" {34a} "By
God, I understand Being absolutely infinite, that is to say, substance
consisting of infinite attributes, each one of which expresses eternal
and infinite essence." {34b} "God, or substance consisting of infinite
attributes, each one of which expresses eternal and infinite essence,
necessarily exists." {34c} By the phrases "in itself" and "by itself,"
we are to understand that this conception cannot be explained in other
terms. Substance must be posited, and there we must leave it. The
demonstration of the last-quoted proposition, the 11th, is elusive, and
I must pass it by, merely observing that the objection that no idea
involves existence, and that consequently the idea of God does not
involve it, is not a refutation of Spinoza, who might rejoin that it is
impossible not to affirm existence of God as the Ethic defines him.
Spinoza escapes one great theological difficulty. Directly we begin to
reflect we are dissatisfied with a material God, and the nobler
religions assert that God is a Spirit. But if He be a pure spirit
whence comes the material universe? To Spinoza pure spirit and pure
matter are mere artifices of the understanding.
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