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History of Philosophy
by
Alfred Weber
Table of Contents
§ 55. Spinoza
Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza,
(1)
Spinosa, or Despinoza, was born at Amsterdam, in
1632, of Portuguese Jewish parents, who were, it seems, in good circumstances.
In accordance with the wishes of his father he studied theology, but soon
showed a decided preference for free philosophical speculation. After being
excommunicated by the synagogue, which made unsuccessful attempts to bring
him back to the faith of his fathers, he repaired to Rhynsburg, then to Voorburg,
and finally to The Hague, where he died, a poor and persecuted man, in 1677.
His love of independence led him to decline the Heidelberg professorship of
philosophy offered him by Karl Ludwig, the Elector Palatine. He wrote his
principal works at The Hague between the years 1660 and 1677. In 1663 he
published the treatise entitled:
Renati Descartes principiorum philosophie Pars I.
et II.
more geometrico demonstrate,
and in 1670, the anonymous work:
Tractatus theologico-politicus,
in which he discusses and gives rationalistic
solutions of such problems as inspiration, prophecy, miracles, and free
investigation. His chief work,
Ethica more geometrico demonstrata,
and several
other less important treatises, were issued after his death under the care of his
friend Ludwig Meyer.
(2)
His
Tractatus de Deo, homine, ejusque felicitate
was
unknown to the philosophical public until 1852.
(3)
Spinozism, as set forth in the
Ethics,
is the logical consequence of the Cartesian
definition of substance,
(4)
and the consistent application of the method of the
French philosopher.
(5)
Our author is not content with developing his doctrines by
pure deductive reasoning, but also presents them
more geometrico
. From a
certain number of definitions he deduces a system whose parts are logically
connected with each other. This method of exposition is not an arbitrary form or
a provisional framework: it is of a piece with the system, and, one might say,
constitutes its permanent skeleton. When Spinoza treats of the world, of man
and his passions, as Euclid in his
Elements
treats of lines, planes, and angles, it
is because, in principle and in fact, he sets as great a value upon these objects of
philosophy as the geometer upon his.
(6)
Just as the conclusions of geometry
inevitably follow from their axioms, so the moral and physical facts which the
philosopher considers follow with absolute necessity from the nature of things,
expressed by their definitions; and he no more inquires into their final causes
than the geometer asks to what end the three angles of a given triangle are
equal to two right angles. It is not his method that leads him to mathematical
determinism; on the contrary, he employs it because, from the very outset, he
views the world from the geometrical, i.e., deterministic standpoint. He agrees
with Descartes, Plato, and Pythagoras that philosophy is the generalization of
mathematics.
I. Definitions
The fundamental notions of Spinoza's system are substance, attribute, and
mode. "By
substance,"
he says, "I understand that which exists in itself, and is
conceived by itself, i.e., that which does not need the conception of any other
thing in order to be conceived."
(7)
"By
attribute
I
understand that which the
intellect perceives as constituting the essence of the substance."
(8)
"By
mode
I
understand the modifications of the substance, i.e., that which exists, in and is
conceived by something other than itself."
(9)
II. Deductions
1
. Theory of Substance
From the definition of substance it follows: (1) that substance is its own cause;
(10)
otherwise it would be produced by something other than itself, in which case
it would not be a substance; (2) that it is infinite
(11)
(if it were finite, it would be
limited by other substances, and consequently depend on them); (3) that it is
the only substance;
(12)
for if there were two substances, they would limit each
other and cease to be independent, i.e., they would cease to be substances.
Hence there can be only one substance, which depends on nothing, and on which
everything depends.
(13)
At this point Spinoza deviates from the Cartesian
philosophy; but he deviates from it because the system itself invites him to do
so. Descartes himself had intimated by his definition of substance that in reality
God alone is substance, and that the word
substance
when applied to creatures
has not the same meaning as when applied to the infinite Being.
(14)
But instead
of removing the ambiguity, he continued to call finite things
substances;
and in
order to distinguish them from God,
created substances,
as though his definition
could make a created, relative, and finite substance anything but a substance
that is not a substance. Hence we must refrain from applying the term
"substance" to things which do not exist by themselves; the term must be
reserved for the being which exists in itself and is conceived by itself, i.e., for
God. God alone is substance, and substance is God.
Substance being the only being, and not dependent on anything, is absolutely
free in the sense that it is determined solely by itself. Its liberty is synonymous
with
necessity,
but not with
constraint.
(15)
To act necessarily means to
determine one's self; to act under constraint means to be determined, in spite of
one's self, by an external cause. That God should act, and act as he does, is as
necessary as it is that the circle should have equal radii. Because a circle is a
circle, its radii are equal; because substance is substance, it has modes, but it is
free because its own nature and no extraneous cause compels it to modify itself.
Absolute freedom excludes both constraint and caprice.
(16)
Substance is eternal and necessary; or, in the language of the School, its
essence implies existence. It cannot be an individual or a person, like the God of
religions; for, in that case, it would be a determined being, and all determination
is relative negation. It is the common source of all personal existences, without
being limited by any of them.
It has neither intellect nor will
:
(17)
for both
presuppose personality. Not being intelligent, it does not act with an end in view;
it is the efficient cause of things. "I confess," says Spinoza, "that the view which
subjects all things to the indifferent will of God, and makes them all depend on
his caprice (Descartes, the Jesuits, and the Scotists), comes nearer the truth
than the view of those who maintain that God acts in all things with a view to the
good (
sub ratione boni
). For these latter persons - Plato, for example - seem to
set up something outside of God, which does not depend on God, but to which
God, in acting, looks as a model, or at which he aims as a goal. This surely is
only another way of subjecting God to fate, and is a most absurd view of God,
whom we have shown to be the first and only free cause of the essence and the
existence of all things."
(18)
Though Spinoza calls God the cause of the universe, he takes the word "cause"
in a very different sense from its usual meaning. His idea of cause is identical
with his notion of substance; his conception of effect, with that of accident,
mode, modification. God, according to him, is the cause of the universe as the
apple is the cause of its red color, as milk is the cause of whiteness, sweetness,
and liquidness, and not as the father is the cause of the child's existence, or
even as the sun is the cause of heat. The father is the external and transient
cause of his son, who has a separate existence of his own. So, too heat, though
connected with the sun, has an existence apart from the star producing it: it
exists alongside of and outside of the sun. The case is not the same with God as
related to the world; he is not its transcendent and transient cause, but the
immanent
cause;
(19)
i.e., if we understand Spinoza correctly, God is not the
cause of the world in the proper and usual sense of the term, a cause acting
from without and creating it once for all, but the permanent substratum of
things, the innermost substance of the universe.
(20)
God is neither the temporal
creator of the world, as dualism and Christianity conceive him, nor even its
father
, as Cabalistic and Gnostic speculation assumes;
he is the universe itself,
considered
SUB SPECIE ÆTERNITATATIS, the eternal universe. The words
God
and
universe
designate one and the same thing: Nature, which is both the
source of all beings (
natura naturans sive Deus
) and the totality of these beings
considered as its effects (
natura naturata
).
In short, Spinoza is neither an acosmist nor an atheist, but a cosmotheist or
pantheist in the strict sense of the word; that is to say, his cosmos is God
himself, and his God the cosmical substance.
2.
Theory of Attributes
Substance consists of infinite attributes, each of which expresses in its way the
essence of God.
(21)
The human intellect knows two of these: extension and
thought. The cosmic substance is an extended and thinking thing;
(22)
it forms
both the substance of all bodies, or matter, and the substance of all minds.
Matter and mind are not two opposite substances, as in Cartesianism; they are
two different ways of conceiving one and the same substance, two different
names for one and the same thing. Each of the attributes of the substance is
relatively
infinite. The substance is
absolutely
infinite in the sense that there is
nothing beyond it: the attribute is only relatively infinite, that is, after its kind.
(23)
Extension is infinite as such, and thought is infinite as such; but neither
extension nor thought is absolutely infinite, for alongside of extension there is
thought, and alongside of thought there is extension, not counting such
attributes of substance as are unknown to us. Substance as such is the sum of
all existing things; extension, though infinite as extension, does not contain all
existences in itself, since there are, in addition to it, infinite thought and the
minds constituted by it; nor does thought embrace the totality of beings, since
there are, besides, extension and bodies.
It seems difficult, at first sight, to reconcile the theory of substance with the
theory of attributes. According to the former, substance is
ens absolute
indeterminatum
; according to the latter, it has attributes and even an infinity of
attributes. Hence, Spinoza's God seems to be both an unqualified being and an
infinitely-qualified being. It has been suggested that Spinoza, like the Neo-
Platonic philosophers and the Jewish theologians who do not apply attributes to
God, may have meant by attributes, not qualities inherent in God, the supra-
rational, incomprehensible, and indefinable being, but the different ways
according to which the understanding conceives God, i.e., purely subjective and
human ways of thinking and speaking. An attribute would then mean: what the
human understanding
attributes
, ascribes, and, as it were, adds to God, and not
what is really and objectively (or as Spinoza would say, formally) in God; and
substance would be conceived as an extended and thinking thing, without really
being so. Spinoza's definition of attribute (
id quod intellectus de substantia
percipit
TANQUAM
ejusdem essentiam constituens
) is more favorable to this
interpretation than one would suppose. In our opinion it signifies: that which the
intellect perceives of substance
as constituting
the essence of it; but it might
also mean: that which the intellect perceives of substance
as though it
constituted
its essence.
(24)
However, if the second interpretation were the
correct one, Spinoza could not have said that the substance is an extended and
thinking thing, nor, above all, that we have an adequate idea of it. Besides, it is
wholly unnecessary to translate the passage in the subjectivistic and "non-
attributistic" sense, simply in order to reconcile the seemingly contradictory
theses of Spinoza. In fact, the contradiction is purely imaginary and arises from
a misconception. The celebrated
deterimatio negotio est
(25)
does not signify:
determination is negation, but: limitation is negation. By calling God
ens
absolute indeterminatum
, Spinoza does not mean to say that God is an
absolutely indeterminate being, or non-being, or negative being, but, on the
contrary, that he has absolutely
unlimited
attributes, or absolutely
infinite
perfections, - that he is a positive, concrete, most real being, the being who
unites in himself all possible attributes and possesses them without limitation.
Spinoza evidently intended to forestall the objections of the non-attributists
(26)
by ascribing to God
infinita attributa
, which seems to mean both
infinite
attributes
and an
infinity of attributes
. God is therefore no longer conceived as
having separate attributes, which would make him a particular being; he is the
being who combines in himself all possible attributes, or the totality of being.
Now each divine attribute constitutes a world: extension, the material world;
thought, the spiritual world. Hence, we must conclude from the infinite number
of divine attributes that there exists an infinite number of worlds besides the two
worlds known to us, - worlds which are neither material nor spiritual, and have
no relation to space or time, but depend on other conditions of existence
absolutely inaccessible to the human understanding.
(27)
This conception opens
an immense field to the imagination, without being absolutely contrary to
reason. However, it must be added, strictly speaking:
infinita attributa
are
boundless attributes rather than innumerable attributes. Had Spinoza been
decided on the question as to whether the absolute has attributes other than
extension and thought, he would evidently not have employed an ambiguous
expression. In fact, his
substance
has extension and thought only, but it has
them in infinite degree.
Let us point out another difficulty. Spinoza holds that God has neither
intelligence nor will; yet he attributes thought to him, and speaks of the
infinite
intelligence
of God. These two assertions seem to contradict each other flatly.
But we must remember that according to Jewish and Catholic theology (and
Descartes himself), God has not discursive understanding, which needs
reasoning and analysis in order to arrive at its ends; they attribute to him
intuitive understanding . . . . We must remember, above all, that Spinoza's God
is not the "author of nature," but nature itself. Now there is indeed reason in
nature, but it is unconscious. The spider weaves its web without the slightest
notion of geometry; the animal organism develops without having the faintest
conception of physiology and anatomy. Nature thinks without thinking that it
thinks; its thought is unconscious, an instinct, a wonderful foresight which is
superior to intelligence, but not intelligence proper. By distinguishing between
cogitatio
and
intellectus
,
(28)
Spinoza foreshadows the Leibnizian distinction
between perception and apperception, or conscious perception.
As compared with Cartesianism, Spinozistic metaphysics has the merit of having
realized that thought and extension do not necessarily presuppose two opposite
substances. Its fruitful notion of their consubstantiality anticipates the concrete
spiritualism of Leibniz. The assertion that one and the same substance may be
both the subject of thought and the subject of extension is, as Leibniz aptly says,
neither materialism nor idealism in the narrow sense of these terms; it combines
the truths contained in these extreme theories into a higher synthesis. It is not
materialism; for Spinoza does not hold that thought is an
effect
of movement, or
to use his own terminology, a "mode of extension." Each attribute, being infinite
and absolute after its kind, can be explained by itself alone. Hence, thought
cannot be explained by matter and movement (by this thesis he wards off
materialism); nor can extension and movement, i. e., matter, be the product of
thought (by this thesis he wards off the idealism of Malebranche). But though
thought and extension exclude each other in so far as they are attributes, they
belong to the same substance; conceived thus, mind and matter are the same
thing (
eadem res
).
(29)
These "attributes of substance" are not dependent on
each other; matter is not superior and anterior to mind, nor does thought in any
way excel extension; one has as much worth as the other, since each is, in the
last analysis, the substance itself. This identity of substance, unrecognized by
Descartes, explains the agreement between the movements of the body and the
"movements" of the soul in man and in animals. Since one and the same
substance and, what is still more important, one and the same being manifests
itself in the physical order and in the intellectual order, this substance, this
being, manifests itself in both spheres according to the same laws, and the two
realms are parallel:
ordo idearum idem est ac ordo rerum
.
(30)
3.
Theory of Modes
The modifications of extension are motion and rest; the modifications of thought
are intellect and will. Movement, intellect, and will, i.e., the entire relative world
(
natura naturata
) are modes or modifications of substance, or, what amounts to
the same, of its attributes. These modes are infinite, like the attributes which
they modify. Movement, intellect, and will, the physical universe and the
intellectual universe, have neither beginning nor end. Each one of the infinite
modes constitutes an infinite series of finite modes. Movement, i.e., infinitely-
modified extension, produces the infinitude of finite modes which we call bodies;
intellect and will, becoming infinitely diversified, produce particular and finite
minds, intellects, and wills. Bodies and minds (ideas) are neither relative
substances, which would be a contradiction
in adjecto
, nor infinite modes, but
changing modes or modifications of the cosmical substance, or, what amounts to
the same, of its attributes.
(31)
By distinguishing between infinite modes and finite modes, Spinoza means to say
that motion is eternal, while the corporeal forms which it constitutes originate
and decay, - that intellects and wills have existed for eternities, but that each
particular intellect has a limited duration. Bodies or limited extensions are to
infinite extension, particular intellects to the infinite intellect, and the particular
wills to the eternal will, what our thoughts are to our soul. Just as these exist
only for the soul, of which they are temporary modifications, so too this soul, like
the body, exists only for the substance, of which it is a momentary modification.
Compared with God, souls and bodies are no more substances than our ideas are
beings apart from ourselves. In strictly philosophical language, there is only one
substantive; everything else is but an adjective. The substance is the absolute,
eternal, and necessary cause of itself; the mode is contingent, passing, relative,
and merely possible. The substance is necessary, i.e., it exists because it exists;
the mode is contingent and merely possible, i.e., it exists because something
else exists, and it may be conceived as not existing.
In view of this opposition between
immutable
substance and
modes
, we may ask
ourselves the question: How much reality do modes possess in Spinoza's
system? A mode is inconceivable without a subject or a substance that is
modified. Now, the substance is unchangeable, it cannot be modified; hence the
mode is nothing; movement, change the cosmic process, particular beings,
individuals, bodies, souls, the
natura naturata
, in a word, have no real existence.
Still this conclusion, which Parmenides and Zeno drew, is not Spinoza's. On the
contrary, he declares with Heraclitus that motion is co-eternal with substance;
he makes an
infinite mode
of it. Unmindful of the principle of contradiction, but
supported by experience, he affirms both the immutability and the perpetual
change of being. In this conflict between reasoning and the evidence of facts,
which is as old as metaphysics, he deserves credit for not sacrificing thought to
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