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on his quest, he lays hold at the very beginning on the idea of Substance, which he afterwards identifies with the idea of God. "By Substance I understand that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; in other words, that, the conception of which does not need the conception of another thing from which it must be formed." {34a} "By God, I understand Being absolutely infinite, that is to say, substance consisting of infinite attributes, each one of which expresses eternal and infinite essence." {34b} "God, or substance consisting of infinite attributes, each one of which expresses eternal and infinite essence, necessarily exists." {34c} By the phrases "in itself" and "by itself," we are to understand that this conception cannot be explained in other terms. Substance must be posited, and there we must leave it. The demonstration of the last-quoted proposition, the 11th, is elusive, and I must pass it by, merely observing that the objection that no idea involves existence, and that consequently the idea of God does not involve it, is not a refutation of Spinoza, who might rejoin that it is impossible not to affirm existence of God as the Ethic defines him. Spinoza escapes one great theological difficulty. Directly we begin to reflect we are dissatisfied with a material God, and the nobler religions assert that God is a Spirit. But if He be a pure spirit whence comes the material universe? To Spinoza pure spirit and pure matter are mere artifices of the understanding. His God is the Substance with infinite attributes of which thought and extension are the two revealed to man, and he goes further, for he maintains that they are one and the same thing viewed in different ways, inside and outside of the same reality. The conception of God, strictly speaking, is not incomprehensible, but it is not CIRCUM-prehensible; if it were it could not be the true conception of Him.
Spinoza declares that "the human mind possesses an adequate knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God" {36}--not of God in His completeness, but it is adequate. The demonstration of this proposition is at first sight unsatisfactory, because we look for one which shall enable us to form an image of God like that which we can form of a triangle. But we cannot have "a knowledge of God as distinct as that which we have of common notions, because we cannot imagine God as we can bodies." "To your question," says Spinoza to Boxel, "whether I have as clear an idea of God as I have of a triangle? I answer, Yes. But if you ask me whether I have as clear an image of God as I have of a triangle I shall say, No; for we cannot imagine God, but we can in a measure understand Him. Here also, it is to be observed that I do not say that I altogether know God, but that I understand some of His attributes--not all, nor the greatest part, and it is clear that my ignorance of very many does not prevent my knowledge of certain others. When I learned the elements of Euclid, I very soon understood that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, and I clearly perceived this property of a triangle, although I was ignorant of many others." {37a}
"Individual things are nothing but affections or modes of God's attributes, expressing those attributes in a certain and determinate manner," {37b} and hence "the more we understand individual objects, the more we understand God." {37c}
The intellect of God in no way resembles the human intellect, for we cannot conceive Him as proposing an end and considering the means to attain it. "The intellect of God, in so far as it is conceived to constitute His essence, is in truth the cause of things, both of their essence and of their existence--a truth which seems to have been understood by those who have maintained that God's intellect, will, and power are one and the same thing." {37d}
The whole of God is FACT, and Spinoza denies any reserve in Him of something unexpressed. "The omnipotence of God has been actual from eternity, and in the same actuality will remain to eternity," {38} not of course in the sense that everything which exists has always existed as we now know it, or that nothing will exist hereafter which does not exist now, but that in God everything that has been, and will be, eternally IS.
The reader will perhaps ask, What has this theology to do with the "joy continuous and supreme"? We shall presently meet with some deductions which contribute to it, but it is not difficult to understand that Spinoza, to use his own word, might call the truths set forth in