Mind, Fitness, Evolution

As has been previously discussed, Spinoza's immanent Pantheism has more in common with 19th-century Vitalism than with the Rationalisms of his own era with which he is usually associated.  He also offers systematic support for some other significant later developments.  On the basis of his Mind-Body Parallelism, he attributes the presumed Mental superiority of Humans to a corresponding Physical superiority--being "more fitted than others for doing many actions", in the note to Part II, Prop. XIII, of the Ethics.  So, a concept of Mind as essentially Practical or Technical anticipates several later doctrines, while the term 'fitted' plainly signifies a potential application in Darwinism.  In turn, the discovery in the latter of the pivotal Evolutionary function of the Human thumb specifies the Physiological basis of Human Mental superiority, which also grounds the Marxist thesis that the tool-wielding capacity facilitated by that thumb is the distinctively Human characteristic.  Now, unlike Darwinism, Spinoza seems to adhere to the concept of a Species as fixed, and, hence, offers no concept of an Evolutionary dynamic.  However, on one interpretation, such a principle can be derived from the elements of his system.  For insofar as his God/Nature is dynamic, so, too, must be its attribute of Extension, which is thus more accurately characterized as Extending.  Furthermore, to Extend can mean to increase in Complexity, or, in other words, to Evolve.  Accordingly, a Mode of Extension, i. e. an individual Body, is not an inert compound of smaller inert parts, but a center of multiple Actions.  So, the rudiments of Evolutionism can be found in Spinoza's doctrine, though without being recognized as such two centuries earlier.