" Such bliss, however, is only approximately
attainable in moments of mystic transport. And when, as in so many
experiences, we see only in part, and have inadequate ideas, faith in
the Eternal Whole is needed to keep us from blasphemy.
[Sidenote: Doctrine of Man Resumed.]
[Sidenote: Final Cause Replaced by Idea.]
[Sidenote: Freedom, Purity, Love.]
With such necessarily brief hints as to Spinoza's attitude towards evil,
I resume his doctrine of man--the individual creature as a centre of
action. Of final causes Spinoza will not hear. But if instead of asking
"what is the chief end of man," we ask what is the idea of man, Spinoza
answers that it is the realization of a mode of the divine attributes,
extension and thought. And if this should seem unsatisfying, let it be
remembered that to this devout Pantheist the divine attributes and
their modes were the expression of the very substance and life of God.
Now with "extension," for reasons already given, we need not trouble
ourselves except to say that at least Spinoza's teaching would suggest
the idea of _mens sana in corpore sano_. Because to him the mind was the
"idea" of the body, and the body the "object"--not quite in the modern
sense--of the mind. But as regards the human mode of the divine
attribute of thought, Spinoza makes its ideal to be a life absorbed in
such contemplation of "the Blessed God," the infinite Whole, as shall
react on the creature in inspirations of freedom, purity and love.
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