imitation, is to
be conceived as the absolutely indeterminate. The results thus far reached
run: _Substantia una infinita--Deus sive natura--causa sui (aeterna) et
rerum (immanens)--libera necessitas--non determinata_. Or more briefly:
Substance = God = nature. The equation of God and substance had been
announced by Descartes, but not adhered to, while Bruno had approached the
equation of God and nature--Spinoza decisively completes both and combines
them.

A further remark may be added concerning the relation of God and the world.
In calling the infinite at once the permanent essence of things and their
producing cause, Spinoza raises a demand which it is not easy to fulfill,
the demand to think the existence of things in substance as a following
from substance, and their procession from God as a remaining in him. He
refers us to mathematics: the things which make up the world are related to
God as the properties of a geometrical figure to its concepts, as theorems
to the axiom, as the deduction to the principle, which from eternity
contains all that follows from it and retains this even while putting
it forth. It cannot be doubted that such a view of causality contains
error,--it has been characterized as a confusion of _ratio_ and _causa_,
of logical ground and real cause,--but it is just as certain that Spinoza
committed it. He not only compares the dependence of the effect on its
cause to the dependence of a derivative principle on that from which it is
derived, but fully equates the two; he thinks that in logico-mathematical
"consequences" he has grasped the essence of real "effects": for him the
type of all legality, as also of real becoming, was the necessity which
governs the sequence of mathematical truths, and which, on the one hand, is
even and still, needing no special exertion of volitional energy, while, on
the other, it is rigid and unyielding, exalted above all choice. Philosophy
had sought the assistance of mathematics because of the clearness and
certainty which distinguish the conclusions of the latter, and which she
wished to obtain for her own. In excess of zeal she was not content with
striving after this ideal of indefectible certitude, but, forgetting the
diversity of the two fields, strove to imitate other qualities which
are not transferable; instead of learning from mathematics she became
subservient to it.

Substance does not affect us by its mere existence, but through an
_Attribute_. By a