He had some of the greatest
scholars of the day among his correspondents. He published but little
during his life, leaving his greatest work as a legacy to the world on
his early death, at the Hague, from consumption, in 1677.]
[Footnote 16: "It is to be observed that, inasmuch as Attribute is
defined by reference to intellect, and Thought itself is an attribute,
Thought appears to be in a manner, counted twice over."--_Spinoza: His
Life and Philosophy_, by Sir Frederick Pollock. Second edition, 1899, p.
153.]
[Footnote 17: It is of course true that Spinoza considered himself to
have a clear and adequate conception of God. But by this he meant only
that, as a philosopher, he had an intuitive certainty of eternal and
infinite Being. So have all of us humbler mortals, though we should not
have been able to express it for ourselves. No one supposes that for an
indefinite space of time or eternity there was nothing, and then
suddenly there was something. But, if not, then everyone recognises with
Spinoza the fact of eternal Being, though, of course, he saw what this
recognition meant, as the many do not. But when it comes to the facts of
mortal imperfections and ignorance, Spinoza, with his theory of
"inadequate ideas," is as ready as Spencer to acknowledge the
Unknowable.]
[Footnote 18: I do not think it necessary in an essay of this kind to
discuss Spinoza's theory of the body as object of the mind, and the mind
as "idea" of the body, both being different aspects of the same thing.
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