But though, as Sir Frederick Pollock has
pointed out, Spinoza has in a manner "counted thought twice over" while
treating of the only two infinite attributes cognizable to us, we need
not, on that account, surrender his luminous idea of God as a Being
absolutely infinite, that is, "Substance consisting of infinite
Attributes, whereof each one expresses eternal and infinite being." Nor
need we abandon his supplementary but essential idea of "Modes" or
"modifications" which mould the attributes into the varieties of finite
worlds, known and unknown. Thus it may be that, in Spinoza's sense of
the word "Attribute," we shall have to confess that only one comes
within our human ken, that of Thought in a sense which includes feeling.
But if the late Herbert Spencer, apart from his synthetic philosophy of
phenomena, has left any permanent mark on the religions consciousness,
it has been by a consecration of the mystery of the ultimate
Unknowable.[17] And in the spirit of reverence thus taught by him we may
still hold with Spinoza that the Eternal has an infinity of other
attributes with their infinite modifications not within our cognizance.
This would only be an enlarged application of Hamlet's words:
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Or, to put it in another way, the Universe perceptible to us is only one
of an infinity of Universes.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59