The Collected Works of Benedict de Spinoza

of immanent emanations. And indeed, there is a reason why such a reduction of all finite things to an infinite unity should appeal greatly to the intellect or logical faculty. The act of thinking consists precisely in this, that the thinker perceives the unity of those things which, in another respect, are different, or indeed can be most different. a is predicated of b insofar as τῷ b to b is understood to have within it τὸ a the a taken in that sense which is the subject of inquiry. Hence it is clear, and has long since been shown, that the formal or logical investigation of truth is to be compared with arithmetical permutation, by which two numbers appearing under different forms remain the same, as 2 x 3 = 6. It follows spontaneously that there can be no higher canon in that formal investigation of truth than this, that many things are always reduced to one. From this, thinkers do not cease—nor can they cease—from elevating individuals to species, species to general classes, and also from referring all derived principles or applied laws to one principle in thinking, and deducing them from there. Nor is it difficult to understand that everything about which thought is occupied, and which they call an object, can be reached and treated by thinking and willing, not insofar as it exists outside of thought, but insofar as it is present to the mind (whether as an existing thing or as something merely thinkable), or indeed is currently an inherent part of the mind. Hence, if the thinker is called the subject, it is evident that while he thinks, he must be called the subject-object, or the one source of the subjective and objective.