v. 14. s E. v. 16, 20 S. 

2 E. v. 15. 4 E. v. 20 S. 

SPINOZA U 



290 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK in. object is the source of jealousy, envy, and all forms of 
anxiety. But love towards God is untouched by these 
troubles. For God is not liable to passion, nor to any 
form of emotion, since passion implies inadequate ideas, 
and even active emotion means a transition from a less 
to a greater vitality 1 . God, therefore, cannot love or 
hate any one 2 . And he who loves God cannot endeavour 
to win God s love in return 3 : cannot, therefore, feel 
anxiety or disappointment in his love. And since this 
love of God is the supreme good of reason, it is 
a good which we desire all men to share : hence we 
can neither envy, nor feel jealousy of, others in regard to 
it 4 . Finally, since God cannot be conceived inadequately, 
in conceiving God we are active, i. e. feel joy. "We 
cannot, therefore, hate God ; for we cannot associate the 
idea of God with our own depression of vitality. Hence 
the love of God can never turn to hatred 5 . God indeed, 
as the cause of all things, is conceived as the cause of pain 
and sorrow : but in the apprehension of the causes of pain, 
we cease to suffer. The confused experience, which was 
our pain, clarifies into the clear understanding which is 
a consciousness of power, or joy 6 . 

The love of God fills our minds, in proportion as we 
completely understand. But complete understanding is 
more than the scientific consciousness: more, indeed, 
than any human mind can reach. In all human minds 
there persist inadequate ideas and therefore passions. 
Yet as we advance in science still more if we attain 
to the intuitive knowledge which is philosophy the 
greater part of our mind is constituted by adequate 
ideas: we are, therefore, less and less the victims of 
passion. And this growth in knowledge is, as we shall 
see, an increase in our vitality. For the self, which 

1 E. v. 17. 4 E. v. 20 and dem. 

2 E. v. 17 C. 5 E. v. 18 and C, 

3 E. v. 19. E. v. 18 S. 



THE POWER OF REASON 291 

knows more, contains within its individuality a greater CHAP. in. 
amount of the real : i. e. possesses more and more the 
character of EealityV 

1 Cf. E. v. 40 S. ; and below, ch. 4. Bradley, Appearance and 
Reality (2nd edition), p. 365. 



U 2 



CHAPTER IV 

THE IDEAL LIFE AS CONSCIOUS UNION WITH GOD 
1. INTRODUCTION. 

BOOK in. WITH the account of the moral life as the life of reason, 
the main task of the Ethics is in a sense completed. 
Spinoza has applied his general metaphysical theory to 
the nature of man, and has shown how the emotional and 
cognitive sides of that nature are interdependent and 
necessary consequents of the order of things. He has 
established the ideal of reason as based on the self- 
realization of the mind: he has shown how man, in 
living the life of religion and duty in manifesting 
nobleness and strength of mind is fulfilling his truest 
self, and is therefore free. Morality is not an irksome 
burden, which we must bear for the sake of reward. The 
only bondage is subjection to the passions: and the 
freedom of morality liberates us from them. The life 
of virtue is the life of power. To live it, is to be or 
become ourselves. To live the life of passion is to merge 
ourselves in the alien forces of the common order of 
nature/ to cease to be anything which has a character 
of its own *. 

These conclusions are independent of what follows. 
They remain unshaken, whatever our view as to the 
temporal existence of man. They would still be true, 
even though the self which we win were so dependent 
upon local and temporal conditions that { we are * real * 

1 Cf. E. v. 41 and S. 



INTRODUCTION 293 

in no other sense than that in which the things of CHAP. IV. 
imaginative experience are real. If, apart from our 
existence as members of the common order of nature, 

* we are nothing ; and if, before birth, we in no sense 
were if, after death, we in no sense shall be still, 
during this our life, the positions which Spinoza has 
established remain firm. During life, we can and must 
endeavour to realize our most essential self: and, in this 
endeavour, we since we are following the inevitable 
tendency of our nature are becoming as real as we 
have it in us to be: even though that reality should 
remain a mere imaginative reality, i. e. the reality of 
things, whose individuality is to occur at a particular 
place and time, and to last through a definite period. 

Spinoza, indeed, has established more than this. In 
our scientific knowledge we are moving in the region 
of truth ; and, so far, we are eternal or independent of 
temporal conditions. But science remains abstract, and 
the we of science is for all Spinoza has shown 
a mind-body merged in the general nature of Thought 
and Extension, or at least no further individualized than 
is the infima species, man. The free man or moral agent 
ma y f or a n we know remain, as regards his individual 
being, outside the world of truth or eternal reality. He 
may owe his being as this person to the imaginative 
barriers, from which he cannot completely free himself. 
He may, so to speak, live the rational life by a borrowed 
permanent reality and eternity, without himself being 

* real or eternal 1 . 

In the concluding section of the Ethics 2 , Spinoza 
endeavours to carry his conception of the human ideal 
to completion. He tries to show that there is a grade 
of man s self-realization, in which the mind is itself 
eternal or fully real : that, in the highest to which we 

1 Cf. above, pp. 265 ff. 2 E. v. 21-40. 



294 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK in. attain, we are actually enjoying in our own selves the 
fullness of being, which is the mark of complete reality. 

In outline, Spinoza s position is this: in the most 
complete thinking of which we, as intelligences, are 
capable, our thought is God s thought ; and God s thought 
is God thinking so far as he constitutes the essence of our 
mind, i. e. God s thought is our thinking. That oneness 
of our intelligent being with God merges us in the divine 
thought, and eo ipso most fully characterizes us, or gives 
us our self And in that transfusion of our thinking 
being by God s being, we are real with the divine 
reality, or God is real in, and as, us : i. e. we are 
eternal. In the glow of that self-realization which 
is at once the identity of all selves with God, and the 
most fully characterized distinction of all selves from 
God and from one another our mind unites or fuses 
in itself our whole being. There is no longer an 
emotional in distinction from a cognitive consciousness. 
The cognitive consciousness is emotional, and the emo 
tional is cognitive, or rather our consciousness is both 
transformed. Hence, we can say either our thinking is 
God s thinking and God s thinking is our very self : or 
6 our consciousness of our felicity, or our love which 
flows from the understanding of that felicity and its 
cause is God s love of himself and of us ; and God s love 
of himself is our love of God. 



2. THE CONCEPTION OP ETERNITY. 

Dura- Spinoza is not quite consistent in his use of the 
tlon term duration 1 . He is anxious to avoid the misunder 
standing which confuses c eternity with indefinite 
length of time : and therefore frequently refuses to 

1 This inconsistency seems to writings) of the contemporary 
be due to the partial survival in scholastic use of the word ; cf. 
Spinoza (especially in his earlier Grzymisch, pp. 42, 45. 



THE CONCEPTION OF ETERNITY 



295 



predicate duration of that which is eternal l . When CHAP. iv. 
that is so, he identifies duration with persistence in 
time. 

On the other hand, time is, for Spinoza, the result 
of a limitation of duration : the conception of { f.imA 
is_as imaginative aid to enable us to picture persistence 
or permanent existence. Time cuts duration into 
lengths, thus destroying its completeness or continuity, 
and giving it a beginning, an end, and stages. When 
this is the case, * duration is the general term, of which 
eternal existence and temporal existence are forms not 
exactly species, for the former is duration adequately 
or intelligently apprehended, whereas the latter is the 
confused, partial or imaginative picture of it 2 . 

It is necessary to remark on this inconsistency, 
because, in E. v. 20 S., Spinoza speaks of the duration 
of the mind without relation to the body/ where he 
means the eternity of the mind : whilst elsewhere (e. g. 
E. v. 23 S.) he identifies duration and time, and there 
fore excludes both from the conception of the mind s 

* eternity. 

Spinoza once uses the expression immortal (death- immor- 
less) of the mind as equivalent to * eternal 3 . That he 
does so only once is probably due (as Pollock suggests) 
to his anxiety to avoid the misleading associations of 
the word. For, of one thing there can be no doubt: 
Spinoza did not mean to establish for the human soul 
an infinitely-prolonged after-life in another world 4 . 
This popular travesty of the philosophic conception of 

* eternity is so alien to Spinoza s whole thought that 
we cannot for a moment attribute it to him. It hangs 
together with the very conceptions against which 

1 Cf. e.g. E. i. def. 8 Expl. excellent article by A. E. Taylor 

8 Above, p. 31. in Mind (N. S. v. No. 18), to which 

8 E. v. 41 S. Pollock refers. 
* Cf. Pollock, p. 270 ; and the 



296 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK III. Spinoza s whole work is an unhesitating protest the con 
ceptions of God as a lawgiver and judge, and of felicity 
as the reward of virtue. In one place, it is true, 
Spinoza has used an expression which is extremely 
misleading. Herewith, he says *, I have completed 
my account of all that concerns this present life. 1 But, 
even if we forget that this present life would naturally 
mean for Spinoza our life so far as we are imaginative] 
and implies as its antithesis (not a future life of the same 
kind, but) an actual life of a different kind, viz. our life 
so far as we are intelligent/ we cannot lay any stress 
on this passage. In view of what Spinoza says about 
the mind s eternity 2 , we must regard this utterance 
as a momentary slip: if, that is, we persist in inter 
preting it to imply a future life in the sense that here 
and now we are mortal, but elsewhere and afterwards 
put on immortality. 

Eternity. In spite of an occasional lapse into the wider use 
of duration 3 , Spinoza had already, in the Cogitata 
Metaphysica, clearly distinguished between eternity and 
indefinite lasting, and fixed his terminology to mark 
that distinction. 

He starts with the division between being whose 
essence involves existence (i. e. substantial Eeality) and 
being whose essence involves only the possibility of 
existence (i. e. modal Reality, or, from the point of view 
of the Cogitata Metaphysica, created being 4 ). 

Created things, so far as their possible existence is 
actually being realized, are said to endure or last. 
The comparison of their duration with that of things 

1 E. v. 20 S. conception of eternity, see 

2 i. e. in the Ethics. For, in the Grzymisch, especially pp. 7-9, 16, 
K. V., Spinoza has not completely and pp. 41 ff. 

freed himself from the popular 8 Cf. e.g. Ep. 12 (above, p. 31), 

confusions which he attacks. For and E. v. 20 S. 

the development of Spinoza s 4 C. M. i. 4 ; ii. i and 10. 



THE CONCEPTION OF ETERNITY 



297 



which, have a definite and determinate movement, CHAP. IV. 
results in time : the ens rationis or modus cogitandi 
(i.e. modus imaginationis), which measures duration. 
Duration is really idmitinal with the total existence 
in distinction from the essence of a created thing: 
lessen or increase its duration, and you lessen or increase 
its existence. It is only a logical distinction which 
separates the two 1 . 

"When we talk of things having existed from all 
eternity (a b aeterno^WQ are misusing the term eternity. 
"We are confounding eternity with an indefinite dura- 
tion : a duration without beginning. Eternity cannot 
be_ expressed in terms of duration, even though it b.e 
a,n infinite * tfanrtion. i. e* one without beginning or end 2 . 

But God is rightly said to be eternal. For God s 
essence is one with his existence : and therefore God 
cannot be said to have duration/ since duration is 
existence conceived apart from essence. If God had 
duration, his duration would increase from day to day. 
He would become more real as time goes on : he would 
be, so to say, continually creating himself. But God s 
being his essence or existence is infinite, i. e. complete 
actually now and always. T}]fl ftfomify nf ftnrl flipn 
means simply his infinite completeness. It is his existence, 
which is his essence, and is wholly and absolutely actual ; 
not partly real now, and partly about to be. "We mean 
the same thing when we speak of the essential nature of 
a triangle as an eternal truth. It is what, it i g fll11 y a;nrl 
nmrip1ftfft]y ; a.-nrl rlnp f s. nnt come* to be. It is not more 
real now than it was in the days of Adam : nor has it 
lasted for a longer time now than then. 

Hkoce eternity is the very-ess.ftTip.fl nf God, so far . 
as that involves necessary existence^ 3 . Eternity^ ex- 

1 C. M. i. 4, 2. . . . durationem 2 Cf. E. i. def. 8 Expl. 
a tota alicuius rei existentia non 8 E. v. 30 dem. 
nisi Ratione^distingui. 



298 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 



BOOK in. presses. timeless necessity nf "hm tig^ and has nothing to 
do with lasting through an * infinitely long time. 
There is no when, no before and after, in eternity V 

From the point of view of the Ethics, all things are 
* eternal so far as their existence is the necessary con 
sequence of God s essence. As conceived in God, all 
things are eternal and infinite modes ; are actually real 
with the timeless necessity of God s eternal being 2 . 
Things are said to be actual either so far as they exist 
at a definite time in a definite place, and then their 
existence is their duration : or so far as we conceive 
them to be contained in God, and to follow from the 
necessity of the divine nature. In this latter sense, 
things are ( real or true/ so far as we conceive them 
under the form of eternity/ and so far as their ideas 
involve the eternal and infinite essence of God 3 . 

In the concluding section of the Fifth Part of the 
Ethics, Spinoza is immediately concerned with the 
eternity of the human mind. But, though the human 
mind differs in essential nature and in degree of reality 
from other modes, and though therefore its eternity 
differs from theirs; none the less, all modes, in so far 
as they are conceived in their necessary dependence on 
God, are timelessly actual or eternal 4 . 

3. THE ETEBNITY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 

All modes, Every mode, in its necessary sequence from the 
nature of God, has its actuality dependent upon God s 

1 E. i. 33 S. 2. (i) that Spinoza confessedly con- 

2 Cf. E. v. 30 dem. ; Ep. 12 fines himself in the later books of 
(above, pp. 27 ff.) ; and above, pp. the Ethics to the human mind ; 
76 ff. cf. e.g. E. ii. Praef. and E. v. 

3 E. v. 29 S. Praef. : (ii) that, for Spinoza, there 
* Contrast Pollock, pp. 275 ff. are differences of degree and of 

His arguments seem to me to fall kind in the reality of modes ; cf. 
to the ground, when we recollect above, pp. 73 ff. 



THE ETERNITY OF THE HUMAN MIND 299 

essence, or is eternal/ Every mode we may perhaps CHAP. iv. 
express it is real in so far as the Whole lives and moves "***< 
in it : and what is real is necessarily actual, i. e. is eternal, 
itself fully and unalterably, without development or 
degradation, or process of any kind. Now the degree 
or kind of such actuality (the nature of the eternity ), 
which any mode enjoys, depends entirely upon the de 
gree or kind of reality of the mode in question. The 
problem is How does the Whole live and move in this 
mode ? How much of reality does it contain ? To what 
degree and in what sense does it participate in the divine 
nature ? 

To be able to answer these questions implies what 
Spinoza calls scientia intuitiva 1 . And the possession of 
this knowledge in respect to our own modal being is the 
enjoyment of our supreme felicity. For it is that 
cognitio unionis, quam mens cum tota natura habet, 
in which Spinoza finds the complete self-realization 
of man 2 . 

Let us see how Spinoza develops this conception. The unity 
The category of whole and parts is, as we know, in- 
adequate to express the nature of things 3 . The modes 
are not parts of Substance. The oneness of the modes 
in God is more intimate than the oneness of parts in alitv - 
a whole. Nor is Substance a whole of modes. The 
modes can neither be nor be conceived apart from God. 
God is not merely implied in the modes, as a whole is 
implied in its parts. God is the modes, and the modes 
are nothing except in so far as they are expressions of 
God. It is the separation of the modes from God (as if 
they were parts of a whole) which causes the inadequate 
understanding of the imaginative consciousness, for which 
jR-eality becomes a world of finite things. 

We have, then, to remember that the reality of all 

1 Above, pp. 180 ff. 2 Above, p. 4, note i. 

8 Above, pp. 42 and 43, 89 ff. 



3 oo THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK III. modes is God. It is God s thinking which is our mind, 
God s extension which is our body, God s eternal self- 
affirmation or power which is our actual being. 

At the same time, God s completeness, his absolute 
oneness, is not abstract, but concrete. The modes, which 
express his being, express it in all ways : his complete 
oneness reveals itself in complete multiplicity. In the, 
absolute unity of all things in God, all things are most 
fully characterized, distinguished, or individual. It is 
the task of philosophy the ideal knowledge which 
Spinoza calls scientia intuitiva to attain to the clear 
vision of the intimate individuality or characteristic 
essence of all things in God. This vision is the con 
summation of that clear thinking which begins in 
science. And it is the result of an inference which 
starts with the adequate idea of the real essence of some 
of God s Attributes, and proceeds to the adequate know 
ledge of the essence of things V 

Spinoza claims to have accomplished this task as 
regards the human mind, i.e. to have shown how our mind 
follows in its essence and existence from the divine 
nature, and is in unbroken dependence on God 2 / He 
claims, therefore, to have shown in the Ethics, in what 
the characteristic individuality of the human mind 
consists, or what is the degree and kind of its reality 
and eternity. 

AH men Our mind, it will be remembered, was regarded as 

eternal a com pl ex f ideas, the ideal side of a complex of 

in various extended corpuscles 3 . What we call our mind at any 

time is a compound of adequate and inadequate ideas : 

i.e. is partly our self, and partly the borrowed and 

mutilated ideas, which are complete in God s thought, 

but in God s thought constitute other selves together 

with our own. These confused ideas are qud con- , 

1 Above, pp. 180 ff. 2 E. v. 36 S. 

3 Cf. above, p. 131. 



THE ETERNITY OF THE HUMAN MIND 301 

fused not really ours/ They do not constitute the CHAP. iv. 
essential nature of our mind ; they constitute our-mind- 
in-its- environment. And they indicate not so much 
what we are, as what we are not; they reveal our 
limits, the torn edges which make us finite *. They 
are the signs of our powerlessness or inability to stand 
by ourselves, our dependence upon the common order 
of nature the context which sustains our temporal or 
imaginative existence. If we could shake ourselves free 
- from external influence, our mind would come to itself 
as adequate ideas: as God s thought, in so far as that 
thought constitutes the essence of our mind and nothing 
else. At death we are shaken free. For, with the \/ 
dissolution of our body, the interaction of external bodies )\ 
with ours must cease ; and the consequent confused ideas f ryX^ 

(which are the ideal side of this interaction) must vanish. / Jb \flji 
"We can neither imagine nor remember (we are ~jt/? * 
| not subject to the influence of association ), except (r ^ ^ 

i whilst our body * endures, i. e. exists in time and space 2 . 

But death is only one way in which we thus come to J 
j ourselves/ The essential condition is that we should 
I think clearly and adequately, and think only clearly 
1 and adequately. In other words, the essential nature 
of our mind is intelligence ; we are really and completely 
ourselves/ in proportion as we are entirely clear con- 
; sciousness. 

For Spinoza, therefore, the essence of the human mind 
is intelligence ; it is fully itself, * quatenus intelligit 
so far as it understands, or thinks adequately. But when 
; .we think adequately, God is thinking in us so far as 
he constitutes our mind alone. In our essential being, 
therefore, we realize our oneness with God, or God is 
expressing himself in us. And this means that in our 

clear and adequate consciousness we are eternal: we 

< 

Cf. e.g. E. iii. 38. 2 E. v. 21. 






3 02 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK III. have attained to the kind of eternity, which characterizes 
human nature. In this sense, our mind as an adequate, 
significant thought in the context of God s thinking 
is part of the complete intelligence of God 1 . 

But more is needed to complete Spinoza s conception. 
The mind, as a mode of Thought, is the ideal expression 
of a mode of Extension ; and is so for itself, since every 
mode of Thought is, as such, turned upon itself 2 . 

In our temporal existence, our mind is the ideal 
expression of our actually (i.e. temporally) existent 
body, and our self-consciousness is the feeling of ourselves 
as this animate piece of Extension. But in our essential 
or real existence, our mind is the adequate knowledge 
of our body, and our self-consciousness is the adequate 
apprehension of ourselves as an eternal mode of God: 
i. e. the adequate idea, which is the essence of our mind, 
is the ideal expression of v our body in its true or essential 
nature, viz. as an eternal mode of Extension 3 . And the 
idea of this idea is the reflective consciousness of this our 
true self. 

We have already seen that scientific knowledge implies 
as its centre or basis * a self, which is constituted by 
the permanent and necessary properties common to all 
modes of Extension and of Thought V Philosophic 
knowledge scientia intuitiva implies a self/ which 
is at once permanent and necessary, and individual. 
* We, as subjects of philosophic knowledge, are a mind 
which apprehends itself as the idea of the essential 
nature of our body. In other words, the self of 
complete knowledge is an individuality, which has 
universal, necessary and permanent being in its oneness 
with God, but is yet concrete and uniquely characterized. 
Because we are one with God, because God expresses 



1 Above, pp. 92, 93 ; E. v. 40 S.; ii. n C. 

2 Above, pp. 132 ff., p. 257, note 4. 

8 Cf. E. v. 22. 4 Above, p. 178. 



THE ETERNITY OF THE HUMAN MIND 303 

himself in us, we are not lost in the abstract universality CHAP. IV. 

of the objects of science, but have come to a rich and 

real personality. Because we are fully ourselves, we are 

full participants in the divine nature. Because we 

are nothing but God s adequate knowledge of the 

essential nature of our body, we fully realize our * self/ 

or enjoy our individual character in its fullness 1 . 

Since there is necessarily given in God an idea, which 
expresses the essence of this and that human body under 
the form of eternity 2 , it follows that to some extent 
every man is eternal. The human mind cannot be 
absolutely destroyed with the body, but something of it, 
which is eternal, remains 3 . This proposition puts the 
matter as survival after death, and as if the eternal 
part of the mind were a disembodied spirit. But it 
follows from Spinoza s position (as we have seen) that 
every man is eternal to some extent in the strict 
Spinozistic sense of eternal. 

Every man in some perhaps an infinitesimal degree 
shares in the clear consciousness of himself and of all 
things, which is his eternity. For this is the charac 
teristic of humanity 4 . And the essential nature of every 
man s body is an eternal mode of God s Extension ; and 
is therefore the ideatum of an eternal idea of God s 
Thought, which is the essential nature of that man s 
mind. But there are infinite grades in the reality of 
different men, infinite grades in the fullness of the 
1 essence of their body ; infinite grades, therefore, in 
the eternal being of different men s minds. 

"What is the nature of that gradation ? The general Principle 

of the 

1 Cf. above, pp. 243 ff. serves God unwittingly and is gradation. 

2 E. v. 22 (the italics are mine) ; consumed in the service, is not 
cf. ii. 8 C. and S. absolutely and entirely without 

3 E. v. 23. clear knowledge of himself and 

4 The passage in Ep. 19 (above, his function. Otherwise he would 
p. 245) must not be unduly not be human at all. 

oressed. Even the criminal, who 



304 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK III. principle is that a tiling is at its best (or perfect) in 
proportion as it asserts and maintains itself. A thing 
is more real, in fact, the more there is of it. The ideal 
( best or most blessed ) man is he, the greatest part 
of whose mind is adequate knowledge, or is c eternal l . 
For the c eternal part of our mind is its best part : 
since we are active in so far as we understand, and the 
more a thing is active (and the less a thing is passive) 
the more perfection it has 2 . Consequently, in proportion 
as we attain to scientific and philosophic knowledge, we 
are less subject to harmful emotions; and we are less 
afraid of death 3 . And, since the degree of our mental 
reality is the ideal expression of our corporeal perfection, 
he who has a body capable of very many activities 
has a mind, of which the greatest part is eternal V 

"We can to some extent fill in these indications from 
the general teaching of the Ethics. Our self is clear 
knowledge and all that depends upon, or is involved in, 
that. Our self/ therefore, will be much or little, our 
individuality worth owning or valueless, our eternity 
full or empty, according as we body and mind are 
developed and disciplined after the order of the intelli 
gence/ or undeveloped and undisciplined, at the mercy of 
the common order of nature. As regards the develop 
ment of the body, the Ethics is almost silent : the subject 
falls outside its scope. But, as regards the development 
of the mind, we have full materials in the sketch of the 
free man/ and in the account of the three grades of 
knowledge. There is no need to repeat Spinoza s teaching : 
but we may attempt to sum up his main contention. The 
man, whose self is most real, w^hose eternal individuality 
is most concrete and valuable, is he whose life is one 
unswerving effort towards clear knowledge not the 

1 Cf. e.g. E. v. 31 S., 38 S. * E. v. 38. 

2 E. v. 40 and C. * E. v. 39. 



THE ETERNITY OF THE HUMAN MIND 305 

knowledge of mere theory, but the knowledge which CHAP. IV. 
informs and vitalizes conduct : the knowledge, which to 
Socrates and Plato was identical with goodness. It is no 
life of visionary idleness, of mystic contemplation. It is 
a life of intense activity filled with the duties and 
pleasures of a many-sided existence: the life of every 
day, but not lived with an everyday spirit. For the 
activity of such a life is not the restless passing from 
interest to interest, but the untroubled expression of 
a single purpose. The consciousness of the significance 
of that purpose is the spirit that animates the free man s 
conduct : and in the knowledge of its fulfilment, he is in 
perfect possession of himself. 

In the realization of ourselves as intelligences, o\jx Amvr in- 
emotional nature has been absorbed. So far as we * under- 
stand, we are real : we are no longer in transition, and 
therefore no longer emotional beings. But, though 
we have no consciousness of increasing (still less of 
diminishing) vitality, we are intensely conscious of actual 
vitality. To this consciousness Spinoza gives the name 
of felicity beatitudo the consummation of laetitia j . 
And, in our consciousness of our felicity, we are neces 
sarily also conscious of God as its cause : i.e. we necessarily 
love God, in so far as we understand his eternal being. 
This * love, since it rests on intelligence and not on 
imaginative apprehension, may be called the intellectual 
love of God 2 . 

We may express the state, in which we attain to our 
Dullest being, in terms of this * love of God. What was 
true of our perfect self-realization as complete know 
ledge, is true of it as love of God. We love God with 
a love which is eternal, because our love of God is God 
loving himself in us 3 : just as we know God under the 
form of eternity, because our understanding of God is 
God thinking himself in (or as) us. The mind, in its 
E. v. 33 S. 2 E. v. 32 C. 8 E. v. 36. 

SPINOZA X 



. 



3 o6 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK in. knowledge of God, is a part of God s complete know 
ledge of himself. And the mind, in its love of God, is 
a part of the complete love of God for himself 1 . 

This constant and eternal love of God, which is God s 
love of men, is our salvation, felicity/ or freedom/ 
It is the peace of mind/ which the Scriptures have 
rightly called The Glory of God 2 . 



4. EEVIEW. 

If our interpretation of Spinoza is right, what exactly 
has he proved of man ? 

The so-called individuality of imaginative experience 
has shown itself as illusory, and has vanished. Our self 
is not the unique set of feelings bound up in the unique 
association of corpuscles, which appear together here and 
/now as the resultant of the causality of the indefinite 
complex of finite things. Things in this sense of the 
word (particular objects of sensitive experience; and 
the subjects of such experience, themselves the objects 
of other sensitive experience) have no reality as such, 
are not what they profess to be. Their self-dependence, 
uniqueness, distinction from one another are illusory. 
They pass over into one another, and the limits which 
seem to mark them off are the products of confused 
thinking. There are no real barriers : and the things 
constituted by the barriers of time and place have no 
more real subsistence than the imaginative barriers which 
constitute them. The first result of clear thinking is to 
dissolve these imaginative barriers: to show that the 
, independence and isolation of things is not ultimately 
\l real, and, if taken for ultimate, is the source of error. 
Science the first stage of intelligence reveals the 
beginning of the truth, when it reconstructs the world 
as a system of common properties, or (as we should 
1 E. v. 36. 8 E. v. 36 S. 



REVIEW 



307 



express it) of universal laws. It substitutes for the world CHAP. iv. 
of things a world which coheres necessarily through 
the interconnexion of content according to universal 
laws, or principles of synthesis, which are themselves 
the articulation of the scientific intelligence. Instead 
of this and that body, we now have the general 
nature or essence of body: body, conceived as a mode 
of Extension, an instance of the laws of mathematics, 
mechanics, and physics. Instead of this and that 
mind, we have mind as such: the essence of mind as 
a mode of Thought, an instance of the universal laws of 
psychology and logic. And in place of this and that 
man we have man as such : man as the essential nature, 
which is the humanity of Peter and Paul ; i. e. man as 
a mode of Substance, an instance of the laws of Extension 
and Thought. 

Our self at this stage is that which characterizes all 
men as such, our humanity. We have a common in 
terest and ideal, a common love of knowledge ; and live 
a common or social life as the means to satisfy that love. 
We can, at this stage, justify the duties and rights which 
constitute the moral ideal, when it is identified with the 
rational or social life. The fulfilment of these duties, 
and the satisfaction of these rights, is good for us, 
because it is required by our reason for the realization 
of itself. Life in accordance with social morality is the 
life of our selves : our freedom and our activity. 
It is, so to say, the only wholesome nourishment for our 
selves : and it would be folly to reject it for the life of 
passion, just as it would be folly to eat and drink 
poison 1 . 

In this rational life, then, human nature is realizing 
itself, human intelligence is coming to itself. But 
human nature and human intelligence are not to be 
understood as the abstract universals of imagination. 

1 E. v. 41 S. 
x 2 



3 o8 THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA 

BOOK III. They are concrete realities. And as real they are (in 
our experience) * embodied * in this and * that * man, 

* this and that mind. * Human nature is the nature 
of Peter and Paul, so far as they attain to their best : 
1 human intelligence is the thinking of this and that* 
man of science or philosopher, so far as it is true. 
And yet the essential nature and the true thought of 
Peter and Paul, though characterized and individualized 
in them, are one and the same through and in their 
differences. Peter and Paul win personality for them 
selves, according as they share in the common humanity 
or intelligence ; and that common humanity or intelli 
gence is the unity of Peter and Paul, not the abstraction 
from their differences. 

Peter and Paul remain distinct from one another with 
the illusory distinctions of the imaginative conscious 
ness. They are born, live, and die under different local 
and temporal conditions. To some extent they must 
remain at the mercy of the common order of nature 
the sport of passions, which lead them into conflict, or 
at least into divergence. Yet, in so far as they share in 
the realization of their common nature, they have en 
tered into the inheritance of a different kind of being, 
and a different level of individuality. 
^ For the mind, which thinks truly, is one with the 
reality which it thinks. "What is true, is true inde 
pendently of time : and the mind, which is true thinking, 
is free from temporal and local conditions or is itself an 
eternal mode. Man in the stage of science ( { so far as 
he understands ) is an eternal mode : Peter and Paul, 
in attaining to common humanity/ are so far no longer 
single things, but show themselves in their necessary 
being as eternal modes of God. And this eternity/ 
which belongs to all things so far, that is, as a 

* thing means an object of science, an essential nature, 
a law, a truth belongs to the human mind in a fuller 



REVIEW 309 

sense. For the human mind not only is eternal, but is CHAP. IV. 
so for itself: it has, and retains, the unity of self- 
consciousness. A self-conscious mind at any rate 
whatever may be the case with other modes is a unity, 
which does not dissolve into general properties before 
the analysis of science, but comprehends within itself 
(and for itself) in a necessary and living union all the 
multiplicity which science reveals in it. A mind which 
v is clearly conscious of this its individuality which 
knows itself at once as a necessary consequent of God s 
Thought and as a necessary element in that Thought 
is a mind which has attained to intuitive knowledge of 
itself: and in that knowledge it is eternal* with the 
fullest eternity of which man is capable. For God is 
actual in it, not merely as God is actual in all minds 
but in it, as this mind. Yet, it is this mind as being 
an essential constituent of human mind as such: its 
individuality comes to it, not as a character which 
separates it from other minds or thoughts of God, but 
as a character which unites it with them all. It is a 
thought which has unique significance : but its unique 
significance is given to it by, and in, the context of God s 
thinking. It and all intelligences by their individual 
significance together constitute the complete intelligence 
of God 1 . 

1 E. v. 40 S. 



INDEX 



Abiectio, 212, 279 ^.3. 

Acquiescentia inse ipso (Philautid), 
211, 216 n.2, 270 ^.3. 

Action, X Passion, 199-200, 203 ; 
and Desire, 228-34. 

Actual existence, 119-22: cf. 
177-9. 

Actuality, two senses of, 77 : cf. 
225-6. 

Admiratio, 217. 

Aemulatio, 215. 

Aefernae veritates : see Eternal. 

Aetemitas = necessitas existentiae, 
75 n.2 : and see Eternity. 

Affectio, 201. 

Affectus ( Emotions ), how re 
lated to Ideae, 201-3, 205-6, 
236-7; active, 218-9; pas 
sive = confused ideas, 114, 
204 : cf. 282-5 ; three primary 
passive, 203-5 J complex or 
derivative, 208-18 ; infinite 
variety of, 206-8 ; association 
of, 2 1 2-4 ; imitation of, 2 1 5-6 ; 
condemnation of, 278-80. 

Alphabet of Reality, 150 ^.3. 

Ambitio, 215, 2 1 6, 263, 284-5. 

Amor, 209 : cf. 282-4 ; Dei, 96-7, 
244-8, 270-1, 289-91 ; intel- 
lectualis Dei, 2, 181, 233 n.i, 
305-6. 

Animal Spirits, 157, 281. 

Animi Fluctuatio, 213. 

Animositas, 219. 

Antipathia seu Aversio, 213. 



Appetitus, 193, 198 w-3, 227 ff. 

Aristotle, his doctrine of pleasure, 
cf. 278 n.2 ; KIVTJO-IS and ^pe/ui a, 
84; Koiva aiaytaTa, 173; pro- 
pria, 174 ; aropov fldos, 179 : 
cf. 293. 

Association : see Memoria. 

Asylum ignorantiae? 61. 

Atomism : see Spinoza. 

Attribute, Spinoza s definition of, 
1 8 ; =the what of Substance, 
17-27; extra intellectual ? 
17-27 (see especially 26) ; in 
finite (complete) in suo genere, 
23-5 ; of Extension, 67-9, 82-8 ; 
of Thought, 70-2, 93-7 ; of 
Thought, its relation to other 
Attributes, 134-8; change in 
Spinoza s terminology, 18-21. 

Attributes, parallelism (coex- 
tensiveness) of, 25, 126, 136-8 : 
cf. 287-8 ; cannot be deduced, 
67, 102-7 ; infinite number of, 
39 w.5, 41, 69-70, 134-5; 
= Lines of Force, 65-7; 
X Propria, 41 n.2. 

Audacia, 217 n.\. 

Auxilia imaginationis (Time, Mea 
sure, Number), 31-5 : cf. 121. 

Avaritia, 216, 263. 

Bacon, Francis, 80 n.2, 164 n.i. 
Beatitudo ( = mentis libertas), 4 n.2 : 

cf. 181, 305. 
Benevolentia, 210. 



312 



INDEX 



Blyenbergh, Gulielmus de, Spi 
noza s correspondence with, 
63 ., 244-8. 

Body and Mind, no causal con 
nexion between, 1 53-4 ; the 
human, part of Extension and 
Thought, 92-3, 125-30, I77-9- 

Boxel, Hugo, Spinoza s letter to, 

39 w-5- 

Bradley, F. H., 102 n.i, 162 n.i, 
291 n.i. 

Castitas, 216. 

Causa = ratio, 53 n.i : cf. 230 n. 5 ; 

sui, 5, 28, 53 n.i ; transiens, 58 

n.5, 64 w. a. 

Causality of God : see God. 
Chasdai Creskas (Rab Chasdai), 

41 n.2, 51 n.i. 
Clementia, 219. 
Cogitatio, 21 n. 3, 22, 24-5 ; an<Z 

see Attribute of Thought. 
Cognitio, reflexiva idea ideae, 5-7 ; 

boni et mali, 256-61 ; intuitiva : 

see Scientia intuitiva. 
Commiseratio, 210, 21 1, 279 n.2. 
Communes notiones : see Notiones. 
Communis ordo naturae, 79,1 12- 

113, 119-22: cf. 252, 255 ff.: 

see also Natura naturata. 
Composite bodies, 83 n.i, 85-8. 
Conatus, 77-8, 87 n.i, 191-3, 225 

ff., 256 ; involves no determinate 

time, 192 n.4, 225-7 ; is the 

basis of all the Emotions, 206-8; 

and of all Virtue, 268. 
Conscientiae Morsus ( Disappoint 
ment ), 214. 
Consternatio, 217-8. 
Contemptus, 217, 279 n.2. 
Contingency, and Finiteness, 52- 

5 : cf. 121, 168: of Modes, 29- 

35, 47-50. 
Contingent X Possible, 60 n>5, 

259 nj. 



Corpora simplicissima ( elemen 
tary corpuscles ), 83 n.i. 
Creation X Generation, 68 n.6. 
Crudelitas seu Saevitia, 210 n.i. 
Cupiditas, 193, 205-6, 227-36. 

Decretum Mentis = Determinatio 
Corporis, 197-9. 

Dedignatio, 218. 

Degrees of perfection or reality, 
73-4, 109-11 : cf. 298 n.4. 

Dei inftnita idea, 94-7, 114-5, 12 7> 
148: cf. 223-5; amor: see Amor. 

Denominatio extrinseca, 147 ^.3. 

Descartes, orthodoxy of, 61 ^.3; 
his conception of Animals as 
Machines, 275 ; Animal Spirits, 
157, 281 ; Corporeal Matter, 9, 
30 n.i, 31 n.i, 85 n.i ; Error, Sin, 
and Free-Will, 132 n.4, 194-9; 
Passions as confused ideas/ 
204 n.i ; Science and the Geo 
metrical Method, 9-11; Sub 
stance, 21 n.i ; the Seat of 
the Soul, 281. 

Desiderium, 213-4. 

Desire : see Cupiditas. 

Despectus, 212, 279 ^.3. 

Desjjgratio, 214. 

Deus : see God. 

Deus sive natura, 14 : cf. 36 n.2. 

Devil, the, 248 n.i. 

Devotio, 218. 

Duration and Eternity, 29 ff., 121, 
226-7, 294-8. 

Ebrietas, 216. 

Emotion : see Affectus. 

Error (and Evil), 165-70, 238-54 : 

cf. 63 n., 108 n.2, 121. 
Esse obiectivum ( \formale) ideae t 

6, 7, 7i n.i. 
Essence and Existence, 95 n.i, 

119-22, 221-5. 
Essentia, defined, 26 n.i, 191 n.4 ; 



INDEX 



313 



Dei actuosa=potentia, 78 ; for- 
mails X obiectiva, 6, 7 ; of things, 
an eternal truth ? 77 n.i, 120. 

Eternal, an eternal truth/ 29, 
57 n.2, 77 n. i, 120 : cf. 297. 

Eternity, = Self-dependence = Im 
manent Necessity, 57 n.2; and 
Duration : see Duration. 

Ethics, early draft of the begin 
ning of the, 1 8 n.5. 

Existence, of Substance X that of 
Modes, 28 ff., 47-50; and Es 
sence : see Essence. 

Existimatio, 212, 279 n.$. 

Experientia vaga, 163-5. 

Extensio, 21 n.3, 22-4, 30-5 : and 
see Attribute of Extension. 

Fades totius universi, 87-8, 114. 

Faculties = mere abstractions, 
132. 

Fate, 59. 

Favor, 210. 

Final Causes : see Teleology. 

Finite, the, = the contingent, 52- 
5 ; = that which is limited by 
another thing of the same 
kind, 23-5 ; is partly not-real, 
79 n.2i cf. 251-4; paradox of, 
143 ; and see Contingency. 

Fortitude, 219. 

Free, the free man : cf. 268-80. 

Freedom, an imaginative idea, 
169, 199; Spinoza s conception 
of, 141-4, 193-200, 227-34, 
268 ff. 

Gaudium, 214. 

Generositas, 219. 

Geometrical Method, 9-13, 115-9, 
187-90: cf. 230-2. 

Gloria, 216 n.2; Dei, 306. 

God = Substance, 36-8 ; = ens 
realissimum or perfectissimum, 
38-9 ; is causa sui, 53 n.i ; sub 



sists of infinite Attributes, 38- 
41 ; exists of necessity, 45-58 ; 
excludes Negation ( = ens abso 
lute indeterminatum), 39, 44, 1 04- 
7 ; is one, unique, whole, 
42-3 ; is simple, indeter 
minate, concrete/ 43-5 ; the 
proximate cause of everything, 
8 1 n. ; acts purposively/ 232- 

3 ; personal ? 144 ; self-con 
scious ? 72, 144-5 : cf. 232 ; 
causality of, 58-64, 230-3 : cf. 
243-8 ; Essence of = Power/ 
65-6, 78, 191; Essence and 

4 Existence of = < Eternal 
Truths/ 57 ; Eternity of, 28 ff., 
297-8 ; Freedom of, 58-63 : cf. 
230-4 ; Propria of, 41-5 ; two 
fold causality of, 80-1 : cf. 113, 
118; idea of = the basis of 
philosophy, 9 ; our knowledge 
f> 39 n -S > Spinoza s concep 
tion of, in the Tdle, 8, 9 ; as 
conceived in the Ethics, is self- 
contradictory, 104-7, 1 1 8. 

Good, a relative term, 3 : cf. 

241 ff. 
Gratia seu Gratitudo, 209, 210 n.i. 

Heereboord, Collegium Logicum, 

58 n.s. 

Hilaritas X Titillatio, 263 n.i, 278. 
Honestas, 272 ^.4. 
Horror, 218. 
Humanity/ realization of = the 

Moral Ideal, 3-4, 241-53 : cf. 

179-80, 264-8, 300-3, 306-9 : see 

also Moral Ideal. 
Hume, 61 ^.3. 
Humilitas, 2 1 1, 279 w.2. 
Huxley, quoted, 90 n.2. 
Huyghens, Spinoza s letters to, 

42 n.i, 44 n.2, 55. 

Idea, and Ideatum, 6-8, 70-2, 138- 



3*4 



INDEX 



40, 146-52; alleged ambiguity 
in Spinoza s use of, 131 n.$ : cf. 
237 n.2 , adequate X true, 
146-52; clear and distinct : 
cf. 150; = intellectus= primary 
mode of Thought, 70, 93-4 ; 
Mentis ipsa Mem, 140; infinita 
Dei : see Dei. 

Idea Ideae, Spinoza s conception 
of, 132-4, 138-41 : cf. 257 w.4; 
infinite process involved in, 7 : 
cf . 1 40- 1 ; = cogn itio reflexiva, 5 . 

Jdeatum : see Idea. 

Identity, personal, 125 w.i. 

Imaginatio, 152-70 ; X Imago, 
155 n.5. 

Immortal (= Eternal), 295-6. 

Impudentia, 216 n.2. 

Indefinite X Infinite, 27-35. 

Indignatio, 210, 279 n.2. 

Individuality, degrees of, 125-32: 
cf. 141-4, 264-8, 292-4, 300-9; 
of particular things, 76-80, 
96, 175-7 ; of man, partly 
illusory: cf. 130, 140 n.i, 141 
w.3, 265, 300-1, 306. 

Individuum, 82-8. 

Infinite, the, 27-35 5 Attributes, 
39^.5,41,69-70, 134-5. 

Infinitum actu, 32. 

Intellectus = primary mode of 
Thought, 70, 93-4; wluntas, 
132 ; X memoria, 230 n. 5 ; in- 
finitus, 94 : cf. 1 14 ; Dei, 62-3, 
71 ; infinitus Dei sometimes = 
infinita idea Dei, 94-6, 130 n. I. 
See also Ordo. 

Invidia, 210, 279 n.2. 

Ira, 209, 210 w.i, 279 n.2. 

Irrisio, 218, 279 n.2. 

Kant, his refutation of the onto- 

logical proof, 54-5. 
Knowledge of good and evil, 

256-61. 



Laetitia, 204, 236 ; the active 

emotion of, 218-9. 
Laus, 216. 

Libertas : see Freedom and Will. 
Libido, 216 w.4, 263. 
Luxuria, 216. 

Maimonides, 61 n.i. 

Measure (= imaginations auxi- 



Mechanical ( X Logical and Te 
le ological) nexus, 230 n.$. 

Melancholia, 279. 

Memoria (= Association), 157-65 : 
cf. 230 w.5, 301. 

Mendelssohn, 186 n.i. 

Mens : see Idea Ideae, Mind, awcZ 
Body. 

Method, what, 5-9 ; principles of 
the most perfect, 8, 9 ; geo 
metrical : see Geometrical. 

Metus, 214, 217 w.i. 

Meyer, Spinoza s letter to, 27-35. 

Mind (the human) a complex of 
aggregates of ideae, 131, 138- 
41 ; a part of the infinite 
power of thinking, 92-3, 125- 
30, 309 ; = the idea of the body, 
24: cf. 177-80: see also Idea 
Ideae and Body. 

Misericordia, 211. 

Modal apprehension, in part il 
lusory 113 w.3 ; ground of? 
112-3. 

Modes = the dependently-real, 
1 5-6 ; = particular things, 75 ; 
not mere illusions, 15 : cf. no 
n.i immediate infinite and 
eternal, 74-5 : cf. 88 ^.3 ; medi 
ate infinite and eternal, 75 : cf. 
88 3 : see also Contingency, 
Duration, Existence. 

Modestia seu Humanitas, 215 ^.4, 
219 n.2 ; = a form of Pietas, 
272 n.$. 



INDEX 



315 



Modi imaginandi, 168-70. 

Moral Ideal, common to all men, 
271-2; = to know and love God, 
270-1 : see also Humanity. 

Moral Standard, the, 241-50. 

Motion-and-Rest, 82-8 : cf. 63, 
68 n.2, 69, 75, 96, 114. 

Natura naturans and Natura na- 
turata, 65 n.i, 107-13. 

Natura naturata and the corn- 
munis ordo naturae, 119-22, 
221-5, 252. 

Negation, excluded from God, 
109-11 ; X Privation, no-i : 
see also God. 

Nero, 249. 

Notiones communes (KOIVO. dioyiaTa), 
!7 2 ~5 > = fundamenta rationis, 
175 n.i; apprehended intui 
tively, 183. 

Notiones un iversales, 161-4. 

Number (imaginations auxilium), 
31-5- 

Odium, 209, 279 n.2 : cf. 282-4. 

Oldenburg, 18 n-5, 20 n.i ; cor 
respondence with Spinoza on 
the Tr. Th., 63 n. ; on Whole 
and Parts, 89-93. 

Ontological argument, validity of, 

54-5- 
Ordo intellectus, ad intellectum,i$9 

n.i, 171 n.i, 175 n.4. 
Orestes, 249. 

Parallelism : see Attributes. 

1 Particular Things, 75-82 ; their 

essentia is an eternal truth, 77 

n.i : cf. 120. 
Passions : see Affectus. 
Perfect and Imperfect, 239-41. 
Personal identity, 125 n.i ; is God 

personal? 144. 
Philosophy, Spinoza s conception 

of, i, 180-1. 



Pietas, 272 n-3, 285. 

Plato, 305. 

Poenitentia, 211, 216 n.2, 279 n.2. 

Possible : see Contingent. 

Potentia Dei = Dei actuosa essentia, 
65-6, 78, 191. 

Presentation, the world of: see 
Communis ordo naturae and 
Natura naturata. 

Propria X Attributes, 41 n.2 ; 
knowledge of, necessarily ade 
quate, 174. 

Pudor, 216 n.2. 

Pusillanimitas, 217 n.i. 

Quantitas, 31 n.i : and see, under 
Descartes, * Corporeal Matter. 

Ratio (=cognitio secundi generis), 
170-80 ; apprehends things sub 
specie eternitatis, 176: cf. 178; 
its abstractness, 176-80. 

Reason, the Life of, 268-80 ; the 
power of (over the Passions), 
280-91. 

Eeligio, 272. 

Schopenhauer, 53 n.i. 
Schuller, 70 n.2, 72 n.2. 
Science : see Ratio. 
Scientia intuitiva, 180-5: cf. 175 

n.i, 251-3, 299-303, 307-9; its 

intuition rests on inference, 

182-4. 
Secondary Qualities, illusory,i68- 

70; reduced to Primary by 

Descartes and Spinoza, 68 : cf. 

85-8,96, 114. 
Securitas, 214. 
Self-Consciousness, 234-6 ; cf. 309 : 

and see Idea Ideae. 
Sensation (K.V.), 128 n.$. 
Series rerum fixarum aeterna- 

rumque (Tdle), 80 n.2 : cf. 173 

n.2, 182 n.2. 



316 



INDEX 



Signa ( = one source of Imaginatio) t 
163, 164 n.i. 

Sobrietas, 216. 

Socrates, 305. 

Sons of God (K.V.), 82 n.i, 88 
M.3. Soul, and Body, 125-32; 
essentially apprehends the 
Body, 94 n.i, 125 if.: see also 
Body and Idea. 

Spes, 214. 

Spinoza, Atomism 1 of : cf. 141 n-3, 
150 n.3 ; influenced by Bacon, 
80 n.2 : cf. 164 n.i ; not a Fatal 
ist, 59 n.i ; not a Mystic : cf. 
233 n.i ; his Physics, 82-8 ; his 
Political Philosophy, 276-8; 
his Psychology of Conduct, 
186-219: cf. 227-37; his Theory 
of Knowledge, 146-85 ; his 
tendency to abstraction, 96-7, 
115-9,224-7. 

Sul) specie eternitatis, 176, 178. 

Substance = the self-dependently 
real, 14-6; indivisible, 3 J 
=ens absolute indeterminatum, 
44; one ? 21 n.2; unique, 
28 ; the object of complete 
knowledge, 8, 15-6; prior to 
its states (Modes), 16-7 : cf. 
107 ; infinity, eternity and 
necessary existence of, 27 ff. ; 
its unity not relational, 1 08 : 
cf. 101 ; Descartes conception 
of, 21 n.i. 

Substance and Attribute, 17-27, 




Substance and Mode, 14-7, 107- 
19. 



Sympathia seu Propensio, 213. 

Teleology, 59-63, 169-70, 187-90, 

228-34. 

Temperantia, 2 1 6, 219. 
Termini transcendentales, 1 60- 1. 



Tetens, 1 86 n.i. 

Thing, a single, 124-5, 191-3: 
and see Individuality. 

Thought, wider 3 than Exten 
sion ? 134-8 ; infinite process 
within, 135-6 ; modal system 
of, 93-7 : see also Attribute of 
Thought, Cogitatio, and Idea. 

Time (= imaginations auxilium), 
31-2: cf. 119-22, 168 n.2 , its 
effect on the Emotions, 214, 
258-9 ; Spinoza s account of its 
illusoriness is unsatisfactory, 
226-7. 

Timor, 217 n.i. 

Titillatio X Hilaritas, 263 n.i, 
278. 

Togetherness of Attributes in 
God, 102-7. 

Tristitia, 204, 236 ; no active 
emotion of, 218-9. 

Truth, degrees of, 151 ; its own 
criterion, 7, 149 : see also Idea. 

Tschirnhaus, his criticism of Spi 
noza, 70 n.2, 72 n.2, 134-6. 

Uniqueness of God, 55. 

Veneratio, 2 1 8. 

Verecundia, 216 n.2. 

Vindicta, 210 n.i, 279 n.2. 

Virtus=Potentia, 268. 

Voluntas (Volitio), 193 n.i ; In- 

tellectus, 132. 
Vries, Simon de, 18 n.5 

Whole, and Parts, 89-93 ; = ens 
rationis (imaginationis), 89. 

Will, of God, 62-3; indeter 
minate* (Descartes), 194-6: see 
also Freedom. 

Words, 164 n.i. 



Zelotypia, 213-4. 







_ 7. MAH 1 1970 



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3974 A study of the Ethics of 

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