the great, rugged North escaped the insidious infec tion; it, too, has contributed a large quantum to the varied mass of theistic hypothesis, and added its intellectual and moral embodiments of the power and energy identified through nature, to the graceful fantasies of Grecian fancy, and the calm, sharply-defined creations of Roman practicality, and the subtle, semimysterious abstractions of Brahminical thought. Indeed, no stronger testimony need be sought, that the universal human consciousness has identified the dependence of all problems on this one, the relations of all theories of man and of the universe to this central fact, than exists in the universality of the speculative interest centred upon it.

Having decided upon the nature of the proposition, the solution of which Spinoza had imposed upon himself, he arranged the details of his reflections in the form of a mathematical demonstration. He said: "Most people deride or vilify their nature; it is a better thing to understand it: and however extravagant it may be thought in me to do so, I propose to analyze the properties of that nature as if it were a mathematical figure." But in doing this, let it be known, he intended to discover the true good of man,. and secure to him real and lasting felicity.

In his system, he defines the mind to mean nothing else than the idea corresponding to this or that affection of the body; he does not consider it a faculty; it is an act. He also says there is no general power called intellect, any more than there can be such a thing as an abstract volition. According to his doctrine, the human body being composed of many smaller bodies, so he deems that the mind is composed of many smaller minds. His whole system is ground

ed upon these two general propositions: First, that there is but one only substance, and that it is absolutely infinite. Secondly, that particular beings are only modifications of that absolutely infinite sub

stance.

To the Christian this doctrine would be repulsive, until he understood the definition of the word "modification," as it was understood by Spinoza. Otherwise, this teaching would make God responsible for the wicked deeds committed by His subjects, who are mere "modifications" of God. This philosopher thought that if God was everywhere, if He was in every thing, God must be every thing. He did not think that every thing was God, but that each thing was a "modification" of God. He said that it was not within the comprehension of the human mind to understand how a part of God could be wicked, and yet the whole be perfect. Yet this he believed to be the truth. The wickedness of individuals could not interfere with the scheme of the universe, and their deeds, as viewed by God, were absolutely necessary to His own perfection. This, to some minds, would ap pear to encroach upon the creed of the fatalist; but, in the mental laboratory of Spinoza, it is made to yield, until it takes its apportioned place in his philosophy.

Through hundreds of pages, he reasons closely and abstrusely, but in unmistakably clear terms, until he reaches his conclusion-until he feels that at last he has found the philosophy of happiness. Do we not all know what it is? No matter what may have been his course of reasoning, the conclusions drawn from them are correct and unassailable. If he began from faulty premises, he has reasoned so logically that his deductions must remain defiant. May not his prem

it

ises, his arguments, and his conclusions, all be correct? He cannot be overcome by calumny; and now, when there seems to be a general awakening in the religious world, and an overhauling of established creeds, may this not be an opportune time to find out what Spinoza was-Atheist, Pantheist, or Christian.

There are pleasures of sense and pleasures of intellect; a thousand tastes, tendencies, and inclinations form our mental composition; and evidently, since one contradicts another, and each has a tendency to become dominant, it is only in the harmonious equipoise of their several activities, in their due and just subordination, that any unity of action or consistency of feeling is attainable. A masterly analysis of all these tendencies (said to be the most complete ever made by any moral philosopher) is given by Spinoza, in his tract on Ethics, after which he arrives at the principles under which such unity and consistency can be obtained, and the conditions upon which a being so composed can look for any degree of happiness. To equalize and keep in subjection the various faculties, passions, appetites, and inclinations, would go a great way toward promoting this looked-for happiness. It is the primary law of every being that it follows what will give it increased vitality; whatever will contribute to such increase is the proper good of each; and the good of man as a complete being is measured and determined by the effect of this upon his collective powers. By a formal process of demonstration, Spinoza comes around to the old conclusions. And al though arrived at by a route so utterly different, these principles are the same, and are proposed by Spinoza himself as being the same, as those of the Christian religion. He has made man his study, and he saw that

the appetites gather power from their several objects of desire; that the power of the part is the weakness of the whole; and that man, as a collective person, gathers life, being, and self-mastery only from the absolute good, the source of all real good, and truth, and energy-that is, GOD. The love of God is the extinction of all other loves and all other desires, and to know God is power, self-government, and peace.

Now, that we have given our sanction to the doctrine of Spinoza, we must explain that it is to the conclusions he draws, and not to his entire work. There could not be so great a diversity of opinions about one who was altogether good, and as he makes God a perfect being, though His "modifications" may be wicked,

so,

it is his conclusion, the love of God alone can beget happiness, and not all of the steps he adduces to this end that must enlist admiration. One authority, speaking of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus of Spinoza, which was published in Amsterdam in the year 1670, says, "It is a pernicious and execrable book, which contains all the seeds of the atheism he plainly discovered in his Opera Posthuma." Writing about the same work, Mr. Stoup, in his Religion des Hollandais, says, "The chief thing Spinoza seems to aim at is to destroy all religions, particularly the Jewish and the Christian, and to introduce atheism, libertinism, and a full liberty for all religions." We have this Tractatus Theologico-Politicus before us, also all of his works that have ever been known to be published in book form. They are written in the Latin language, and are bound together in one old parchment-covered volume, which bears upon its title-page the following imprint: "B. D. S. Opera Posthuma, quorum series post præfationem exhibetur.

CIƆIƆCLXXVII."

The seclusion which Spinoza sought and his neglect to date his various treatises make it impossible for his biographers to be certain that his works are arranged in their proper chronological order. Mr. Stoup, quoted above, places his Tractatus De Emendatione Intellectus before the Theologico-Politicus, and adduces some arguments from the latter to confute the deductions of the former. It is highly probable that he has reversed the order of their publication, and in doing so he has done the logic of Spinoza an injustice. Indeed, it is almost absolutely impossible to understand him without following his steps in the order in which they are placed, taking his "definitions" and "axioms" as a starting-point, and keeping with him until he draws his conclusion.

In the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza maintains that all religions have been made for the public good, to the end that all citizens may live honestly and obey their magistrates, and practise virtue, not in the hopes of any reward after death, but for the excellency of virtue itself, and the advantages that accrue in this life to those who follow it. He does not openly avow, in this book, what he believes of the Deity; he merely gives some hints from which the character of his faith may be inferred. It is reported, however, that shortly after he had given this work to the world, he plainly declared that God was not that intelligent, that most perfect and happy Being, that we have been taught to believe Him; but that He was only the power of Nature diffused all over the world. This was the doctrine that he maintained, in some form or other, for the remainder of his life.

Spinoza lived at the Hague when the Tractatus was published, where he was visited by great crowds of