Santayana
writes that essences are infinite, as there is no way to limit the
forms we think and contemplate in our minds. Substance, a term he
defines more properly as matter, is what makes life, and conscious
life, possible. With minds now in operation, and matter at the base,
the infinite realm of essence resembles the infinite substance of
Spinoza (Realms of Being,
1942, p. 21):
the bold
definition which Spinoza gives of what he calls substance that it is
Being absolutely infinite, seems to me a perfect and self-justifying
definition of the realm of essence: because in conceiving and
defining such an object we prove it to possess the only being which
we mean to ascribe to it … Essence so understood much more truly is
than any substance or any
experience or any event: for a substance, event, or experience may
change its form or may exist only by changing it, so that all sorts
of things that are proper for it in one phase will be absent from it
in another. It will not be a unity at all, save by external
delimitation.
He
devotes these words to Spinoza (1942:160):
It was
reserved for Spinoza, still under the persuasion that he was
describing substance, to conceive the realm of essence in its
omnimodal immensity. Human vanities, whether in speculation or in
manners, were not for him. He had a just conception of manʼs
place in nature, and in the presence of the infinite, love cast out
both fear and greed from his mind. His approach to essence is the
more interesting for not being guided by any Platonic motive; as he
never cultivated poetry or sentimental theology, so he might have
neglected essence altogether, if he had taken it merely for what it
is. All that his pious heart respected was substance–that which
exerts force, works in nature, and might feed or threaten him in his
contentment. In spite of his speculative scope, his wisdom was
Levitical; he craved above all things to be safe and sure in his
corner of the Lordʼs
house. This safety had, as it were, two phases, or two dimensions:
materially, in the lea of the tempest, the swallow might build his
temporary nest; such happiness was a part of what universal nature
provided; but ideally he might borrow the wings of the storm, and
enjoy perfect freedom in identity with that force which in creating
and destroying all things is never exhausted or defeated.
On Spinozaʼs submission to power I wrote in a former essay. Now, Santayana describes how Spinoza hypostatise essence as existence (1942:161):
The
substance of this world … is no mere essence, such as extension,
pure Being, or pure consciousness, hypostatised in its bareness: it
is an existential flux, of unknown extent and complexity, which when
it falls into certain temporary systems which we call living bodies,
kindles intuition there, and brings various essences to light, which
become terms in belief and knowledge; but substance, although thus
posited and symbolised by the animal mind, always remains obscure to
it … when the definition of the realm of essence–all distinct
beings of all kinds–is turned into a definition of substance, it
contradicts another definition–pure Being–which Spinoza could not
help regarding, with equal rashness, as the essence of substance in
some deeper sense. Natural substance must be allowed to rejoice in
whatever essence it has, and to change it as often as it will, and to
bring intuition in our scattered minds such visions as it likes; and
meantime, in the realm of essence, pure Being and all beings may lie
eternally together like the lion and the lamb, in the peace of
non-existence. Very likely, in its chosen ways, the existing world
may be infinite; but the inevitable absolute infinity of the realm of
essence (a matter of definition) does not justify me in ascribing a
fabulous infinity to substance.
And
finally he writes refuting Spinoza on an absolute substance in this
way (1942:214):
Perhaps
this argument has some analogy to Spinozaʼs
proof of the unity of substance. He tells us that substance is one,
because if there were two or more substances they could bear no
relation to one another. In other words, there can be but one
universe, since anything outside, by being outside, would be related
to it and collateral, and so after all would form a part of it. Yet
if one universe, or one substance, can exist absolutely, and out of
all relation to anything else, why should not any number of them
exist, each centred in itself?
This
resembles the quantum theory of the multiverse, but the multiverse
itself would be God or Nature, as Spinoza says. Santayana is not
saying that there is a multiverse with separated universes within. He is saying that each universe is
closed in itself, each a unity, and that there is no physical relation (no
multiverse) between them. Each universe, each unity, would be unique
in itself. And thus he concludes by saying this important thought
with which I agree: “What logic enables us to assert, therefore, is
not that there is only one universe, but that each universe must be
one … Anything beyond this dynamic field is beyond the field of
posited existence and possible knowledge.”
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