Reason and Redemption [pp. 409-437]

1875.] REASON AND REDEMPTION. 419
bim by a few unguarded statements of Descartes, and by the
bearings of one whole side of the Cartesian system, Spinoza
managed to smuggle into the body of western thought what,
under a totally novel form, was, nevertheless, in its essential
characters, the complete system of Hellenic and Asiatic pan
theism. The process is not at all that of the Orient, but altogether that of Greece. Spinoza has been aptly styled the Euclid of Metaphysics. By definitions, by axioms, by propositions with their demonstrations, corollaries, scholia, and lemmas,
and by the exact method of positive and negative reasoning
adopted by the Greek geometrician~he attempted to build up
a fabric that should be unassailable by human logic. And, in
point of fact, it is one of the most beautifully clear and rigid
systems that has ever been constructed. It is, so to speak, the
union of mathematics, philosophy, and rhetorical no less than
dialectical art. It is, besides, perhaps, the finest exhibition
ever made of pantheism, pure and simple. It is, at the same
time, perhaps, the best example in existence of what in Germany is meant by the word metaphysics. As a mental tonic the
book proved invaluable, at one period of his life, to Goethe.
As an intellectual gymnastic it is still almost unrivaled. The
radical vice of the procedure is in the fundamental postulates.
The definitions and axioms are skillfully framed so as seemingly
to lead on with inevitable rigor to the conclusions. These
primary averments of Spinoza manifestly beg the whole question in debate, and are in several instances plainly erroneous.*
"The ontological paralogism" of the Cartesians, by which
they tried to prove the being of God, holds an important place
in the system of Spinoza. This and other assumptions are continually recurring. Some of the things assumed remind one
of the sophistical assumptions of Socrates in certain of the Platonic dialogues. The fallacy in Spinoza's reasoning is commonly, though not always, in the early steps. According to
Spinoza, a substance is that which exists in itself and can b
conceived by itself. There is but one substance, the absolutely
infinite being, viz., God; having an infinite multitude of attri
~See Ueberweg Thst.?hil. vol. i, for a singulnrly painstaking and acute exposure of the fallacies involved in the reasoning of Spinoza in his principal
work, the Ethica.