pendent substantiality of mind and matter is withdrawn, and they
are reduced into attributes of the one infinite substance. Let us
examine these steps successively.

Application to nature of matter.

The method by which the finite is reduced into a mode of the infinite
has already been partially explained. Spinoza follows to its
legitimate result the metaphysical or logical principles of Descartes
and Malebranche. According to the former, as we nave seen, the finite
presupposes the infinite, and, indeed, so far as it is real, it is
identical with the infinite. The infinite is absolute reality, because
it is pure affirmation, because it is that which _negationem nullam
involvit_. The finite is distinguished from it simply by its limit,
i.e. by its wanting something which the infinite has. At this point
Spinoza takes up the argument. If the infinite be the real, and the
finite, so far as it is distinguished therefrom, the unreal, then the
supposed substantiality or individuality of finite beings is an
illusion. In itself the finite is but an abstraction, to which
imagination has given an apparent independence. All limitation or
determination is negative, and in order to apprehend positive reality
we must abstract from limits. By denying the negative, we reach the
affirmative; by annihilating finitude in our thought, and so undoing
the illusory work of the imagination, we reach the indeterminate or
unconditioned being which alone truly is. All division, distinction
and relation are but _entia rationis._ Imagination and abstraction can
give to them, as they can give to mere negation and nothingness, "a
local habitation and a name," but they have no objective meaning, and
in the highest knowledge, in the _scientia intuitiva_, which deals
only with reality, they must entirely disappear. Hence to reach the
truth as to matter, we must free ourselves from all such ideas as
figure or number, measure or time, which imply the separation and
relation of parts. Thus in his 50th letter, in answer to some question
about figure, Spinoza says, "to prove that figure is negation, and not
anything positive, we need only consider that the whole of matter
conceived indefinitely, or in its infinity, can have no figure; but
that figure has a place only in finite or determinate bodies. He who
says that he perceives figure, says only that he has before his mind a
limited