b. The greatest difficulty in Spinoza is, in the distinctions to which he comes, to grasp the relation of this determinate to God, at the same time preserving the determination. “God is a thinking Being, because all individual thoughts are modes which express God’s nature in a certain and determinate manner; there pertains therefore to God an attribute the conception of which all individual thoughts involve, and by means of this they also are conceived. God is an extended Being for the same reason.” This means that the same substance, under the attribute of thought, is the intelligible world, and under the attribute of extension, is nature; nature and thought thus both express the same Essence of God. Or, as Spinoza says, “The order and system of natural things is the same as the order of the thoughts. Thus, for instance, the circle which exists in nature, and the idea of the existing circle, which is also in God, are one and the same thing” (they are one and the same content), “which is” merely “expressed by means of different attributes. If we therefore regard nature either under the attribute of extension or of thought, or under any other attribute whatever, we shall find one and the same connection of causes, i.e., the same sequence of things. The formal Being of the idea of the circle can be conceived only by means of the mode of thought, as its proximate cause, and this mode again by means of another, and so on infinitely; so that we must explain the order of the whole of nature, or the connection of causes, by the attribute of thought alone, and if things are considered by the attribute of extension, they must be considered only by the attribute of extension,—and the same holds good of other causes.”[198] It is one and the same system, which at one time appears as nature, and at another time in the form of thought.
But Spinoza does not demonstrate how these two are evolved from the one substance, nor does he prove why there can only be two of them. Neither are extension and thought anything to him in themselves, or in truth, but only externally; for their difference is a mere matter of the understanding, which is ranked by Spinoza only among affections (Eth. P. I. Prop. XXXI. Demonst. p. 62), and as such has no truth. This has in recent times been served up again by Schelling in the following form: In themselves, the intelligent world and the corporeal world are the same, only under different forms; so that the intelligent universe is in itself the whole absolute divine totality, and the corporeal universe is equally this same totality. The differences are not in themselves, but the different aspects from which the Absolute is regarded are matters external to it. We take a higher tone in saying that nature and mind are rational; but reason is for us no empty word, for it means the totality which develops itself within itself. Again, it is the standpoint of reflection to regard aspects only, and nothing in itself. This defect appears in Spinoza and Schelling in the fact that they see no necessity why the Notion, as the implicit negative of its unity, should make a separation of itself into different parts; so that out of the simple universal the real, the opposed, itself becomes known. Absolute substance, attribute and mode, Spinoza allows to follow one another as definitions, he adopts them ready-made, without the attributes being developed from the substance, or the modes from the attributes. And more especially in regard to the attributes, there is no necessity evident, why these are thought and extension in particular.
c. When Spinoza passes on to individual things, especially to self-consciousness, to the freedom of the ‘I,’ he expresses himself in such a way as rather to lead back all limitations to substance than to maintain a firm grasp of the individual. Thus we already found the attributes not to be independent, but only the forms in which the understanding grasps substance in its differences; what comes third, the modes, is that under which for Spinoza all difference of things alone falls. Of the modes he says (Ethic. P. I. Prop. XXXII. Demonst. et Coroll. II. p. 63): In every attribute there are two modes; in extension, these are rest and motion, in thought they are understanding and will (intellectus et voluntas). They are mere modifications which only exist for us apart from God; therefore whatever refers to this difference and is specially brought about by it, is not absolute, but finite. These affections Spinoza sums up (Ethices, P. I. Prop. XXIX. Schol. pp. 61, 62) under the head of natura naturata: “Natura naturans is God regarded as free cause, in so far as He is in Himself and is conceived by Himself: or such attributes of substance as express the eternal and infinite essence. By natura naturata, I understand all that follows from the necessity of the divine nature, or from any of the attributes of God, all modes of the divine attributes, in so far as they are regarded as things which are in God, and which without God can neither exist nor be conceived.” From God proceeds nothing, for all things merely return to the point whence they came, if from themselves the commencement is made.
These then are Spinoza’s general forms, this is his principal idea. Some further determinations have still to be mentioned. He gives definitions of the terms modes, understanding, will, and of the affections, such as joy and sadness.[199] We further find consciousness taken into consideration. Its development is extremely simple, or rather it is not developed at all; Spinoza begins directly with mind. “The essence of man consists of certain modifications of the attributes of God”; these modifications are only something related to our understanding. “If we, therefore, say that the human mind perceives this or that, it means nothing else than that God has this or that idea, not in so far as He is infinite, but in so far as He is expressed by the idea of the human mind. And if we say that God has this or that idea, not in so far as He constitutes the idea of the human mind, but in so far as He has, along with the human mind, the idea of another thing, then we say that the human mind perceives the thing partially or inadequately.” Truth is for Spinoza, on the other hand, the adequate.[200] The idea that all particular content is only a modification of God is ridiculed by Bayle,[201] who argues from it that God modified as Turks and Austrians, is waging war with Himself; but Bayle has not a trace of the speculative element in him, although he is acute enough as a dialectician, and has contributed to the intelligent discussion of definite subjects.
The relation of thought and extension in the human consciousness is dealt with by Spinoza as follows: “What has a place in the object” (or rather in the objective) “of the idea which constitutes the human mind must be perceived by the human mind; or there must necessarily be in the mind an idea of this object. The object of the idea which constitutes the human mind is body, or a certain mode of extension. If, then, the object of the idea which constitutes the human mind, is the body, there can happen nothing in the body which is not perceived by the mind. Otherwise the ideas of the affections of the body would not be in God, in so far as He constitutes our mind, but the idea of another thing: that is to say, the ideas of the affections of our body would not be likewise in our mind.” What is perplexing to understand in Spinoza’s system is, on the one hand, the absolute identity of thought and Being, and, on the other hand, their absolute indifference to one another, because each of them is a manifestation of the whole essence of God. The unity of the body and consciousness is, according to Spinoza, this, that the individual is a mode of the absolute substance, which, as consciousness, is the representation of the manner in which the body is affected by external things; all that is in consciousness is also in extension, and conversely. “Mind knows itself only in so far as it perceives the ideas of the affections of body,” it has only the idea of the affections of its body; this idea is synthetic combination, as we shall immediately see. “The ideas, whether of the attributes of God or of individual things, do not recognize as their efficient cause their objects themselves, or the things perceived, but God Himself, in so far as He is that which thinks.”[202] Buhle (Geschichte der neuern Philos. Vol. III. Section II. p. 524) sums up these propositions of Spinoza thus: “Thought is inseparably bound up with extension; therefore all that takes place in extension must also take place in consciousness.” Spinoza, however, also accepts both in their separation from one another. The idea of body, he writes (Epistol. LXVI. p. 673), includes only these two in itself, and does not express any other attributes. The body which it represents is regarded under the attribute of extension; but the idea itself is a mode of thought. Here we see a dividing asunder; mere identity, the undistinguishable nature of all things in the Absolute, is insufficient even for Spinoza.
The individuum, individuality itself, is thus defined by Spinoza (Ethic. P. II. Prop. XIII. Defin. p. 92): “When several bodies of the same or of different magnitudes are so pressed together that they rest on one another, or when, moving with like or different degrees of rapidity, they communicate their movement to one another in a certain measure, we say that such bodies are united to one another, and that all together they form one body or individuum, which by this union distinguishes itself from all the other bodies.” Here we are at the extreme limit of Spinoza’s system, and it is here that his weak point appears. Individuation, the one, is a mere synthesis; it is quite a different thing from the Ichts or self-hood of Boehme (supra, pp. 205-207), since Spinoza has only universality, thought, and not self-consciousness. If, before considering this in reference to the whole, we take it from the other side, namely from the understanding, the distinction really falls under that head; it is not deduced, it is found. Thus, as we have already seen (p. 270) “the understanding in act (intellectus actu), as also will, desire, love, must be referred to natura naturata, not to natura naturans. For by the understanding, as recognized for itself, we do not mean absolute thought, but only a certain mode of thought—a mode which is distinct from other modes like desire, love, etc., and on that account must be conceived by means of absolute thought, i.e. by means of an attribute of God which expresses an eternal and infinite essentiality of thought; without which the understanding, as also the rest of the modes of thought, could neither be nor be conceived to be.” (Spinoza, Ethices, P. I. Propos. XXXI. pp. 62, 63). Spinoza is unacquainted with an infinity of form, which would be something quite different from that of rigid, unyielding substance. What is requisite is to recognize God as the essence of essences, as universal substance, identity, and yet to preserve distinctions.
Spinoza goes on to say: “What constitutes the real (actuale) existence of the human mind is nothing else than the idea of a particular” (individual) “thing, that actually exists,” not of an infinite thing. “The essence of man involves no necessary existence, i.e. according to the order of nature a man may just as well be as not be.” For the human consciousness, as it does not belong to essence as an attribute, is a mode—a mode of the attribute of thought. But neither is the body, according to Spinoza, the cause of consciousness, nor is consciousness the cause of the body, but the finite cause is here only the relation of like to like; body is determined by body, conception by conception. “The body can neither determine the mind to thought, nor can the mind determine the body to motion, or rest, or anything else. For all modes of thought have God as Cause, in so far as He is a thinking thing, and not in so far as He is revealed by means of another attribute. What therefore determines the mind to thought, is a mode of thought and not of extension; similarly motion and rest of the body must be derived from another body.”[203] I might quote many other such particular propositions from Spinoza, but they are very formal, and a continual repetition of one and the same thing.
Buhle (Gesch. d. neuern Phil. Vol. III. Section 2, pp. 525-528), attributes limited conceptions to Spinoza: “The soul experiences in the body all the ‘other’ of which it becomes aware as outside of the body, and it becomes aware of this ‘other’ only by means of the conceptions of the qualities which the body perceives therein. If, therefore, the body can perceive no qualities of a thing, the soul also can come to no knowledge of it. On the other hand, the soul is equally unable to arrive at the perception of the body which belongs to it; the soul knows not that the body is there, and knows itself even in no other way than by means of the qualities which the body perceives in things which are outside of it, and by means of the conceptions of the same. For the body is an individual thing, determined in a certain manner, which can only gradually, in association with and amidst other individual things, attain to existence, and can preserve itself in existence only as thus connected, combined and associated with others,” i.e. in infinite progress; the body can by no means be conceived from itself. “The soul’s consciousness expresses a certain determinate form of a Notion, as the Notion itself expresses a determinate form of an individual thing. But the individual thing, its Notion, and the Notion of this Notion are altogether and entirely one and the same thing, only regarded under different attributes. As the soul is nothing else than the immediate Notion of the body, and is one and the same thing with this, the excellence of the soul can never be anything else than the excellence of the body. The capacities of the understanding are nothing but the capacities of the body, if they are looked at from the corporeal point of view, and the decisions of the will are likewise determinations of the body. Individual things are derived from God in an eternal and infinite manner” (i.e. once and for all), “and not in a transitory, finite and evanescent manner: they are derived from one another merely inasmuch as they mutually produce and destroy each other, but in their eternal existence they endure unchangeable. All individual things mutually presuppose each other; one cannot be thought without the other; that is to say they constitute together an inseparable whole; they exist side by side in one utterly indivisible, infinite Thing, and in no other way whatever.”
3. We have now to speak of Spinoza’s system of morals, and that is a subject of importance. Its great principle is no other than this, that the finite spirit is moral in so far as it has the true Idea, i.e. in so far as it directs its knowledge and will on God, for truth is merely the knowledge of God. It may be said that there is no morality loftier than this, since its only requisite is to have a clear idea of God. The first thing Spinoza speaks of in this regard is the affections: “Everything strives after self-preservation. This striving is the actual essence of the thing, and involves only indefinite time; when referred exclusively to mind, it is termed will; when referred to both mind and body together, it is called desire. Determination of the will (volitio) and Idea are one and the same thing. The sense of liberty rests on this, that men do not know the determining causes of their actions. The affection is a confused idea; the more clearly and distinctly, therefore, we know the affection, the more it is under our control.”[204] The influence of the affections, as confused and limited (inadequate) ideas, upon human action, constitutes therefore, according to Spinoza, human slavery; of the passionate affections the principal are joy and sorrow; we are in suffering and slavery in so far as we relate ourselves as a part.[205]
“Our happiness and liberty consist in an enduring and eternal love to God; this intellectual love follows from the nature of mind, in so far as it is regarded as eternal truth through the nature of God. The more a man recognizes God’s existence and loves Him, the less does he suffer from evil affections and the less is his fear of death.”[206] Spinoza requires in addition the true kind of knowledge. There are, according to him, three kinds of knowledge; in the first, which he calls opinion and imagination, he includes the knowledge which we obtain from an individual object through the senses—a knowledge fragmentary and ill-arranged—also knowledge drawn from signs, pictorial conceptions and memory. The second kind of knowledge is for Spinoza that which we derive from general conceptions and adequate ideas of the properties of things. The third is intuitive knowledge (scientia intuitiva) which rises from the adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things.[207] Regarding this last he then says: “The nature of reason is not to contemplate things as contingent, but as necessary ... to think of all things under a certain form of eternity (sub quadam specie œternitatis);” i.e. in absolutely adequate Notions, i.e. in God. “For the necessity of things is the necessity of the eternal nature of God Himself. Every idea of an individual thing necessarily includes the eternal and infinite essence of God in itself. For individual things are modes of an attribute of God; therefore they must include in themselves His eternal essence. Our mind, in so far as it knows itself and the body under the form of eternity, has to that extent necessarily the knowledge of God, and knows that it is itself in God and is conceived through God. All Ideas, in so far as they are referable to God, are true.”[208] Man must trace back all things to God, for God is the One in All; the eternal essence of God is the one thing that is, the eternal truth is the only thing for man to aim at in his actions. With Spinoza this is not a knowledge arrived at through philosophy, but only knowledge of a truth. “The mind can succeed in tracing back all affections of the body or images of things to God. In proportion as the mind regards all things as necessary, it has a greater power over its affections,” which are arbitrary and contingent. This is the return of the mind to God, and this is human freedom; as mode, on the other hand, the spirit has no freedom, but is determined from without. “From the third kind of knowledge there arises the repose of the mind; the supreme good of the mind is to know God, and this is its highest virtue. This knowledge necessarily produces the intellectual love of God; for it produces a joyfulness accompanied by the Idea of God as cause—i.e. the intellectual love of God. God Himself loves Himself with an infinite intellectual love.”[209] For God can have only Himself as aim and cause; and the end of the subjective mind is to be directed on Him. This is therefore the purest, but also a universal morality.