is then supposed to explain everything that is better known. (4.) That with me the world does not fill the whole possibility of all being, but in this there still remains much room for that which we denote only negatively as the denial of the will to live. Pantheism, on the other hand, is essentially optimism: but if the world is what is best, then the matter may rest there. (5.) That to the Pantheists the perceptible world, thus the world of idea, is just the intentional manifestation of the God indwelling in it, which contains no real explanation of its appearance, but rather requires to be explained itself. With me, on the other hand, the world as idea appears merely per accidens, because the intellect, with its external perception, is primarily only the medium of motives for the more perfect phenomena of will, which gradually rises to that objectivity of perceptibility, in which the world exists. In this sense its origin, as an object of perception, is really accounted for, and not, as with the Pantheists, by means of untenable fictions.
Since, in consequence of the Kantian criticism of all speculative theology, the philosophises of Germany almost all threw themselves back upon Spinoza, so that the whole series of futile attempts known by the name of the post-Kantian philosophy are simply Spinozism tastelessly dressed up, veiled in all kinds of unintelligible language, and otherwise distorted, I wish, now that I have explained the relation of my philosophy to Pantheism in general, to point out its relation to Spinozism in particular. It stands, then, to Spinozism as the New Testament stands to the Old. What the Old Testament has in common with the New is the same God-Creator. Analogous to this, the world exists, with me as with Spinoza, by its inner power and through itself. But with Spinoza his substantia æterna, the inner nature of the world, which he himself calls God, is also, as regards its moral character and worth, Jehovah, the God-Creator, who applauds His own creation, and finds that all is very good, παντα καλαλιαν.
