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PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



of the former as compared with the vague, even mys- 

 tical, meaning of the latter. That Kantism was not as 

 abstract a doctrine as it prima facie appeared to be was 

 made abundantly clear by the publication of Kant's 

 later writings, which attracted not only philosophers by 

 profession but also poetical minds like Schiller and even 

 Goethe. On the other side, the strictly logical, not to 

 say mathematical, formalism of Spinoza repelled his 

 earlier admirers, such as Lessing, Goethe, and Herder. 

 It was clearly brought out and appreciated in its con- 

 sistency and in its ultimate conclusions at a much later 



impiety and absurdity of Bruno, 

 and treats Spinoza not less un- 

 fairly. In the year 1773 Goethe 

 wrote the Fragment entitled ' Pro- 

 metheus,' in which some passages 

 are quite in the spirit of Spinoza, 

 and he tells us in his ' Autobio- 

 graphy ' (' Dichtung und Wahr- 

 heit,' bk. 14 and 16) how Spinoza 

 became a common and uniting 

 subject of interest when, in the 

 year 1774, he met F. H. Jacobi. 

 Having only cursorily dipped into 

 Spinoza himself, Goethe tells us 

 that, whilst repelled by Lavater's 

 orthodoxy and Basedow's didactics, 

 he experienced an inner harmony 

 with Jacobi's manner of approach- 

 ing the Inscrutable for which to 

 some extent he had been prepared 

 by "assimilating the attitude of 

 thought of an extraordinary man." 

 " This man who impressed me so 

 decidedly, and who was to have 

 such an important influence on 

 my whole way of thinking, was 

 Spinoza. For, having everywhere 

 searched in vain for a means of 

 culture for my own perplexing self, 

 I at last came into contact with 

 ' The Ethics ' of this thinker. . . . 

 A large and liberal view into the 

 sensuous and moral world seemed 



to be opened out to me. But what 

 attracted me most in him was the 

 boundless unselfishness which ap- 

 peared in every one of his sent- 

 ences." Goethe also refers to the 

 totally inadequate article on 

 Spinoza in Bayle's celebrated Dic- 

 tionary, "a book which through 

 erudition and acuteness was quite 

 as estimable and useful as it was, 

 through gossip and sermonising, 

 ludicrous and harmful." In the 

 year 1780, not long after the 

 meeting of Jacobi and Goethe, the 

 former paid a visit to Lessing, and 

 being desirous to learn more 

 about Lessing's opinion regarding 

 Spinoza, entered into a conversa- 

 tion with him which he introduced 

 by showing Lessing a copy of 

 Goethe's 'Prometheus.' The pur- 

 port of this conversation Jacobi, 

 after the death of Lessing, pub- 

 lished in his ' Letters on the Doc- 

 trine of Spinoza' (1785). This 

 created an enormous sensation, and 

 no doubt promoted very much the 

 study of Spinoza, who had, in a 

 one-sided manner, been considered 

 by the popular philosophy of the 

 day as an atheistic writer. This 

 feeling was entirely reversed by the 

 leaders of the New Thought. 



