A demon

a good example of Spinoza's method: "Prop. VIII. All substance is necessarily infinite. Demonst. Substance of one attribute exists not save as one (by Prop. V.); and to exist belongs to its nature (Prop. VI.). It will stration. therefore be in its nature to exist finitely or infi-. nitely. Not finitely, however, for then it would have to be conceived as limited by another substance of the same nature (by Def. 2), which would also have to exist necessarily (by Prop. VII.); in which case there would be two substances of the same attribute, which is absurd (by Prop. V.). Substance, therefore, exists infinitely: q. e. d." 1

Perfection of Superstructure.

I shall be readily excused, no doubt, for not attempting to report Spinoza's argument any farther. It seems a little discouraging to one at first, when he thinks of going through a metaphysical treatise constructed after this fashion. But I can assure any one who proposes to make the attempt, that the progress is so steady, and the demonstrations are so clear, that when once fairly started he will find himself drawn irresistibly forward. Let him forget how utterly insecure the foundations are, and he will feel an ever-growing wonder as he sees this temple of pantheism rising up, throwing out its battlements, lifting arch above arch, and rearing aloft its towers, every joint perfect, each stone. and each timber going to its destined place, the sharpest scrutiny unable to detect anywhere the least break, or flaw, or weakness. The doctrine of One Substance is the material of which the whole edifice is made. That substance has two infinite attributes, Thought and Extension. Each of these attributes, fur

Two attributes of substance.

1 Willis, p. 418.

2 Ethics, Part II., Props. I. and II.

Bearing on question of Immortality.

thermore, has, while expressing the essence of the One. Substance, an infinite number of modes, which modes make the whole varying phenomena of what we call finite mind and matter. All those phenomena which are viewed in their subjective relation to consciousness, are modes of the infinite attribute of thought, and all those which are seen in objective relations, ordinarily regarded as the affections. of matter, are modes of the infinite attribute of extension. Spinoza seems to regard these attributes as mutually dependent, so that neither can be conceived to be, apart from the other-an opinion which is important, as implying that there can be no thought, and therefore no conscious immortality, where everything which answers to our idea of bodily organization is wanting. This dualistic manifestation of God must go forward in our consciousness in order that he may know himself as still existent. And he is all. Matter and finite mind, viewed by themselves, have not a real, but simply a phenomenal existence. Soul and body are the same thing; and neither of them is anything but a transient evolution out of the universal substance. The earth, the heavens, the waters, the continents, man, beast, fishes, the birds, the flowers, have no proper being; they are the same great all-in-all, the absolute substance manifesting

itself.

2

"All nature, he holds, is a respiration

Of the Spirit of God, who, in breathing, hereafter
Will inhale it into his bosom again,

"3

So that nothing but God alone shall remain."

1 Ethics, Part II., Props. VIII. and XIII.

2 See Froude's Short Studies, &c., p. 315.

8 Longfellow's Golden Legend.

According to Spinoza there is no such thing as a created universe. He denies the possibility of creation.1 Cause and effect are but different aspects of the same energy, natura naturans and natura naturata; God, nature, the absolute, the cosmos, or whatever one may choose to call it, continually going out of itself and returning into itself. This process, corresponding to what Herbert Spencer calls evolution and dissolution, is what we name growth and decay, birth and death, in our inadequate language. This terrible God, this insatiate Chronos, devouring his children as fast as he begets them, has perfect freedom, according to Spinoza. Yet here, as already noticed, words are not used in their prevailing sense; for the freedom spoken of has no reference to liberty of choice, but is only the ceaseless power of activity. This all-ingulfing divinity cannot act otherwise than it does,2 nor can it ever pause in its action. Its spontaneity is necessary and eternal. We have then at last, as Spinoza does not shrink from admitting, a scheme of universal and invincible fatal"Free will,” he says, "is a chimera, flattering to our pride, and in reality founded on our ignorance. All that I can say to those who believe that they can, by virtue of any free decision of the soul, speak or be silent, or, to use a single word, act, is, that they dream with their eyes open. Nothing is bad in itself. Good and evil indicate nothing positive in things considered in themselves, and are nothing but modes of thinking. Not only has every man the right to seek his good, his pleasure, but he cannot do otherwise. The measure of each man's right

Fatalism.

ism.

1 See Appendix to Part I. of the Ethics.

2 Ethics, Part I., Prop. XXXIII.

is his power. He who does not yet know reason, or who, having not as yet contracted the habit of virtue, lives according only to the laws of his appetites, is as much in his right as he who regulates his life according to the laws of reason. In other words, just as the sage has an absolute right to do all that his reason dictates to him, or to live according to the laws of reason, in the same manner has the ignorant man or the madman a right to everything that his appetite impels him to take; in other words, the right to live according to the laws of appetite. And he is no more obliged to live according to the laws of good sense than a cat is obliged to live under the laws that govern the nature of a lion. Hence we conclude that a compact has only a value proportioned to its utility.. Where the utility disappears, the compact too disappears with it, and loses all its authority. There is, then, folly in pretending to bind a man forever to his word, unless, at least, a man so contrive that the breach of the compact shall entail for him that violates it more danger than profit." No comment is needed on these plain words. It follows from them inevitably, nay, is earnestly maintained in them, that there can be no such thing as responsibility for moral action, and that right and wrong, as commonly understood, are a pure delusion. Ethical or natural evil is a notion which ignorance frames to itself, with no shadow of actual foundation; and man, in order to enjoy the largest happiness, and attain the fullest development, should seek, first of all, to lose his consciousness of such airy phenomena, and be identified in thought with the Absolute Substance which fills and upholds all things.

The a-priori

not to be

judged by Spinozism.

The question here arises, What shall be said

philosophy of Cartesianism in view of the conclusions of Spinoza? Is it fallacious? Ought it to be altogether eschewed in the search for truth? While not taken rigidly, but as commonly understood, it certainly is not to be avoided, even if that were indeed possible. Many of the first thinkers of the time are essentially Cartesians, as many have been in every past age, and as will continue to be the fact hereafter. The inherent peculiarities of such minds make them what they are. If they think at all, it must be on the basis, and by the method, of Descartes. This was true of the celebrated writers of the school of Port Royal; more or less true of that wonderful genius and Christian writer Blaise Pascal; it was true also of the pious Fénelon, and of Bishop Berkeley so devout a worshipper of the true God, though in his, theory of the world so deluded. Descartes himself was a sincere believer in Christianity. If his works were condemned as heretical by the Papal church, this was not because he had denied the Lord that bought him, but on account of certain physical discoveries, owing to the criterion of truth which he set up, and because he had subverted the philosophy of Aristotle as interwoven with her scholastic theology. The great master of a-priori thinking, whom many leading minds even at the present day follow, was a firm believer in the living God of the Scriptures; so firm, that he seems to have mistaken his faith for logical demonstration. While Spinoza took from him the princi

Malebranche.

ples of pantheism, Malebranche, on the other hand, beginning from the same source, deduced a body of Christian mysticism. No doubt Spinoza was