The Courtier And The Heretic Part 6

At this point it would be quite normal to experience some difficulty in breathing, and not just on account of the high level of abstraction in Spinoza's thought. The philosopher's rather unsettling message is that everything in the world-every human being, every thought or idea, every historical event, the planet earth, the stars, the galaxies, all the s.p.a.ces between them, yesterday's breakfast, and even this book-it is all in some sense just another word for G.o.d. Being itself, in a sense, is the new divinity. Little wonder, then, that the German writer Novalis branded Spinoza as "that G.o.d-intoxicated man." Hegel-who was fond of both his tipple and bibulous metaphors-claimed that in order to philosophize "one must first drink from the ether of this one substance." Perhaps Nietzsche came closest to the spirit of Spinoza when he said that the philosopher "deified the All and Life in order to find peace and happiness in the face of it."

Spinoza deduces many things from his concept of G.o.d, but one in particular deserves mention for its central role in subsequent controversies. In Spinoza's world, everything that happens, happens necessarily. One of the most notorious propositions of the Ethics Ethics is: "Things could not have been produced by G.o.d in any manner or in any order different from that which in fact exists." This is a logical inference from the proposition that the relation of G.o.d to the world is something like that of an essence to its properties: G.o.d cannot one day decide to do things differently any more than a circle can choose not to be round, or a mountain can forswear the valley that forms on its side. The view that there is a "necessary" aspect of things may be referred to by the sometimes inappropriate name of "determinism." is: "Things could not have been produced by G.o.d in any manner or in any order different from that which in fact exists." This is a logical inference from the proposition that the relation of G.o.d to the world is something like that of an essence to its properties: G.o.d cannot one day decide to do things differently any more than a circle can choose not to be round, or a mountain can forswear the valley that forms on its side. The view that there is a "necessary" aspect of things may be referred to by the sometimes inappropriate name of "determinism."

Of course, Spinoza acknowledges, in the world we see around us, many things seem to be contingent contingent-or merely possible, and not necessary. That is, it seems that things don't have to be the way that they are: the earth might never have formed; this book might never have been published; and so on. In fact, Spinoza goes on to say, every every particular thing in the world is contingent when considered solely with respect to its own nature. In technical terms, he says that "existence" pertains to the essence of nothing-save G.o.d. Thus, at some level, Spinoza stands for the opposite of the usual caricature of the determinist as reductivist, for, according to his line of thinking, we humans are never in a position to understand the complete and specific chain of causality that gives any individual thing its necessary character; consequently, we will never be in a position to reduce all phenomena to a finite set of intelligible causes, and all things must always appear to us to be at some level radically free. (In this sense, incidentally, he should count as a radical empiricist.) In somewhat less technical terms, we could say that, from a human point of view, everything must always seem contingent; even though from a divine or philosophical point of view, everything is nonetheless necessary. From the philosophical point of view-and only from the philosophical point of view-the distinction between possibility and actuality vanishes: if something may be, it is; if it may not be, it is not. particular thing in the world is contingent when considered solely with respect to its own nature. In technical terms, he says that "existence" pertains to the essence of nothing-save G.o.d. Thus, at some level, Spinoza stands for the opposite of the usual caricature of the determinist as reductivist, for, according to his line of thinking, we humans are never in a position to understand the complete and specific chain of causality that gives any individual thing its necessary character; consequently, we will never be in a position to reduce all phenomena to a finite set of intelligible causes, and all things must always appear to us to be at some level radically free. (In this sense, incidentally, he should count as a radical empiricist.) In somewhat less technical terms, we could say that, from a human point of view, everything must always seem contingent; even though from a divine or philosophical point of view, everything is nonetheless necessary. From the philosophical point of view-and only from the philosophical point of view-the distinction between possibility and actuality vanishes: if something may be, it is; if it may not be, it is not.

Spinoza takes pains to show that his determinism does not restrict G.o.d's freedom. To be free, as he defines it, is to be able to act in accordance with one's own nature (as opposed to someone else's nature). In other words, Spinoza supposes that the opposite of freedom is not necessity, but compulsion or constraint. Since G.o.d-and G.o.d alone-acts purely from the necessity of its own Nature, G.o.d is absolutely free. Leibniz a.s.similates this point quite well, too: "[Spinoza] thinks freedom consists in this, that an action or determination results not from an extrinsic impulse, but solely from the nature of the agent. In this sense he is right to say that G.o.d alone is free."

If the heady notions still leave one guessing just a little about what Spinoza thinks G.o.d is, there can be little doubt about what he thinks G.o.d is not not. (And the intuition that Spinoza's G.o.d is more comprehensible in the negative, as we shall see, turns out to have crucial implications.) Spinoza's G.o.d is not the G.o.d of Sunday school and Bible readings. It is not the kind of supernatural being who wakes up one morning, decides to create a world, and then stands back at the end of the week to admire his achievement. In fact, G.o.d has no "personality" at all: it isn't male or female; it has no hair, no likes or dislikes, is not right-or left-handed; it does not sleep, dream, love, hate, decide, or judge; it has no "will" or "intellect" in the way we understand those terms.

It also makes no sense to say that G.o.d is "good," according to Spinoza. Inasmuch as everything in the world follows of necessity from G.o.d's eternal essence, in fact, then we must infer that all those things we call "evil" are in in G.o.d just as much as that which we call "good." But, Spinoza elaborates, there is no good or evil in any absolute sense. Good and evil are relative notions-relative to us and our particular interests and uses. Spinoza's G.o.d-or Nature, or Substance-may be perfect, but it isn't good. G.o.d just as much as that which we call "good." But, Spinoza elaborates, there is no good or evil in any absolute sense. Good and evil are relative notions-relative to us and our particular interests and uses. Spinoza's G.o.d-or Nature, or Substance-may be perfect, but it isn't good.

Spinoza's G.o.d does not intervene in the course of events-for that would be to countermand itself-nor does it produce miracles-for that would be to contradict itself. Above all, G.o.d does not judge individuals and send them to heaven or h.e.l.l: "G.o.d gives no laws to mankind so as to reward them when they fulfill them and to punish them when they transgress them; or, to state it more clearly, G.o.d's laws are not of such a nature that they could be transgressed."

All of the traditional notions of a bearded deity blowing hot and cold from the heavens, in Spinoza's view, are contemptible instances of the human fondness for anthropomorphism. Besotted with our unruly imaginations, we humans often attribute to G.o.d whatever is desirable in a man. But, "to ascribe to G.o.d those attributes which make a man perfect would be as wrong as to ascribe to a man the attributes that make perfect an elephant or an a.s.s," as Spinoza scoffs to Blijenburgh. "If a triangle could speak," he adds, "it would say that G.o.d is eminently triangular."

In Spinoza's adamant rejection of the anthropomorphic conception of G.o.d we may glimpse a very deep link between his metaphysics and his politics. According to the political a.n.a.lysis first laid out in the Tractatus Tractatus, the orthodox idea of G.o.d is one of the mainstays of tyranny. The theologians, Spinoza suggests, promote the belief in a fearsome, judgmental, and punis.h.i.+ng G.o.d in order to extract obeisance from the superst.i.tious ma.s.ses. A people living under Spinoza's G.o.d, on the other hand, could easily dispense with theocratic oppression. The most they might require is a few scientists and philosophers.

Spinoza's concept of divinity is so clearly drawn as the ant.i.thesis of the theocratic one, in fact, that the question naturally arises whether he invented his new G.o.d in order to save himself or in order to destroy the reigning political order. Inasmuch as Spinoza's G.o.d is easier to understand in the negative-that is, in terms of what it is not not: a personal, providential, creator deity-than in the positive-what it is is-then to that extent his political commitments would seem to be prior to his philosophy. That is, his metaphysics would be intelligible princ.i.p.ally as the expression of his political project, to overthrow theocracy.

There are many more subtleties to Spinoza's bracing concept of G.o.d, and the philosopher draws out many more implications than those listed here. His Ethics Ethics is at first glance a th.o.r.n.y thicket of archaic terms and forbidding abstractions; but the rewards for penetrating the verbal barriers are great. Not the least attraction is the aesthetic experience, for the intricate web of definitions, axioms, and propositions is in some ways a prose poem, a dazzling intellectual sculpture. But the final point to consider here is just the method Spinoza claims to follow in his exposition of the nature of G.o.d. is at first glance a th.o.r.n.y thicket of archaic terms and forbidding abstractions; but the rewards for penetrating the verbal barriers are great. Not the least attraction is the aesthetic experience, for the intricate web of definitions, axioms, and propositions is in some ways a prose poem, a dazzling intellectual sculpture. But the final point to consider here is just the method Spinoza claims to follow in his exposition of the nature of G.o.d.

Embodied in that method is Spinoza's most ambitious claim. His concept of G.o.d is not an intuition or a revelation or a preference, he maintains; rather, it follows with rigorous necessity from the guidance of reason. He avows that he can see G.o.d just as clearly as he can see the results of a proof in geometry: "I know it in the same way that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles," as he famously says. He also maintains that any other reasonable person will see the same G.o.d, too.

Mind If to be G.o.d was a problem in the seventeenth century, to be human smacked of outright error. In that crucial age, European humankind suffered some of the heaviest blows to its collective self-esteem. Hitherto, it had been understood as self-evident that the earth was the center of the cosmos, that Christian Europe was the source of civilization, and that the human being was the purpose of all creation. Copernicus and Galileo did away with the first of these truths; Columbus and the Chinese, among others, conspired to eliminate the second; and so the third was left dangling quite uncomfortably in midair. To be sure, Darwin wasn't yet even a dream, and the moral majority had few doubts about the unique status of humankind among G.o.d's creations. But farsighted philosophers could glimpse the ancient questions looming with new menace on the horizon: What is it to be human? What, if anything, makes us special?

Descartes presented an answer that worked for many of the intellectuals of the time (and that still wields considerable influence). There are two radically distinct cla.s.ses of ent.i.ty in the world, Descartes said. On the one hand, there are minds. Minds think, exercise free will, and live forever. On the other hand, there are bodies. Bodies bounce around in s.p.a.ce according to fixed, mechanical principles (which Descartes thoughtfully supplied). Human beings are special because we alone have minds. We alone are empowered to say: I think therefore I am. The rest of the world-rocks, stars, cats, dogs, and so on-is a giant machine, grinding through a series of states with the iron necessity that characterizes the laws of nature.

In the most widely accepted narratives of the history of thought, Descartes's so-called dualism is often taken to represent a fundamental revolution in ideas and the starting point of modern philosophy. In style and method Cartesian philosophy did indeed mark an important, hugely influential breakthrough in European letters; but in substance his work is perhaps better understood as an attempt to conserve the old truths in the face of new threats. His dualism was in essence an armistice of sorts between the established religion and the emerging science of his time. By isolating the mind from the physical world, the philosopher ensured that many of the central doctrines of orthodoxy-immortality of the soul, the freedom of the will, and, in general, the "special" status of humankind-were rendered immune to any possible contravention by the scientific investigation of the physical world. Conversely, the complete self-sufficiency of the machinelike material world guaranteed that physical science could proceed without fear of contradiction from revealed religion.

Not everyone was happy with Descartes's solution. In the eyes of many of his critics, the great philosopher appeared to solve one problem only to create another, namely: How is it possible for minds and bodies to interact at all? That they interact is obvious every time we lift an arm, eat breakfast, or go to sleep, not to mention when we are born and die. Yet, according to the Cartesian conception, it would seem to be impossible to explain how a mind can intervene in the material world without violating the mechanical principles that govern that world-or else submitting itself to those same laws and thereby reducing itself to matter. Furthermore, if such causal links between the mind-world and the machine-world were to be discovered, then that would open the door to the scientific investigation of the mind, which would in turn imperil the religious truths that the Cartesian dualism was designed to protect.

The mind-body problem manifested itself in other ways that kept seventeenth-century thinkers awake at night. The strict Cartesian dualism left animals, for example, impaled on the horns of dilemma: Do dogs, say, have minds like us or are they machines? To endow a dog with a mind, according to Cartesian logic, was tantamount to giving it a place in heaven; so the Cartesians stuck to the less theologically risky position that animals are indeed machines. Their critics forced them to concede that this implied that beating a dog and thus causing it to bark, for example, is equivalent to beating a bagpipe and causing it to squeal-a philosophical howler that seemed then, as now, both repellent and obviously untrue.

Babies, sleepers, and dreamers all presented similar forms of the mind-body problem. Since babies cannot say "I think therefore I am," do they lack minds? Do they acquire them later-say, on the thirteenth birthday? When we sleep, do our minds go on holiday? Can a dreamer say "I think therefore I am"? And if we should at long last fall into a very deep sleep, sans sans dreams, do we cease to be human for the duration? dreams, do we cease to be human for the duration?

The best indication of the vexation caused by the mind-body problem among seventeenth-century observers is the extremity of the solutions it called forth. Descartes himself sometimes said that the interaction between mind and body was so complex that only G.o.d could understand it. Many critics simply took this as a restatement of the problem-for how does G.o.d accomplish that which is inconceivable? At other times Descartes proposed that the mind is located in the pituitary gland, an organ of unique sensitivity and motility whose rapid and intense gyrations serve to convey the mind's desires to all the other parts of the body through complex mechanical pathways. This theory, however, had no basis whatsoever in the evidence; it failed even to address the mind-body problem it purported to solve (how does the mind move the pituitary?); and it was, frankly speaking, ludicrous. "Such is the view of this ill.u.s.trious man, a view I would scarce have credited had it not been so ingenious," Spinoza says with undisguised contempt.

The work of the theologian Malebranche provides the best ill.u.s.tration of the lengths to which Cartesians felt compelled to go in order to patch up the embarra.s.sing hole in their master's philosophy. Malebranche favored the view that every time a mind interacts with the material world, G.o.d intervenes on that "occasion" and brings about the desired change. When the mind "wills" to fry an egg, for example, G.o.d promptly reaches into the physical world and puts a pan on the stove. The theory was soon dignified with the name of "occasionalism." Even in the credulous seventeenth century, however, all but the most besotted Cartesians could see that occasionalism was just a kind of deus ex machina deus ex machina on a grand scale-which is to say, it simply used the name of G.o.d as a cover for ignorance. on a grand scale-which is to say, it simply used the name of G.o.d as a cover for ignorance.

The solutions were so desperate, of course, because the stakes were so high. In the strident world of seventeenth-century philosophy, the mind-body problem was not a word puzzle that could be safely relegated to undergraduate cla.s.ses. For men such as Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibniz, solving the mind-body problem was vital to preserving the theological and political order inherited from the Middle Ages and, more generally, to protecting human self-esteem in the face of an increasingly truculent universe. For Spinoza, it was a means of destroying that same order and discovering a new foundation for human worth.

As a general rule, philosophers deal with their "problems" in one of two ways. Either they construct a theory to "solve" the problem such as it is; or they pull the rug right out from under the problem-in effect, they deny that it is a problem. Malebranche offers a good example of the first approach with his occasionalist response to the Cartesian mind-body problem. Spinoza exemplifies the second approach in his response to the same. Spinoza's answer to the mind-body problem marks a radical break in the history of thought-the kind that happen only every millennium or two.

The crucial premise of the Cartesian version of the mind-body problem is that the mind is something very distinct from the body, or, in more general terms, that man occupies a very special place in nature. This idea, of course, belonged not to Descartes alone, but to all of his theological predecessors as well. Spinoza expresses this premise in an elegant formula: They appear to go so far as to conceive of man in Nature as a kingdom within a kingdom.

It is because the Cartesians (and others) conceive of mind as something utterly incompatible with body that they encounter a "problem" in attempting to explain how mind and body may interact at all-i.e., how one kingdom may communicate with the other.

Spinoza flatly rejects the premise. The mind, he says, is not exempt from the laws of nature. In The Short Treatise on G.o.d, Man, and His Well-Being The Short Treatise on G.o.d, Man, and His Well-Being, which dates from around the end of his dark period, he announces his core conviction: Man is a part of Nature and must follow its laws, and this alone is true wors.h.i.+p.

There is only one kingdom in Spinoza's world, the kingdom of G.o.d, or Nature; and human beings belong to this kingdom in the same way that stones, trees, and cats do. With this simple proposition, Spinoza drives a stake through the heart of two millennia of religion and philosophy, which in almost all of its forms had taken as its most basic premise that human existence is special and sets man apart from the rest of nature.

Leibniz had an inkling of Spinoza's thesis here, though some time elapsed before he a.s.similated its horrifying consequences. In his notes on the discussion with Tschirnhaus, he observes: "Mind, according to [Spinoza], is in a way a part of G.o.d."

Although he insists that the mind is a part of the same Nature as the body, Spinoza does not deny that there are mental phenomena-ideas, decisions, even "minds," in a sense. So, having pulled the premise out from under the Cartesian mind-body problem, he now faces an inverted version of the same problem. Instead of having to explain how it is that two cla.s.ses of ent.i.ty that are so different could possibly interact with each other, he must explain how it is that one kind of ent.i.ty could manifest itself in two very different ways-first in the form of mental phenomena, then in the form of physical objects.

Spinoza's answer, in somewhat technical terms, is to say that two of the infinite attributes of Substance-and, in fact, the only two of which we have any knowledge-are "Thought" and "Extension." When we consider Substance under the attribute of Thought, he says, we see minds, ideas, and decisions; when we consider the same Substance under the attribute of Extension, we see physical bodies in motion. As he puts it: Thinking substance and extended substance are one and the same, comprehended now under this attribute, now under that.

In more concrete terms, this implies that every mental act has a correlative in some physical process, with which it is in fact identical. The point becomes clear in this pa.s.sage: Mental decision on the one hand, and the appet.i.te and physical state of the body on the other hand, are simultaneous in nature; or rather, they are one and the same thing which, when considered under the attribute of Thought and explicated through Thought, we call decision, and when considered under the attribute of Extension and deduced from the laws of motion-and-rest, we call a physical state.

The view Spinoza articulates here was later given the name "parallelism," for it suggests that the mental and the physical worlds operate in parallel. The most succinct and famous expression of parallelism is to be found in Proposition 7 of Part II of the Ethics Ethics: "The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things."

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Spinoza's answer to the mind-body problem is the unprecedented demands it makes on the body. If, as Spinoza says, mental decisions are nothing more than the appet.i.tes themselves, varying according to the disposition of the body, then it follows that the body is an extraordinarily complex device, capable of "embodying"(literally) any mental act conceivable. Antic.i.p.ating the most common objection to his theory-that it is inconceivable that a lump of inanimate matter should be able to write poems, build temples, and experience love, and that therefore the body cannot produce the mind-Spinoza writes: n.o.body as yet has learned from experience what the body can and cannot do...solely from the laws of its nature insofar as it is considered corporeal. For n.o.body as yet knows the structure of the body so accurately as to explain all its functions, not to mention that in the animal world we find much that surpa.s.ses human sagacity, and that sleepwalkers do many things in their sleep that they would not dare when awake...[the human body] surpa.s.ses in ingenuity all the constructions of human skill.

Written three centuries before the neurosciences began to reveal something of the extraordinary capabilities of the human brain, Spinoza's words here can only give courage to philosophers in doubt about the power of reason alone to overcome common prejudice.

In jettisoning the premise that the mind is radically distinct from the body, Spinoza dissolves many of the paradoxes of Cartesianism. For example, he does away with the dilemmas concerning borderline cases such as animals, babies, sleepers, and dreamers. "In proportion as a body is more apt than other bodies to act or be acted upon simultaneously in many ways," he says, "so is its mind more apt than other minds to perceive many things simultaneously." In other words, there is a continuum of sorts in mental capacity, in the same way that there is a continuum in the complexity of bodies. Thus, Spinoza has no difficulty in a.s.similating what experience tells us every day: that some minds are superior to others; that the same individual may think better at some times than at others depending on, say, whether one has had one's morning coffee; that damage to the brain can result in the impairment or loss of mental functions; that animals exhibit some degree of thinking; and that people who are in deep sleep, unconscious, dead, or unborn may not be thinking at all.

Spinoza's philosophy of mind, like his concept of G.o.d, is in some ways easier to understand in the negative-that is, in terms of the theories it rejects-than in the positive. Indeed, when considered as positive doctrine, his philosophy may give rise to a number of perplexities. One could argue, for example, that the division of Substance into the two attributes of Thought and Extension amounts only to an a.s.sertion that that mind and body are the same thing, not an explanation of mind and body are the same thing, not an explanation of how how the ident.i.ty of these two very different kinds of phenomena comes about. In other words, Spinoza's theory, when considered as positive doctrine, may simply be kicking the mind-body problem upstairs, from humankind to G.o.d. It also seems odd-as Tschirnhaus, for one, points out in one of his letters-that Spinoza happens to name only these two of G.o.d's purportedly infinite attributes. One may even doubt that these two in fact count as attributes of equal status. For, if an attribute is, according to Spinoza's definition, that which "the intellect perceives as const.i.tuting the essence of substance," then one might conclude that the Extension is perceived through Thought, and so cannot count as being in the same relation to Substance as Thought. the ident.i.ty of these two very different kinds of phenomena comes about. In other words, Spinoza's theory, when considered as positive doctrine, may simply be kicking the mind-body problem upstairs, from humankind to G.o.d. It also seems odd-as Tschirnhaus, for one, points out in one of his letters-that Spinoza happens to name only these two of G.o.d's purportedly infinite attributes. One may even doubt that these two in fact count as attributes of equal status. For, if an attribute is, according to Spinoza's definition, that which "the intellect perceives as const.i.tuting the essence of substance," then one might conclude that the Extension is perceived through Thought, and so cannot count as being in the same relation to Substance as Thought.

But no such quibbles trouble our understanding of what Spinoza means to oppose with his theory of mind. The largest part of philosophy since Plato has stood for the belief that mind is a special kind of thing, endowed with free will and immortality, whose possession grants humankind an exemption from the order of nature. And this is the creed that Spinoza sets about to destroy. In fact, Spinoza's philosophy, if true, pulverizes not just the theories of his philosophical predecessors, but also many of the religious doctrines they sought to protect-not to mention common intuitions about mental life that prevail even today. And Spinoza is not shy to draw out these heretical and counterintuitive implications.

For one thing, it follows from Spinoza's position that human beings have no free will in an absolute sense. Our experience of freedom, says Spinoza, consists only in this: that we are conscious of our desires but ignorant of the causes that determine them. If a stone tossed in the air suddenly acquired consciousness, he argues in one notorious pa.s.sage, it would imagine that it was flying freely. Leibniz clearly picks up the point: "Man is free to the extent that he is not determined by anything external. But since this is not the case in any of his acts, man is in no way free-even if he partic.i.p.ates in freedom more than other bodies do."

Not satisfied with obliterating the idea of free will, Spinoza goes on to suggest that there is no will at all, in a certain sense. That is to say, we have particular volitions but there is no faculty of willing that exists independent of these particular volitions. What we call the will is "only an idea of our willing this or that and therefore is only a mode of thought, a thing of reason, and not a real thing; nothing can be caused by it."

Not only is there no will, according to Spinoza; there is also no mind at all, in the usual, Cartesian sense of that word. That is, there is no ent.i.ty in which thoughts and desires inhere that exists before or apart from those same thoughts and desires. For Spinoza, the mind-like the will-is just an abstraction over a collection of mental events. It is an idea, not a thing. Specifically, Spinoza proposes, the mind is the idea of a particular, existing body. Thus it is the body-that is, the fact that a collection of thoughts and desires pertain to a particular body-which supplies the unity and the ident.i.ty of the mind, such as it is. Leibniz once again gathers the essentials: "[Spinoza] thinks mind is the very idea of the body."

Of course, the implication of the claim that the mind is the idea of the body is that the mind does not in fact possess unity or self-ident.i.ty in any absolute sense. The mind does not know itself, Spinoza reasons, except insofar as it perceives the ideas of the modifications of the body; but the idea of each modification of the body does not involve an adequate knowledge of the body itself; therefore, "the human mind...has not an adequate but only a confused and fragmentary knowledge of itself, of its own body, and of external bodies." That is to say, in Spinoza's world, our knowledge of ourselves, just like our knowledge of particular things in general, is mediated through the body itself, and is therefore always imperfect or fallible and open to revision. Thus, minds are every bit as complex and multifarious as the bodies of which they are the ideas. (It is worth noting that Spinoza's position is quite close to that which the historians of philosophy ascribe to radical empiricists, such as David Hume, and not at all consistent with the "rationalism" with which he is often incorrectly identified.) One could point out that Spinoza here originates the idea of the unconscious, although this may be to give a bad theory a better pedigree than it deserves. Spinoza does not suggest that there is a mysterious, second mind buried underneath the conscious one and endowed with a will and desires of its own; rather, he contends that any mind is only partially conscious of itself. The place to look for the unconscious part of the mind, then, is not in a fictional, hidden mind, but in the gap between the idea of the body that const.i.tutes the mind and the body itself.

A final (and for his contemporaries, dreadful) consequence of Spinoza's theory of the mind is that there is no personal immortality. For, to the extent that mental acts always have a correlate in physical states, then when the physical states turn to dust, so, too, does the mind. In other words, inasmuch as the mind is the idea of the body, then when a particular body ceases to exist, so, too, does its mind.

The ruthless quas.h.i.+ng of personal immortality reveals again the extent to which Spinoza's metaphysics is linked to his radical politics. The theologians, says Spinoza, shamelessly use the prospect of eternal reward and d.a.m.nation to cow the ma.s.ses. If Spinoza is right, then philosophy since Plato is not just wrong, but an abomination, a fraud of global dimensions intended to excuse oppression in this world with the empty promise of justice in the afterlife. In fact, inasmuch as Spinoza's "negative" theory of mind remains easier to grasp than his "positive" one, then to that extent his political commitments once again seem prior to his philosophical ones.

In sum: To the fundamental question-what makes us special?-Spinoza offers a clear and devastating answer: nothing. And yet, there can be little doubt that for Spinoza there is is something special about the human being. Or perhaps more accurately, there is some way in which the human being can something special about the human being. Or perhaps more accurately, there is some way in which the human being can become become special. This is what he declared in his very manner of living, through his unwavering commitment to a "life of the mind." And, as happens only with the most acute philosophers, it is also what he declares in his writings. Spinoza's a.s.sault on the mind-body problem isn't just about developing a more convincing hypothesis to explain some puzzling observations about thoughts and brains; it is, as he says in his special. This is what he declared in his very manner of living, through his unwavering commitment to a "life of the mind." And, as happens only with the most acute philosophers, it is also what he declares in his writings. Spinoza's a.s.sault on the mind-body problem isn't just about developing a more convincing hypothesis to explain some puzzling observations about thoughts and brains; it is, as he says in his Short Treatise Short Treatise, about "true wors.h.i.+p," or the path to salvation.

Salvation Happiness, too, became a problem in the seventeenth century. Much of the blame for this development, as usual, should go to the Reformation of the previous century. So long as there was a single, "catholic" church, the question of how to achieve blessedness remained in the hands of the appropriate ecclesiastical authorities. Once that church lost its universality, however, the question of happiness fell out of the hands of G.o.d and landed in the lap of individual conscience. The success of so many new varieties of religious practice, ironically, made plain the individual character of faith.

Spinoza himself makes the point: "You will not be able to deny that in every church there are very many honorable men who wors.h.i.+p G.o.d with justice and charity," he tells one correspondent. "For we have known many such men among the Lutherans, the Reformed Church, the Mennonites, and the Enthusiasts, to say nothing of others.... You must therefore grant that holiness of life is...common to all." Spinoza politely neglects to include in the list his own confessional status, that of an apostate Jew-itself perhaps the most glaring evidence for the existence of a purely personal path to salvation.

At the very time that happiness became a personal matter, it also seemed to become much harder to achieve. In a world where G.o.d was increasingly remote and indifferent, where humankind's privilege in the order of things seemed under threat, and where no rational individual could accept the cosmogonies handed down by the theological traditions, a.s.surances of salvation were not easy to come by. No one, of course, believed G.o.d to be more indifferent, or humanity's privilege less sure, than Spinoza himself. Happiness was therefore his biggest problem. That is, the greatest challenge Spinoza faced was to explain how to be happy-and how to be moral, which in his view was the same thing-in a world that is thoroughly secular. In his Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, as we know, Spinoza announced that the sole aim of his philosophy is to acquire "supreme, continuous, and everlasting happiness." In the Ethics Ethics he claims he has done just that. he claims he has done just that.

Happiness is freedom, says Spinoza. It follows when we act in accordance with our own deepest nature-when we "realize ourselves," as it were. Unfortunately, we humans rarely have the privilege of acting according to our deepest nature, for in our ignorance of ourselves and of the world we submit ourselves to the guidance of forces beyond our control. Humankind is battered about on a sea of emotions, the philosopher thunders; we are tossed about in a chaos of hope and fear, joy and despair, love and hate, impelled along a random course whose only certain destination is eventual unhappiness. Most people most of the time, concludes Spinoza, are pa.s.sive. But the point of life is to be active.

Spinoza's first step toward freedom is to haul the emotions before the bar of reason. "I shall consider human actions and desires," he writes, "as though I were concerned with lines, planes and solids." In the Ethics Ethics he presents a theory according to which all the emotions we experience-love and hate, self-content and humility, wonder and consternation, and so on-may be a.n.a.lyzed in terms of three basic concepts: pleasure, pain, and the he presents a theory according to which all the emotions we experience-love and hate, self-content and humility, wonder and consternation, and so on-may be a.n.a.lyzed in terms of three basic concepts: pleasure, pain, and the conatus conatus. The conatus conatus is a drive or desire-in essence, the desire to persist in one's own being. Every person-and, indeed, every rock, tree, and thing in the world-has a is a drive or desire-in essence, the desire to persist in one's own being. Every person-and, indeed, every rock, tree, and thing in the world-has a conatus conatus to act, live, preserve itself, and realize itself by pursuing its own interest (or "advantage"). "Pleasure" is the state that results from anything that contributes to the project of this to act, live, preserve itself, and realize itself by pursuing its own interest (or "advantage"). "Pleasure" is the state that results from anything that contributes to the project of this conatus conatus, that is, anything that increases a thing's power or level of "perfection" and "pain" is the state that results from anything that does the opposite, that diminishes the power of a thing.

On the basis of these three concepts, Spinoza builds a rich theory of the emotions. A number of his definitions are perhaps a little too obvious; others are uncannily apt and pithy. Some examples: Love, he says, is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external object as its cause. Self-content (or self-love) is pleasure arising from the contemplation of one's own power of action. And pride is thinking too highly of oneself on account of self-love. The important general point is that all the emotions have their foundation in the conatus conatus of the individual: "desire is the essence of man," as Spinoza puts it. To be clear: this desire is fundamentally self-centered. of the individual: "desire is the essence of man," as Spinoza puts it. To be clear: this desire is fundamentally self-centered.

There is nothing wrong with the emotions per se per se, in Spinoza's view, nor with this unending and apparently selfish desire called the conatus conatus. Quite to the contrary, he maintains, pleasure-or the maximization of the conatus conatus-is the source of all good. Indeed, Spinoza pauses long enough to take another swipe at the theocratic order of the day: "Nothing but grim and gloomy superst.i.tion forbids enjoyment," he says, alluding to the ascetic ideal of the reigning church. "[N]o deity, nor anyone else but the envious, takes pleasure in my weakness and misfortune, nor does he take to be a virtue our tears, sobs, fearfulness, and other such things that are the mark of a weak spirit."

The problem with the emotions is rather that they often fail to set the conatus conatus on the true course to happiness. Emotions generally arise at the call of external forces and are therefore not self-centered in a perspicuous way. Owing to human ignorance, we fear things that don't exist (such as a personal G.o.d who might judge us); we allow present experiences to distract us from the value of future goods; we let pride go to our heads; and we otherwise add every day in the usual ways to the limitless catalogue of human folly. Most emotions, concludes Spinoza, are based on inadequate conceptions of things. They are "pa.s.sive"-which is why we call them "pa.s.sions," after all. on the true course to happiness. Emotions generally arise at the call of external forces and are therefore not self-centered in a perspicuous way. Owing to human ignorance, we fear things that don't exist (such as a personal G.o.d who might judge us); we allow present experiences to distract us from the value of future goods; we let pride go to our heads; and we otherwise add every day in the usual ways to the limitless catalogue of human folly. Most emotions, concludes Spinoza, are based on inadequate conceptions of things. They are "pa.s.sive"-which is why we call them "pa.s.sions," after all.

The first contribution of reason is to bring order to the emotions, so that we may understand how to guide them under the rubric of our true self-interest. Reason teaches us, for example, to value future goods in direct proportion to present goods; that excessive pride is a bad thing; that humility is no good either (or, at least, so says Spinoza); and so on. The resulting, orderly state of the emotions Spinoza names "virtue." In a neat reversal of the traditional understanding of the term-which is usually freighted with forbidding connotations of self-denial and abstemiousness-Spinoza insists that the more we seek our own interest, the more we are endowed with virtue. He goes out of his way to reject explicitly the orthodox notion of virtue: "Hence we clearly understand how far astray from the true estimation of virtue are those who, failing to understand that virtue itself and the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d are happiness itself and utmost freedom, expect G.o.d to bestow on them the highest rewards in return for their virtue and meritorious actions as if in return for the basest slavery."

Although virtue has its feet planted firmly in self-interest (or, better, self-realization), Spinoza maintains that virtue in fact leads to very unselfish social behavior. As noted above in connection with his political philosophy, he argues that men who live under the guidance of reason invariably treat others with respect, they repay hate with love, and in general behave like model citizens and "good Christians."

Nevertheless, Spinoza acknowledges, seeking one's best interest and getting it are two different things. He emphasizes that human beings are extremely weak in the face of the external forces arrayed against them, and that even the most reasonable men will find that the objects of hope and fear lie mostly outside their control. The second contribution of the guidance of reason is to teach us to understand the inner necessity of things, and therefore not to find unhappiness in the vast part of human experience over which we have no control. When he writes, "Insofar as we understand, we can desire nothing but that which must be, nor can we find contentment in anything but the truth," Spinoza expresses the cla.s.sic sentiment of acquiescence that has been a.s.sociated with the very name of philosophy at least since the time of the ancient Stoics. In describing the proper philosophical att.i.tude toward events beyond our control, however, he does not employ terms like "resignation" or "indifference" but rather "desire" and "contentment." The stance he adopts is not "fatalism," but something more like what Nietzsche describes as "amor fati"-the love of fate.

Of course, the love of fate is not for the faint of heart. Human beings are weak not just with respect to outside forces, Spinoza cautions, but also with respect to the demons within. The pa.s.sions are so strong that they can overrule the mind with ease and lead us "to follow the worse course even when we know the better." The only way to overcome the emotions, he says, is with a higher kind of emotion: you have to fight fire with fire. Spinoza thus distinguishes himself from the Stoics, who argued that the only thing to do with the surly crowd of human emotions is to have them all shot, as it were. And this brings us to the ultimate contribution of the guidance of reason in the quest for happiness. For, reason supplies us with an emotion of its own, a stronger and more durable emotion than all the others put together. It is an active emotion, unlike the pa.s.sions, because it is based on an adequate idea rather than an inadequate one. Spinoza calls it "the intellectual love of G.o.d."

The intellectual love of G.o.d is the same thing as the knowledge of G.o.d contained in the first part of the Ethics Ethics. Spinoza identifies it as "the third kind of knowledge," or "intuition," in order to distinguish it from sense experience ("the first kind") and the reflective knowledge that arises from the a.n.a.lysis of experience ("the second kind"). To know his G.o.d in the third way, Spinoza claims, is the same thing as to love G.o.d. Furthermore, this love is greater than any other possible love, and can never waiver. Since the individual is just a mode of G.o.d, the intellectual love of G.o.d is G.o.d's way of loving itself.

At this point, where we reach the long sought union of man and G.o.d (or Nature), Spinoza goes on to say, we achieve a kind of immortality. Contrary to what he seems to imply in his philosophy of mind, Spinoza now contends that "the human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body." The eternal part of the mind, it turns out, is the "intellect"-the faculty with which we grasp the eternal truths of philosophy. The immortality Spinoza offers here, however, is not of the kind that would provide much solace for the superst.i.tious: we take with us no personal memories of who we were or what we did in our journey to the eternal ideas, and we receive no rewards other than those that come from having such beautiful thoughts in the first place. In fact, Spinoza's immortality doesn't really occur "after" life; it is something more like an escape from time altogether. By immortality Spinoza means something like the union of the mind with ideas that are themselves timeless.

The end point of Spinoza's philosophy-the intellectual love of G.o.d, or blessedness-transfigures all that precedes it. It can sometimes sound paradoxical and more than a little mystical. It is the union of the individual and the cosmos, of freedom and necessity, of activity and pa.s.sivity, of mind and body, of self-interest and charity, of virtue and knowledge, and of happiness and virtue. It is the place where all that which was previously relativized in Spinoza-the good, which was relative to our desires; freedom, which was relative to our ignorance; self-knowledge, which was relative to our imperfect perceptions of the body-suddenly reappears in the form of absolutes: absolute good, absolute freedom, and absolute knowledge.

It cannot be overlooked that Spinoza a.s.signs a stupefying onus to the faculty of reason. It is one thing to say that reason can help bring order and acceptance to our emotional lives; it is quite another to say that it may lead us to supreme, continuous, and everlasting happiness in an eternal union with G.o.d. Spinoza's ambition for philosophy was, by any measure, extreme.

That overweening ambition returns us to the paradox that first emerged in the consideration of the young Bento's unusual behavior in the context of his expulsion from the Jewish community. On the one hand, Spinoza's philosophy clearly represents a "transvaluation" of traditional values, to use a Nietzschean phrase. The dominant religion of Spinoza's time-and perhaps most religion, viewed in a general way-promises happiness in exchange exchange for an unhappy virtue. But Spinoza says that happiness for an unhappy virtue. But Spinoza says that happiness is is virtue. Religion generally makes charity the highest good. But Spinoza names self-interest as the sole source of value, and reduces charity to one of its incidental consequences. Religion tends to reserve its most lavish praise for those who deny themselves the pleasures of the body. But Spinoza says that the more (true) pleasure we have, the more perfect we are. Religion tells us that happiness results from submission to an external authority-if not G.o.d, then his representatives on earth. Spinoza stakes his life on the claim that happiness is freedom. virtue. Religion generally makes charity the highest good. But Spinoza names self-interest as the sole source of value, and reduces charity to one of its incidental consequences. Religion tends to reserve its most lavish praise for those who deny themselves the pleasures of the body. But Spinoza says that the more (true) pleasure we have, the more perfect we are. Religion tells us that happiness results from submission to an external authority-if not G.o.d, then his representatives on earth. Spinoza stakes his life on the claim that happiness is freedom.

On the other hand, there is clearly more than a little piety in the iconoclastic spiritual journey recorded in the Ethics. Ethics. The longing to transcend the limits of the human condition and the ultimate arrival at a kind of immortality and a union with G.o.d-these are the staples of religious narratives throughout history. Many commentators, beginning in the seventeenth century, have gone so far as to interpret Spinoza's work as the expression of a characteristically Jewish theological position. His monism, they say, may be traced to Deuteronomy ("the Lord our G.o.d is One"); and his seemingly mystical tendencies link him to the Kabbalah. The longing to transcend the limits of the human condition and the ultimate arrival at a kind of immortality and a union with G.o.d-these are the staples of religious narratives throughout history. Many commentators, beginning in the seventeenth century, have gone so far as to interpret Spinoza's work as the expression of a characteristically Jewish theological position. His monism, they say, may be traced to Deuteronomy ("the Lord our G.o.d is One"); and his seemingly mystical tendencies link him to the Kabbalah.

If indeed it is a religion-a very problematic possibility-then Spinoza's philosophy is in any case one of those religions that offers itself only to an elect few. The philosopher's last words on the highway to salvation are "all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare." Part of the rarity of his way, no doubt, stems from the fact that it is very difficult to read tracts like his, written in the geometrical style and stuffed with medieval barbarisms like "substance" and "attributes." But there is another sense in which salvation is no easy task.

Spinoza's G.o.d is a tremendous thing (actually, it is every thing), and it is bound to inspire awe, wonder, and perhaps for some even love. But it is not the kind of thing that will love you back.

It cannot be said that G.o.d loves mankind, much less that he should love them because they love him, or hate them because they hate him.He who loves G.o.d cannot endeavor that G.o.d should love him in return.

Spinoza's G.o.d, in other words, will make no exception to its natural laws on your account; it will work no miracles for you; it will tender no affection, show no sign of concern about your well-being; in short, it will give you nothing that you do not already have. Spinoza's G.o.d is so indifferent, in fact, that one may even ask whether it is reasonable reasonable to love it. For, if love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external object as its cause, as Spinoza says, then of what pleasure can such an unhelpful G.o.d be said to be the cause? Spinoza, to be sure, devotes a number of his intricate and arduous proofs to the proposition that loving G.o.d is the finest expression of reason. But his many beautiful words on the subject do not necessarily close a gap that some would say can be crossed only with a leap of faith. In any case, there can be little doubt that the road he traveled was difficult and rare. to love it. For, if love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external object as its cause, as Spinoza says, then of what pleasure can such an unhelpful G.o.d be said to be the cause? Spinoza, to be sure, devotes a number of his intricate and arduous proofs to the proposition that loving G.o.d is the finest expression of reason. But his many beautiful words on the subject do not necessarily close a gap that some would say can be crossed only with a leap of faith. In any case, there can be little doubt that the road he traveled was difficult and rare.

Spinoza and Modernity "Gradually it has become clear to me what every great philosophy is," says Nietzsche, "namely, a personal confession of its creator and a kind of involuntary and unperceived memoir." No finer evidence for such a claim may be found than in the pages of the Ethics Ethics, which expresses with luxurious abandon the character of its creator. The modesty that beguiled Rabbi Morteira, Henry Oldenburg, and so many others presents itself in a vision in which human individuals vanish to mere ephemera in the vast workings of nature. The self-confidence that allowed him to take extraordinary risks throughout his career manifests itself in his declaration that the world, or Nature, is intelligible, and that the truths established by reason and observation can never be bad. The eerie self-sufficiency that made him serene in the face of the wrath of his community emboldens the mature philosopher's confrontation with the value system of an entire civilization. The halo of piety that hovered strangely over the young apostate's head, too, s.h.i.+nes in the G.o.d-drenched paeans to virtue and salvation that round off his masterpiece.

Great philosophy is also, as Hegel once said, its own time apprehended in thought. Like the owl of Minerva, it arises at dusk and sees all that has come before. The age that Spinoza surveyed with his large and pitiless eyes was one of momentous transition, a world in flux between the medieval and the modern. With an acuity that must have been in part native and in part the consequence of his unusual circ.u.mstances in life, Spinoza perceived the fragility of the self, the precariousness of freedom, and the irreducible diversity in the new society emerging around him. He saw that the advance of science was in the process of rendering the G.o.d of revelation obsolete; that it had already undermined the special place of the human individual in nature; and that the problem of happiness was now a matter for individual conscience. He understood all this because these same developments determined the nature of his own existence as a double exile in the golden age of the Dutch Republic.

Because he rose so high above history in some sense, too, Spinoza foresaw its general direction with an often uncanny prescience. He described a secular, liberal, democratic order a full century before the world provided any durable examples of the same. Two centuries before Darwin proposed a theory to explain how the grand design of nature evolves through natural processes, without need of a designer, he effectively announced that such an explanation was inevitable. In an age when the brain was generally thought to be about as complex as a bowl of custard, he antic.i.p.ated insights from the neurosciences that would be three centuries in coming. The world he describes is in many ways the modern one within which we live.

The defining gesture of Spinoza's philosophy is to embrace this new reality. His work is an attempt to make the new world he saw emerging around him the foundation of a new form of wors.h.i.+p-to realize a new and distinctly modern kind of self. To borrow from his own vocabulary, his philosophy may be usefully described as an active active form of modernity. That is, it is an attempt to identify that which it holds to be the new truths of the world around us with the source of all that is valuable in life. form of modernity. That is, it is an attempt to identify that which it holds to be the new truths of the world around us with the source of all that is valuable in life.

SOMEWHERE ON THE left bank of the Seine, another individual was beginning to trace the contours of the new world. In light of the new ideas radiating from The Hague, a keen, scrutinizing, and very different set of eyes began to take in the challenges of modernity. Here was a mind that longed to see G.o.d as clearly as one could see a triangle, too, that grasped the general direction of history, and that sought a response to the problems of the modern condition. But it was a mind with tastes and proclivities very much its own. And so it began to fumble with the questions that must inevitably arise from any serious contemplation of Spinoza's thought. left bank of the Seine, another individual was beginning to trace the contours of the new world. In light of the new ideas radiating from The Hague, a keen, scrutinizing, and very different set of eyes began to take in the challenges of modernity. Here was a mind that longed to see G.o.d as clearly as one could see a triangle, too, that grasped the general direction of history, and that sought a response to the problems of the modern condition. But it was a mind with tastes and proclivities very much its own. And so it began to fumble with the questions that must inevitably arise from any serious contemplation of Spinoza's thought.

Does Spinoza manage to construct a new theory of the human being, or does he simply destroy the old one? Does he demonstrate that there is only one Substance-or that the very idea of substance is incoherent? Is his form of exposition really a method, or is it just a style? Is the "intellectual love" of his Nature-G.o.d in fact reasonable reasonable?

The questions all circle back to the point where Spinoza's philosophy begins and ends: G.o.d. Spinoza claims to find divinity in nature. He avows that G.o.d is in all things-in the here and now. But, in all of human history, G.o.d has always been understood as something super supernatural-as a being outside of all things, residing in the "before and beyond." Does Spinoza's G.o.d really deserve the name of G.o.d? That is, does the philosopher succeed in his project of deifying Nature? Or does he merely naturalize-and thereby destroy-G.o.d?

These were the questions that first met modern eyes when Leibniz sat down in the Hotel des Romains in the winter of 1676; and these were the questions whose answers the tireless, reckless courtier sought when he journeyed to The Hague in November of that year.

11.

Approaching Spinoza In a note dated February 11, 1676-quite possibly, the very same day Tschirnhaus first revealed to him the secrets of Spinoza-Leibniz declares his ambition to write a grand statement of his own philosophy of everything. This note and those that follow in the weeks and months ahead take on a loose, personal, experimental, speculative, and highly incoherent character that distinguishes them from his other writings, both before and after. The fragments do not in fact come close to a comprehensive philosophy of everything, nor do they even admit of any single, unambiguous interpretation; what they reveal most clearly is Leibniz's extraordinary ambition to develop a philosophical system of his own that would resolve all the timeless questions about G.o.d, humankind, and salvation.

Spinoza's sway is already evident in the t.i.tle Leibniz now gives to his unwritten masterpiece: The Elements of a Secret Philosophy of the Whole of Things, Geometrically Demonstrated The Elements of a Secret Philosophy of the Whole of Things, Geometrically Demonstrated. This is precisely the t.i.tle one would have expected Leibniz to give to Spinoza's (as yet unpublished) Ethics Ethics. That Spinoza's work is a "secret philosophy" goes without saying, as does the fact that it is "geometrically demonstrated." The most interesting coincidence, though, has to do with the phrase "of the whole of things." In some pa.s.sages, Leibniz uses the phrase "de summa rerum" to refer to "the totality of things" or "the universe." In other places, however, he uses it to mean "the highest of things," or simply "G.o.d." "Meditations on [G.o.d]," he writes, "could be t.i.tled On the Secrets of the Sublime On the Secrets of the Sublime or or De Summa Rerum." De Summa Rerum." In other words, G.o.d and the universe are at least lexically indistinguishable. The demonstration that G.o.d and the universe are metaphysically indistinguishable, of course, is the princ.i.p.al point of Spinoza's In other words, G.o.d and the universe are at least lexically indistinguishable. The demonstration that G.o.d and the universe are metaphysically indistinguishable, of course, is the princ.i.p.al point of Spinoza's Ethics Ethics.

The alternative t.i.tle of Leibniz's prospective book, On the Secrets of the Sublime On the Secrets of the Sublime, lends his project a surprisingly underground sensibility. In the letter he sent to Thomasius seven years earlier, Leibniz excoriates a book by Bodin under precisely that t.i.tle. The author of that book, he says at the time, is "a professed enemy of the Christian religion" and a crypto-atheist. Yet Bodin's t.i.tle now stands at the head of his own "secret" philosophy.

In the same pages of notes from February 11, Leibniz comes close to making his philosophical debt to Spinoza explicit: "There seems to be...some kind of most perfect mind, or G.o.d. This mind exists as a whole soul in the whole body of the world; to this mind the existence of things is also due.... The reason for things is the aggregate of all the requisites of things. The reason for G.o.d is G.o.d. An infinite whole is one." The Spinozism here is blatant. The identification of G.o.d as "a whole soul in the whole body of the world" is, if anything, a caricature of Spinozism. (Spinoza nowhere uses the rather archaic concept of a "world-soul," though he would have affirmed that the "body of the world" is in G.o.d.) More subtle is the implicit identification of "the aggregate of the requisites of all things" with "G.o.d": this is a version of Spinoza's doctrine that G.o.d is the immanent cause of all things. Leibniz's formula that "the reason for G.o.d is G.o.d" nimbly captures the essence of that which distinguishes Spinoza's G.o.d from "do-gooder" conceptions of G.o.d-namely, that G.o.d is absolutely self-sufficient and answers to no external principle, such as the principle of "doing good." "An infinite whole is one" is an apt, poetic rendition of Spinoza's concept of a Substance that expresses itself through infinite attributes and modes.

But a few paragraphs down on the same sc.r.a.p of notepaper, Leibniz suddenly recants: "G.o.d is not something metaphysical, imaginary, incapable of thought, will, or action, as some represent him, so that it would be the same if you were to say that G.o.d is nature, fate, fortune, necessity, the world. Rather, G.o.d is a certain substance, a person, a mind." The intended target of this tirade is unambiguously Spinoza-or perhaps Leibniz's own lapse into Spinozism just moments before. Leibniz at this point senses that great danger lies ahead; but he only feels the padded contours of the threat, and he does not have his defenses at the ready.

As if to guard himself against further possible lapses, Leibniz sets himself a task: "It must be shown that G.o.d is a person, i.e., an intelligent substance." Here and for the rest of his career, Leibniz clings tightly to the notion that G.o.d must be an agent, a decision maker who faces options and makes choices. The phrase "it must be shown," too, captures something of the essence of Leibniz's enduring philosophical disposition. The moral imperative to produce the "correct" philosophy is paramount. Behind the "it must be shown" lies a characteristically Leibnizian anxiety-an unspoken "or else."...Or else what? What if he should fail to prove that G.o.d is a person, and not "something metaphysical"?

On February 24, Leibniz and Tschirnhaus went on a hunt through the bookshops of Paris for Cartesian ma.n.u.scripts, perhaps hoping to answer the questions about Spinoza with the help of his ill.u.s.trious predecessor. In the dusty back room of one shop, they hit pay dirt: several unpublished works by Descartes. The two Germans sat down and copied out as much as they could in the course of a long afternoon.

Buried in his metaphysical investigations, Leibniz apparently forgot about his appointment in the court of Hanover. Six weeks had pa.s.sed since he had accepted the Duke's offer, and heads