09-05-2018, 07:34 AM
Spinoza means that it isn’t subject to divisions that go all the way down, so to
speak—divisions that really split it up into separate things. He does
allow that corporeal substance—i.e. the entire material world—can be
divided into (for example) wet bits and dry bits, soft bits and hard bits;
but none of these bits is an independent and self-sufficient thing. Its
existence consists merely in the fact that the extended world—which is
God considered under the attribute of extension—has a certain property
at a certain location.]
V. Why are we by nature so inclined to divide quantity?
The answer involves the fact that we have two ways of
thinking about quantity: we can think of it •abstractly or
superficially, which is how we depict it to ourselves in our
imagination; and we can also think of it •as substance,
which is done by the intellect alone without help from
the imagination. If we attend to quantity as it is in the
imagination—which we often do, finding it easy—it will be
found to be finite, divisible, and composed of parts; but if we
attend to it as it is in the intellect, and conceive it insofar
as it is a substance—which we don’t do often, finding it
hard—then (as I have already sufficiently demonstrated) it
will be found to be infinite, unique, and indivisible.
This will be clear enough to anyone who knows how to
distinguish the intellect from the imagination—particularly
if he bears in mind that matter is everywhere the same,
and that parts are distinguished in it only through our
conceiving it to have different qualities, so that its parts
are distinguished only modally but not really. [That is: its
parts have different qualities or modes, but are not genuinely and deeply
distinct things. ‘Really’ (Latin realiter) comes from the Latin res, meaning
‘thing’.]
For example, we conceive that water is divided and its
parts separated from one another—considered as water, but
not considered as corporeal substance, for considered as
substance it is neither separated nor divided. Again, water
considered as water can come into existence and go out of
existence, but considered as substance it can do neither.
·When water considered as water goes out of existence, what
happens at the level of substance is, roughly speaking, that
an area in the one extended substance changes from being
wet to being dry·.
VI. I think this also answers the second argument—·the
one in III above·—because that is based on the supposition
that matter, insofar as it is substance, is divisible and made
up of parts. Even if this reply were not sufficient, ·the
argument would not succeed, because· there is no reason
why divisibility should be unworthy of the divine nature. For
(by 14) apart from God there can be no substance by which
the divine nature would be acted on, ·and so God’s being
made up of parts would not bring with it a vulnerability to a
dismantling attack from the outside, so to speak·. All things,
I repeat, are in God, and whatever happens does so through
the laws of God’s infinite nature and follows (as I’ll show)
from the necessity of God’s essence. So it can’t be said in any
way that God is acted on by something else, or that extension
is unworthy of the divine nature—even if it is supposed to
be divisible—provided that God is granted to be eternal and
infinite.
[In 16 and its appendages, ‘unlimited’ translates a word that often means
‘infinite’.]
16: From the necessity of the divine nature there must
follow infinitely many things in infinitely many ways i.e.
everything that can fall under an unlimited intellect.
This proposition must be plain to anyone who attends
to the fact that the intellect infers from a thing’s
definition a number of properties that really do follow
necessarily from it (i.e. from the very essence of the
thing); and that •the more reality the definition of
the thing expresses, i.e. •the more reality the essence
of the defined thing involves, •the more properties
the intellect infers. But the divine nature has absolutely
infinite attributes (by D6), each of which also
expresses an essence that is infinite in its own kind,
and so from its necessity there must follow infinitely
many things in infinite ways (i.e. everything that can
fall under an unlimited intellect).
First corollary to 16: God is the efficient cause of all things
that can fall under an unlimited intellect. [An ‘efficient cause’ is
just what we today call a cause. It used to be contrasted to ‘final cause’:
to assign an event a final cause was to explain it in terms of its purpose,
what it occurred for. See pages 18–19 below.]
Second corollary to 16: God is a cause through himself/
itself and not an accidental cause.
Third corollary to 16: God is the absolutely first cause.
17: God acts from the laws of the divine nature alone,
and is not compelled by anything.
I have just shown (16) that from •the necessity of the
divine nature alone, or (what is the same thing) from
•the laws of God’s nature alone, absolutely infinite
things follow; and in 15 I have demonstrated that
nothing can be or be conceived without God—that all
things are in God. So there can’t be anything outside
God by which God could be caused or compelled to
act. Therefore, God acts from the laws of the divine
nature alone, and is not compelled by anything.
First corollary to 17: There is no cause, either extrinsically
or intrinsically, which prompts God to action, except the
perfection of the divine nature.
Second corollary to 17: God alone is a free cause.
God alone exists only from the necessity of the divine
nature (by 11 and first corollary to 14), and acts from
the necessity of the divine nature (by 17). Therefore
(by D7) God alone is a free cause.
Note on 17: I. Some people think, regarding the things that
I have said follow from God’s nature (i.e. are in God’s power),
that God could bring it about that they don’t happen, are not
produced by God; from which they infer that God is a free
cause. But this is tantamount to saying that God can bring
it about that the nature of a triangle doesn’t require that its
three angles are equal to two right angles, or that from a
given cause the effect would not follow—which is absurd.
Further, I shall show later, without help from 17, that
God’s nature doesn’t involve either intellect or will. I know of
course that many think they can demonstrate that a supreme
intellect and a free will pertain to God’s nature; for, they say,
they know nothing they can ascribe to God more perfect than
what is the highest perfection in us.
Moreover, while thinking of God as actually
•understanding things in the highest degree, they don’t
believe that God can bring it about that all those understood
things •exist. For they think that would destroy God’s power.
If God had created all the things in the divine intellect (they
say), then God couldn’t have created anything more, which
they believe to be incompatible with God’s omnipotence. So
these thinkers prefer to maintain that God has no leanings
in any direction, not creating anything except what God has
decreed to create by some fundamental free choice.
But I think I have shown clearly enough (see 16) that from
God’s supreme power or infinite nature infinitely many things
in infinitely many ways—that is, all ·possible· things—have
necessarily flowed or do always follow, with the same necessity
and in the same way as from the nature of a triangle
it follows from eternity that its three angles equal two right
angles. So God’s omnipotence has been actual from eternity
and will remain actual to eternity. I think that this maintains
God’s omnipotence better ·than does the view that there are
things God could do but chooses not to·.
Indeed—to be frank about it—my opponents seem to deny
God’s omnipotence. For they have to admit that God understands
infinitely many creatable things which nevertheless
God will never be able to create. For creating everything that
God understands to be creatable would (according to them)
exhaust God’s omnipotence and render God imperfect. To
maintain that God is perfect, therefore, they are driven to
maintaining that God cannot bring about everything that
lies within the scope of the divine power. I don’t see how
anything more absurd than this, or more contrary to God’s
omnipotence, could be dreamed up!
II. I shall add a point about the intellect and will that
are commonly attributed to God. If ‘will’ and ‘intellect’ do
pertain to the eternal essence of God, we must understand by
each of these something different from what men commonly
understand by them. For the ‘intellect’ and ‘will’ that would
constitute God’s essence would have to differ entirely from
our intellect and will, not agreeing with them in anything
but the name. They wouldn’t match one another any more
than Sirius the ‘dog-star’ matches the dog that is a barking
animal. I shall demonstrate this.
We have intellect, and what we understand through it
is either •earlier than the act of understanding (as most
people think) or •simultaneous with it; but if the divine
nature includes intellect, it can’t be like ours in this respect,
because God is •prior in causality to all things (by the first
corollary to 16). ·So far from its being the case that God’s
intellect represents something because the thing exists·,
the fundamental nature of things is what it is because
God’s intellect represents it in that way. So God’s intellect,
conceived as constituting the divine essence, is really the
cause of the essence and of the existence of things. Some
writers seem to have realized this—the ones who have said
that God’s •intellect, •will and •power are one and the same.
Therefore, since God’s intellect is the only cause of
things—of their essence as well as of their existence—God
must differ from other things both in essence and in existence.
·I shall explain this·. Something that is caused
differs from its cause precisely in what it gets from the cause.
For example, a man may be the cause of the existence of
another man, but not of his essence—·that is, not of the
human nature that he has, not of the-possibility-of-beinghuman
·—for the latter is an eternal truth. So they can
agree entirely in their essence, ·having the very same human
nature·. But they must differ in their existences: if one
of the men goes out of existence, that need not destroy
the other’s existence. But if the essence of one could be
destroyed and become false—·that is, if it could become the
case that there was no such thing as human nature, no
possibility-of-being-human·—then the essence of the other
would also be destroyed.
So if something causes both the essence and the existence
of some effect, it must differ in essence and existence from
the effect. But God’s intellect is the cause both of the essence
and of the existence of our intellect. Therefore God’s intellect,
conceived as constituting the divine essence, differs from our
intellect both in essence and in existence and can’t agree
with it in anything but in name—which is what I said. It is
easy to see that there is a similar proof regarding God’s will
and our will.
18: God is the in-dwelling and not the going-across
cause of all things.
In-dwelling because: everything that exists is in God
and must be conceived through God (by 15), and so
(by the first corollary to 16) God is the cause of all
things that are in God. Not going-across because:
by 14 there can’t be anything outside God ·for God
to act on·. So God is the in-dwelling and not the
going-across cause of all things.
[The expressions ‘in-dwelling- and ‘going-across’ render technical terms
of Spinoza’s that are usually translated by ‘immanent’ and ‘transeunt’
respectively. The distinction itself is plain: I am the in-dwelling cause of
my hand’s moving when I move it, and the going-across cause of the fall
of the tumbler that I knock off the table.]
19: God is eternal, and all God’s attributes are eternal.
God (by D6) is a substance which (by 11) necessarily
exists, that is (by 7) to whose nature it pertains to
exist. . . and therefore (by D8) God is eternal.
Next point: God’s •attributes are to be understood
(by D4) as •what expresses an essence of the Divine
substance. So the attributes partake of the nature of
substance, and I have already shown (7) that eternity
pertains to the nature of substance. Therefore each of
the attributes must involve eternity, and so they are
all eternal.
Note on 19: This proposition is also utterly clear from
my way of demonstrating God’s existence (11), for that
demonstration established that God’s existence is an eternal
truth just as God’s essence is. I have also demonstrated
God’s eternity in another way in my Descartes’s Principles,
Part I, proposition 19, and there is no need to repeat that
here.
20: God’s existence and God’s essence are one and the
same.
God is eternal and so are all of God’s attributes ((by
19), that is (by D8) each of God’s attributes expresses
existence. Therefore, the attributes of God that (by
D4) explain God’s eternal essence at the same time
explain God’s eternal existence, which is to say that
what constitutes God’s essence also constitutes God’s
existence. So God’s existence and God’s essence are
one and the same.
First corollary to 20: God’s existence, like God’s essence,
is an eternal truth.
Second corollary to 20: God is unchangeable, or all of
God’s attributes are unchangeable.
If they changed as to their existence, they would also
(by 20) change as to their essence,. . . which is absurd.
21: All the things that follow from the absolute nature
of any of God’s attributes have always had to exist and
be infinite, and are through the same attribute eternal
and infinite.
[The lengthy and extremely difficult demonstration
of this is constructed in the form ‘Suppose this is
false. . . ’ and then trying to deduce an absurdity from
the supposition. For the first part of the proposition
it takes an example of what the ‘something that is
finite and has a limited existence or duration’ might
be supposed to be, and makes the first part of the
proposition stand or fall with that example. For the
second part of the proposition, it again lets everything
rest on an example, indeed the same example, of
something that might be supposed not to be eternal
and infinite. The demonstration also gives trouble by
allowing heavy overlap between the first and second
parts of the proposition.]
speak—divisions that really split it up into separate things. He does
allow that corporeal substance—i.e. the entire material world—can be
divided into (for example) wet bits and dry bits, soft bits and hard bits;
but none of these bits is an independent and self-sufficient thing. Its
existence consists merely in the fact that the extended world—which is
God considered under the attribute of extension—has a certain property
at a certain location.]
V. Why are we by nature so inclined to divide quantity?
The answer involves the fact that we have two ways of
thinking about quantity: we can think of it •abstractly or
superficially, which is how we depict it to ourselves in our
imagination; and we can also think of it •as substance,
which is done by the intellect alone without help from
the imagination. If we attend to quantity as it is in the
imagination—which we often do, finding it easy—it will be
found to be finite, divisible, and composed of parts; but if we
attend to it as it is in the intellect, and conceive it insofar
as it is a substance—which we don’t do often, finding it
hard—then (as I have already sufficiently demonstrated) it
will be found to be infinite, unique, and indivisible.
This will be clear enough to anyone who knows how to
distinguish the intellect from the imagination—particularly
if he bears in mind that matter is everywhere the same,
and that parts are distinguished in it only through our
conceiving it to have different qualities, so that its parts
are distinguished only modally but not really. [That is: its
parts have different qualities or modes, but are not genuinely and deeply
distinct things. ‘Really’ (Latin realiter) comes from the Latin res, meaning
‘thing’.]
For example, we conceive that water is divided and its
parts separated from one another—considered as water, but
not considered as corporeal substance, for considered as
substance it is neither separated nor divided. Again, water
considered as water can come into existence and go out of
existence, but considered as substance it can do neither.
·When water considered as water goes out of existence, what
happens at the level of substance is, roughly speaking, that
an area in the one extended substance changes from being
wet to being dry·.
VI. I think this also answers the second argument—·the
one in III above·—because that is based on the supposition
that matter, insofar as it is substance, is divisible and made
up of parts. Even if this reply were not sufficient, ·the
argument would not succeed, because· there is no reason
why divisibility should be unworthy of the divine nature. For
(by 14) apart from God there can be no substance by which
the divine nature would be acted on, ·and so God’s being
made up of parts would not bring with it a vulnerability to a
dismantling attack from the outside, so to speak·. All things,
I repeat, are in God, and whatever happens does so through
the laws of God’s infinite nature and follows (as I’ll show)
from the necessity of God’s essence. So it can’t be said in any
way that God is acted on by something else, or that extension
is unworthy of the divine nature—even if it is supposed to
be divisible—provided that God is granted to be eternal and
infinite.
[In 16 and its appendages, ‘unlimited’ translates a word that often means
‘infinite’.]
16: From the necessity of the divine nature there must
follow infinitely many things in infinitely many ways i.e.
everything that can fall under an unlimited intellect.
This proposition must be plain to anyone who attends
to the fact that the intellect infers from a thing’s
definition a number of properties that really do follow
necessarily from it (i.e. from the very essence of the
thing); and that •the more reality the definition of
the thing expresses, i.e. •the more reality the essence
of the defined thing involves, •the more properties
the intellect infers. But the divine nature has absolutely
infinite attributes (by D6), each of which also
expresses an essence that is infinite in its own kind,
and so from its necessity there must follow infinitely
many things in infinite ways (i.e. everything that can
fall under an unlimited intellect).
First corollary to 16: God is the efficient cause of all things
that can fall under an unlimited intellect. [An ‘efficient cause’ is
just what we today call a cause. It used to be contrasted to ‘final cause’:
to assign an event a final cause was to explain it in terms of its purpose,
what it occurred for. See pages 18–19 below.]
Second corollary to 16: God is a cause through himself/
itself and not an accidental cause.
Third corollary to 16: God is the absolutely first cause.
17: God acts from the laws of the divine nature alone,
and is not compelled by anything.
I have just shown (16) that from •the necessity of the
divine nature alone, or (what is the same thing) from
•the laws of God’s nature alone, absolutely infinite
things follow; and in 15 I have demonstrated that
nothing can be or be conceived without God—that all
things are in God. So there can’t be anything outside
God by which God could be caused or compelled to
act. Therefore, God acts from the laws of the divine
nature alone, and is not compelled by anything.
First corollary to 17: There is no cause, either extrinsically
or intrinsically, which prompts God to action, except the
perfection of the divine nature.
Second corollary to 17: God alone is a free cause.
God alone exists only from the necessity of the divine
nature (by 11 and first corollary to 14), and acts from
the necessity of the divine nature (by 17). Therefore
(by D7) God alone is a free cause.
Note on 17: I. Some people think, regarding the things that
I have said follow from God’s nature (i.e. are in God’s power),
that God could bring it about that they don’t happen, are not
produced by God; from which they infer that God is a free
cause. But this is tantamount to saying that God can bring
it about that the nature of a triangle doesn’t require that its
three angles are equal to two right angles, or that from a
given cause the effect would not follow—which is absurd.
Further, I shall show later, without help from 17, that
God’s nature doesn’t involve either intellect or will. I know of
course that many think they can demonstrate that a supreme
intellect and a free will pertain to God’s nature; for, they say,
they know nothing they can ascribe to God more perfect than
what is the highest perfection in us.
Moreover, while thinking of God as actually
•understanding things in the highest degree, they don’t
believe that God can bring it about that all those understood
things •exist. For they think that would destroy God’s power.
If God had created all the things in the divine intellect (they
say), then God couldn’t have created anything more, which
they believe to be incompatible with God’s omnipotence. So
these thinkers prefer to maintain that God has no leanings
in any direction, not creating anything except what God has
decreed to create by some fundamental free choice.
But I think I have shown clearly enough (see 16) that from
God’s supreme power or infinite nature infinitely many things
in infinitely many ways—that is, all ·possible· things—have
necessarily flowed or do always follow, with the same necessity
and in the same way as from the nature of a triangle
it follows from eternity that its three angles equal two right
angles. So God’s omnipotence has been actual from eternity
and will remain actual to eternity. I think that this maintains
God’s omnipotence better ·than does the view that there are
things God could do but chooses not to·.
Indeed—to be frank about it—my opponents seem to deny
God’s omnipotence. For they have to admit that God understands
infinitely many creatable things which nevertheless
God will never be able to create. For creating everything that
God understands to be creatable would (according to them)
exhaust God’s omnipotence and render God imperfect. To
maintain that God is perfect, therefore, they are driven to
maintaining that God cannot bring about everything that
lies within the scope of the divine power. I don’t see how
anything more absurd than this, or more contrary to God’s
omnipotence, could be dreamed up!
II. I shall add a point about the intellect and will that
are commonly attributed to God. If ‘will’ and ‘intellect’ do
pertain to the eternal essence of God, we must understand by
each of these something different from what men commonly
understand by them. For the ‘intellect’ and ‘will’ that would
constitute God’s essence would have to differ entirely from
our intellect and will, not agreeing with them in anything
but the name. They wouldn’t match one another any more
than Sirius the ‘dog-star’ matches the dog that is a barking
animal. I shall demonstrate this.
We have intellect, and what we understand through it
is either •earlier than the act of understanding (as most
people think) or •simultaneous with it; but if the divine
nature includes intellect, it can’t be like ours in this respect,
because God is •prior in causality to all things (by the first
corollary to 16). ·So far from its being the case that God’s
intellect represents something because the thing exists·,
the fundamental nature of things is what it is because
God’s intellect represents it in that way. So God’s intellect,
conceived as constituting the divine essence, is really the
cause of the essence and of the existence of things. Some
writers seem to have realized this—the ones who have said
that God’s •intellect, •will and •power are one and the same.
Therefore, since God’s intellect is the only cause of
things—of their essence as well as of their existence—God
must differ from other things both in essence and in existence.
·I shall explain this·. Something that is caused
differs from its cause precisely in what it gets from the cause.
For example, a man may be the cause of the existence of
another man, but not of his essence—·that is, not of the
human nature that he has, not of the-possibility-of-beinghuman
·—for the latter is an eternal truth. So they can
agree entirely in their essence, ·having the very same human
nature·. But they must differ in their existences: if one
of the men goes out of existence, that need not destroy
the other’s existence. But if the essence of one could be
destroyed and become false—·that is, if it could become the
case that there was no such thing as human nature, no
possibility-of-being-human·—then the essence of the other
would also be destroyed.
So if something causes both the essence and the existence
of some effect, it must differ in essence and existence from
the effect. But God’s intellect is the cause both of the essence
and of the existence of our intellect. Therefore God’s intellect,
conceived as constituting the divine essence, differs from our
intellect both in essence and in existence and can’t agree
with it in anything but in name—which is what I said. It is
easy to see that there is a similar proof regarding God’s will
and our will.
18: God is the in-dwelling and not the going-across
cause of all things.
In-dwelling because: everything that exists is in God
and must be conceived through God (by 15), and so
(by the first corollary to 16) God is the cause of all
things that are in God. Not going-across because:
by 14 there can’t be anything outside God ·for God
to act on·. So God is the in-dwelling and not the
going-across cause of all things.
[The expressions ‘in-dwelling- and ‘going-across’ render technical terms
of Spinoza’s that are usually translated by ‘immanent’ and ‘transeunt’
respectively. The distinction itself is plain: I am the in-dwelling cause of
my hand’s moving when I move it, and the going-across cause of the fall
of the tumbler that I knock off the table.]
19: God is eternal, and all God’s attributes are eternal.
God (by D6) is a substance which (by 11) necessarily
exists, that is (by 7) to whose nature it pertains to
exist. . . and therefore (by D8) God is eternal.
Next point: God’s •attributes are to be understood
(by D4) as •what expresses an essence of the Divine
substance. So the attributes partake of the nature of
substance, and I have already shown (7) that eternity
pertains to the nature of substance. Therefore each of
the attributes must involve eternity, and so they are
all eternal.
Note on 19: This proposition is also utterly clear from
my way of demonstrating God’s existence (11), for that
demonstration established that God’s existence is an eternal
truth just as God’s essence is. I have also demonstrated
God’s eternity in another way in my Descartes’s Principles,
Part I, proposition 19, and there is no need to repeat that
here.
20: God’s existence and God’s essence are one and the
same.
God is eternal and so are all of God’s attributes ((by
19), that is (by D8) each of God’s attributes expresses
existence. Therefore, the attributes of God that (by
D4) explain God’s eternal essence at the same time
explain God’s eternal existence, which is to say that
what constitutes God’s essence also constitutes God’s
existence. So God’s existence and God’s essence are
one and the same.
First corollary to 20: God’s existence, like God’s essence,
is an eternal truth.
Second corollary to 20: God is unchangeable, or all of
God’s attributes are unchangeable.
If they changed as to their existence, they would also
(by 20) change as to their essence,. . . which is absurd.
21: All the things that follow from the absolute nature
of any of God’s attributes have always had to exist and
be infinite, and are through the same attribute eternal
and infinite.
[The lengthy and extremely difficult demonstration
of this is constructed in the form ‘Suppose this is
false. . . ’ and then trying to deduce an absurdity from
the supposition. For the first part of the proposition
it takes an example of what the ‘something that is
finite and has a limited existence or duration’ might
be supposed to be, and makes the first part of the
proposition stand or fall with that example. For the
second part of the proposition, it again lets everything
rest on an example, indeed the same example, of
something that might be supposed not to be eternal
and infinite. The demonstration also gives trouble by
allowing heavy overlap between the first and second
parts of the proposition.]