Spinoza identified the three terms, God, Nature, Substance, by showing that the same predicates apply to each of them. But at different stages, they say> Spinoza started with a different term for his datum. In the first Dialogue, under the supposed influence of Bruno, he set out from the term Nature; this was the first phase. The Short Treatise was supposed to represent the second phase, when, under the influence of Descartes, he took his start from the term God (see chapter i.). Lastly, the Ethics was said to represent the third phase, when, having attained to complete inde pendence and maturity, Spinoza commenced with the term Substance. But this whole conception of the development of Spinoza's philosophy is untenable. The supposed in fluence of Bruno is problematic. The first Dialogue already shows a knowledge of Descartes. And Spinoza's attitude towards Cartesianism is fundamentally antagonistic both in the Short Treatise and in the Dialogues. No Car tesian could think of identifying God with Nature. So far as his writings show, Spinoza identified God, Nature, and Substance from the first, and seems to have attached no peculiar significance to any of them as a starting-point. It is true, of course, as Martineau and others have pointed out, that the three terms, "though identical in their application, differ somewhat in their meaning; under Nature we are expected to think of the continuous Source of birth; under God, of the universal cause of things; under Substance, of the permanent reality behind phenomena." But that is another matter.
82,11,15. " Understanding" — "Reason." Understanding is hardly the right word for what is meant here by the Dutch Verstand =? Intellectus. " Spirit " or " spiritual insight " might be better in some respects. It represents the highest form of knowledge, namely, knowledge by way of immediate intuition. Reason, on the other hand, repre sents the lower grade of knowledge by way of discursive COMMENTARY 185 inference. It will be observed that " Understanding " does not argue, but just delivers its " immediate apprehension " (aanschouw), and takes no further part in the debate. The distinction between Understanding and Reason is explained in Book II. chapters xxi., xxii., xxvi., and a knowledge of this distinction is evidently assumed in this Dialogue. In the opening chapters of Book II. the same distinction is drawn between Belief and Clear Knowledge. But the nomenclature in this Dialogue agrees with that in the later chapters.
32, 17. In omitting from the text the words given in the foot-note (p. 32) we have adopted a suggestion of Freuden- thal, which makes the meaning quite clear. All the words (except "namely") which we have relegated to the foot-note, also the words " we avoid this absurdity by stating that " (lines 17 /.), are written in the margin in A. All these mar ginal additions make the text unintelligible. Apparently the words given in the foot-note represent some reader's attempt to surmount the obscurity caused by the accidental omission of the words " we avoid this absurdity by stating that"; but when this omission was rectified the other additions were still retained because their origin and significance were unknown to the copyist.
32, 21 ff. " Desire" here means "evil desire" = concupi- scentia, not cupiditas. Freudenthal has pointed out that the expression usually employed in the Short Treatise for "Desire" is Begeerte, while here we have Begeerlijkheid. Moreover, Spinoza's conception of the function of "desire" (cupiditas) as such is very different from the sinister role which Begeerlijkheid plays in this Dialogue.
" Desire " voices here the dualistic view of Descartes that there are two kinds of substances (extended and thinking substances) which have nothing in common. Spinoza combats this view in favour of his own monistic theory.
i86 GOD, MAN, AND HIS WELL-BEING 32, 25. The insertion of "not" was suggested by Freuden- thal, who rightly pointed out that in Ethics, I., Definition ii., and in Letter IV., Spinoza says distinctly that "body is not limited by thought, nor thought by body." Cf. p. 237, Def. iii.
S3, 3 /. The words "but this...nothing" are quite inappropriate here. Freudenthal has suggested that they must be some reader's marginal comment.
33, 16 ff. This outburst of indignation against " Desire " is only intelligible in the light of Book II. chapter xiv. (p. 100), an acquaintance with which is assumed.
33, 24 ff. It is noteworthy that the later objections raised by " Desire" (lines 1-13) seem to be ignored by " Reason." But they are considered in chapter ii. (pp. 25 ff.). Possibly the lines 1-13 were not originally in the Dialogue. A reader may have added in the margin these objections which he copied from chapter ii., and an uncritical copyist may have transfered the marginal note into the text.
33, 26 ff. The relation of substance to its attributes is here described as a causal relationship; the attributes are supported by substance; they depend on it not logically only, but causally.
33, 29 /. The attributes are not actually called "modes" here; their relation to substance is simply [compared (for argument's sake) with that of modes to attributes.
34, 12. A "second notion" (notio secunda) is contrasted with a " first notion " (notio prima). The latter represents what things really are, while the former is some mode of conceiving things. The same antithesis was also expressed by another pair of scholastic terms, namely, intentio prima and intentio secunda. What the mind "intends" or appre hends in the first instance is some concrete reality (say, a particular tree), and this constitutes the " first intention "; but as the result of reflecting on and comparing such " first intentions or notions " (as, e.g., when we compare various trees, and mentally classify them into genera and species, COMMENTARY 187 COMMENTARY 187 according to their resemblances and differences) we obtain " second notions or intentions/' which do not directly represent real things, but are so many ways of thinking about them. Of course, even " second notions " are not altogether "mere ideas," for they are grounded in the real character of things.
34, 16. " The thinking power." The attribute Thought is also described by Spinoza as a "power" in Letter XXXI I. (statuo dari in Natura potentiam infinitam cogitandi) and in the Ethics, II. i. SchoL, and II. xxi. Schol. On p. 120 (line 4) the attribute Extension is similarly described as a "power." The attributes thus seem to be conceived here as so many " lines of force " in which God manifests or reveals Himself.
SECOND DIALOGUE SECOND DIALOGUE 36. In Dr. W. Meyer's modern Dutch version of the Short Treatise the second Dialogue is appended to the next chapter. His reason will be considered in the first note to that chapter. It is noteworthy that the concluding words of chapter ii. (31, 1 6) do not refer to a second Dialogue — they only refer to a Dialogue (one, not two). This, however, may only mean that the insertion of the second Dialogue in this place was an afterthought. But it can hardly be separated from the first Dialogue. It is the reference to the distinction between immanent and transeunt causality at the end of the first Dialogue that furnishes the theme of the second; and the concluding remarks of the second seem to refer deliberately to the opening remarks of the first.
36, 3. " Theophilus." This name (in the Italiam forms Teofilo and Filoteo) occurs also in Bruno's Dialogues De la Causa, &c.; and in Bruno's Dialogues, as in this, the author's own views are put into the mouth of '' Theophilus." This may be a mere coincidence, as the name would naturally occur to a writer whose moral ideal was " the IOVQ of GocL" 1 88 GOD, MAN, AND HIS WELL-BEING 36, 9-20. See 42, 21-24. An acquaintance with this passage is clearly assumed.
36, 9. " A remote cause " is contrasted with a proximate cause. The latter produces its effect immediately, without the intervention of anything else, while the former produces its (remote) effect by means of an intervening proximate cause or a chain of proximate causes. The terms proximate and remote are relative to a given effect; every cause might be both proximate and remote, but not in relation to the same effect. A remote cause was supposed to be separated from, not in contact with, its effect. Hence the difficulty raised in the text as to how an immanent cause could also be a remote cause.
36, 12-16. The text is corrupt. B seems to have substi tuted "prior" for "remote" on account of the difficulties presented by the text. The words which we have added in square brackets are intended to suggest the real meaning of the original text, in accordance with 42, 4 ff., and Ethics, I. xxviii. Schol.
39, Sff. In his CogitataMetaphysica,ll.x.,Spmozama'mta'ms that nothing which has been created by God can be eternal.
39, igff. Cf. Clauberg's Logica Vetus et Nova, I. vi. § 62. " Sol est causa a qua conclave illuminatur; sed remotio val- varum est CAUSA SINE QUA NON fit illuminatio."
40, 3-7. How this union with God is to be brought about has already been indicated in the beginning of the first Dialogue (32, 4^.), where it is stated that the perfection of Love depends on that of the Understanding. Indeed the sentence now under consideration may be regarded as the COMMENTARY 189 final reply to the question raised there. This conception of the Understanding (or Intellect) as the supreme bond of union between Man and God is essentially Aristotelian, and was adopted by the leading Jewish philosophers of the Middle Ages, notably by Maimonides (see the writer's Aristotle in Medieval Jewish Thought). In his Guide (III. li.) Maimonides says expressly that " Man's love of God is identical with his knowledge of Him"; he also uses the expression " intellectual worship of God," which is so like Spinoza's " intellectual love of God."
CHAPTER III 41. The way in which this chapter is copied in codex A is apt to rouse suspicion. The second Dialogue ends near the bottom of the page, leaving just about as much space as is left at the bottom of most pages in that manuscript.
The last line of the Dialogue contains the last two words only. Then in the middle of the same line we have "Cap. III./' and four lines of very small writing follow to the very bottom of the page. The next page shows the same small handwriting, which, however, gets larger towards the end of that page, where the usual space is left. On the following page there are only five lines of big scrawl, more than half the page being left blank. The concluding five lines of chapter iii. are written on the next page, and are immediately followed, on the same page, by " Cap. IV." The numeral IV. has also been tampered with, so have the numbers at the heads of several subsequent chapters. And since chapter iii. treats of divine causality generally, while the second Dialogue is devoted more particularly to God's immanent causality, Dr. W. Meyer holds that the second Dialogue was misplaced by the copyist, and should really follow chapter iii. But with due deference to Dr. Meyer, it seems doubtful whether the facts really necessitate this N GOD, MAN, AND HIS WELL-BEING construction. It seems obvious that chapter iii. was copied into A after chapter iv. (possibly also some of the rest of the Treatise) had already been copied. But the copyist had evidently left a space for chapter iii., though he miscalculated the amount of space required. It is known that Spinoza's manuscripts circulated among his friends in parts, just as they were completed. Most likely the copyist of A had the MS. of chapter iv. before he had that of chapter iii., so he left some blank pages for the latter and copied it when he got it afterwards. Chapter iii. is in the same hand writing as the rest of the Treatise in A. And as regards the alterations in the numerals it appears certain to me that the Arabic numerals have simply been changed into Roman ones — the change being probably made by the fastidious Monnikhoff. Lastly, as regards the contents of chapter iii. and the second Dialogue, Spinoza is not at all particular in this Treatise about repeating himself, and the second Dialogue, as already shown, has a point of contact with the first. If we had very scrupulous regard to connection of content several of the chapters of the Treatise would have to be transposed, as, indeed, Dr. Meyer himself has pointed out.
41, 12 ff. The elaborate classification of causes to which Spinoza refers in this chapter is to be found in Franco Burgersdijck's Institutionum Logicarum Libri Duo. Burgers- dijck, as already stated, was Professor of Philosophy at Leyden in the early decades of the seventeenth century, and his book on logic, to judge by the numerous editions still extant, must have been a most popular manual. Several editions of the book were edited by Burgersdijck's successor, Heereboord, to whom Spinoza refers in his Meta physical Thoughts, II. xii. It was this reference to Heere boord that Trendelenburg used as a clue to unravel this complicated and somewhat obscure classification of causes.
Though complex, the classification was really not so fanciful as may first appear. Substitute " conditions " for COMMENTARY 191 " causes," and the classification still contains much that is true and valuable. If by " cause " we mean " the totality of conditions/' then there is no room for any such elaborate classification of causes. But for all practical purposes we are satisfied to apply the term " cause " to something very far short of "the totality of conditions/' and Mill has shown how arbitrary popular usage is in singling out now this, now that condition as " the cause/' when, as a matter of fact, all the conditions are equally necessary, if not equally striking or interesting on different occasions of the same kind of occurrence. It was according to this wider and looser use of the term that " causes " were classified in such an elaborate way. The accompanying table (see next page) is taken from Burgersdijck's Logic (p. 282 of the London edition of 1651).
In the accompanying table we see the then usual Aristo telian division of Causes into Material, Formal, Efficient, and Final, each of these being again subdivided in various ways. It would take up too much space to deal with all of them here. We are only concerned with the eightfold division of Efficient causes, which Spinoza has in view in the present chapter. It will be observed that Spinoza enumerates them in precisely the same order as they are given in the following table from Burgersdijck's Logic. The following definitions are also taken from the same book.
41, 15. An emanative cause is one which produces its effect by its sheer existence, while an active (or acting) cause is one which produces its effect through the medium of some activity which it exercises. Fire, for instance, is the emanative cause of its own heat, but an active cause of the heat which it imparts to other things. Spinoza practically does away with this distinction in the case of God. " Ema native " here has nothing to do with the " Emanation " theory of Neoplatonism or Mysticism. Spinoza did not use the expression in the Ethics, possibly in order to avoid this suggestion of " emanation."
192 GOD, MAN, AND HIS WELL-BEING BURGERSDIJCK'S CLASSIFICATION OF CAUSES / Mater ia; eaque vel I.
Materialis^ hnmaterialis.
Forma; II.
' Substantiate, Accidentalis.
eaque vel III. IV.
Naturalis, Artificialis.
Principalis, Disponens.
' Activa, Emanativa.
1 ' Itnmanens, Transiens.
III..
Lib era, Necessaria.
1 ' Per se, Per accidens.
Efficiens; eaque vel *\ VI.
Principalis, (Procatarctica, k Minus principalisl Proegumena, \Instrumentum. Prima, Secunda.
VII.
Universalis, Particulars.
\ VIII.
Proxima, Reniota.
\ isque vel COMMENTARY 193 41, 19. The distinction between an immanent and a tran- seunt cause has already been explained in the note to 30, 3.
41, 22. A free cause (according to Burgersdijck) is one which acts from deliberate choice; a natural (or necessary) cause is one which acts from necessity (causa libera est, qua consulto — id est, ex judicio rationis — causat. Necessaria, qua non consulto, sed necessitate naturce causat). This distinction, however, did not commend itself to Spinoza. He employed these antithetic terms somewhat differently. By a free cause (as will be seen in the next chapter) he meant one which acts without any external compulsion, or externally imposed necessity. In this sense a cause might be free although acting from necessity, namely, when the necessity was in herent in its own character, and not due to outside forces.
42, i. A cause through himself, or causa per se, is one whose effects are due to his or its own natural character; a cause per accidens is one which produces a certain effect not as the result of its own character, but owing to some unusual circumstances. Heereboord gives the following illustration. When an animal gives birth to one of its own kind it is a causa per se, but when it gives birth to a monstrosity then it is causa per accidens. Burgersdijck remarks, with quiet humour, Ad causam per accidens revocatur fortuna et casus.
42, 4-14. A principal cause is one which produces an effect by virtue of its own powers alone, without the aid of anything else. A subsidiary cause (causa minus principalis) is merely one condition or factor which is necessary but not adequate to produce a certain effect. Three kinds of subsidiary causes were recognised. Spinoza refers to them all, but somewhat obscurely. In lines 7-9 he illustrates not the subsidiary cause in general, but one special form of it, namely, the instrumental cause (instrumentum). Almost any means employed in the production of an effect was called an instrumental cause. A second species of subsidiary cause is the provoking or inciting cause (causa procatarctica vel causa 194 GOD, MAN, AND HIS WELL-BEING incipiens aut inchoans) — that is, any external thing or condi tion which incites the principal cause to action. The third, and last, kind of subsidiary cause is the predisposing cause (causa proegumena), or some internal condition which predisposes a thing towards a certain kind of action or process. For instance, if a man with a weak chest becomes very ill in consequence of a cold caught while in a draughty place, then the draught would be described as the provoking (or inciting} cause, while hisjweak chest or feeble constitution would be the predisposing cause. (Bain made a somewhat similar distinction, though of wider applicability, when he analysed a cause into a "moving power" and a "colloca tion of circumstances.")
Spinoza's departure from Burgersdijck's division of the causa minus principalis is, I think, explicable by the fluctuat ing views of the text-books on this point. Clauberg (a copy of whose Logica Vetus et Nova Spinoza is known to have possessed) divided the efficient causes into causa principalis and causa instrumental. No doubt this is the division which Spinoza had in view in lines 4-9. On the other hand, Keckermann (a copy of whose Sy sterna Logicce was also among Spinoza's books) divided as follows: [ principalis. r [ principalis. r Causa efficiens \ [ tmpulstva, \ minus principals. 1 [ instrumentalis.
This also gives the four subdivisions practically in the same order as Spinoza refers to them.
42, 15. A first cause is one which is not dependent on (or not the effect of) any other cause; a causa secunda is dependent on a first cause.
42, 17. A universal cause was contrasted with a particular one as follows. The latter can only produce one kind of effect; the former can produce different kinds of effects by co-operating with various other causes. God, according COMMENTARY 195 to Spinoza, may be described as a universal cause in so far as He is not restricted to any one kind of effect, but not in the sense that He can co-operate with causes outside Himself.
42, 21. For the distinction between a proximate and a remote cause see the note to 36, 9.
CHAPTER IV 43. The theme of this chapter is also discussed by Spinoza in the Ethics, I. xvi. xvii. xxxiii., and in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, vi.
43, 23 ff. Compare the following passage from the Cogitata Metaphysica (I. iii.): " Since nothing exists except by divine power alone, it is easy to see that those things which come into existence do so by virtue of the decree and will of God. But since there is neither inconstancy nor change in God, He must have decreed from eternity that He would produce those things which He produces now; and as in order that a thing may exist nothing more is required than God's decree that it should exist, it follows that all created things have been under an eternal necessity to be in existence. Nor can we say that they are contingent because God could have decreed otherwise; for, since in eternity there is no when, or before, or after, or any other change of time, it follows that God did not exist before those things were decreed, to be able at all to decree otherwise." On the other hand, in Cogit. Metaph. II. vii. Spinoza says that "if God willed it so, created things would have a different essence."
44, 19. The usual scholastic definition of Freedom. Burgersdijck (Inst. Log. cap. xvii.) says: Causa libera potest agere quicquid, quantum, et quando lubet. Heereboord (Coll. Eth. p. 114 — quoted by Sigwart) says distinctly that most philosophers denned free-will as facultas qua positis omnibus ad agendum requisitis potest agere et non agere, aut ita agere unum, ut contrarium agere possit. Cf. Descartes, Med. IV.
196 GOD, MAN, AND HIS WELL-BEING 46, 8. " This " = that God could not have made things different from what they are (see p. 45, 19 ff.).
46, 12-15. This sentence, and also the last in the same paragraph, appear to be quite irrelevant. B omits them. Most probably they are only the marginal comments of some reader, and not a part of the original text.
CHAPTER V 47. Joel has drawn attention to similar views on Provi dence in the writings of Hasdai Crescas (The Light of the Lord, II. ii. i); also to the fact that Crescas, while treating of Providence, employs the same illustration which Spinoza gives on p. 42, line 8.
47, 4-6. This striving is described, in the Tractatus Theo- logico-Politicus (cap. xvi.), as the highest law of Nature (Lex summa Naturce est, ut unaqucequc res in suo statu, quantum in se est, conetur perseverare), and (ibid. cap. vi.) Providence is identified with the ordo Nature?. For Spinoza's (later) explanation of this striving, see Ethics, III. iv. vi. vii.
CHAPTER VI 48. See Cogitata Metaphysica, I. iii., and Ethica, I. xxxiii. 48, 3. " Attribute" is here used in the wider sense = proprietas.
48, 10. " Accidental " = that which is neither necessary nor impossible. In the passages referred to above, Spinoza distinguishes between the " contingent" and the " possible," which may be regarded as the two species of the "acci dental." The main point is that according to him nothing really is "accidental," only some things are regarded as accidental on account of our ignorance of the causes or their operation.
48, 24^. A modal proposition (e.g., "S is an accidental cause ") was said to be in sensu diviso or in sensu composito according as the qualifying expression ("accidental") COMiMENTARY referred to the copula ("is") or to one of the terms ("S" or "cause"). See, e.g., Duns Scotus, Qu. super Anal. pr. I. 25.
49, 8-1 1. The meaning is clear, though awkwardly ex pressed. " If the cause were no more compelled to produce this or that than not to produce it, then..."
49, 27. The original wording in A seems to have been " that God is the only cause, the cause of all things." But this was subsequently altered by the copyist, arbitrarily, it would seem, as the changes are anything but an improvement.
49, 35 ff. This objection, as Joel has pointed out, was mentioned and dealt with by Maimonides and Crescas. Maimonides (Guide, III. xvi.) ascribed the objection to Alexander Aphrodisiensis (circa 200), the author of a treatise On Providence.
50, i^ff. Cf. Maimonides (Guide, III. xviii.): "It is an established fact that species have no existence except in our own minds. Species and other classes are merely ideas formed in our minds, while everything in real existence is an individual object, or an aggregate of individual objects...It is wrong to say that divine providence extends only to the species, and not to individual beings, as some of the philosophers teach. For only individual beings have real existence."
50, 21-27. Compare CogitataMetaphysica (II. vii.): "What, indeed, is more absurd than to exclude from God's know ledge individual things, which could not exist for a moment without the concurrence of God? And then they maintain that God is ignorant of actually existing things, while they ascribe to God a knowledge of universals, which do not exist and have no essence apart from that of the individual things. We, on the contrary, attribute to God the know ledge of individual things, and not of universals, except in so far as He knows human minds."
51, 9 ff. The same illustration occurs in Descartes, Med. VI.
198 GOD, MAN, AND HIS WELL-BEING CHAPTER VII 52. Spinoza seems to refer to this chapter in his Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione (Van Vloten and Land's edition, 53, 1-6. This view is found, for instance, in Heereboord (Disput. ex Philosophia, vol. i. p. 147, quoted by Sigwart).
53, 9-11. Owing partly to the desire to maintain the absolute Unity of God (with which a multiplicity of attri butes was thought to be inconsistent), and partly from the anxiety to avoid comparing God with man, there arose in Arabic and Jewish medieval philosophy a tendency to explain away the attributes usually ascribed to God (espe cially in the Bible and the Koran). These attributes were accordingly treated as having solely a negative import, that is, as predicating what God is not rather than what He is, or as denying some imperfection rather than affirming any (human or quasi-human) characteristic of Him. (Mai- monides, e.g., sums up his inquiry into God's attributes as follows: " It has thus been shown that every attribute predicated of God either denotes the quality of an action, or — when this attribute is intended to convey some idea of the Divine Being Himself, and not of His actions — the negation of the opposite." Thus " we use One in reference to God to express that there is nothing similar to Him, but we do not mean to say that an attribute Unity is added to His essence." — Guide, I. Ivii. Iviii.) A similar tendency appeared also in Christian Scholasticism. This kind of " negative theology" seems to have been started first by Philo Judasus, of Alexandria, the founder of Neoplatonism.
53, 13 /. Spinoza is referring to Thomas Aquinas. See 53, i()ff. Compare 30, 31 ff. and the notes thereto.
54, $ff. Cf. Cogitata Metaphysica, I. vi., where Spinoza says that "good" and "evil" only indicate a certain rela- COMMENTARY tion of one thing to another. "A thing considered by itself is called neither good nor bad; it is so only in relation to another thing, according as it helps it to obtain what it requires, or not." Spinoza, however, allows the application of " supremely good" to God on the ground that all things only exist through Him.
54, 20 ff. Cf. Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione (Van Vloten and Land, ed. 1895, vol. i. pp. 28 ff. — White and Stirling's translation, pp. 51 ff.).
55, 15 /. Adopting the emendation suggested by Sigwart, we should read here: " Since, as attributes of a self-sub sisting being, they exist through themselves, they also become known through themselves " — nam quia ut attributa entis per se existentis [per se~\ existunt, etiam per se concipi- untur. This makes the meaning clearer.
55, 20 /. Although the term genus is here applied to attri bute (because the attribute here takes the place of the genus in the old rule of definition) it must not be forgotten that the attribute, according to Spinoza, is not generic, but singular.
In the Treatise on the Improvement of the Understanding Spinoza says that the definition of a created thing " should include the proximate cause," which he there identifies with the infinite modes Motion and Understanding, ac cording as the finite mode to be explained is a mode of Extension or of Thought (vol. i. p. 31 in ed. 1895).
55, 26. The reference is to the Answers to the first, second, and third objections (appended to Descartes' Meditations), where Descartes maintains, against Sassendi, that, although we cannot have a completely adequate knowledge of God, we can have a clear and distinct knowledge of some of His attributes.
CHAPTER VIII 56. The distinction between Natura naturans and Natura naturata may be traced back to Aristotle's distinction between 200 GOD, MAN, AND HIS WELL-BEING