ent attributes cannot be the cause
one of the other, it follows that no substances can be
produced by another substance."

The existence of substance, he then concludes, is
involved in the nature of the thing itself. Substance
exists. It does and must. We ask, why? and we
are answered, because there is nothing capable of
producing it, and therefore it is self-caused; i.e. by
the first definition the essence of it implies existence
as part of the idea. It is astonishing that Spinoza
should not have seen that he assumes the fact that
substance does exist in order to prove that it must. If
it cannot be produced and exists, then, of course, it
exists in virtue of its own nature. But supposing it
does not exist, supposing it is all a delusion, the proof
falls to pieces, unless we fall back on the facts of
experience, on the obscure and unscientific certainty that
the thing which we call the world, and the personalities
which we call ourselves, are a real substantial
something. Conscious of the infirmity of his demonstration,
he winds round it and round it, adding proof to proof,
but never escaping the same vicious circle: substance
exists because it exists, and the ultimate experience of
existence, so far from being of that clear kind which
can be accepted as an axiom, is the most confused of all
our sensations. What is existence? and what is that
something which we say exists? Things--essences--
existences; these are but the vague names with which
faculties, constructed only to deal with conditional
phenomena, disguise their incapacity. The world
in the Hindoo legend rested upon the back of the
tortoise. It was a step between the world and nothingness,
and served to cheat the imagination with ideas
of a fictitious resting-place.

"If any one affirms," says Spinoza, "that he has a clear,
distinct--that is to say, a true idea of substance, but that
nevertheless he is uncertain whether any such substance
exist, it is the same as if he were to affirm that he had a
true idea, but yet was uncertain whether it was not false.
Or if he says that substance can be created, it is like saying
that a false idea can become a true idea--as absurd a thing
as it is possible to conceive; and therefore the existence
of substance, as well as the essence of it, must be
acknowledged as an eternal verity."

It is again the same story. He speaks of a clear idea
of substance; but he has not proved that such an idea
is within the compass