Pages from a Journal with Other Papers | Page 8

to free us from it by THINKING. The emphasis on this word is
important. He continually insists that a thing is not unreal because we
cannot imagine it. His own science, mathematics, affords him examples
of what MUST be, although we cannot picture it, and he believes that
true consolation lies in the region of that which cannot be imaged but
can be thought.
Setting out 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