History of Modern Philosophy. Richard Falckenberg
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"existence itself, in so far as it is conceived to follow necessarily from the mere definition of the eternal thing."
The infinite substance stands related to finite, individual things, not only as the independent to the dependent, as the cause to the caused, as the one to the many, and the whole to the parts, but also as the universal to the particular, the indeterminate to the determinate. From infinite being as pure affirmation (I. prop. 8, schol. I: absoluta affirmatio) everything which contains a limitation or negation, and this includes every particular determination, must be kept at a distance: determinatio negatio est (Epist. 50 and 41: a determination denotes nothing positive, but a deprivation, a lack of existence; relates not to the being but to the non-being of the thing). A determination states that which distinguishes one thing from another, hence what it is not, expresses a limitation of it. Consequently God, who is free from every negation and limitation, is to be conceived as the absolutely indeterminate. The results thus far reached run: Substantia una infinita—Deus sive natura—causa sui (aeterna) et rerum (immanens)—libera necessitas—non determinata. Or more briefly: Substance = God = nature. The equation of God and substance had been announced by Descartes, but not adhered to, while Bruno had approached the equation of God and nature—Spinoza decisively completes both and combines them.
A further remark may be added concerning the relation of God and the world. In calling the infinite at once the permanent essence of things and their producing cause, Spinoza raises a demand which it is not easy to fulfill, the demand to think the existence of things in substance as a following from substance, and their procession from God as a remaining in him. He refers us to mathematics: the things which make up the world are related to God as the properties of a geometrical figure to its concepts, as theorems to the axiom, as the deduction to the principle, which from eternity contains all that follows from it and retains this even while putting it forth. It cannot be doubted that such a view of causality contains error—it has been characterized as a confusion of ratio and causa, of logical ground and real cause—but it is just as certain that Spinoza committed it. He not only compares the dependence of the effect on its cause to the dependence of a derivative principle on that from which it is derived, but fully equates the two; he thinks that in logico-mathematical "consequences" he has grasped the essence of real "effects": for him the type of all legality, as also of real becoming, was the necessity which governs the sequence of mathematical truths, and which, on the one hand, is even and still, needing no special exertion of volitional energy, while, on the other, it is rigid and unyielding, exalted above all choice. Philosophy had sought the assistance of mathematics because of the clearness and certainty which distinguish the conclusions of the latter, and which she wished to obtain for her own. In excess of zeal she was not content with striving after this ideal of indefectible certitude, but, forgetting the diversity of the two fields, strove to imitate other qualities which are not transferable; instead of learning from mathematics she became subservient to it.
Substance does not affect us by its mere existence, but through an Attribute. By attribute is meant, according to the fourth definition, "that which the understanding perceives of substance as constituting the essence of it" (quod intellectus de substantia percipit, tanquam ejusdem essentiam constituens). The more reality a substance contains, the more attributes it has; consequently infinite substance possesses an infinite number, each of which gives expression to its essence, but of which two only fall within our knowledge. Among the innumerable divine attributes the human mind knows those only which it finds in itself, thought and extension. Although man beholds God only as thinking and extended substance, he yet has a clear and complete; an adequate—idea of God. Since each of the two attributes is conceived without the other, hence in itself (per se), they are distinct from each other realiter, and independent. God is absolutely infinite, the attributes only in their kind (in suo genere).
How can the indeterminate possess properties? Are the attributes merely ascribed to substance by the understanding, or do they possess reality apart from the knowing subject? This question has given rise to much debate. According to Hegel and Ed. Erdmann the attributes are something external to substance, something brought into it by the understanding, forms of knowledge present in the beholder alone; substance itself is neither extended nor cogitative, but merely appears to the understanding under these determinations, without which the latter would be unable to cognize it. This "formalistic" interpretation, which, relying on a passage in a letter to De Vries (Epist. 27), explains the attributes as mere modes of intellectual apprehension, numbers Kuno Fischer among its opponents. As the one party holds to the first half of the definition, the other places the emphasis on the second half ("that which the understanding perceives—as constituting the essence of substance"). The attributes are more than mere modes of representation—they are real properties, which substance possesses even apart from an observer, nay, in which it consists; in Spinoza, moreover, "must be conceived" is the equivalent of "to be." Although this latter "realistic" party undoubtedly has the advantage over the former, which reads into Spinoza a subjectivism foreign to his system, they ought not to forget that the difference in interpretation has for its basis a conflict among the motives which control Spinoza's thinking. The reference of the attributes to the understanding, given in the definition, is not without significance. It sprang from the wish not to mar the indeterminateness of the absolute by the opposition of the attributes, while, on the other hand, an equally pressing need for the conservation of the immanence of substance forbade a bold transfer of the attributes to the observer. The real opinion of Spinoza is neither so clear and free from contradictions, nor so one-sided, as that which his interpreters ascribe to him. Fischer's further interpretation of the attributes of God as his "powers" is tenable, so long as by causa and potentia we understand nothing more than the irresistible, but non-kinetic, force with which an original truth establishes or effects those which follow from it.
As the dualism of extension and thought is reduced from a substantial to an attributive distinction, so individual bodies and minds, motions and thoughts, are degraded a stage further. Individual things lack independence of every sort. The individual is, as a determinate finite thing, burdened with negation and limitation, for every determination includes a negation; that which is truly real in the individual is God. Finite things are modi of the infinite substance, mere states, variable states, of God. By themselves they are nothing, since out of God nothing exists. They possess existence only in so far as they are conceived in their connection with the infinite, that is, as transitory forms of the unchangeable substance. They are not in themselves, but in another, in God, and are conceived only in God. They are mere affections of the divine attributes, and must be considered as such.
To the two attributes correspond two classes of modes. The most important modifications of extension are rest and motion. Among the modes of thought are understanding and will. These belong in the sphere of determinate and transitory being and do not hold of the natura naturans: God is exalted above all modality, above will and understanding, as above motion and rest. We must not assert of the natura naturata (the world as the sum of all modes), as of the natura naturans, that its essence involves existence (I. prop. 24): we can conceive finite things as non-existent, as well as existent (Epist. 29). This constitutes their "contingency," which must by no means be interpreted as lawlessness. On the contrary, all that takes place in the world is most rigorously determined; every individual, finite, determinate thing and event is determined to its existence and action by another similarly finite and determinate thing or event, and this cause is, in turn, determined in its existence and action by a further finite mode, and so on to infinity (I. prop. 28). Because of this endlessness in the series there is no first or ultimate cause in the phenomenal world; all finite causes are second causes; the primary cause lies within the sphere of the infinite and is God himself. The modes are all subject to the constraint of an unbroken and endless nexus of efficient causes, which leaves room neither for chance, nor choice, nor ends. Nothing can be or happen otherwise than as it is and happens (I. prop. 29, 33).
The causal chain appears in two forms: a mode of extension has its producing ground in a second mode of extension; a mode of thought can be caused only by another mode of thought—each individual thing is determined by one of its own kind. The two series proceed side by side, without a member of either ever being able to interfere in