inging the two thoughts together, so as to put the
latter in its proper relation to the former. All are ready to confess
that God is the cause both of the existence and of the nature of
things created, but they do not realize what is involved in this
confession--and hence they treat created things as if they were
substances, that is, as if they were Gods. "Thus while they are
contemplating finite things, they think of nothing less than of the
divine nature; and again when they turn to consider the divine nature,
they think of nothing less than of their former fictions on which they
have built up the knowledge of finite things, as if these things could
contribute nothing to our understanding of the divine nature. Hence it
is not wonderful that they are always contradicting themselves."[39]
As Spinoza says elsewhere, it belongs to the very nature of the human
mind to know God, for unless we know God we could know nothing else.
The idea of the absolute unity is involved in the idea of every
particular thing, yet the generality of men, deluded by sense and
imagination, are unable to bring this implication into clear
consciousness, and hence their knowledge of God does not modify their
view of the finite. It is the business of philosophy to correct this
defect, to transform our conceptions of the finite by relating it to
the infinite, to complement and complete the partial knowledge
produced by individual experience by bringing it into connexion with
the idea of the whole. And the vital question which Spinoza himself
prompts us to ask is how far and in what way this transformation is
effected in the Spinozistic philosophy.

There are two great steps in the transformation of knowledge by the
idea of unity as that idea is conceived by Spinoza. The first step
involves a change of the conception of individual finite things by
which they lose their individuality, their character as independent
substances, and come to be regarded as modes of the infinite. But
secondly, this negation of the finite as such is not conceived as
implying the negation of the distinction between mind and matter. Mind
and matter still retain that absolute opposition which they had in the
philosophy of Descartes, even after all limits have been removed. And
therefore in order to reach the absolute unity, and transcend the
Cartesian dualism, a second step is necessary, by which the
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