2 20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



not sufficiently occupying themselves with the First Cause. Perhaps 

 his reminiscences of Jewish theology, that ancient wisdom of the 

 Hebrews before which he often bows, suggested to him higher views 

 and more sublime aspirations in this matter. Not only the ideas held 

 by the vulgar, but those even of thinkers on Divinity, appeared to 

 him inadequate. He saw plainly that there is no assigning a limited 

 part to the Infinite; that Divinity is all, or is nothing; that if the 

 Divine be a reality, it must pervade all. For twenty years he medi- 

 tated on these problems without for a moment averting his thoughts. 

 Our distaste nowadays for system and abstract formula no longer 

 permits us to accept absolutely the propositions within which he had 

 thought to confine the secrets of the Infinite. For Spinoza, as for 

 Descartes, the universe was only extension and thought ; chemistry 

 and physiology were lacking to that great school, which was too ex- 

 clusively geometrical and mechanical. A stranger to the idea of life, 

 and those notions as to the constitution of bodies that chemistry was 

 destined to reveal too much attached still to the scholastic expres- 

 sions of substance and attribute Spinoza did not attain to that living 

 and fertile Infinite shown us by the science of Nature and of history 

 as presiding in space unbounded, over a development more and more 

 intense ; but, making allowance for a certain dryness in expression, 

 what grandeur there is in that inflexible geometrical deduction lead- 

 ing up to the supreme proposition, " It is of the nature of the Sub- 

 stance to develop itself necessarily by an infinity of infinite attributes 

 infinitely modified ! " God is thus absolute thought, universal con- 

 sciousness. The ideal exists, nay, it is the true existence ; all else is 

 mere appearance and frivolity. Bodies and souls are mere modes of 

 which God is the substance : it is only the modes that fall within 

 duration; the substance is all in eternity. Thus, God does not prove 

 himself; his existence results from his sole idea; everything supposes 

 and contains him. God is the condition of all existence, all thotight. 

 If God did not exist, thought would be able to conceive more than 

 Nature could furnish which is a contradiction. 



Spinoza did not clearly discern universal progress ; the world, as 

 he conceives it, seems as it were crystallized in a matter which is 

 incorruptible extension, in a soul that is immutable thought; the sen- 

 timent of God deprives him of the sentiment of man ; forever face to 

 face with the Infinite, he did not sufficiently perceive what of the 

 Divine conceals itself in relative manifestations; but he, better than 

 any other, saw the eternal identity which constitutes the basis of all 

 transitory evolutions. Whatever is limited seems to him frivolous, 

 and unworthy to occupy a philosopher. Bold in flight, he soared 

 straight to the lofty, snow-covered summits, without casting a glance 

 on the rich display of life springing tip on the mountain's side. At 

 an altitude where every breast but his own pants hard, he lives, he 

 enjoys, he flourishes there, as men in general do in mild and temper- 



