we are to understand that this conception cannot be explained in other
terms. Substance must be posited, and there we must leave it. The
demonstration of the last-quoted proposition, the 11th, is elusive, and
I must pass it by, merely observing that the objection that no idea
involves existence, and that consequently the idea of God does not
involve it, is not a refutation of Spinoza, who might rejoin that it is
impossible not to affirm existence of God as the Ethic defines him.
Spinoza escapes one great theological difficulty. Directly we begin to
reflect we are dissatisfied with a material God, and the nobler
religions assert that God is a Spirit. But if He be a pure spirit
whence comes the material universe? To Spinoza pure spirit and pure
matter are mere artifices of the understanding. His God is the
Substance with infinite attributes of which thought and extension are
the two revealed to man, and he goes further, for he maintains that they
are one and the same thing viewed in different ways, inside and outside
of the same reality. The conception of God, strictly speaking, is not
incomprehensible, but it is not CIRCUM-prehensible; if it were it could
not be the true conception of Him.

Spinoza declares that "the human mind possesses an adequate knowledge of
the eternal and infinite essence of God" {36}--not of God in His
completeness, but it is adequate. The demonstration of this proposition
is at first sight unsatisfactory, because we look for one which shall
enable us to form an image of God like that which we can form of a
triangle. But we cannot have "a knowledge of God as distinct as that
which we have of common notions, because we cannot imagine God as we can
bodies." "To your question," says Spinoza to Boxel, "whether I have as
clear an idea of God as I have of a triangle? I answer, Yes. But if
you ask me whether I have as clear an image of God as I have of a
triangle I shall say, No; for we cannot imagine God, but we can in a