1 62 INTRODUCTION 



things as the cause of certain ideas in us, unless we are to 

 suppose that God deceives us l . 



Spinoza takes the one substance, God, as his starting- 

 point of absolute certainty, and accordingly proofs of the 

 existence of God have for him no meaning. Nevertheless, 

 he does not altogether dispense with the notion of cause. 

 Ostensibly he reduces the relation of cause and effect to 

 a logical connexion, like that between a geometrical figure 

 and its properties. But he makes use of the notion of 

 cause to introduce variety into the perfect unity of sub- 

 stance by describing it as cause of itself (causa sui). And 

 in his distinction between natura naturans and natura 

 naturata he endeavours, by a further application of the 

 notion of cause, to bridge the gulf which his logic has set 

 between the infinite (as purely indeterminate) and finite 

 or determinate existence. Natura naturans is substance 

 expressed in attributes or ' God as the free cause of all that 

 is.' Natura naturata is ' all that follows from the necessity 

 of the Divine nature or from any one of the attributes of 

 God, i. e. all modes of God's attributes, considered as 

 things which exist in God, and without God can neither 

 exist nor be conceived V In short, causa sui or substance 

 is analyzed into two moments, cause (natura naturans) and 

 effect (natura naturata) ; but both of these are ultimately 

 the same thing. Apart from this distinction without a 

 difference it would be impossible for Spinoza to identify 

 his infinite substance with the actual world. And yet, 

 in spite of it, for Spinoza the finite, as finite, remains 

 unreal. 



Now this notion of cause, which Descartes and Spinoza 

 employ without attempting to explain or justify it, is, in 

 a more general form, acknowledged by Leibniz as an 

 independent logical principle, that of sufficient reason. 

 There must be, not merely an adequate cause but a 

 sufficient reason for the existence of each individual thing. 



1 Cf. Meditation VI, passim. 



9 Ethics, Part i. prop. 29, Scholium. 



