to him? Because, however various in themselves, they agree in this,
that they all alike express perfection, unlimitedness. Hence I can
conceive innumerable predicates of God, because they must all agree
with the abstract idea of the Godhead, and must have in common that
which constitutes every single predicate a divine attribute. Thus it is
in the system of Spinoza. He speaks of an infinite number of attributes
of the divine substance, but he specifies none except Thought and
Extension. Why? Because it is a matter of indifference to know them;
nay, because they are in themselves indifferent, superfluous; for
with all these innumerable predicates, I yet always mean to say the
same thing as when I speak of Thought and Extension. Why is Thought
an attribute of substance? Because, according to Spinoza, it is
capable of being conceived by itself, because it expresses something
indivisible, perfect, infinite. Why Extension or Matter? For the same
reason. Thus, substance can have an indefinite number of predicates,
because it is not their specific definition, their difference, but
their identity, their equivalence, which makes them attributes of
substance. Or rather, substance has innumerable predicates only because
(how strange!) it has properly no predicate; that is, no definite,
real predicate. The indefinite unity which is the product of thought,
completes itself by the indefinite multiplicity which is the product of
the imagination. Because the predicate is not multum, it is multa. In
truth, the positive predicates are Thought and Extension. In these two
infinitely more is said than in the nameless innumerable predicates;
for they express something definite--in them I have something. But
substance is too indifferent, too apathetic to be something; that is,
to have qualities and passions; that it may not be something, it is
rather nothing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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