240

REDEMPTION.

Christ, that is to say, the idea of God. And this restoration, begun in the patriarchs, will be carried on till man completely regains the freedom which he lost in Adam. As the record of the fall of man represented the loss of human liberty, so the resurrection of Christ represented the rising from the death of sin. Christ's resurrection was altogether spiritual, and revealed only to the faithful, according as they could understand it. "I mean," says Spinoza, "that Jesus Christ was called from life to eternity, and that after His passion He was raised from the bosom of the dead, (taking this word in the same sense as where Jesus Christ said: 'Let the dead bury their dead,') as He was raised by His life, and by His death, in giving the example of an unequalled holiness. Spinoza gave this instance simply as a mode that might be adopted to interpret those parts of the Scriptures which speak of things beyond or out of the course of nature as known But this was only an indifferent and secondary matter. He was in reality opposed to explaining the mysteries of religion by subtle speculation, declaring that those who did this, found nothing in the Scriptures but 'the fictions of Aristotle and Plato." He saw in the Scriptures a practical religion: instructions how men may live righteous lives, and the histories of men who have lived such lives. The sum of all religion, both as taught by the Scriptures and by the light within, is that there is one God; that He loves justice and charity; that all men ought to obey Him, and that the obedience with which He is most pleased, is the practice of justice and charity towards our neighbour,-in the words of Him who was pre-eminently the Teacher of religion to men, we are to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and minds and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves.*

to us.

An account of the attempts to refute and criticise Spinoza would make a curious chapter. The first great effort was that of Bayle, who is generally said to have refuted the whole of Spinozism. Bayle's argument was very profound and very conclusive. It consisted in disregarding Spinoza's definition of substance, and then going on to prove that everything had a substance of its own. Voltaire suspects that Bayle did not quite understand Spinoza's substance, and suggests how Spinoza might really be refuted. This is the process: Spinoza builds his theory on the mistake of Des Cartes, that Nature is a Plenum.' As every motion requires empty space, what becomes of Spinoza's one and only substance? How can the substance of a star between which and me there is a void so immense, be precisely the substance of this earth, or the substance of myself, or the substance of a fly eaten by a spider? __ Voltaire's argument is as ingenious as Bayle's is profound and conclusive. Even Emile Saisset, who is by far the best expositor of Spinoza is not always to be trusted. Both in his introduction to Spinoza's works, and in his 'Essay on Religious Philosophy,' he makes a rhetorical picture of Spinoza finishing the first book of his Ethica, pronouncing, with perfect serenity, I have ex

MALEBRANCHE.-To Malebranche the difference between himself and Spinoza seemed infinite. And externally it was great. Spinoza was a Jew, excommunicated from the synagogue; Malebranche, a Christian priest. The one had been educated in the Cabbala, the other clung to the writings of S. Augustine. But great as were the external differences, impartial judges justly reckon them teachers of kindred theologies. Des Cartes, as we have seen, admitted two kinds of substance, the created and the uncreated, but in reality the latter was the only real substance. Spinoza saw this inconsistency, and made the created substances, accidents or modes of the uncreated. But these created substances are evidently of two kinds, the spiritual and the material. Can these be reduced to one, or are they in their essence entirely distinct? Des Cartes was of the latter opinion. Spinoza held the former. From this resulted his belief in the original unity of the thinking and the extended substance; of God as thought and extension. Malebranche wished to keep the Cartesian ground, that they were distinct substances, and at the same time to remove the Cartesian dualism. He did this by supposing them distinct in themselves, yet finding their unity in God. As all things exist spiritually and ideally in the Divine Mind, God is, as it were, the higher mean between the I and the external world-We see all things in God.' Malebranche as a Cartesian, started with thought. We are a something which thinks; we have ideas. Whence have we these ideas? Some are immediate, but others are the ideas of things material. The latter we may have either from the objects themselves-from the soul having the power of producing them, or from God's producing them in us, which He may have done, either at creation, or may do every time we think of any object; or we may conceive the

plained the nature of God.' These words are certainly in the Ethica, but there is a comma after God, and the sentence goes on as that which necessarily exists, &c.' The Latin is, His Dei naturam ejusque proprietates explicui, ut quod necessario existat, quod sit unicus, &c. M. Saisset translates it apparently to make way for his own rhetoric, J'ai explicui dans ce qu'on vient de lire la nature de Dieu et ses proprietés; J'ai montré que Dieu existe nécessairement, qu'il est unique, &c. Mr. Froude, misled apparently by Saisset, has repeated this criticism. Voltaire complained of the difficulty of understanding Spinoza, but surely Spinoza has cause to complain of the want of understanding in his Critics.

An English clergyman has prefixed an introduction to a tract of Leibnitz's recently discovered, which has been published as a refutation of Spinoza. The tract does not profess to deal with more than one point of Spinoza's philosophy, and that a subordinate one, but the editor lauds it as a complete refutation. Unnecessary, indeed,' he goes on to say, 'for we all know that Dr. Adam (!) Clarke refuted Spinoza a hundred years ago.'

242

SEEING ALL THINGS IN GOD.

And

soul as having in itself all the perfections which we discover in external objects, or lastly, as united with an All-Perfect Being, who comprehends in Himself all the perfections of created beings. Malebranche examines each of these five ways of knowing external objects, to find out the one that is most probable. He finds objections to them all except the last. His arguments for this are founded on the old Neo-Platonic doctrine of ideas. It is absolutely necessary,' he says, 'for God to have in Himself the ideas of all the beings He has created, since otherwise He could not have produced them, and He sees them all by considering those of His perfections to which they are related.' God and the human soul are supposed to be so united that God may be called the place' of souls, as extension is the place of bodies. Spinoza could not have expressed this so well, nor could he have wished it expressed better. The chief attribute of the corporeal is extension. In it, bodies have their being and essence. as bodies are constituted in extension, so are souls constituted in God. It is the Divine Word alone which enlightens us by those ideas which are in Him, for there are not two or more wisdoms; two or more universal reasons. Truth is immutable, necessary, eternal; the same in time and in eternity; the same in heaven and in hell. The Eternal Word speaks in the same language to all nations.' This speaking in us of the universal reason is a true revelation from God. It is the only means of our possessing any true knowledge of things external. To see the intelligible world, it is enough to consult the reason which contains these ideas, or these intelligible, eternal, and necessary essences which make all minds reasonable and united to the Reason. But in order to see the material world, or rather to determine that this world exists-for this world is invisible of itself—it is necessary that God should reveal it to us, because we cannot perceive those arrangements which arise from His choice in that Reason which is necessary."

The ideas of material things we see in God, but spiritual things we see in God immediately without the medium of ideas. In the spiritual, internal, or ideal world we are face to face with truth and reason. There we see, not ideas, but realities. There we know the Infinite, not through the idea of Him, but immediately, and it is through Him that we have our knowledge of all things finite. In Him the material exists spiritually. Before the world was created God alone existed. To produce the world He must have had ideas of the world and all that is in it. And these ideas must have been identical with Himself, so that

S. AUGUSTINE AND MALEBRANCHE.

243

When for instance we see a

God Himself is the imme-
He instructs us in that

in creating the world, He communicated Himself to external objects. God eternally beholds His ideas. This is His converse with the Eternal Word. This is God as Being, giving Himself to God as thought-the Father giving all things to the Son. This Divine Word shines in our souls. By it we see in God some of the ideas unfolded in the Infinite essence. God sees all things in Himself, but a created spirit does not see all things in itself, because it does not contain all things in itself. It sees them in God, in whom they exist. square we do not see merely the mental idea within us, but the square itself, which is external to us. mediate cause of this Divine vision. knowledge which ungrateful men call natural; He hath shown it unto us. He is the light of the world, and the Father of light and knowledge. S. Augustine says that we see God in this life by the knowledge we have of eternal truths. Truth is uncreated, immutable, eternal, above all things. It is true by itself, It makes creatures more perfect; and all spirits naturally endeavour to know it. Nothing but God can have the perfections of truth; therefore, truth is God. When we see some eternal and immutable truths we see God.' After quoting from S. Augustine, Malebranche adds, "These are S. Augustine's reasons, ours differ a little from them. We see God when we see eternal truths, not that these are God, but because the ideas on which these truths depend are in God-perhaps Augustine had the same meaning.' In starting from thought, Malebranche, like Des Cartes and Spinoza, had found the idea of the Infinite to be the first and clearest of our ideas. This,' he said, 'is the most beautiful, the most exalted, the soundest and best proof of the existence of God.' It is the idea of Universal Being, which includes in itself all beings, The human mind can know the Infinite, though it cannot comprehend it. We conceive first the Infinite, and then we retrench the idea to make it finite not however, that the idea represents the Infinite Being, for so far as it is an idea it represents something determinate, but though our vision be dark and finite we yet see and know God as the Infinite. He is then identical with Universal Being. We call Him a Spirit, but this is not to declare what He is, but what He is not. He is not matter. He is as much above spirit, as spirit is above matter. The highest attribute which we know of that can belong to being, is thought or mind, and therefore we call God a Spirit, but He is the infinitely perfect Being. As we deny Him a human shape, so should we deny Him human thoughts.

His

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NO SECONDARY CAUSES.

mind is not like ours. We only compare it to our own because mind is the most perfect attribute of which we know anything. As He includes in Himself the perfections of matter, though He is immaterial, so does He include in Himself the perfections of spirit without being a spirit, as we conceive spirits. His name is HE THAT IS. He is Being without limitation; All Being; Being infinite and universal. And as we have this distinct idea of God as Being, so have we another idea also necessary, eternal, and immutable; that is, the idea of extension. It is impossible to efface this idea from our minds, for infinite extension belongs to being, or at least, to our idea of being. Malebranche does not make extension one of the attributes of God, but he ought to have done, after what he has said of Being and extension. He maintains that the idea of extension is eternal and immutable; common to all minds, to angels; yea, to God Himself that it is a true being, and identical with matter. We need not draw any inferences from Malebranche's doctrines. It is enough at present to show the parallelism between his views on God, being, spirit and matter, with those of Spinoza. As our souls are united to God, and see all things in God, so our bodies have their essence in extension. Between the substances, matter and spirit, there is no necessary relation. The modalities of our body cannot by their own force change those of the mind, and yet the modalities of the brain are uniformly in connection with the sentiments of our souls, because the Author of our being has so determined it.

And this immediate action of God is not limited to the mind of man. It is the same through all nature. God has not given up His creation to secondary causes; what we call such are but the occasions whereby God, who is the universal cause, executes His decrees as He wills they should be executed. It is true that Scripture in some places ascribes events to secondary causes, as in the book of Genesis, when it is said, 'Let the earth bring forth; but this is said improperly. In most parts of the Scriptures God is spoken of as the immediate actor. He commands the children of Israel to honor Him as the only true cause, both of good and evil, reward and punishment. Is there any evil in the city,' said the prophet Amos, and the Lord hath not done it?' The works of nature are God's immediate works. He forms all things. He giveth to all life and health, and all things. He causeth grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, that He may bring forth food out of the earth. God never leaves His world. He is present in it now as much as in