P. [196], § 104. The distinction between imagination and intellect made by Spinoza in Ep. xii. (olim xxix.) in Opp. ed. Land vol. ii. 40 seqq. is analogous to that already noted (p. 402) between ratio and intellegentia, and is connected, as by Boëthius, with the distinction which Plato, Timaeus, 37, draws between eternity (αἰών) and time.
The infinite (Eth. i. prop. 8. Schol. I) is the 'absolute affirmation of a certain nature's existence,' as opposed to finitude which is really ex parte negatio. 'The problem has always been held extremely difficult, if not inextricable, because people did not distinguish between what is concluded to be infinite by its own nature and the force of its definition, and what has no ends, not in virtue of its essence, but in virtue of its cause. It was difficult also because they did not distinguish between what is called infinite because it has no ends, and that whose parts (though we may have a maximum and minimum of it) we cannot equate or explicate by any number. Lastly because they lid not distinguish between what we can only understand (intelligere,) but not imagine, and what we can also imagine.'
To illustrate his meaning, Spinoza calls attention to the distinction of substance from mode, of eternity from duration. We can 'explicate' the existence only of modes by duration: that of substance, 'by eternity, i.e. by an infinite fruition of existence or being' (per aeternitatem, hoc est, infinitam existendi, sive, invita latinitate, essendi fruitionem.) The attempt therefore to show that extended substance is composed of parts is an illusion,—which arises because we look at quantity 'abstractly or superficially, as we have it in imagination by means of the senses.' So looking at it, as we are liable to do, a quantity will be found divisible, finite, composed of parts and manifold. But if we look at it as it really is,—as a Substance —as it is in the intellect alone—(which is a work of difficulty), it will be found infinite, indivisible, and unique. 'It is only therefore when we abstract duration and quantity from substance, that we use time to determine duration and measure to determine quantity, so as to be able to imagine them. Eternity and substance, on the other hand, are no objects of imagination but only of intellect; and to try to explicate them by such notions as measure, time, and number—which are only modes of thinking or rather of imagining—is no better than to fall into imaginative raving.' 'Nor will even the modes of Substance ever be rightly understood, should they be confounded with this sort of entia rationis' (i.e. modi cogitandi subserving the easier retention, explication and imagination of things understood)' or aids to imagination. For when we do so, we separate them from substance, and from the mode in which they flow from eternity, without which they cannot be properly understood.' (Cf. Hegel's Werke, i. 63.)
The verses from Albr. von Haller come from his poem on Eternity (1736). Hegel seems to quote from an edition before 1776, when the fourth line was added in the stanza as it thus finally stood:—
Ich häufe ungeheure Zahlen,
Gebürge Millionen auf,
Ich welze Zeit auf Zeit und Welt auf Welten hin,
Und wenn ich auf der March des endlichen nun bin,
Und von der fürchterlichen Höhe
Mit Schwindeln wieder nach dir sehe,
Ist alle Macht der Zahl, vermehrt mit tausend Malen,
Noch nicht ein Theil von dir.
Ich tilge sie, und du liegst ganz vor mir.
Kant, Kritik d. r. Vernunft, p. 641. 'Even Eternity, however eerily sublime may be its description by Haller,' &c.
P. [197], § 104. Pythagoras in order of time probably comes between Anaximenes (of Ionia) and Xenophanes (of Elea). But the mathematical and metaphysical doctrines attributed to the Pythagorean are known to us only in the form in which they are represented in Plato and Aristotle, i.e. in a later stage of development. The Platonists (cf. Arist. Met. i. 6; xi. 1. 12; xii. 1. 7; cf. Plat. Rep. p. 510) treated mathematical fact as mid-way between 'sensibles' and 'ideas'; and Aristotle himself places mathematics as a science between physical and metaphysical (theological) philosophy.
The tradition (referred to p. 198) about Pythagoras is given by Iamblichus, Vita Pyth. §115 seqq.: it forms part of the later Neo-Pythagorean legend, which entered literature in the first centuries of the Christian era.
P. [201], § 107. Hebrew hymns: e.g. Psalms lxxiv. and civ.; Proverbs viii. and Job xxxviii. Vetus verbum est, says Leibniz (ed. Erdmann, p. 162), Deum omnia pondere, mensura, numero, fecisse.