/lit/ - Literature

We shall next take up the system of Spinoza, the great Pantheist, the God-intoxicated Jew of rare metaphysical genius. His main doctrine is set forth by Lewes as follows: "The great reality of all existence is substance. Not substance in the gross and popular sense of body or matter, but that which is substans—which is standing under all phenomena supporting and giving them reality. What is a phenomenon?—an appearance, a thing perceived, a state of the perceiving mind. But what originates this perception what changes the mind from its prior to its present state ? Something external and extrinsic, changes it. What is this something? What it is, in itself, we can never know : because to know it would bring it under the forms and conditions of the mind, would constitute it a phenomenon—unknown, therefore, but not denied—this ens—this somethings ; and this Kant calls Noumenon, This Spinoza calls substance" (Lewes, History of Philosophy page 421). Descartes had assumed a duality, a God and a real world created by God. Spinoza reduced this duality to an all-embracing unity. “The absolute existence—the substance (call it what you will) is God. From Him all individual concrete existences arise. All that exists, exists in and by God ; and can only thus be conceived ... He recognizes God as the fountain of Life ; he sees in the Universe nothing but the manifestation of God ; the Finite rests upon the bosom of the Infinite ; the inconceivable variety resolves itself into unity. There is but one reality, and that is God.” “To live with God—to know God with perfect knowledge, was the highest point of human development and happiness ; and to this he consecrated his life.” (Ibid page 422.)

Was he the most evil man that ever lived?

Was he right?