t these idete are which Spinoza
offers as self-evident. All will turn upon that; for, of
course, if they are self-evident, if they do produce
conviction, nothing more is to be said; but it does,
indeed, appear strange to us that Spinoza was not
staggered as to the validity of his canon, when his
friends, every one of them, so floundered and stumbled
among what he regarded as his simplest propositions,
requiring endless signa veritalis, and unable for a long
time even to understand their meaning, far less to
"recognize them as elementary certainties." Modern
readers may, perhaps, be more fortunate. We produce
at length the definitions and axioms of the first book
of the "Ethica," and they may judge for themselves:--

DEFINITIONS.

1. By a thing which is causa sui, its own cause, I mean a
thing the essence of which involves the existence of it, or a
thing which cannot be conceived of except as existing.
2. I call a thing finite, suo genere, when it can be
circumscribed by another (or others) of the same nature, e.g.
a given body is called finite, because we can always conceive
another body larger than it; but body is not circumscribed
by thought, nor thought by body.
3. By substance I mean what exists in itself and is conceived
of by itself; the conception of which, that is, does
not involve the conception of anything else as the cause
of it.
4. By attribute I mean whatever the intellect perceives of
substance as constituting the essence of substance.
5. Mode is an affection of substance, or is that which is
in something else, by and through which it is conceived.
6. God is a being absolutely infinite; a substance consisting
of infinite attributes, each of which expresses His
eternal and infinite essence.

EXPLANATION.

I say absolutely infinite, not infinite suo genere, for of
what is infinite sua genere only, the attributes are not
infinite but finite; whereas what is infinite absolutely contains
in its own essence everything by which substance can be
expressed and which involves no impossibility.

7. That thing is "free" which exists by the sole necessity
of its own nature, and is determined in its operation by
itself only. That is "not free" which is called into existence
by something else, and is determined in its operation
according to a fixed and definite method.
8. Eternity is existence itself, conceived as following
necessarily and solely from the definition of the thing which
is eternal.

EXPLAN