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J 28 DEVELOPMENT OF CARTESIANISM. substance forbade a bold transfer of the attributes to the observer. The real opinion of Spinoza is neither so clear and free from contradictions, nor so one-sided, as that which his interpreters ascribe to him. Fischer's further interpre- tation of the attributes of God as his " powers" is tenable, so long as by causa and potentia we understand nothing more than the irresistible, but non-kinetic, force with which an original truth establishes or effects those which follow from it. As the dualism of extension and thought is reduced from a substantial to an attributive distinction, so individ- ual bodies and minds, motions and thoughts, are degraded a stage further. Individual things lack independence of every sort. The individual is, as a determinate finite thing, burdened with negation and limitation, for every determi- nation includes a negation ; that which is truly real in the individual is God. Finite things 2iY^ jnodi oi the infinite substance, mere states, variable states, of God. By them- selves they are nothing, since out of God nothing exists. They possess existence only in so far as they are con- ceived in their connection with the infinite, that is, as transi- tory forms of the unchangeable substance. They are not in themselves, but in another, in God, and are conceived only in God. They are mere affections of the divine attri- butes, and must be considered as such. To the two attributes correspond two classes of modes. The most important modifications of extension are rest and motion. Among the modes oT thought are under- standing and jviH. These belong in the sphere of determi- nate and transitory being and do not hold of the iiatura naiiirans : God is exalted above all modality, above will and understanding, as above motion and rest. We must not assert of the natura naturata (the world as the sum of all modes), as of the natura natiirans, that its essence involves exist- ence i^. prop. 24): we can ^onceive finite things as non- existent, as well as existent {Epist. 29). This constitutes their " contingency," which must by no means be inter- preted as lawlessness. On the contrary, all that takes place in the world is most rigorously determined ; every individ- ual, finite, determinate thing and event is determined to its 1