{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 18/p01c05/p023","lang":"en","edition":"AP1973","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"*Benedict Spinoza* (1632–1677) asks himself, *“What* must be assumed as a starting point from which the creation of a true world picture may proceed? This beginning is caused by the feeling that innumerable thoughts may present themselves in my soul as true; I can admit as the corner stone for a world conception only an element whose properties I must first determine.” Spinoza finds that one can only begin with something that is in need of nothing else for its being. He gives the name, substance, to this being. He finds that there can be only one such substance, and that this substance is God. If one observes the method by which Spinoza arrives at this beginning of his philosophy, one finds that he has modeled it after the method of mathematics. Just as the mathematician takes his start from general truths, which the human ego forms itself in free creation, so Spinoza demands that philosophy should start from such spontaneously created conceptions. The one substance is as the ego must think it to be. Thought in this way, it does not tolerate anything existing outside itself as a peer, for then it would not be everything. It would need something other than itself for its existence. Everything else is, therefore, only *of* the substance, as one of its attributes, as Spinoza says. Two such attributes are recognizable to man. He sees the first when he looks at the outer world; the second, when he turns his attention inward. The first attribute is extension; the second, thinking. Man contains both attributes in his being. In his body he has extension; in his soul, thinking. When he thinks, it is the divine substance that thinks; when he acts, it is this substance that acts. Spinoza obtains the existence *(Dasein)* for the ego in anchoring it in the general all-embracing divine substance. Under such circumstances there can be no question of an absolute freedom of man, for man is no more to be credited with the initiative of his actions and thought than a stone with that of its motion; the agent in everything is the one substance. We can speak of a relative freedom in man only when he considers himself not as an individual entity, but knows himself as one with the one substance.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"V. The World Conceptions of the Modern Age of Thought Evolution","site_heading":null,"date":null,"location":null,"word_count":384,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/18/p01c05/p023","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":null,"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["AP1973"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"en","edition":"AP1973","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/18/p01c05/p023","paragraph_aligned":true},{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"locus":"GA 18/l05/p023","anchor_mapped":true,"anchor_method":"part_chapter","anchor_confidence":"high","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/18/l05/p023"}],"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l05","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 18/l05/p014","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/18/l05/p014"}],"bead_confidence":"high","length_check":{"de_words":524,"en_words":587,"ratio":1.12,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":null,"band":"no_original","note":null,"word_count":10433,"original_word_count":null,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 18/l05/p014"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}