I WAS thinking about the monism that Spinoza describes in the opening section of the Ethics (1677), whereby everything is said to be part of the One. The optical division of this ultimately indivisible Substance appears before us in the form of infinite modes, or particular things, and therefore includes both ourselves and everything we see around us. If these particularities were suddenly crumpled-up together, I thought to myself, it would be possible to see precisely how indistinguishable forms really are. My library, the furniture, the computer and even the poor old cat would become part of a single lump of condensed clay with the potential to be reshaped in fresh configurations that restore their ultimately contingent and illusory identities as modes.

If Spinoza is right about this singular Substance, then surely it brings into question the idea that there can be anything ‘unnatural’ in the world? After all, if a chemically modified hamburger or the artificial birdsong one hears in supermarkets can spring from the One then how are they different to the authentic sound of a thrush or a hamburger that has been made from organic beef? Spinoza, who has been wrongly cast as an ‘atheist,’ actually believed that this remarkable and eminent Substance is God (as do I). However, the fact that such inorganic objects appear in the first place surely requires us to adopt a new approach by acknowledging the existence of what I describe as ‘profane modes’ which, when all is said and done, are capable of representing the principle of evil.

Now, although one might ask how on earth evil can be incorporated within an all-encompassing Substance that is so inextricably equated with the Divine, we must remember that Spinoza himself insisted that evil is something that humans alone believe in and not something that has been rubber-stamped by God or which can be included within his own philosophical system. Nonetheless, I still insist that the more perverse and synthetic forms of this world allow for my theory of ‘profane modes,’ even if it is merely we humans that view such abnormalities as manifestations of evil. Not to mention, either, that it is we ourselves who are responsible for producing most of them.

The solution, surely, is to celebrate the fundamental ideal of beauty in the hope that when ‘profane modes’ are reabsorbed and consequently refashioned they adopt a more aesthetic and pleasing form. This, it must be said, is within our capabilities as lesser architects operating as custodial modes for the greatest Architect of all. Not only are we capable of creating life, we also have a responsibility to contain the spread of ugliness – or principle of evil – by producing good minds, great art and healthy communities.