by Will Durant
Man is only a small part of the universe. Nature is neutral as between man and other forms. We must not apply to nature or to God such words as good or evil, beautiful or ugly; these are subjective terms, as much so as hot or cold; they are determined by the contribution of the external world to our advantage or displeasure.
The perfection of things is to be judged by their nature and power alone; nor are they more or less perfect because they delight or offend the human senses, or because they are beneficial or prejudicial to human nature 88 . . . If, therefore, anything in nature seems to us ridiculous, absurd, or evil, it is because we know only in part, and are almost entirely ignorant of, the order and interdependence of nature as a whole; and also because we want everything to be arranged according to the dictates of our human reason. In reality that which reason considers evil is not evil in respect to the order and laws of nature as a whole, but only in respect to the laws of our reason. 89
Likewise there is no beauty or ugliness in nature.
Beauty . . . is not so much a quality of the object beheld, as an effect in him who beholds it. If our sight were longer or shorter, if our constitutions were different, what we now think beautiful we should think ugly. . . . The most beautiful hand, seen through the microscope, will appear horrible 90 . . . I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-formed, or confused. 91
Order is objective only in the sense that all things cohere in one system of law; but in that order a destructive storm is as natural as the splendor of a sunset or the sublimity of the sea.
Are we justified, on the basis of this “theology,” in calling Spinoza an atheist? We have seen that he was not a materialist, for he did not identify God with matter; he says quite clearly that “those who think that the Tractatus [theologico-politicus] rests on the identification of God with nature—taking nature in the sense of a certain mass of corporeal matter—are entirely wrong.” 92 He conceived God as mind as well as matter, and he did not reduce mind to matter; he acknowledged that mind is the only reality directly known. He thought that something akin to mind is mingled with all matter; in this respect he was a panpsychist. He was a pantheist, seeing God in all things, and all things in God. Bayle, Hume, and others 93 considered him an atheist; and this term might seem justified by Spinoza’s denial of feeling, desire, or purpose in God. 94 He himself, however, objected to “the opinion which the common people have of me, who do not cease to accuse me falsely of atheism.” 95 Apparently he felt that his ascription of mind and intelligence to God absolved him from the charge of atheism. And it must be admitted that he spoke repeatedly of his God in terms of religious reverence, often in terms quite consonant with the conception of God in Maimonides or Aquinas. Novalis would call Spinoza “der Gottbetrunkene Mensch” the God-intoxicated man.
Actually he was intoxicated with the whole order of nature, which in its eternal consistency and movement seemed to him admirable and sublime; and in Book I of the Ethics he wrote both a system of theology and the metaphysics of science. In the world of law he felt a divine revelation greater than any book, however noble and beautiful. The scientist who studies that law, even in its pettiest and most prosaic detail, is deciphering that revelation, for “the more we understand individual objects, the more we understand God.” 96 (This sentence struck Goethe as one of the profoundest in all literature.) It seemed to Spinoza that he had honestly accepted and met the challenge implicit in Copernicus—to reconceive deity in terms worthy of the universe now progressively revealed. In Spinoza science and religion are no longer in conflict; they are one.
V. MIND
Next to the nature and operation of the cosmos the greatest puzzle in philosophy and science is the nature and operation of the mind. If it is difficult to reconcile an omnipotent benevolence with the neutrality of nature and the fatality of suffering, it seems just as hard to understand how an apparently external and material object in space can generate an apparently immaterial and spaceless idea, or how an idea in the mind can become a motion in the body, or how idea can contemplate idea in the mystery of consciousness.
Spinoza tries to avoid some of these problems by rejecting Descartes’ assumption that body and mind are two different substances. Body and mind, he believes, are one and the same reality, perceived under two different aspects or attributes, just as extension and thought are one in God. There is then no problem of how body acts upon mind or vice versa; every action is the simultaneous and unified operation of both body and mind. Spinoza defines mind as “the idea of the body”; 97 i.e., it is the psycho-
logical (not necessarily the conscious) correlate or accompaniment of a physiological process. The mind is the body felt from within; the body is the mind seen from without. A mental state is the inside, or internal aspect, of bodily action. An act of “will” is the mental accompaniment of a bodily desire that is moving into physical expression. There is no action of the “will” upon the body; there is a single action of the psychophysical (mentalmaterial) organism; the “will” is not the cause, it is the consciousness of the action. “The decision of the mind, and the desire and determination of the body are . . . one and the same thing, which, when considered under the attribute of thought . . . , we call a decision (decretum), and which, when considered under the attribute of extension, and deduced from the laws of motion and rest, is called a determination” (a finished action). 98 Hence “the order of the actions and passions [movements] of our body are simultaneous in nature with the order and passions of the mind.” 99 In all cases of the supposed interaction of mind and body the actual process is not the interplay of two distinct realities, substances, or agents, but the single action of one substance, which, seen from outside, we call body, and which, seen from within, we call mind. To every process in the body there is a corresponding process in the mind; “nothing can happen in the body which is not perceived by the mind.” 100 But this mental correlate need not be a thought; it may be a feeling; and it need not be conscious; so a sleepwalker performs any number of actions while he is “unconscious.” 101 This theory has been called “psychophysical parallelism”; however, it supposes parallel processes not in two different entities, but in one psychophysical unity doubly seen.
On this basis Spinoza proceeds to a mechanistic description of the knowledge process. Probably following Hobbes, he defines sensation, memory, and imagination in physical terms. 102 He takes it as evident that most knowledge originates in impressions made upon us by external objects; but he admits to the idealist that “the human mind perceives no external body as actually existing save through ideas of modifications in its body.” 103 Perception and reason, two forms of knowledge, are derived from sensation; but a third and higher form, “intuitive knowledge,” is derived (Spinoza thinks) not from sensation but from a clear, distinct, immediate, and comprehensive awareness of an idea or event as part of a universal system of law.
Anticipating Locke and Hume, Spinoza rejects the notion that the mind is an agent or entity possessing ideas; “mind” is a general or abstract term for the succession of perceptions, memories, imaginations, feelings, and other mental states. “The idea of the mind, and the mind itself” at any moment, “are one and the same thing.” 104 Nor are there any distinct “faculties” such as intellect or will; these also are abstract terms for the sum of cognitions or volitions; “intellect or will have reference in the same manner to this or that idea, or to this or that volition, as ‘stoniness’ to this or that stone, or ‘man’ to Peter or Paul.” 105 Neither do idea and volition differ; a volition or act of “will” is merely an idea that has “affirmed itself” 106 (i.e., has lasted long enough to complete itself in an action, as ideas, if unimpeded, automatically do). “The decision of the mind . . . is nothing but the affirmation which the idea necessarily involves insofar as it is an idea 107 . . . Will and intellect are one and the same thing.” 108
From another s
tandpoint what we call will is simply the sum and play of desires. “By desire . . . I understand all the efforts, impulses, appetites, and volitions of a man, which . . . not infrequently are so opposed to one another that he is drawn hither and thither, and knows not where to turn.” 109 Deliberation is the alternating domination of body-and-thought by conflicting desires; it ends when one desire proves powerful enough to maintain its corresponding mental state long enough to pass into action. Obviously (says Spinoza) there is no “free will”; the will at any moment is just the strongest desire. We are free insofar as we are allowed to express our nature or our desires without external hindrance; we are not free to choose our own nature or our desires; we are our desires. “There is in no mind absolute or free will, but the mind is determined for willing this or that by a cause which is determined in its turn by another cause, and this again by another, and so on to infinity.” 110 “Men think themselves free because they are conscious of their volitions and desires, but are ignorant of the causes by which they are led to wish and desire”; 111 it is as if a stone flung through space should think it is moving and falling of its own will. 112
Possibly the Calvinist fatalism in the “climate of opinion” that Descartes and Spinoza lived in as residents of Holland may have shared with the Galilean mechanics (Newton’s Principia had not yet appeared) in molding the mechanistic theory in Descartes and the determinist psychology in Spinoza. Determinism is predestinarianism without theology; it substitutes the primeval vortex or nebula for God. Spinoza followed the logic of mechanism to its bitter end; he did not, like Descartes, confine it to bodies and animals; he applied it to minds as well, as he had to, since to him mind and body were one. He concluded that the body is a machine, 113 but he denied that determinism makes morality useless or insincere. The exhortations of the moralist, the ideals of the philosophers, the stigma of public condemnation, and the penalties of the courts are still valuable and necessary; they enter into the heritage and experience of the growing individual, and therefore into the factors that form his desires and determine his will.
VI. MAN
Into this apparently static philosophy Spinoza inserts two dynamic elements: first and generally, that matter and mind are everywhere united, that all things are animated, that they have in them something akin to what in ourselves we call mind or will; second and specifically, that this vital element includes in everything a conatus sese preservandi—an “effort at selfpreservation.” “Everything insofar as it is in itself endeavors to preserve its own being,” and “the power or endeavor of anything . . . to persist in its own being is nothing else than . . . the essence of that . . . thing.” 114 Like the Scholastic philosophers who said that esse est agere (to be is to act) and that God is actus purus (pure activity); like Schopenhauer, who saw in will the essence of all things; like those modern physicists who reduce matter to energy—Spinoza defines the essence of each being through its powers of action; “the power of God is the same as his essence”; 115 in this aspect God is energy (and energy might be named, in addition to matter and mind, as a third attribute which we perceive as constituting the essence of substance or reality). Spinoza follows Hobbes in ranking entities according to their capacity for action and effectiveness. “The perfection of things is estimated solely from their nature and power” 116—but in Spinoza perfect means per-factum, complete.
Consequently he defines virtue as a power of acting or doing; “by virtue and power (potentia) I understand the same thing”; 117 but we shall see that this “potency” means power over ourselves perhaps even more than power over others. 118 “The more each one seeks what is useful to him—i.e., the more he endeavors and is able to preserve his being—the more he is endowed with virtue. . . . The endeavor to preserve oneself is the only basis of virtue.” 119 In Spinoza virtue is biological, almost Darwinian; it is any quality that makes for survival. In this sense, at least, virtue is its own reward; “it is to be desired for its own sake; nor is there anything more excellent or more useful to us . . . for the sake of which virtue ought to be desired.” 120
As the endeavor for self-preservation (the “struggle for existence”) is the active essence of anything, all motives derive from it, and are ultimately self-seeking. “Since reason postulates nothing against nature, it postulates, therefore, that each man should love himself, and seek what is useful to him—I mean what is truly useful to him—and desire whatever leads man truly to a greater state of perfection [completion], and finally that each one should endeavor to preserve his being as far as in him lies.” 121 These desires need not be conscious; they may be unconscious appetites lodged in our flesh. Taken altogether, they constitute the essence of man. 122 We judge all things in terms of our desires. “We do not strive for, wish, seek, or desire anything because we think it to be good; we judge a thing to be good because we . . . desire it.” 123 “By good (bonum) I understand that which we certainly know to be useful to us.” 124 (Here is Bentham’s utilitarianism in one sentence.)
All our desires aim at pleasure or the avoidance of pain. “Pleasure is man’s transition from a lesser state of perfection [completion, fulfillment].” 125 Pleasure accompanies any experience or feeling that enhances the bodily-mental processes of activity and self-advancement. 126 “Joy consists in this, that one’s power is increased.” 127* Any feeling that depresses our vitality is a weakness rather than a virtue. The healthy man will soon slough off the feelings of sadness, repentance, humility, and pity; 129 however, he will be readier than the weak man to render aid, for generosity is the superabundance of confident strength. Any pleasure is legitimate if it does not hinder a greater or more lasting pleasure. Spinoza, like Epicurus, recommends intellectual pleasures as the best, but he has a good word for a great variety of pleasures.
There cannot be too much merriment. . . . Nothing save gloomy . . . superstition prohibits laughter. . . . To make use of things, and take delight in them as much as possible (not indeed to satiety, for that is not . . . delight), is the part of a wise man; . . . to feed himself with moderate pleasant food and drink, and to take pleasure with perfumes, . . . plants, dress, music, sports, and theaters. 130
The trouble with the conception of pleasure as the realization of desires is that desires may conflict; only in the wise man do they fall into a harmonious hierarchy. A desire is usually the conscious correlate of an appetite which is rooted in the body; and so much of the appetite may remain unconscious that we have only “confused and inadequate ideas” of its causes and results. Such confused desires Spinoza called affectus, which may be translated by emotions. He defines these as “modifications of the body by which the power of action in the body is increased or diminished . . . and at the same time the ideas of these modifications” 131—a definition vaguely recognizing the role of internal (endocrine) secretions in emotion, and remarkably anticipating the theory of C. G. Lange and William James that the bodily expression of an emotion is the direct and instinctive result of the cause, and that the conscious feeling is an accompaniment or result, not a cause, of the bodily expression and response. Spinoza proposed to study the emotions—love, hate, anger, fear, etc.—and the power of reason over them, “in the same manner . . . as if I were dealing with lines, planes, and bodies”; 132 not to praise or denounce them but to understand them; for “the more an emotion becomes known to us, the more it is within our power, and the less the mind is passive to it.” 133 The resulting analysis of the emotions owed something to Descartes, perhaps more to Hobbes, but it so improved upon them that when Johannes Müller, in his epochal Physiologie des Menschen (1840), came to treat of the emotions, he wrote: “With regard to the relations of the passions to one another, apart from their physiological conditions, it is impossible to give any better account than that which Spinoza has laid down with unsurpassed mastery” 134—and he proceeded to quote extensively from the Ethics.
An emotion becomes a passion when, through our confused and inadequate ideas of its origin and significance, its extern
al cause dictates our feeling and response, as in hatred, anger, or fear. “The mind is more or less subject to passions according as it has more or less adequate ideas.” 135 A man with poor powers of perception and thought is especially subject to passion; it is such a life that Spinoza describes in his classic Book IV, “Of Human Bondage.” Such a man, however violent his action may be, is really passive—is swept along by an external stimulus instead of holding his hand and taking thought. “We are driven about by external causes in many ways, and, like waves driven by contrary winds, we waver and are unconscious of the issue and our fate.” 136
Can we free ourselves from this bondage, and become in some measure the masters of our lives?
VII. REASON
Never completely, for we remain part of nature, subject (as Napoleon was to say) to “the nature of things.” And since the emotions are our motive force, and reason can be only a light and not a fire, “an emotion can neither be hindered nor removed save by a contrary and stronger emotion.” 137 Hence society rightly seeks to moderate our passions by appealing to our love of praise and rewards, our fear of blame and punishment. 138 And society rightly labors to instill in us a sense of right and wrong as another check to passion. Conscience, of course, is a social product, not an innate endowment or divine gift. 139
