He published but little during his life, leaving his greatest work as a legacy to the world on his early death, at the Hague, from consumption, in 1677.] [Footnote 16: "It is to be observed that, inasmuch as Attribute is defined by reference to intellect, and Thought itself is an attribute, Thought appears to be in a manner, counted twice over."--_Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy_, by Sir Frederick Pollock. Second edition, 1899, p. 153.] [Footnote 17: It is of course true that Spinoza considered himself to have a clear and adequate conception of God. But by this he meant only that, as a philosopher, he had an intuitive certainty of eternal and infinite Being. So have all of us humbler mortals, though we should not have been able to express it for ourselves. No one supposes that for an indefinite space of time or eternity there was nothing, and then suddenly there was something. But, if not, then everyone recognises with Spinoza the fact of eternal Being, though, of course, he saw what this recognition meant, as the many do not. But when it comes to the facts of mortal imperfections and ignorance, Spinoza, with his theory of "inadequate ideas," is as ready as Spencer to acknowledge the Unknowable.] [Footnote 18: I do not think it necessary in an essay of this kind to discuss Spinoza's theory of the body as object of the mind, and the mind as "idea" of the body, both being different aspects of the same thing.] [Footnote 19: "Rei alicujus singularis actu existentis." The word "divine" does not occur in Prop. xi. Ethices II., from which I quote. But it is implied; because the mind is only a mode or modification of the infinite attribute of thought, which again expresses the eternal Substance in God. I venture a doubt whether "actually existing," though adopted by such authorities as Sir F. Pollock gives, with any distinctness, Spinoza's meaning. I may be wrong, but I suspect that one of the later uses of "actus," as quoted in Ducange, affected Spinoza's Latinity. Thus several ecclesiastical writers are quoted as using the word in the sense of office, or function. Surely this would suit Spinoza's definition of the mind. For he treats it as a centre of phenomenal activity amidst the infinite modes of the divine attribute. Its apparent individuality is a consequence of its spontaneity as a centre of action--always understood that the spontaneity is consistent with the absolute eternal order assumed throughout the work.] [Footnote 20: Of course the professor of optics can tell us how many vibrations in a second go to produce the particular shade of colour. But these cannot by any means be identified with conscious perception; and it is with this only that we are concerned.]