]
[Footnote 19: "Rei alicujus singularis actu existentis." The word
"divine" does not occur in Prop. xi. Ethices II., from which I quote.
But it is implied; because the mind is only a mode or modification of
the infinite attribute of thought, which again expresses the eternal
Substance in God. I venture a doubt whether "actually existing," though
adopted by such authorities as Sir F. Pollock gives, with any
distinctness, Spinoza's meaning. I may be wrong, but I suspect that one
of the later uses of "actus," as quoted in Ducange, affected Spinoza's
Latinity. Thus several ecclesiastical writers are quoted as using the
word in the sense of office, or function. Surely this would suit
Spinoza's definition of the mind. For he treats it as a centre of
phenomenal activity amidst the infinite modes of the divine attribute.
Its apparent individuality is a consequence of its spontaneity as a
centre of action--always understood that the spontaneity is consistent
with the absolute eternal order assumed throughout the work.]
[Footnote 20: Of course the professor of optics can tell us how many
vibrations in a second go to produce the particular shade of colour. But
these cannot by any means be identified with conscious perception; and
it is with this only that we are concerned.]
[Footnote 21: Ethices Pars II., Prop. xi. Corollarium. "Hence it follows
that the human mind is part of the infinite intellect (thought) of God;
and accordingly, when we say that the human mind perceives this or that,
we only say that God--not in His infinity, but so far as He is expressed
by the nature of the human mind, or, so far as He constitutes the
essence of the human mind--has this or that idea.
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