Pantheism, external universe and the internal ideas of the soul; to perceive the identity of his intelligence and that of the Deity, of the Subject and Object of thought. There is no real distinction between good and evil, between happiness and misery, between beauty and deformity; all are essentially good, proceeding as they do from good, and intended as they are for the best. Such distinctions are therefore merely relative and illusory; they are not absolute and real.
In 1632, just thirty-two years after the burning of Bruno, was born in Amsterdam, Benedict Spinoza, who was destined to give a method and shape to the heretical theory for which the Italian suffered, such as it had never received before at the hands of man. No speculator is more frequently abused than the subtle Jew, and no one is less understood. The legitimate and even avowed consequences of his system induce the belief—perhaps a natural one—in thoughtless minds, that the author of them must have been a very bad man. Yet such was not the case. He lived a thoughtful, industrious, and strictly moral life, grinding optical glasses for his livelihood, and spending the remainder of his time in calm, speculative seclusion. He seems to have been a man of a naturally reverential and earnest disposition. This appears frequently from certain attitudes of mind and turns of thought in his writings, as well as from the fact that, in his great work, the Ethica, in which his pantheistic system is elaborated, it was his design to deduce mathematically from the knowledge of God the fundamental laws of morality, and the principles that should regulate human life.
Philosophical critics have got up a polemic as to whether or not Spinozism was a legitimate development of Cartesianism; whether or not the philosophy of Descartes contained in embryo that of Spinoza, and only required the speculative courage and strong logic of the Jew to convert it into pantheism. Considered in itself, and especially in relation to the philosophers in question, the dispute,—as indeed all such usually are—is rather an idle one than otherwise. Suffice it to say, that Spinoza studied the works of Descartes with intense interest and admiration, as is abundantly evinced by his unrivalled abridgment of the doctrines of that philosopher, and, in particular, that he agreed with the Cartesians in holding that what was true in thought was true also in things. The latter principle formed the basis of Descartes' main argument for the existence of Deity; and Spinoza resolved, if possible, to put it to a more extensive and solid use. He accordingly set to work to develop by strict mathematical demonstration an ontological system embracing Deity and the universe. His scheme is developed in the work, published posthumously in 1677, entitled Ethica, Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata; et in quinque partes distincta; in quibus agitur: I. De Deo; II. De Natura et Origine Mentis; III. De Origine et Natura Affectuum; IV. De Servitude Humana seu de Affectuum Viribus; V. De Potentia Intellectus seu de Libertate Humana. Such is the plan and range of this celebrated work. First God, then man, the laws of his nature, and the character of his activity. With Spinoza, as with all pantheists, the main point to be attended to, in order to a comprehension of his system, is the method which he employs. The only "refutation of Spinoza" (and how many such have there been!) consists in rejecting his method as false and illegitimate. Other pantheists may be overthrown by their pursuing the suicidal course of inconclusiveness. But it is not so with Spinoza: for no single Pantheist opponent, nor any combination of hostile criticism, has yet succeeded in convicting this arch-pantheist of tripping Spinoza in his logic, or of wandering far from the method with which he set out. Once grant the all-sufficiency of logic, the essential harmony of thought and existence, and the infallibility of the deductive method, and the chances are, that in the hands of an able and daring thinker the ontology of the universe will be pantheistic. So at least was it with Spinoza. His method deceived him; and in proving true to it, he became a pantheist. Spinoza opens the first book of the Ethica, which is entitled De Deo, in genuine geometrical fashion, by laying down a series of definitions and axioms, from which he proceeds to evolve demonstratively, in a set of theorems each dependent on what has gone before, his entire scheme of God and the world. This he does with uncommon accuracy and clearness of language; so that if it is difficult to understand him, the defect does not lie in the author. Before entering upon a brief analysis of his system, it is necessary to exhibit his definitions and axioms.
DEFINITIONS.
1. By a thing which is its own cause (causa sui) I understand a thing of which the essence involves existence, or a thing which cannot be conceived of except as existent.
2. A thing is said to be finite, in sua genere, which can be limited by another thing of the same nature; e.g., body is called finite because we can always conceive another body as larger. So one thought is limited by another thought. But body is not limited by thought, nor thought by body.
3. By substance I mean that which exists in itself (ex se), and is conceived independently (per se); the conception of which, in other words, does not involve the conception of anything else as the cause of it (a quo formari debet).
4. By attribute I understand that which the intellect perceives as constituting the very essence of substance.
5. By mode I mean an affection (affectionis) of substance, or that which is in something else, through which also it is conceived.
6. By God I understand a being absolutely infinite; that is, a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses an eternal and infinite essence.
Explanation.—I say absolutely infinite, but not infinite sui generis; for a substance is infinite sui generis only, does not possess infinite attributes, whereas that which is absolutely infinite contains in its essence whatever implies essence, and involves no negation.
7. A thing is said to be free which exists by the sole necessity of its own nature, and by itself alone is determined to action; but that thing is necessary (necessarius), or rather constrained (coerens), which owes its existence to something else, and is determined to action according to a fixed and definite method.
8. By eternity I mean existence itself, in so far as it is conceived to follow necessarily from the sole definition of an eternal thing.
Explanation.—For this kind of existence is conceived as an eternal verity, and cannot therefore be explained by duration or time, even though this duration should be conceived as without beginning and without end.
AXIOMS.
1. All things which exist, exist either of themselves or through something else.
2. That which cannot be conceived as existing through something else (per aliquid) must be conceived as existing through itself (per se).
3. From a given determinate cause an effect necessarily follows; and if there be no given determinate cause, no effect can follow.
4. The knowledge (cognitio) of an effect depends upon and implies the knowledge of its cause.
5. Things that have nothing in common with each other cannot be understood through each other; in other words, the conception of the one does not involve the conception of the other.
6. A true idea (idea vera) must correspond with its object (seo ideato).
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1 See a passage from the De l'Infinito, quoted by Lewes in his Hist. of Philosophy, library edition, p. 330, which contains a vigorous sketch of the life and works of this unhappy thinker. See also Opere di Giordano Bruno, by Adolfo Wagner, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1830; and the Jordano Bruno of C. Bartholomew, 2 vols., Paris, 1830.
2 See, for example, among recent books of the kind, H. C. W. Sigwart, Uber den Zusammenh. d. Spinozism. m. d. Cartesian, Philos.; e. philos. Verwalt; auch Welchen Einfluss hat d. Philos. d. Cartesius auf d. Ausbildung der des Spinoza gehabt, u. welche Berührungs- punkte haben beide Philosophen m. einander gemein? von H. Ritter.
3 These extracts are translated from the Benedicti de Spinoza Opera qua superant omnium of C. H. Bruder, 3 vols., Leipzig, 1843. Pantheism.
7. Whatever can be conceived as non-existent, the essence of that thing does not involve existence. (Ethics, pars. I., pp. 187-8.)
Such is the foundation on which Spinoza commences to rear the vast edifice of his ontology. It will be perceived that, alike in definition and in axiom, he adheres strictly to the method which he has resolved to pursue, and which has been already alluded to. This he continues to do throughout proposition, corollary, and scholium with an accuracy and rigour which Euclid himself has not surpassed. Without taking up in detail the successive evolutions of his system, a rapid outline of it may here be given.
There are two classes of existences, according to Spinoza, which appear to be real, but whose reality lies merely in appearance. These are the phenomena of Mind and Matter, on the one hand, and what are called the substances Mind and Matter, on the other. Existence is but accidental and transient in these objects; and hence there must be somewhere a being or beings endowed with the characteristic of self-existence: there must be a substance underlying all these accidents and changes, and that substance must be self-existent. This follows from the very definition of substance, the essence of which implies existence as part of the idea. It is obvious there can be but one substance possessed of self-existence, and that one substance is God. But to see how this position is established, and also to witness a specimen of Spinoza's logic, we may turn to
Proposition XIV.—There is no substance but God, nor can any other be conceived.
Demonstration.—Since God is a Being absolutely infinite, possessed of every attribute (by defim. 6) which expresses the essence of substance, he necessarily exists (by prop. xi.). If there is any other substance besides God, it must be explained by some attributes of God; and thus two substances would exist possessed of the same attributes, which (by prop. v.) is absurd. There is therefore no substance but God, and hence no other can be conceived. For, if such could be conceived, it must be conceived as existing, which, by the first part of this demonstration, is absurd. Therefore, there is no substance but God, nor can any other be conceived. Q.E.D.
Corollary I. Hence, it very clearly follows, in the first place, that God is one; i.e. (by defim. 6), there is only one substance in nature, and that substance is absolutely infinite, as already hinted in the scholium to the above proposition.
Corollary II. It follows, in the second place, that an extended object and a thinking object are either attributes of God, or (by ax. 1) affections of those attributes. (Ethics, part I., p. 197.)
There is, accordingly, but one substance, infinite, self-existent, eternal, necessary, simple, and indivisible, of which all else are but the modes. God, as the infinite substance, with its infinity of attributes, is the natura naturans. As the infinity of modes under which his attributes are manifested, he is the natura naturata. God is the immanent, but not the transient, cause of all things. The universe is not God, but simply the necessary modes of being of his attributes. According to Descartes, there were two substances, Spirit and Matter, of which the essences were respectively Thought and Extension. But as Thought and Extension are only modes of existence, and as there can be Pantheism only one substance, it follows, according to Spinoza, that Thought and Extension are two infinite attributes, and the Spinoza only two known to us of the one infinite substance. Now, as the attributes of Deity are only different manifestations of one nature, infinitely absolute, it follows that there must be a complete harmony and correspondence between the successive modes of one attribute and the successive modes of every other. Thus, a mode of thought must correspond with a mode of extension; every idea must harmonize with its ideate or object, being only the same phenomenon under a different aspect. Extension is Thought objectified, and Thought is Extension subjectified. What God does as an extended substance, he thinks as an intelligent substance; for thought and thing, subject and object, are in him absolutely identical. All things are modes of his attributes of Extension, and all thoughts are modes of his attribute of Thought. The circle is a mode of God under his attribute of Extension; the idea of a circle is the corresponding mode under his attribute of Thought.
Again, as Deity is necessarily existent, he can only act through and by the necessary laws of his being. Freedom, in the ordinary sense of that term, is accordingly incompatible with the only legitimate idea of such a being; but freedom, in the proper sense of the word, as applicable to a being whose acts are determined solely by the laws of his essential nature, can not only be predicated of Deity, but can be predicated of him and of him alone of all beings in the universe. And as good men are free when most a law to themselves, so we magnify God's freedom when we affirm he must have acted as he has done. His acts are therefore at once free and necessary; necessary, from the very essence of his nature; and free, from the very nature of their necessity. The nature of man being limited, and his existence derived, he cannot act as a free cause, in the proper sense of that term. What we ordinarily call "will" (voluntas) is simply a mode of thought, is simply a link in the causal nexus which binds all phenomena to the one causa causarum. "Will" cannot therefore be applied to Deity (voluntas non potest vocari causa libera, sed tantum necessaria, prop. xxxii.), nor does he possess any proper personality. It follows, again, that in God there can be no such distinction as good and evil, and in ascribing moral qualities either to his actions or to those of ourselves, we simply indulge in baseless fancies (entia imaginationis) which have no real existence, and which are derogatory to the true dignity of God. For our convenience, we form these abstractions of human excellence; but in the eye of God, everything is just what it has the means of being; and there is properly no resistance of his will.
But to pass to a more special consideration of man. Man is composed of Body and Spirit. But Body and Spirit, as has been already shown, are not two independent realities. Body is but a mode of Extension, and Spirit is but a
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1 That Spinoza makes this infinite substance material, as some have alleged, is entirely erroneous; for body with him is but a mode of Extension, while Extension itself is an attribute of the one Substance—Deity. There is therefore equal warrant for making the Deity of Spinoza spiritual as there is for making him material; for in point of fact He is properly neither, being the identity, as Spinoza expressly states, of the natura naturans and the natura naturata. Materialism and spiritualism are equally indifferent to Spinoza, and he adopts both systems with equal and like equanimity.
2 It is scarcely necessary to observe that "Thought" (cognitio) is used by Spinoza in the Cartesian sense, as equivalent to any mental mode, whether cognition, feeling, or volition.
3 It will be perceived that the celebrated "pre-established Harmony" of Leibnitz is little more than an adaptation of the singularly ingenious theory of the great pantheist. With Leibnitz, mind and body are adapted to each other by a pre-ordinating power; with Spinoza their movements coincide, because they are essentially the same.—Idea and ideate being the same modification of the one absolute being, but manifested through different attributes. (For further illustration on this point, see an able article on Spinoza in the Westminster Review for July 1, 1855, attributed to Mr Froude.)
4 Such is the extraordinary manner in which Spinoza explains the mystery of evil. It might be supposed at first sight that his system tends to deny the real cause of all the error and crime that is in the world; but such a conclusion he avoids by leading a proof of the positive non-existence of what is called evil. When Blyenburgh presses him with this difficulty, Spinoza replies calmly, as is his wont, "God is really and absolutely the cause of all things which have a real existence (esse), whatever they may be. If you can demonstrate that evil, error, crime, &c., have any real existence, I entirely admit; that God is the cause of those evils, errors, crimes, &c. It appears to me, however, that I have sufficiently shown that what constitutes the real essence of evil, error, crime, is no real thing at all, and therefore that God cannot be regarded as the cause of it." (Epistolæ xxxvi., § 4, vol. ii., p. 255.) mode of Thought. Thought and Extension are attributes of the one absolute substance, God, evolving themselves in two parallel streams, so to speak, of which each separate body and spirit are but the waves. What I call my mind is only a succession of certain modes of Thought; what I call my body is only a succession of certain modes of Extension. The sum of my ideas, at any moment, constitute my soul; the sum of my material qualities, at any moment, constitute my body. Body and soul are apparently two, but really one; they have no independent existence: they are parts of God. The human mind is pericpient of bodily affections,—not directly, but by coincidence; and as it belongs to the nature of thought to cognise its own modifications, as well as those of the other attributes of Deity, the human mind, being a portion of that thought, is likewise cognisant of the ideas of corporeal affection. In other words, the mind is self-conscious; or, as Spinoza expresses it, "Mens se ipsam non cognoscit, nisi quatenus corpus affectionum ideas percipit." (Eth., pars. ii., prop. xxiii.) Perception is of two kinds—adequate and clear, inadequate and obscure. An idea is adequate and clear when it conforms to its object; inadequate and obscure when it imperfectly represents it. The former class is positively true, the latter negatively false. Inadequate and false ideas are either the ideas of bodily affections or the perception of those ideas. Adequate and clear ideas are those abstracted from the former class, and elaborated by a process of reflection. This reflective process is regarded as being within the direction and control of the mind itself; and here, in his theory of knowledge, as well as afterwards in his theory of morals, Spinoza, in the judgment of some, departs from the absolute necessitarianism which his system induces, and which he himself had already avowed. It may be noted, however, that Spinoza was perfectly well aware that the theoretical aspect of man's relation to the all-embracing nexus of causation seldom influences very materially the ordinary practical bearings of any question involving self-control; nor did he forget, at the same time, that a certain measure of self-direction may be not inconsistent with a scheme of the most thorough-going necessitarianism. But it is not to be forgotten that such considerations, as resulting from psychological observation, and not from the application of the method of formal demonstration which Spinoza professes throughout to employ, cannot be regarded as falling in harmoniously with the other evolutions of his system. Nor do they; for at bottom, and on such a scheme, personality is only phenomenal, and human liberty an illusion.
The better we know, according to him, the better we act; and upon this hypothesis he passes on from the sphere of knowledge proper, to a consideration of the passions and affections of human nature. There is a necessary desire in all being, says Spinoza, to remain in existence. God, whose essence is existence, is possessed of this desire; but as his being is under no limitation, he is absolutely perfect and perfectly happy. But the human soul, while participating in this desire of Deity, is necessarily limited, and hence necessarily unhappy. This desire for a continuance of being becomes in man a desire to remain intelligent, and, if possible, since limited, to enlarge the sphere of his knowledge, seeing that knowledge is the constituent element of the mind. But this simple and fundamental activity of our nature is frequently impeded in its development by the obstruction of external causes consequent upon our inadequate and confused knowledge. Hence emerges from the bosom of this primary desire a new class of emotions termed passions, such as joy and sorrow, hope and fear, love and hatred, &c. To increase the sum of our being is accordingly the great end of life: the pursuit of this end is virtue, and the attainment of it happiness. To perfect happiness, therefore, it is necessary to diminish the number of our inadequate ideas; for it is owing to these that passion and pain have any existence. Phenomenal knowledge of sense and internal perception, such as occupies the attention of the great mass of mankind, is the fertile source of the ills to which they are exposed. Now, to escape from these evils incidental to obscure knowledge, it is necessary to get behind phenomena, and to inquire into the relations, causes, and essences of things, until we have grasped the attributes of God. This is the first stage of clear and adequate knowledge; but it is not the only one. To sages and men of devout meditation a third and highest degree of adequate knowledge is attainable in rising to the universal and absolute idea of God. As here is the highest light, so here is the most perfect peace. Were our knowledge of God capable of present completeness, we might attain to perfect happiness; but such is not possible. Out of the infinity of his attributes, two only—Thought and Extension—are accessible to us; while the modes of those attributes being essentially infinite, escape our grasp. Universal science is thus possible for God alone, and he is the only being absolutely happy. We may nevertheless, by prosecuting arduously and courageously our real good, enlarge the boundaries of positive knowledge, and thus emancipate ourselves from the tyranny of ignorance and the slavery of passion. To know God and to love him is thus the true source of self-mastery, peace, and blessedness.
It follows from the unequal distribution of clear and adequate knowledge, that men possess real being in very unequal degrees. And it is from this fact that Spinoza deduced his ingenious and startling theory of the immortality of the soul. Such a doctrine is at first sight impossible in Spinoza's philosophy; for, as the soul is only the collection of our ideas, and as our ideas have their origin in the affections of body, it necessarily follows that the destruction of the body at death is the destruction of our ideas, and the consequent annihilation of the soul. But Spinoza, while granting the validity of this conclusion, qualifies it in a very important manner. He reminds us that all knowledge is not necessarily phenomenal; that there are adequate as well as inadequate ideas; and that while the latter perish with the body, whence they arose, the former are absolutely indestructible. For, as occupied with the essences of things, with the attributes of God, or with God himself, the human soul, even although the body were destroyed, would find objects of thought, time without end, in what is essentially permanent and enduring. For men who are destitute of this higher knowledge and being there is on this system no positive hereafter. And this Spinoza calmly admits. The man who has been the slave of passion; who has had no love or knowledge of God as the source of all goodness; who has possessed no proper personality while living; who has, in short, been wholly occupied with the body, will lose everything in losing the body. Our immortality, then, rests with ourselves. It is the reward of a life of virtue and of high noble endeavour.
Such, then, are the main features of a pantheistic system of philosophy which has never been surpassed in bold ingenuity, and never equalled in scientific rigour. However we may be disposed to regard the moral consequences of its general reception, it must not be denied that, in the hands of the author, it was by no means an immoral system. To try Spinoza by a Christian standard may be instructive, but it is hardly just, for he never was, nor professed to be, a Christian. Monstrous as his philosophy is when viewed in Pantheism, many of its ramifications, and pernicious as must be the result of its practical adoption, it is beyond a doubt that the author does not seem to have so regarded it. The system is profoundly false, and the heart of man rises up in wrath against it; yet it is not fair, as is often done, to denounce Spinoza as an atheist, or to regard him as essentially a bad man. Novalis called him a god-intoxicated man (Gott trunken Mann), an epithet which, if we may judge from the frequency of its quotation, seems to have been regarded by many as a happy one. Pantheism and atheism are not in strictness identical; yet it is true they are not far separated in their practical tendencies. It is no new remark, however, that men are frequently better than their doctrines; and (so inconsequent and self-deceiving is man) while soundness of doctrine is no absolute guarantee for purity of life, so erroneous opinion is not necessarily accompanied by habits of vice. Exceptional cases, however, should not be made the bases of laws, any more than imperfect moral inductions should be elevated into absolute standards of moral life.
In following the progress of pantheistic speculation, as traceable in the annals of philosophy, the ontological systems of modern Germany should next demand attention. As, however, the speculative systems of Schelling and Hegel—the most celebrated pantheists of modern times—have been treated of in the article Metaphysics, under the section devoted to "Ontology," no special notice of these philosophers is required here; and the reader is referred once for all to that article for farther information respecting the most recent evolutions of pantheism.
Such, in conclusion, is an outline of the numerous attempts at constructing a science of Being which have ended in pantheism, which is but another name for failure. And in this we have an epitome of the history of all such attempts. Did the results of pantheistic speculation, as of many other fantastic follies of the human brain, terminate merely when the ingenious fabricator had placed the last cope-stone upon his imposing edifice, they might excite a smile, as the harmless amusements of misguided genius, but would awaken no serious alarm in the breasts of earnest men who are interested in the advancement of truth and the triumph of goodness. But such speculations have a more intimate practical bearing, both directly and indirectly, than might at first sight be supposed. For, apart from the opprobrium which they bring upon philosophy for its speculative variation and egregious absurdity, such doctrines exert a more subtle and dangerous influence in determining men to scepticism, and to a disregard of the ordinary obligations of morality and religion. For if philosophers, by sheer dint of a reckless logic, wring conclusions from the human reason abhorrent to the common sense and shocking to the conscience,—thus bringing into hostile collision the primary elements of our nature,—what escape is there from the most complete intellectual doubt, from the most absolute moral indifference? Thoughtless men may smile or sneer at all such speculations as equally foolish and harmless; but there is assuredly a Nemesis in all erroneous speculation, as there is in all wrong-doing. And this retribution comes not unfrequently nearer the ordinary business and bosoms of men than they are well aware of. A word, then, on the method pursued by the pantheistic philosophers, for it is here the vice of their system lies.
The total falsehood of all pantheistic systems may be established both directly and indirectly:—1. From its misapplication of the laws of thought; and, 2. From its violating, in Rome, the original data of consciousness: indirectly,—3. From its virtually contradict-
ing the intellectual and moral consciousness of mankind; Pantheism, and, 4. From its rendering religion impossible.
1. The one invariable method employed by pantheists is the formally deductive. Now, this method, in order to be thorough-going, in order to transport the thinker into the sphere of absolute existence, would, first of all, require to vindicate the possibility of such existence; would next need to establish the fact of its existence in general; and would, lastly, be constrained to demonstrate its special existence as determinate and individual reality. Now, are all, or is any, of these tasks possible for the logical method of sciencing Being? The laws of formal thinking are those of Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded Middle. These laws, as admitted on all hands to be merely regulative and analytical, cannot, of course, add to what already is,—cannot, in point of fact, furnish any existent reality at all. They can neither say that a thing is, nor what a thing is; they can merely say what it is not. Being merely explicative, and perpetually employed on the evolution of identical propositions, they are limited in strictness to the sphere of what is already fixed upon as determinately existent, and as clearly defined. A single fact the laws of logic cannot afford; and when once a fact is postulated, they can never in any degree amplify its positive contents. Before it is possible to apply the laws of formal thinking in the pursuit of determinate existence, we would require to define existence in general. But do we know anything of existence in general? Is existence per se ought more than a mere abstraction? And if only a mere abstraction, no application to it of the laws of formal thinking can ever succeed, as has just been shown, in clearing the boundaries of abstraction and gaining the territories of real existence. In short, all such demonstrations begin with abstractions and end with abstractions. This brings us to consider—
2. Wherein does the pantheist violate the original data of consciousness? In this, eminently, that he ignores the essential condition of knowledge in arrogating to himself a capacity for defining existence per se, which involves a violation of the limitation of all human knowledge. Spinoza demonstrates that Substance exists because the essence of it implies existence as part of the idea, according to his definition of Substance. Here he makes two erroneous assumptions. In the first place, he identifies thought and existence in assuming that his idea of Substance and the thing Substance are convertible; and, in the second place, he assumes that we have a knowledge of absolute Substance, of Substance irrespective of all qualities, which contradicts the articulate and unequivocal deliverance of consciousness respecting the essential relativity of all our knowledge. In short, Spinoza, and all metaphysicians with him who employ the deductive method of philosophizing, virtually maintain with the sophist Protagoras, that "man is the measure of the universe, both of that which is, and of that which is not." Everything is and must be as we conceive it; an assumption which is not only destitute of a shadow of foundation, but is directly opposed to positive evidence to the contrary.
3. But not only may pantheism be redargued in its premises,—it can also be proved false from the consequences to which it consistently leads. These consequences are both intellectual and moral: intellectual, in contradicting the primary deliverances of consciousness, which assert the real antithetic existence of Self and not-Self; and moral, in giving the lie to the conscience, and denying the possibility of moral obligation. The pantheist maintains that, as man's personality is merely phenomenal, and his power of self-control at bottom but a chimera, every one's actions, whether external or internal, are determined by causes over which
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1 For further information respecting those laws, see Logic; also Appendix I to Sir W. Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy, &c. 2 The reader will find this admirably put by Mr John Veitch in Appendix C, iii., to his Memoir of Dugald Stewart. he has no influence, and which utterly deprive him of any power of moral choice, or of any control over his conduct. His actions, as properly those of Deity, are all equally divine. Responsibility is thus but an illusion,—an ens imaginatorium, as Spinoza would say,—and moral obligation naught but a plausible fiction. Conscience may be, perhaps, of a little practical use; for, as Spinoza allows, we are obliged occasionally to regard the future as contingent; but, however convenient such a supposition may be, it is wholly destitute of foundation, and contrary to the truth. Fortunately for humanity, their moral judgments are not to be silenced by such reasoning; and morality or truth has nothing ultimately to fear from any conclusions which rest upon false premises, or do violence at the outset to the universal consciousness of mankind.
4. But not only is pantheistic speculation, when carried into practice, destructive of moral activity, it likewise cuts off the possibility of religion and of religious worship. For, in the first place, the God of the pantheist is not the Deity before whom human nature feels constrained to bow. The One abstraction which gathers up into its alleged sole reality all the other existences of the universe—the identity of the natura naturans, and the natura naturata—is not that God in whose presence the human heart is filled with humble reverence and holy adoration. In the second place, if all things, and myself among the rest, are properly God, what room is there for worship? How can God be said to worship himself? In short, there is hardly any conceivable limit to the wild extravagances and pernicious consequences which legitimately spring from a consistent adherence to pantheistic doctrines.
Beside the bane, however, grows up the antidote. If we will only rest content with the small portion of truth which is legitimately within our reach, and eschew the ambitious and blind folly of aspiring to the sum of knowledge, we may still experience the happiness of conscious, if humble, security, while safe from the fatal delusions of those who unduly lust after intellectual power. Philosophy is not to be despised of although a philosophy of the Absolute is impossible; and truth has not necessarily come to an end because man is not "the measure of the universe." Pantheism, like all error, is unquestionably doomed; and as soon as the world can afford to do without it, we shall doubtless cease to hear any more of it. Meanwhile, it is the duty of the earnest speculator to adhere to what is legitimately placed within his reach. Observation and experiment, the judicious use of a rational induction, is the only method vouchsafed to man whereby truth is to be attained—if attainable at all—in such high matters. This method may appear vulgar and pedestrian to the proud eye of ambition; it may prove comparatively barren—nay occasionally unsatisfactory—in its results; but no method of inquiry can ever become contemptible which alone conduits man to the possession of truth. Philosophies without number have been tried and found wanting; but there remains still for the wise thinker as much truth as is necessary for the conduct of human life, if not sufficient to disclose to mortal gaze the hidden mysteries of the universe.
(3, D—S.)