thing and the manner in which it is limited. But this
limitation does not pertain to a thing in its 'esse,' but contrariwise
in its 'non-esse' (i.e. it signifies, not that some positive quality
belongs to the thing, but that something is wanting to it). Since,
then, figure is but limitation, and limitation is but negation, we
cannot say that figure is anything." The same kind of reasoning is
elsewhere (_Epist._ 29) applied to solve the difficulties connected
with the divisibility of space or extension. Really, according to
Spinoza, extension is indivisible, though modally it is divisible. In
other words, parts _ad infinitum_ may be taken in space by the
abstracting mind, but these parts have no separate existence. You
cannot rend space, or take one part of it out of its connexion with
other parts. Hence arises the impossibility of asserting either that
there is an infinite number of parts in space, or that there is not.
The solution of the antinomy is that neither alternative is true.
There are many things "quae nullo numero explicari possunt," and to
understand these things we must abstract altogether from the idea of
number. The contradiction arises entirely from the application of that
idea to the infinite. We cannot say that space has a finite number of
parts, for every finite space must be conceived as itself included in
infinite space. Yet, on the other hand, an infinite number is an
absurdity; it is a number which is not a number. We escape the
difficulty only when we see that number is a category inapplicable to
the infinite, and this to Spinoza means that it is not applicable to
reality, that it is merely an abstraction, or _ens imaginationis._

Nature of mind.

The same method which solves the difficulties connected with the
nature of matter is applied to mind. Here also we reach the reality,
or thing in itself, by abstracting from all determination. All
conceptions, therefore, that involve the independence of the finite,
all conceptions of good, evil, freedom and responsibility disappear.
When W. Blyenburg accuses Spinoza of making God the author of evil,
Spinoza answers that evil is an _ens rationis_ that has no existence
for God. "Evil is not something positive, but a state of privation,
and that not in relation to the divine, but simply in relation to the
human intelligence. It is a conception that arises from that
generalizing t