them being its definition. This definition therefore differs from the conception itself merely in form and not in content ; for it consists of judgments which are all contained within that conception, and therefore have their reason in it, in as far as they show its essence. We may accordingly look upon these judgments as the consequences of that conception, considered as their reason. Now this relation between a conception and the judgments founded upon it arid susceptible of being developed out of it by analysis, is precisely the relation between Spinoza's so-called God and the world, or rather between the one and only substance and its numberless accidents (Deus, sive substantia constans infinitis attributis [1] Deus, sive omnia Dei attributa). It is therefore the relation in knowledge of the reason to its consequent ; whereas true Theism (Spinoza's Theism is merely nominal) assumes the relation of the cause to its effect, in which the cause remains different and separate from the consequence, not only in the way in which we consider them, but really and essentially, therefore in themselves to all eternity. For the word God, honestly used, means a cause such as this of the world, with the addition of personality. An impersonal God is, on the contrary, a contradictio in adjecto. Now as nevertheless, even in the case as stated by him, Spinoza desired to retain the word God to express substance, and explicitly called this the cause of the world, he could find no other way to do it than by completely intermingling the two relations, and confounding the principle of the reason of knowledge with the principle of causality. I call attention to the following passages in corroboration of this statement. Notandum, dari necessario unius cujusque rei existentis certam aliquam causam, propter quam existit. Et notandum, hanc causam, propter quam aliqua res existit, vel debere contineri in ipsa natura et definitione
- ↑ Spinoza, " Eth." i. prop. 11.
