The Collected Works of Spinoza Volume I and II

9 Ms.: “or.” I follow Monnikhoff, who is surely right to emend here, though not, as Wolf suggests, because the things in question are ones we sometimes want and sometimes do not want. Rather the objection envisages conflicts of desire, in which we, at one and the same time, both want and do not want the same thing.

10 If this is intended to represent Descartes’ position, it does not seem very accurate, since Descartes would not want to characterize the will as an action of the intellect. But perhaps Spinoza would regard the argument of § 3a as justifying the denial of the distinction Descartes wants to make.

1 Freudenthal found the first two sections of this chapter a cursory and completely unsatisfactory discussion of topics already treated more fully and carefully in the preceding chapter, and suggested that they were a first draft of material for Chapter XVI, which an unknown (and imperceptive) editor had incorporated into the text. Many subsequent editors have essentially agreed. Mignini nevertheless suggests an important distinction between the two discussions, viz. that Chapter XVI is primarily a critique of Cartesian doctrines, while Chapter XVII, 1-2, is primarily an exposition of Aristotelian doctrines.

Gebhardt also took this passage to be a remnant of the original Dutch dictation which he hypothesized, on the ground that it would be unnatural for Spinoza to refer to the Latin language as he does here if he were writing in Latin. Mignini points out parallels in works which we know Spinoza composed in Latin.

A marginal note reads: “What belief tells us about the distinction between Will and Desire. According to the fourth effect.”

2 The reference appears to be to De Anima III, 10, though, as Wolf observes, Spinoza’s comments are probably based on Scholastic intermediaries.

1 Freudenthal noted that we do not get the promised later discussion of the real hell as domination by bad passions, and he cited this as evidence that our manuscript of the Short Treatise represents an unfinished draft. Gebhardt suggests that the reference might be to I/108/6-17. Though the doctrine of eternal punishment was widely questioned in the seventeenth century, Spinoza would appear to be considerably more radical than most of his contemporaries. Cf. Walker (1).

a Whether we can attain our supreme salvation and be free of evil passions through true belief. [A marginal note.]

[I/89] bAll the passions which are contrary to good reason arise (as we have previously indicated) from opinion. True belief indicates to us everything that is good or bad in [25] them. But neither of these, either separately or together, is powerful enough to free us from them. Only the third way, true knowledge, makes us free of them. Without this it is impossible for us ever to be able to be freed of them, as will be shown later.

2 Godsdienst, the ordinary term in Dutch for religion, is literally “service to God.” That etymology is so central to the thought of this passage that one might find grounds here for suspecting that the passage was not written originally in Latin. But perhaps the explanation is simply that Spinoza was addressing an audience whose native language was Dutch.

1 Freudenthal contended that this (and the immediately following chapter, which is closely tied to it) should be placed between II, xv and xvi, partly because the epistemological discussions of xvi-xvii are a disgression from the ethical discussions of the chapters which surround them, partly because the opening of II, xix presupposes that the discussion of the advantages of true belief has just been concluded, and partly for reasons already discussed (see the note to II/80/10). Meijer, Appuhn, and Gebhardt reject his contention, because they find the structure of the chapters of the Short Treatise as we have it analogous to that of the last two books of the Ethics.

[I/89] Would this not be what others, using other terms, say and write so much about? For [30] who does not see how well we can understand by opinion, sin, by belief, the law that points out sins, by true knowledge, the grace that frees us of sin? [The note comes at this point in the manuscript, but without any indication of what it is supposed to amplify here. It concludes with the instruction that it should be placed in II, xxii. Gebhardt, in company with most editors, leaves it here, as the more appropriate location, though he does not think that as a whole it offers any “enrichment” of the text. Meijer suspected the second paragraph of being an interpolation by the Christian copyist. Gebhardt brackets the whole note as inauthentic, and probably introduced by Jelles. I see no reason to reject the first paragraph. Mignini attaches it to I/100/8.]

c That is, if we have a thorough knowledge of good and evil, truth and falsity. For [35] then it is impossible to be subject to what the passions arise from. For when we know and enjoy the best, the worst has no power over us. [Gebhardt brackets this note, which occurs as a footnote rather than as a marginal note, as being probably an editorial gloss, essentially similar to other notes relegated to the textual commentary.]

2 Generally uitwerking must translate effectus, but here it seems best (following Meijer and Wolf) to treat it as equivalent to werking.

d What now comes into consideration is of great consequence. [A marginal note, relegated by Gebhardt to the textual commentary.]

e Two modes because rest is certainly not Nothing. [Gebhardt brackets this footnote as a reader’s note.]

3 Wolf suggests that the reference is to the first Dialogue in Part I and to I, ii, but perhaps it is to I, i, 8.

4 A marginal note at this point reads: “What we, notwithstanding this, perceive to be able to happen in us. Followed by what is on [ms.] p. 132.” The reference is to section 12. On the strength of this note and the order of the mysterious numbers in the ms., Mignini places section 12 immediately after section 9. This does seem to me a more logical ordering of the materials, and I have followed it. Mignini takes this as confirmation that Spinoza himself was the author of the numerical sequence in the ms. and that he is here correcting his own first draft. Cf. Mignini 3,259. If this hypothesis is correct, then the doubts some editors have had about the authenticity of this passage (and others in which Spinoza seems to accept a measure of mind-body interaction) would be misplaced. See Wolf, 2, 227-229 for an interesting discussion of the relevant passages.

5 The ms. reads: “the soul and the body.” Gebhardt retains the ms. reading, though Sigwart had challenged it on the strength of a marginal note attached to “soul” which reads: “Understand: each particular, or also the soul acting on the body can indeed bring it about etc.” Mignini adopts the emendation (reading “in” for “en”, but also changing “konnen” to “kan”), calling attention to the beginning of § 13.

[I/94] f But how does it come about that we know the one to be good and the other bad? Answer: since it is the objects which make us perceive them, we are affected differently by the one than by the other. Those by which we are moved most moderately, according [25] to the proportion of motion and rest of which they consist,6 are most pleasant to us, and as they depart further and further from [such moderation], they are most unpleasant.

6 Gebhardt emended the text here to read: “of which we consist” (reading “wij” for “sij”), arguing that consistency with the subjectivistic aesthetic of E I App. required this. Mignini retains the ms. reading, arguing that it is not inconsistent with E I App.

And from this there arise all the kinds of feelings which we are aware of in ourselves and which, when they are produced by corporeal objects, acting on our body, as they [30] often are, we call impulses. For example, one can make someone who is sad laugh or be merry by tickling him, or having him drink wine, etc. The soul indeed is aware of this, but does not act. For when the soul acts, its merriment is of another kind. Then body does not act on body, but the intellectual soul uses the body as an instrument. Consequently, [35] the more the soul acts, the more perfect the feeling is.

g It is not necessary to hold that the body alone is the principal cause of the passions, but any other substance, if it came to exist, would be able to produce them, and not [I/95] something else or more; for it could not differ more in nature than this one [the body], [30] which is completely different from [the soul]. And it is from this difference of the objects that the change in the soul arises. [Gebhardt prints this note, which most editors have suppressed. But he does not think it genuine. Meijer does ascribe it to Spinoza.]

a That is, between the intellect taken generally, and the intellect as having a regard for the good or bad of the thing. [A marginal note, bracketed by Gebhardt as probably not genuine.]

[I/96] b The sadness is produced in man by an opinion that something bad is happening to [15] him, i.e., the loss of some good. When he has such a perception, the result is that the spirits gather around the heart, and with the help of other parts press against it and enclose it, just the opposite of what happens in joy. The soul in turn is aware of this [20] pressure, and is pained.

Now what is it that medicines or wine bring about? This: that by their action they drive these spirits from the heart and make room again. When the soul becomes aware of this, it gets relief, in that the opinion that something bad is occurring is diverted by [25] the different proportion of motion and rest which the wine produces; so it turns to something else, in which the intellect finds more satisfaction. This cannot be an immediate action of the wine on the soul, but only an action of the wine on the spirits [and thereby on the soul].

1 So the manuscript reads. There is a consensus that the text is corrupt, but no consensus as to its emendation. Earlier editors tended to read the phrase translated by “now mediately” (nu mediate) as a slip for “immediately” (immediate). Gebhardt omits the nu and transfers mediate to the next line, producing a text that would be translated: “The soul, then, being constituted as has been said, we have shown before that it has mediately the power etc.” He refers to 99/3-4 as a corresponding passage. It would be more convincing if Gebhardt had cited an earlier rather than a later passage. Perhaps Spinoza’s backward reference here is to xix, 9, where he does seem to ascribe to the soul an indirect control over the motions of the animal spirits. Mignini finds this interpretation impossible and suggests an emendation which would be translated: “The soul, then, being mediately constituted as has been said, we have shown before that [it] has [the] power etc.” The idea seems to be that, although the soul is a mode of thought, because it is also the idea of the body, undergoing changes corresponding to those in the body, its powers are in a certain sense derivative from those of the body.

c 2 There is no difficulty here as to how this one mode, which differs infinitely from [30] the other, acts on the other. For it is a part of the whole, because the soul has never existed without the body, nor the body without the soul. We arrive at this as follows:

1. There is a perfect being. [I/20/1]

2. There cannot be two substances. [I/23/14ff.]

3. No substance can begin. [I/19/39-43]

[35] 4. Every attribute is infinite in its kind. [I/19/6]

5. There must also be an attribute of thinking. [I/51/22-23]

6. There is no thing in Nature of which there is not, in the thinking thing, an idea proceeding from it according to its essence and its existence together. [I/51/24]

7. Consequently,

[I/97/12] 8. Since the essence, without existence, is conceived as belonging to the meanings of things, the Idea of the essence cannot be considered as something singular. That can [15] only happen when the existence is there together with the essence, and that because then there is an object which did not exist before. E.g., when the whole wall is white, then there is no this or that in etc.

9. This Idea then, considered alone, apart from all other Ideas, can be no more than [20] an Idea of such a thing; it does not have an idea of such a thing. Because such an idea, so considered, is only a part, it cannot have the clearest and most distinct concept of itself and its object; but the thinking thing, which alone is the whole of Nature, can. For a part, considered apart from its whole, cannot etc.3

[25] 10. Between the Idea and the object there must necessarily be a union, because the one cannot exist without the other. For there is no thing of which there is not an Idea in the thinking thing, and no idea can exist unless the thing also exists.

Further, the object cannot be changed unless the Idea is also changed, and vice versa, [30] so that no third thing is necessary here which would produce the union of soul and body.

But it should be noted that here we are speaking of such Ideas as necessarily arise in God from the existence of things, together with their essence, not of those Ideas which things now actually present to us 4 [or] produce in us. Between these two there is a great [35] difference. For in God the Ideas arise from the existence and essence [of the things], according to all they are—not, as in us, from one or more of the senses (with the result that we are nearly always affected by things only imperfectly and that my Idea and yours differ, though one and the same thing produces them in us.).5

2 There is no indication in the ms. as to where this note goes. For each of the first six propositions the ms. has an incomplete reference in the form: “p.______.” Some scholars have contended that the missing page references could not be supplied from the Treatise as we have it, and have therefore conjectured a lost section, or sections. The bracketed page references are given by Gebhardt, following suggestions by Meijer.

3 Meijer suggests glossing “etc.” as “be conceived.”

4 So Wolf, and this does seem to me the most natural way of taking the Dutch. But Appuhn, followed by the Pléiade editors, has: “things, actually existing, present to us.” And Gebhardt has: “things, as they now exist, present to us.”

5 Here I follow Meijer and Appuhn. One might compare II, xv, 5.

[I/98] d 6 It is clear that since man had a beginning, no attribute is to be found in him other [25] than those which were already in Nature. And since he consists of a body such that there must necessarily be an Idea of it in the thinking thing, and that Idea must necessarily be united with the body, we affirm without hesitation that his soul is nothing [30] but this Idea, in the thinking thing, of this body of his. And because this body has a [proportion of] motion and rest which is determined and continually 7 changed by external objects, and because no change can occur in the object, unless the same thing also actually occurs in the Idea, the result is that people feel (reflexive idea). I say “because [35] it has a proportion of motion and rest,” because no action can occur in the body without these two concurring.

6 Previous editors have attached this note to 98/15, as I have. Mignini, without explanation, but with some plausibility, attaches it to 98/3.

7 Adopting a suggestion of Meijer’s. Cf. I/52/25-29.

8 So Gebhardt’s text reads. The ms. has “in the soul.” Mignini retains the ms. reading, since he thinks it unlikely that it represents a copyist’s error. But he agrees that Gebhardt’s reading reproduces the true sense of the text.

[I/99] a It will be the same whether we use the word opinion here, or passion. And so it is [30] clear why we cannot conquer by Reason those which are in us through experience; for these are nothing else in us but an enjoyment of, or immediate union with, something we judge to be good, and though Reason shows us something that is better, it does not [I/100] make us enjoy it. Now what we enjoy in ourselves cannot be conquered by what we [25] do not enjoy and what is outside us, as what Reason shows us is. But if it is to be conquered, there must be something that is more powerful, like an enjoyment of, and [30] immediate union with, what is known to be better than the first and enjoyed more. And when this is present, the conquest is always inevitable. Or [the conquest can come] also from the experience of an evil known to be greater than the good enjoyed and immediately following on it. But experience teaches us that this evil does not always follow necessarily, for etc. See pp. [62/20-63/1; 88/30-89/13].

1 See Spinoza’s note at I/89/22ff.

[I/101] a This explains what we said in the first part, viz. that the infinite intellect must exist [30] in Nature from all eternity, and why we called it the son of God. For since God has existed from eternity, so also must his Idea in the thinking thing, i.e., exist in itself from eternity; this Idea agrees objectively with him. See p. [I/48].

2 Of the ten marginal notes in this chapter only one seems to contain anything of interest. Just above this passage is a note reading: “This knowledge need not be adequate, and why.” What is interesting here is the use of the term adequate (evenmatig), which otherwise does not seem to occur in the Short Treatise.

3 Gebhardt emends the text to read: “the union of the idea with the thinking thing …” in order to avoid an equation between the thing and God. Mignini points out that the equation of the thinking thing with God would be no more acceptable. To read the “or” as indicating an equivalence is probably to miss the point of the passage, which foreshadows the argument for immortality in II, xxiii.

b I.e., our soul being an Idea of the body, it has its first being from the body, for it [35] is only a representation of the body, both of the whole and of the parts, in the thinking thing. [Bracketed by Gebhardt, and generally regarded as a reader’s comment.]

4 The reference of the pronoun may be either to the idea, as Mignini thinks (cf. §§ 4 and 5) or to the soul, as Meier thought (cf. § 1). In any case, there seems to be no need to emend the text, as Gebhardt and others have done, to read: “we are united.”

1 A suggestion of Monnikhoff’s.

2 The manuscript here, if it is correct, might be translated: “So what is alone the cause of its essence must also be (when it comes to perish) the cause of its non-essence, because it itself comes to perish.” Everyone agrees that the ms. cannot be right as it stands. Most editors (Wolf, Meijer, Appuhn, Sigwart, Mignini, and Gebhardt himself in his translation) have emended “essence” (wezenheid) and “non-essence” (niet wezenheid) to “existence” (wezenlijkheid) and “non-existence” (niet wezenlijkheid).

In his edition, however, Gebhardt (followed by the Pléiade editors) retained “essence” and “non-essence,” and changed “because” (omdat) to “if” (indien). His reasoning seems to have been as follows: (1) if the phrase “what is alone the cause” referred to the body, “essence” would have to be emended to “existence” and “because” would be unobjectionable; (2) but if the phrase refers to God, then “essence” is correct and “because” cannot be right; (3) since the context suggests that the reference is to God, “essence” should be retained and the last clause made conditional (apparently conjecturing a mistranslation of a cum in the Latin original).

Mignini contends that (4) since God can never change or perish, “what is alone the cause” cannot refer to God, but must refer in general to the cause of the soul’s existence; (5) only the existence of the body can be the cause of the soul’s existence; (6) the essences of things are eternal; and (7) the copyist often writes wezenheid instead of wezenlijkheid. Mignini thus seems to accept Gebhardt’s (1) and (2).

I would say that while “essence” is possible, other things equal, if “what is alone the cause” refers to God, since God is the sole cause of the essences of things, it is not necessary, since the argument is proceeding on the assumption that in appropriate circumstances God can also be the sole cause of a thing’s existence. I take it that the whole passage (from 1. 12) is conducted on the hypothesis of union with God, which is equivalent to hypothesizing that God is the only cause of the soul’s existence. These hypotheses represent possibilities. That God should change or perish is admittedly an impossibility. But the point of the argument, I think, is to deduce from that impossibility the impossibility of the soul’s perishing if it can unite itself with God. For further discussion, relating this argument to what I claim is a revised and improved version of it in II, xxvi, and to the Second Dialogue, which I suggest is a response to its problems, see Curley 1.

1 A marginal note (relegated by Gebhardt to the textual commentary) at this point reads: “What then remains for me to treat, viz. whether there is a love of God for man.”

2 A marginal note at this point reads: “How this nevertheless must not be understood to seem an absurdity.”

3 A marginal note at this point reads: “Thus God also does not makes laws for man, to reward him when he has performed them. For the laws of God, if one wants to call by this name the rules that are in Nature, can not be transgressed.”

4 So the text runs. Gebhardt, in company with others, saw it as needing the following explanation: “When the laws of Nature come in conflict with those of man, then since the laws of Nature are more powerful, the laws of man are destroyed.”

5 This passing remark is strikingly different from the general tone of the Ethics. Cf., for example, E IVP35C1, C2 and S. One might see in this difference a symptom of Spinoza’s mood at the time of composing this work. Cf. Feuer 1, chap. 2.

6 Spinoza probably has in mind Exodus 20:2, a text he will also discuss in the TTP III/18/21ff.), though there are certainly other candidates (e.g., Exodus 6:7). Francès, comparing the discussion in the KV with that in the TTP, comments that the former is direct, but summary, whereas the latter is so diplomatic and conciliatory that some commentators have mistaken Spinoza’s true thought.

7 Monnikhoff has: “… they must have known previously that God existed before they could be sure that it was God [who was speaking to them].” Most editors seem to have favored the ms. reading, but I think Monnikhoff has made an improvement.

8 Freudenthal 2, 247, notes the inconsistency of this section (and II, xix, 14) with I, i, which allows the possibility of an a posteriori proof of God’s existence. He offers this as evidence of the unfinished state of the Short Treatise.

1 The phrase “essence and divinity” is unusual and the Pléiade editors conjecture a possible misreading of divinitas for realitas on the part of the Dutch translator, though they acknowledge that the manuscript may well have read divinitas. Opinion is divided on the question whether Spinoza’s doctrine here is consistent with E IIP30D. Cf. Wolf 2, 234 and Appuhn, 1:414.

1 Monnikhoff has simply “how, by the fourth kind of knowledge.” Wolf conjectured that this was because he had noticed that it had not been shown how our happiness might be attained through reason. Freudenthal saw the mention of reason as an editor’s attempt to resolve the contradiction mentioned in II, i, 1, n. 1.

2 The ms. does not make clear what is being destroyed. Some translators (Appuhn, the Pléiade editors, Gebhardt) have supposed that it was simply ignorance. I follow Meijer.

3 An echo of a Talmudic parable (Babylonian Talmud, Berachot 61b), details of which are given in Wolf 2, 235.

4 It is most natural, perhaps, to take syne liefde to refer to God’s love for man. But previously (I/103-104) we have had a denial that God can properly be said to love man and the contrary is not plainly asserted elsewhere in this work. If our ms. is indeed a translation of a Latin original, the Latin would probably be ambiguous. In the Ethics, Spinoza’s consistency on this point is disputed. Cf. A. E. Taylor.

5 Meijer thought that this and the following two sections were probably later insertions. Linguistic symptoms of this, perhaps, are: the use of the term gewrocht, the normal translation of effectus in Spinoza’s other works, but rare in the Short Treatise (occurring otherwise only in Second Dialogue, which is also thought to be a later addition and which comments on these sections, and at I/107/8); the use of the term doening for actio (rather than werking), which occurs only here. Cf. Curley 1.

a The bondage of a thing consists in being subjected to external causes; freedom, on the contrary, in being freed of them, not subjected to them. [Bracketed by Gebhardt as probably a reader’s summary.]

6 I render this literally, at the suggestion of an anonymous reader of the ms. of this translation, who thought it desirable to “bring out the Pauline resonance perhaps intended by Spinoza.”

7 A marginal note at this point reads: “The reader should attend well to this and also to what follows from it, for on it depend things of great importance regarding the conduct of man’s life.”

8 This concluding section of the work makes it clear that it was written in the first instance, not for publication but for circulation among Spinoza’s friends. It also appears that the friends would be at some distance from Spinoza, prompting the hypothesis that at least the concluding portions of the work, and possibly all of it, were written after Spinoza took up residence in Rijnsburg, for the benefit of friends in Amsterdam. This much, I think, would be generally agreed.

There is, however, a marginal note at this point which has led to much theorizing, but no consensus: “The author’s request to those for whom, at their request, he has dictated [?gedicteert] this treatise, and with it the conclusion of everything.” This note was a key item in Gebhardt’s theory that our manuscript of the Short Treatise had its origin in a dictation. (See Preface, p. 50.) Mignini argues at length (Mignini 1, 432-435) that dicteren may not have its literal meaning here, that it may be a literal translation of the Latin dictare, which may also mean compose or have written out, as well as dictate. If this conjecture is correct, it would have the advantage of removing an apparent contradiction between the note (which does not appear to be by Spinoza) and the text on which it comments, according to which the work is one Spinoza wrote.

1 This appendix is not designated as such in the manuscript and is generally believed to be posterior to the main body of the Treatise. As Appuhn remarks, it is not so much an addition to the Treatise as the first draft of another work, explaining similar ideas in a different form (cf. also Letter 2). Meijer thought, on grounds of style, that Spinoza might have written this appendix in Dutch. (We have Spinoza’s own testimony that he did not write Dutch very fluently, and the style of the appendix is awkward.) On the other hand, others (Gebhardt and Sigwart) have seen in this appendix errors to be explained by mistranslation of the Latin original. (Three of the eleven passages Gebhardt cites and Boehm disputes come from this appendix.)

2 The ms. has toevallen—the usual term for accidens—followed by the Latin term modificationes in parentheses. There is also a hint that our ms. at this stage may not be the work of a copyist. The ms. has: “Substance is prior to by its nature prior to all its modification.” The first “prior to” is then crossed out.

3 I.e., they have nothing in common with one another.

4 The manuscript has: “are maintained” which has seemed to some to make A7 an idle repetition of A1. Meijer, adverting to the note at I/119/34-35, proposed reading “distinguished” (onderscheiden for onderhouden) and this emendation has been accepted by both Gebhardt and Mignini. Wolf suspected A7 of being a reader’s comment on A1, inadvertently incorporated in the text by an uncritical copyist. But this was based partly on the (incorrect) belief that A7 is not used in what follows (see I/115/4).

5 Monnikhoff: “or (what is the same) in nature, no two substances of one and the same nature can be posited.” This makes P1 much closer to its analogue in the Ethics (E IP5).

6 This reference is omitted in Van Vloten and Land and in Wolf.

7 The ms. has A3. Gebhardt and Mignini, following Boehmer, emend to A2, though it is not clear to me that this is an improvement.

a The mode I call the most immediate mode of the attribute is that which, in order to exist, needs no other mode in the same attribute.

1 This sentence seems defective in the ms. Gebhardt takes it to mean: “… it is necessary that of everything which is produced in thought, there is in reality an infinite idea, which contains in itself objectively the whole of Nature, as it is in itself.” But Monnikhoff’s reading seems more likely to me and I have followed it, in company with most other editors. For argument see Mignini 1, 435.

2 In the ms. this paragraph comes at I/119/20, after “… of one infinite being.” Gebhardt, following Freudenthal, argues that it belongs here. Mignini argues for retaining the order of the ms.

3 The ms. here adds in parentheses an explanation which many editors, including Gebhardt and Van Vloten and Land, have omitted: “I mean the modification.” Mignini restores it to the text.

b For things are distinguished by what is first in their nature, but this essence of things is prior to their existence, therefore. [This note, which was omitted by Sigwart, Vloten-Land, and Wolf, and retrieved by Meijer, is printed without brackets by Gebhardt. Appuhn takes its sense to be that the existence of attributes, unlike that of modes, follows necessarily from their essence.]

4 Monnikhoff has: “as being thus united with its object.” Some (e.g., Sigwart, Appuhn) have thought that originally the text may have read: “and in this its union with the object consists.”

5 This suggests that as early as the Short Treatise Spinoza conceived of thought as coextensive with all the other attributes, and hence more ‘extensive’ than any one taken singly—i.e., that what some have seen as a damaging admission made in response to the criticism of Tschirnhaus was an acknowledged part of the theory all along. Cf. Joachim 1, 134f. But see below I/119/24n.

6 As Appuhn suggests, this probably means that because the attributes exist through themselves, in them essence and existence are identical.

7 Both Appuhn and the Pléiade editors have: “there is no inequality between the attributes.” Gueroult (1, 2: 99n) rejects this, partly on linguistic grounds, partly because he takes the attributes to be incommensurable.