Spinoza's Philosophy -- The Soul's Immateriality

Let us survey this argument and see whether all the absurdities in Spinoza’s system may not be discovered in that of Theologians (See Bayle’s dictionary, article of Spinoza).

Argument 1

It has been said against Spinoza scholastically, that a mode is not any distinct or separate existence.

It must be the very same with its substance. Consequently, the space of the universe must be identified with that simple, uncompounded essence inherent in the universe.

But this is utterly impossible and inconceivable unless:

• the indivisible substance expands itself, so as to correspond to the space, or
• the space contracts itself so as to correspond to the indivisible substance.

This argument seems just.

Only a change of terms is needed to apply the same argument to our extended perceptions.

The following are the same:

• the simple essence of the soul, and
• the simple essence of the ideas of objects and perceptions.

They only have a supposition of a difference, that is unknown and incomprehensible.

Argument 2

It has been said, that we do not have any idea of:

• substance that is not applicable to matter, and
• a distinct substance which is not applicable to every distinct portion of matter.

Therefore, Matter is not a modification but a substance.

Each part of matter is not a distinct modification, but a distinct substance. We have no perfect idea of substance. We take it for something that can exist by itself.

Thus:

• every perception is a substance, and
• every distinct part of a perception is a distinct substance.

Consequently, the one hypothesis labours under the same difficulties with the other.

Argument 3

It has been objected to the system of one simple substance in the universe, that this substance is the support or substratum of everything.

It must at the very same instant be modified into forms which are contrary and incompatible.

The round and square shapes are incompatible in the same substance at the same time.

How then is it possible, that the same substance can at once be modified into that square table, and into this round one?

I ask the same question on the impressions of these tables. I find that the answer is no more satisfactory in one case than in the other. Whatever side we turn to, the same difficulties follow us.

We cannot advance one step towards the establishing the soul’s simplicity and immateriality without preparing the way for a dangerous and irrecoverable atheism. It would be the same as calling a ’thought’ as an ‘action’ instead of ‘a modification of the soul’. ‘Action’ would then mean the same thing as an ‘abstract mode’.

An abstract mode is something that is:

• not distinguishable nor separable from its substance, and
• only conceived by reason.

Nothing is gained by changing the name of ‘modification’ into ‘action’.

We do not free ourselves from one single difficulty through it.

The 2 following reflections will show this.

Reflection 1:

The word ‘action’ can never justly be applied to any perception derived from a mind or thinking substance.

Our perceptions are all really different, separable, and distinguishable from each other and from everything we can imagine. It is impossible to conceive how our perceptions can be the action of any substance. Motion is commonly used to show how perception works, in the same way that action is used to show how its substance works. But this confounds us more than it instructs us.

Motion induces no real nor essential change on the body. It only varies its relation to other objects.

There is a radical difference between:

• a person in the morning walking a garden with friends, and
• a person in the afternoon enclosed in a dungeon, full of terror, despair, and resentment.

This difference is different from what is produced on a body by the change of its situation.

We conclude that external objects have a separate existence from each other because of the distinction and separability of their ideas.

So when we make these ideas themselves our objects, we must draw the same conclusion concerning them, according to the precedent reasoning.

It is impossible for us to tell how the soul’s substance can admit of such differences of perception without any fundamental change.

Consequently, we can never tell how perceptions are actions of that substance.

Therefore, the use of the word ‘action’ unaccompanied with any meaning, instead of that of ‘modification’, makes no addition to our knowledge.

It does not give any advantage to the doctrine of the soul’s immateriality.

Reflection 2

If the word ‘action’ brings any advantage to the cause of the soul’s immateriality, it must bring an equal advantage to the cause of atheism.

Do our Theologians want to make a monopoly of the word ‘action’? Will the atheists likewise make a same monopoly?

Will they say that:

• plants, animals, men, etc. are just actions of one simple universal substance?
• this universal substance acts from a blind and absolute necessity?

You will say this is utterly absurd.

I say:

• it is unintelligible, and
• it is impossible to discover any absurdity in the supposition that all the objects in nature are actions of one simple substance.

This absurdity will not be applicable to a like supposition on impressions and ideas.

We can now make another hypothesis which is:

• more intelligible than the hypotheses on the substance of the soul, and
• more important than the hypotheses on the cause of our perceptions.

The schools say that matter and motion are still matter and motion, however varied.

Matter and motion produce only a difference in the position and situation of objects.

Divide a body as often as you please, it is still body.

Place it in any shape and nothing ever results but that shape, or the relation of parts.

Move it in any way, you still find motion or a change of relation.

It is absurd to imagine that:

• a clockwise motion is just a clockwise motion, but a counterclockwise motion is both a physical motion and a passion or moral reflection,
• the shocking of 2 spherical particles should become a sensation of pain, and
• the joining of 2 triangular particles should afford a pleasure.

These different shocks, variations, and mixtures are the only changes matter is susceptible of. These never give us any idea of thought or perception. It is impossible that thought can ever be caused by matter. Few have been able to withstand the seeming evidence of this argument.

Yet it is the easiest to refute.

We only need to reflect that:

• we are never sensible of any connection between causes and effects, and
• it is only by our experience of their constant conjunction, that we can know of this relation.

All objects which are not contrary, are susceptible of a constant conjunction.

No real objects are contrary (Part 3, Section 15).

Thus, to consider the matter a priori:

• Anything can produce anything.
• We can never discover why any object may or may not be the cause of any other, no matter the resemblance between them.

This destroys the precedent reasoning on the cause of thought or perception.