eternal. It includes, therefore, directly, the definitions given of these four words. It includes the word "essence," which should have been defined here, and is defined in part second. It includes the phrase "absolutely infinite," which receives not a definition, but an explanation that amounts to a definition. The only definitions which it does not directly include are those of "cause in itself," "free," and "mode;" but the two former are so defined as to be identical with substance, as to be substance itself in two aspects, and the last as an affection of substance. Directly or indirectly, therefore, the definition of God includes all the other definitions. The consequence is obvious. It is that, directly or indirectly, that definition includes all that is obscure, ambiguous, self-contradictory, in all the definitions. It is a guarantee that whatever there is of this kind in any of these definitions will be worked into the doctrine of the Divine nature, and will corrupt that doctrine.

Spinoza was not fortunate, then, at the commencement of his undertaking. Was he more successful afterwards? Some persons think so. Spinozism has been pronounced "a faultless demonstration." This is far from my opinion. The paralogisms, the fallacies, in Spinoza are, I believe, simply countless, because he started with vague and ambiguous principles and pursued a hopeless Had he been less convinced that he was

course.

right, or less able, he would have been stopped at countless points; but the intense and honest conviction of being right could not make him to be right, and no ability could achieve the impossible.

The whole of his doctrine concerning God is in germ in his definition of God. The first great stage in its development is formed by the attempted proof of the identity of the ideas of God and of substance. The notion of substance defined, as has been mentioned, is the foundation of his definition of God, of his entire theological doctrine, of his whole philosophy. A less solid or secure foundation there could not be. Substance in itself, which is what is defined, is simply what no human mind has ever apprehended or can apprehend. Every attempt to define substance in itself, or to reason on it, must be repelled as a violation of the laws of human thought, of the essential limitations of human knowledge. Spinozism is a system founded on this error. Spinoza had the firmest conviction that he had a clear, distinct, and true idea of substance in itself, that he might safely trust his fortunes to it, and that all that he could infer from it by strict logic would be eternal verities, certain as anything in Euclid, far more certain than mere experience and sense. He proceeded accordingly to demonstrate, as he supposed, such propositions concerning it as that substance is prior in nature to its accidents; that two substances having dif

ferent attributes have nothing in common with each other; that it is impossible that there should be two or more substances of the same nature or of the same attribute; that one substance cannot be created by another substance; that to exist pertains to the nature of substance; that all substance is necessarily infinite; that all substance is absolutely infinite; that this sole and singular substance -this absolutely infinite substance - is God, in whom whatever is is, without whom nothing can be conceived, of whom all that is must be some sort of attributes or modes. Thus he gradually worked out the conclusion that God is the one and all of substance, beyond which there is nothing, and in which all that is has such being as belongs to it.

The second great stage in the development of his doctrine of the Divine nature is the deduction of the attributes of the one absolutely infinite substance. An attribute is defined by him as "whatever the intellect perceives of substance as constituting the essence of substance." Substance and attributes are inseparable. Substance has necessarily attributes, each of which expresses in its own way the essence of substance, and is therefore, as that essence is, infinite, although only in its own way. Substance has necessarily even an infinity of attributes, for it is absolutely in finite, and only an infinity of attributes can adequately repre

sent a nature which is not only infinite but absolutely or infinitely infinite. Out of this infinite. number of attributes two only are known to us,extension and thought. God is conceived as thinking substance when He is apprehended by the mind under the attribute of thought, and as extended substance when He is conceived under the attribute of extension; but thinking substance and extended substance are not two substances distinct from one another, but the one substance apprehended by the mind of man, now under this attribute, now under that. Extension as a Divine attribute is, according to Spinoza, very different from the finite extension which belongs to body: it has no length, bulk, depth, shape, divisibility, or movability, and in referring it to Deity none of these things are referred to Him; it is incapable of being apprehended by sense or imagination; capable only of being apprehended by reason. Divine thought is likewise altogether different from human thought: it is absolute thought-thought which has infinite substance itself for object; which is in no way limited or determined; which is unconditioned by anything like a faculty of understanding; which falls under no law of succession, separation, or plurality.

The doctrine has still another stage. Substance with its attributes is God as the cause or source of the universe. But what is the universe itself?

What are the sun and stars, earth and ocean? What are living things, human bodies and human minds, human experience and human history? They are, Spinoza argues, modes of the attributes of God. Modes express the essence of the attributes as the attributes express the essence of substance. The modes of each attribute are necessarily finite in nature, because an attribute is not a substance, and therefore not infinitely infinite; but they are necessarily infinite in number, because each attribute has a real although particular infinity. Infinite thought must express itself by an infinite number of ideas, and infinite extension by an infinite variety of magnitudes, forms, and motions. These modes constitute and compose the whole world of the senses and the whole world of consciousness. Man himself is but a combination of these modes. vine thought, and his

extension.

His soul is a mode of Di

body is a mode of Divine

I think this doctrine must be admitted to be devoid neither of simplicity nor grandeur. It has certainly been constructed with wonderful architectonic skill. God is the one and all. He is the infinitely infinite, the only substance. From this substance necessarily proceeds an infinity of particular attributes. From each attribute necessarily proceeds an infinite number of finite. These modes. constitute what is called the universe. There is