Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/351

 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPINOZA AND LEIBNIZ. 337 infinite," etc. l But the very terms of this definition imply a reference to other things. A Being whose essence involves existence is intelligible only in relation to a being whose essence does not involve existence ; that which is in se can be thought only in relation to that which is in olio. And it is in virtue of this reference that the other properties of the object are deduced from the definition. Each of the properties is negatively proved by the use of such disjunctive axioms as : Omnia quae sunt vel in se vel in alio sunt, 2 and consequently the properties do not follow from the definition alone, but from the definition plus the interpretation of the terms of the definition, which is given in the axiom. That which is in se is that which is not in alio. If we go on afterwards (as seems to be the way of Spinoza) to deny the reality of that which is in alio, we stultify the whole procedure. To deny the reality of that which is in alio while we continue to assert the reality of that which is in se, is to alter the meaning of the axiom, to make it a disjunction, not between two kinds of things, but between the universe and nonentity. In other words, the axiom becomes tautologous : that which is in se is in se, the universe is the universe. Accordingly if the axiom has any meaning, Spinoza's definition of God implies that God is an element in a wider system, that He is in se in contrast with that which is really in alio. And yet Spinoza means by " God" the universe as one. This is confirmed by an examination of Spinoza's own account of Definition in the Tractatus de Intellectus Emenda- tione, 3 where he gives rules for the definition of a created (in alio) and of an uncreated (in se) thing. The rules for the definition of a created thing are (1) that the definition must include the proximate cause, and (2) that the definition should be such that all the properties of the thing can be deduced from the definition, considered by itself and not in conjunc- tion with others. This is evidently equivalent to saying that in order to know truly a created thing, we must see clearly both how it is produced and what it produces (for, according to Spinoza, the relation of cause and effect is reducible to that of substance and attribute). The thing defined must, in short, be removed out of the realm of the empirical or casual and regarded in its fixed and eternal relations. It must be perfectly conditioned, put in its own place in the ordered system of things. Again, for the defini- 1 Ep. 83, Van Vloten (72 in Bruder). 2 Ethics, L, Axiom 1 ; cf. Axiom 2 : Id quod per aliud nonpotest concipi, per se concipi debet. 3 Van Vloten, i., 29 sqq. ; Bruder, ii., 86 sqq. 22