THEORY OF KNOWING.

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We may take as Spinoza's starting point his theory of knowledge, which had its foundation in the Cartesian principle of the truth of clear ideas. Our modes of perception he reduced to four :

I. That which we have from hear-say, or from any sign which may be agreed upon.

II. That which we have from vague experience, that is, from experience which is undetermined by the intellect, but is only called an idea, because it comes as it were by accident, and we have no other test which opposes it, and so it remains as it were unshaken with us.

III. That where the essence is concluded from another thing but not adequately, which takes place when we gather the cause from any effect, or when it is concluded from something universal, which is always accompanied by some property.

IV. Lastly there is that perception where a thing is perceived by its own essence alone, or by the knowledge of its proximate cause.

Spinoza illustrates each of these by an example. "By hearsay only I know my birth-day, that I had such parents and similar things concerning which I never doubted. By vague experience I know that I shall die; I affirm this because I have seen others like me die, although all may not have lived the same space of time, nor died the same

ceived by each other, or in other words the concept of the one does not include the concept of the other.

VI. A true idea must agree with its ideate (object).

VII. When a thing can be conceived as not existing, its essence does not include existence.

The following are some of the PROPOSITIONS :—

There cannot be in nature two or more substances of the same nature; in other words, of the same attributes.

A substance cannot be produced by another substance.

Existence belongs to the nature of substance.

The essence of things, produced by God, does not include existence.

All substance is necessarily infinite.

God, that is to say a substance constituted by an infinity of attributes, exists necessarily.

Substance actually infinite is indivisible.

There cannot exist, and we cannot conceive, any other substance but God.

All that which is, is in God, and nothing can be, nor can be conceived without God.

From the necessity of the Divine nature, must flow an infinity of things infinitely modified.

God is the immanent and not the transient cause of all things.

The existence of God and His essence, are one and the same thing.

Understanding whether finite or infinite, as for instance, will, desire, love, &c., must be referred to nature produced, and not to nature producing.

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MODES OF PERCEPTION.

death. Then by vague experience I also know that oil is a fit aliment for nourishing a flame, and that water is capable of extinguishing it; I know also that a dog is an animal which barks; that a man is an animal who reasons; and in this way are known almost all things which belong to common life. From another thing we conclude in this manner-since we clearly perceive that our body feels and nothing else, thence we may clearly conclude that the soul is united to the body, which union is the cause of sensation, but what that sensation and union are, we are not able absolutely to understand; or after that I have known the nature of sight, and at the same time that it has this property, that we see the same thing at a great distance to be less than if we looked at it nearer; whence we infer that the sun is larger than it appears, and so with other like things. Lastly, by the sole essence of a thing, the thing is perceived; whence from this that I know anything, I know what it is to know anything; or from this that I have known the essence of the soul-I know that it is united to a body. By the same cognition we know that two and three make five, and if two lines are given parallel to a third, these are also parallel to each other. But those things which I have hitherto been able to understand in this way are very few."

Others

That these things may be better understood he gives a further illustration. "Three numbers are given to find a fourth, which shall be to the third as the second is to the first. Merchants say they know what to do to find the fourth, as they have not forgotten the operation they learned from their schoolmasters; though it is only a bare rule without demonstration. make a simple axiom, borrowed from experience, where the fourth number lies open, as in 2, 4, 3, 6, where they find that the second being multiplied into the third, and the product divided by the first, the quotient is 6, and when they see the same number produced, which they had known without operation to be the proportional one, they thence conclude that the operation is always good for finding the fourth proportional number. But mathematicians know by the demonstration of the nineteenth Proposition of the seventh book of Euclid's elements what numbers are mutually proportional by the very nature and property of that proposition; so the number which results from the first and fourth is equal to that which results from the second and third. And yet they do not see the absolute proportionality of the numbers given, or if they see it, it is not by virtue of the proposition in Euclid, but intuitively and without performing any operation."

That is

Intuitive perception is thus the ground of certitude. most surely known, which we know by its sole essence alone. Hereby the simplest truths are manifest to the mind. They are the true ideas which correspond to their ideates or objects. Now the first and most evident of these, is that of an infinitely perfect Being, whose existence is necessary. Des Cartes defined this Being as an infinite substance, but he placed beside Him the infinite universe, which was a created infinite substance. Spinoza could find place for only one Infinite, so he denied to creation the character of substance. It is dependent. It does not exist in and by itself. It requires for the conception of it the conception of some other existence as its cause. It is therefore not a substance, but only a mode of that substance which is infinite. God being the absolutely infinite, there can be no substance besides Him, for every attribute that expresses the essence of substance must belong to Him. Here Spinoza first separates from Des Cartes. What one calls created substances, the other calls modes. Apparently this is only a verbal difference, and it may be that in reality it is nothing more. Precisely as we understand this, will be our interpretation of Spinoza's system. If it is only verbal what matters it by what names created things are called, so long as the Creator is distinguished from the creation? And why is the latter called a mode, but to make the distinction more definite? Substance,' says Spinoza, 'is that which exists in itself.'A mode is that which exists in something else by which that thing is conceived.' It would seem that the first object of these two definitions was to mark definitely the Selfexisting as substance, the dependent as something so different that it must be called the opposite of substance, that is a mode. But the distinction between mode and created substance is not one of words merely. It goes deeper than words. The created thing is not a nothing. It is not merely a mode. It has a substance because it partakes of the one substance. And thus it is a reality at the same time that it is only a mode by which the one reality is conceived. By the Cartesian theory of know-ledge we have God, mind or soul, and matter. Through the medium of mind we arrive at the certitude of the existence of God and matter. Is God of a different essence from mind? Is mind of a different essence from matter? Or is it that in some measure God communicates His essence to all beings, and that they are, just in proportion as they partake of His essence? This last is the Cartesian doctrine which Spinoza further expounds. These axioms,' he says, ' may be drawn from Des Cartes.' There are different degrees of reality or entity. For

substance has more reality than mode, and infinite substance than finite. So also there is more objective reality in the idea of substance than of mode, and in the idea of infinite substance than in the idea of finite. 'God is the infinitely perfect Being, His Being is distributed to all orders of the finite creation in diverse degrees according to the measure of perfection, which belongs to each.' Angels and such invisible beings as we know of only by revelation do not come within the region of the philosopher's enquiries, and therefore no account is taken of them. There is much ground for believing that created beings of greater perfection than man exist in other worlds; but man is the most perfect in this. Yet he is only part of infinite nature, which is but one individual consisting of many bodies, which though they vary infinitely among themselves, yet leave the one individual nature without any change. And as being is constituted by the amount of perfection, that which is without any perfection whatever, is without any being, so that what the vulgar say of the devil as one entirely opposed to God is not true; for being destitute of perfection he must be equally destitute of existence.* The philosopher has only to deal with thought and the externality of thought. Now though we may distinguish afterwards finite thinking beings, and finite external objects, yet our first and clearest perceptions, both of thought and the externality of thought, are infinite. We first think the infinite, and then the finite. But this perfect Being, whom our minds reveal to us thus directly, is an infinite Essence, and in His externality infinitely extended. Here, in the very conception of Him, His only attributes of which the human mind can have knowledge are infinite extension and infinite thought. We have not reached the idea of God through external nature, but through the mind. Thought is first, externality follows it and depends on it. But if we call that world, which is exhibited to the senses, created nature, what shall we call that internal thought, whose image and manifestation it is? If the one is 'nature produced,' will it be improper to call the other, nature producing'? They are so different that the one may be called producing' and the other, 'produced,' yet they are so like, that is, they have their identity in a deeper aspect, that the word nature may be applied to both. Nature however is applied to the second in a supreme sense, and not as ordinarily understood, not the mere workings of the external universe, but the Being whom these workings make manifest.

Compare this with what is said on the Theologia Germanica.-Page 178.

THE INTERMEDIARIES.

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Spinoza, as we have intimated, builds his whole system on the ontological argument as revived by S. Anselm and Des Cartes. We have in the mind a clear and distinct idea of an infinitely perfect Being of whose Existence reason itself will not allow us to doubt. The two attributes under which we conceive this Being are infinite thought and infinite extension. The doctrine ascribed to Plato, that the universe is God's thought realized, seems clearly to be the doctrine of Spinoza. God is a Being who thinks, and His thoughts under different aspects constitute the ideal, and the phenomenal worlds. As a Being, who thinks, God is primarily manifested in the world of thought, that is, in beings who think. Des Cartes had shown that thought is the essence of soul-the foundation of spiritual existence, in fact, that the soul is a thought. Spinoza added that it is a thought of God's, for Divine thought being a form of absolute activity, must develop itself as an infinite succession of thoughts or ideas, that is, particular souls. M. Saisset, in an ingenious chapter on this part of Spinoza's doctrine, has pointed out, in one or two places in Spinoza's writings, obscure but decided intimations that Spinoza placed intermediaries between God, and the finite modes or particular souls. Existence had been divided into three kinds; substance, attributes, modes, yet the last seems to have been again divided into two kinds. were modes properly so called; the finite which are variable and successive, and other modes of an altogether different nature which are infinite and eternal. The infinite modes are more directly united to substance than the finite. Everything' Spinoza says 'which comes from the absolute nature of an attribute of God must be eternal and infinite, in other words, must possess by its relation to that attribute eternity and infinity.'* For an example of this kind of mode he gives the idea of God, so that between absolute substance and any particular or finite mode, there are at least two intermediaries-the attribute of substance and the immediate mode of that attribute. The idea of God is not absolute thought but the first of the manifestations or emanations of absolute thought. It is infinite because it comprehends all other ideas, and as it is an absolutely simple and necessary emanation from the divine thought, it must be eternal. It cannot then be confounded with the changing and finite ideas which constitute particular souls. From the idea of God emanate other modifications equally eternal and infinite. We

* Proposition XXI, Ethica, Book I.

There