SECTION III.. _examination of Spinoza._

Examination of Spinoza.

Spinoza cannot help admitting an intelligence acting in matter, and forming a whole with it.

"I must conclude," he says, "that the absolute being is neither thought nor extent, exclusively of each other; but that extent and thought are necessary attributes of the absolute being."

Herein he appears to differ from all the atheists of antiquity; from Ocellus, Lucanus, Heraclitus, Democritus, Leucippus, Strato, Epicurus, Pythagoras, Diagoras, Zeno of Elis, Anaximander, and so many others. He differs from them, above all, in his method, which he took entirely from the reading of Descartes, whose very style he has imitated.

The multitude of those who cry out against Spinoza, without ever having read him, will especially be astonished by his following declaration. He does not make it to dazzle mankind, nor to appease theologians, nor to obtain protectors, nor to disarm a party; he speaks as a philosopher, without naming himself, without advertising himself; and expresses himself in Latin, so as to be understood by a very small number. Here is his profession of faith.

Spinoza's Profession of Faith.

"If I also concluded that the idea of God, comprised in that of the infinity of the universe, excused me from obedience, love, and worship, I should make a still more pernicious use of my reason; for it is evident to me that the laws which I have received, not by the relation or intervention of other men, but immediately from Him, are those which the light of nature points out to me as the true guides of rational conduct. If I failed of obedience, in this particular, I should sin, not only against the principle of my being and the society of my kind, but also against myself, in depriving myself of the most solid advantage of my existence. This obedience does, it is true, bind me only to the duties of my state, and makes me look on all besides as frivolous practices, invented in superstition to serve the purposes of their inventors.

"With regard to the love of God, so far, I conceive, is this idea from tending to weaken it, that no other is more calculated to increase it; since, through it, I know that God is intimate with my being; that He gives me existence and my every property; but He gives me them liberally, without reproach, without interest, without subjecting me to anything but my own nature. It banishes fear, uneasiness, distrust, and all the effects of a vulgar or interested love. It informs me that this is a good which I cannot lose, and which I possess the more fully, as I know and love it."

Are these the words of the virtuous and tender Fénelon, or those of Spinoza? How is it that two men so opposed to each other, have, with such different notions of God, concurred in the idea of loving God for Himself?

It must be acknowledged that they went both to the same end--the one as a Christian, the other as a man who had the misfortune not to be so; the holy archbishop, as philosopher, convinced that God is distinct from nature; the other as a widely-erring disciple of Descartes, who imagined that God is all nature.

The former was orthodox, the latter was mistaken, I must assent; but both were honest, both estimable in their sincerity, as in their mild and simple manners; though there is no other point of resemblance between the imitator of the "Odyssey," and a dry Cartesian fenced round with arguments; between one of the most accomplished men of the court of Louis XIV. invested with what is called a high divinity, and a poor unjudaïzed Jew, living with an income of three hundred florins, in the most profound obscurity.

If there be any similitude between them, it is that Fénelon was accused before the Sanhedrim of the new law, and the other before a synagogue without power or without reason; but the one submitted, the other rebelled.

Foundation of Spinoza's Philosophy.

The great dialectician Bayle has refuted Spinoza. His system, therefore, is not demonstrated, like one of Euclid's propositions; for, if it were so, it could not be combated. It is, therefore, at least obscure.

I have always had some suspicion that Spinoza, with his universal substance, his modes and accidents, had some other meaning than that in which he is understood by Bayle; and consequently, that Bayle may be right, without having confounded Spinoza. And, in particular, I have always thought that often Spinoza did not understand himself, and that this is the principal reason why he has not been understood.

It seems to me that the ramparts of Spinozism might be beaten down on a side which Bayle has neglected. Spinoza thinks that there can exist but one substance; and it appears throughout his book that he builds his theory on the mistake of Descartes, that "nature is a plenum."

The theory of a plenum is as false as that of a void. It is now demonstrated that motion is as impossible in absolute fulness, as it is impossible that, in an equal balance, a weight of two pounds in one scale should sink a weight of two in the other.

Now, if every motion absolutely requires empty space, what becomes of Spinoza's one and only substance? How can the substance of a star, between which and us there is a void so immense, be precisely the substance of this earth, or the substance of myself, or the substance of a fly eaten by a spider?

Perhaps I mistake, but I never have been able to conceive how Spinoza, admitting an infinite substance of which thought and matter are the two modalities--admitting the substance which he calls God, and of which all that we see is mode or accident--could nevertheless reject final causes. If this infinite, universal being thinks, must he not have design? If he has design, must he not have a will?

Spinoza says, we are modes of that absolute, necessary, infinite being. I say to Spinoza, we will, and have design, we who are but modes; therefore, this infinite, necessary, absolute being cannot be deprived of them; therefore, he has will, design, power.

I am aware that various philosophers, and especially Lucretius, have denied final causes; I am also aware that Lucretius, though not very chaste, is a very great poet in his descriptions and in his morals; but in philosophy I own he appears to me to be very far behind a college porter or a parish beadle. To affirm that the eye is not made to see, nor the ear to hear, nor the stomach to digest--is not this the most enormous absurdity, the most revolting folly, that ever entered the human mind? Doubter as I am, this insanity seems to me evident, and I say so.

For my part, I see in nature, as in the arts, only final causes, and I believe that an apple tree is made to bear apples, as I believe that a watch is made to tell the hour.

I must here acquaint the readers that if Spinoza, in several passages of his works, makes a jest of final causes, he most expressly acknowledges them in the first part of his "Being, in General and in Particular."

Here he says, "Permit me for a few moments to dwell with admiration on the wonderful dispensation of nature, which, having enriched the constitution of man with all the resources necessary to prolong to a certain term the duration of his frail existence, and to animate his knowledge of himself by that of an infinity of distant objects, seems purposely to have neglected to give him the means of well knowing what he is obliged to make a more ordinary use of--the individuals of his own species. Yet, when duly considered, this appears less the effect of a refusal than of an extreme liberality; for, if there were any intelligent being that could penetrate another against his will, he would enjoy such an advantage as would of itself exclude him from society; whereas, in the present state of things, each individual enjoying himself in full independence communicates himself so much only as he finds convenient."

What shall I conclude from this? That Spinoza frequently contradicted himself; that he had not always clear ideas; that in the great wreck of systems, he clung sometimes to one plank, sometimes to another; that in this weakness he was like Malebranche, Arnauld, Bossuet, and Claude, who now and then contradicted themselves in their disputes; that he was like numberless metaphysicians and theologians? I shall conclude that I have additional reason for distrusting all my metaphysical notions; that I am a very feeble animal, treading on quicksands, which are continually giving way beneath me; and that there is perhaps nothing so foolish as to believe ourselves always in the right.

Baruch Spinoza, you are very confused; but are you as dangerous as you are said to be? I maintain that you are not; and my reason is, that you are confused, that you have written in bad Latin, and that there are not ten persons in Europe who read you from beginning to end, although you have been translated into French. Who is the dangerous author? He who is read by the idle at court and by the ladies.