Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/115

104 CRITICAL NOTICES : holds that the greater the number of the negative attributes one can rationally assign, the nearer one has reached to a knowledge of God. Spinoza's doctrine, " Dei potentiam nihil esse praeterquam Dei actuosam essentiam," and similar statements bear a very close resemblance to an opinion of Maimonides, which Prof. Pearson apparently thinks must be sought for in that author's Tad. But in the Guide we find the very same principle. " The essence of God is identical with his attributes " (i. 204-7). " God includes in his Unity, the intrflecfus, the !itt<-HI<j<;ns and the inf'-lliijille " (i. 252-9). This opinion is far from original. It is the common property of several Jewish philosophers, and the idea is probably as old at least as the Seeker Ydsim, and is to be found in the Ciiaari of Jehudah Halevi. In human perception, Maimonides distinguishes the thinker, the hylic intellect and the abstract form of the object perceived. When the intellect is active, these three coalesce ; the intellect ?V the comprehension. God being an active intellect always actual and never potential the principle which applies to the human intellect only at intervals, applies alwdij* to God. 1 Maimonides must not be judged merely from the positive results of his philosophy. There are certain tendencies to be noted in him which are perhaps the more deserving of praise from the very fact that he did not unreservedly abandon himself to them. This is at once the strength and the weakness of Maimonides. Spinoza 2 accuses him of disingenuousness in asserting that he could always find in Scripture the truths that reason revealed : that, when his philosophy contradicted the plain utterance of the Bible, he would not therefore suspect the former, but would seek for a new interpretation of the latter. No doubt, Maimonides does confess that he was guided by this principle in his reconciliation of theo- logy with metaphysics. " I do not reject the Eternity of the Universe," says Maimonides, 3 " because certain passages in Scrip- ture confirm the Creation ; for such passages are not more numer- ous than those in which God is represented as a corporeal bein^ ; nor is it impossible or difficult to find for them a suitable ii pretation." "Those passages in the Bible, which, in their literal sense, contain statements that can be refuted by proof, must and can be interpreted otherwise." But this criticism, just as it is, does not allow sufficient weight to a very different aspect of the case. Strange as the si may appear with reference to a theologian and Aristotelian like Maimonides, no man was ever less a slave to prejudice and autho- rity than he essentially (though not consistently) was. In several passages his indignation breaks out against the men who dare to 'Another i<I-;i of Spino/a's, quoted in MIND, Vol. viii. 340, may lie compare! with the <inid", iii. 283-284. '-' '/'/< ol.-1'olit. Treuti*", vii. 8 ii. 118.