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It shows that Hillel did not clearly distinguish the Aristotelian standpoint from the Neo-Platonic, for in the definition just quoted, the two points of view are combined. That all mediæval Aristotelianism was tinged with Neo-Platonism, especially in the doctrine of the Active Intellect, is well known.
However that may be, the deeper we go into the Spinozistic conception of the "inadequate," as related to the "adequate," the more we feel ourselves moving in the direction of Aristotelianism just as the Leibnizian monads, in proportion as they mark themselves out the more clearly, tend to approximate to the Intelligibles of Plotinus.
The contrast is obvious between this Platonic physics and a naturalism like that of Darwin. The point of evolution, as selection produces it, is that new species may arise. The very title of Darwin's book "The Origin of Species" is a denial of Aristotelianism and, in the pregnant sense, of evolution.
Before Maimonides there had been some inclination towards a creed, but he is the first to put one into set terms. Maimonides was much influenced by Aristotelianism, and this gave him an impulse towards a logical statement of the tenets of Judaism. On the other side, he was deeply concerned by the criticism of Judaism from the side of Mohammedan theologians.
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