pathy with
asceticism, but treats it, like Bentham, as a _torva el tristis
superstitio_. Joy is the "transition from less to greater perfection,"
and cannot be but good; pain is the "transition from greater to less
perfection," and cannot be but evil. The revolt against the medieval
opposition of the nature and spirit is visible in many of his sayings.
"No Deity who is not envious can delight in my weakness or hurts, or
can regard as virtues those fears and sighs and tears which are the
signs of the mind's weakness; but contrariwise, the greater is our
joy, the greater is our progress to perfection, and our participation
in the divine nature."[55] "A free man thinks of nothing less than
death, his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life."[56] The
same idea, combining with the idea of necessity, leads him to condemn
repentance and pity, as well as pride and humility. Unconsciously,
Spinoza reproduces the principle of asceticism, while in words he
utterly rejects it. For though he tells us that pure self-complacency
is the highest thing we can hope, yet from this self-complacency all
regard to the finite individuality of the subject is eliminated. "Qui
Deum amat, conari non potest ut Deus ipsum contra amet." In like
manner, he absolutely condemns all hatred, envy, rivalry and ambition,
as springing out of an over-estimate of those finite things which one
only can possess, while the highest good is that which is enjoyed the
more easily and fully the greater the number of participants. Yet
Spinoza's exaltation of the social life, and of the love that binds it
together, is too like the Buddhist's universal charity that embraces
all creatures, and all creatures equally. Both are based on an
abstraction from all that is individual, only the Buddhist's
abstraction goes a step further, and erases even the distinction
between man and the animals. Spinoza felt the pressure of this
all-levelling logic when he said, "I confess I cannot understand how
spirits express God more than the other creatures, for I know that
between the finite and the infinite there is no proportion, and that
the distinction between God and the most excellent of created things
differs not a whit from the distinction between him and the lowest and
meanest of them."[57] As Pope said, God is "as full and perfect in a
hair as a heart"; in all finite things there is a ray of divinity, and