Art. YL?PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA.

*
BY PROFESSOR IIOPPUS, LL.D.

Benedict de Spinoza, whose place in the development of

Cartesianism is usually assigned next to Malebranche, was born
of Jewish parents, at Amsterdam, in 1632. He devoted himself,
at an early
period of his life, in recluse solitude, to the reading
of the Old Testament, and the Talmud ; and he deeply studied
the Cabbala, or esoteric philosophy and criticism of the Rabbis ;
but he soon shocked his friends by the novelty and boldness of
his speculations. He was summoned before the heads of the
that he was in
synagogue, and on their failing to convince him
error, he was ordered to leave the assembly. He now cultivated
the society of some Christians, and professed to prefer their creed
to Judaism. Van den Ende, a physician, who taught him Greek
and Latin, had a daughter who was an excellent musician, and
appears also to have been a learned young lady, for she greatly
assisted Spinoza in his studies. Unfortunately, she taught him,
at the same time, Latin and something more; for she uncon-
sciously inspired an ardent passion to which she did not respond;
and she soon yielded to the more attractive suit of a wealthy
young merchant from Hamburgh, carried on with pearl neck-
laces, rings, and other ornaments. Spinoza, like a true phi-
losopher, consoled himself by study; and, henceforth, according
Benedict! de Spinoza Opei'a quae supersunt omnia. Ed. C. H. Bruder.
314 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA.

to his biographer, devoted himself wholly to the cultivation of

his mind, and remained unmarried to his death.* The Latin
which he had learned was useful to him, as he wrote his works
in this language, in a condensed and energetic, though by no
means an elegant style.
After relinquishing theology, having met with the works of
Descartes, he read them with avidity, adopted the general method
of their author, and ever after acknowledged his obligation to him
for all he knew of philosophy. He now ceased all connexion with
the Jews, his former co-religionists, and never more set foot in
the synagogue. It has, indeed, been asserted, that he formally
adopted the Christian faith; but this statement appears to have no
foundation in truth. He held many conversations with learned
Mennonites, and with other intelligent men of various Christian
communions, and he changed his name from Barach to its Latin
synonyme Benedict; but he never joined any other religious
profession, after his secession from his paternal faith, though
lie sometimes attended the Lutheran worship, and highly valued
good sermons. His renunciation of Judaism so alarmed the
llabbis, who feared the effect of his example, that they offered
him a pension of a thousand florins if he would only consent to
attend the synagogue, as before?being willing apparently to
connive at his heterodoxy, if he would but pay this hollow com-
pliment to their faith. Spinoza received the proposal with
scorn, indignantly declaring that he would not frequent the
synagogue again, if the pension were tenfold" the proffered
amount.
He had now produced a feeling which nearly proved fatal to
his life. One evening, as he was passing by the old Portuguese
the thrust of a poniard,
synagogue, in Amsterdam, he received
which, fortunately, did him no mischief; but, finding himself no
safe in the city, he retired to some distance in the
longer
country. He was now
publicly charged with abandoning Juda-
ism, and was solemnly anathematized with the most awful cere-
monies. Before the assembled synagogue, a vast number of
candles made of black wax were lighted, the tabernacle con-
taining the books of the law was opened, the officiating minister
on an elevated seat uttered, in a doleful tone, the solemn curse;
while the sound of the trumpetf gave effect to the extraordinary
scene. The candles were then gradually extinguished in a large
*
Vide Boulliinvilliers.
?f Salomon Maimcm was threatened with tlio Shofar (trumpet) atAltona; and
on his saying that it was ;i more buckshorn, the liabbi fell to the ground with
horror. "Der Jtubbi zeigto ilim den Schofar, nut den finBtem Worten ; 'weisst
"
du was das ist V Als aber der SehUler Kants schr gelassen antwortete, ' es ist
das Horn eincs Bockes/ da fiel der liabbi rtleklingszu Bodenvor Entsetzen." Der
Salon, von II. Heine. 2tcrI3and. s. 115.
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA. 315

tub filled with blood ; and,

finally, the whole assembly, inspired
with horror and execration, re-echoed the
deep "Amen."
Notwithstanding the tendency of his system, Spinoza appears
to have been a man of blameless
morals, both at the time of his
excommunication, and during his subsequent career. In the
failure of all his prospects in life, he betook himself to the art of
polishing glasses for telescopes, microscopes, and other optical
instruments. His fame, as a clever optician, even reached the
ears of Leibnitz, who wrote to him in
consequence. In this way
Spinoza gained a very humble subsistence; but, as his wants
were few, he found it
enough. In his twenty-eighth year, he
retired to Rheinsburg near Leyden, where he pursued his trade
as an
optician, and continued his studies.
The extraordinary sensation which the writings of Descartes
had made in the reading world caused frequent discussions and
disputes ; and, at the earnest request of his friends, Spinoza re-
solved to write on the new philosophy. In 1663, he published,
at Amsterdam, Reiiati Descartes Principia Philosophicv, with
an Appendix on his Meditationes; in which work he abridged

the speculations of Descartes in an accurate and intelligible

manner, so that no better digest of the original Cartesianism is
anywhere to be met with. We have here, also, the germs of
Spinoza's posthumous work, entitled Etldcci; and, indeed, the
principal points of his peculiar system. The impression made
by this book was anything but favourable to the author's repu-
tation among his opponents, much as it raised him in the esti-
mation of his friends; and he now retreated to Voorburgh, near
the Hague. All admitted his great ability, but many of the
admirers of Descartes were annoyed at some of his criticisms on
their master's opinions. He afterwards went to live at the
from the popular
Hague; and here he was in no little danger
he was foolishly suspected of being a spy, at the
displeasure, as

time of the invasion of Holland by the French. About this

of his life traits of disinterestedness and generosity
period many
occur. He refused to be made heir to a considerable property,
because he thought it unjust to the relatives of the testator;
he gave up to his sisters his own portion of his paternal estate ;
and he declined the offer of a pension made to him by the
Prince de Condd, on condition that he would dedicate one of his
"
works to Louis XIV., saying that he was indebted to no one
but to God." Some of the anecdotes of his Spartan abstemi-
ousness and superiority to animal indulgence are curious. Ac-
cording to his account-books, his dinner one day cost him about
two-pence farthing; but, on another day, having indulged himself
with a few raisins extra, it amounted to the sum of two-pence
halfpenny!
SI 6 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA.

Spinoza's second and the only other published in his life-

work,
time, Hamburgh, in 1670, entitled Tractatus Tlico-
came out at

logico-Politicus. This is a treatise on the relation between

religion and politics. In this book he boldly endeavoured to
emancipate human thought from the yoke of authority, and
strenuously advocated the doctrine which has since been called
the "right of private judgment." He maintained freedom of
religious opinions, though by a sort of Hobbism, he invested
the sovereign with powers incompatible with such liberty ; and
he says that no religion is obligatory, excepting so far as it has
"
the sanction of the Government, for it is by princes that God
reigns on the earth." He maintains that the State ought, com-
pulsorily, to regulate the form and observances of the Church,
though under an outward uniformity all sorts of creeds should be
admitted. He deprecated all political changes, and holds that
every nation ought to maintain the form of government which it
has been used to. Some of the advice he elsewhere gives to
rulers in reference to the consolidation of their power, is more
worthy of the satrap of an Oriental Monarch than of a philoso-
pher, and seems quite at variance with his own mild and gentle
character.* In his bold theological speculations, he anticipated
much of the rationalism which has prevailed in Germany since
the latter part of the last century. Not only has his general
system proved the seed of the varying pantheisms which have
marked the speculative philosophy of the Germans, since the sceptre
passed from the hands of Kant; but his rationalism," as has been
remarked by one of his recent biographers, has even anticipated
the Hegelian Christology, which, in the hands of Strauss, Feuer-
bach, and Bruno Bauer, has made so much noise in the theolo-
gical world."f
In the Elector Palatine offered to Spinoza the chair of
1G73,
philosophy Heidelberg ; but he declined it, on the ground
at
that he should not be able to avoid causing religious controversy
by his lectures. It took many years before the Christian faith
was so undermined in Germany, that the University of Heidel-

berg was prepared for the teaching of Paul us. For more than
twenty years Spinoza had shown a tendency to consumption; of
?which disease he died, at the Hague, in 1077, in his 45th year.
The amiableness of his character, and the care he sometimes took
to encourage religious observances and feelings in others, appeared
*
Tractatus Politicus, cap. xviii.
+ "Biographical History of Philosophy,"
liy G. II. Lewes. Vol. III.
p. 125.
In a letter to Oldenburg, Spinoza says:?" Dico ail salutem non esse omnino
necesse Christum secundum carnem noscere; sed do oiterno illo filio Dei, hoc est
Dei retern ft sapiential, qtue scse in omnibus rebus, et maxime in mente human.!, et
omnium maxinib in Christo Jesu manifestavit, longe alitor sentiendum." Opera
Posthuma, Spin. p. 450. Ibid.
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SriNOZA. 317

remarkable, considering the usually admitted tendency of liis

philosophical system. He taught children the external duties of
religion ; questioned his host and hostess respecting the edifica-
tion they had derived from the sermons they heard; and,
on the last
day of his life, which was Sunday, he would not
allow them to be absent from church on account of his illness.
Even those who most revolted from his speculations, allowed that
he was distinguished for his temperance, quietness, and blameless
conduct. He sometimes remained in doors for months together,
diligently employed in writing, and in making lenses. His chief
recreation is said to have been smoking his pipe, and watching
the contests of spiders with flies, and among themselves?an
amusement which, oddly enough, so tickled his fancy, that it
often made him laugh till the tears rolled down his cheeks.
The different estimates which have been formed of the opinions
of Spinoza, appear to have arisen not only from the previous
system, philosophical and theological, of the readers of his works,
but in a considerable measure from the obscurity which not un-
frequently attaches to his language. Compare many parts of his
"Treatise on the Improvementof the Understanding,'"* with Des-
cartes' "Meditations/' or his "Discourse on Method," and we soon
find a difference in practical clearness, though we recognise the like
simplicity of aim in seeking for truth. Yoltaire says :?"You are
very confused, Benedict Spinoza, but are you as dangerous as
they say ? I think not; and my reason is that you are very per-
plexed ; you have written in bad Latin, and there are not ten
persons in all Europe who will read you from end to end. When
is an author dangerous ? When he is read by the idle of the
court, and by women."f It would be difficult to find a more
candid or enlightened critic than Jouffroy, one more compe-
tent or more disposed to do justice. He says :?" that there is
in the system itself, is not my opinion. I
nothing contradictory
to confess that, after the most attentive study I have
am
obliged
been able to give it, there are several portions of the system
which still leave me in doubt."! Every one who has seriously
sat down to read Spinoza's works must have felt inclined to
sympathize with this statement of the talented and laborious
philosopher, who, during his short life, was one of the greatest
ornaments of the French Eclectic School, by 110 means inferior,
as seems to
us, to the founder himself. Another reason of the
different estimates which have been made of Spinoza's opinions,
*
De Emendatione Intellectus.
+ Encyclopedic Fran^aise. Art. "Dieu."
J Lectures 011 Ethics: a translation from the French, by G. Ripley.?This is
one of the most detailed and luminous accounts of Spinoza's opinions that we have
met with. The only thing which deteriorates from its value is, that it does not
contain quotations.
318 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA.

may arise from the fact of some of his readers having derived
their knowledge of them from the works published in his life-
time, in which they were not fully developed, and others from
his great work, the Etltica, which, as we have remarked,
was posthumous. The opposition which he had to encounter
induced him, sometimes, to endeavour in some measure to accom-
modate himself to existing opinions, as appears in his Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus, and in his correspondence. It is to the
Etltica that we must look for the detailed exposition of his
matured views. This is his most important posthumous work.
The others, all of which are unfinished, are Be Intellectus Emen-
dcitione ; Tractatus Polilicus ; and a Iiebreru Grammar. His
Letters ancl Ansivers, also, were published after his death. In
the work entitled Ethica more geometrico demonstrata, we find
Spinoza's system fully developed in a learned and elaborate
attempt to prove the existence of the Deity as the sole being in
the universe. This treatise is written in a strictly geometrical
"
form, and its author has, oil this account, been called the Euclid
of metaphysicians but the brief, rigid, and mathematical way
in which he has chained his doctrines together, is not exactly
adapted to the greatest clearness on a subject so far removed from
geometry. His fragment above-named, 011 the Improvement of
the Intellectual Faculty, though not published till after his death,
was an early production of his pen. It was intended as an intro-
duction to the discovery of truth ; and it is evident, from his
notes to the work, which are numerous, that the author contem-
plated a lengthened treatise, though we have only a tract of
thirty-six pages, with his editor's remark, Reliqua clesiderantur.
This work was designed to lay the foundation of a true method
of philosophy, in a criticism of the facts of consciousness. He
first inquires into the nature of good. He concludes, from obser-
vation, that the things which men in general regard as consti-
tuting the summum bonum may be reduced to three?wealth,
honour, and pleasure?all of which distract the mind from the
true good. That is true good which leads towards perfection.
The summum bonum is to reach this perfection ; and it consists
in the cognition of the union which the mind has with all nature.
Here we see the germ of Spinoza's future pantheistic develop-
ment. In order to lead society in general to this perfection, lie
relies 011 moral philosophy, education, medicine, mechanic art,
and above all on some remedy for the mind (modus medendi
intellectum,) in order that it may be purified from error, and
attain to truth. This end is to be promoted by philosophers
always speaking popularly (ad captum vulgi), by encouraging a
sanitary temperance, and a very moderate pursuit of wealth and
all bodily good.
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA. 319

There are, according to our author, four modes of knowing

{modi percipiendi): by heaving or perceiving any sign, which
includes testimony; by general experience (experientia vaga);
"
e. g., that oil nourishes flame by inference (ubi essentia rei
ex alia re concluditur), as when, from our sensations, we infer
that the soul is united to the body; and by essential cognition
(ubi res percipitur per solam sui essentiam): as, for instance,
"
by actual knowledge, I know what knowing is or when I
" "
perceive that two and three are five," or that parallels to a
third line are parallel/' The best method of knowing is attained
by a strict acquaintance with our own nature and faculties ; by
carefully noting the differences, agreements, and oppositions of
things, and what are their properties, and what not; and by
ascertaining the limit of man's power to reach perfect knowledge.
True ideas are the mind's instruments. The intellect by its
native energy forms to itself these ideas. Indeed, like some
schools of the later Germans, Spinoza supposed the mind capa-.
ble of grasping the essential nature of things by its ideas, coming
face to face with being itself, by means of an intellectual intui-
tion?an exaggeration this, of Descartes' appeal to consciousness
and its " clear ideas." Leibnitz was far from being wrong in
calling Spinoza's philosophy un Cartesianisme outre ; it is so
even in some of its
elementary positions.* Our author next
treats of fictious, false, and doubtful ideas, which may float in
the imagination or the memory, in distinction from ideas which
are true and
adequate, as being the ideas of the reason. In pur-
suing his method, he next discusses the conditions of definition.
If the
thing to be defined is a created thing, the definition must
"
comprehend the proximate cause?e. g., a circle is defined, a
figure which is described with any line one extremity of which
is fixed, the other moveable"?the circle is the result of the con-
ditions. Again, a conception or a definition of a thing requires
what
that all the
properties of the thing may be concluded from
is stated of it. Thus the equality of the radii, and all other
properties, are determined by the construction, which, as above,
defines the circle. The definition of an uncreated thing involves
the conditions?that it requires no object beyond itself for its
explication; that its definition includes its existence ; that it is
not
explicable by any abstract ideas; that all its properties
should follow from the definition. Spinoza adds that a defini-
tion, in order to be called perfect, must explain the intimate
*
Spinoza said, " Certainty is nothing but the objective essence itself of the
object. The true idea of Peter is the objective essence of Peter. So that, in order
to arrive at
certain knowledge, \vc want nothing but the true idea. AVe reach the
highest certainty when we have the adequate idea or objective essence of anything;
that is to
say, certainty and the objective essence are the same thing." Dc
Emend.
ntell. vi. We have here an Identitiits-lehre by anticipation.
NO. VI.?NEW SEMES. Y
320 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA.

essence of the thing, and must avoid employing properties as a

substitute for this : thus, he says, we are not unfolding the
essence of the circle when we say the radii are all equal, but only

naming a property. The author closes his fragment by treating

of the powers and properties of the intellect. It certainly knows
things as they are. It can form ideas absolutely; and it can
deduce them from others. The ideas which it forms absolutely ex-
press infinity, which is necessary to the idea of the finite. Positive
ideas are formed before negative ones. Clear and distinct ideas
so arise from the laws of our nature, that they seem to depend on
our own power. From this brief sketch of the contents of the work
De Intellectus Emendatione, the reader may in some measure
judge of Spinoza's method ; and if he reads this brief treatise for
himself, he will perhaps find that it is not always very lucid.
We certainly miss very often, in the pages of Spinoza, the per-
spicuity and clearness of his master Descartes, with whom we
are far enough from always agreeing; but we certainly less

frequently find him obscure.

In the Tractaius Politicus, which Spinoza wrote shortly
before he died, we meet with clear trains of thought, and a lumi-
nous
style. He treats of polity in general; and of monarchy, ari-
stocracy, and democracy, as forms of government. In respect to
the limit and functions of the ruling power, as regards the rela-
tion of academical education to the state, he reminds us of Adam
Smith. He objects to endowments, as calculated to repress
rather than to foster genius ; and he holds that science can only
flourish by its teachers relying entirely on their own resources,
and earned emoluments. We are disposed to think that if
Spinoza had lived in England, in the nineteenth century, he
would have been obliged to acknowledge that his theory on this
subject required a little revision, however"
disposed he was to
content himself with Spartan fare and single blessedness."
Though his method of seeking truth was so much that of
Descartes, he soon regarded the method as capable of a more
extended development, landing in very different results. In one
of his letters,* in answer to the inquiry?what is the best mode
of advancing with certainty in the road to the knowledge of things ?
Spinoza replies (agreeably to the main principles of his Treatise 011
the Intellect),f that " the best method is that in which we can
direct and chain together our clear and distinct perceptions
(ideas); for the intellect is not, like the body, liable to vary with
circumstances (casibus obnoxius), on this account alone?namely,
that one of these clear and distinct perceptions, or several
together, are adapted to be absolutely the cause of another clear
and distinct perception ; nay, all our clear and distinct percep-
*
E]?ist. xlii. f Do Intellectua Emendatione.
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA. 321

tions cannot arise otherwise than from other clear and distinct
perceptions which are in us, and which admit no other cause out
of ourselves.* Hence it
evidently appears what ought to be the
true method, and in what it
chiefly consists?namely, in the simple
cognition of pure intellect (in sold puri intellectus cognitione),
and in its nature and laws ; and in order that this method may
be acquired, it is
necessary above all things to distinguish
between intellect and imagination, or between true ideas and
others?that is, those which are fictious, false, and doubtful, and
absolutely all which depend on memory alone, t
It appears from these statements that Spinoza agreed with
Descartes as to the importance to be attached to "clear and
distinct ideas and perceptions," as the basis of real knowledge ;
though these ideas and perceptions led him away from the
dualism of his predecessor (who believed in two sorts of sub-
stances, matter and mind) to the dogma that there is no real
being in the universe but the to tv kcu to 7tuv. This theory of
ideas and their validity has been more or less elaborated by
Descartes and Leibnitz, as well as Spinoza, and we may add Male-
branche, but especially by the three former ; for Malebranche's
main stand-point, the theosopliic vision, tended to shorten the pro-
cess of
testing the psychological subjectivity of our ideas. With
Descartes, Spinoza made it a principle to admit nothing as true,
the grounds of which he did suppose himself distinctly to re-
cognise. But he carried his theory farther; he said, not only
is everything true that we clearly and distinctly cogitate, but
every true idea is also adequate, that is, it agrees perfectly with
its object, and the more perfect the object, the more j^erfect is
the idea. This axiom, that the true idea, or real knowledge,
must wholly agree with its object?must seize, as it were, upon
the very essence of that object, lies at the foundation of all
Spinozas axioms and first principles. They are to be seen and
known to be true by an intellectual intuition. Like Descartes,
therefore, Spinoza appealed to consciousness giving a clear and
distinct testimony, as the final criterion of truth : our clear and
distinct ideas and perceptions, as being freed from all uncer-
tainty, are expressions of what truly and really is. But it is
instructive to reflect to what different results this theor}r of ideas,
so
similarly treated by Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibnitz, con-
ducted these several renowned philosophers. Descartes and
Leibnitz, it must be admitted, signally departed from their own
rules as soon as they advanced beyond the threshold of their
speculations, and gave to the world some most gratuitous
theories; and if Spinoza was more consequent, more consistent
throughout with the principles he first laid down, he was, never-
*
Quod quidem ex hoc solo constat, etc. Epistol xlii. + Ibid.
Y 2
322 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA.

theless, led to conclusions which seem to offer, in some respects,

"
still greater violence to reason ! Surely these clear and distinct
ideas" require to be scrutinized with jealousy, and guarded
some

with more practical care from the intrusions of imagination,

than we find exemplified in much of the philosophy of either of
these celebrated men.
Considering that Spinoza was a Cartesian as to his adoption
of the mathematical or deductive method, which he followed
much more rigorously and formally than Descartes himself, and
that he was altogether of the a priori school of philosophers, it
is the more to be noted that he should find any distinct point of
coincidence between his own notions of psychological specula-
tion and those of Lord Bacon, whom he criticises in his Cor-
respondence
"
as not
only having erred widely, along with Des-
cartes, from the true knowledge of the first cause and origin of
all things," but also as "not having known the true nature of
"
the human mind," and as never having reached the true cause
"
of errors," because they failed of a right estimation of ideas" as
leading to knowledge. Yet, with Bacon, he described the line
of speculation he proposed to follow as being independent of
any theory of the nature of mind itself. The Baconian principle,
as exemplified by Bacon and the metaphysicians of his school,

was to seek for properties and phenomena only, since natures and
essences are beyond our ken ; and Spinoza himself says that, for
the purpose of distinguishing the pure cognitions of the intellect
from the ideas of mere imagination and memory, " we need
not know what the mind is in its cause," but only digest the
history of its perceptions according to Lord Bacon's method;
(more Mo quo Veridamius clocet.)
The main problem which Spinoza proposed to himself may be
stated as follows:?Given the notion of substance, as it is con-
ceived by reason, and expressed by a proper definition?to derive
from this notion all that is involved in it, by a rigorous deduction,
apart from experience; and then, having obtained such logical
deduction, to put it in the place of the universe of being. With
this aim, Spinoza adopted as much as possible the procedure of
the geometrician, endeavouring to apply it to his metaphysics of
matter and of mind. The fundamental idea of the geometer is
the abstract notion of space ; the fundamental idea of the
philosopher, according to Spinoza, is to be that of substance.
As clear and distinct ideas, supposed to be attained, lie at the
basis of his theory ot knowledge?so the idea of substance, which
is said to be one of them, is the corner-stone of his metaphysical,
cosmological, and theological system. The reader will judge for
himself, as we advance, to what extent the whole fabric of
Spinozism is built upon ambiguities and assumptions, sincerely
as Spinoza himself believed that all was irrefragable.
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA. 323

He gave the name Ethica to the work which clevelopes his

main doctrine, because he regarded the whole of true philosophy
as
closely identified with human virtue ; and virtue, as being in
its principle the love of
God, must have its origin in the true
knowledge of him.* The first book of the Ethica is entitled
De Deo sive
Infinite. The second De Naturd ct Origin6
Mentis, seu de Finito, deduces from the previous idea of God
that which we should form respecting man as a thinking
being. The third is De Xaturd et Origine Affectuum, or the
sources and mechanism of the
passions, a topic which he
regards as involving all the phenomena of man. The fourth is
De Servitute Humana, sen de Affectuum Viribus; and here
the author endeavours to show that there is a
necessary order of
development in human nature, and that the will also is under
necessity. The fifth and last book is entitled De Potentid
Intellectus, seu de Libertate Humana, in which he proposes to
show the nature and operation of free-will.
The work sets out with eight definitions :?I. Cause of itself
(causa sui) is that, the essence of which involves existence ; or
that, the nature of which cannot be conceived of but as existing.
The idea here evidently is that of necessary and self-existence.
II. The Finite is that which can be limited or bounded by
another thing of the same nature. In this way body and
thought may be limited, though not by each other. III. Substance
is that which is self-contained, and is conceived of
per se; or
that, the conception of which does not require to be formed from
the conception of anything else. IV. Attribute is that which
the understanding perceives as constituting the very essence of
substance. V. Alodes are the affections of substance, by means
of which we can conceive of it. YI. God is a Being absolutely
infinite, the substance which consists of infinite attributes, each
of which indicates an infinite and eternal essence. VII. That is
said to he free, which exists solely by the necessity of its nature,
and which is determined to action by itself alone. That is
necessary, or constrained, which owes its existence to something
else, and which acts from certain and determinate causes.
VIII. Eternity is existence itself, so far as it is conceived neces-
sarily to follow from the mere definition of an eternal thing.?It
is evident that the scholastic way in which these definitions are
expressed, is in itself sufficient to throw over them a certain air
of
obscurity. Their meaning, however, is perhaps for the most
part sufficiently intelligible; and if the wording of some of
them may be questioned?after all, definitions do not prove any-
thing, and an author may be allowed to abide by his own.
Seven axioms follow. I. Everything which exists, exists either
in itself or in
something else. II. Whatever cannot be conceived
Amor Dei non nisi oritur. Tractat. Theol. Pol. IV. 42.
ex cognitione ejus
324 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA.

of another thing {per ciliud) must he conceived of per

through
sc. III. From the cause, the effect necessarily follows; and
there can be no effect without its cause. IY. Knowledge of the
effect depends on knowledge of the cause, and involves it.
Y. Things having nothing mutually or in common, cannot be
^understood through each other; that is, the conception of the
one does not involve the conception of the other. VI. A true
idea must agree with its prototype, or representative in nature
{cum suo ideato). VII. Whatever can be conceived of as non-
existent, does not involve existence in its essence.?These axioms
may, with little difficulty, be admitted. The first means that
everything must be either self-existent or not. The fourth has
been much condemned : among others, by Mr. Hallam, "who
thinks that this axiom is the seat of a fundamental fallacy, and
remarks that " the relation between a cause and effect is surely
something different from our perfect comprehension of it, or,
indeed, from our having any knowledge of it at all; much less
can the contrary assertion be deemed axiomatic/'* Mr. Lewes,
on the defends the axiom as true according to the
contrary,
Spinozistic sense of it. It is not meant that no effects are
manifested to us, of which we do not also know the causes ; but
that a complete knowledge of the effect can only be had through
a complete
knowledge of the cause. "If you would know the
effect in its totality, you must also know the cause in its totalit}r.
The antecedent was once only a sequent to its cause. To pene-
trate the mystery, you must know what the effect is, and how
it is ; you must know its point of departure and its point of
destination."f We have little doubt that the above remarks
furnish the proper clue to Spinoza's meaning.?In order to
illustrate the manner in which he applies his definitions and
axioms to prove his doctrines, we will introduce a few examples
from his propositions :
I. Substance is prior in nature to its affections or accidents:
Def. 3 and 5.
II. T wo substances with different attributes have nothing in
common with each other: Def. 3.
III. Of things having nothing in common, one cannot be the
cause of the other: % Axiom 5 ; Axiom 4.
IV. Two or more different things are distinguished from each
other, either by the diversity of their attributes or by that of
their modes ('affcctionum): Axiom 1 ; Def. 3 and 5 ; Def. 4.
*
Lit. of Europe, vol. iv. p. 240.
]iiog. HiHt. of Philosophy, vol. iii. p. 135.
+
*
This proposition is tlio old Greek fallacy, " like cannot act on or produce
unlike which daily experience contradicts, for our sensations do not resemble
outward objects which produce them; but the principle favoured Spinoza's theory,
that there is only one substance in the universe.
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA. 325

V. In the nature of tilings, there cannot be two or more sub-

stances of the same nature or of the same attribute: Prop. IV.,
Def. 3 and G.
VI. One substance cannot be produced by another substance ;
(Prop. V. II. III.; Corollary ]). It follows that substance can-
not be
produced by anything else, (Axiom 1; Def. 3 and 5 ;
Corollary 2). The contradictory of this proposition is absurd ;
Axiom 4 ; Def. 3. .

VII. It belongs to the very nature of substance to exist: Coroll.

to Prop. VI., and Def. 1.
VIII. All substance is necessarily infinite : Def. 2 ; Prop. V.
Scholium 1. It follows alone, from proposition VII., that all
substance must be infinite : Scholium 2.?Here Spinoza anti-
cipates objections to Prop. VII.; but there would be no difficulty,
he says, if men did not confound the divine with the human?if
they would only understand by substance that which exists in
itself?that, the knowledge of which does not require the know-
ledge of anything antecfedent; in short, if they would only attend
to the Definitions and Axioms, they would then be convinced
that the existence of substance is an eternal truth, and that
only one substance of the same nature can exist.
We have now given a sufficient specimen of our author's me-
thod in the Ethica. In a similar way he treats all his proposi-
tions, adding their demonstrations, which we have only indicated,
for want of space.* The whole work is digested in the most
rigid order, each new theorem depending on the definitions,
axioms, and preceding propositions, and each demonstration
meriting, as the author believed, the triumphant attestation of
the three letters, Q. E. D. Whoever sits down seriously to study
these pages of Spinoza, will indeed find that they require even a
more wakeful and
painstaking attention than a book of geometry;
for in these abstract metaphysics we can have no aid from dia-
grams?to say nothing of the entire conviction which attends
every link of a chain of geometrical demonstration.
We will now proceed to some further development of Spinoza's
system, keeping as nearly as may be to his owTn expressions. God
is the one infinite substance, holding potentially, in his own self-
existent being, the whole universe. He is .causa sui?that is,
"
his essence involves his existence for a cause of or in itself
is that, the nature of which cannot but be conceived of as exist-
mg.f This causa sui is, therefore, the sole substance, or that
existence which is in itself, and is conceived of by means of
itself, since the conception or notion of it does not require any
other conception from which it must be framed. It is the abso-
1' or the same
+ Eth. Part. !.
reason we have not quoted Ion? extracts from tbe original Latin.
Def. L
326 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA.

lute, the independent, the highest and only reality. Of course

there can be but one such substance, and it is necessary and infi-
nite ;* nor can we imagine another to produce it. We must not
understand our author, therefore, to use the term "substance"
in the ordinary sense. According to him, matter or body is only
one mode in which the Deity is manifested. Both matter and
spirits are nothing but manifestations of Him, the one and only
real substance ; for all else is finite, and dependent on His
being. "
Attribute is that which our intellect perceives to constitute
the essence of substance and modes are the affections of sub-
stance, by which the attributes are manifested in something else,
through which manifestation the mode is" conceived of.f The
formal definition given of the Deity is: the Being absolutely
infinite, or the Substance consisting of (constantem ex) infinite
attributes, every one of which expresses an eternal and infinite
essence." This substance exists necessarily, and is " absolute
affirmation," one and indivisible. Extended existence and think-
ing existence are not two different substances, but only attributes,
or modifications of the attributes of the one divine substance,]:

in which all things exist, apart from which nothing can be con-
ceived of, and to the necessary activity of which they all owe
their origin.^ And as the Deity is constrained by the laws of
His own nature alone, He is the immanent but not the transient
cause of all things; that is, all finite things are but the
necessary
emanation of the divine nature, and not productions created in
time, and dependent on single acts.|| Nothing, therefore, is
contingent; all is eternally determined by the necessary laws of
the divine substance. Hence God is natura naturans,?an
expression used by Bacon in reference to the supposed forms or
essences of matter, but which
Spinoza uses to signify the Deity in
respect to His being regarded as a free cause (quatenus at causa
libera consideratur). The term natura naturata is applied to
all things as existing in the Divine
Being, since they flow from
the very necessity of his nature, and are but modes of his attri-
Ibid. Def. V. Prop. VI., VIII. This in very like some statements of
Descartes, and might well bo developed from them. IIo says (Principia, Part. I.
"
51), that which truly exists is
substance, or that which requires no other thing to
its existence. There can be but ono such
exist by his co-operation. Hence the name
being, namely, Clod ; all other things only
substancc does not univocally belong
to him and to them."
t Ibid. Def. IV.
J Vel attributa vel affectiones attributoruin. Vide Prop. VIII. Scliol. 1.
Prop. XIII. Scliol. 1 rop. XIV. Corol ]. Dcscartes said that the essence of
extension; Spinoza ascribes to matter and indi-
I rop. XV. infinity, necessity, unity,
visibility. Scliol. Ho also
says, consistently with this, that if any
onepart of matter were annihilated, all extension would vanish with it. Epist.
*
IV. ad Henr. Oldenburgh.
? Prop. XV., XVI. || i>rop. XVIII., XXV.
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA. 327

butes.* For while God is spoken of as a "free cause/' this only

means that we are wont to regard him as such : the system
denies the Divine freedom, in any other sense than that of unli-
mited natural power, or the absence of obstruction or constraint:
God does not act from liberty of will:
things could not have
been made by him otherwise than they are. Our author
goes on
to
identify as "one the divine intellect, will, and power, saying
that they are essentially one and the same
tiling." As to in-
tentional motive principles, or final causes, these are denied.
The Deity does not act on the principle of ivJicit is c/ood (sub
ratione boni); for, if so, " there would be something good
beyond Himself, and not dependent on him?something for Him
to copy from or aim at." He acts without any such impulse,
and simply by the mere necessity of His own
energy and power.
This very power is His "essence," by which Himself and all
things are and act; for by the necessity of His essence He is
cause of Himself and of all things (causa sui et omnium

reruni). +
Spinoza next treats of the ideas which the human mind should
form respecting itself as well as of all finite things. All is to be
identified with the one and only substance, as being the same
with it (imo una et cadem substantia est), sometimes compre-
hended under one, sometimes under another attribute. Thus the
"mode" of extension, and an idea of that mode, are but one
thing expressed in two ways : a circle existing in nature, and the
idea of it, are one and the same thing developed by means of
different attributes^ Things and the ideas of things are equally
the necessary result of the same order and connexion. Things
come of
necessity from the Divine existence; ideas come from
the Divine
thought. God is the cause of every idea of a finite
mind,?not merely as origin and container of all things, but also
in so far as His infinite understanding is considered as modified
by the idea of a particular finite being (quatenus alia rei sin-
gularis idea affectus).? " Hence it follows that the essence of
man is constituted
by certain modifications of the attributes of
God ; for there is something in that essence which is in God, and
which cannot even be conceived of without him."?The essence
of man,
therefore, is an affection or mode which, in a determinate
manner, expresses the nature of God."j|?" It follows that the
human mind is a part of the Divine intellect (partem esse divini
*

Prop. XXIX. Schol.

T Vtde Ibid. Corol. 1. Schol.
Prop. XXXII. Prop. XXXIII., XVII.
Prop. XXXIV.
^
Eth
1 or'ginal, might scein Malebranchianism, did we not know how
it meant Circulus in natura. et idea
circuli, qua; etiam in Deo est.
1
? ?art' n. Prop. VII. Schol.
roP- VIII. and IX.?Ibid. || Ibid. Prop. X Cor.
323 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA.

intellectus); and when we say that the human mind ;perceives

this or that, we say, in short, that God lias this or that idea?not
in respect that He is infinite, but so far as He is developed
through the nature of the human mind, and constitutes its
essence."* Again : agreeably to the general theory, (according
to which infinite extension and infinite thought belong to the
one universal Being), the body and the mind of man, being only
modes finite determinations of the infinite development of
or

God, and the same thing, conceived of sometimes under

are one

the mode of extension, sometimes under that of thought.-f This

doctrine of identity is evidently cosmothetic idealism?and not
like materialistic pantheism, ancient or modern.
As to those ideas of the mind which are the final vouchers for
truth, Spinoza compares them with the ideas of God. Now,
"
all the ideas which are in God are true, for they all agree,
altogether, and adequately with their objects : so every idea in
ourselves, which is absolute or adequate, is true." But when the
mind is only determined, accidentally, to contemplate a thing,
independently of the inward bond which that object has to the
universal Being, a confused idea is the result. Ever}7 error arises
from inadequate ideas of the imagination ; but the reason always
gives adequate ideas, and is always true. We always know when
we have a true idea, and we cannot doubt of it; for truth is the

criterion both of itself and of falsehood. Our cognition of the

eternal and infinite essence of the Deity, which every true idea
involves, is adequate and perfect. Hence the infinite essence and
the eternity of God cannot but be known to all.J Truly, if
human reason possesses such an intuition, we ought long ago to
have mastered all the sciences!
The directly moral part of Spinoza's system is contained in the
three Lost books of the Ethica. His moral philosophy, in which
man is viewed in those absolute relations which reason discerns, is

pure and elevated, symbolizing with that of the Stoics. Frederic

Schlegel, who certainly had no tendency to Spinozism, even
estimates his ethics as having a considerable advantage over those
of the Porch. Nevertheless, his moral theory is sometimes ex-
pressed in language which evidently identifies it with the views
of the sentimental and utilitarian schools. He regards moral
"
good and evil as nothing more than our modes of thinking, or
the notions that we form ;"? and he
expressly makes utility the
same thing with His doctrine of human volition
goodness.|[
amounts to downright fatalism ; and the same may be said in
*
Ibid. Prop. XI. Cor. + n.id. prop. XXI. Schol.
J Vide Ibid. Prop. XXXII., XXXIV., XXIX., XXXIV., XXXV.,
XLV., XLVI., XLVII.
? Etli. Part. IV.
ij Per bonum id intclligam quod certo scimus nobis esse utile.?Ibid. Def. I.
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA. 329

regard to his views

respecting the Divine will. He holds that
"no mind has absolute or free willand that the mind of man
is determined to will this or a cause which is
that, by again
determined by another, and this and so on in
again by another,
infinitum. For as mind is a certain and determinate mode of
thinking, it cannot be an absolutely free cause of its own actions.
There is, in the mind, no absolute
power of understanding,
desiring, willing, or the like."* Indeed, will and intellect, says
our author, are one and the same
thing?"they are identical with
singular volitions and ideas?a singular volition and a singular
idea are one and the same." And "as thought and will are one,
so the
knowledge of good and evil are nothing but the affection
of joy and sorrow, when we are conscious to ourselves of the one
or the other "*f*

Every being, says our author, desires, by the necessity of its

nature, to continue in the condition for which its nature adapts
it. God necessarily exists ; he therefore necessarily desires to
remain in existence ; and as this existence is universal and un-
limited by any other, he is absolutely happy as he is absolutely
perfect. Man, as a development of the Deity, partakes of the
desire of God to exist, and to remain in existence. Of the soul
of man,
knowledge is the main element; and the desire of con-
tinued existence is therefore identified with the desire to extend
and increase
knowledge. Spinoza characterizes human desire as
being this appetency of continued existence as an intelligent
being. This desire, however, meets with obstacles, as well as
with objects for its
gratification. Hence the relation of man s
condition (which is variable) to this elementary desire, produces
pain or joy, hatred or love, hope or fear. These Spinoza calls
passions : the)' are " secondary feelingsthe desire of con-
tinued intelligent existence, alone, is primary and fundamental.
Our author's reason
given for this distinction is, that the passions
or
secondary emotions of the mind arise from the agency of ex-
ternal causes, which act on us in a wholly passive state; while the
general and abiding desire pf continued intelligent existence is
original, innate, and independent of external causes.}
The above quotations and references will enable the reader to
judge of the chief characteristics of Spinozism. Its main drift is
to prove
that there is, in the universe, but one substance, which
is God, endowed with infinite attributes?those best known to
us
being infinite extension and infinite cogitation. But these
two are
really one : extension is visible thought, and thought is
Aifiible are the and the subjective, of
extension; they objective
*
Eth. Tart II. Prop. VIII.
+ Ibid. Prop. XLIX. Corol. et Scholium finale.
J Eth. Part IV.
330 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA.

which God is the identity. All tilings exist but as modifications

of this Divine Substance; apart from him they are nothing.
He is their cause, by the eternal necessity of his nature?their
cause by dwelling in them, not by creating them as distinct
existences from himself; so that, in all events, physical and
moral, he is at once cause and effect, agent and patient. Every-
thing termed matter is a mode or manifestation of the Divine
attribute of extension; every thought, desire, emotion, volition
of man, is a mode or manifestation of the Divine attribute of
thought. Descartes, in some places of his works, makes exten-
sion and thought identical with material and spiritual substance,
respectively : Spinoza says they are attributes of the one only
substance, for they exist only per aliud, not per se. Thought
does not think, extension itself is not extended ; thought and
extension are attributes of the one thinking, extended sub-
stance.
There are apparently three kinds of existence :?First, attri-
butes, properties, or
qualities, and effects or phenomena ; but all
admit that we can only conceive of these in relation to sub-
stances, independently of which they have no existence. Secondly,
other things seem more real: man, who has certain properties
of body and mind, appears to be a substance ; but, as neither
minds nor bodies originated without a cause foreign to them,
and cannot continue their own existence, their being is only that
of accidents?it is not truly real : their independent existence is
only apparent. Thirdly, though the above two kinds of existences
are all that experience makes known to us, reason can
go
further?can go beyond derived, accidental, and dependent ex-
istence, and can perceive that there must be somewhere a
Being whose existence is the essence of the former, and who is
self-existent. We now reach the only real Being (Ens real'ts-
simum), the one only substance ; for reason will not allow us to
suppose more than one self-existent, invisible Being, containing
all existence in himself?in ancient phrase, to ov?from whose
existence all his infinite attributes necessarily flow.
As there is but one real substance, and as we cannot conceive
of substance but as extended, and there is infinite extension in
the universe, extension is an infinite attribute of the Infinite
Being. Spinoza does not seem to have brought forward any
demonstration of the necessity of the attribute of infinite thought,
as he has of that of extension, which he considers
inseparable
from substance. He holds, however, that thought is another
infinite attribute of the one substance, agreeably to the ancient
doctrine of Parmenides and his school, that thought is only an
.aspect of to nav or the One-all. Indeed, we find, in the ancient
Greek metaphysics, some striking resemblances to the doctrines
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA. 331

of our author ;
especially in the opinions of Xenophanes ;* though
Spinoza arrived at his conclusions more exclusively by the " high
(i priori
road/' than the celebrated chief of the Eleatic school.
It does not appear, however, that Spinoza was influenced by any
study of the purely Greek philosophy ; but much of his system has
a
strong resemblance to some of the Cabbalistic dogmas, which
were of Pantheistic
tendency.
As God is the only substance, it follows that all things must
exist in him and through him, as their inherent cause. The
whole universe is only a manifestation of his being. If we
loosely talk of other beings or substances, all that is or ought to
be meant by this language is, that they are modes in which his
attributes are manifested. According to our author's doctrine,
there is no divine volition in these manifestations. As the
ancient Greeks sometimes talked of Jupiter himself being sub-
jected to inexorable fate; so Spinoza's God is irrevocably bound
by an iron necessity, as a perfection of his nature. He is little
else than an infinite, omnipotent machine, acting by laws which
are not controlled by anything that can in strictness be termed

wisdom ; for wisdom implies intelligent choice and freedom ; but

in this system no room is left for such a moral power. Spinoza
ridicules the notion commonly entertained, that the Deity wills
and acts for a certain end, as though it were possible for him to
prefer some other end, or any end at all. All his actions are
rigidly determined by the laws of his own nature ; and free-will,
in the moral sense, is not one of them. All we know of God is
his thought, and his extension ; we cannot attribute will to him,
as
separate from thought, and as capable of a varying deter-
mination. Not that it is denied, in terms, that God is free?
nay, lie is the only free agent; but his free agency consists only
in this, that he is free from being influenced to act by any other
nature or power than his own. Man's acts depend on his cir-
cumstances, on the will of others, and ultimately like all other
agencies they must be traced back to God : man, therefore, is
not a free agent, because dependent. God is free from de-
pendency on any other being; but he wills not from design, and
has no passion or disposition analogous to man's. His will is a
mere spontaneity of his nature; all is unchanging, unalterable,
eternal necessity. So far as intelligent freedom is concerned, an
automaton chess-player would represent Spinoza's God.
It is remarkable that while he strenuously maintains that all
finite existences and their acts are the natural and inevitable
expression of the necessary laws of the divine nature?only so
many phenomena of deity, he, nevertheless, energetically repels
*
Who was described as "lost in the One-all," (tig tp ravro n ttciv aviKvt'o).
Vide Sextus Empiricus; Institute Pyrrhon. I.
332 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA.

the allegation that he confounds the universe with God. He

denies that it is God; it is a mode in which his attributes are
necessarily manifested. God is the eternal living principle of all
things ; the material world is one phase of his infinite attribute
of extension. Now, the modes of manifestation are finite ; but
the one Substance, or God, is, in all respects, infinite. His
attributes, too, are, in themselves, infinite, each in its own way:
it is only as being many that they are finite, one limiting
another; and each expressing, under one mode only, the Divine
essence or existence. But surely the finiteness of the " modes/'
"
and the reciprocal limitation of the attributes" (which latter,
in some places, he identifies with modes) do not, in Spinoza's
"
theory, separate them from the one and only Substance."
There is in the system as close an identification of the universe
with. God as there is, in the current psychology of man, an
identification of the separate modifications of consciousness
and of the mental faculties with mind itself. An act of remem-
brance is an affection of mind?the universe, according to
Spinozism, is an affection of God. In one place, our philosopher
says that all things have the same relation to God, as the
property of having the sum of its angles equal to two right
angles has to the triangle. This is something more than the old
doctrine that " God is the soul of the world." Ideas are termed
"
modes of thought," and they must have objects. The only
object to the Divine thought is the Divine existence or essence,
and all that flows from it: he is eternally employed in contem-
plating himself alone. What God thinks as cogitative, he does
as extended, and vice versa. His thought and his act are but
one phenomenon under a twofold aspect. The circle is a mode of
God as possessing extension ; the idea of a circle is the corre-
sponding mode of God as thinking. The Divine Being himself
also thinks of his own thoughts, by self-consciousness; and all
man's ideas are only determinate portions of the ideas of God.
As to finite body and spirit, they are only forms of extension
and thought, modes, or (as Spinoza sometimes calls them) " por-
tions" of the Divine extension and the Divine thought.
Body
and soul appear to be two, but
they are not,?they are only two
aspects of one thing; aspects of the one substance, in its exten-
sion and its thought. As
though to mystify the doctrine of
finite spirit still further, our author asserts,
anticipatorily of
some of the modern German "
speculations, that the soul is the
sum of the ideas which are
brought together at any one moment."
It is nothing more than a succession of ideas, which are
only the
result of different changes taking place in the body.
Spinoza assigns to affections of the body all our ideas. " ^Vo
know our own bodies only by means of their affections, and
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA. 333

external bodies by the affections of our own ;and we know our

own
spirits only by means of the idea of those affections."*
Nevertheless, all man's ideas, whether derived or intuitive, are
determinate portions of the ideas of the Deity, and are produced,
by necessity. This statement does not well cohere with another,
in which he
says that the mind has the power of regulating the
ideas which are its constituent elements, and of controlling their
development. Here we may observe that there is a considerable
discrepancy between the metaphysical and the moral part of the
system. In the former, Spinoza speaks the language of neces-
sity and fatalism ; in the latter, he ascribes to man a certain sort
of command or influence over his ideas : and he seems to found
his whole system of practical morality on the notion of liberty or
power exerted by man over his trains of thought. We must not
now
attempt to dwell further on the extent of this inconsis-
tency.f A similar obscurity is usually admitted to rest on his
account of the process by which general ideas are produced from
those which are individual.
Notwithstanding the apparent rigour of Spinoza's deductions,
the reader will by this time be prepared to see that their con-
clusiveness towards establishing the system is in appearance
only, not real. Many chasms in reasoning which require to be
filled up are leaped over by a bound. The whole is based on
gratuitous assumptions and scholastic ambiguities, in regard to
the meaning of the terms substance, extension, thought, eternity,
intellect, will, etc. As to the definitions and descriptions of the
Divine Being, they can hardly be said to designate a really
personal God. Great inconsistencies arise, even in the outset,
on a
"
comparison of the definitions, axioms, and projoositions.
Substance is conceived per se, and requires the conception of
nothing
"
else, in order to our forming an idea of itand yet
the modes of substance are its affections, by which it is con- ,

ceived of"?that is, by which we form an idea of it. Again: if

"attributes are the essence of substance," can we conceive of
substance in any other way than through its attributes ??or,
would Spinoza say that the attributes are the substance ? If so,
why make the distinction But we must refer the reader to the
"
first half-dozen pages of the Ethica" for further illustration.?
He will often find that Spinoza, where he seems to prove, is
only ringing incessant changes on terms ; and that, although his
dogmas bristle with an imposing array of geometrical forms, the
remark of M. Saisset, his most recent editor, is true :?" Spinoza
*
"Ethica." Part II. + See the remark of Jouffrov; p. 317.
t Def. III., IV., V. "Ethica." Part. I.
? See Def. I., VIII., Comp. Prop. I. and Def. IV. Y.; also Prop. III. and
Ax. V.; also Prop. VII. and Def. VIII.
334 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA.

does not demonstrate his system?lie only developes it." Leib-

nitz was clearly of the same opinion, and he often condemned
the system in strong terms*
"Widely as Spinoza departed from the philosophy of Descartes,
it is evident that he was led to his own views by his profound
study of the Cartesian principles. Descartes relied on man's
clear and distinct idea of a Perfect Being, as an irrefragable
proof that there is oue ; Spinoza conceived that he had an
equally valid idea of his pantheistic substance. Descartes sought
to deduce, ct priori, all the phenomena of nature necessarily
from his idea of the nature and attributes of the first cause ;
Spinoza equally deduced them from his "clear" (intuitive) idea
of the one substance. Descartes rejected final causes from philo-
sophy ; and Spinoza says they are but human fictions, and
laughs at those who imagine that eyes were designed for seeing,
or the sun for giving light.f Descartes represented the universe
as a machine that might go on for ever, mechanically, the same

quantity of motion ever remaining in it; Spinoza represented it

as
always having (as he inaccurately expresses it) the same pro-
portion of motion to rest in it, and as perpetually moved without
a free power, and only by necessary laws.| Descartes unguard-
edly asserted that extension alone constitutes the essence of
matter ; whence Spinoza saw that it followed that matter must
be infinite, eternal, and necessary, since space (its essence) is so.
No doubt, however, Descartes would have disowned the infe-
rences which Spinoza so boldly drew from his
philosophical prin-
ciples^
*
Leibnitz was misunderstood by some as leaning to Spinozism. If there were
not ample evidence to the contrary running through his works, it would be suffi-
cient to refer to some " Critical Remarks on Spinoza" from his pen, in an original
manuscript recently found in the Royal Library at Hanover. The piece is very
learned, though somewhat desultory; but it touches on some of the main points of
"
Spinozism. Among other objections, Leibnitz remarks : Spinoza says the soul
may change at any moment, because witli the changes of the body there is a dif-
"
ferent idea of the body, an though the sold were an idea." lie considers crea-
tures as evanescent modifications." "
Spinoza begins where Descartes left off, in
naturalism." "There in a medium between chance and necessity, namely, free
will; this Spinoza denies." " lfe attributes duration to the soul only during the
duration of the body : he thinks the soul "
perishes witli tlie body." lie says that
memory and imagination disappear with the body." Wo hardly think Spinoza
would have endorsed this latter statement in full; his idea seems that of a kind of
absorption into the One-all, though this said little for the continued personality of
man. See "Refutation of Spinoza," by Leibidtz. Edited by the Rev. O. F.
J
Owen. 1855.
"
+ Ethica", Tart I., Prop. XXXYI.
? Ibid., Part II., Prop. XIII., 1cm. 3.
? If matter be infinite and necessary, says
Spinoza (and such it must bo in his
system of the universe and the Deity), then it must be one and indivisible. " This
cannot be denied by those who reject tho possibility of a vacuum (as Descartes did);
for if matter could be divided so that its parts should be really distinct, why might
not one part be annihilated, tho rest remaining connected with each other as beforo 'I
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA. 335

The speculations of Spinoza have proved a fertile germ of the

Pantheism which has prevailed during the last seventy years,
under various and
changing phases, among the Germans ; some-
times assuming a purely idealistic form, at others involving a
naturalism which identified matter and mind as one, and amounted
to of Spinozism.
species
a
Hamann, Herder, and .Novalis, all
tended towards the
subsequent views of Schelling. Novalis
terms Spinoza "a God-intoxicated manand his own specu-
lations were a Spinozism modified by Fichteism. Schelling's
"
One Absolute" is at one time
objective (natura naturata), at
another subjective (natura naturans): this is little else than
Spinoza's universal Substance. Schelling relies on intellectual
intuition .as the infallible organ of truth. In the idea of the
Absolute, this intuition sees all things?it points them out in the
Absolute, and so may be said to construct them ; and in so con-
structing them, the particular is presented under its absolute
form, brought back to its eternal idea : so Schelling. Spinoza,
"
in similar language, says : The eyes of the mind, by which it
sees and takes cognizance of
things, are the demonstrations them-
selves (i.e., we suppose intuition is demonstration.) Spinoza
adds : " we perceive ourselves, and experience ourselves thus to
be eternal."* Among the pantheistic theories of the moderns, that
of Schelling, no doubt, most
nearly resembles Spinozism ; being
objective, and maintaining the real existence of the Deity, who is
not a mere ideal creation of the
ego, as in the original" Ichlehre'
of Fichte, which was an
altogether subjective idealistic pantheism.
In its earlier form, the
philosophy of Schellingf was as com-
pletely pantheistic as that of Spinoza, and did not differ from it
in any fundamental principle ; though in his subsequent develop-
ments, Schelling emerged from this absolute Pantheism, and
spoke of God as a Being possessed of freedom, and a distinct per-
sonal existence above and beyond the world ; and of man as
having a separate existence from that of his Creator. Both the
systems, that of Spinoza and that of Schelling, are to be dis-
tinguished from the absolute idealism of the Hegelian Pantheism,
which regards thought as the only true existence, and reduces
since, of things which are really distinct from each other, the one can exist, and
remain in its state, without the other." " If any one part of matter were annihi-
lated, all extension would vanish with it." Thus did Spinoza employ and strain
the Cartesian
principles to uphold his own doctrine. Vide Ethica." Part II.
"

Prop. XV. Schol. Epistle IV. ad Oldenburgli.

*
Mentis enim oculi quibus res videt observatque, sunt ipsse demonstrationes:
sentimus et experimus nos aeternos esse. "Ethica, Lib. V.," Prop. XXIII.
Schol.
+ Herr Schelling, in seiner friiherer Periode, wo er noch ein Philosoph war,
nicht im Geringsten von Spinoza unterschied. Dcr Salon, von H. Heine.
Band II., s. 121. 1834.?Die Lehre des Spinoza, und die Naturp'iilosopliie, wie
sie Schelling in seiner besseren Periode sind wesentlich eius r.' .d dasselbe.
aufstellte,
?Ibid., s. 207.
NO. VI.?NEW SERIES. Z
3.36 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA.

the Deity to a mere

development of thought, in the human
consciousness.
The moral tendency of Spinoza's opinions has led to stroug
condemnation of his system, independently of the unsoundness
of its basis and superstructure
as a
piece of argument. Dr.
"
Samuel Clarke's celebrated Demonstration of the Being and
Attributes of God," was especially directed against it. Both
Spinoza and Clarke set out from the same point?necessary
existence and necessary causation; and both speak in very
similar terms of the relation of time and space to the Deity.*
Clarke established natural religion on the universally admitted
" "
principle, that something must have existed from all eternity
?which, in Spinoza's system, was blended with his doctrine of
one all-absorbing substance. Clarke also strenuously rebutted
Spinoza's fatalistic theory of divine and human liberty?which,
as we have seen, amounted to the denial of any such thing as
moral freedom.
Agreeably to a widely-extended impression of "the character of
Spinoza's philosophy, Clarke speaks of him as the most cele-
brated patron of Atheism in our time."f This would seem to
imply that he was an avowed unbeliever in a God; but Dr.
Clarke could not mean this, as he had closely studied Spinoza's
writings. In fact, he was, speculatively, not an Atheist, but an
Acosmist; for he denied all real existence to the universe, and
assigned all real existence" to the Deity. "Far from being an
Atheist," says M. Cousin, Spinoza had such a view of God that
he lost the view of man. Nothing finite appeared to him worthy
of the name of existence, and with him there is no real being
but the Eternal."| It would be unfair to Spinoza not to admit
that he even utters many sentiments which involve much more
than a mere philosophical admiration of infinite power, omni-
presence, and eternal duration. As a single example, he says,
in one place : " I have expressly asserted that the sum of the
divine law, which is divinely inscribed in our mind, and the main
precept of that law, is, to love God as the chief good."? The life
of Spinoza, and his character in the families in which he was
domesticated, do not indicate that ho realized in himself what
we cannot but think
was, nevertheless, the tendency of his
Pantheism. This, however, is no uncommon fact in the
history
Clarke appears to have derived the idea of
regarding finite space and infinite
duration as attributes of the self-existent
"
Boing, from a passage in a Scholium of
Newton s Principia. Durat (Dcus) semper, et adest ubique; et existendo semper
et ubique durationali ct spatium constituit.
+ "Demonstration." 171G. p. 2(5.
"
J Fragmens PhilosophiqueB." Paris. 1833.
? "Expresse dixi legis divinso qu;u menti nostrro divinitus inscripta est, sunnnani,
cjusquc summum prtBceptnm esse, Deum utsummum bonuin amare." Epistol. 49*
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SPINOZA. 337

of the human
mind; happily, men are often better than their
systems, and cannot see the direction of the road they point to.
But if Spinoza has been branded as an Atheist, without due
qualification, and sometimes stigmatized as a sort of monster of
impiety, certain it is that he has on the other hand been as
much lauded, as though he had been one of the first saints
in the Romish calendar.*' Even some of those, however, who
have been most anxious to do him justice, have not failed to
admit that whatever might be the effect of his system on himself,
"
his doctrine amounted to Atheism, or little better."t Surely
it is so ; for
Spinoza's God is identified with man and the uni-
verse, all being bound together by an inexorable necessity; so
that his Infinite Power is no more directed by design and choice,
than the motion of a steam-engine or a railroad ; and, being thus
destitute of all liberty or free svill, and even of all intelligence
that is not in some mystical way identical with unlimited power,
he can possess no true and real personality.
The failure of men of such extraordinary mental stature as
Descartes, Leibnitz, and Spinoza, to establish a satisfactory
system of metaphysical knowledge on some of the most interesting
subjects that can engage the human mind, shows one at least of
two things : either a just metaphysical philosophy is impossible,
or their method of
aiming to attain it is wrong. Now, the method,
or fundamental
theory of human knowledge advocated by the
three great men above-named was essentially the same. It
amounted to the doctrine of an infallible intuition : clear and
distinct ideas, well-ascertained to be such, must lead to truth;
and yet, to what issues has this theory conducted ? It led
Descartes to his vortices, Leibnitz to his monads, and Spinoza
to his universe-God. What caution, then, is required?what

*
Vide Paulus's Spinoza. Jena, 1803.?M. Cousin says,? "Savieestle sym-
bole de son systimie. Adorant l'fiternel, sans cesse en face de l'lnfini, il a dedaigne
ce monde qui ni le plaisir, ni Taction, ni la gloire, car il n'a
passe; il n'a connu
pas soup5onn<S La sienne. Spinoza est un Mouni Indien, un Soufi Persan, un moine
enthusiaste; et l'auteur auquel r&semble'' le plus ce pretendu atli<$e, est l'auteur
inconnu de Vimitation de Jesus Christ. Fragm. Philos."
Gotlie says, "The great mind that had so great an iufluencc on mine was
Spinoza's. After I had looked round the world in vain for means of shaping my
strange moral being, I fell at last on the 'Ethics' of this man. I found there a
calm to my passions; it seemed to open to me a wide and free view over all the
sensuous and moral world. But what particularly riveted me was the boundless
disinterestedness that beamed forth from every sentence," etc.?" Gotlie: Dichtung
und Wahrheit," p. 14.
Schleiermacher, a Lutheran clergyman, says, "Offer up with me a lock of hair
to the
holy but despised Spinoza! The mighty spirit of the universe penetrated
him; the Infinite was his beginning and end. He was filled with religion and
religious devotion ; and on this account he stands alone, elevated above a profane
world, without disciples, and even without citizenship."?" llede iiber die Religion,"
page 47.
t "Biog. Hist, of Philos.article Xenophanes. See Yol. i. p. 85.
Z 2
 338 ON CIVILIZATION AND INSANITY.

freedom from the ignes fatui of imagination, and from the

egoism of association and pre-conceived notions, before we can
safely apply so limited a power as the intuitional faculty of
man, for seizing on truth ! What fallacies may underlie assump-
tions which are supposed to be proof against all objections; and
liow easily, in a chain of argument professing to be constructed
on the principles of an infallible logic, may an unsound link
become interpolated, and vitiate the whole ! Again, may we
not safely say, that the aim of metaphysics has often been
extravagantly high ? The limits of the human faculties have
been forgotten, and the failure has been proportionably signal;
in no cases more so than in the successive pantheistic systems
of modern times, from Spinoza to Hegel.

\Y