t were said that the same thought might be expressed in an
infinite variety of languages; and not in words only, but in action, in
painting, in sculpture, in music, in any form of any kind which can be
employed as a means of spiritual embodiment. Of all these infinite
attributes, two only, as we said, are known to us--extension and
thought. Material phenomena are phenomena of extension; and to every
modification of extension an idea corresponds under the attribute of
thought. Out of such a compound as this is formed man, composed of body
and mind; two parallel and correspondent modifications eternally
answering one another. And not man only, but all other beings and things
are similarly formed and similarly animated; the anima or mind of each
varying according to the complicity of the organism of its material
counterpart. Although body does not think, nor affect the mind's power
of thinking, and mind does not control body, nor communicate to it
either motion or rest or any influence from itself, yet body with all
its properties is the object or ideate of mind: whatsoever body does,
mind perceives; and the greater the energising power of the first, the
greater the perceiving power of the second. And this is not because they
are adapted one to the other by some inconceivable preordinating power,
but because mind and body are _una et eadem res_, the one absolute being
affected in one and the same manner, but expressed under several
attributes; the modes and affections of each attribute having that being
for their cause, as he exists under that attribute of which they are
modes, and no other; idea being caused by idea, and body affected by
body; the image on the retina being produced by the object reflected
upon it, the idea or image in our minds by the idea of that object, &c.
&c.

A solution so remote from all ordinary ways of thinking on these matters
is so difficult to grasp, that one can hardly speak of it as being
probable, or as being improbable. Probability extends only to what we
can imagine as possible, and Spinoza's theory seems to lie beyond the
range within which our judgment can exercise itself. In our own opinion,
indeed, as we have already said, the entire subject is one with which we
have no business; and the explanation of our nature, if it is ever to be
explained to us, is reserved till we are in some other state of
existence. We do not disbelieve Spinoza because what he suggests is in
itself incredible.