"Oldenburg, you are a zealous missionary for your philosophical warrior," said Spinoza. "Do you think Jufrow Olympia would agree with the view that soul and body are each self-existent beings, who would not follow each other if the miraculous intervention of God did not connect them, and constrain them to mutual obedience?"
"That would be a pair in harness such as Frau Gertrui Ufmsand calls unwilling matrimony. I hate that like death."
"Tell me plainly, do you find the doctrine of Descartes so thoroughly unsatisfactory?" inquired Oldenburg.
"It is not my business to discover the faults of others."
"Then tell us simply your own solution of the eternal problem."
"That is not so easy to do; rules concerning external facts are much more easily defined than concerning processes of thought."
"I have noticed," said Oldenburg, "instead of Descartes' cogito ergo sum you put sum cogitans. To think and to be are inclusive, not exclusive. In that case thunder and lightning are one, even though two different minds first perceive them one after another."
Spinoza nodded smilingly, and after considerable opposition he explained: "The connection into which Descartes has brought his two substances by
