Spinoza vol 2 ebook Chapter 3: Spinoza’s Letter to Oldenburg (32): Parts and Wholes - The Worm Analogy

Chapter 3: Spinoza’s Letter to Oldenburg (32): Parts and Wholes - The Worm  Analogy

The second analogy is a slight tweaking of the first analogy because it merely adds our place in the world into the analogy of the universe. Spinoza asks Oldenburg to imagine a worm (vermiculum[i], literally meaning grub or lava) living inside the blood stream system he described in his first analogy. I have already suggested Spinoza’s premises are adequately biologically true for the purposes of his first analogy. Given that he extends these same facts into his worm analogy, the latter is also based on adequately biologically true facts for the purpose of this second analogy.

I interpret Spinoza as imagining that the worm represents a human; lymphs and chyles represent x and y things in the world; the blood stream represents the part of the world we live in; and the other bodily systems, such as the digestive system, represent what lies beyond the world we live in and see in our daily lives. Spinoza is enthusiastic about astronomy in his letters so I suggest Spinoza may have thought of the blood stream as being akin to planet earth while the other organs and systems in the body are akin to other planets (and galaxies). Spinoza does not explain what the entire body would represent. Perhaps this would be the unknown whole he does not expect to understand completely. On this view, the body would represent the entire universe and all its galaxies and distant stars and phenomenon. Perhaps it would represent God given that Spinoza’s argues everything is in God. So, following that reasoning, I think the body, representing the totality of everything, would be God and anything in the entire universe would be in God. Perhaps Spinoza did not want to state this explicitly in case Oldenburg (a German Theologian) and others became confused and assumed Spinoza was likening God to an extended, material, physical, non-mental substance which would not be his intention, given his views in the Ethics.   

I base my interpretation of the hypothetical worm being like a human on Spinoza’s explicit claim in this letter 32 which parallels the way the worm in this analogy lives in the bloodstream with the way we live “in a part of the universe”[ii]. This is an important premise in Spinoza’s analogy because it explicitly states a likeness between the hypothetical worm’s experiences of life and human experience of life. For Spinoza’s analogy to be plausible, this likeness needs to be similar enough in terms of showing “relevant similarities”[iii]. There may be dissimilarities as long as they are not a “relevant difference”[iv]. I suggest Spinoza’s Lymph and Worm analogies are adequately similar to human experience, reasoning and the structure of the world or universe in relevant ways, such as, basing our reasoning on sensory experience, for example sight, and hence, potentially ignorant of what lies beyond empirical data and experience. This style of argumentation is, I maintain, consistent with Spinoza being a Rationalist philosopher as opposed to an Empiricist.  

How does the worm view the world of the bloodstream and try to understand it in relevantly similar ways to humans? It relies on raw empirical information gathered “by sight” to then engage in the method of reasoning from observation (“ratione” meaning reasoning/method; “ad” meaning by/according to; “observandum” meaning watch/observe).[v] The worm sees how “particula”[vi] (meaning a small part or particle/atom) interact with one another. The worm would not know or understand (“nec scire”[vii]) how all the parts are regulated (controlled/governed) by the whole (entire/universal) nature of the blood (“quomodo partes omnes ab universali natura sanguinis moderantur”[viii]). And the worm would also not know that, in turn/reciprocally/mutually, the whole nature of the blood ends up compelled (congealing) to adapt itself in order that there be a certain/fixed/reliable/determined reasoning/rule of agreement/harmony/unison between each other (“et invicem, prout universalis natura sanguinis exigit, se accommodare coguntur, ut certa ratione inter se consentiant”[ix]). I have added the suggestion of congealing as a possible translation of the word coguntur as a way of reading what Spinoza may be saying, or may be including as an extra layer of meaning. This is because, not only is this a translation option as a literal meaning of cogitur, but also it captures the relevant biological phenomenon, described in a 19^th century Encyclopaedia, that both blood and lymphs can coagulate forming clots and serums[x]. Whether Spinoza intended to refer to coagulation or not, I think this brings out Spinoza’s point that things in the universe have a mutual, reciprocal, adaptable relationship with one another and that seemingly distinct things can be regulated by the same fixed, determined (perhaps pre-determined) rules (eg the laws of nature concerning coagulation) which produce agreement between apparently different things which gives rise to unity in the world[xi]. Furthermore, Spinoza’s choice of lymph and chyle is a pertinent one. They are wholes in the sense they have different names, can be referred to separately and are not identical to one another (do not have all the same properties or functions as each other). Nonetheless, they are not entirely separate as types of fluid because chyle is a type of lymph and both are composed of the same things, however, the lymphs are made up of additional things too[xii]. So, metaphysically and logically speaking, they are partially identical (share some of the same properties or predicates) and partially non-identical (have some different properties or predicates) so are similar but not strictly identical. This could be why Spinoza thought they were a great problem case to use as an analogy and thought experiment by inviting us to hypothesise: what if/suppose we come across these types of problem cases in the world, do we, like this worm, fall into the same errors in our reasoning about parts and wholes?

As I mentioned earlier, lymph and chyle come from a system outside of the bloodstream and Spinoza uses this fact to illustrate the limitations of reasoning from experience and how, as a result, we may misunderstand causation.

We, like the worm, assume from experience that our world is all there is and causation happens within this world. We forget there may be causes from the wider universe which is somewhat external to our world and yet impacts on the bits of the world we experience. This leads us to think of our world/bloodstream as a whole rather than a part of something else[xiii]. This self-contained view of the world/bloodstream makes us see it as quite stagnant, except for some changes which occur between parts within his system, for instance, between chyles and lymphs[xiv]. 

However, Spinoza points out that the bloodstream is not stagnant and can modify itself and its particles in relation to causes external to it[xv]. On this picture, the bloodstream is now seen as a part rather than a whole[xvi]. With this claim, Spinoza has added a final layer to his analogy and concludes his discussion of wholes and parts. To understand Spinoza’s argument by analogy, I think we need to imagine how parts in the blood relate to the whole bloodstream as well as imagining the bloodstream being a part of something greater than itself. So it seems as though Spinoza is showing the complexity of parts and wholes by illustrating how there can be parts of parts and so, without complete, adequate knowledge of everything that exists, we cannot accurately identify and know what is a part or a whole. So when we use the language of parts and wholes, we are using our imagination to carve up the world into parts and wholes and projecting that onto the world. Hence, we are closer to attaining adequate knowledge of the world and how to live if we think and talk in terms of complex modes of the one substance, God.

Spinoza extends his conclusions from his lymph and worm analogies to draw two further related conclusions.

One, blood works as a good analogy for natural bodies in that they are also in a reciprocal relationship with others and the universe as a whole. Like the bloodstream, natural bodies must exist and operate in accordance with fixed proportions so they fit together, harmonise, agree, both with other bodies as well as with the universe as a whole[xvii]. It can be said that such bodies and systems are parts of the whole universe because, unlike the infinite universe, natural bodies and systems, such as the bloodstream, are finite and limited[xviii]. Conversely, the whole of the universe is infinitely powerful and can undergo infinite modifications and variations[xix]. Furthermore, Spinoza echoes what he writes in Ethics 1 by claiming that parts pertain/extend/relate to substance (which is infinite) and they depend on it to be conceived and exist[xx].

This leads Spinoza to his second related conclusion which he assumes is evident from his prior arguments. Spinoza maintains that the human mind and body are a part of nature[xxi]. He supports this claim about the human mind by arguing that there exists an infinite power of thinking which both contains nature as a whole and exists in nature[xxii]. Both nature and infinite thought come from the realm of ideas[xxiii]. Within this, the human mind is partially identical and partially non-identical with infinite understanding because it does not have all the same properties and one can use different predicates when talking about them. Thus, although it is identical with it in some ways, it is not strictly identical because, unlike the infinite understanding, it only perceives the human body and has a finite understanding.

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[i] Spinoza, Opera: DE INTELLECTUS EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE., II:185.

[ii] Spinoza, THE CHIEF WORKS of BENEDICT DE SPINOZA, II:291.

[iii] Weston, A Rulebook for Arguments, 21.

[iv] Weston, 21.

[v] Spinoza, THE CHIEF WORKS of BENEDICT DE SPINOZA, II:291.

[vi] Spinoza, Opera: DE INTELLECTUS EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE., II:185.

[vii] Spinoza, II:185.

[viii] Spinoza, II:185.

[ix] Spinoza, II:185.

[x] George Ripley and Charles A. Dana, ‘Lymph’, ed. George Ripley and Charles A. Dana, The American Cyclopaedia - Popular Dictionary Of General Knowledge (D. Appleton And Company, 1873), https://chestofbooks.com/reference/American-Cyclopaedia-7/Lymph.html.

[xi] Spinoza, Opera: DE INTELLECTUS EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE., II:185.

[xii] Ripley and Dana, ‘Lymph’.

[xiii] Spinoza, THE CHIEF WORKS of BENEDICT DE SPINOZA, II:291.

[xiv] Spinoza, II:291.

[xv] Spinoza, II:291.

[xvi] Spinoza, II:291.

[xvii] Spinoza, II:291–92.

[xviii] Spinoza, II:292.

[xix] Spinoza, II:292.

[xx] Spinoza, II:292.

[xxi] Spinoza, II:292.

[xxii] Spinoza, II:292.

[xxiii] Spinoza, II:292.