PANTHEISM EXAMINED IN THE ORDER OF EXTERNAL FACTS.
116. If pantheism is unsustainable in the region of ideas, it is not less so in the field of experience. The latter, far from leading us to the exclusive unity of substance, shows us on all sides multiplicity.
117. There is unity where there is no division, when in the thing that is one no others can be distinguished, when it admits no negative judgment. Nothing of all this is observed in the external world; but a constant experience presents directly the contrary.
118. In the external world division is visible, palpable; there is no other unity than that of order, of direction to an end; besides this, all is multiplicity. The only medium by which we are placed in communication with the external world are the senses, and they encounter multiplicity on every side—sensations distinct in number, diverse in species, graduated in a thousand different ways, distributed into infinite groups, which, although they are connected inthis or that point, may be divided and are divided in a thousand others.
119. Multiplicity is as truly revealed by the testimony of the senses as the very existence of objects. If we deny the competency of their testimony in the first, we must deny it also in the second. They not only tell us that such a body exists, but that it is not another body. We know nothing with more certainty than that an external object corresponds to a sensation, that the objects of two distinct sensations are distinct.
To say that the senses are not good judges in this matter, because they are limited to mere sensation, and consequently cannot judge of the objects of the sensation, is to appeal to idealism, for by the same reason we may assert that the senses, limited to mere sensation, cannot give us certainty of the existence of their respective objects.
120. To establish unity outside of ourselves is to annihilate the corporeal world. The idea of extension contradicts unity. In that which is extended some parts are not the others. This is evident, and whoever attempts to doubt it attacks the basis of the certainty of geometry. If the world is something real, it is extended; if it is not extended, we cannot be certain that it is any thing real. We have the same certainty of its extension as of its existence. Its very existence is manifested by the extension presented to our senses. If, then, this extension does not exist, sensations are a mere internal phenomenon, a pure illusion, in so far as we attribute to them a correspondence to the exterior.
121. This argument seems to me one of the most conclusive than can be brought against Spinosa, who, together with the oneness of the substance admits extension, as one of its attributes. The extended is essentially multiplex; it always involves the distinction between its parts; we can always say of it: "The part A is not the part B." Pantheism cannot escape this argument except by taking refuge in pure idealism; and in this respect Fichte and Hegel are more logical than most persons give them credit for being. In order to maintain the exclusive oneness of substance, it is necessary to convert the external world into mere phenomena, whose only reality consists in their being thus presented to us. This is to absorb the world in theme, and concentrate the reality in the idea; but this absorption, this concentration, notwithstanding its obscurity, is a necessary and logical consequence of the principle established. There is absurdity, but there is at least the consequence of the absurdity.
122. Those who call Spinosa the disciple of Descartes, have not observed that there is a necessary contradiction between the two systems. The argument founded on extension, which I have just presented, although conclusive under every hypothesis, is still more so against those who admit with Descartes, that the essence of bodies consists in extension. In that case, the various parts of extension are essentially distinct, since each part constitutes an essence. The essential and substantial multiplicity of bodies would be in proportion to the multiplicity of extension.
123. If you maintain that extension is not the essence of bodies, but an attribute or modification of bodies, whether a determination founded on their essence or an accidental determination, and pretend that this modification or attribute may belong to the only substance, we ask you whether this substance in itself abstracted from extension is simple or composite. If composite, it implies multiplicity, and Spinosa coincides with the common opinion of a corporeal world, composed of many parts, one of which will have no more right than another to be the true substance. For then there would not be a single substance,but one composed of many; and the corporeal universe cannot be called a substance except in the sense in which it is commonly called one, that is, not taking the oneness in a strict sense, but inasmuch as all its parts are connected together, and disposed in a certain order to conspire to the same end. If the substance, the subject of extension is simple, the result will be a simple substance determined or modified by extension, a simple extended substance, which is a contradiction. A thing cannot be conceived as a modification of another unless it is modified by it; this is what the words express. A modification modifies, giving to the thing modified the form of the modification, applying itself to the thing modified. Extension cannot modify except by making the thing modified extended; and to be extended, and to have extension, are absolutely identical expressions. Therefore it is repugnant for a simple substance to have extension for one of its modifications; therefore Spinosa's system is absurd.