Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Carnegie Andrew" to "Casus Belli" / Volume 5, Slice 4

by Various

There are two kinds of errors which are usually supposed to exclude each other, but which Spinoza finds to be united in opinion. These are the errors of abstraction and imagination; the former explains its vice by defect, the latter its vice Vices of abstraction and imagination. by excess. On the one hand, opinion is abstract and one-sided; it is defective in knowledge and takes hold of things only at one point. On the other hand, and just because of this abstractness and one-sidedness, it is forced to give an artificial completeness and independence to that which is essentially fragmentary and dependent. The word “abstract” is misleading, in so far as we are wont to associate with abstraction the idea of a mental effort by which parts are separated from a given whole; but it may be applied without violence to any imperfect conception, in which things that are really elements of a greater whole are treated as if they were res completae, independent objects, complete in themselves. And in this sense the ordinary consciousness of man is often the victim of abstractions when it supposes itself most of all to be dealing with realities. The essences and substances of the schoolman may delude him, but he cannot think these notions clearly without seeing that they are only abstract elements of reality, and that they have a meaning only in relation to the other elements of it. But common sense remains unconscious of its abstractness because imagination gives a kind of substantiality to the fragmentary and limited, and so makes it possible to conceive it as an independent reality. Pure intelligence seeing the part as it is in itself could never see it but as a part. Thought, when it rises to clearness and distinctness in regard to any finite object, must at once discern its relation to other finite objects and to the whole,—must discern, in Spinozistic language, that it is “modal” and not “real.” But though it is not possible to think the part as a whole it is possible to picture it as a whole. The limited image that fills the mind’s eye seems to need nothing else for its reality. We cannot think a house clearly and distinctly in all the connexion of its parts with each other without seeing its necessary relation to the earth on which it stands, to the pressure of the atmosphere, &c. The very circumstances by which the possibility of such an existence is explained make it impossible to conceive it apart from other things. But nothing hinders me from resting on a house as a complete picture by itself. Imagination represents things in the externality of space and time, and is subjected to no other conditions but those of space and time. Hence it can begin anywhere and stop anywhere. For the same cause it can mingle and confuse together all manner of inconsistent forms—can imagine a man with a horse’s head, a candle blazing in vacuo, a speaking tree, a man changed into an animal. There may be elements in the nature of these things that would prevent such combinations; but these elements are not necessarily present to the ordinary consciousness, the abstractness of whose conceptions leaves it absolutely at the mercy of imagination or accidental association. To thought in this stage anything is possible that can be pictured. On the other hand, as knowledge advances, this freedom of combination becomes limited, “the less the mind understands and the more it perceives the greater is its power of fiction, and the more it understands the narrower is the limitation of that power. For just as in the moment of consciousness we cannot imagine that we do not think, so after we have apprehended the nature of body we cannot conceive of a fly of infinite size, and after we know the nature of a soul we cannot think of it as a square, though we may use the words that express these ideas.”[34] Thus, according to Spinoza, the range of possibility narrows as knowledge widens, until to perfected knowledge posibility is lost in necessity.

From these considerations it follows that all thought is imperfect that stops short of the absolute unity of all things. Our first imperfect notion of things as isolated from each other, or connected only by co-existence and succession, is a mere Insufficiency of the individual. imagination of things. It is a fictitious substantiation of isolated moments in the eternal Being. Knowledge, so far as it deals with the finite, is engaged in a continual process of self-correction which can never be completed, for at every step there is an element of falsity, in so far as the mind rests in the contemplation of a certain number of the elements of the world, as if they constituted a complete whole by themselves, whereas they are only a part, the conception of which has to be modified at the next step of considering its relation to the other parts. Thus we rise from individuals of the first to individuals of the second order, and we cannot stop short of the idea of “all nature as one individual whose parts vary through an infinite number of modes, without change of the whole individual.”[35] At first we think of pieces of matter as independent individuals, either because we can picture them separately, or because they preserve a certain proportion or relation of parts through their changes. But on further consideration, these apparent substances sink into modes, each of which is dependent on all the others. All nature is bound together by necessary law, and not an atom could be other than it is without the change of the whole world. Hence it is only in the whole world that there is any true individuality or substance. And the same principle applies to the minds of men. Their individuality is a mere semblance caused by our abstraction from their conditions. Isolate the individual man, and he will not display the character of a thinking being at all. His whole spiritual life is bound up with his relations to other minds, past and present. He has such a life, only in and through that universal life of which he is so infinitesimal a part that his own contribution to it is as good as nothing. “Vis qua homo in existendo perseverat limitata est, et a potentia causarum externarum infinite superatur.”[36] What can be called his own? His body is a link in a cyclical chain of movement which involves all the matter of the world, and which as a whole remains without change through all. His mind is a link in a great movement of thought, which makes him the momentary organ and expression of one of its phases. His very consciousness of self is marred by a false abstraction, above which he must rise ere he can know himself as he really is.

“Let us imagine,” says Spinoza in his fifteenth letter, “a little worm living in blood which has vision enough to discern the particles of blood, lymph, &c., and reason enough to observe how one particle is repelled by another with which it comes into contact, or communicates a part of its motion to it. Such a worm would live in the blood as we do in this part of the universe, and would regard each particle of it, not as a part, but as a whole, nor could it know how all the parts are influenced by the universal nature of the blood, and are obliged to accommodate themselves to each other as is required by that nature, so that they co-operate together according to a fixed law. For if we suppose that there are no causes outside of the blood which could communicate new motions to it, and no space beyond the blood, nor any other bodies to which its particles could transfer their motion, it is certain that the blood as a whole would always maintain its present state, and its particles would suffer no other variations than those which may be inferred from the given relation of the motion of the blood to lymph, chyle, &c. And thus in that case the blood would require to be considered always as a whole and not as a part. But since there are many other causes which influence the laws of the nature of blood, and are in turn influenced thereby, other motions and other variations must arise in the blood which are not due to the proportion of motion in its constituents but also to the relation between that motion and external causes. And therefore we cannot consider the blood as a whole, but only as a part of a greater whole.”

“Now we can think, and indeed ought to think, of all natural bodies in the same manner in which we have thought of this blood, for all bodies are surrounded by other bodies, and reciprocally determine and are determined by them, to exist and operate in a fixed and definite way, so as to preserve the same ratio of motion and rest in the whole universe. Hence it follows that every body, in so far as it exists under a certain definite modification, ought to be considered as merely a part of the whole universe which agrees with its whole, and thereby is in intimate union with all the other parts; and since the nature of the universe is not limited like that of the blood, but absolutely infinite, it is clear that by this nature, with its infinite powers, the parts are modified in an infinite number of ways, and compelled to pass through an infinity of variations. Moreover, when I think of the universe as a substance, I conceive of a still closer union of each part with the whole; for, as I have elsewhere shown, it is the nature of substance to be infinite, and therefore every single part belongs to the nature of the corporeal substance, so that apart therefrom it neither can exist nor be conceived. And as to the human mind, I think of it also as of part of nature, for I think of nature as having in it an infinite power of thinking, which, as infinite, contains in itself the idea of all nature, and whose thoughts run parallel with all existence.”

From this point of view it is obvious that our knowledge of things cannot be real and adequate, except in so far as it is determined by the idea of the whole, and proceeds from the whole to the parts. A knowledge that proceeds from part to part The whole dominates the parts. must always be imperfect; it must remain external to its object, it must deal in abstractions or mere entia rationis, which it may easily be led to mistake for realities. Hence Spinoza, like Plato, distinguishes reason whose movement is regressive (from effect to cause, from variety to unity) from scientia intuitiva, whose movement is progressive, which “proceeds from the adequate idea of certain of God’s attributes to an adequate knowledge of the nature of things.”[37] The latter alone deserves to be called science in the highest sense of the term. “For in order that our mind may correspond to the exemplar of nature, it must develop all its ideas from the idea that represents the origin and source of nature, so that that idea may appear as the source of all other ideas.”[38] The regressive mode of knowledge has its highest value in preparing for the progressive. The knowledge of the finite, ere it can become perfectly adequate, must be absorbed and lost in the knowledge of the infinite.

In a remarkable passage in the Ethics, Spinoza declares that the defect of the common consciousness of men lies not so much in their ignorance, either of the infinite or of the finite, as in their incapacity for bringing the two thoughts together, so as Finite things modes of infinite substance. to put the latter in its proper relation to the former. All are ready to confess that God is the cause both of the existence and of the nature of things created, but they do not realize what is involved in this confession—and hence they treat created things as if they were substances, that is, as if they were Gods. “Thus while they are contemplating finite things, they think of nothing less than of the divine nature; and again when they turn to consider the divine nature, they think of nothing less than of their former fictions on which they have built up the knowledge of finite things, as if these things could contribute nothing to our understanding of the divine nature. Hence it is not wonderful that they are always contradicting themselves.”[39] As Spinoza says elsewhere, it belongs to the very nature of the human mind to know God, for unless we know God we could know nothing else. The idea of the absolute unity is involved in the idea of every particular thing, yet the generality of men, deluded by sense and imagination, are unable to bring this implication into clear consciousness, and hence their knowledge of God does not modify their view of the finite. It is the business of philosophy to correct this defect, to transform our conceptions of the finite by relating it to the infinite, to complement and complete the partial knowledge produced by individual experience by bringing it into connexion with the idea of the whole. And the vital question which Spinoza himself prompts us to ask is how far and in what way this transformation is effected in the Spinozistic philosophy.

There are two great steps in the transformation of knowledge by the idea of unity as that idea is conceived by Spinoza. The first step involves a change of the conception of individual finite things by which they lose their individuality, their character as independent substances, and come to be regarded as modes of the infinite. But secondly, this negation of the finite as such is not conceived as implying the negation of the distinction between mind and matter. Mind and matter still retain that absolute opposition which they had in the philosophy of Descartes, even after all limits have been removed. And therefore in order to reach the absolute unity, and transcend the Cartesian dualism, a second step is necessary, by which the independent substantiality of mind and matter is withdrawn, and they are reduced into attributes of the one infinite substance. Let us examine these steps successively.

The method by which the finite is reduced into a mode of the infinite has already been partially explained. Spinoza follows to its legitimate result the metaphysical or logical principles of Descartes and Malebranche. According to the former, Application to nature of matter. as we nave seen, the finite presupposes the infinite, and, indeed, so far as it is real, it is identical with the infinite. The infinite is absolute reality, because it is pure affirmation, because it is that which negationem nullam involvit. The finite is distinguished from it simply by its limit, i.e. by its wanting something which the infinite has. At this point Spinoza takes up the argument. If the infinite be the real, and the finite, so far as it is distinguished therefrom, the unreal, then the supposed substantiality or individuality of finite beings is an illusion. In itself the finite is but an abstraction, to which imagination has given an apparent independence. All limitation or determination is negative, and in order to apprehend positive reality we must abstract from limits. By denying the negative, we reach the affirmative; by annihilating finitude in our thought, and so undoing the illusory work of the imagination, we reach the indeterminate or unconditioned being which alone truly is. All division, distinction and relation are but entia rationis. Imagination and abstraction can give to them, as they can give to mere negation and nothingness, “a local habitation and a name,” but they have no objective meaning, and in the highest knowledge, in the scientia intuitiva, which deals only with reality, they must entirely disappear. Hence to reach the truth as to matter, we must free ourselves from all such ideas as figure or number, measure or time, which imply the separation and relation of parts. Thus in his 50th letter, in answer to some question about figure, Spinoza says, “to prove that figure is negation, and not anything positive, we need only consider that the whole of matter conceived indefinitely, or in its infinity, can have no figure; but that figure has a place only in finite or determinate bodies. He who says that he perceives figure, says only that he has before his mind a limited thing and the manner in which it is limited. But this limitation does not pertain to a thing in its ‘esse,’ but contrariwise in its ’non-esse’ (i.e. it signifies, not that some positive quality belongs to the thing, but that something is wanting to it). Since, then, figure is but limitation, and limitation is but negation, we cannot say that figure is anything.” The same kind of reasoning is elsewhere (Epist. 29) applied to solve the difficulties connected with the divisibility of space or extension. Really, according to Spinoza, extension is indivisible, though modally it is divisible. In other words, parts ad infinitum may be taken in space by the abstracting mind, but these parts have no separate existence. You cannot rend space, or take one part of it out of its connexion with other parts. Hence arises the impossibility of asserting either that there is an infinite number of parts in space, or that there is not. The solution of the antinomy is that neither alternative is true. There are many things “quae nullo numero explicari possunt,” and to understand these things we must abstract altogether from the idea of number. The contradiction arises entirely from the application of that idea to the infinite. We cannot say that space has a finite number of parts, for every finite space must be conceived as itself included in infinite space. Yet, on the other hand, an infinite number is an absurdity; it is a number which is not a number. We escape the difficulty only when we see that number is a category inapplicable to the infinite, and this to Spinoza means that it is not applicable to reality, that it is merely an abstraction, or ens imaginationis.

The same method which solves the difficulties connected with the nature of matter is applied to mind. Here also we reach the reality, or thing in itself, by abstracting from all determination. All conceptions, therefore, that involve the independence Nature of mind. of the finite, all conceptions of good, evil, freedom and responsibility disappear. When W. Blyenburg accuses Spinoza of making God the author of evil, Spinoza answers that evil is an ens rationis that has no existence for God. “Evil is not something positive, but a state of privation, and that not in relation to the divine, but simply in relation to the human intelligence. It is a conception that arises from that generalizing tendency of our minds, which leads us to bring all beings that have the external form of man under one and the same definition, and to suppose that they are all equally capable of the highest perfection we can deduce from such a definition. When, therefore, we find an individual whose works are not consistent with this perfection, straightway we judge that he is deprived of it, or that he is diverging from his own nature,—a judgment we should never make if we had not thus referred him to a general definition, and supposed him to be possessed of the nature it defines. But since God does not know things abstractly, or through such general definitions, and since there cannot be more reality in things than the divine intelligence and power bestows upon them, it manifestly follows that the defect which belongs to finite things, cannot be called a privation in relation to the intelligence of God, but only in relation to the intelligence of man.”[40] Thus evil and good vanish when we consider things sub specie aeternitatis, because they are categories that imply a certain independence in finite beings. For the idea of a moral standard implies a relation of man to the absolute good, a relation of the finite to the infinite, in which the finite is not simply lost and absorbed in the infinite. But Spinoza can admit no such relation. In the presence of the infinite the finite disappears, for it exists only by abstraction and negation; or it seems to us to exist, not because of what is present to our thoughts, but because of what is not present to them. As we think ourselves free because we are conscious of our actions but not of their causes, so we think that we have an individual existence only because the infinite intelligence is not wholly but only partially realized in us. But as we cannot really divide space, though we can think of a part of it, so neither can we place any real division in the divine intelligence. In this way we can understand how Spinoza is able to speak of the human mind as part of the infinite thought of God, and of the human body as part of the infinite extension of God, while yet he asserts that the divine substance is simple, and not made up of parts. So far as they exist, they must be conceived as parts of the divine substance, but when we look directly at that divine substance their separate existence altogether disappears.

It has, however, been already mentioned that this ascending movement of abstraction does not at once and directly bring Spinoza to the absolute unity of substance. The principle that “determination is negation,” and that therefore Soul and body. the absolute reality is to be found only in the indeterminate, would lead us to expect this conclusion; but the Cartesian dualism prevents Spinoza from reaching it. Mind and matter are so absolutely opposed, that even when we take away all limit and determination from both, they still retain their distinctness. Raised to infinity, they still refuse to be identified. We are forced, indeed, to take from them their substantial or substantive existence, for there can be no other substance but God, who includes all reality in himself. But though reduced to attributes of a common substance, the difference of thought and extension is insoluble. The independence of individual finite things disappears whenever we substitute thought for imagination, but even to pure intelligence, extension remains extension, and thought remains Spinoza’s refuge from Descartes’ dualism. thought. Spinoza seems therefore reduced to a dilemma; he cannot surrender either the unity or the duality of things, yet he cannot relate them to each other. The only course left open to him is to conceive each attribute in its turn as the whole substance, and to regard their difference as the difference of expression. As the patriarch was called by the two names of Jacob and Israel, under different aspects, each of which included the whole reality of the man, so our minds apprehend the absolute substance in two ways, each of which expresses its whole nature.[41] In this way the extremes of absolute identity and absolute difference seem to be reconciled. There is a complete parallelism of thought and extension, “ordo et connexio idearum idem est ac ordo et connexio rerum,”[42] yet there is also a complete independence and absence of relation between them, for each is the whole. A thing in one expression cannot be related to itself in another expression. Hence in so far as we look at the substance under the attribute of thought, we must take no account of extension, and in so far as we look at it under the attribute of extension, we must equally refuse to take any account of thought. This parallelism may be best illustrated by Spinoza’s account of the relation of the human soul and body. The soul is the idea of the body, and the body is the object of the soul, whatever is in the one really is in the other ideally; yet this relation of object and subject does not imply any connexion. The motions and changes of the body have to be accounted for partly by itself, partly by the influence of other bodies; and the thoughts of the soul in like manner have to be accounted for partly by what God thinks as constituting the individual mind, and partly by what he thinks as constituting the minds of other individuals. But to account for thought by the motions of the body, or for the motions of the body by thought, is to attempt to bridge the impassable gulf between thought and extension. It involves the double absurdity of accounting for a thing by itself, and of accounting for it by that which has nothing in common with it.