conceivable Universe. For either of these must fall far short of
infinity, and the Being of God is infinite. All I mean, when I say that
Spinoza identifies God with the totality of existence, is that he
regards the deity as that Perfect Being without beginning or end, whose
essence it is to be, and of whom all that exists, whether known to us or
not, is separately a partial, and comprehensively a perfect expression.

[Sidenote: His Doctrine of Man.]

Of more practical interest to us perhaps is Spinoza's doctrine of man,
though it would have been impossible to explain that without first
indicating his idea of God. In his view, then, man is a finite mode of
the two divine attributes, extension and thought. Thus both the extended
body and the conscious mind have their substance and reality in God.[18]
But the essence of man does not necessarily involve his separate
existence as the essence of God implies Being. Of course the substance
of man is imperishable because it is of God's substance. Nay, there is a
sense in which each man, being an eternal thought of God, has an aspect
towards eternity or exists "sub specie eternitatis." But that is a truth
transcending the finite practical world with which we have to do.

[Sidenote: Illustration by the Vortex Theory.]

[Sidenote: Distinction between Man and Beast.]

According to Spinoza, what constitutes the real essence of the human
mind is the (divine) idea of a certain individual creature actually
existing.[19] Here, perhaps, modern speculations about the constitution
of matter may help us--if we use them with due reserve--to grasp
Spinoza's notion of a "res singularis in actu"--or as it might be
rendered freely, "a creature of individual functions," for what is
called the "vortex theory," though as old as Cartesian philosophy, has
recently flashed into sudden prominence. And whether or no the
speculation be only a passing phase of human thought about the
Unknowable, it equally answers the purpose of illustration. Thus the
so-called "ether" is supposed to fill all space; and within it there are
imagined or inferred innumerable "tourbillons" or "vortices," which,
though parts of the indefinitely extended ether, form by their
self-contained motion little worlds in themselves. These little worlds
are by some regarded as the atoms which, by composition, and
differentiation, build up our palpable universe. With the possibilities
of such a theory I have nothing to do. But the not