Clear as all this is to those who carefully attach due weight to the various moments, it would yet appear that Spinoza (probably misled rather by the passage in the _Principles_ than by that cited by Windelband), anticipates Windelband in this misunderstanding of the Cartesian doctrine. In his _Ethics_, ii. prop. 49, he actually, and in the most real sense, regards the _affirmatio_ and _negatio_ as “_volitiones mentis_,” and by a further confusion, comes finally to obliterate the distinction between the two classes _ideae_ and _voluntates_. “_Voluntas et intellectus unum et idem sunt_” his thesis now reads, so overthrowing not only the three-fold classification of Descartes, but also the old Aristotelian dual classification. Spinoza has here, as usual, done nothing else than corrupt the teaching of his great master.
[22] (_p. 13_). I do not mean to say that the classification is, universally recognized to-day. It would not even be possible to regard as certain the Principle of Contradiction if in order to do so we were to await universal assent. In the present instance it is not difficult to understand that old, deeply-rooted prejudices cannot all at once be banished. But that even under such circumstances it has not been possible to urge a single important objection affords the best confirmation of our doctrine.
Some, as for instance, Windelband--while giving up the attempt at including judgment and idea (Vorstellung) in _one_ fundamental class, on the other hand believe it possible to subsume judgment under feeling, thus falling back into the error which Hume committed earlier in his inquiry into the nature of belief. According to these writers, to affirm implies an act of approval, an appreciation on the part of the feelings, while denial is an act of disapproval, a feeling of repugnance.
Despite a certain analogy the confusion is hard to understand. There are people who recognize both the goodness of God and the wickedness of the devil, the being of Ormuzd and the being of Ahriman, with an equal degree of conviction, and yet, while prizing the nature of the one above all else, they feel themselves absolutely repelled by that of the other. Since we love knowledge and hate error it is, of course, proper that those _judgments_ we hold to be right (and this is true of all those judgments which we ourselves make) are for this very reason dear to us, i.e. we estimate them in some way or other through feeling. But who on this account would be misled into regarding the judgments themselves which are loved as acts of loving?. The confusion would be almost as gross as if we should fail to distinguish wife and child, money and possessions, from the activity which is directed towards these, inasmuch they are the objects of affection. Cf. also what has been said (note 21) with regard to Windelband, where, misunderstanding Descartes, he ascribes to him the same teaching; further, note 26 (on the unity of the idea of the good) as well as what is urged by Sigwart in the note (in part much to the point) on Windelband (_Logic_, vol. i. chap. ii. p. 156 seq.). To those who, despite all that has been said, still wish further arguments for the distinction between the second and third fundamental classes, I may, perhaps, be allowed to refer them, by anticipation, to my _Descriptive Psychology_, which I have alluded to in the preface as an almost completed work, and which will appear if not as a continuation, yet still as a further development of my _Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint_.