the work of reason, of pure intellection. P is the great exponent of dialectic, or the recipre affinities and necessities of ideas. Aristotle is founder of deductive logic. Spinoza proposes consider even "human actions and desires": though he were "concerned with lines, planes, v solids." Empirical data may be the occasion, t cannot be the ground of the highest knowledg According to Leibniz, "it seems that necessary truths, such as we find in pur mathematics, and especially in arithmetic and geometry must have principles whose proof does not depend upc: instances, nor, consequently, upon the witness of the senses, although without the senses it would never have come into our heads to think of them." 12 167. The answers which these philosophies give to the question of the relation between the The Relation state of knowledge and its object, divide of Thought and its Object them into two groups. Among the an in Absolute Realism. cients reason is regarded as the means of emancipation from the limitations of the pri vate mind. "The sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own," but " the waking "—the wise men-" have one and the same world." What the individual knows belongs to himself only in so 12 Leibniz: New Essays on the Human Understanding. Translation by Latta, p. 363. ar as it is inadequate. Hence for Plato the ideas re not the attributes of a mind, but that self-subistent truth to which, in its moments of insight, - mind may have access. Opinion is " my own," he truth is being. The position of Aristotle is equally clear. "Actual knowledge," he maincains, "is identical with its object." Spinoza and Leibniz belong to another age. Modern philosophy began with a new emphasis upon self-consciousness. In his celebrated argument-"I think, hence I am" (cogito ergo sum) -Descartes established the independent and substantial reality of the thinking activity. The "I think" is recognized as in itself a fundamental being, known intuitively to the thinker himself. Now although Spinoza and Leibniz are finally determined by the same motives that obtain in the cases of Plato and Aristotle, they must reckon with this new distinction between the thinker and his object. The result in the case of Spinoza is the doctrine of "parallelism," in which mind is defined as an "infinite attribute" of substance, an aspect or phase coextensive with the whole of being. The result in the case of Leibniz is his doctrine of "representation " and " preëstablished harmony," whereby each monadic substance is in itself an active spiritual entity, and belongs to i universe through its knowledge of a specific stag of the development of the universe. But b Spinoza and Leibniz subordinate such conceptio as these to the fundamental identity that pervade the whole. With Spinoza the attributes belor to the same absolute substance, and with Leibni: the monads represent the one universe. And with both, finally, the perfection of knowledge, or the knowledge of God, is indistinguishable from it object, God himself. The epistemological subtle. ties peculiar to these philosophers are not stable doctrines, but render inevitable either a return to the simpler and bolder realism of the Greeks, or a passing over into the more radical and systematic doctrine of absolute idealism. 168. We have met with two general motives, both of which are subordinated to the doctrine of The Stoic and an absolute being postulated and sought by philosophy. The one of these mo Spinozistic Ethics of tives leads to the conception of the absolutely necessary and immutable substance, the other to the conception of a consummate perfec tion. There is an interpretation of life appropriate to each of these conceptions. Both agree in regarding life seriously, in defining reason or philosophy as the highest human activity, and in emphasizing the identity of the individual's good with the good of the universe. But there are striking differences of tone and spirit. Although the metaphysics of the Stoics have various affiliations, the Stoic code of morality is the true practical sequel to the Eleatic-Spinozistic view of the world. The Stoic is one who has set his affections on the eternal being. He asks nothing of it for himself, but identifies himself with it. The saving grace is a sense of reality. The virtuous man is not one who remakes the world, or draws upon it for his private uses; even less one who rails against it, or complains that it has used him ill. He is rather one who recognizes that there is but one really valid claim, that of the universe itself. But he not only submits to this claim on account of its superiority; he makes it his own. The discipline of Stoicism is the regulation of the individual will to the end that it may coincide with the universal will. There is a part of man by virtue of which he is satisfied with what things are, whatever they be. That part, designated by the Stoics as "the ruling part," is the reason. In so far as man seeks to understand the laws and natures which actua prevail, he cannot be discontented with anythin whatsoever that may be known to him. "For, in so far as we are intelligent beings, we cann desire anything save that which is necessary, nor ya absolute acquiescence to anything, save to that which a true: wherefore, in so far as we have a right understanting of these things, the endeavor of the better part of ou selves is in harmony with the order of nature as a whole."* In agreement with this teaching of Spinoza's is the famous Stoic formula to the effect that "nothing can happen contrary to the will of the wise man," who is free through his very acquiescence. If resson be the proper "ruling part," the first step in the moral life is the subordination of the appetitive nature and the enthronement of reason. One who is himself rational will then recognize the fellowship of all rational beings, and the unitary ⠀ and beneficent rationality of the entire universe. The highest morality is thus already upon the plane of religion. § 169. With Spinoza and the Stoics, the perfection of the individual is reduced to what the The Platonic universe requires of him. The good man is willing to be whatever he must Ethics of 13 Spinoza: Op. cit., Part IV. Translation by Elwes, p. 243. |