CHAP. XIII.] CLARKE AND SPINOZA. 185 



CHAPTER XIII. 



ANALYSIS OF A PORTION OF DR. SAMUEL CLARKE'S " DEMONSTRA- 

 TION OF THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD," AND OF A 

 PORTION OF THE " ETHICA ORDINE GEOMETRICO DEMON- 

 STRATA" OF SPINOZA. 



1 . r pHE general order which, in the investigations of the fol- 

 -- lowing chapter, I design to pursue, is the following. I 

 shall examine what are the actual premises involved in the de- 

 monstrations of some of the general propositions of the above 

 treatises, whether those premises be expressed or implied. By 

 the actual premises I -mean whatever propositions are assumed 

 in the course of the argument, without being proved, and are 

 employed as parts of the foundation upon which the final conclu- 

 sion is built. The premises thus determined, I shall express in 

 the language of symbols, and I shall then deduce from them by 

 thejnethods developed in the previous chapters of this work, the 

 most important inferences which they involve, in addition to the 

 particular inferences actually drawn by the authors. I shall in 

 some instances modify the premises by the omission of some fact 

 or principle which is contained in them, or by the addition or 

 substitution of some new proposition, and shall determine how 

 by such change the ultimate conclusions are affected. In the 

 pursuit of these objects it will not devolve upon me to inquire, 

 except incidentally, how far the metaphysical principles laid down 

 in these celebrated productions are worthy of confidence, but 

 only to ascertain what conclusions may justly be drawn from 

 given premises ; and in doing this, to exemplify the perfect li- 

 berty which we possess as concerns both the choice and the 

 order of the elements of the final or concluding propositions, viz., 

 as to determining what elementary propositions are true or false, 

 and what are true or false under given restrictions, or in given 

 combinations. 



2. The chief practical difficulty of this inquiry will consist, 



