" But that is a truth
transcending the finite practical world with which we have to do.
[Sidenote: Illustration by the Vortex Theory.]
[Sidenote: Distinction between Man and Beast.]
According to Spinoza, what constitutes the real essence of the human
mind is the (divine) idea of a certain individual creature actually
existing.[19] Here, perhaps, modern speculations about the constitution
of matter may help us--if we use them with due reserve--to grasp
Spinoza's notion of a "res singularis in actu"--or as it might be
rendered freely, "a creature of individual functions," for what is
called the "vortex theory," though as old as Cartesian philosophy, has
recently flashed into sudden prominence. And whether or no the
speculation be only a passing phase of human thought about the
Unknowable, it equally answers the purpose of illustration. Thus the
so-called "ether" is supposed to fill all space; and within it there are
imagined or inferred innumerable "tourbillons" or "vortices," which,
though parts of the indefinitely extended ether, form by their
self-contained motion little worlds in themselves. These little worlds
are by some regarded as the atoms which, by composition, and
differentiation, build up our palpable universe. With the possibilities
of such a theory I have nothing to do. But the notion of the vortex in
the ether may perhaps help us to a glimpse of Spinoza's notion when he
speaks of a "res singularis in actu" a creature of individual functions.
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