st and future have room for a
meaning. God is, and therefore all properties of him _are_, just as
every property of a circle exists in it as soon as the circle exists. We
may if we like, for convenience, throw our theorems into the future, and
say, _e.g._ that if two lines in a circle cut each other, the rectangle
under the parts of the one _will_ equal that under the parts of the
other. But we only mean in reality that these rectangles _are_ equal;
and the _future_ relates only to our knowledge of the fact. Allowing,
however, as much as we please, that the condition of England a hundred
years hence lies already in embryo in existing causes, it is a paradox
to say that such condition exists already in the sense in which the
properties of the circle exist; and yet Spinoza insists on the
illustration.

It is singular that he should not have noticed the difficulty; not that
either it or the answer to it (which no doubt would have been ready
enough) are likely to interest any person except metaphysicians, a class
of thinkers, happily, which is rapidly diminishing.

We proceed to more important matters--to Spinoza's detailed theory of
nature as exhibited in man and in man's mind. His theory for its bold
ingenuity is by far the most remarkable which on this dark subject has
ever been proposed. Whether we can believe it or not, is another
question; yet undoubtedly it provides a solution for every difficulty;
it accepts with equal welcome the extremes of materialism and of
spiritualism: and if it be the test of the soundness of a philosophy
that it will explain phenomena and reconcile contradictions, it is hard
to account for the fact that a system which bears such a test so
admirably, should nevertheless be so incredible as it is.

Most people have heard of the 'Harmonie Pre-etablie' of Leibnitz; it is
borrowed without acknowledgment from Spinoza, and adapted to the
Leibnitzian philosophy. 'Man,' says Leibnitz, 'is composed of mind and
body; but what is mind and what is body, and what is the nature of their
union? Substances so opposite in kind cannot affect one another; mind
cannot act on matter, or matter upon mind; and the appearance of their
reciprocal operation is an appearance only and a delusion.' A delusion
so general, however, required to be accounted for; and Leibnitz
accounted for it by supposing that God, in creating a world composed of
material and spiritual phenomena, ordained that these several phenomena
shou