The Remaining Works of Benedictus de Spinoza

For he asserts theoretically not just a union or joining, but a simple and intrinsic unity of finite things with the Infinite. It does not seem that any other remedy can be opposed to this error except this: that a philosopher should more often, newly, and anxiously give an account to himself of the method he ought to follow in reasoning, and not acquiesce in that rigid chain of consequences as a criterion of truth, but resolve to re-examine with suspicious severity the first premises he assumes, as often as he elicits a new πορισμα corollary. For the nobility of truth cannot be proven by a genealogical deduction, as if the matter were settled by eight or sixteen pure ancestors following one another. No, that πνευματικη spiritual nobility, ἡ ἀληθεια the truth, cannot seem sufficiently proven unless the entire stem of consequences ascends to its first origin without a stain, and this very origin is itself illustrious for the certainty of its series.

But I stop. For, readers will say, it ill becomes an editor to act as a censor of the author. And of such an author, indeed! I am glad that I am certain of this: if it were possible to address this author while he were alive, he would never receive these doubts of ours with an offended spirit or with disdain for others who philosophize according to their own genius. Moreover, I believed that the second of the two factors I brought up ought to be explained for this reason: so that it might be clear that the theoretical intellect is not necessarily (which indeed seemed to be the case to some philosophers, though I think it detracts too much from the powers of the intellect!) driven to Pantheism. This rather seems to happen only if those who use the intellect theoretically take the law of the intellect or formal thinking to be the sole law, also constituting the existence indicated by thought. In this matter, therefore, it seems that not Philosophy is to be blamed, but Philosophers—if I may be permitted to profess this freely, however conscious I am of my own insignificance in philosophizing. Nor do I foresee that those who are less friends to themselves than they are to philosophy itself could take this indignantly.