non vero transiens._[32]--_Deus non tantam est_ CAUSA EFFICIENS _rerum existentiæ, sed etiam essentiæ._[33]--_Ex data quacunque_ IDEA _aliquis_ EFFECTUS _necessario sequi debat._[34]--And: _Nulla res nisi a causa externa potest destrui._[35]--Demonstr. DEFINITIO _cujuscunque rei, ipsius essentiam_ (essence, nature, as differing from existentia, existence), _affirmat, sed non negat; sive rei essentiam ponit, sed non tollit. Dum itaque ad rem ipsam tantum, non autem ad causas externas attendimus, nihil in eadem poterimus invenire, quod ipsam possit destruere._ This means, that as no conception can contain anything which contradicts its definition, _i.e._, the sum total of its predicates, neither can an existence contain anything which might become a cause of its destruction. This view, however, is brought to a climax in the somewhat lengthy second demonstration of the 11th Proposition, in which he confounds a cause capable of destroying or annihilating a being, with a contradiction contained in its definition and therefore destroying that definition. His need of confounding cause with reason here becomes so urgent, that he can never say _causa_ or _ratio_ alone, but always finds it necessary to put _ratio seu causa_. Accordingly, this occurs as many as eight times in the same page, in order to conceal the subterfuge. Descartes had done the same in the above-mentioned axiom. [28] Spinoza, "Eth." i. prop. 11. [29] Spinoza, "Eth." P. 1. prop. 8, schol. 2. [30] _Ibid._ Prop. 16. [31] _Ibid._ Prop. 36, demonstr. [32] _Ibid._ Prop. 18. [33] _Ibid._ Prop. 25. [34] "Eth." P. iii. prop. 1, demonstr. [35] _Ibid._ Prop. 4. Thus, properly speaking, Spinoza's Pantheism is merely the _realisation_ of Descartes' Ontological Proof. First, he adopts Descartes' ontotheological proposition, to which we have alluded above, _ipsa naturæ Dei immensitas est_ CAUSA SIVE RATIO, _propter quam nulla causa indiget ad existendum_, always saying _substantia_ instead of _Deus_ (in the beginning); and then he finishes by _substantiæ essentia necessario involvit existentiam, ergo erit substantia_ CAUSA SUI.[36] Therefore the very same argument which Descartes had used to prove the existence of God, is used by Spinoza to prove the existence of the world,--which consequently needs no God. He does this still more distinctly in the 2nd Scholium to the 8th Proposition: _Quoniam ad naturam substantia pertinet existere, debet ejus definitio necessariam existentiam involvere, et consequenter ex sola ejus definitione debet ipsius existentia concludi_. But this substance is, as we know, the world. The demonstration to Proposition 24 says in the same sense: _Id, cujus natura in se considerata_ (_i.e._, in its definition) _involvit existentiam, est_ CAUSA SUI. [36] "Eth." P. i. prop. 7.