Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/156

 134 DEVELOPMENT OF CARTESIANJSM. and darkness, so the truth is the criterion of itself and of error. Every truth is accompanied by certainty, and is its )wn witness (II. prop. 43, sckol.). — Adequate knowledge loes not consider things as individuals, but in their neces- sary connection and as eternal sequences from the world- ground. The reason perceives things under the form of (eternity: sub specie ccternitatis {l. prop. 44, cor. 2). In his theory of the emotions, Spinoza is more dependent on Descartes than anywhere else; but even here he is guided by a successful endeavor after greater rigor and simplicity. He holds his predecessor's false concept of freedom respon- sible for the failure of his very acute inquiry. All previous writers on the passions have either derided, or bewailed, or condemned them, instead of investigating their nature. Spinoza will neither denounce nor ridicule human actions and appetites, but endeavor to comprehend them on the basis of natural laws, and to consider them as though the question concerned lines, surfaces, and bodies. He aims not to look on hate, anger, and the rest as flaws, but as necessary, though troublesome, properties of human nature, for which, as really as for heat and cold, thunder and light- ning, a causal explanation is requisite. — As a determinate, finite being the mind is dependent in its existence and its activity on other finite things, and is incomprehensible without them ; from its involution in the general course of nature the inadequate ideas inevitably follow, and from these the passive states or emotions ; the passions thus belong to human nature, as one subject to limitation and nega- tion. — The destruction of contingent and perishable things is effected by external causes; no one is destroyed by , itself; so far as in it lies everything strives to persist in itsj being (III. prop. 4 and 6). The fundamental endeavor after | self-preservation constitutes the essence of each thing (III. prop. 7). This endeavor (r<7«<j:/wj) is termed will (voluntas) or 1 desire {cupiditas) when it is referred to the mind alone, and I appetite {appetitus) when referred to the mind and body ' together; desire or volition is conscious appetite (1 1 1. /r^?/. 9, schol). We call a thing good because we desire it, not desire a thing because we hold it good (cf. Hobbes, p. 75). To desire two further fundamental forms of the emotions