ed one to the
other by some inconceivable preordinating power, but
because mind and body are una et eatlent res, the one
absolute being affected in one and the same manner,
but expressed under several attributes; the modes and
affections of each attribute having that being for their
cause, as he exists under that attribute of which they
are modes and no other; idea being caused by idea,
and body affected by body; the image on the retina
being produced by the object reflected upon it, the idea
or image in our minds by the idea of that object, &c. &c.

A solution so remote from all ordinary ways of
thinking on these matters is so difficult to grasp, that
one can hardly speak of it as being probable, or as
being improbable. Probability extends only to what
we can imagine as possible, and Spinoza's theory seems
to lie beyond the range within which our judgment can
exercise itself; in our own opinion, indeed, as we have
already said, the entire subject is one with which we
have no business; and the explanation of it, if it is
ever to be explained to us, is reserved till we are in
some other state of existence. We do not disbelieve
Spinoza because what he suggests is in itself incredible.
The chances may be millions to one against his being
right, yet the real truth, if we knew it, would be probably
at least as strange as his conception of it. But we are
firmly convinced that of these questions, and all like
them, practical answers only lie within the reach of
human faculties; and that in all such "researches into
the absolute" we are on the road which ends nowhere.

Among the difficulties, however, most properly akin
to this philosophy itself, there is one most obvious, viz.,
that if the attributes of God be infinite, and each
particular thing is expressed under them all, then mind
and body express but an infinitesimal portion of the
nature of each of ourselves; and this human nature
exists (i.e., there exists corresponding modes of substance)
in the whole infinity of the divine nature under
attributes differing each from each, and all from mind
and all from body. That this must be so, follows
obviously from the definition of the Infinite Being, and
the nature of the distinction between the two attributes
which are known to us; and if this be so, why does
not the mind perceive something of all these other
attributes? The objection is well expressed by a
correspondent (Letter 67):--"It follows from what you
say," h