When mind is assigned this place in regard to the transcendent reality, space can only be the abstract multiplicity, absolutely inconsistent with any unity, which has been shown to be unintelligible and absurd; and this notwithstanding any effort philosophy may make to conceive it as subjective and as unity. On the other hand, it cannot be said that there has ever been an idealism really opposed to such naturalism. We may see in Spinoza a true and distinctive negation of the multiplicity which is spatiality. It is the basis of his system, as it was generally of the neo- Platonic pantheism with which Spinoza's speculation is akin, as seen in his reconstitution of Stoicism and Eleaticism. But that negation does not annul the multiplicity of nature in the unity of mind, but rather in an immediate natural unity. It may be regarded as an anomaly of naturalism, and it becomes in fact a ix SPINOZA AND LEIBNIZ 133 kind of mysticism, which is the negation of nature as such, and a retracting of the mind within itself, by cancelling all the determinations of its object and so blocking the way of knowing it as a positive object, or as a true and proper natural object.
No abstract idealism has ever been absolute, nor is such an idealism possible, because from the absolute §21. Criticism standpoint it would be aware of its own of the monad- abstractness. Yet we are not without a ism of Leibmz. reiative abstract idealism, relative because we find it in the end, as I shall show, turning into a pure naturalism. This is the philosophy of Leibniz, who held that mind cannot be conceived except as a pure unity cut off from all multiplicity. The mona^ as Leibniz called it, is absolutely simple, a substance which exists in so far as it is separate from all relation with the manifold. The monadism of Leibniz is the most significant and conspicuous instance of the abstract idealism which I have called relative. It is a real compromise between the reason ing of the mind and the plain and ingenuous natural istic intuition of reality. Leibniz is idealist and monist in his conception of the quality of substance, because for him there is no other substance but mind, but he is pluralist in his mode of conceiving the being of substance according to the most rigidly naturalistic conception, that of the atomists. Atomist or mechan ist he is not, inasmuch as he denies that the phenomena spring out of inter-atomic actions, or, in his own language, out of actions exercised by one monad on the others. All that happens resolves itself for him into the internal life of each monad which is appetition and perception, or rather mind and nothing other than mind. But this mind is both self-sufficient and 134 SPACE AND TIME CH.
insufficient. It is self-sufficient since the monad has no windows and receives nothing from without; but it is insufficient in so far as the monad originally mirrors the universe in itself, and therefore all the other monads as others, are originally and substantially others. They are not the monad yet they condition it, through the monad of monads, God, who presides over all and is himself the condition of each. So that each monad is, in so far as all the others are, which others it cannot make exist. And therefore the monad is not self- sufficient. Moreover, as free, it is nothing, because appetition is its essential being and it develops in so far as it acquires ever clearer and distincter perception, not of itself, but of all the others, the consciousness of which can never be self-consciousness in it, and there fore true and proper realization of the monad in its autonomy, because the others are outside it. The •monad therefore, I repeat, is self-sufficient and in sufficient. In so far as it is self-sufficient it is mind, in so far as it is insufficient it is no longer mind but changed into the plurality of its objects, natural- istically. The monad, in fact, as true monad, as the unity which to be mind it must be, cannot be a monad among the monads. Together with the others the monad ends by being multiplicity (a multiplicity which in its turn postulates a unity, which it interprets by making it one sole multiplicity) and the multi plicity will be the true unity. The Leibnizian monad is only a monad relatively to a subjective point of view. And even this, according to Leibniz, there is power to transcend, by rising to the absolute or divine point of view which recognizes the infinite multiplicity of the monads, more absolutely unrelated than any atomist had ever had the courage to conix DUALISM OF SOUL AND BODY 135 ceive his material elements. Its absolute irrelativity makes the monadology, in this respect, a more naturalistic conception even than that of materialistic atomism.
There is an equal abstractness in the idealism of the dualists, an idealism also relative and leading § 22. Criticism fatally towards naturalism. The dualism of dualism. of SOul and body, or of spirit (a divine transcendent personality) and nature (man being included in nature, through what he is naturally], is idealistic so long as it is a question of conceiving mind in itself, without putting it in relation with its opposite; but no sooner does it seek to integrate the concept in the whole than the rights of mind are suppressed and nature alone becomes compact, uni form and infinite. The soul, which is not body, simply is, and by its pure being excludes from itself all spatial multiplicity, and therefore is free. Yet the soul which is not body is with the body; and with the body it makes two. But as the body is a great multitude of parts, the soul, situated in the heart or in the brain or in a particular point of the brain such as the pineal gland (to which even so great a philosopher as Descartes assigned it), is added to the number of all the parts, together composing the multiplicity which is explicitly or implicitly spatial. So there may be as many souls as there are bodies; and they may form companies as souls, although by means of bodies. They will constitute a spatial manifold because they must be distributed on the face of the earth with intervals between them, and having relations with the various natural and local conditions which will be mirrored in the diverse natures of the souls themselves. So in a thousand ways naturalism 136 SPACE AND TIME CH.K invades the spirituality of the soul conceived in this dualistic way.
Analogous considerations can be set forth in regard to the dualism of God and nature, the conjoining of which is impossible without assimilating one term to the other. In every case the error is not in the duality but always in the abstractness of the duality. In the concrete the duality rules only on the basis of the unity.
CHAPTER X IMMORTALITY IF mind is the principle of space and has that principle in itself, there is not a space which contains the mind § i. Mind and an^ therefore it is impossible to attribute the boundless- to mind any of those limits by which every of space. Spatiai reality is circumscribed. And in this we may see both the ground of the fmiteness of space and the profound meaning of the infinity of mind.
Space is indefinite, not infinite. It has no assign able limits, yet it is not the negation of every limit, for it cannot be conceived otherwise than limited. Space as an object of the mind is a datum: it represents that positive multiplicity which the mind itself posits. It is not an undefined or indefinite object because to be an object of the mind really means that it is some thing the mind has defined. Space is antithesis as such, as we have already said, and the antithesis stands confronted by the thesis, not as something which may be, but as a definite position. This positive and effectual determinateness of space (and of every thing which is posited before us as spatial) implies the limit of space, implies that it is precisely a certain space. But, on the other hand, as it is posited by the mind, and only subsists as the mind posits it, it has no independent being of its own but a being which 138 IMMORTALITY CH.
138 IMMORTALITY CH.
depends on a continuous and inexhaustible spiritual activity. Spiritual activity, therefore, posits space not by positing it finally once for all but by continuing in the actuality of positing it. Or rather in the very act which posits space, space is never posited, but always is to be posited. And the limits of space, like its own being, are not something fixed but a boundary which is mobile, always living and present.
The conclusion is that space exists only in so far as there is and at the same time as there is not a § 2. The limit spatial limit. Or, we might even say, of space. space exists in so far as the limit which determines spatiality is displaceable to infinity. The limit can never be lacking and yet it can never be fixed; because, it does not belong to an object which exists for itself and is originally independent like an absolute substance. It is the attribute of an object produced by the immanent act of a subject, whose reality consists in the production and therefore in the limitation of its own object.
Space accordingly is finite without being a fixed finite thing. This negativity of every definite limit, § 3. The in- with the consequent impossibility of assign- finityofthe ing to it an absolute limit, constitutes its mm ast e indefinitcness. This indefiniteness of space negativity or _ \ the spatial is a consequence of the infinity of the mind. limit- For the negativity of the spatial limit is the intrinsic character of the limit, not in so far as it is posited by an act which completes it, but in so far as it comes to be posited by the act in fieri; by the act, that is, which is always act, a pure act, and which here is the act of limitation. If we could free the limit from the spiritual act, it would rest fixed, but it is INFINITE AND INDEFINITE 139 not fixed, and is displaced because limit means limita tion and is conceivable only through its immanence in the mind's act. This act does not fix the limit once for all, and then cease to act. The unfailing absolute ness of the act implies the immanence of the limita tion, and thence the negativity of the limit, the ever positing and at the same time the never being posited of the limit.
It follows that space how vast soever it be is always within the mind, the mind, that is, is superior to it, can look beyond its limits towards remoter limits; and only in so far as every space is contained within a greater space, is the contained space determinate, that is, a representable space. Now infinity is pre cisely this immanent negation of every spatial limit, which whilst subjecting every spatial reality to limits, overrules or transcends these limits by spiritual activity. Not that there is a space without limit, but that there is no limit which is not negated. It is the mind which always negates and never recognizes the limit, which, in positing it, removes it and thus manifests its own absolute infinity. This absolute infinity, on the other hand, does not imply abstention from all limitation (because limitation, which is its own multiplication in spatiality, is its very life), but only the transcending of every limit and therefore the impossibility of being stopped at any assignable limit however remote. The infinite, in short, is the exclusion of every limit; an exclusion which coincides with the immanent assigning of the limit to the object, in its im mediate positivity. Leopardi in his ode L' Infinite has very finely expressed that dizziness which comes over the mind when it is withdrawn from all limits not only of the infinite but even of the indefinite. It leads, he 1 40 IMMORTALITY shows us, not to the exaltation but to the annihilation of the mind.
Mirando interminati Spazi di la da quella, e sovrumani Silenzi, e profondissima quiete lo nel pensier mi fingo; ove per poco II cor non si spaura.
Cosi tra questa Immensita s' annega il pensier mio; E il naufragar m' e dolce in questo mare.
(Contemplating the boundless spaces beyond, and superhuman silences and profoundest rest, there in thought I bring myself where the heart has so little to fear.
So midst this immensity my thought itself is drowned and even shipwreck is sweet to me in this sea.)
' Thought is drowned," because the one retires from the many (which is never immeasurable but always bounded) and is thereby withdrawn from the essential condition of its own being which is to be actualized as the one in the many.
Infinite in regard to space, the mind is also infinite in regard to time. How can it be otherwise if time Th is a kind of spatiality? But as spatial mind's infinity infinity is the infinity of what is opposed in regard to to space, so temporal infinity is the infinity of what being opposed to temporal reality is withdrawn from time. The want of an exact doctrine of time has rendered impossible in the past a rational doctrine of the infinity of mind in regard to time.
The problem of the immortality of the soul is not an invention of philosophers; and the question of the § 5. The im- origin in time of the belief in immortality manent faith is a meaningless question if we are think- in immortality. ing> not Qf the empiricized forms of the mind, but of its essential nature and functions, for these are eternal.
x INDISPENSABLE ACT OF THINKING 141 The affirmation of the immortality of the soul is immanent in the affirmation of the soul. For this affirmation is the " I " affirming itself, and it is the simplest, most elementary, and therefore the indis pensable act of thinking. The extreme difficulty of describing the essence of this most primitive and truly fundamental reality, and consequently the inade quate conceptions with which for so long the human mind has been in travail, have led to the formulation of many different ways, all inadequate, of understanding the relation which binds the " I " to the object, and the soul to the body and through the body to all which is spatial and which being spatial must also be temporal. These have given rise to various, totally unsatisfactory, modes of conceiving, and even modes of denying, immortality. Yet even negation by the soul of im mortality is an affirmation of its own power and value which in a way affirms the immortality it denies.
What is the meaning of immortality? The soul posits itself as " I," and to affirm its being as " I ': s 6 The requires no support of psychological and meaning of metaphysical doctrines, for every such immortality. doctrine, and indeed every breath of our spiritual life, presupposes such affirmation. But the soul, the " I " which posits itself, in opposing itself to every reality, posits itself as different from all other reality. When, then, it is the natural world with which the soul finds itself confronted, world and soul are not the same thing. As the world is manifold, the soul is joined with its multiplicity. Since this multi plicity is Nature, — spatial and temporal, where nothing is its other, in which everything at first is not, then is, and after it has been is not, where everything is born and dies, — so the soul comes to be conceived like all 142 IMMORTALITY the other elements of the manifold as born and destined to die, as sharing in the vicissitudes of all transient things, to whose company it belongs. But the " I " is not only a multiplication, the positing of its other and the opposing of itself to this other, it is also, and primarily, a unity, through which all the co- existents in space are embraced in one single survey in the subject, and all the events in time are corn- present in a present which is the negation of time. The " I " dominates space and time. It is opposed to nature, unifying it in itself, passing from one of its terms to another, in space and in time, breaking through and thrusting beyond every limit. The mind cannot marshal its forces amidst the manifold without some glimmering of the fact that it subdues, dominates and triumphs, by withdrawing itself from its laws. It gets a glimpse of this (a glimpse which is essential to it and original) as soon as ever it perceives the 'value of its positing the object and contraposing itself to it, or rather when it perceives that the value of every real affirmation is in its discrimination be tween the true and the false, without which the mere affirmation as such is unintelligible. If we think at all we must think that what we think of is as it is thought of and not otherwise; that is, we cannot think of anything except as being true in distinction from its contrary of being false. And the true is not relative, as it were an element of a multiplicity in which there are many elements. The true is one, absolute; absolute even in its relativity, for it cannot be except what it is. The element of the manifold has the other elements surrounding itself, but the true, if it is true, is alone. Truth, therefore, cannot be subject to the spatiality and temporality of natural THE ETERNAL IN ONE'S SELF 143 things; it transcends them even in being what must be thought about them. It posits itself as eternal. The eternity of truth implies the eternity of the thought in which truth is revealed. Speculation in pursuing truth may detach from it this eternity, but only in so far as it finds it. So that even when in making a speculative induction the conclusion seems to transcend the eternal nature of truth, it yet pre supposes a certain presence of the eternal in mind, and a certain identity of the two terms, thinking and eternal. And this is why, having made truth tran scendent we must make mind transcendent, endowing it with the ultramundane, if not premundane, life of the soul. Feeling truth in one's self can only be feeling the eternal in one's self, or feeling that we participate in the eternal, or however otherwise we like to express it. In its origin and in substance the immortality of the soul has no other meaning. All the grounds upon which faith in immortality has absolute value rested, it we set aside reasons prompted of the spiritual by desire to prove its rationality, so often attached to inadequate philosophical con cepts, resolve themselves into the affirmation of the absoluteness of the value of all the affirmations of mind, Philosophy of religion and natural religion have placed the immortality of the soul among the con- § s Religion stitutive principles of religion itself. But and immor- the contrary rather is the truth. If it be true, as Kant thought, that religion within the limits of reason leads necessarily to the concept of im mortality, it is no less true that there have been religions which have had no explicit doctrine of immortality. Moreover religion within the limits of reason is not religion, but philosophy. Religion, as we shall see i44 IMMORTALITY CH.
later, is the position in which the absolute is taken in its abstractly objective aspect, and this involves the negation of the subject, and leads to mysticism, which is the subject's self-negation of its individuality, and its immediate self-identification with its object. Im mortality, on the contrary, is the subject's self-affirma tion of its own absolute value. From this it follows that there are certain forms of naturalistic atheism which deny immortality because they deny transcend ence in any form, which yet become substantially more positive than some mystical tendencies with regard to the affirmation of the immanent value of the soul, than they would be if they affirmed the con cept of immortality. But we shall see further on that religion in its extreme and ideal position is unrealizable; because the very mysticism which is the denial of the value of the subject is the activity of that subject, and therefore the implicit affirmation of its value. Absolute transcendence cannot be affirmed of mind without denying it. God can only be God in so far as he is very man. And so the development of the awareness of this immanent relation of the object with the subject — development due to the work of the thought in which philosophical reflexion consists — leads on the one hand to the contamination of the purity of religion with the rationality of the subject, and on the other to the commingling and integrating of the eternity of God with the eternity of mind. Thus it is not the concept of God which posits the immortal soul, but the concept of God in so far as it is our concept and therefore a manifestation of the power of our mind. Or we might even say it is the concept of our soul, which in turning to God finds its own concept unknow able except as eternal. It implies immortality. It THE ABSOLUTENESS OF VALUE 145 is therefore the concept of our own immortality, or of the absolute value of our own affirmation, which generates that concept of God with which is bound up the concept of an immortal soul, or rather, the concept of a true and real God who is eternal being.
Whatever we value — our children, our parents, the God in whom we trust, the property we have <. T, acquired as the result of our labour, the religious art and philosophy which is the work of character of our mind — possesses value to the extent that it triumphs over the limits of our natural life, passes beyond death into immortality. The man who aspires to be united with God, and to rejoin his dead in another world than this world of experience, is united even in this world to those whom he leaves behind, to his heirs to whom he bequeaths the fruit of his labour, and to his successors to whom he commends and trusts the creations of his mind, because his whole personality becomes eternal in what he values as the reality of his own life.
Whatever the particular form which faith in im mortality may take, that faith is immanent, because The substantially, immortality is the mentality puzzle of the of mind, the spirituality of spirit. It is just concept of ob- that absolute value which is the essential character or every form and of every moment of spiritual activity. All the troublesome puzzles which surround immortality are derived from the mind's projection of its own value into the object, which is the realm of the manifold, the world of space and time. These puzzles, consequently, are mirrored in the embarrassments of those who in every age have travailed with this concept of the absoluteness of value, in giving birth to the scepticism inherent in all the L 146 IMMORTALITY CH.
naturalistic and relativistic conceptions of knowing and of acting and of whatever is conceived as spiritual act.
All these puzzles disappear when the problem of immortality is set forth in its own terms. Immortality belongs to mind, and mind is not nature, § ii. Immor-.
talityasan and precisely for that reason and only for attribute of that reason it is not included within the limits of any natural thing, nor of nature generally, which is never a whole. Nature is not infinite either in space or in time. The same reason which, as we saw, proved that it is indefinite in space applies equally to time. It is identical with that in which Kant found his solution of the first of the antinomies.1 Nature is not temporally infinite but temporally finite; its limits are displaceable; and their essential displaceability implies that time for nature is indefinite. But the indefiniteness of time is the temporal infinity of mind in its unity which remains one even in being multiplied, since multiplicity always supposes unity. To inquire what was at the beginning of nature and what there will be at the end is to propound a meaningless problem, because nature is only conceivable as a given nature, this nature^ enclosed within certain limits of time, only assignable in so far as they are not absolute and as the mind passes beyond them in the very act of supposing them. But this indefiniteness of nature, in its turn, would not be intelligible were it not an effect of the infinity of mind, which supposes all the limits of time, by passing beyond them and therefore by gathering in itself and 1 The first antinomy said in the thesis, " The world in time has a begin ning and as regards space is enclosed within certain limits "; and in the antithesis, " The world has neither beginning in time, nor limits in space, but is infinite in regard to time as in regard to space."
THE HIGHER PERSONALITY 147 reconciling in its own immanent unity all temporal multiplicity.
The conclusion is that if we think of ourselves em pirically as in time, we naturalize ourselves and imprison § 12. Immortal ourselves within definite limits, birth and personality. death, outside of which our personality cannot but seem annihilated. But this personality through which we enter into the world of the manifold and of natural individuals, in the Aristotelian meaning, is rooted in a higher personality, in which alone it is real. This higher personality contains the lower and all other empirical personalities, and as this higher per sonality is not unfolded in space and time we cannot say that it is before the birth and after the death of the lower, because "before" and "after" applied to it would cause it to fall from the one to the many, and by destroying it as the one we should thereby also destroy the manifold. But this personality is outside every " before and after." Its being is in the eternal, opposed to time, which it makes to be. This eternity, however, does not transcend time in the meaning that it stands outside time as one reality is outside another. Is it not clear, then, that the eternity of mind is the mortality of nature, because what is indefinite from the standpoint of the many is infinite from the stand point of the one? Life, the mind's reality, is in experience (in nature, the experience of which is consciousness). But it lives within nature without being absorbed in it, and without ever itself becoming it; moreover, it always keeps its own infinity or unity, without which even nature with its multiplicity, that is, with space and time, would be dissolved.