D. SMITH - Spinoza, Gueroult, and Substance

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Spinoza, Gueroult, and Substance

a. d. smith
University of Warwick
There are, frankly, few good books on Spinoza. Among the few there is,
however, one masterpiece: Martial Gueroults Spinozaan unnished
work that yet, across its two completed volumes dedicated to Books One
and Two of Spinozas Ethics, extends to over a thousand pages.1 I expect
little dissent from my high estimation of this work. There is, however,
one important, indeed fundamental, element in Gueroults interpretation
that is widely rejected. It may, indeed, fairly be called notorious. It is
Gueroults claim that in the rst eight Propositions of Book One of the
Ethics Spinoza makes reference to substances that consist of, or are con-
stituted by, a single attributesuch as thought, or extension. There are,
according to Gueroult, many such substances (indeed, innitely many);
and 1p7d proves the necessary existence of each and every one of them.2
Spinoza is, of course, famous for believing in the existence of but a single
substancea view plainly stated in 1p10s. This substance is absolutely
innite, indeed divine: God or nature, as Spinoza later famously cha-
racterises it. According to Gueroult, this one ultimate substance is con-
structed from the substances of a single attribute that were the concern
of the rst eight Propositions: substances that now emerge in their true
colours as attributes of this single substance. By contrast, what I shall
refer to as the standard interpretation holds that Spinoza never makes
reference to any substance other than the one absolutely innite, divine
substancequite simply because he believed in no such thing.
Gueroults interpretation, as I have intimated, has been given short
shrift by almost all subsequent commentators on Spinozacertainly in
1
The completed work comprises Gueroult (1968) and Gueroult (1974).
2
I follow this now standard way of referring to Spinozas Ethics. In what follows
Ep. refers to Spinozas Letters, and KV to the Korte Verhandeling (Short Trea-
tise). Translations of passages from the Ethics and from the Short Treatise are taken
from Curley (1985). All other translations are my own. References to the Short
Treatise are by the pagination of the standard four-volume Gebhardt edition of
Spinozas works, which can be found in the margins of Curleys edition.
SPINOZA, GUEROULT, AND SUBSTANCE 1

the English-speaking world.3 It commonly used to be dismissed in a
few lines.4 More recently it has fared even worse, in that it now tends
to be simply ignored.5 Those who endorse it form a tiny minority of
Spinoza scholars.6 I shall argue, nevertheless, that Gueroult was
rightand, hence, that almost all current accounts of the foundations
of Spinozas metaphysics are seriously in error.7
The case for Gueroults interpretation has never been properly set
out.8 In the following section I begin marshalling the evidence, consider-
able as it turns out, in its favour. In the section after that I consider an
argument in favour of Gueroults interpretation that is due to Mark
Kulstad. Although this argument, as we shall see, is apparently open to
rebuttal by proponents of the standard interpretation, I provide evi-
dence that no such rebuttal can in fact be sustained. One passage to
which Gueroults interpretation is widely recognised as being especially
pertinent is 1p5d. I devote the third section to a discussion of this some-
what complex matter. In the fourth section I consider and answer what
3
The situation is not signicantly dierent in Gueroults native Francethough
Deleuze (1969) gave an enthusiastic early assessment.
4
Jonathan Bennett (1984: 65) dismissed it as the strange position that Gueroult
wishes onto Spinoza. The sole reference in Roger Woolhouse (1993: 39) consist in
saying of Gueroult that it can be doubted whether he either illuminates or explains
how Spinoza might hold that a number of substances of one attribute can form one
substance of many attributes.
5
It is not mentioned in Nadler (2006), Deveaux (2007) or Della Rocca (2008), despite
the fact that all three deal with issues to which Gueroults interpretation is highly
relevant. An earlier and much-cited work by Don Garrett (1990), which deals with
an issue for which, as we shall see, Gueroults interpretation is of especial signi-
cance, also makes no reference to it.
6
The best known interpretation that follows Gueroult is Loeb (1981: 18). More
recently Colin Marshall (2009) has stated his allegiance. Edwin Curley is sometimes
referred to as being in essential agreement with Gueroult; but the degree of agree-
ment is not entirely clear, at least to me. Curley (1974: 240) states that Gueroults
interpretation is very similar to a position he himself has defended. The allusion
is to Curleys rst book on Spinoza; but the closest he comes to Gueroult in that
work is to state that substance, or God, is to be identied with the attributes
(Curley 1969: 167, 91). There is no suggestion that in the early pages of the Ethics
Spinoza treats the attributes individually as substances. Curley does seem to endorse
this central element of Gueroults interpretation latere.g., Curley (1988: 8, 11)
and Curley (1985: 410n8); but he raises an objection to it that he responds to poorly
(as we shall see).
7
Whenever I write of Gueroults interpretation, I mean, specically, Gueroults claim
that the early Propositions of the Ethics concern substances of a single attribute that
are later synthesised into a single, divine substance, thereby becoming its attributes.
As will emerge, there are certain more specic issues over which I disagree with
Gueroult.
8
Not even by Gueroult himself, who simply expounds Spinoza in accordance with
the interpretation in question, rather than arguing for it in any detail. The same is
true of Loebs briefer exposition.
2 A. D. SMITH
many consider to be the fundamental objection to Gueroults interpreta-
tion. In the fth I address the criticism that Gueroult is incapable of
doing justice to the unity of Spinozas absolutely innite substance. In
the nal section I directly address the question of how Spinoza con-
ceived this unity. I oer an account that I hope resolves the current dis-
agreement over how to understand Spinoza on this issuean account
that is consistent with the main tenets of Gueroults interpretation.
I
1. I should be surprised if most philosophically informed readers who
open Spinozas Ethics for the rst time are not puzzled, as I certainly
was, by the many references on the rst few pages to a plurality of sub-
stances. Spinoza is well-known for believing in the existence of but a
single substance. So why all these plurals? There is nothing outside the
intellect, we read in 1p4d, through which a number of things can be
distinguished from one another except substances . . . and their aec-
tions. Again: Two substances having dierent attributes have nothing
in common with one another (1p2). The second Scholium to 1p8 in
particular repeatedly invokes a plurality of substances. To take just one
example, Spinoza criticises those who do not distinguish between the
modications of substances and the substances themselves. Why on
earth did Spinoza not characterise this position as one that fails to dis-
tinguish between the modications of substance and substance itself?
It is perhaps the case that none of the statements in question is literally
false if there is but one substance. And it is possible, especially if one
has been schooled in the modern predicate calculus, to nd nothing at all
untoward in them.9 I insist, however, that the oddity is yet plainly there-
unless, of course, Gueroult is right.
2. For reasons we shall examine in Section III, Gueroults interpreta-
tion is particularly relevant to the Demonstration of 1p5. For the
moment I wish merely to draw attention to the wording of the Proposi-
tion itself: In nature there cannot be two or more substances of the
same nature or attribute.10 According to the standard interpretation,
one hypothetical situation that this is meant to exclude is what, for rea-
sons that will become clear later, I shall call a Leibniz situation: that
of there being substance X that has attribute A, and substance Y that
has attributes A and B. Such a situation is to be excluded, because on
the standard interpretation 1p5 states that no two substances can have
9
Doz (1980, 212), who addresses the issue, manages this feat.
10
All italicisation within quotations from Spinoza is my own (for emphasis), except
for the italicised or (as here), which is Curleys way of representing Spinozas use
of sive and seufor an explanation of which, see Curley (1985: xv).

an attribute in common.11 Such a situation would, therefore, be one in
which there were, contra 1p5, two substances of the same nature or
attribute. It is, however, surely intolerable to characterise it in this way.
Given that Spinozas attributes, on any informed view, are fundamental
and essential to whatever has them, if Y has B as well as A, it has a
dierent nature from X, which lacks B. I do not think anyone in
Spinozas day would have found this anything less than self-
evident.12 There is no such problem for Gueroult. Since, at this point in
the Ethics, according to him, Spinoza is considering only substances that
have a single attribute, a Leibniz situation, which involves a substance
having more than one attribute, is beyond consideration, and 1p5 is not
designed to exclude it. According to Gueroult, the purport of this Propo-
sition is that there cannot be more than one single-attribute substance of
a given attribute. An infringement of this would, indeed, be a situation
in which there were two substances of the same nature or attribute.
3. In 1p12d Spinoza expresses 1p5 in a way that again counts
against the standard interpretation. In order to conform to 1p5, Spi-
noza states, certain different substances will have to consist of a dif-
ferent attribute. Far and away the most natural reading of this clause
has it saying that the substances in question each consist of a single
attribute, different in each case. Only on Gueroults reading is this the
force of 1p5.
4. So far, I have been pointing out aspects of Spinozas text that are
puzzling if the standard interpretation is correct. I now turn to pieces of
evidence that I regard, even individually, as all but decisiveand cumu-
latively as overwhelming. Consider, rst, 1p12 and 1p13. The problem
is simply that there are indeed two Propositions here. They deal with
closely related issues: so closely that the proof of the second largely
repeats that of the rst. The rst states: No attribute of a substance
can be truly conceived from which it follows that the substance can be
divided. The second states: A substance which is absolutely innite is
indivisible. The sole signicant difference is that the second mentions
absolute innitude. The Demonstrations of the two Propositions exhibit
the same distinction. The rst begins: For the parts into which a sub-
stance so conceived would be divided either will retain the nature of
11
Although from Guerolts perspective this is not exactly the way to express the pur-
port of 1p5, I shall suppose, concessively, that it is.
12
Given, that is, that they could get their minds round the idea of something having
more than one attribute in the rst place. Perhaps I should say that I write of sub-
stance having an attribute simply in order to cut down on verbiage. It is obvious
that Spinoza did not think of attributes as properties of substance (in any sense
of this term). Indeed, if Gueroult is right, the relation between at least single attri-
bute substances and attributes is identity.
4 A. D. SMITH
substance or will not (translation modied).13 The second begins: For
if it were divisible, the parts into which it would be divided will either
retain the nature of an absolutely innite substance or they will not. If
this is not sheer, incomprehensible repetition, it must be that the sub-
stance that is being considered in 1p12d is not, unlike that of 1p13d,
absolutely innite in nature. Since, according to the standard reading,
there is no such substance, 1p12 and its Demonstration should simply
not be there.14
5. A number of commentators have admitted that Gueroults inter-
pretation is lent support by the beginning of 1p8d: A substance of one
attribute does not exist unless it is unique (P5). Expressing the purport
of 1p5 in this wayas applying to substance of one attributeis per-
plexing unless Gueroult is correct, since only on his interpretation is
there such a restriction.15 Indeed, the very mention of a substance that
has but one attribute counts against the standard interpretation. Andre
Doz (1980: 2223) has suggested another way of interpreting this pas-
sage, however. We are to interpret Spinoza not as saying that any sub-
stance has a single attribute; but, rather, that for any single attribute
there is but one substance that has it. Dozs alternative reading can
perhaps be conveyed by rendering the clause in question as: A sub-
stance of a given attribute does not exist unless it is unique. I do not
nd this a natural way of construing the Latin; but it is in any case
excluded by the context. 1p8 states that every substance is necessarily
innite. It is clear both from its Demonstration and from the subse-
quent use to which Spinoza puts it that the innity in question is what
Spinoza had earlier (1d2 and 1d6exp) implicitly characterised as that
which attaches to something that is innite only in its own kind.16
13
Curley has either will retain the nature of the substance or will not. The denite
article that I have italicised makes no sense in relation to the Demonstration that
follows.
14
It is not even as if 1p12 helped Spinoza to derive 1p13. The Demonstration of the
latter makes no reference to the former.
15
On the standard interpretation 1p5 would, of course, apply to substances of a single
attribute (if there were any). The puzzle is why Spinoza mentions this supposedly
special caseespecially given that he is in the process of demonstrating something
about substance as such: Every substance is necessarily innite (1p8).
16
The part of 1p8d that shows this is: But not as nite. For then (by D2) it would
have to be limited by something else of the same nature. Therefore, it exists as in-
nite. It is the reference to 1d2 that clinches the matter. Furthermore, in the long
Scholium to 1p15 Spinoza states that corporeal substance . . . cannot be conceived
except as innite. It must be innity-in-a-kind that is in question here; and
Spinoza refers to 1p8 as justication. In passages such as these Spinoza is simply
re-arming a thesis he had explicitly stated in the Short Treatise: That there is no
limited substance, but that every substance must be innitely perfect in its kind
(KV, I 1920).

An attribution of such restricted innitude is appropriate if substances
of a single attribute are in question; wholly inappropriate if an abso-
lutely innite substance is in question, as Doz supposes.
6. 1p8 and its Demonstration contain further evidence that the stan-
dard interpretation is false. Spinoza here infers from 1p7 that it pertains
to the nature of the substances in question to exist. This is conclusive
evidence that 1p7 had, in Spinozas mind, established the necessary exis-
tence of all substances that are innite in their own kindsuch as
Gueroults substances of a single attribute, destined to become the
divine attributes.17 Indeed, it shows not just that substances of a single
attribute are being considered at this point in the Ethics: it shows that
only these are being considered, since Spinoza states that being innite
(in the relevant sense) is something that applies to every substance.
7. Further conrmation that 1p7d applies to substances of a single
attribute is to be found in a letter to Hudde in which Spinoza explains
how the absolutely perfect and indeterminate (i.e., innite) being of
God is to be understood. Spinoza writes that if we assume that exten-
sion involves existence, we may be assured that extension pertains to
God, and that it expresses the nature of God in a certain manner
(Ep. 36). Although Spinoza is not explicit on the matter, it is clear from
the logic of his argument that he is suggesting that extension will per-
tain to God and express his nature (i.e., will be an attribute) if and only
if extension involves existence. Since it is a thesis of the Ethics that
extension does indeed pertain to Gods essence, extension will involve
existence. What this eectively means is that 1p7 applies to itand,
by implication, to each of the other divine attributes.
II.
Mark Kulstad has presented a consideration that, he suggests, may be
taken as providing one reason for favouring [Gueroults interpretation]
over many others (Kulstad 1996: 304). His suggestion is that the stan-
dard interpretation of Spinoza has a serious problem in not viewing
the principal proof of the existence of God in 1p11d as introducing an
obvious incoherence into Spinozas overall argument, culminating in
1p14d, for the thesis that there is but one substancesubstance mon-
ism as it is now commonly called. Spinoza has dened God as a sub-
stance consisting of innite attributes (1d6). There has been some
dispute over what exactly innite means in this context; but it is
17
In the Scholium to 1p8 Spinoza states that it follows from P7 alone that every
substance must be innite. Once again, it cannot be absolute innitude that is in
question.
6 A. D. SMITH
agreed on all hands that it at least means all.18 So, by the time we
arrive at 1p14 Spinoza has proved the existence of a substance having
all attributes. 1p5, however, has stated that no two substances can have
an attribute in common. Spinoza therefore argues that the existence of
any substance other than God is excludedsince every substance must
have some attribute or other (1p10s), but all the attributes have been
used up, as it were, by God. Now, the principal proof of the exis-
tence of God in 1p11d, on which this demonstration of substance mon-
ism in part rests, is astonishing in its brevity. Existence pertains to the
nature of substance (1p7); but, by denition, God is a substance (1d6);
therefore, God necessarily exists. The problem is that if 1p7 applies to
substance as suchto every substanceit will apply to a substance
that possesses, say, just the attribute of thought. Instead of 1p11, there-
fore, Spinoza could have deduced the existence of this single-attribute
substance. Then, by the kind of reasoning exhibited in 1p14d, we could
demonstrate that God does not existsince God, having all attributes,
would have to possess the attribute of thought that has already been
used up. The problem, in a nutshell, is why, in the rst stage of
1p11d, Spinoza privileges a proof of God on the basis of 1p7 over a
proof of any competitor substance.
On Gueroults interpretation there is a straightforward answer to this.
Whereas, according to the standard interpretation, a proof by 1p7 of the
existence of a substance having the single attribute of thought would be
incompatible with the existence of the divine being that has all the attri-
butes, there is no such incompatibility at all according to Gueroult. For
him, the existence of each single-attribute substance, far from being
incompatible with the existence of God, is actually required for his exis-
tence, since each of these single-attribute substances is an (essential)
attribute of God. There is, for Gueroult, no inconsistency between the
universal applicability of 1p7 and the particular application of it to God.
Kulstad (1996: 307) states that he is not claiming that an indirect
argument such as this would by itself be decisive; though he does
characterise the support it lends to Gueroult as signicant. A prob-
lem with even this limited claim is that Kulstad ignores a fairly obvious
reply that a defender of the standard interpretation might make. When
Spinoza states in 1p7 that existence pertains to substance, it goes with-
out saying that he has in mind only every possible substance. If no sub-
stance other than one consisting of all attributes (i.e., God) is possible,
then 1p7 will apply to it alone. Now, it would, of course, be grossly
18
The dispute is over whether innitus means anything more than all. In the pres-
ent paper I shall assume that Spinoza did really mean that there is an innity of
attributes. Nothing relevant to us hangs on this.

question-begging of Spinoza simply to assume that such a divine being
is the only possible substancewhich is why (and this is the heart of
the obvious reply) Spinoza addresses this issue in the second aliter
and in the Scholium of 1p11d. Here Spinoza argues that a substance of
innite attributes has more of a claim on existence than a substance
with fewer attributes. If any substance is going to lose out in the com-
petition instituted by 1p5, it is not going to be the absolutely innite
substance. More bluntly: only this substance is ultimately possible. It is
surprising that Kulstad did not consider this reply, since in a well-
known paper Don Garrett (1979) had already both raised the problem
Kulstad airs, and oered essentially this response to it.
Although, for this reason, I regard Kulstads contribution as less
weighty than even he himself does, it can be buttressed by further
considerationsconsiderations that show that no solution of the sort
proposed by Garrett can stand. In the rst place, even if we accept that
parts of 1p11d show that no substance with less than all the attributes is
possible, this will not allow us, even in retrospect, to see how the earlier
argument that culminates in 1p7 fails to apply to single-attribute sub-
stances.19 We shall know that 1p7 cannot prove the existence of any sub-
stance other than God; but we shall not understand why it does not.
Which step in the argument is to be blocked, and why?20 Moreover,
1p11d contains features that consort ill with Garretts suggestion.
According to this suggestion, Spinozas argument for substance monism
follows what we may call the path of exclusion: showing that a substance
of a single attribute does not exist in any sense whatsoever, since Gods
existence is incompatible with such a thing. According to Gueroult,
however, Spinoza follows what we may call the path of incorporation:
showing that Gods existence is incompatible only with any substance
outside God, since every substance (other than God) is an attribute that
goes to constitute Gods essence. Now, if Spinoza is following the path
of exclusion, a step he makes in the rst aliter in 1p11d is very puzzling.
Spinoza argues that if God does not exist, something must constitute
the reason why he does not; and this must be something either inside or
19
Apart from the absolutely innite substance, I shall make reference only to sub-
stances of a single attribute, ignoring the supposed possibility of substances with,
say, two or three attributes. Spinoza himself licenses this (Ep. 64). Moreover,
though for reasons we have yet to investigate, given that every single-attribute sub-
stance exists (by 1p7), such substances are ruled out by 1p5.
20
This criticism also applies to accounts such as Della Rocca (2002: 22) and Lin
(2007: 288) that attempt to show directly that any substance having less than all
the attributes is excluded by certain fundamental elements in Spinozas system.
Neither of these accounts, moreover, resembles any argument that Spinoza himself
ever employs. They both also fail to address (or even recognise) the two further
problems that I am about to raise for the standard view.
8 A. D. SMITH
outside Gods nature. If outside, it would have to be a substance of
another nature than the divine substance, because if it were of the same
nature, the existence of a divine substance would thereby be granted.
Note that this shows that by a substance of the same nature as God
Spinoza means a substance of exactly the same nature: for otherwise it
would not necessarily be precisely Gods existence that would be
granted. The logical alternative to this scenario is that the cause of
Gods non-existence is a substance that is not of exactly the same nature
as God. The only alternative that Spinoza considers, however, is that of
something having nothing in common with God whatsoever: But a
substance which was of another nature [NS: than the divine] would have
nothing in common with God (by P2). Spinoza seems to be overlook-
ing the obvious alternative of a substance that has something, but not
everything, in common with God: a substance whose sole attribute is
thought, for example. If Spinoza is following the path of exclusion, this
would be a signicant oversight indeed, since it is just such a substance
that is supposed to be excluded by Spinozas course of argument. The
only plausible explanation is that it simply never occurred to Spinoza to
treat such a substance as something that would be outside (extra)
Gods naturebecause, as Gueroult maintained, its existence is required
by Gods existence. An essential constituent of God can hardly be that
which explains Gods non-existence!
Another indication in 1p11d that Spinoza is following the path of
incorporation is a step he makes in its second aliter: So, if what now
necessarily exists are only nite beings, then nite beings are more pow-
erful than an absolutely innite Being. But this, as is known through
itself, is absurd. So, either nothing exists or an absolutely innite Being
also exists. Commentators ought to nd this passage puzzling. They
do not, because it is generally misinterpreted.21 According to the com-
mon view, Spinoza is arguing against the possibility of there being nite
things in existence, but no absolutely innite being. The possibility that
Spinoza actually argues against, however, is that of there being only
nite things in existence (and hence, of course, no absolutely innite
being).22 When this is recognised, the puzzling character of the passage
comes into view: for to rule out this possibility is not to establish, as
Spinoza states, that either nothing exists or an absolutely innite Being
also existssince another scenario that remains open is that there is
21
Even by Gueroult (1968: 1935), who thereby fails to see the strong support that
this passage lends to his overall interpretation. For a recent example of the usual
misinterpretation, see Lin (2007: 279280).
22
The dierence between nite things and only nite things is more marked in
Latin than in English. What Spinoza wrote was non nisi entia nita sunt. So it
can hardly be that we are dealing with either a mere slip or a typographical error.

no absolutely innite being, but that both nite beings and beings in-
nite in their own kind (e.g., single-attribute substances) exist. In drawing
his conclusion in the way he does Spinoza shows that he is treating the
existence of an absolutely innite being and the existence of only nite
beings as exhaustive alternatives. There is, however, a way of interpret-
ing Spinoza that does not have him making this clear mistake. Perhaps
he is here, unusually, employing the term nite to denote anything
other than what is absolutely innite: employing it, in other words, in
such a way that beings innite their own kind count as nite.
Although such usage would indeed be usual, it is not without parallel.23
This alternative reading not only has the virtue of not convicting Spi-
noza of having made a somewhat obvious mistake; it is demanded for
other reasons. First, a scenario in which only nite beings exist is not
merely impossible, in Spinozas eyes: it is patently absurd. The only
nite things in Spinozas ontology are modes. So, to suppose that only
nite things exist would be as preposterous as supposing that only
modes existwithout substance! Since the impossibility of this has been
clearly established before 1p11d, the scenario in question would surely
not have been given a moments thought by Spinoza, even in the course
of a reductio ad absurdum argument. When Spinoza puts forward the
hypothesis that only nite things exist, this must, therefore, at least
include substances that are innite in their own kind.
In fact, it is only things that are innite in their kind that Spinoza is
interested in playing o against an absolutely innite being in this pas-
sage. Note how Spinoza characterises the scenario he is intent upon
excluding. It is one in which what now necessarily exists are only nite
beings. Curley (1985: 418n28) suggest that now indicates that the
necessity in question is a matter of external causation (which would
apply to nite things, but not to attributes).24 Other things being equal,
this is a reasonable suggestion; but it is overridden by two things. First,
the nal premise of Spinozas proof is that we exist, either in ourselves,
or in something else that necessarily exists (see A1 and P7) (punctua-
23
In a letter to Hudde (Ep.36) Spinoza writes that if God, an absolutely unlimited
being, were to lack anything that perfectly expresses being (i.e., an attribute), he
would be limited (and decient). E1p11d employs the term nitus, whereas
this letter has determinatus; but there was no signicant dierence between these
terms for Spinoza.
24
Gueroult (1968: 1935) supposes that the necessity here is epistemic: the existence
of nite things is as certain as the cogito (to which, Gueroult believes, Spinoza
immediately goes on to allude). Gueroult recognises that this cannot be the sense
of necessity that is operative in the last two sentences of this aliter; and so he sup-
poses, with absolutely no basis in the text, that Spinoza there oers a second argu-
ment involving a dierent notion of necessityin a way that is, Gueroult admits,
confusing. We can see Spinozas argument in a better light than this.
10 A. D. SMITH
tion modied). This reference to necessity is surely meant to link up
with its earlier appearance in the proof; but this second reference cannot
be to external necessity, because of the appeal to 1a1 and 1p7, which
jointly point us toward the necessity of that which exists in itself: i.e.,
the internal necessity by which substance exists. We exist either in
ourselvesthat is to say, we are substances, and hence exist with the
necessity that 1p7 lays down; or in something else that necessarily
existswe are but modes, and exist in something else: a substance,
which by 1p7 necessarily exists. Secondly, in the following Scholium
Spinoza makes it clear that he has not been speaking of things that
come to be from external causes, but only of substances that (by P6)
can be produced by no external cause. In other words, the variable
claim on existence that Spinoza has been concerned with is one that
solely concerns things that can have no external cause, but exist through
their own force and naturesubstances (note the plural!), as Spinoza
plainly says. The Scholium itself explains this restriction. Things that
have an external cause owe all the perfection or reality they have to
the power of the external cause; and therefore their existence arises only
from the perfection of their external cause, and not from their own per-
fection. Spinoza has been concerned with the dierent claims on exis-
tence that attach to two dierent kinds of thing in virtue of their own
nature and powerto two dierent kinds of substance, therefore: abso-
lutely innite, and innite in a kind. This is conrmed by a sentence
near the beginning of the Scholium, in what is usually regarded as Spi-
nozas third argument for Gods existencean argument that is but an
a priori version of that in the second aliter, and which Spinoza characte-
rises as having the same foundation as it: For since being able to
exist is power, it follows that the more reality belongs to the nature of a
thing, the more powers it has, of itself, to exist.
Once it is recognised that in this passage Spinoza is concerned only
with things that exist in themselves, it is clear from the very structure
of the argument that it is the path of incorporation that Spinoza is fol-
lowing. For what he argues is that an absolutely innite being exists, if
any nite thing exists. He therefore requires some nite thing to exist
if he is to be able to conclude, as he does, that an absolutely innite
being existsor, as he tellingly puts it, also exists: exists as well as at
least one nite thing.25 We have now seen that the nite things in
25
Michael Della Rocca (2002: 24) interprets Spinozas argument here (or, rather, its
immediately following a priori variant) as follows: If a single-attribute substance X
existed, God would exist; i.e., if X existed, both X and God would exist; but this
infringes 1p5; therefore, X cannot exist. A decisive reason for rejecting such a
reconstruction is that this argument does not show that God exists, whereas that is
clearly the conclusion of Spinozas own argument.

question are things that exist in themselves, and are innite in their
own kindprecisely Gueroults substances of a single attribute.
Spinoza therefore regarded the existence of such things as, at the very
least, compatible with the existence of an absolutely innite being. This
is inconsistent with the path of exclusion.
That the path of incorporation was, indeed, the strategy that Spi-
noza followed is conrmed by a couple of letters he wrote to Hudde
that deal with the very issue now in question at a time when, it is gen-
erally agreed, the rst two Books of the Ethics had more or less
reached their nal form. In the rst of these letters, for example, Spi-
noza states that it can only be from having no imperfection that a
thing can exist by its own suciency and force; and he goes on to
argue that if we suppose a thing that does not express all perfections
(such as a substance of a single attribute) to exist by its own nature
or suciency and force, we must also suppose that an absolutely
perfect being exists. A little later in the same letter he writes that such
a less-than-absolutely-perfect being must pertain . . . to God, who pos-
sesses all perfections and no imperfections. And it cannot exist outside
[extra] God. For if it existed outside God, one and the same nature
that involves necessary existence would exist twicewhich, by the pre-
ceding proof, is impossible (Ep. 35).26
III.
One of the places in the early pages of the Ethics where Gueroults
interpretation is particularly relevant is the Demonstration of 1p5. Spi-
noza here states that if there are two or more substances, they must be
distinguished somehow. He rst considers the suggestion, which he
endorses, that this is to be done by a dierence in the substances attri-
butes. If so, he immediately concludes, no two substances can have an
attribute in common.27 As Leibniz soon pointed out, this seems to be a
very poor argument indeed. Why, after all, could there not be two sub-
stances X and Y that dier from one another in that Xs sole attribute
is A, whereas Y possesses attributes A and B? These two substances
would dier with respect to their attributes (since Y has B, whereas A
doesnt), while yet having an attribute in common (namely A).
A weighty consideration in favour of Gueroults interpretation is
that it swiftly and cleanly solves this problem. The kind of problematic
scenario depicted by Leibniz involves a substance that possesses more
than one attribute. It is, however, precisely Gueroults point that at this
26
I fail to understand how Della Rocca (2002: 36n36) can manage to read this pas-
sage as expressing the path of exclusion.
27
This, at least, is how the standard interpretation views matters, as we have seen.
12 A. D. SMITH
early stage of the Ethics Spinoza is considering only single-attribute
substances. Those who subscribe to the standard interpretation, by
contrast, must come up with some explanation of why it is that
Spinoza simply ignores the possibility of such a Leibniz situation;
and this has to be done by showing that such a thing has been implic-
itly excluded by what precedes 1p5 in the Ethics.28 The two most
signicant proposals along these lines are due to Don Garrett (1990:
95101) and Michael Della Rocca (2002: 178). It is, however, one
thing to show that the obtaining of a Leibniz situation is inconsistent
with things Spinoza has asserted in the Ethics before the appearance of
1p5; it is quite another to make it plausible that Spinoza should have
supposed the inconsistency to be suciently obvious to an intelligent
reader that he felt no obligation to spell it out. On this count, Garretts
proposal can be discounted immediately, so intricate and ingenious is
it. Della Roccas is simpler, but even it is not straightforward. Recall
just how swift Spinozas argument is at the crucial point: If only by a
dierence in their attributes, then it will be conceded that there is only
one of the same attribute. Such brevity indicates that the point is
supposed to be obvious to the point of being self-evident. If Gueroult
is correct, it is; otherwise, not.
Some concede that Gueroults interpretation provides a neat solution
to the problem that Leibniz raised for 1p5d, but go on to suggest that
it proves inadequate further down the line when Spinoza attempts to
prove that there is but a single, absolutely innite substance (1p14d).
An essential step in this proof, as we have seen, is the employment of
1p5 to rule out the existence of any substance other than God, on the
grounds that such a substance would have to share an attribute with
God. The apparently obvious problem for Gueroult is that Spinozas
original argument for 1p5 went through, according to him, only on the
assumption that substances of a single attribute are alone in question.
By the time we get to 1p14, however, such a restriction, if ever there
was one, has been lifted; so an appeal now to 1p5, as interpreted by
Gueroult, would be grossly improper. To defend 1p5d in Gueroults
manner is simply, according to Henry Allison (1987: 52), to postpone
the day of reckoning. Willis Doney (1990: 35) states the matter more
bluntly: If [Gueroult] makes this assumption . . . and P5 is restricted
in the way indicated, P14D . . . fails. Surely Spinoza could not have
made such a gross strategic error. If Spinozas argument for 1p5 is
restricted to substances of a single attribute, are we to suppose, as
28
An alternative, of course, is to accept that Spinoza simply made a mistake in his
reasoning. Since, however, the mistake would be so gross, this is not an attractive
proposal.

Jonathan Bennett (1984:69) rhetorically asks, that Spinoza simply for-
got to review it in the light of his later thesis that substances can have
more than one attribute?
Such objections involve two mistakes. First, it is true that if 1p5d
assumes a restriction to single-attribute substances, then, when the pos-
sibility of a substance with more than a single attribute is introduced,
the issue of the individuation of substances needs to be revisited. But
this is exactly what Spinoza does: If someone now asks by what sign
we shall be able to distinguish the diversity of substances, let him read
the following propositions . . . (1p10s).29 This makes little sense on the
standard interpretation, according to which the whole issue of the indi-
viduation of substance has been settled once and for all by 1p5,
however many attributes we suppose substance to have. The fact that
Spinoza recognised that a new query concerning such individuation is
in place once the possibility of a substance of more than a single attri-
bute is recognised is a strong indication that 1p5d was not initially
intended to address any such eventuality.
The second mistake is perhaps more serious, since the suggestion that
Gueroult can smooth over the lump in the fabric of Spinozas argument
at one point (1p5d) only for it to emerge elsewhere (1p14d) manifests a
fundamental misunderstanding of Gueroults interpretationspecically
as it applies to 1p14d. As we have seen, Spinoza argues here that any
substance in addition to God would have to have an attribute that God
possesses, in violation of 1p5. According to Gueroult, however, the
competition for attributes is not, as Doney, Allison and Bennett all
suppose, between any substance of a single attribute and the divine,
absolutely innite substance that has all attributes, but between any of
the former and some attribute or other of God. In other words, 1p5
applies in virtue of applying severally to each and every one of the sin-
gle-attribute substances (now attributes) that constitute God.30 We can
be helped to see that this was indeed Spinozas point by modifying
Curleys translation of 1p14: Except God, no substance can be or be
conceived. The word that Curley translates as except is praeter
famous from Ockhams razor: entities are not to be multiplied
beyond necessity (praeter necessitatem). Beyond or over and above
are usually the most natural way of translating praeter; and such is
the case here. In 1p14d Spinoza is arguing against the possibility of
there being any substance beyond God: any single-attribute substance,
Gueroult interprets this as meaning, over and above all the single-attri-
29
Spinoza has in mind the four following Propositions, which establish substance
monism.
30
Gueroult (1968: 190, esp. n30) makes it clear that this is indeed his understanding.
14 A. D. SMITH
bute substances that constitute the absolutely innite divine essence.31
This is ruled out by 1p5, even under the restriction imposed upon it by
Gueroult, because any such single-attribute substance would, together
with one of Gods constituent substances attributes, amount to two
single-attribute substances of the same nature.
There is, in fact, something of a problem for Gueroults interpreta-
tion stemming from Spinozas later employment of 1p5. It concerns not
1p14d, however, but 1p13d. Here Spinoza confronts the hypothesis that
an absolutely innite substance can be divided with a dilemma. The
parts that result from such division either will, or will not, retain the
nature of the original substance. Spinoza proceeds to refute both
options. It is the argument against the parts retaining the same nature
that is of interest to us: If the rst, then there will be a number of
substances of the same nature, which (by P5) is absurd. Spinoza here
employs 1p5 in relation to supposed substances that are not of a single
attribute, since both the original substance and any that would result
from its division are absolutely innite, and hence possess all the attri-
butes.32 The answer to this problem lies, I believe, in correctly interpret-
ing the clause then there will be a number of substances of the same
nature in 1p13d. The problem arises from interpreting it as referring
to the absolutely innite substances that would result from division.
On this reading, if an absolutely innite substance is divided into two
substances X (which, since it is absolutely innite, has attributes A, B,
C, etc.) and Y (which, for the same reason, also has attributes A, B, C,
etc.), there would be two substances X and Y of the same (absolutely
innite) nature, supposedly in contravention of 1p5. As we shall see in
the following section, however, Spinoza is happy to regard attributes as
substanceseven after the construction of the one absolutely innite
substance (e.g., in 1p15s). Spinoza therefore licenses us to characterise
the foregoing scenario as one in which there are two substances, X and
31
The claim that there is no substance beyond God links up with two passages we
have already noted in which Spinoza discusses what cannot exist outside (extra)
God. The rst is Spinozas ruling out something outside Gods nature being that
which explains Gods non-existence (1p11d). The second is the passage from a let-
ter to Hudde in which Spinoza says that a less-than-absolutely-innite being that
exists by virtue of its own suciency and force must pertain to God, and cannot
exist outside God (Ep. 35). Note that I am not suggesting that Spinoza holds that
there is no substance beyond God rather than that there is no substance except
God. As Spinoza plainly states, In Nature there exists only one substance
(1p10s). The present point about beyond is that it helps us understand the nature
of Spinozas argument for his position.
32
Gueroult (1968: 210) appears not to see a problem here. This is surprising, since
only twenty pages earlier (190) he had suggested that Spinoza makes no use of 1p5
in the rst aliter of 1p11d because two absolutely innite substances were in ques-
tion: just the situation that we have in 1p13d.

Y, that are each constituted by an innity of substances of a single
attributesuch single-attribute substances being the attributes of the
two absolutely innite substances X and Y. Let us represent this situa-
tion by saying that X has, or is constituted by, single-attribute sub-
stance a having (alone) attribute A, b having attribute B, and so on;
and that Y has, or is constituted by, single attribute substance a hav-
ing (alone) attribute A, b having attribute B, and so on. According to
the alternative reading I propose, when Spinoza writes that division
would result in a number of substances of the same nature, he has in
mind not substances X and Y, but substances a and a, b and b, and
so on. Spinoza sees the division of an absolutely innite substance into
substances of the same nature as the original as involving an innite
number of infringements of 1p5. It is appropriate for Spinoza to regard
these as infringements of 1p5 (as interpreted by Gueroult), because the
substances in question are single-attribute substances.33
IV.
So few commentators on Spinoza have accepted Gueroults interpretation
of the opening pages of the Ethics because there seems to be an overwhelm-
ing objection to it. Given that Spinozas real view is that there is only a sin-
gle substanceIn Nature there exists only one substance, and . . . it is
absolutely innite (1p10s)how on earth could he initially pretend that
there is a plurality of substances? As Willis Doney (1990: 35) puts it, It is,
of course, somewhat paradoxical to say that Spinoza presupposes . . . a
thesis that he thinks is false. In what is still the most extended critical dis-
cussion of Gueroults interpretation, Andre Doz (1974: 226) claims that
the main diculty with it is that it saddles Spinozas initial presentation
of his metaphysical system with a contradiction: one that is so glaringly
obvious that Spinoza could surely have neither overlooked nor tolerated
it. A closely related problem is this. According to Gueroult, Spinoza can
assert both that there is a plurality of substances (of a single attribute) and
also that there is but a single (absolutely innite) substance, because the
former eventually emerge as attributes of the latter. But surely, as Doz
expostulates, Attribute isnt substance, substance isnt attribute, a sub-
stance cannot be the attribute of a substance.
These would indeed be serious problems for Gueroult were it not for
the fact that Spinoza more or less explicitly states what Doz regards as
false and impossible, and Doney as paradoxical. The most forthright
33
Gueroult himself points out a further apparent problem with Spinozas later
employment of 1p5one that he describes as being impressionante, at least at
rst sight. I shall not discuss it, since I regard Gueroults (1968: 186) response as
satisfactory.
16 A. D. SMITH
statement, one that seems by itself completely to vindicate Gueroult,
comes from the Short Treatise: Regarding the attributes of which
God consists, they are nothing but innite substances, each of which
must, of itself, be innitely perfect (KV, I 44).34 This unequivocal
statement comes from a time when Spinoza penned many lines that
express an identication of substance and attribute, and that thereby
open up the possibility of a substance being an attribute of a substance.
For example: Every attribute, or substance, is by its nature innite
and supremely perfect in its kind (KV, I 115). Indeed, Spinoza can
oer exactly the same denition of attribute and of substance: that
which is conceived in itself and through itself (Ep. 4; cf. Ep. 9). The
problem with adducing such passages in support of Gueroult, however,
is that they antedate the period when Spinoza was writing the Ethics;
and it is widely recognised that the Short Treatise, in particular,
contains statements at odds with what we nd in the Ethics. Such early
passages do at least show that Spinoza did not nd the idea of a
substance being an attribute of a substance simply absurd. But in any
case, the Ethics itself repeatedly gives expression to these early views.
Consider, for example, Spinozas claim that no attribute of a substance
can cause any other of its attributes (1p10d). Spinoza oers no justi-
cation for this. The only established result that he could possibly think
warrants it is 1p6 (and its Corollary), which states that no substance
can be produced by any other substance (or, according to the Corol-
lary, by anything else). Spinozas claim that one attribute of a sub-
stance cannot cause another is based entirely on an earlier nding that
concerns substances. No doubt, since attributes are what intellect per-
ceives of substance as constituting its essence (1d4), it is licit to extend
the causal claim from substances to attributes. One would think, how-
ever, that Spinoza might have spelt this out, if only briey. As it is, he
seems to think that it goes without saying. It really does go without
saying, however, only if attributes are the substances about which the
earlier causal claim was made.
34
Francesca di Poppa (2009: 927) has recently suggested that we should not take such
assertions in the Short Treatise literally, but that for substance we should read
what the Cartesians call substance. Despite some evidence in its favour, I am
unconvinced by her case, since it is confronted not only by passages in which
Spinoza relies on the thesis that divine attributes are substances to establish points
that he clearly endorses (e.g., KV, I 51 16); and not only by a passage in which
Spinoza says of the claim that Gods attributes are innite substances that clear
and distinct reason convinces us of this (KV, I 44); but also by Spinozas refer-
ence to those attributes which we ourselves concede to be substances (KV, I 52).
Spinoza also expresses the view I am attributing to him in letters from this time, as
we are about to see.

There is more direct evidence. Spinoza at one point states that out-
side the intellect there is nothing except substances and their affections
(1p4d). So what about attributes? The continuation of the same Dem-
onstration makes the situation clear: There is nothing outside the
intellect through which a number of things can be distinguished from
one another except substances, or what is the same (by D4), their attri-
butes, and their aections. Moreover, even after the establishment of
substance monism Spinoza allows himself to refer to corporeal
substance. In the Corollary to the very Proposition that states such
monism Spinoza writes of corporeal substance, insofar as it is a
substance (1p14c).35 In this same Scholium he characterises the
position he is intent upon rejecting as that of those who remove cor-
poreal, or extended, substance itself from the divine nature. Even more
explicit is a statement we nd in 1p15s: We have concluded that
extended substance is one of Gods innite attributes. Note what
Spinoza explicitly says here: extended substance is one of Gods attri-
butesi.e., a certain substance is one of the attributes of God. One could
hardly wish for a plainer statement of Spinozas view as Gueroult under-
stands it.
V.
Less common only than the criticism that Gueroults interpretation
makes Spinozas position self-contradictory is the criticism that it makes
the unity of Spinozas God incomprehensible. How could distinct sub-
stances (of a single attribute) possibly form the single, indeed indivisible,
divine substance? Alan Donagan (1991: 21n18) wrote that my own
greatest diculty with Gueroults interpretation is that it excludes every
possible explanation of how the union of the really distinct substances
of one attribute into an indivisible absolutely innite being can be neces-
sary.36 In and of itself this is a somewhat weak objection to direct spe-
cically at Gueroult, since accounting for the unity of Spinozas
Goda being that, on anyones view, is constituted by really distinct
35
One should not regard insofar as as any sort of qualication of the idea that
corporeal substance is a substance. Towards end of 1p15s Spinoza makes it clear
that conceiving it this way is dicult, and is done by the intellect, not imagination.
That means for Spinoza that it is thereby conceived truly.
36
Roger Woolhouse, as we have already seen (n.4), presents this as a sucient reason
to dismiss Gueroults interpretation. Edwin Curley, who may actually accept
Gueroults interpretation, at least to some extent, also raises this issue of unity as a
problem for that interpretation on two occasions (Curley 1985: 412n12 and 1988:
29).
18 A. D. SMITH
attributesis recognised as a problem by almost every interpreter of
Spinoza. Moreover, the literature is replete with poor accounts of this
unity.37 Not only this, it is not clear why Donagan should think that
Gueroult could not have endorsed a proposal of Donagans own,
according to which it suces for the unity of the divine substance that
it be a law of nature that the nite modes of substance conceived as
constituted by any one attribute correspond toor, echoing 2p7, have
the same order and connection asthe nite modes of substance con-
ceived as constituted by any other attribute (Donagan 1991: 18).38 I am
not for a moment suggesting that Gueroult should have taken this line,
since it is wholly unsatisfactoryif only because Spinoza explicitly
oers more. When Spinoza rst enunciates the necessary parallelism
between the modes of each attribute, he grounds it in a certain sort of
identity: Some of the Hebrews seem to have seen this, as if through a
cloud, when they maintained that God, Gods intellect, and the things
understood by him are one and the same. For example, a circle existing
in nature and the idea of the existing circle, which is also in God, are
one and the same thing, which is explained through dierent attributes
(2p7s). Here we have something much stronger than mere necessary iso-
morphism. So it is just as well that Gueroult did not propose Donagans
account. The pertinent point at the moment is simply that we have yet
to see why accounting for the unity of Spinozas God is supposed to
present a problem for Gueroult in particular.
Donagan does, however, have a substantial criticism of Gueroults
interpretation in relation to divine unitythough it is to be found in an
earlier paper of his (Donagan 1973: 1747). Here Donagan correctly
observes that Gueroult regards the unity of Spinozas God as arising
from a single causal act by which every attribute is produced as a
necessary existent; and he agrees: Gueroult is clearly right in taking
Spinoza to hold that the identity of the divine substance derives from
the causal act by which it necessarily exists. Donagan also cites the fol-
lowing passage from Gueroult, however: The attributes will be things
absolutely dierent as to their essences but absolutely identical as to the
cause (i.e., the causal act) by which each produces itself and produces all
its modes. And so the identity of the causa sui in each [attribute] is that
37
Curleys (1988: 30) suggestion, alluded to above, is particularly poor, consisting as
it does in the suggestion that the necessary existence of each attribute suces for
them to constitute a unitary substance. According to Platonists, both the null set
and the proposition that justice is a virtue are necessary existents. Do they there-
fore form such a unity?
38
Loeb (1981: 165) makes essentially the same proposal. The only modication that
might be required would be the substitution of the nite modes of any one attri-
bute (or constituent single-attribute substance) for the nite modes of a sub-
stance conceived as constituted by any one attribute.

by which they constitute one and the same self-existent substance. There
is no mere juxtaposition of attributes, because they are identical as to
their causal act (Donagans translation). Recall that for Gueroult
1p7the claim that the nature of substance involves existenceapplies
to each substance of a single attribute. Each, in other words, is causa sui.
But now Gueroult appears to be claiming that there is a single causal act
by and through which each attribute is produced: a single causa sui, in
other words. Against this Donagan not unreasonably protests that it
divides the causal act of a substance from its essence in a way utterly for-
eign to Spinoza . . . [Gueroult] has overlooked that if there is only one
causal act by which all the attributes of God exist, then there is only one
essence which involves their existence . . .. If there is only one essence
which involves the existence of all the attributes, then that essence is
what each and every attribute expresses. Indeed, it is precisely this,
according to Donagan, that accounts for the unity of Spinozas abso-
lutely innite substance: God is unied by the fact that all his really dis-
tinct attributes express the same essence. Gueroult, however, denies
that the several attributes each express one and the same divine essence.
Rather, each expresses an essence that is peculiar to it and merely in-
nite in its own kind.39 In making such a denial, Gueroult deprives him-
self of the only means available of justifying his own account of the
unity of Spinozas divine substance in terms of a unity of causal act.
This may seem to involve but an incidental mistake on Gueroults
part. All Gueroult needs to do, it may be suggested, is to revise his
view concerning the essence that an attribute expresses, and fall in line
with Donagan in holding that each attribute expresses the absolutely
innite divine essence. Now, although Donagan is not explicit on the
matter, I take him to imply that Gueroult cannot make this move
because he regards the attributes as substances in their own right.
Since each is a substance, each must have or express its own essence
rather than the absolutely innite divine essence. This is a criticism that
we must consider seriously, since it strikes at the heart of Gueroults
interpretation.
39
Since each attribute (unumquodque) expresses a certain essence of substanceor
the essence of a certain substanceit is clear that it cannot by itself express the
essence of the divine substance, which is constituted by an innity of essences of
substance (Gueroult I: 69; cf. I:51). It is true that on one occasion Gueroult writes
of a single attribute as being the essence of God: Since a substance that is consti-
tuted by a single attribute has become an attribute of God, the attribute can no
longer be dened as the essence of this substance, but as the essence of the sub-
stance of God (Gueroult I: 306). This is a most misleading thing for Gueroult to
have written, however, since he goes on to state that such an attribute, being one
constituent of the divine essence out of many, expresses God as eternal and in-
nite, but not as innitely innite.
20 A. D. SMITH
In order to assess the merits of this criticism we need to ascertain
whether Spinoza did indeed regard the divine attributes as individu-
ally expressing the single, absolutely innite divine essence. Donagan
(1973: 1767) attempts to demonstrate this from Spinozas denitions
of attribute and of God. God is dened as a substance consisting of
an innity of attributes of which each one expresses an eternal and
innite essence (1d6). This, of course, is ambiguous, as is the origi-
nal Latin. Out of context it may or may not mean that there is a
single eternal and innite essence that each attribute expresses.
Gueroult (1968: 51), of course, takes it not to mean this. The eternal
and innite essence in question is, for him, an essence that is merely
innite in its own kind, dierent for each attribute. Donagan, how-
ever, takes this denition to make reference to the single, absolutely
innite essence of God that each attribute expresses. That it does
mean this is shown, Donagan suggests, by Spinozas denition of an
attribute as that which the intellect perceives of a substance, as
constituting its essence (1d4, Donagans translation and emphasis).
According to Donagan, This implies that every single divine attri-
bute is perceived by the intellect as constituting Gods essence.
Gueroult, however, would be unimpressed by this line of argument,
since he would take the reference in 1d4 to a substance to be to
any of the innitely many substances of a single attribute. Della
Rocca (2002: 201) attempts to secure Donagans point by appeal to
1p10s: Each [attribute] expresses the reality, or being of substance.
This is more promising, since it occurs at the point where Spinoza
introduces the possibility of a substance having more than one attri-
bute. Because of this, it is far from implausible to suppose that the
substance, the reality or being of which the attributes express, is
the substance that possesses these attributes.40 It is, however, not evi-
dent that this is what Spinoza is saying. Recall that even after the
absolutely innite substance that is God has taken centre stage, Spi-
noza can state that extended substance is one of Gods attributes
(1p15s). A fundamental conviction of Spinozas is that something is
t to be an attribute only if it is substantial.41 That, indeed, is the
point the very passage now in question is making. So, when Spinoza
states that each attribute expresses the being of substance, he may
simply be saying, in eect, that any attribute matches up to the
40
This is not exactly the claim that each attribute of a substance expresses the essence
of that substance; but it is not dicult to see how we might reach the latter claim.
Della Rocca points the way.
41
In the Short Treatise (KV I 51) Spinoza refers to substantial thought and sub-
stantial extension. Recall, also, Spinozas reference in the Ethics to corporeal
substance, insofar as it is substance (1p13c).

denition of substance in 1d3 (and hence also possesses such features
as innity and indivisibility that, according to Spinoza, necessarily
go together with a substantial nature). More recently Sherry Deve-
aux has attempted to establish Donagans point by appeal to 2p1s:
So since we can conceive an innite Being by attending to thought
alone, Thought (by ID4 and D6) is necessarily one of Gods innite
attributes. According to Deveaux (2007: 24, 53, and 129n72) God
is the innite Being in question; so Spinoza is saying here that
the essence of God can be conceived through the attribute of
thought alone. Since thought would obviously not be special in this
respect, Deveaux takes it to be Spinozas view that the divine
essence can be conceived through any attribute with which we are
acquainted. This is doubtless enough to ensure that each attribute
expresses the absolutely innite divine essence. Gueroult (1974: 49),
however, took the innite Being in 2p1s to be the attribute of
thought itself: a substance that is innite only in its own kind. It
is far from clear that he was wrong in so taking it.
Finding conclusive evidence that Spinoza held that each attribute
expresses the absolutely innite essence of God is hampered by the fact
that Latin lacks both the denite and the indenite article. When
Spinoza writes Dei essentia, he might, other things being equal, mean
either the essence or an essence of God. Similarly, aeterna et innita
essentia might mean either the or an eternal and innite essence.
Judgement, sometimes delicate, needs to be exercised to determine the
correct interpretation in any given context. There are, however, two
passages that cannot, I believe, be sensibly interpreted otherwise than
as saying that each of the attributes expresses the essence that is the
absolutely innite essence of God.42 The rst is 1p36. This states (in
Curleys translation) that whatever exists expresses the nature, or
essence of God in a certain and determinate way (by P25C), that is (by
P34), whatever exists expresses in a certain and determinate way the
power of God, which is the cause of all things. Curley is surely right
in having Spinoza say that whatever exists expresses the essence
rather than an essence of God, since the essence in question is trea-
ted as equivalent to power; and this must be the power of God, not a
power that would be correlative to a particular attribute, since Spinoza
states that it is the cause of all things, irrespective of attribute. Now, it
would surely be bizarre if eternal and innite attributes did not express
the single divine essence given that, as we are informed here, even
42
1p19d also provides evidence. Curley is, I think, wrong in having Spinoza say that
the attributes express an essence of the Divine substance, because of the way in
which Spinoza goes on to state emphatically that the attributes themselves, I say,
must involve it itself: i.e., substance itself. I would also adduce 2pld.
22 A. D. SMITH
limited, nite things do.43 Indeed, given that such nite things express
this essence in a certain and determinate way, it surely goes without
saying that each eternal and innite attribute expresses this same
essence in an indeterminate (i.e., innite) way. This is, moreover,
conrmed by the way the Demonstration of 1p35 refers back to 1p25c.
In the latter we read that particular things are nothing but aections
of Gods attributes, or modes by which Gods attributes are expressed
in a certain and determinate way. What is signicant is that here it is
Gods attributes that are expressed by modes, whereas in 1p34 it is the
nature or essence of God that is so expressed. To express a divine attri-
bute is, therefore, to express the divine essence. I do not see how this
can be, unless the attributes themselves express this same essence.
The second piece of evidence is the argument that begins in 2p45, con-
tinues in 2p46, and culminates in 2p47 with the claim that the human
mind has an adequate knowledge of Gods eternal and innite
essence. Once again, Curley is surely correct to represent Spinoza as
claiming knowledge of the essence of God.44 To suppose otherwise
would not only be intrinsically somewhat odd; it would conict with
later uses to which Spinoza puts these three related Propositions.45 Now,
the very fact that Spinoza credits us with a knowledge of Gods essence
strongly suggests that each of the attributes of God expresses that
essence, just as Donagan holds. After all, we have access to the divine
essence by knowing just two divine attributesnot by knowing all the
attributes that together constitute that essence.46 It looks, therefore, as if
knowledge of any single attribute manages to give us this knowledge of
Gods essence.47 And it presumably cannot do so unless it expresses that
divine essence. This is conrmed by the way in which 2p47the claim
that we possess adequate knowledge of Gods essenceis derived from
43
That it is such nite things that are the subject of 1p36 and its Demonstration is
made clear by the reference to 1p25c, which solely concerns particular things.
For Spinoza particular things are contingent and corruptible (2p31c).
44
Gueroult (1974: 426) agreesthough he seems not to have noticed the problem I
am about to raise.
45
Spinoza refers to one of them when he is dealing with knowledge sub specie aeterni-
tatis (5p29s). Such knowledge is knowledge of things as following from the neces-
sity of Gods eternal nature (2p44c2); and no one, I think, will suggest that this
ought to be the necessity of an eternal nature of God. Again, all three of the
related Propositions are referred to when Spinoza discusses our love of God
(5p20s) and the impossibility of hating God (5p18d). It is God as such, and not an
aspect or partial essence of God, that is the object of such love.
46
This argument does not presuppose that there is an innity of attributes (see n18
above): only that there are more than the two known ones. I regard this, at least,
as incontrovertible. (See, for example, KV I 17 and Ep. 56.)
47
It would hardly be sensible to suppose that knowledge of at least two attributes is
necessary (as well as sucient) for knowledge of the divine essence. Why not three?

the two preceding Propositions. 2p46 states, in Curleys translation, that
the knowledge of Gods eternal and innite essence which each idea
involves is adequate and perfect. The step from this to 2p47 is relatively
straightforward. 2p45, however, on which 2p46 is largely based, reads,
again in Curleys translation, Each idea of each body, or of each singu-
lar thing which actually exists, necessarily involves an eternal and innite
essence of God. Spinoza justies this by reminding us that because sin-
gular things have God for a cause insofar as he is considered under the
attribute of which the things are modes, their ideas must involve the con-
cept of their attribute (by IA4), i.e. (by ID6), must involve an eternal
and innite essence of God. Two things about this Demonstration are
worthy of note. First, it makes clear that Spinoza rmly bases our
knowledge of Gods essence (to be established in 2p47) on the way in
which all our ideas involve one or other of the two known divine attri-
butes. This is rm evidence that Spinoza supposes that each known attri-
bute gives us knowledge of the absolutely innite divine essence.
Secondly, however, Spinozas derivation of 2p47, as we read it in Cur-
leys translation, seems hopeless. He begins in 2p45d with various claims
about an eternal and innite essence of God, and ends up in 2p47 pro-
claiming knowledge of the eternal and innite essence of God. Spinozas
argument seems broken-backed because of this. There are, it seems to
me, only two ways of making sense of what is going on hereand both
amount to a vindication of Donagan.
The rst possibility is that in 2p45 and its Demonstration Curley has
misjudged the ambiguous Latin. What Spinoza actually meant is that
each idea of an existent singular thing involves the eternal and innite
essence of Godwhich is what we nd in the translations of both Shir-
ley (1992) and Parkinson (2000). This will then give us a relatively
straightforward argument spanning our three Propositions. Curley
does, to be sure, have a reason for translating as he does, since at the
heart of Spinozas demonstration of 2p45 lies the claim that the ideas
that are in question involve the concept of their attribute, and therefore
involve an (?) eternal and innite essence of God. Is not an indeed
right, since it follows on from a reference to the respective attributes?
The matter is not straightforward, however, since Spinoza justies his
reference to an (?) eternal and innite essence by appeal to 1d6, which
involves essentially the same ambiguity in the Latin. Curley translates
it as follows: By God I understand a being absolutely innite, i.e., a
substance consisting of an innity of attributes, of which each one
expresses an eternal and innite essence. Once again, the Latin could
equally well be translated as expresses the eternal and innite
essence, or simply expresses eternal and innite essence (as in both
Shirley and Parkinson). Our rst possibility is, therefore, that Curley
24 A. D. SMITH
has sometimes misconstrued Spinozas Latin, and that in all the rele-
vant passages, beginning with 1d6 and culminating in 2p47d, Spinoza
consistently makes reference to the single, absolutely innite essence of
which 2p47 proclaims adequate knowledge. Only so can we avoid
attributing to Spinoza a patently appalling argument. On this reading,
1d6 by itself vindicates Donagan (as he himself supposed).
The second way to make sense of Spinozas overall argument for
2p47 allows that at least some of the earlier references to innite
essence are to an essence that is innite only in its own kind (i.e., to an
attribute). If this is so, then at some point there will be an apparent
slide from talk about an essence to talk about the essence of God. The
suggestion would then be that the very fact that Spinoza is willing to
make such a move without any explanation indicates how obvious he
thinks it is that to know one of the divine attributes is ipso facto to
know the absolute essence of God. Spinozas overall argument is not
broken-backed, but merely enthymematic. This second suggestion gets
us only to the position that Spinoza believed that knowledge of an
attribute gives us knowledge of the absolute divine nature. We get to
the conclusion that Spinoza also believed that each attribute expresses
this nature simply by observing that it is unintelligible that such knowl-
edge could be available in this way unless this were so.
That it was Spinozas view that each attribute expresses the abso-
lutely innite nature of God is conrmed by writings other than the
Ethics: by, for example, one of the letters to Hudde already mentioned
(Ep. 36) in which Spinoza states that if extension involves existence,
and so is eternal, innite (in its own kind) and perfect, it will belong to
God, and will express the nature of God in some way. It would be
inadvisable to translate this as express a nature of God in some way,
since in some way indicates a restriction of the absolutely innite
divine essence to a certain attribute. To suppose that it is a nature that
is expressed in this particular way would make little sense, since such a
nature would already involve such a restriction. Given this, and given
that we can assume, as surely we can, that to express Gods nature and
to express Gods essence amount to the same thing for Spinoza, we
have further conrmation of Donagans thesis.
We have, I believe, vindicated one element of Donagans case
against Gueroult. Spinoza does hold that each attribute expresses the
absolutely innite divine essence. The argument against Gueroult that I
have derived from Donagan then suggests that Gueroult cannot accept
this, precisely because he regards the several divine attributes as sub-
stances, and as therefore expressing distinct essences in their own right
rather than the absolute innite divine essence. This argument hits
home because Gueroult holds that if an attribute expresses its own

distinct (innite-in-a-kind) essence, it cannot also express the absolutely
innite essence of God.48 Although Donagan did not, as far as I can
see, explicitly commit himself on the matter, I think he agreed with
Gueroult about this incompatibility. More importantly, there will be a
decisive argument against Gueroult only if this incompatibility thesis is
true. If it is not, Gueroult could preserve the essentials of his interpre-
tation by abandoning the thesis: specically, by coming to hold that a
divine attribute expresses both an essence that is innite in its own kind
and the absolutely innite essence of God. In fact, the incompatibility
thesis is false, as we shall now see.
Since Dei essentia and similar expressions do, as we have seen, at
least sometimes in the Ethics make reference to the absolutely innite
essence of God, it will suce to disprove the incompatibility thesis to
show that on at least one occasion Spinoza uses such an expression to
refer to an essence that is innite only in its own kind. Gueroult (1968:
51) claims that a passage in 1p16d is decisive evidence for this. Here
Spinoza states that each attribute innitam essentiam in suo genere
exprimit. Curleys translation has Spinoza claiming that each attribute
expresses an essence innite in its own kind; and this is also how
Gueroult interprets the passage. If they are right, the matter is settled.
The Latin is, however, patient of a dierent construal. Spinoza may be
saying of each attribute that it expresses in its (i.e., the attributes) own
kind (the absolutely) innite essence.49 So the passage is hardly deci-
sive. In 1p10s Spinoza states that each attribute expresses a certain
eternal and innite essence. The word certain perhaps invites a
reading in line with Gueroultespecially when other uses of this word
are borne in mind (e.g., 1p25c). But, again, not exactly decisive.50 The
Demonstration of 1p31 does, however, provide what we are looking
for. Here Spinoza characterises absolute thought as an attribute of
God, which expresses the eternal and innite essence of thought. The
only way in which we can avoid seeing in this a reference to an essence
that is peculiar to the attribute of thought, and which is therefore in-
nite only in its kind, is to suppose that the eternal and innite essence
48
See n39 above.
49
Indeed, this construal is, it seems to me, the more natural oneand it is adopted
by both Shirley and Parkinson. Curleys and Gueroults rendering would be more
appropriate to innitam in suo genere essentia exprimit.
50
Curley (1985: 416n25) points out that the Nagelate Schriften have (in his transla-
tion) a certain kind of essence. This perhaps invites Gueroults reading even
more; but we know too little about the composition of these early Dutch versions
of Spinozas works to treat them as authoritative.
26 A. D. SMITH
of thought is the absolutely innite divine essence itself.51 This, how-
ever, is ruled out by the proof of the following Proposition where
Spinoza explicitly contrasts God in so far as he is an absolutely innite
substance with God insofar as he has an attribute that expresses the
innite and eternal essence of thought (1p32d). These two proposi-
tions taken together constitute the only decisive evidence in the Ethics
that Spinoza recognised a distinct innite essence for each attribute.52
But this evidence is there; and so the incompatibility thesis is false.
Gueroults interpretation can, therefore, remain substantially intact by
making a correction to a relatively peripheral element in it: by accept-
ing that a divine attribute expresses both an essence that is innite in
its own kind and the absolutely innite essence of God.
Making this modication to Gueroults account also allows us to
answer another possible objection. It would certainly be a weakness in
Gueroults interpretation if he had to view the move from considering
only substances of a single attribute to considering the one absolutely
innite substance as involving either a conict with Spinozas initial
denitions and axioms, or a surreptitious reinterpretation of them.
That, however, is what Gueroult seems to require. The problem con-
cerns Spinozas denition of attribute as being what the intellect per-
ceives of substance as constituting its essence (1d4). Gueroult (1968:
545) says of this denition not only that it initially concerns only
things constituted by a single attribute, and is later applied to the
absolutely innite substance, but also that the initial denition could
not have been as it is if the immediately preceding denition of sub-
stance (1d3) had been that of an absolutely innite substance.
Although Gueroult does not admit that Spinozas denition of attri-
bute fails strictly to apply once the absolutely innite substance comes
on the scene, it is dicult to read him otherwise. If, however, it is the
case that when an attribute is an attribute of the absolutely innite sub-
stance, this attribute expresses both an essence that is innite in its kind
and the absolutely innite divine essence, we can view 1d4 as applying
without reinterpretation or ambiguity to attributes of substance irre-
spective of whether the substance in question has just one or innitely
many attributes. In both cases an attribute will express the essence of
the substance: an essence that is only innite in its kind when the sub-
stance in question is a single-attribute substance, but one that is abso-
lutely innite when it is the divine substance possessing all attributes.
51
This absolutely innite essence would then also be the eternal and innite essence
of extension, and of each of the other attributes.
52
Or, at least, evidence that is independent of the truth or falsity of Gueroults inter-
pretation. If Gueroult is right, there will be considerably more. The very denition
of attribute (1d4) will constitute such evidence, for example.

VI.
We have not yet seen precisely how Spinoza envisaged the unity of the
substance consisting of an innity of attributes. Until we understand
this, we shall not know for certain whether Gueroults interpretation is
nally true to Spinoza. There is, in fact, no generally agreed account of
this unity.53 In this concluding section I oer my own account: one that
escapes the criticisms to which the available alternatives are open. It is,
as we shall see, consistent with the main tenets of Gueroults interpreta-
tion.
Donagan was surely right in holding that a proper account of the
unity of Spinozas God should exploit the fact that each attribute
expresses the essence of the one absolutely innite substance. Poor
accounts of the unity of Spinozas God are poor to the extent that they
fail on this score. I have also suggested that a key to understanding
Spinozas conception of this unity is his claim that the parallel
modes are different expressions of one and the same thing. Poor
accounts of the unity of Spinozas God are poor to the extent that they
fail to do justice to this. These two failings are at root the same, since
the sense in which parallel modes are expressions of one and the same
thing is the sense in which the various attributes express the essence of
the one absolute substance. But now the question leaps to the fore:
What is this single essence? It is precisely because we do not yet know
the answer to this question that we do not yet fully understand how
Spinoza conceived the unity of God.
One recent account of this unity, due to Sherry Deveaux, has the
virtue of offering a straightforward answer to this fundamental ques-
tion. Deveaux suggests that the divine essence is absolute power.54
Spinoza does seem to identify Gods essence with his power (1p34).
So is it not this very power, as Deveaux (2007: 93) suggests, that is
constituted and expressed by each of the innite attributes? Each
attribute aords an understanding of Gods absolutely innite essence
because the power that is expressed through one attribute is the
same power that is expressed through another attribute (Deveaux
2007: 110). Is it not enough to answer our question concerning the
unity of Spinozas God to say that each attribute is simply a dier-
ent way in which Gods essence or power is expressed (Deveaux
2007: 108)?
Although better than any other account of the unity of Spinozas
God on offer, Deveauxs proposal will not do as it stands, since,
53
See Deveaux (2007) for a book-length treatment of this issue that discusses the
many contenders.
54
The suggestion itself is not new. See Gueroult (1968: 379n16).
28 A. D. SMITH
although not wrong, it does not penetrate deeply enough into Spi-
nozas thought. That a thing has absolute or some limited power is
not, for Spinoza, an ultimate fact about it, because, he held, facts
about a things power are consequent upon its nature. A things
power, after all, is determined, indeed constituted, by what it can
cause; and causation for Spinoza is ultimately a matter of what ows
or follows from somethings nature (e.g., 1p16d). Such a nature is not,
conversely, to be understood by specifying a things power in terms of
what it can and cannot cause. Somethings nature is given by its de-
nition; and this, Spinoza tells us (e.g., Ep. 60), ought to consist in a
specication of its proximate ecient cause (which may be internal),
rather than its possible eects. Consider, also, a passage in which Spi-
noza discusses the power of the human mind: The power of each
thing is dened by its essence alone (by E3p7). But the essence of the
mind (by E2p13) consists solely in its being an idea of an actually
existing body. And hence the minds power of understanding extends
only to those things that this idea of the body contains in itself, or
that follow from it (Ep. 64). Not only does Spinoza here state that a
things power is dened by its essence; he goes on to determine the
extent of somethings power, in this case that of the human mind, by
reference to its particular essence. This perspective is also evident in
what Spinoza writes about one especially important aspect of Gods
power: that it is the power by which he exists.55 We have already
noted a passage in one of Spinozas letters where he states that it is
only through perfection that it can come about that something exists
from its own suciency and force. Because of this, if we suppose a
being that does not express all perfections to exist by its own nature,
we must also suppose that that being which includes all perfections in
itself exists too. For if that which is endowed with less power exists
by its own nature, how much more so will that which is endowed with
greater power (Ep. 35). These perfections, which are a matter of a
things nature or essence, are presented here as what it is that grounds
the powers in question. In the light of such evidence we must surely
agree with Gueroult (1968: 375) when he states that Spinozas
55
Spinoza stresses that it is the same power or necessity by which God exists and by
which he acts. That eternal and innite being we call God, or Nature, he writes
in the Preface to Book Four of the Ethics, acts from the same necessity from
which he exists.

apparent identication of power and essence is in reality a reduc-
tion of power to essence.56
What, then, is the essence or nature of God in virtue of which his
power is absolute? Spinoza tells us (Ep. 60) that the proper denition
of Godproper because it species the ecient causeis that laid
down in 1d6: A being absolutely innite, i.e., a substance consisting
of an innity of attributes, of which each one expresses an [?] eternal
and innite essence. Since, however, we are supposing that the
essence of God is that in virtue of which these dierent attributes
form a unitary substance, we may seem to be going round in a circle
here. Indeed, since it is generally agreed that there is for Spinoza no
divine essence behind or beneath the attributes, our problem may
seem insoluble in principle. In fact, it is not; and the solution can be
seen by paying attention to the justication Spinoza oers for dening
God in the way he does. Spinoza oers this justication at that piv-
otal point in the Ethics where he states that it is possible for a sub-
stance to have more than one attribute. Spinoza argues for this
unprecedented idea by claiming that each being must be conceived
under some attribute, and the more reality, or being it has, the more
it has attributes which express necessity, or eternity, and innity
(1p10s). Spinoza then goes on to write that consequently there is also
nothing clearer than that a being absolutely innite must be dened
(as we taught in D6) as a being that consists of innite attributes,
each of which expresses a certain eternal and innite essence. This
indicates that the idea of an absolutely innite being (which talk of
the possession of innite attributes explicates) is at root the idea of
something the reality of which is absolute or innite.57 This is con-
rmed by a later comment on this same denition of God: God is
absolutely innite (by ID6), i.e. (by IID6), the nature of God enjoys
innite perfection (5p35d). Spinoza justies characterising God in
terms of perfection by appeal to 2d6, which states that the same
thing is to be understood by perfection and reality. Yet further
conrmation can be found in what Spinoza has to say about the
power by which God exists. We have already seen that Spinoza
grounds such power in essence or nature. In 1p11s Spinoza makes it
clear that it is specically the degree of reality that attaches to a nat-
ure that determines this power: The more reality belongs to the nat-
56
Gueroults fundamental objection to explicating the divine essence in terms of
power is that it makes everything ultimately irrational. Spinozas God would, he
suggests, be hardly dierent from the Jehovah of the Old Testament (Gueroult
1968: 41 and 379).
57
Obviously, it is not the modern notion of reality (as opposed to illusion) that is
in question here, but the mediaeval notion of realitas (as opposed to non-being).
30 A. D. SMITH
ure of a thing, the more power it has, of itself, to exist. At root,
therefore, Spinozas understanding of God is quite traditional. God is
ens realissimumwhere this is to be understood as meaning a being
that is most real because it possesses innite reality. This is the
same, for Spinoza, as saying that God possesses innite being: Since
the nature of God does not consist in a certain kind of being [ens],
but in being [ens] that is absolutely unlimited, his nature requires
everything that perfectly expresses being [so esse] (Ep. 36). Again, at
least at rst sight, a wholly traditional conception.58
Spinozas radically untraditional outlook emerges when it comes to
specifying what it is for an innitely real being to exist innitely. If
God exists innitely, then, for every fundamental and irreducible, and
hence perfect, way of existing, God must exist in that waysince he
possesses all perfections. An absolutely innite being is not merely
unlimited, it is comprehensive. Still a traditional idea. But then Spinoza
insists that extension is irreducibleeither to thought, or to something
higher than both.59 Indeed, for Spinoza there is an innity of funda-
mental and irreducible ways of existing: ways the absolute grounds of
which perfectly express being (Ep. 36).60 Whenever we recognise an
intrinsically unlimited and irreducible way to exist, we are forced to
recognise a perfection that is an attribute of God. It is for this reason
that every attribute is the same thing (absolutely innite being, or
reality) as every other attribute, since each is the expression
adequate, because innite in its kindof such absolute innitude.
This, I submit, is how Spinoza understood the unity of his absolutely
innite substance. It is also, at least in part, how Gueroult saw matters.
According to Gueroult, God is constructed out of substances of a single
58
Spinoza also has a use for the term essence that is not one that we are used to
today, and that is relevant here. It is in evidence when Spinoza writes that if some-
thing is absolutely innite whatever expresses essence and involves no negation
pertains to its essence (1d6exp). Here we have the notion of essence as being, and
hence as opposed to negation or non-being. This notion is also expressed in a letter
to van Blijenbergh where Spinoza states that evil, error and suchlike negations and
imperfections have no esse that expresses essentia, and that their form does not
consist in anything that expresses essence (Ep. 23). Playing o the two senses of
essence against one another, one may say that Spinozas view is that the essence
of God is essence (without qualication).
59
For Spinozas rejection of the traditional idea that God could possess the perfec-
tion of extended being in an eminent way, see KV, I 90. One of the virtues of
Deleuze (1992) is the recognition of the importance for Spinoza of the rejection of
eminence.
60
The question of whether there is an innity of attributes is, again, not relevant.
The real issue here is whether there is a plurality (innite or not) of fundamentally
irreducible ways to exist, since the crucial question is whether, if God is not
extended, he lacks something. (In case it needs saying, I am taking it as read that
all subjectivist interpretations of Spinozas attributes are false.)

attribute. Obviously, however, the construction is not arbitrary. It is
guided, indeed determined and necessitated, by (the idea of) God: The
true idea of God . . . forces us to conceive [single-attribute substances] not
as substances, but as attributes of his being. As a result, it is in this idea
alone that we are able to discover that they are in God (Gueroult 1968:
141, original emphasis). The attributes might have had the status of sepa-
rate substances if the nature of God did not involve them all in itself, and
make their separation impossible (Gueroult 1968: 161). Most signi-
cantly, the specic idea of God that guides the construction is that of the
ens realissimum: The unavoidable idea of the ens realissimum that has
been set up as the norm of the synthesis forces us to construct God through
the unication of the innity of substances or attributes in a single being:
obliges us to understand that these attributes must not exist separately,
that they must exist as constituents of a single being (Gueroult 1968: 184).
Gueroult does, it is true, immediately go on to write that this by itself does
not give us an understanding of how this is possible: how God is more than
a mere collection of substances. He then makes his suggestion that the
divine unity is to be understood in terms of a single causal act. As we
have seen, this suggestion cannot stand, at least in its original form,
because of Gueroults mistaken allegiance to what I have termed the
incompatibility thesis. When dissociated from that, the suggestion is in
need of clarication. It receives it, if at all, I suggest, from the idea of God
as the ens realissimum (rather than conversely, as Gueroult would have it).
The unity of God consists in the necessary singularity (totality) of abso-
lutely innite being or reality, which can yet be expressed in irreducibly
dierent ways. Gueroult (1968: 204) himself refers to the innitely innite
power of the ens realissimum . . . by which this being, necessarily causing
itself as it does, absolutely posits its existence in its entire extent and full-
ness, without limitation or failure. This surely gets us to the root of the
matter. For the extent and fullness of the ens realissimum is primarily
the totality of attributes. The attributes are unied by virtue of the
fact that they are the fundamental expressions of being: the ultimate
sources of the ways in which an absolutely innite being must express
itself. Once the relatively minor and peripheral amendments that I have
discussed above have been made, Gueroults interpretation has nothing to
fear from the issue of the unity of Spinozas God.
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