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SUBJECTIVIST THEORY OP ETHICS 357
which happens to be the object of appetite or desire".
Although it forms part of a very different philosophy,
the conclusions ofSpinoza's ethical theory are not dissimilar,
and a brief summary will suffice.
Metaphysically, Spinoza may be classed as an absolute
monist; be maintained, that is to. say, that the universe
was a single unity which was God, and that everything
which exists is an aspect or an expression of this fundamental
divine unity. Apart from the whole which is God,
the individual is nothing; his being is derived wholly from
God, of whose nature he is a partial expression. But
although only an item in the whole which is God, the
individual nevertheless plays within that whole a necessary
and essential role. For although he is only a partial
expression of God, if it were not for him, God would not
be what He is, his completion being necessary to God's.
It is, therefore, a law of the individual's nature, that he
should struggle to preserve his integrity as an individual
within the all-pervading one-ness of the universe, that
he should struggle, that is to say, to affirm his, right
to realize hjfnmclft Thus the fundamental law of the
individual's nature, a law whose operations he cannot
escape, is a law of effort and struggle, and since there
cannot be effort and struggle without desire, it is a law
also of desire. Starting from very different presuppositions,
Spinoza thus reaches a position which, so for as its psychological
and ethical corollaries are concerned, is little
different from that of Hobbes. Man is a determined being,
in the sense that he is completely determined by the laws
of his being. The word "good" has no meaning apart
from the individuals who use it. Absolutely and objectively
there is no such thing as good, nor have our ethical con-
cepts any meaning in the outside world; there is only the
good for me and the good for you, and the good for me,
that which I call good, is whatever assists my endeavour
to preserve my* own being and further my realization of
myself as an individual. Now whatever tends to further
my self-realization, to make me, that is to say, more