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Article LEIBNIZ AND SPINOZA. ← Page 17 of 25 →
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Leibniz And Spinoza.
substance , from which , according to him , follows the impossibility of creation : he recognises in God two attributes , extent and thought ; but by reason of the nature of substance he is obliged to identify the tAvo , heterogeneous as they are . His notion of a God is , that of one Avho thinks and acts Avithout will , in virtue of the indeterminateness of his nature . He has
neither will nor intelligence , nor virtue , nor goodness , nor wisdom . In consequence of this doctrine , Spinoza deduces the world from necessity , and banishes from it all preconceived ideas of the beautiful , and the good , all actually intended order and harmony . In the second parthe regulates the mechanism of the
, world in strict accordance Avith the previous account of its origin . He declares that there is but one substance of all souls Avhich , under forms infinitely varied , acts and suffers in humanity ; this unity of substance is with him the basis of ethics . Again , there is but one material substance , of which all the phenomena of nature are but different hasesthusthe
p ; , unity of substance forms likeAvise the basis of physics . But as substance is one , so matter and spirit must be identical ; and accordingly Spinoza is rightly regarded as the chief of modern materialists . He suppresses the existence of individuals in his
theory , as he had already suppressed the notion of them , by declaring all substances to be one . He confounds all species , recognizing neither particular orders , nor the differences betAveen them . He is necessarily obscure on the laws of movement , which cannot be explained without reference to final causes ; and he Avinds up all by asserting Nature to be infinite , and
reverting to the old Stoic doctrine of the soid of the Avorld . If we see hoAV these errors reproduce themselves at every step , it will not be wonderful if Ave find the ethics and metaphysics of this remarkable theorist , full of the most singular and untenable opinions . He gets to deny the identity , or rather the individuality of any human personand Avith thisall
, , individual consciousness and responsibility . If for a being so situated there be any actual immortality , it is at least difficult to realize the idea of it . By confounding species and orders , he is led on to deny the very ideas of order , harmony , and gradual connection , and so to destroy ethics itself . He makes good and evil merely conditionsanalogous to those of motion
, and repose . He brings back all passions to a single idea , as all existences to a single substance . Now the natural result of such a system of physics , starting from the point of a homogeneity of matter common to all bodies , is to deny the activity of all bodies ; and the result of his system of ethics , starting
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Leibniz And Spinoza.
substance , from which , according to him , follows the impossibility of creation : he recognises in God two attributes , extent and thought ; but by reason of the nature of substance he is obliged to identify the tAvo , heterogeneous as they are . His notion of a God is , that of one Avho thinks and acts Avithout will , in virtue of the indeterminateness of his nature . He has
neither will nor intelligence , nor virtue , nor goodness , nor wisdom . In consequence of this doctrine , Spinoza deduces the world from necessity , and banishes from it all preconceived ideas of the beautiful , and the good , all actually intended order and harmony . In the second parthe regulates the mechanism of the
, world in strict accordance Avith the previous account of its origin . He declares that there is but one substance of all souls Avhich , under forms infinitely varied , acts and suffers in humanity ; this unity of substance is with him the basis of ethics . Again , there is but one material substance , of which all the phenomena of nature are but different hasesthusthe
p ; , unity of substance forms likeAvise the basis of physics . But as substance is one , so matter and spirit must be identical ; and accordingly Spinoza is rightly regarded as the chief of modern materialists . He suppresses the existence of individuals in his
theory , as he had already suppressed the notion of them , by declaring all substances to be one . He confounds all species , recognizing neither particular orders , nor the differences betAveen them . He is necessarily obscure on the laws of movement , which cannot be explained without reference to final causes ; and he Avinds up all by asserting Nature to be infinite , and
reverting to the old Stoic doctrine of the soid of the Avorld . If we see hoAV these errors reproduce themselves at every step , it will not be wonderful if Ave find the ethics and metaphysics of this remarkable theorist , full of the most singular and untenable opinions . He gets to deny the identity , or rather the individuality of any human personand Avith thisall
, , individual consciousness and responsibility . If for a being so situated there be any actual immortality , it is at least difficult to realize the idea of it . By confounding species and orders , he is led on to deny the very ideas of order , harmony , and gradual connection , and so to destroy ethics itself . He makes good and evil merely conditionsanalogous to those of motion
, and repose . He brings back all passions to a single idea , as all existences to a single substance . Now the natural result of such a system of physics , starting from the point of a homogeneity of matter common to all bodies , is to deny the activity of all bodies ; and the result of his system of ethics , starting