Pollock.]
[Sidenote: Changes In Theories of Matter since Spinoza's time.]
Spinoza's maintenance of extension as one of the two infinite divine
attributes cognizable by us has, with a certain amount of plausibility,
been urged as a note of materialism. And this reproach has been
supported by reference to his insistence that in man the body and the
soul are only two different aspects of the same thing; for to him the
body is a finite Mode of God's infinite attribute of extension and the
soul a finite Mode of God's infinite attribute of thought, while both
are manifestations of the one eternal divine Substance. Still, if in any
way we are to regard God as extended, it seems impossible to avoid the
inference that we regard Him as identified with matter, or at least the
possibility of matter. Sir Frederick Pollock has admitted that this is a
weak point in Spinoza's philosophy,[16] and mars its symmetry. But,
being more concerned with, his religion, I am content to point out that
such an objection was much more effective in Spinoza's time than it is
to-day. For the whole trend of philosophy during the nineteenth century
was towards a view of Extension itself as a mode of Thought, and
therefore toward the absorption of one of Spinoza's theoretical divine
attributes in the other.
[Sidenote: Their Effect on his System.]
Now if this should prove to be the permanent tendency of the most
influential thinkers--as indeed seems most likely--it will probably be
held that Spinoza was wrong in attributing extension to the Eternal as
one of the qualities of His substance, except in so far as extension is,
if not a necessary, at any rate an actual, and so far as we know, a
universal mode of thought.
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