Section Two: Period of the
Thinking Understanding
Chapter I. — The Metaphysics
of the Understanding
A 2. SPINOZA
The philosophy of Descartes underwent a great variety of unspeculative
developments, but in Benedict Spinoza a direct successor to this philosopher may
be found, and one who carried on the Cartesian principle to its furthest logical
conclusions. For him soul and body, thought and Being, cease to have separate
independent existence. The dualism of the Cartesian system Spinoza, as a Jew,
altogether set aside. For the profound unity of his philosophy as it found
expression in Europe, his manifestation of Spirit as the identity of the finite
and the infinite in God, instead of God's appearing related to these as a Third
— all this is an echo from Eastern lands. The Oriental theory of absolute
identity was brought by Spinoza much more directly into line, firstly with the
current of European thought, and then with the European and Cartesian
philosophy, in which it soon found a place.
First of all we must, however, glance at the circumstances of Spinoza's life.
He was by descent a Portuguese Jew, and was born at Amsterdam in the year 1632;
the name he received was Baruch, but he altered it to Benedict. In his youth he
was instructed by the Rabbis of the synagogue to which he belonged, but he soon
fell out with them, their wrath having been kindled by the criticisms which he
passed on the fantastic doctrines of the Talmud. He was not, therefore, long in
absenting himself from the synagogue, and as the Rabbis were in dread lest his
example should have evil consequences, they offered him a yearly allowance of a
thousand gulden if he would keep away from the place and hold his tongue. This
offer he declined; and the Rabbis thereafter carried their persecution of him to
such a pitch that they were even minded to rid themselves of him by
assassination. After having made a narrow escape from the dagger, he formally
withdrew from the Jewish communion, without, however, going over to the
Christian Church. He now applied himself particularly to the Latin language, and
made a special study of the Cartesian philosophy. Later on he went to Rhynsburg,
near Leyden, and from the year 1664 he lived in retirement, first at Voorburg, a
village near the Hague, and then at the Hague itself, highly respected by
numerous friends: he gained a livelihood for himself by grinding optical
glasses. It was no arbitrary choice that led him to occupy himself with light,
for it represents in the material sphere the absolute identity which forms the
foundation of the Oriental view of things. Although he had rich friends and
mighty protectors, among whom even generals were numbered, he lived in humble
poverty, declining the handsome gifts offered to him time after time. Nor would
he permit Simon von Vries to make him his heir; he only accepted from him an
annual pension of three hundred florins; in the same way he gave up to his
sisters his share of their father's estate. From the Elector Palatine, Carl
Ludwig, a man of most noble character and raised above the prejudices of his
time, he received the offer of a professor's chair at Heidelberg, with the
assurance that he would have liberty to teach and to write, because “the Prince
believed he would not put that liberty to a bad use by interfering with the
religion publicly established.” Spinoza (in his published letters) very wisely
declined this offer, however, because “he did not know within what limits that
philosophic liberty would have to be confined, in order that he might not appear
to be interfering with the publicly established religion.” He remained in
Holland, a country highly interesting in the history of general culture, as it
was the first in Europe to show the, example of universal toleration, and
afforded to many a place of refuge where they might enjoy liberty of thought;
for fierce as was the rage of the theologians there against Bekker, for example
(Bruck. Hist. crit. phil. T. IV. P. 2, pp. 719, 720), and furious as were the
attacks of Voetius on the Cartesian philosophy, these had not the consequences
which they would have had in another land. Spinoza died on the 21st of February,
1677, in the forty-fourth year of his age. The cause of his death was
consumption, from which he had long been a sufferer; this was in harmony with
his system of philosophy, according to which all particularity and individuality
pass away in the one substance. A Protestant divine, Colerus by name, who
published a biography of Spinoza, inveighs strongly against him, it is true, but
gives nevertheless a most minute and kindly description of his circumstances and
surroundings — telling how he left only about two hundred thalers, what debts he
had, and so on. A bill included in the inventory, in which the barber requests
payment due him by M. Spinoza of blessed memory, scandalizes the parson very
much, and regarding it he makes the observation: “Had the barber but known what
sort of a creature Spinoza was, he certainly would not have spoken of his
blessed memory.” The German translator of this biography writes under the
portrait of Spinoza: characterem reprobationis in vultu
gerens, applying this description to a countenance which doubtless
expresses the melancholy of a profound thinker, but is otherwise wild and
benevolent. The reprobatio is certainly correct; but it is not a
reprobation in the passive sense; it is an active disapprobation on Spinoza's
part of the opinions, errors and thoughtless passions of mankind.(1)
Spinoza used the terminology of Descartes, and also published an account of
his system. For we find the first of Spinoza's works entitled “An Exposition
according to the geometrical method of the principles of the Cartesian
philosophy.” Some time after this he wrote his Tractatus
theologico-politicus, and by it gained considerable reputation. Great as
was the hatred which Spinoza roused amongst his Rabbis, it was more than
equalled by the odium which he brought upon himself amongst Christian, and
especially amongst Protestant theologians — chiefly through the medium of this
essay. It contains his views on inspiration, a critical treatment of the books
of Moses and the like chiefly from the point of view that the laws therein
contained are limited in their application to the Jews. Later Christian
theologians have written critically on this subject, usually making it their
object to show that these books were compiled at a later time, and that they
date in part from a period subsequent to the Babylonian captivity; this has
become a crucial point with Protestant theologians, and one by which the modern
school distinguishes itself from the older, greatly pluming itself thereon. All
this, however, is already to be found in the above-mentioned work of Spinoza.
But Spinoza drew the greatest odium upon himself by his philosophy proper, which
we must now consider as it is given to us in his Ethics. While Descartes
published no writings on this subject, the Ethics of Spinoza is undoubtedly his
greatest work; it was published after his death by Ludwig Mayer, a physician,
who had been Spinoza's most intimate friend. It consists of five parts; the
first deals with God (De Deo). General metaphysical ideas are contained
in it, which include the knowledge of God and nature. The second part deals with
the nature and origin of mind (De natura et origine mentis). We see
thus that Spinoza does not treat of the subject of natural philosophy, extension
and motion at all, for he passes immediately from God to the philosophy of mind,
to the ethical point of view; and what refers to knowledge, intelligent mind, is
brought forward in the first part, under the head of the principles of human
knowledge. The third book of the Ethics deals with the origin and nature of the
passions (De oriqine et natura affectuum); the fourth with the powers
of the same, or human slavery (De servitute humana seu de affectuum
viribus); the fifth, lastly, with the power of the understanding, with
thought, or with human liberty (De potentia intellectus seu de libertate
humana). (2)
Kirchenrath Professor Paulus published Spinoza's works in Jena; I had a share in
the bringing out of this edition, having been entrusted with the collation of
French translations.
As regards the philosophy of Spinoza, it is very simple, and on the whole
easy to comprehend; the difficulty which it presents is due partly to the
limitations of the method in which Spinoza presents his thoughts, and partly to
his narrow range of ideas, which causes him in an unsatisfactory way to pass
over important points of view and cardinal questions. Spinoza's system is that
of Descartes made objective in the form of absolute truth. The simple thought of
Spinoza's idealism is this: The true is simply and solely the one substance,
whose attributes are thought and extension or nature: and only this absolute
unity is reality, it alone is God. It is, as with Descartes, the unity of
thought and Being, or that which contains the Notion of its existence in itself.
The Cartesian substance, as Idea, has certainly Being included in its Notion;
but it is only Being as abstract, not as real Being or as extension (supra,
p. 241). With Descartes corporeality and the thinking 'I' are altogether
independent Beings; this independence of the two extremes is done away with in
Spinozism by their becoming moments of the one absolute Being. This expression
signifies that Being must be grasped as the unity of opposites; the chief
consideration is not to let slip the opposition and set it aside, but to
reconcile and resolve it. Since then it is thought and Being, and no longer the
abstractions of the finite and infinite, or of limit and the unlimited, that
form the opposition (supra, p. 161), Being is here more definitely
regarded as extension; for in its abstraction it would be really only that
return into itself, that simple equality with itself, which constitutes thought
(supra, p. 229). The pure thought of Spinoza is therefore not the
simple universal of Plato, for it has likewise come to know the absolute
opposition of Notion and Being.
Taken as a whole, this constitutes the Idea of Spinoza, and it is just what
pure being was to the Eleatics (Vol. 1. pp. 244, 252). This Idea of
Spinoza's we must allow to be in the main true and well-grounded; absolute
substance is the truth, but it is not the whole truth; in order to be this it
must also be thought of as in itself active and living, and by that very means
it must determine itself as mind. But substance with Spinoza is only the
universal and consequently the abstract determination of mind; it may
undoubtedly be said that this thought is the foundation of all true views — not,
however, as their absolutely fixed and permanent basis, but as the abstract
unity which mind is in itself. It is therefore worthy of note that thought must
begin by placing itself at the standpoint of Spinozism; to be a follower of
Spinoza is the essential commencement of all Philosophy. For as we saw above
(Vol. I. p. 144), when man begins to philosophize, the soul must commence by
bathing in this ether of the One Substance, in which all that man has held as
true has disappeared; this negation of all that is particular, to which every
philosopher must have come, is the liberation of the mind and its absolute
foundation. The difference between our standpoint and that of the Eleatic
philosophy is only this, that through the agency of Christianity concrete
individuality is in the modern world present throughout in spirit. But in spite
of the infinite demands on the part of the concrete, substance with Spinoza is
not yet determined as in itself concrete. As the concrete is thus not present in
the content of substance, it is therefore to be found within reflecting thought
alone, and it is only from the endless oppositions of this last that the
required unity emerges. Of substance as such there is nothing more to be said;
all that we can do is to speak of the different ways in which Philosophy has
dealt with it, and the opposites which in it are abrogated. The difference
depends on the nature of the opposites which are held to be abrogated in
substance. Spinoza is far from having proved this unity as convincingly as was
done by the ancients; but what constitutes the grandeur of Spinoza's manner of
thought is that he is able to renounce all that is determinate and particular,
and restrict himself to the One, giving heed to this alone.
1. Spinoza begins (Eth. P. I pp. 35, 36) with a
series of definitions, from which we take the following.
a. Spinoza's first definition is of the Cause of
itself. He says: “By that which is causa sui, its own cause, I
understand that whose essence” (or Notion) “involves existence, or which cannot
be conceived except as existent.” The unity of existence and universal thought
is asserted from the very first, and this unity will ever be the question at
issue. “The cause of itself” is a noteworthy expression, for while we picture to
ourselves that the effect stands in opposition to the cause, the cause of itself
is the cause which, while it operates and separates an “other,” at the same time
produces only itself, and in the production therefore does away with this
distinction. The establishing of itself as an other is loss or degeneration, and
at the same time the negation of this loss; this is a purely speculative Notion,
indeed a fundamental Notion in all speculation. The cause in which the cause is
identical with the effect, is the infinite cause (infra, p. 263); if
Spinoza had further developed what lies in causa sui, substance with
him would not have been rigid and unworkable.
b. The second definition is that of the finite.
“That thing is said to be finite in its kind which can be limited by another of
the same nature.” For it comes then to an end, it is not there; what is there is
something else. This something else must, however, be of a like nature; for
those things which are to limit each other must, in order to be able to limit
each other, touch each other, and consequently have a relation to each other,
that is to say they must be of one nature, stand on a like basis, and have a
common sphere. That is the affirmative side of the limit. “Thus a thought is”
only “limited by another thought, a body by another body, but thoughts are not
limited by bodies nor" conversely "bodies by thoughts.” We saw this (p. 244)
with Descartes: thought is an independent; totality and so is extension, they
have nothing to do with one another; they do not limit each other, each is
included in itself.
c. The third definition is that of substance. “By
substance I understand that which exists in itself and is conceived by itself,
i.e. the conception of which does not require the aid of the conception
of any other thing for its formation (a quo formari debeat);” otherwise
it would be finite, accidental. What cannot have a conception formed of it
without the aid of something else, is not independent, but is dependent upon
that something else.
d. In the fourth place Spinoza defines attributes,
which, as the moment coming, second to substance, belong to it. “By attribute I
understand that which the mind perceives as constituting the essence of
substance;” and to Spinoza this alone is true. This is an important
determination; the attribute is undoubtedly a determinateness, but at the same
time it remains a totality. Spinoza, like Descartes, accepts only two
attributes, thought and extension. The understanding grasps them as the reality
of substance, but the reality is not higher than the substance, for it is only
reality in the view of the understanding, which falls outside substance. Each of
the two ways of regarding substance — extension and thought — contains no doubt
the whole content of substance, but only in one form, which the understanding
brings with it; and for this very reason both sides are in themselves identical
and infinite. This is the true completion; but where substance passes over into
attribute is not stated.
e. The fifth definition has to do with what comes
third in relation to substance, the mode. “By mode I understand the affections
of substance, or that which is in something else, through the aid of which also
it is conceived.” Thus substance is conceived through itself; attribute is not
conceived through itself, but has a relation to the conceiving understanding, in
so far as this last conceives reality; mode, finally, is what is not conceived
as reality, but through and in something else.
These last three moments Spinoza ought not merely to have established in this
way as conceptions, he ought to have deduced them; they are especially
important, and correspond with what we more definitely distinguish as universal,
particular and individual. They must not, however, be taken as formal, but in
their true concrete sense; the concrete universal is substance, the concrete
particular is the concrete species; the Father and Son in the Christian dogma
are similarly particular, but each of them contains the whole nature of God,
only under a different form. The mode is the individual, the finite as such,
which enters into external connection with what is “other.” In this Spinoza only
descends to a lower stage, the mode is only the foregoing warped and stunted.
Spinoza's defect is therefore this, that he takes the third moment as mode
alone, as a false individuality. True individuality and subjectivity is not a
mere retreat from the universal, not merely something clearly determinate; for,
as clearly determinate, it is at the same time Being-for-itself, determined by
itself alone. The individual, the subjective, is even in being so the return to
the universal; and in that it is at home with itself, it is itself the
universal. The return consists simply and solely in the fact of the particular
being in itself the universal; to this return Spinoza did not attain. Rigid
substantiality is the last point he reached, not infinite form; this he knew
not, and thus determinateness continually vanishes from his thought.
f. In the sixth place, the definition of the
infinite is also of importance, for in the infinite Spinoza defines more
strictly than anywhere else the Notion of the Notion. The infinite has a double
significance, according as it is taken as the infinitely many or as the
absolutely infinite (infra, p. 263). “The infinite in its kind is not
such in respect of all possible attributes; but the absolutely infinite is that
to whose essence all belongs that expresses an essence and contains no
negation.” In the same sense Spinoza distinguishes in the nine-and-twentieth
Letter (Oper. T. I. pp. 526-532) the infinite of imagination from the infinite
of thought (intellectus), the actual (actu) infinite. Most
men, when they wish to strive after the sublime, get no farther than the first
of these; this is the false infinite, just as when one says “and so on into
infinity,” meaning perhaps the infinity of space from star to star, or else the
infinity of time. An infinite numerical series in mathematics is exactly the
same thing. If a certain fraction is represented as a decimal fraction, it is
incomplete; 1/7 is, on the contrary, the true infinite, and therefore not an
incomplete expression, although the content here is of course limited. It is
infinity in the incorrect sense that one usually has in view when infinity is
spoken of; and even if it is looked on as sublime, it yet is nothing present,
and only goes ever out into the negative, without being actual (actu).
But for Spinoza the infinite is not the fixing of a limit and then passing
beyond the limit fixed — the sensuous infinity — but absolute infinity, the
positive, which has complete and present in itself an absolute multiplicity
which has no Beyond. Philosophic infinity, that which is infinite actu,
Spinoza therefore calls the absolute affirmation of itself. This is quite
correct, only it might have been better expressed as: “It is the negation of
negation.” Spinoza here also employs geometrical figures as illustrations of the
Notion of infinity. In his Opera postuma, preceding his
Ethics, and also in the letter quoted above, he has two circles, one of which
lies within the other, which have not, however, a common centre.
“The
inequalities of the space between A B and C D exceed every number; and yet the
space which lies between is not so very great.” That is to say, if I wish to
determine them all, I must enter upon an infinite series. This “beyond” always,
however, remains defective, is always affected with negation; and yet this false
infinite is there to hand, circumscribed, affirmative, actual and present in
that plane as a complete space between the two circles. Or a finite line
consists of an infinite number of points; and yet the line is present here and
determined; the “beyond” of the infinite number of points, which are not
complete, is in it complete and called back into unity. The infinite should be
represented as actually present, and this comes to pass in the Notion of the
cause of itself, which is therefore the true infinity. As soon as the cause has
something else opposed to it — the effect — finitude is present; but here this
something else is at the same time abrogated and it becomes once more the cause
itself. The affirmative is thus negation of negation, since, according to the
well-known grammatical rule, duplex negatio affirmat. In the same way
Spinoza's earlier definitions have also the infinite already implied in them,
for instance in the case of the just mentioned cause of itself, inasmuch as he
defines it as that whose essence involves existence (supra, p. 258).
Notion and existence are each the Beyond of the other; but cause of itself, as
thus including them, is really the carrying back of this “beyond” into unity. Or
(supra, p. 259) “Substance is that which is in itself and is conceived
from itself;” that is the same unity of Notion and existence. The infinite is in
the same way in itself and has also its Notion in itself; its Notion is its
Being, and its Being its Notion; true infinity is therefore to be found in
Spinoza. But he has no consciousness of this; he has not recognized this Notion
as absolute Notion, and therefore has not expressed it as a moment of true
existence; for with him the Notion falls outside of existence, into the thought
of existence.
g. Finally Spinoza says in the seventh place: “God
is a Being absolutely infinite, i.e. a substance consisting of infinite
attributes, each of which expresses an eternal and infinite essence.” Does
substance, one might here ask, possess an infinite number of attributes? But as
with Spinoza there are only two attributes, thought and extension, with which he
invests God, “infinite” is not to be taken here in the sense of the
indeterminate but positively, as a circle is perfect infinity in itself.
The whole of Spinoza's philosophy is contained in these definitions, which,
however, taken as a whole are formal; it is really a weak point in Spinoza that
he begins thus with definitions. In mathematics this method is permitted,
because at the outset we there make assumptions, such as that of the point and
line; but in Philosophy the content should be known as the absolutely true. It
is all very well to grant the correctness of the name-definition, and
acknowledge that the word “substance” corresponds with the conception which the
definition indicates, but it is quite another question to determine whether this
content is absolutely true. Such a question is not asked in the case of
geometrical propositions, but in philosophic investigation it is the very thing
to be first considered, and this Spinoza has not done. Instead of only
explaining these simple thoughts and representing them as concrete in the
definitions which he makes, what he ought to have done was to examine whether
this content is true. To all appearance it is only the explanation of the words
that is given, but the content of the words is held to be established. All
further content is merely derived from that, and proved thereby; for on the
first content all the rest depends, and if it is established as a basis, the
other necessarily follows. “The attribute is that which the understanding thinks
of God.” But here the question is: How does it come that besides the Deity there
now appears the understanding, which applies to absolute substance the two forms
of thought and extension? and whence come these two forms themselves? Thus
everything proceeds inwards, and not outwards; the determinations are not
developed from substance, it does not resolve itself into these
attributes.
2. These definitions are followed by axioms and
propositions in which Spinoza proves a great variety of points. He descends from
the universal of substance through the particular, thought and extension, to the
individual. He has thus all three moments of the Notion, or they are essential
to him. But the mode, under which head falls individuality, he does not
recognize as essential, or as constituting a moment of true existence in that
existence; for it disappears in existence, or it is not raised into the
Notion.
a. The main point then is that Spinoza proves from
these Notions that there is only One Substance, God. It is a simple chain of
reasoning, a very formal proof. “Fifth Proposition: There cannot be two or more
substances of the same nature or of the same attribute.” This is implied already
in the definitions; the proof is therefore a useless and, wearisome toil, which
only serves to render Spinoza more difficult to understand. “If there were
several” (substances of the same attribute) “they must be distinguished from one
another either by the diversity of their attributes or by the diversity of their
affections” (modes). “If they are distinguished by their attributes, it would be
directly conceded that there is only one substance having the same attribute.”
For the attributes are simply what the understanding grasps as the essence of
the one substance, which is determined in itself, and not through anything else.
“But if these substances were distinguished by their affections, since substance
is by nature prior to its affections it would follow that if from substance its
affections were abstracted and it were regarded in itself, i.e., in its truth,
it could henceforth not be regarded as distinct from other substances.” “Eighth
Proposition: All substance is necessarily infinite. Proof: For otherwise it must
be limited by another substance of the same nature, in which case there would be
two substances of the same attribute, which is contrary to the fifth
proposition.” “Every attribute must be conceived for itself,” as determination
reflected on itself. “For attribute is what the mind conceives of substance as
constituting its essence, from which it follows that it must be conceived
through itself,” i.e., substance is what is conceived through itself (see the
fourth and third definitions). “Therefore we may not argue from the plurality of
attributes to a plurality of substances, for each is conceived by itself, and
they have all been, always and at the same time, in substance, without the
possibility of the one being produced by the other.” “Substance is indivisible.
For if the parts retained the nature of the substance, there would be several
substances of the same nature, which is contrary to the fifth proposition. If
not, infinite substance would cease to exist, which is absurd.”(3)
“Fourteenth Proposition: No other substance than God can either exist or be
conceived. Proof: God is the absolutely infinite substance, to whom can be
denied no attribute which expresses the essence of substance, and He exists
necessarily; therefore if there were a substance other than God, it must be
explained by means of an attribute of God.” Consequently the substance would not
have its own being, but that of God, and therefore would not be a substance. Or
if it were still to be substance, “then there would necessarily follow the
possibility of there being two substances with the same attribute, which
according to the fifth proposition is absurd. From this it then follows that the
thing extended and the thing that thinks” are not substances, but “are either
attributes of God, or affections of His attributes.” By these proofs and others
like them not much is to be gained. “Fifteenth proposition: What is, is in God,
and cannot exist or be conceived without God.” “Sixteenth proposition: By the
necessity of the divine nature infinite things must follow in infinite modes,
i.e., all that can fall under the infinite understanding. God is
therefore the absolute First Cause.”
Spinoza then ascribes freedom and necessity to God: “God is the absolute free
cause, who is determined by nothing outside of Himself, for He exists solely by
the necessity of His nature. There is no cause which inwardly or outwardly moves
Him to act, except the perfection of His nature. His activity is by the laws of
His Being necessary and eternal; what therefore follows from His absolute
nature, from His attributes, is eternal as it follows from the nature of the
triangle from eternity and to eternity that it, three angles are equal to two
right angles." That is to say, His Being is His absolute power; actus
and potentia, Thought and Being, are in Him one. God has not therefore
any other thoughts which He could not have actualized. “God is the immanent
cause of all things, not the transient (transiens),” i.e., external
cause. “His essence and His existence are the same, namely, the truth. A thing
which is determined to perform some action, is, since God is cause, necessarily
determined thereto by God; and a thing which is thus determined cannot render
itself undetermined. In nature nothing is contingent. Will is not a free cause,
but only a necessary cause, only a mode; it is therefore determined by another.
God acts in accordance with no final causes (sub ratione
boni). Those who assert that He does so, appear to establish something
apart from God, which does not depend on God, and which God in His working keeps
in view, as though it were an end. If this view is taken, God is not a free
cause, but is subject to fate. It is equally inadmissible to subject all things
to the arbitrary pleasure of God, i.e., to His indifferent will.”(4)
He is determined solely by His own nature, the activity of God is thus His
power, and that is necessity. He is then absolute power in contrast to wisdom,
which sets up definite aims, and consequently limitations; particular aims,
thoughts of what is about to come to pass, and the like are therefore put out of
the question. But beyond this universal, no advance is made; for it must be
noticed a negation. Moreover, if God is the cause of the world, it is implied
that He is finite; for the world is here put beside God as something different
from Him.
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.”(5)
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. 11. 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.(6)
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.(7)
The idea that all particular content is only, a modification of God is ridiculed
by Bayle,(8)
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.”(9)
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. 11. 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. 1. 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.”(10)
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.”(11)
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.(12)
“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.”(13)
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.”(14)
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 æternitatis);” 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.”(15)
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 the 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.”(16)
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.
In the thirty-sixth Letter (pp. 581-582) Spinoza, speaks of Evil. The
allegation is made that God, as the originator of all things and everything, is
also the originator of evil, is consequently Himself evil; in this identity all
things are one, good and evil are in themselves the same thing, in God's
substance this difference has disappeared. Spinoza says in answer to this “I
assert the fact that God absolutely and truly” (as cause of Himself) “is the
cause of everything that has an essential content” (i.e., affirmative reality)
“be it what it may. Now if you can prove to me that evil, error, crime, etc.,
are something that expresses an essence, I will freely admit to you that God is
the originator of crime and evil and error. But I have elsewhere abundantly
demonstrated that the form of evil cannot subsist in anything that expresses an
essence, and therefore it cannot be said that God is the cause of evil.” Evil is
merely negation, privation, limitation, finality, mode — nothing in itself truly
real. “Nero's murder of his mother, in so far as it had positive content, was no
crime. For Orestes did the same external deed, and had in doing it the same end
in view — to kill his mother; and yet he is not blamed,” and so on. The
affirmative is the will, the intention, the act of Nero. “Wherein then consists
Nero's criminality? In nothing else but that he proved himself ungrateful,
merciless, and disobedient. But it is certain that all this expresses no
essence, and therefore God was not the cause of it, though He was the cause of
Nero's action and intention.” These last are something positive, but yet they do
not constitute the crime as such; it is only the negative element, such as
mercilessness, etc. that makes the action a crime. “We know that whatever
exists, regarded in itself and without taking anything else into consideration,
contains a perfection which extends as widely as the essence of the thing itself
extends, for the essence is in no way different therefrom." — "Because then,” we
find in the thirty-second letter (pp. 541, 543), “God does not regard things
abstractly, or form general definitions,” (of what the thing ought to be) “and
no more reality is required of things than the Divine understanding and power
has given and actually meted out to them; therefore it clearly follows that such
privation exists only and solely in respect to our understanding, but not in
respect to God;” for God is absolutely real. It is all very well to say this,
but it does not meet the case. For in this way God and the respect to our
understanding are different. Where is their unity? How is this to be conceived?
Spinoza continues in the thirty-sixth letter: “Although the works of the
righteous (i.e., of those who have a clear idea of God, to which they direct all
their actions and even their thoughts), and” also the works “of the wicked
(i.e., of those who have no idea of God, but only ideas of earthly things," —
individual, personal interests and opinions, — "by which their actions and
thoughts are directed), and all whatsoever exists, necessarily proceed from
God's eternal laws and counsels, and perpetually depend on God, they are yet not
distinguished from one another in degree, but in essence; for although a mouse
as well as an angel depends on God, and sorrow as well as joy, yet a mouse
cannot be a kind of angel, and sorrow cannot be a kind of joy," — they are
different in essence.
There is therefore no ground for the objection that Spinoza's philosophy
gives the death-blow to morality; we even gain from it the great result that all
that is sensuous is mere limitation, and that there is only one true substance,
and that human liberty consists in keeping in view this one substance, and in
regulating all our conduct in accordance with the mind and will of the Eternal
One. But in this philosophy it may with justice be objected that God is
conceived only as Substance, and not as Spirit, as concrete. The independence of
the human soul is therein also denied, while in the Christian religion every
individual appears as determined to salvation. Here, on the contrary, the
individual spirit is only a mode, an accident, but not anything substantial.
This brings us to a general criticism of the philosophy of Spinoza, in the
course of which we shall consider it from three different points of view.
In the first place Spinozism is asserted to be Atheism — by Jacobi, for
instance (Werke, Vol. IV. Section I, p. 216) — because in it no distinction is
drawn between God and the world; it makes nature the real God, or lowers God to
the level of nature, so that God disappears and only nature is established. But
it is not so much God and nature that Spinoza sets up in mutual opposition, as
thought and extension; and God is unity, not One made up of two, but absolute
Substance, in which has really disappeared the limitation of the subjectivity of
thought and nature. Those who speak against Spinoza do so as if it were on God's
account that they were interested; but what these opponents are really concerned
about is not God, but the finite — themselves. The relationship between God and
the finite, to which we belong, may be represented in three different ways:
firstly, only the finite exists, and in this way we alone exist, but God does
not exist — this is atheism; the finite is here taken absolutely, and is
accordingly the substantial. Or, in the second place, God alone exists; the
finite has no reality, it is only phenomena, appearance. To say, in the third
place, that God exists and we also exist is a false synthetic union, all
amicable compromise. It is the popular view of the matter, that the one side has
as much substantiality as the other; God is honoured and supreme, but finite
things also have Being to exactly the same extent. Reason cannot remain
satisfied with this "also,” with indifference like this. The philosophic
requisite is therefore to apprehend the unity of these differences in such a way
that difference is not let slip, but proceeds eternally from substance, without
being, petrified into dualism. Spinoza is raised above this dualism; religion is
so also, if we turn its popular conceptions into thoughts. The atheism of the
first attitude — when men set up as ultimate the arbitrariness of the will,
their own vanity, the finite things of nature, and the world dwells for ever in
the mind — is not the standpoint of Spinoza, for whom God is the one and only
substance, the world on the contrary being merely an affection or mode of this
substance. In the respect that Spinoza does not distinguish God from the world,
the finite, it is therefore correct to term his theory atheism, for his words
are these: Nature, the human mind, the individual, are God revealed under
particular forms. It has been already remarked (pp. 257, 258, 280) that
undoubtedly Substance with Spinoza does not perfectly fulfill the conception of
God, since it is as Spirit that He is to be conceived. But if Spinoza is called
an atheist for the sole reason that he does not distinguish God from the world,
it is a misuse of the term. Spinozism might really just as well or even better
have been termed Acosmism, since according to its teaching it is not to the
world, finite existence, the universe, that reality and permanency are to be
ascribed, but rather to God alone as the substantial. Spinoza maintains that
there is no such thing as what is known as the world; it is merely a form of
God, and in and for itself it is nothing. The world has no true reality, and all
this that we know as the world has been cast into the abyss of the one identity.
There is therefore no such thing as finite reality, it has no truth whatever;
according to Spinoza what is, is God, and God alone. Therefore the allegations
of those who accuse Spinoza of atheism are the direct opposite of the truth;
with him there is too much God. They say: If God is the identity of mind and
nature, then nature or the individual man is God. This is quite correct, but
they forget that nature and the individual disappear in this same identity: and
they cannot forgive Spinoza for thus annihilating them. Those who defame him in
such a way as this are therefore not aiming at maintaining God, but at
maintaining the finite and the worldly; they do not fancy their own extinction
and that of the world. Spinoza's system is absolute pantheism and monotheism
elevated into thought. Spinozism is therefore very far removed from being
atheism in the ordinary sense; but in the sense that God is not conceived as
spirit, it is atheism. However, in the same way many theologians are also
atheists who speak of God only as the Almighty Supreme Being, etc., who refuse
to acknowledge God, and who admit the validity and truth of the finite. They are
many degrees worse than Spinoza.
The second point to be considered is the method adopted by Spinoza for
setting forth his philosophy; it is the demonstrative method of geometry as
employed by Euclid, in which we find definitions, explanations, axioms, and
theorems. Even Descartes made it his starting-point that philosophic
propositions must be mathematically handled and proved, that they must have the
very same evidence as mathematics. The mathematical method is considered
superior to all others, on account of the nature of its evidence; and it is
natural that independent knowledge in its re-awakening lighted first upon this
form, of which it saw so brilliant an example. The mathematical method is,
however, ill-adapted for speculative content, and finds its proper place only in
the finite sciences of the understanding. In modern times Jacobi has asserted
(Werke, Vol. IV. Section I. pp. 217-223) that all demonstration, all scientific
knowledge leads back to Spinozism, which alone is a logical method of thought;
and because it must lead thither, it is really of no service whatever, but
immediate knowledge is what we must depend on. It may be conceded to Jacobi that
the method of demonstration leads to Spinozism, if we understand thereby merely
the method of knowledge belonging to the understanding. But the fact is that
Spinoza is made a testing-point in modern philosophy, so that it may really be
said: You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all. This being so, the
mathematical and demonstrative method of Spinoza would seem to be only a defect
in the external form; but it is the fundamental defect of the whole position. In
this method the nature of philosophic knowledge and the object thereof, are
entirely misconceived, for mathematical knowledge and method are merely formal
in character and consequently altogether unsuited for philosophy. Mathematical
knowledge exhibits its proof on the existent object as such, not on the object
as conceived; the Notion is lacking throughout; the content of Philosophy,
however, is simply the Notion and that which is comprehended by the Notion.
Therefore this Notion as the knowledge of the essence is simply one assumed,
which falls within the philosophic subject; and this is what represents itself
to be the method peculiar to Spinoza's philosophy. Of this demonstrative manner
we have already seen these examples: The definitions from which Spinoza takes
his start — as in geometry a commencement is made with the line, triangle,
&c. — concern universal determinations, such as cause of itself, the finite,
substance, attribute, mode, and so on, which are solely and simply accepted and
assumed, not deduced, nor proved to be necessary; for Spinoza is not aware of
how he arrives at these individual determinations. He further speaks of axioms,
for instance (Ethic. P. I. Ax. I. p. 36): “What is, is either in itself or in
another.” The determinations “in itself” and “in another” are not shown forth in
their necessity: neither is this disjunction proved, it is merely assumed. The
propositions have, as such, a subject and predicate which are not similar. When
the predicate is proved of the subject and necessarily combined with it, the
discrepancy remains that the one as universal is related to the other as
particular: therefore even although the relation is proved, there is present at
the same time a secondary relation. Mathematical science, in its true
propositions respecting a whole, escapes from the difficulty by proving also the
converse of the propositions, in this way obtaining for them a special
definiteness by proving each proposition in both ways. True propositions may,
therefore, be looked on as definitions, and the conversion is the proof of the
proposition in the form in which it is expressed. But this means of escaping the
difficulty Philosophy cannot well employ, since the subject of which something
is proved is itself only the Notion or the universal, and the proposition form
is therefore quite superfluous and out of place. What has the form of the
subject is in the form of an existent thing, as contrasted with the universal,
the content of the proposition. The existent thing is taken as signifying
existent in the ordinary sense; it is the word which we use in every-day life,
and of which we have a conception that has nothing of the Notion in it. The
converse of a proposition would simply read like this: The Notion is that which
is thus popularly conceived. This proof from the usage of language — that we
also understand this to be the meaning in every-day life, or in other words that
the name is correct — has no philosophic significance. But if the proposition is
not one like this, but an ordinary proposition, and if the predicate is not the
Notion, but some general term or other, a predicate of the subject, such
propositions are really not philosophic: we might instance the statement that
substance is one and not several, but only that in which substance and unity are
the same. Or, in other words, this unity of the two moments is the very thing
which the proof has to demonstrate, it is the Notion or the essence. In this
case it looks as if the proposition were the matter of chief importance, the
truth. But if in these really only so-called propositions, subject and predicate
are in truth not alike, because one is individual and the other universal, their
relation is essential, i.e., the reason for which they are one. The proof has
here a false position indeed, as if that subject were implicit or in itself,
whereas subject and predicate are, fundamentally even, moments in separation; in
the judgment “God is One,” the subject itself is universal, since it resolves
itself into unity. On the other side it is implied in this false position that
the proof is brought in from outside merely, as in mathematics from a preceding
proposition, and that the proposition is not therefore conceived through itself;
thus we see the ordinary method of proof take its middle term, the principle,
from anywhere it can, in the same way as in classification it takes its
principle of classification. The proposition is then, as it were, a secondary
affair; but we must ask if this proposition is true. The result as proposition
ought to be truth, but is only knowledge. The movement of knowledge, as proof,
falls therefore, in the third place, outside of the proposition, which ought to
be the truth. The essential moments of the system are really already completely
contained in the pre-suppositions of the definitions, from which all further
proofs have merely to be deduced. But whence have we these categories which here
appear as definitions? We find them doubtless in ourselves, in scientific
culture. The existence of the understanding, the will, extension, is therefore
not developed from infinite substance, but it is directly expressed in these
determinations, and that quite naturally; for of a truth there exists the One
into which everything enters, in order to be absorbed therein, but out of which
nothing comes. For as Spinoza has set up the great proposition, all
determination implies negation (supra, p. 267), and as of everything,
even of thought in contrast to extension, it may be shown that it is determined
and finite, what is essential in it rests upon negation. Therefore God alone is
the positive, the affirmative, and consequently the one substance; all other
things, on the contrary, are only modifications of this substance, and are
nothing in and for themselves. Simple determination or negation belongs only to
form, but is quite another thing from absolute determinateness or negativity,
which is absolute form; in this way of looking at it negation is the negation of
negation, and therefore true affirmation. This negative self-conscious moment,
the movement of knowledge, which pursues its way in the thought which is present
before us, is however certainly lacking to the content of Spinoza's philosophy,
or at least it is only externally associated with it, since it falls within
self-consciousness. That is to say, thoughts form the content, but they are not
self-conscious thoughts or Notions: the content signifies thought, as pure
abstract self-consciousness, but an unreasoning knowledge, into which the
individual does not enter: the content has not the signification of 'I.'
Therefore the case is as in mathematics; a proof is certainly given, conviction
must follow, but yet the matter fails to be understood. There is a rigid
necessity in the proof, to which the moment of self-consciousness is lacking;
the 'I' disappears, gives itself altogether up, merely withers away. Spinoza's
procedure is therefore quite correct; yet the individual proposition is false,
seeing that it expresses only one side of the negation. The understanding has
determinations which do not contradict one another; contradiction the
understanding cannot suffer. The negation of negation is, however,
contradiction, for in that it negates negation as simple determination, it is on
the one hand affirmation, but on the other hand also really negation; and this
contradiction, which is a matter pertaining to reason, is lacking in the case of
Spinoza. There is lacking the infinite form, spirituality and liberty. I have
already mentioned before this (pp. 93, 94; 129-137) that Lullus and Bruno
attempted to draw up a system of form, which should embrace and comprehend the
one substance which organizes itself into the universe; this attempt Spinoza did
not make.
Because negation was thus conceived by Spinoza in one-sided fashion merely,
there is, in the third place, in his system, an utter blotting out of the
principle of subjectivity, individuality, personality, the moment of
self-consciousness in Being. Thought has only the signification of the
universal, not of self-consciousness. It is this lack which has, on the one
side, brought the conception of the liberty of the subject into such vehement
antagonism to the system of Spinoza, because it set aside the independence of
the human consciousness, the so-called liberty which is merely the empty
abstraction of independence, and in so doing set aside God, as distinguished
from nature and the human consciousness — that is as implicit consciousness of
freedom, of the spiritual, which is the negative of the corporeal, and man has
also the consciousness that his true Being lies in what is opposed to the
corporeal. This has been firmly maintained by religion, theology, and the sound
common sense of the common consciousness, and this form of opposition to Spinoza
appears first of all in the assertion that freedom is real, and that evil
exists. But because for Spinoza, on the other hand, there exists only absolute
universal substance as the non-particularized, the truly real — all that is
particular and individual, my subjectivity and spirituality, has, on the other
hand, as a limited modification whose Notion depends on another, no absolute
existence. Thus the soul, the Spirit, in so far as it is an individual Being, is
for Spinoza a mere negation, like everything in general that is determined. As
all differences and determinations of things and of consciousness simply go back
into the One substance, one may say that in the system of Spinoza all things are
merely cast down into this abyss of annihilation. But from this abyss nothing
comes out; and the particular of which Spinoza speaks is only assumed and
presupposed from the ordinary conception, without being justified. Were it to be
justified, Spinoza would have to deduce it from his Substance; but that does not
open itself out, and therefore comes to no vitality, spirituality or activity.
His philosophy has only a rigid and unyielding substance, and not yet spirit; in
it we are not at home with ourselves. But the reason that God is not spirit is
that He is not the Three in One. Substance remains rigid and petrified, without
Boehme's sources or springs; for the individual determinations in the form of
determinations of the understanding are not Boehme's originating spirits, which
energize and expand in one another (supra, pp. 202, 203). What we find
regarding this particular then is that it is only a modification of absolute
substance, which, however, is not declared to be such; for the moment of
negativity is what is lacking to this rigid motionlessness, whose single form of
activity is this, to divest all things of their determination and particularity
and cast them back into the one absolute substance, wherein they are simply
swallowed up, and all life in itself is utterly destroyed. This is what we find
philosophically inadequate with Spinoza; distinctions are externally present, it
is true, but they remain external, since even the negative is not known in
itself. Thought is the absolutely abstract, and for that very reason the
absolutely negative; it is so in truth, but with Spinoza it is not asserted to
be the absolutely negative. But if in opposition to Spinozism we hold fast to
the assertion that Spirit, as distinguishing itself from the corporeal, is
substantial, actual, true, and in the same way that freedom is not something
merely privative, then this actuality in formal thought is doubtless correct,
yet it rests only upon feeling; but the further step is that the Idea
essentially includes within itself motion and vitality, and that it consequently
has in itself the principle of spiritual freedom. On the one hand, therefore,
the defect of Spinozism is conceived as consisting in its want of correspondence
with actuality; but on the other side it is to be apprehended in a higher sense,
I mean in the sense that substance with Spinoza is only the Idea taken
altogether abstractly, not in its vitality.
If, in conclusion, we sum up this criticism that we have offered, we would
say that on the one hand with Spinoza negation or privation is distinct from
substance; for he merely assumes individual determinations, and does not deduce
them from substance. On the other hand the negation is present only as Nothing,
for in the absolute there is no mode; the negative is not there, but only its
dissolution, its return: we do not find its movement, its Becoming and Being.
The negative is conceived altogether as a vanishing moment — not in itself, but
only as individual self-consciousness; it is not like the Separator we
met with in Boehme's system (supra, p. 206). Self-consciousness is born
from this ocean, dripping with the water thereof, i.e., never coming to absolute
self-hood; the heart, the independence is transfixed — the vital fire is
wanting. This lack has to be supplied, the moment of self-consciousness has to
be added. It has the following two special aspects, which we now perceive
emerging and gaining acceptance; in the first place the objective aspect, that
absolute essence obtains in self-consciousness the mode of an object of
consciousness for which the “other” exists, or the existent as such, and that
what Spinoza, understood by the “modes” is elevated to objective reality its an
absolute moment of the absolute; in the second place we have the aspect of
self-consciousness, individuality, independence. As was formerly the case with
respect to Bacon and Boehme, the former aspect is here taken up by the
Englishman, John Locke, the latter by the German Leibnitz; in the first case it
did not appear as a moment, nor did it in the second appear as absolute Notion.
Now while Spinoza only takes notice of these ordinary conceptions, and. the
highest point of view he reaches in regard to them is that they sink and
disappear in the one Substance, Locke on the contrary examines the genesis of
these conceptions, while Leibnitz opposes to Spinoza the infinite multiplicity
of individuals, although all these monads have one monad as the basis of their
Being. Both Locke and Leibnitz therefore came forward as opponents of the
abovementioned one-sidedness of Spinoza.
Malebranch
(next section) —
Contents
1. Collectanea de vita B. de Spinoza (addita
Operibus ed. Paulus Jennæ 1802-1803, T. II.), pp. 593-604, 612-628 (Spinoza
Epist. LIII-LIV. in Oper. ed. Paul T. I. pp. 638-640) 642-665; Spinozæ Oper. ed.
Paul T. II. Præf. p. XVI.
2. Collectanea de vita B. de
Spinoza, pp. 629-641; Spinozæ Ethic. (Oper. T. II.) Pp. 1, 3 et not., 33.
3. Spinoz. Ethices, P. I. Prop. V. VIII. X. et Schol., XIII. pp.
37-39, 41, 42, 45.
4. Spinoz. Ethices, P. I. Prop. XVII.,
Coroll. I., II., et Schol., Prop. XVIII., Prop. XX., et Coroll. I. Prop. XXI.,
XXVI., XXVII., XXIX., XXXII., XXXIII. Schol. II. pp. 51-57, 59, 61, 63, 67,
68.
5. Spinoz. Ethices, P. II. Prop. I., II., VII. et Schol.
pp. 78, 79, 82, 83.
6. Spinoz. Ethic. P. I. Prop. XXX-XXXII.
pp. 62, 63; P. III. Defin. III. p. 132; Prop. XI. Schol., p. 141.
7. Spinoz. Ethices, P. II. Prop. XI. Demonst. et Coroll. pp. 86,
87; Defin. IV. pp. 77, 78.
8. Dictionnaire historique et
critique (édition de 1740, T. IV.), Article Spinosa, p. 261, Note N. No.
IV.
9. Spinoz. Ethices, P. II. Prop. XII., XIII. et Schol.
Prop. XIV., XXIII., V. pp. 87-89, 95, 102, 80, 81.
10.
Spinoz. Ethices, P. II. Prop. XI. (Axiom I. p. 78) et Demonstr. Prop. X. pp.
85-87; Prop. VI. p. 81; P. III. Prop. II. pp. 133, 134.
11.
Spinoz. Ethices, P. III. Prop. VI-VIII. Prop. IX. Schol. pp. 139,1 140; P.
II. Prop. XLIX. Coroll. p. 123; P. III. Prop. II. Schol. p. 136; P. V. Prop.
III. Demonst. et Coroll. pp. 272, 273.
12. Spinoz. Ethices,
P. III. Prop. I. p. 132; Prop. III. p. 138; P. IV. Præf. p. 199; P. III. Prop.
XI. Schol. pp. 141, 142; P. IV. Prop. II. p. 205; P. III. Prop. III. et Schol.
p. 138.
13. Spinoz. Ethices, P. V. Prop. XXXVI. Schol. Prop.
XXXVIL Demonstr., Prop. XXXVIII. et Schol. pp. 293-295.
14.
Spinoz. Ethices, P. II. Prop. XL. Schol. II. pp. 113, 114.
15. Spinoz. Ethices, P. II. Prop. XLIV. et Coroll. II. pp. 117,
118; Prop. XLV. p. 119; P. V. Prop. XXX. p. 289: P. II. Prop. XXXII. p.
107.
16. Spinoz. Ethices, P. V. Prop. XIV. p. 280; Prop. VI.
p. 275; Prop. XXVII. pp. 287, 288; Prop. XXXII. Coroll.; Prop. XXXV. pp. 291,
292.
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