Pantheism, Its Story and Significance / Religions Ancient and Modern

by J. Allanson Picton

This ideal I ventured to symbolize rather than define as "purity." For after all the philosophic reasoning with which it is no less lucidly than laboriously worked out in the final book of his Ethica, "Concerning Human. Freedom"—the moral result of all this intellectual effort is that same cleansing of the soul from vain desire and that subordination of the earthly self to its divine idea which we are taught in the Sermon on the Mount. And while surely every one but a fanatical anti-Christian must allow the greater prophetic worth of the Galilean, who could teach these sublime lessons so that "the common people heard him gladly," it seems difficult to deny to the heretic Jew of the Hague the second rank among the teachers given to the world by that strangely gifted race. For though he could not speak to "the common people," he left as his legacy to mankind, not so much a system of philosophy, as an impregnable foundation for morals and religion, available for the time now coming upon us—such a time as that suggested by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he spoke of "the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." No doubt Sir Frederic Pollock is quite right in declaring that Spinoza would have been the very last man to desire any one to become a Spinozist. But that is quite consistent with the inspired Pantheist's infinite longing to see all men blessed by that inward peace which he proved, by his own heroic experience, to be identical with the self-control conferred and maintained by devout contemplation of God's all-comprehensive Being and our place therein. If, then, I regard purity as the best symbol of such a moral ideal, it is because the word connotes, together with freedom from discordant passion, a frankly unconstrained recognition of the simplicity of our relation to God. For surely when once the self has made the great surrender, and becomes content to be nothing, that in St. Paul's words, "God may be all in all," the whole problem of life is infinitely simplified, in the sense that no farther degree of simplification is possible. Because all contradictions of pain and evil and sorrow are dissolved in that act of surrender. We must, indeed, recognize that to our "inadequate ideas" the time often seems "out of joint." But we need not, with Hamlet, cry out on an impossible "spite." For when once it is heartily and loyally realized that not our partial likings, but the eternal harmony of the Whole, is the glory of God, we already anticipate the peace of absorption in the Infinite.

Love.

Nor is this moral ideal without a sacred passion; at least to ordinary men; though it must be confessed that Spinoza, in the stillness of his sacred peace, ignored the word. But he still held that the larger our view of the Universe and of our communion therewith, the more we have of God in us and the more do we realize an "intellectual love" towards Him. That this in his case was no barren sentiment, but a genuine moral inspiration, was proved by his life; for truly "he endured as seeing Him who is invisible." And it was not by faculties wholly wanting to smaller men that he did this. For though his intellect was in some respects almost beyond compare, it was rather by his self-subordinating contemplation that he was kept at peace. Indeed, he knew far less of the extended universe than our men of science do, and his doctrines of mind and thought are, by indisputable authorities, regarded as imperfect. But imagining what God must be, could we have an adequate idea not only of His Being—which Spinoza thought he had—but of His infinite attributes and their modes—which Spinoza recognized that he had not—he declared that love toward God was the very highest good. And it was supremely blessed in this, that it could engender no jealousy nor selfishness, nor sectarian zeal, but rather a large-hearted charity which would gather all mankind into the present heaven of that love.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] It is not within the scope of the present essay to give a life of Barach (or Benedict) de Spinoza. But for the sake of those to whom the work of Sir Frederick Pollock is not easily accessible, the following particulars may be given. Spinoza was born in Amsterdam, November, 1632, of a fairly prosperous Jewish family, originally from Portugal. He received thorough instruction in the language and literature of the Hebrews, and in addition became a good Latin scholar, so far as to write and correspond in that language. He was early interested in philosophy, and especially attracted for a time by the writings of Descartes. By the time he was twenty-three years old he was suspected of heresy, and in his twenty-fourth year (1655) was cut off from the Synagogue with a frightful curse. His family disowned him, and for his maintenance he turned to the polishing of lenses, a trade already learned in accordance with the Jewish custom that every boy must have a handicraft. What he earned would hardly be considered a "living wage" in these days. But according to Colerus, his first biographer, who enquired of the householders with whom Spinoza lodged, his day's maintenance of often cost no more than 4-1/2d. Various incidents proved his total indifference to money, except as far as needed to "provide things honest in the sight of all men." Though of an amiable and sociable disposition he lived a solitary life, while not indisposed to kindly talk with his humbler neighbours. He had some of the greatest scholars of the day among his correspondents. He published but little during his life, leaving his greatest work as a legacy to the world on his early death, at the Hague, from consumption, in 1677.

[16] "It is to be observed that, inasmuch as Attribute is defined by reference to intellect, and Thought itself is an attribute, Thought appears to be in a manner, counted twice over."—Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy, by Sir Frederick Pollock. Second edition, 1899, p. 153.

[17] It is of course true that Spinoza considered himself to have a clear and adequate conception of God. But by this he meant only that, as a philosopher, he had an intuitive certainty of eternal and infinite Being. So have all of us humbler mortals, though we should not have been able to express it for ourselves. No one supposes that for an indefinite space of time or eternity there was nothing, and then suddenly there was something. But, if not, then everyone recognises with Spinoza the fact of eternal Being, though, of course, he saw what this recognition meant, as the many do not. But when it comes to the facts of mortal imperfections and ignorance, Spinoza, with his theory of "inadequate ideas," is as ready as Spencer to acknowledge the Unknowable.

[18] I do not think it necessary in an essay of this kind to discuss Spinoza's theory of the body as object of the mind, and the mind as "idea" of the body, both being different aspects of the same thing.

[19] "Rei alicujus singularis actu existentis." The word "divine" does not occur in Prop. xi. Ethices II., from which I quote. But it is implied; because the mind is only a mode or modification of the infinite attribute of thought, which again expresses the eternal Substance in God. I venture a doubt whether "actually existing," though adopted by such authorities as Sir F. Pollock gives, with any distinctness, Spinoza's meaning. I may be wrong, but I suspect that one of the later uses of "actus," as quoted in Ducange, affected Spinoza's Latinity. Thus several ecclesiastical writers are quoted as using the word in the sense of office, or function. Surely this would suit Spinoza's definition of the mind. For he treats it as a centre of phenomenal activity amidst the infinite modes of the divine attribute. Its apparent individuality is a consequence of its spontaneity as a centre of action—always understood that the spontaneity is consistent with the absolute eternal order assumed throughout the work.

[20] Of course the professor of optics can tell us how many vibrations in a second go to produce the particular shade of colour. But these cannot by any means be identified with conscious perception; and it is with this only that we are concerned.