The Age of Louis XIV

by Will Durant

  If you wish, I shall willingly take upon myself the task of showing you . . . wherein your teachings are behind ours, although I should wish that you . . . would offer to God a refutation of your own errors . . . in order that if your first writings have turned aside a thousand souls from the true knowledge of God, the recantation of them, reinforced by your own example, may lead back to him a thousand thousand with you as with another Augustine. I pray with all my heart that this grace may be yours. Farewell. 61

  The fascination of Catholicism captured also Albert Burgh, son of Spinoza’s friend Conraad Burgh, treasurer general of the United Provinces. Albert, like Steno, had become a convert while traveling in Italy. In September, 1675, he wrote to Spinoza not so much soliciting as challenging him to accept the Roman Catholic faith:

  How do you know that your philosophy is the best among all those which have ever been taught in the world, or are actually taught now, or ever will be taught in the future? . . . Have you examined all those philosophies, ancient as well as modern, which are taught here and in India and everywhere throughout the world? And even if you have duly examined them, how do you know that you have chosen the best? . . .

  If, however, you do not believe in Christ, you are more wretched than I can say. But the remedy is easy: return from your sins, and realize the fatal arrogance of your wretched and insane reasoning. . . . Will you, you wretched little man, vile worm of the earth,. . . dare, in your unspeakable blasphemy, to put yourself above the Incarnate, Infinite Wisdom? . . .

  From your principles you will not explain thoroughly even one of those things which are accomplished in witchcraft . . . , nor will you be able to explain any of the stupendous phenomena among those who are possessed by demons, of all of which I have myself seen various instances, and I have heard most certain evidence. 62

  Spinoza, in part, replied (December, 1675):

  What I could scarcely believe when it was related me by others, I at last understand from your letter; that is, that not only have you become a member of the Roman Church . . . but that you are a very keen champion of it, and have already learned to curse and rage petulantly against your opponents. I had not intended to reply to your letter, . . . but certain friends who with me had formed great hopes for you from your natural talent, earnestly prayed me not to fail in the duty of a friend, and to think rather of what you recently were than of what you now are. . . . I have been induced by these arguments to write to you these words, earnestly begging you to be kind enough to read them with a calm mind.

  I will not here recount the vices of priests and popes to turn you away from them, as the opponents of the Roman Church are wont to do. For they usually publish these things from ill-feeling, and . . . in order to annoy rather than instruct. Indeed, I will admit that there are found more men of great learning, and of an upright life, in the Roman than in any other Christian Church; for since there are more . . . members of this Church, there will also be found in it more men of every condition. . . . In every Church there are many very honest men who worship God with justice and charity . . . For justice and charity are the surest sign of the true Catholic faith . . . , and wherever these are found, there Christ really is, and where they are lacking, there Christ also is not. For by the spirit of Christ alone can we be led to the love of justice and charity. If you had been willing duly to ponder these facts within yourself, you would not have been lost, nor would you have caused bitter sorrow to your parents. . . .

  Your asked me, how I know that my philosophy is the best among all those which have ever been taught in the world, or are taught now, or will be taught in the future. This, indeed, I can ask you with far better right. For I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, but I know that I think [it] the true one. . . . But you who presume that you have at last found the best religion, or rather the best men, to whom you have given over your credulity, how do you know that they are the best among all those who have taught other religions, or are teaching them now, or will teach them in the future? Have you examined all those religions, both ancient and modern, which are taught here and in India, and everywhere throughout the world? And even if you have duly examined them, how do you know that you have chosen the best? . . .

  Do you regard it as arrogance and pride because I use my reason, and acquiesce in that true Word of God which is in the mind and can never be depraved or corrupted? Away with this deadly superstition; acknowledge the reason which God has given you, and cultivate it, if you would not be numbered among the brutes. . . . If you will . . . examine the histories of the Church (of which I see you are most ignorant), in order to see how false are many of the Pontifical traditions, and by what. . . arts the Roman Pontiff, six hundred years after the birth of Christ, obtained sovereignty over the Church, I doubt not that you will at last come to your senses. That this may be so, I wish you from my heart. Farewell. 63

  Burgh joined the Franciscan order, and died in a monastery in Rome.

  Most of Spinoza’s extant correspondence was with Oldenburg. We are surprised to find that much of it deals with science, that Spinoza carried on experiments in physics and chemistry, and that his letters are illustrated with many diagrams. This correspondence was interrupted in 1665. Oldenburg was arrested in 1667, and was held in the Tower of London on suspicion of dealing with a foreign power. On his release he turned to religion, and when he resumed correspondence with Spinoza (1675) he joined in the effort to win him back to some form of orthodox Christianity. He begged him to take the story of Christ’s resurrection not allegorically but literally. “The whole Christian religion and its truth,” he thought, “rests on this article of the Resurrection; and if it is taken away, the mission of Christ and his heavenly teaching collapse.” 64 He finally gave up Spinoza as a lost soul, and discontinued the correspondence (1677).

  All through the years from 1662 Spinoza had been working on the Ethics. As early as April, 1662, he wrote to Oldenburg that he was thinking of publishing it, but “I am naturally afraid lest the theologians . . . take offense, and with their usual hatred attack me, who utterly loathe quarrels.” 65 Oldenburg urged him to publish, “however much the theological quacks may growl,” 66 but Spinoza still hesitated. He allowed some friends to read parts of the manuscript, and probably profited from their comments, for he repeatedly revised the treatise. The clamor aroused by the Tractatus theologico-politicus justified his caution. The murder of the de Witts, and the suspicions directed against him after his visit to the French army, further troubled him; and it was not till 1675 that he made another move to put the Ethics into print. He reported the results to Oldenburg:

  At the time when I received your letter of 22 July, I was setting out for Amsterdam with the intention of getting printed the work about which I have written to you. While I was engaged in this matter a rumor was spread everywhere that a book of mine about God was in the press, and that in it I endeavored to show that there is no God. This rumor was believed by many. Therefore certain theologians . . . seized the opportunity of bringing complaints against me before the Prince and the magistrates. . . . When I heard all this . . . I decided to postpone the publication I was preparing. 67

  He put the manuscript away, and turned to writing a treatise on the state, Tractatus politicus, but death came upon him before he could finish it.

  On February 6, 1677, Georg Hermann Schuller, a young physician, wrote to Leibniz: “I fear that Mr. Benedictus Spinoza will soon leave us, as the consumption . . . seems to grow worse every day.” 68 Two weeks later, while the rest of the household were absent, the philosopher entered upon his final suffering. Schuller alone (not Meyer, as formerly supposed) was with him at the time. Spinoza left instructions that his modest belongings be sold to pay his debts, and that such manuscripts as he had not burned be published anonymously. He died on February 20, 1677, without any religious ministrations. 69 He was buried in a cemetery of the New Church of The Hague, near the tomb of Jan de Witt. The manuscripts—chiefly the Ethics, the Tractatus
politicus, and the treatise On the Improvement of the Intellect—were prepared for the press by Meyer, Schuller, and others, and were printed at Amsterdam toward the end of 1677.

  And so we come at last to the book into which Spinoza had poured his life and solitary soul.

  IV. GOD

  He called it Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata first because he thought of all philosophy as a preparation for right conduct and wise living, and second because, like Descartes, he envied the intellectual asceticism and logical sequence of geometry. He hoped to build, on the model of Euclid, a structure of reasoning in which every step would follow logically from preceding proofs, and these would at last be irrefutably derived from axioms universally received. He knew that this was an ideal, and he could hardly have supposed it proof against error, for he had by a similar method expounded the Cartesian philosophy, with which he did not agree. At least the geometrical scheme would make for clarity; it would check the confusion of reason by passion, and the concealment of sophistry with eloquence. He proposed to discuss the behavior of men, and even the nature of God, as calmly and objectively as if he were dealing with circles, triangles, and squares. His procedure was not faultless, but it led him to rear an edifice of reason imposing in its architectural grandeur and unity. The method is deductive, and would have been frowned upon by Francis Bacon; but it claimed to be in harmony with all experience.

  Spinoza began with definitions, mostly taken from medieval philosophy. The words he used have changed their meaning since his day, and now some of them obscure his thought. The third definition is fundamental: “I understand Substance to be that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; I mean that, the conception of which does not depend upon the conception of another thing from which it must be formed.” He does not mean substance in the modern sense of material constituents; our use of the word to mean essence or basic significance comes closer to his intent. If we take literally his Latin term substantia, it indicates that which stands under, underlies, supports. In his correspondence 70 he speaks of “substance or being”; i.e., he identifies substance with existence or reality. Hence he can say that “existence appertains to the nature of substance,” that in substance, essence and existence are one. 71 We may conclude that in Spinoza substance means the essential reality underlying all things.

  This reality is perceived by us in two forms: as extension or matter, and as thought or mind. These two are “attributes” of substance; not as qualities residing in it, but as the same reality perceived externally by our senses as matter, and internally by our consciousness as thought. Spinoza is a complete monist: these two aspects of reality—matter and thought—are not distinct and separate entities, they are two sides, the outside and the inside, of one reality; so are body and mind, so is physiological action and the corresponding mental state. Strictly speaking, Spinoza, so far from being a materialist, is an idealist: he defines an attribute as “that which the intellect apprehends of substance as constituting its essence”; 72 he admits (long before Berkeley was born) that we know reality, whether as matter or as thought, only through perception or idea. He believes that reality expresses itself in endless aspects through an “infinite number of attributes,” of which we imperfect organisms perceive only two. So far, then, substance, or reality, is that which appears to us as matter or mind. Substance and its attributes are one: reality is a union of matter and mind; and these are distinct only in our manner of perceiving substance. To put it not quite Spinozistically, matter is reality externally perceived; mind is reality internally perceived. If we could perceive all things in the same double way—externally and internally—as we perceive ourselves, we should, Spinoza believes, find that “all things are in some manner animate” (omnia quodammodo animata) 73; there is some form or degree of mind or life in everything. Substance is always active: matter is always in motion; mind is always perceiving or feeling or thinking or desiring or imagining or remembering, awake or in sleep. The world is in every part of it alive.

  God, in Spinoza, is identical with substance; He is the reality underlying and uniting matter and mind. God is not identical with matter (therefore Spinoza is not a materialist), but matter is an inherent and essential attribute or aspect of God (here one of Spinoza’s youthful heresies reappears). God is not identical with mind (therefore Spinoza is not a spiritualist), but mind is an inherent and essential attribute or aspect of God. God and substance are identical with nature (Deus sive substantia sive natura) and the totality of all being (therefore Spinoza is a pantheist).

  Nature has two aspects. As the power of motion in bodies, and as the power of generation, growth, and feeling in organisms, it is natura naturans —nature “creating” or giving birth. As the sum of all individual things, of all bodies, plants, animals, and men, it is natura naturata—generated or “created” nature. These individual entities in generated nature are called by Spinoza modi, modes—transient modifications and embodiments of substance, reality, matter-mind, God. They are part of substance, but in our perception we distinguish them as passing, fleeting forms of an eternal whole. This stone, this tree, this man, this planet, this star—all this marvelous kaleidoscope of appearing and dissolving individual forms—constitute that “temporal order” which, in On the Improvement of the Intellect, Spinoza contrasted with the “eternal order” that in a stricter sense is the underlying reality and God:

  By series of causes and real entities I do not understand . . . a series of individual mutable things, but the series of fixed and eternal things. For it would be impossible for human weakness to follow up the series of individual mutable things [every stone, every flower, every man] . . . Their existence has no connection with their essence [they may exist, but need not], or . . . is not an eternal truth . . . This [essence] is only to be sought from fixed and eternal things, and from the laws inscribed in those things as in their true codes, according to which all individual things are made and arranged; nay, these individual and mutable things depend so intimately and essentially (so to speak) on these fixed ones, that without them they can neither exist nor be conceived. 74

  So a single, specific triangle is a mode; it may but need not exist; but if it does it will have to obey the laws—and will have the powers—of the triangle in general. A specific man is a mode; he may or may not exist; but if he does he will share in the essence and power of matter-mind, and will have to obey the laws that govern the operations of bodies and thoughts. These powers and laws constitute the order of nature as natura naturans; they constitute, in theological terms, the will of God. The modes of matter in their totality are the body of God; the modes of mind in their totality, are the mind of God; substance or reality, in all its modes and attributes, is God; “whatever is, is in God.” 75

  Spinoza agrees with the Scholastic philosophers that in God essence and existence are one—His existence is involved in our conception of His essence, for he conceives God as all existence itself. He agrees with the Scholastics that God is causa sui, self-caused, for there is nothing outside him. He agrees with the Scholastics that we can know the existence of God, but not his real nature in all his attributes. He agrees with St. Thomas Aquinas that to apply the masculine pronouns to God is absurd but convenient.* He agrees with Maimonides that most of the qualities we ascribe to God are conceived by weak analogy with human qualities.

  God is described as the lawgiver or prince, and styled just, merciful, etc., merely in concession to popular understanding and the imperfection of popular knowledge 77 . . . God is free from passions, nor is he affected with any emotion [affectus] of joy or sorrow 78 . . . Those who confuse divine with human nature easily attribute human passions to God, especially if they do not know how passions are produced in the mind. 79

  God is not a person, for that means a particular and finite mind; but God is the total of all the mind (all the animation, sensitivity, and thought)—as well as of all the matter—in existence. 80 “The human mind is part of a certain infinite intellect”
81 (as in the Aristotelian-Alexandrian tradition). But “if intellect and will appertain to the eternal essence of God, something far else must be understood by these two attributes than what is commonly understood by men.” 82 “The actual intellect, . . . together with will, desire, love, etc., must be referred to the natura naturata, not to the natura naturans”; 83 that is, individual minds, with their desires, emotions, and volitions, are modes or modifications, contained in God as the totality of things, but not pertaining to Him as the law and life of the world. There is will in God, but only in the sense of the laws operating everywhere. His will is law.

  God is not a bearded patriarch sitting on a cloud and ruling the universe; He is “the indwelling, not the transient, cause of all things.” 84 There is no Creation, except in the sense that the infinite reality—matter-mind—is ever taking new individual forms or modes. “God is not in any one place, but is everywhere according to his essence.” 85 Indeed, the word cause is out of place here; God is the universal cause not in the sense of a cause preceding its effect, but only in the sense that the behavior of anything follows necessarily from its nature. God is the cause of all events in the same way that the nature of a triangle is the cause of its properties and behavior. God is “free” only in the sense that He is not subject to any external cause or force, and is determined only by His own essence or nature; but He “does not act from freedom of will”; 86 all His actions are determined by His essence—which is the same as to say that all events are determined by the inherent nature and properties of things. There is no design in nature in the sense that God desires some end; He has no desires or designs, except as the totality contains all the desires and designs of all modes and therefore of all organisms. In nature there are only effects following inevitably from antecedent causes and inherent properties. There are no miracles, for the will of God and the “fixed and unchanged order of nature” are one; 87 any break in “the chain of natural events” would be a self-contradiction.