SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES II7 

 Spinoza's system of thought is one of the most magnificent and consum- 

 mate in human history, one of the most ingenious attempts to reconcile the 

 opposition between consciousness and matter which Cartesianism brought 

 out. In it he is governed by a feeling inspired by the Jewish faith of his 

 childhood — a religious awe of the infinite, eternal, immutable, "that 

 which is in itself and is comprehended out of itself." This he names sub- 

 stance: that into which all things that exist enter as parts. This immuta- 

 ble substance has an infinite number of forms in which it appears, of which 

 we human beings can distinguish only two: the material extension, and the 

 spiritual consciousness. These cannot in any way be explained out of one 

 another, but, on the other hand, both revert to the substance out of which 

 they arose, and man can therefore conclude from the laws that govern the 

 one that they also govern the other; the laws of human reason have abso- 

 lute force in nature as well. From the immutability of the substance it 

 follows that the development that seems to take place is only apparent; 

 everything, after a brief individual existence, reverts to the substance, like 

 a wave that sinks back into the sea, giving place to new individuals of 

 equally ephemeral existence. To acquire knowledge of the substance is the 

 highest aim of man; it cannot, however, be attained by way of thought, but 

 only by direct introspection. Spinoza thus ends in mysticism — that, too, 

 probably induced by his Hebraic-oriental origin. It is strange that, in spite 

 of this and of his utter denial of any kind of development, his system has 

 been deeply admired by the very students of nature of more recent times who 

 have made development the principal aim of their researches. Goethe was 

 strongly influenced by it, and in more recent times Haeckel and his monist 

 disciples have given it enthusiastic support, in reality perhaps more on ac- 

 count of the religious persecution suffered by Spinoza than on account of 

 the subject-matter of his extremely involved writings. 



In most respects his somewhat younger contemporary Gottfried Wil- 

 HELM Leibniz forms a sharp contrast to Spinoza. Leibniz was born at Leipzig 

 in 1646, the son of a professor. He was a veritable infant prodigy; as a boy 

 he had read practically the whole of the classics and at the age of seventeen 

 he delivered his doctor's dissertation. Mathematics and jurisprudence were 

 subjects of particular interest to him; he became one of the pioneers of the 

 former science, while the latter provided him with an income as a govern- 

 ment official and diplomatic representative at the courts of several German 

 minor princes. He died at Hanover in 1716. Throughout his life his energy 

 was remarkable and his interests incredibly many-sided. In the course of his 

 travels in most countries with any standard of culture, he had made the ac- 

 quaintance of the most eminent men of his time, and in questions of culture 

 his advice was sought from all sides. Peter the Great of Russia, as well as 

 the most learned men in western Europe, corresponded with him. And as his 



