books.")
§ 49, p. 154, the words "_Der bei den Philosophastern_," down to conception of our," &c., down to "by perception.")
§ 50, p. 156, the words "_Denn der Satz vom Grunde_" down to "_nur sich selbst nicht_." (E. v., § 50, p. 172, from "For the Principle of Sufficient Reason," &c., down to "everything else.")
§ 52, p. 158, the words "_Der allgemeine Sinn des Satzes vom Grunde_," general meaning" down to "the Cosmological Proof.")
JULIUS FRAUENSTÄDT.
EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
The present Fourth Edition is of the same content as the Third; therefore it contains the same corrections and additions which I had already inserted in the Third Edition from Schopenhauer's own interleaved copy of this work.
JULIUS FRAUENSTÄDT.
ON THE FOURFOLD ROOT OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
§ 1. _The Method._ The divine Plato and the marvellous Kant unite their mighty voices in recommending a rule, to serve as the method of all philosophising as well as of all other science.[11] Two laws, they tell us: the law of _homogeneity_ and the law of _specification_, should be equally observed, neither to the disadvantage of the other. The law of _homogeneity_ directs us to collect things together into kinds by observing their resemblances and correspondences, to collect kinds again into species, species into genera, and so on, till at last we come to the highest all-comprehensive conception. Now this law, being transcendental, _i.e._ essential to our Reason, takes for granted that Nature conforms with it: an assumption which is expressed by the ancient formula, _entia præter necessitatem non esse multiplicanda_.
As for the law of _specification_, Kant expresses it thus: _entium varietates non temere esse minuendas_. It requires namely, that we should clearly distinguish one from another the different genera collected under one comprehensive conception; likewise that we should not confound the higher and lower species comprised in each genus; that we should be careful not to overleap any, and never to classify inferior species, let alone individuals, immediately under the generic conception: each conception being susceptible of subdivision, and none even coming down to mere intuition. Kant teaches that both laws are transcendental, fundamental principles of our Reason, which postulate conformity of things with them _à priori_; and Plato, when he tells us that these rules were flung down from the seat of the gods with the Promethean fire, seems to express the same thought in his own way.
[11] Platon, "Phileb." pp. 219-223. "Politic." 62, 63. "Phædr."
361-363, ed. Bip. Kant, "Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Anhang zur transcend. Dialektik." English Translation by F. Max Müller.
"Appendix to the Transc. Dialectic." pp. 551, and _seqq._ § 2. _Application of the Method in the present case._ In spite of the weight of such recommendations, I find that the second of these two laws has been far too rarely applied to a fundamental principle of all knowledge: _the Principle of Sufficient Reason_.
For although this principle has been often and long ago stated in a general way, still sufficient distinction has not been made between its extremely different applications, in each of which it acquires a new meaning; its origin in various mental faculties thus becoming evident. If we compare Kant's philosophy with all preceding systems, we perceive that, precisely in the observation of our mental faculties, many persistent errors have been caused by applying the principle of homogeneity, while the opposite principle of specification was neglected; whereas the law of specification has led to the greatest and most important results. I therefore crave permission to quote a passage from Kant, in which the application of the law of specification to the sources of our knowledge is especially recommended; for it gives countenance to my present endeavour:-- "It is of the highest importance to _isolate_ various sorts of knowledge, which in kind and origin are different from others, and to take great care lest they be mixed up with those others with which, for practical purposes, they are generally united. What is done by the chemist in the analysis of substances, and by the mathematician in pure mathematics, is far more incumbent on the philosopher, in order to enable him to define clearly the part which, in the promiscuous employment of the understanding, belongs to a special kind of knowledge, as well as its peculiar value and influence."[12] [12] Kant, "Krit. d. r. V. Methodenlehre. Drittes Hauptstück," p.
842 of the 1st edition. Engl. Tr. by F. M. Müller. "Architectonic of Pure Reason," p. 723.
Should I succeed in showing that the principle which forms the subject of the present inquiry does not issue directly from _one_ primitive notion of our intellect, but rather in the first instance from _various_ ones, it will then follow, that neither can the necessity it brings with it, as a firmly established _à priori_ principle, be _one_ and the _same_ in all cases, but must, on the contrary, be as manifold as the sources of the principle itself. Whoever therefore bases a conclusion upon this principle, incurs the obligation of clearly specifying on which of its grounds of necessity he founds his conclusion and of designating that ground by a special name, such as I am about to suggest. I hope that this may be a step towards promoting greater lucidity and precision in philosophising; for I hold the extreme clearness to be attained by an accurate definition of each single expression to be indispensable to us, as a defence both against error and against intentional deception, and also as a means of securing to ourselves the permanent, unalienable possession of each newly acquired notion within the sphere of philosophy beyond the fear of losing it again on account of any misunderstanding or double meaning which might hereafter be detected. The true philosopher will indeed always seek after light and perspicuity, and will endeavour to resemble a Swiss lake--which through its peacefulness is enabled to unite great depth with great clearness, the depth revealing itself precisely by the clearness--rather than a turbid, impetuous mountain torrent. "_La clarté est la bonne foi des philosophes_," says Vauvenargues. Pseudo-philosophers, on the contrary, use speech, not indeed to conceal their thoughts, as M. de Talleyrand has it, but rather to conceal the absence of them, and are apt to make their readers responsible for the incomprehensibility of their systems, which really proceeds from their own confused thinking. This explains why in certain writers--Schelling, for instance--the tone of instruction so often passes into that of reproach, and frequently the reader is even taken to task beforehand for his assumed inability to understand.
§ 4. _Importance of the Principle of Sufficient Reason._ Its importance is indeed very great, since it may truly be called the basis of all science. For by _science_ we understand a _system_ of notions, _i.e._ a totality of connected, as opposed to a mere aggregate of disconnected, notions. But what is it that binds together the members of a system, if not the Principle of Sufficient Reason? That which distinguishes every science from a mere aggregate is precisely, that its notions are derived one from another as from their reason.
So it was long ago observed by Plato: καὶ γὰρ αἱ δόξαι αἱ ἀληθεῖς οὐ πολλοῦ ἄξιαί εἰσιν, ἕως ἄν τις ἀυτὰς δήσῃ αἰτίας λογισμῷ (_etiam opiniones veræ non multi pretii sunt, donec quis illas ratiocinatione a causis ducta liget_).[13] Nearly every science, moreover, contains notions of causes from which the effects may be deduced, and likewise other notions of the necessity of conclusions from reasons, as will be seen during the course of this inquiry. Aristotle has expressed this as follows: πᾶσα ἐπιστήμη διανοητική, ἢ καὶ μετέχουσά τι διανοίας, περὶ αἰτίας καὶ ἀρχάς ἐστι (_omnis intellectualis scientia, sive aliquo modo intellectu participans, circa causas et principia est_).[14] Now, as it is this very assumption _à priori_ that all things must have their reason, which authorizes us everywhere to search for the _why_, we may safely call this _why_ the mother of all science.
[13] "Meno." p. 385, ed Bip. "Even true opinions are not of much value until somebody binds them down by proof of a cause."
[Translator's addition.]
[14] Aristot. "Metaph." v. 1. "All knowledge which is intellectual or partakes somewhat of intellect, deals with causes and principles." [Tr.'s add.]
We purpose showing further on that the Principle of Sufficient Reason is an expression common to several _à priori_ notions. Meanwhile, it must be stated under some formula or other. I choose Wolf's as being the most comprehensive: _Nihil est sine ratione cur potius sit, quam non sit._ Nothing is without a reason for its being.[15] [15] Here the translator gives Schopenhauer's free version of Wolf's formula.
CHAPTER II.
GENERAL SURVEY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT VIEWS HITHERTO HELD CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON.
§ 6. _First Statement of the Principle and Distinction between Two of its Meanings._ A more or less accurately defined, abstract expression for so fundamental a principle of all knowledge must have been found at a very early age; it would, therefore, be difficult, and besides of no great interest, to determine where it first appeared. Neither Plato nor Aristotle have formally stated it as a leading fundamental principle, although both often speak of it as a self-evident truth. Thus, with a _naïveté_ which savours of the state of innocence as opposed to that of the knowledge of good and of evil, when compared with the critical researches of our own times, Plato says: ἀναγκαῖον, πάντα τὰ γιγνόμενα διά τινα αἰτίαν γίγνεσθαι· πῶς γὰρ ἂν χωρὶς τούτων γίγνοιτο;[16] (_necesse est, quæcunque fiunt, per aliquam causam fieri: quomodo enim absque ea fierent?_) and then again: πᾶν δὲ τὸ γιγνόμενον ὑπ' αἰτίου τινὸς ἐξ ἀνάγκης γίγνεσθαι· παντὶ γὰρ ἀδύνατον χωρὶς αἰτίου γένεσιν σχεῖν[17] (_quidquid gignitur, ex aliqua causa necessario gignitur: sine causa enim oriri quidquam, impossibile est_). At the end of his book "De fato," Plutarch cites the following among the chief propositions of the Stoics: μάλιστα μὲν καὶ πρῶτον εἶναι δόξειε, τὸ μηδὲν ἀναιτίως γίγνεσθαι, ἀλλὰ κατὰ προηγουμένας αἰτίας[18] (_maxime id primum esse videbitur, nihil fieri sine causa, sed omnia causis antegressis_).
[16] Platon, "Phileb." p. 240, ed Bip. "It is necessary that all which arises, should arise by some cause; for how could it arise otherwise?" [Tr.'s add.]
[17] _Ibid._ "Timæus," p. 302. "All that arises, arises necessarily from some cause; for it is impossible for anything to come into being without cause." [Tr.'s add.]
[18] "This especially would seem to be the first principle: that nothing arises without cause, but [everything] according to preceding causes." [Tr.'s add.]
In the "Analyt. post." i. 2, Aristotle states the principle of sufficient reason to a certain degree when he says: ἐπίστασθαι δὲ οἰόμεθα ἕκαστον ἁπλῶς, ὅταν τὴν τ' αἰτίαν οἰόμεθα γινώσκειν, δι' ἣν τὸ πρᾶγμα ἔστιν, ὅτι ἐκείνου αἰτία ἐστίν, καὶ μὴ ἐνδέχεσθαι τοῦτο ἄλλως εἶναι. (_Scire autem putamus unamquamque rem simpliciter, quum putamus causam cognoscere, propter quum res est, ejusque rei causam esse, nec posse eam aliter se habere._)[19] In his "Metaphysics," moreover, he already divides causes, or rather principles, ἀρχαί, into different kinds,[20] of which he admits eight; but this division is neither profound nor precise enough. He is, nevertheless, quite right in saying, πασῶν μὲν οὖν κοινὸν τῶν ἀρχῶν, τὸ πρῶτον εἶναι, ὅθεν ἢ ἔστιν, ἢ γίνεται, ἢ γιγνώσκεται.[21] (_Omnibus igitur principiis commune est, esse primum, unde aut est, aut fit, aut cognoscitur._) In the following chapter he distinguishes several kinds of causes, although somewhat superficially and confusedly. In the "Analyt. post." ii. 11, he states four kinds of causes in a more satisfactory manner: αἰτίαι δὲ τέσσαρες· μία μὲν τό τι ἦν εἶναι· μία δὲ τὸ τινῶν ὄντων, ἀνάγκη τοῦτο εἶναι· ἑτέρα δὲ, ἥ τι πρῶτον ἐκίνησε· τετάρτη δὲ, τὸ τίνος ἕνεκα.[22] (_Causæ autem quatuor sunt: una quæ explicat quid res sit; altera, quam, si quædam sint, necesse est esse; tertia, quæ quid primum movit; quarta id, cujus gratia._) Now this is the origin of the division of the _causæ_ universally adopted by the Scholastic Philosophers, into _causæ materiales, formales, efficientes et finales_, as may be seen in "Suarii disputationes metaphysicæ"[23]--a real compendium of Scholasticism. Even Hobbes still quotes and explains this division.[24] It is also to be found in another passage of Aristotle, this time somewhat more clearly and fully developed ("Metaph." i. 3.) and it is again briefly noticed in the book "De somno et vigilia," c. 2. As for the vitally important distinction between _reason_ and _cause_, however, Aristotle no doubt betrays something like a conception of it in the "Analyt. post." i. 13, where he shows at considerable length that knowing and proving _that_ a thing exists is a very different thing from knowing and proving _why_ it exists: what he represents as the latter, being knowledge of the _cause_; as the former, knowledge of the _reason_. If, however, he had quite clearly recognized the difference between them, he would never have lost sight of it, but would have adhered to it throughout his writings. Now this is not the case; for even when he endeavours to distinguish the various kinds of causes from one another, as in the passages I have mentioned above, the essential difference mooted in the chapter just alluded to, never seems to occur to him again. Besides he uses the term αἴτιον indiscriminately for every kind of cause, often indeed calling reasons of knowledge, and sometimes even the premisses of a conclusion, αἰτίας, as, for instance, in his "Metaph." iv. 18; "Rhet." ii. 2; "De plantis." p. 816 (_ed. Berol._), but more especially "Analyt. post." i. 2, where he calls the premisses to a conclusion simply αἰτίαι τοῦ συμπεράσματος (causes of the conclusion). Now, using the same word to express two closely connected conceptions, is a sure sign that their difference has not been recognised, or at any rate not been firmly grasped; for a mere accidental homonymous designation of two widely differing things is quite another matter. Nowhere, however, does this error appear more conspicuously than in his definition of the sophism _non causæ ut causa_, παρὰ τὸ μὴ αἴτιον ὡς αἴτιον, (reasoning from what is not cause as if it were cause), in the book "De sophisticis elenchis," c.
5. By αἴτιον he here understands absolutely nothing but the argument, the premisses, consequently a reason of knowledge; for this sophism consists in correctly proving the impossibility of something, while the proof has no bearing whatever upon the proposition in dispute, which it is nevertheless supposed to refute. Here, therefore, there is no question at all of physical causes. Still the use of the word αἴτιον has had so much weight with modern logicians, that they hold to it exclusively in their accounts of the _fallacia extra dictionem_, and explain the _fallacia non causæ ut causa_ as designating a physical cause, which is not the case. Reimarus, for instance, does so, and G. E. Schultze and Fries--all indeed of whom I have any knowledge.
The first work in which I find a correct definition of this sophism, is Twesten's Logic. Moreover, in all other scientific works and controversies the charge of a _fallacia non causæ ut causa_ usually denotes the interpolation of a wrong cause.
[19] "We think we understand a thing perfectly, whenever we think we know the cause by which the thing is, that it is really the cause of that thing, and that the thing cannot possibly be otherwise." [Tr.'s add.]
[20] Lib. iv. c. 1.
[21] "Now it is common to all principles, that they are the first thing through which [anything] is, or arises, or is understood."
[Tr.'s add.]
[22] "There are four causes: first, the essence of a thing itself; second, the _sine qua non_ of a thing; third, what first put a thing in motion; fourth, to what purpose or end a thing is tending." [Tr.'s add.]
[23] "Suarii disputationes metaph." Disp. 12, sect. 2 et 3.
Sextus Empiricus presents another forcible instance of the way in which the Ancients were wont universally to confound the logical law of the reason of knowledge with the transcendental law of cause and effect in Nature, persistently mistaking one for the other. In the 9th Book "Adversus Mathematicos," that is, the Book "Adversus Physicos," § 204, he undertakes to prove the law of causality, and says: "He who asserts that there is no cause (αἰτία), either has no cause (αἰτία) for his assertion, or has one. In the former case there is not more truth in his assertion than in its contradiction; in the latter, his assertion itself proves the existence of a cause."
By this we see that the Ancients had not yet arrived at a clear distinction between requiring a reason as the ground of a conclusion, and asking for a cause for the occurrence of a real event. As for the Scholastic Philosophers of later times, the law of causality was in their eyes an axiom above investigation: "_non inquirimus an causa sit, quia nihil est per se notius_," says Suarez.[25] At the same time they held fast to the above quoted Aristotelian classification; but, as far as I know at least, they equally failed to arrive at a clear idea of the necessary distinction of which we are here speaking.
[25] Suarez, "Disp." 12, sect. 1.
§ 7. _Descartes._ For we find even the excellent Descartes, who gave the first impulse to subjective reflection and thereby became the father of modern philosophy, still entangled in confusions for which it is difficult to account; and we shall soon see to what serious and deplorable consequences these confusions have led with regard to Metaphysics.
In the "_Responsio ad secundas objectiones in meditationes de prima philosophia_," _axioma i._ he says: _Nulla res existit, de qua non possit quæri, quænam sit causa, cur existat. Hoc enim de ipso Deo quæri potest, non quod indigeat ulla causa ut existat, sed quia ipsa ejus naturæ immensitas est_ CAUSA, SIVE RATIO, _propter quam nulla causa indiget ad existendum_. He ought to have said: The immensity of God is a logical reason from which it follows, that God needs no cause; whereas he confounds the two together and obviously has no clear consciousness of the difference between reason and cause. Properly speaking however, it is his intention which mars his insight. For here, where the law of causality demands a _cause_, he substitutes a _reason_ instead of it, because the latter, unlike the former, does not immediately lead to something beyond it; and thus, by means of this very axiom, he clears the way to the _Ontological Proof_ of the existence of God, which was really his invention, for Anselm had only indicated it in a general manner. Immediately after these axioms, of which I have just quoted the first, there comes a formal, quite serious statement of the Ontological Proof, which, in fact, already lies within that axiom, as the chicken does within the egg that has been long brooded over. Thus, while everything else stands in need of a cause for its existence, the _immensitas_ implied in the conception of the Deity--who is introduced to us upon the ladder of the Cosmological Proof--suffices in lieu of a cause or, as the proof itself expresses it: _in conceptu entis summe perfecti existentia necessaria continetur_. This, then, is the sleight-of-hand trick, for the sake of which the confusion, familiar even to Aristotle, of the two principal meanings of the principle of sufficient reason, has been used directly _in majorem Dei gloriam_.
Considered by daylight, however, and without prejudice, this famous Ontological Proof is really a charming joke. On some occasion or other, some one excogitates a conception, composed out of all sorts of predicates, among which however he takes care to include the predicate actuality or existence, either openly stated or wrapped up for decency's sake in some other predicate, such as _perfectio_, _immensitas_, or something of the kind. Now, it is well known,--that, from a given conception, those predicates which are essential to it--_i.e._, without which it cannot be thought--and likewise the predicates which are essential to those predicates themselves, may be extracted by means of purely logical analyses, and consequently have _logical_ truth: that is, they have their reason of knowledge in the given conception. Accordingly the predicate reality or existence is now extracted from this arbitrarily thought conception, and an object corresponding to it is forthwith presumed to have real existence independently of the conception.
"Wär' der Gedank' nicht so verwünscht gescheut, Man wär' versucht ihn herzlich dumm zu nennen."[26] [26] "Were not the thought so cursedly acute, One might be tempted to declare it silly."
SCHILLER, "Wallenstein-Trilogie. Piccolomini," Act ii. Sc. 7.
After all, the simplest answer to such ontological demonstrations is: "All depends upon the source whence you have derived your conception: if it be taken from experience, all well and good, for in this case its object exists and needs no further proof; if, on the contrary, it has been hatched in your own _sinciput_, all its predicates are of no avail, for it is a mere phantasm." But we form an unfavourable prejudice against the pretensions of a theology which needed to have recourse to such proofs as this in order to gain a footing on the territory of philosophy, to which it is quite foreign, but on which it longs to trespass. But oh! for the prophetic wisdom of Aristotle! He had never even heard of the Ontological Proof; yet as though he could detect this piece of scholastic jugglery through the shades of coming darkness and were anxious to bar the road to it, he carefully shows[27] that defining a thing and proving its existence are two different matters, separate to all eternity; since by the one we learn _what_ it is that is meant, and by the other _that_ such a thing exists. Like an oracle of the future, he pronounces the sentence: τὸ δ' εἶναι οὐκ οὐσία οὐδενί· οὐ γὰρ γένος τὸ ὄν: (ESSE _autem nullius rei essentia, est, quandoquidem ens non est genus_) which means: "Existence never can belong to the essence of a thing." On the other hand, we may see how great was Herr von Schelling's veneration for the Ontological Proof in a long note, p. 152, of the 1st vol. of his "Philosophische Schriften" of 1809. We may even see in it something still more instructive, _i.e._, how easily Germans allow sand to be thrown in their eyes by impudence and blustering swagger. But for so thoroughly pitiable a creature as Hegel, whose whole pseudo-philosophy is but a monstrous amplification of the Ontological Proof, to have undertaken its defence against Kant, is indeed an alliance of which the Ontological Proof itself might be ashamed, however little it may in general be given to blushing. How can I be expected to speak with deference of men, who have brought philosophy into contempt?
[27] Aristot., "Analyt. post." c. 7.
§ 8. _Spinoza._ Although Spinoza's philosophy mainly consists in the negation of the double dualism between God and the world and between soul and body, which his teacher, Descartes, had set up, he nevertheless remained true to his master in confounding and interchanging the relation between reason and consequence with that between cause and effect; he even endeavoured to draw from it a still greater advantage for his own metaphysics than Descartes for his, for he made this confusion the foundation of his whole Pantheism.
A conception contains _implicite_ all its essential predicates, so that they may be developed out of it _explicite_ by means of mere analytical judgments: the sum total of them being its definition. This definition therefore differs from the conception itself merely in form and not in content; for it consists of judgments which are all contained within that conception, and therefore have their reason in it, in as far as they show its essence. We may accordingly look upon these judgments as the consequences of that conception, considered as their reason. Now this relation between a conception and the judgments founded upon it and susceptible of being developed out of it by analysis, is precisely the relation between Spinoza's so-called God and the world, or rather between the one and only substance and its numberless accidents (_Deus, sive substantia constans infinitis attributis_[28]--_Deus, sive omnia Dei attributa_). It is therefore the relation in knowledge of the _reason_ to its consequent; whereas true Theism (Spinoza's Theism is merely nominal) assumes the relation of the _cause_ to its effect, in which the cause remains different and separate from the consequence, not only in the way in which we consider them, but really and essentially, therefore in themselves to all eternity. For the word God, honestly used, means a cause such as this of the world, with the addition of personality. An impersonal God is, on the contrary, a _contradictio in adjecto_. Now as nevertheless, even in the case as stated by him, Spinoza desired to retain the word God to express substance, and explicitly called this the _cause_ of the world, he could find no other way to do it than by completely intermingling the two relations, and confounding the principle of the reason of knowledge with the principle of causality. I call attention to the following passages in corroboration of this statement. _Notandum, dari necessario unius cujusque rei existentis certam aliquam_ CAUSAM, _propter quam existit. Et notandum, hanc causam, propter quart aliqua res existit, vel debere contineri in ipsa natura et_ DEFINITIONE _rei existentis_ (_nimirum quod ad ipsius naturam pertinet existere_), _vel debere_ EXTRA _ipsam dari._[29] In the last case he means an efficient cause, as appears from what follows, whereas in the first he means a mere reason of knowledge; yet he identifies both, and by this means prepares the way for identifying God with the world, which is his intention.
This is the artifice of which he always makes use, and which he has learnt from Descartes. He substitutes a cause acting from without, for a reason of knowledge lying within, a given conception. _Ex necessitate divinæ naturæ omnia, quæ sub intellectum infinitum cadere possunt, sequi debent._[30] At the same time he calls God everywhere the cause of the world. _Quidquid existit Dei potentiam, quæ omnium rerum_ CAUSA _est, exprimit._[31]--_Deus est omnium rerum_ CAUSA _immanens, non vero transiens._[32]--_Deus non tantam est_ CAUSA EFFICIENS _rerum existentiæ, sed etiam essentiæ._[33]--_Ex data quacunque_ res nisi a causa externa potest destrui._[35]--Demonstr. DEFINITIO _cujuscunque rei, ipsius essentiam_ (essence, nature, as differing from existentia, existence), _affirmat, sed non negat; sive rei essentiam ponit, sed non tollit. Dum itaque ad rem ipsam tantum, non autem ad causas externas attendimus, nihil in eadem poterimus invenire, quod ipsam possit destruere._ This means, that as no conception can contain anything which contradicts its definition, _i.e._, the sum total of its predicates, neither can an existence contain anything which might become a cause of its destruction. This view, however, is brought to a climax in the somewhat lengthy second demonstration of the 11th Proposition, in which he confounds a cause capable of destroying or annihilating a being, with a contradiction contained in its definition and therefore destroying that definition. His need of confounding cause with reason here becomes so urgent, that he can never say _causa_ or _ratio_ alone, but always finds it necessary to put _ratio seu causa_.
Accordingly, this occurs as many as eight times in the same page, in order to conceal the subterfuge. Descartes had done the same in the above-mentioned axiom.
[28] Spinoza, "Eth." i. prop. 11.
[34] "Eth." P. iii. prop. 1, demonstr.
Thus, properly speaking, Spinoza's Pantheism is merely the _realisation_ of Descartes' Ontological Proof. First, he adopts Descartes' ontotheological proposition, to which we have alluded above, _ipsa naturæ Dei immensitas est_ CAUSA SIVE RATIO, _propter quam nulla causa indiget ad existendum_, always saying _substantia_ instead of _Deus_ (in the beginning); and then he finishes by _substantiæ essentia necessario involvit existentiam, ergo erit substantia_ CAUSA SUI.[36] Therefore the very same argument which Descartes had used to prove the existence of God, is used by Spinoza to prove the existence of the world,--which consequently needs no God. He does this still more distinctly in the 2nd Scholium to the 8th Proposition: _Quoniam ad naturam substantia pertinet existere, debet ejus definitio necessariam existentiam involvere, et consequenter ex sola ejus definitione debet ipsius existentia concludi_. But this substance is, as we know, the world. The demonstration to Proposition 24 says in the same sense: _Id, cujus natura in se considerata_ (_i.e._, in its definition) _involvit existentiam, est_ CAUSA SUI.
For what Descartes had stated in an exclusively _ideal_ and _subjective_ sense, _i.e._, only for us, for _cognitive purposes_--in this instance for the sake of proving the existence of God--Spinoza took in a _real_ and _objective_ sense, as the actual relation of God to the world. According to Descartes, the existence of God is contained in the _conception_ of God, therefore it becomes an argument for his actual being: according to Spinoza, God is himself contained in the world. Thus what, with Descartes, was only reason of knowledge, becomes, with Spinoza, reason of fact. If the former, in his Ontological Proof, taught that the _existentia_ of God is a consequence of the _essentia_ of God, the latter turns this into _causa sui_, and boldly opens his Ethics with: _per causam sui intelligo id, cujus essentia_ (conception) _involvit existentiam_, remaining deaf to Aristotle's warning cry, τὸ δ' εἶναι οὐκ οὐσία οὐδενί! Now, this is the most palpable confusion of _reason_ and _cause_. And if Neo-Spinozans (Schellingites, Hegelians, &c.), with whom words are wont to pass for thoughts, often indulge in pompous, solemn admiration for this _causa sui_, for my own part I see nothing but a _contradictio in adjecto_ in this same _causa sui_, a _before_ that is _after_, an audacious command to us, to sever arbitrarily the eternal causal chain--something, in short, very like the proceeding of that Austrian, who finding himself unable to reach high enough to fasten the clasp on his tightly-strapped shako, got upon a chair. The right emblem for _causa sui_ is Baron Münchhausen, sinking on horseback into the water, clinging by the legs to his horse and pulling both himself and the animal out by his own pigtail, with the motto underneath: _Causa sui_.
Let us finally cast a look at the 16th proposition of the 1st book of the Ethics. Here we find Spinoza concluding from the proposition, _ex data cujuscunque rei definitione plures proprietates intellectus concludit, quæ revera ex eadem necessario sequuntur, that ex necessitate divinæ, naturæ_ (_i.e._, taken as a reality), _infinita infinitis modis sequi debent_: this God therefore unquestionably stands in the same relation to the world as a conception to its definition.
The corollary, _Deum omnium rerum esse_ CAUSAM EFFICIENTEM, is nevertheless immediately connected with it. It is impossible to carry the confusion between reason and cause farther, nor could it lead to graver consequences than here. But this shows the importance of the subject of the present treatise.
In endeavouring to add a third step to the climax in question, Herr von Schelling has contributed a small afterpiece to these errors, into which two mighty intellects of the past had fallen owing to insufficient clearness in thinking. If Descartes met the demands of the inexorable law of causality, which reduced his God to the last straits, by substituting a reason instead of the cause required, in order thus to set the matter at rest; and if Spinoza made a real cause out of this reason, _i.e._, _causa sui_, his God thereby becoming the world itself: Schelling now made reason and consequent separate in God himself.[37] He thus gave the thing still greater consistency by elevating it to a real, substantial hypostasis of reason and consequent, and introducing us to something "in God, which is not himself, but his reason, as a primary reason, or rather reason beyond reason (abyss)." _Hoc quidem vere palmarium est._--It is now known that Schelling had taken the whole fable from Jacob Böhme's "Full account of the terrestrial and celestial mystery;" but what appears to me to be less well known, is the source from which Jacob Böhme himself had taken it, and the real birth-place of this so-called _abyss_, wherefore I now take the liberty to mention it. It is the βυθός, i.e. _abyssus, vorago_, bottomless pit, reason beyond reason of the Valentinians (a heretical sect of the second century) which, in silence--co-essential with itself--engendered intelligence and the world, as Irenæus[38] relates in the following terms: λέγουσι γάρ τινα εἶναι ἐν ἀοράτοις, καὶ ἀκατονομάστοις ὑψώμασι τέλειον Αἰῶνα προόντα· τοῦτον δὲ καὶ προαρχήν, καὶ προπάτορα, καὶ +βυθὸν+ καλοῦσιν.--Ὑπάρχοντα δὲ αὐτὸν ἀχώρητον καὶ ἀόρατον, ἀΐδιόν τε καὶ ἀγέννητον, ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ καὶ ἠρεμίᾳ πολλῇ γεγονέναι ἐν ἀπείροις αἰῶσι χρόνων. Συνυπάρχειν δὲ αὐτῷ καὶ Ἔννοιαν, ἣν δὲ καὶ Χάριν, καὶ Σιγὴν ὀνομάζουσι· καὶ ἐννοηθῆναί ποτε ἀφ' ἑαυτοῦ προβαλέσθαι τὸν +βυθὸν+ τοῦτον ἀρχὴν τῶν πάντων, καὶ καθάπερ σπέρμα τὴν προβολὴν ταύτην (ἣν προβαλέσθαι ἐνενοήθη) καθέσθαι, ὡς ἐν μήτρᾳ, τῇ συνυπαρχούσῃ, ἑαυτῷ Σιγῇ. Ταύτην δὲ, ὑποδηξαμένην τὸ σπέρμα τοῦτο, καὶ ἐγκύμονα γενομένην, ἀποκυῆσαι Νοῦν, ὅμοιόν τε καὶ ἴσον τῷ προβαλόντι, καὶ μόνον χωροῦντα τὸ μέγεθος τοῦ Πατρός. Τὸν δὲ νοῦν τοῦτον καὶ μονογενῆ καλοῦσι, καὶ ἀρχὴν τῶν πάντων.[39] (_Dicunt enim esse quendam in sublimitatibus illis, quæ nec oculis cerni, nec nominari possunt, perfectum Æonem præexistentem, quem et proarchen, et propatorem, et_ Bythum _vocant. Eum autem, quum incomprehensibilis et invisibilis, sempiternus idem, et ingenitus esset, infinitis temporum seculis in