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Hence, principally, arises the reproach which is directed against philosophy to wit, that philosophy, to be consistent with itself, is necessarily Spinozism, and consequently atheism and fatalism. But at the beginning we have not yet determinations distinguished one from another as aye and nay. We have the one but not the other.
As has been already said, Hume is not content with denying that we know anything about the existence or the nature of the soul; but he carries the war into the enemy's camp, and accuses those who affirm the immateriality, simplicity, and indivisibility of the thinking substance, of atheism and Spinozism, which are assumed to be convertible terms. The method of attack is ingenious.
That is at the bottom the same thing as making God the author of all our ideas; for with what should we see in Him, if we had not instruments for seeing? and these instruments, it is He alone who holds them and guides them. This system is a labyrinth, one lane of which would lead you to Spinozism, another to Stoicism, another to chaos.
The second period, from 1801, adds to these two co-ordinate parts, the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of spirit, and as a fundamental discipline, a science of the absolute, the philosophy of identity, which may be characterized as Spinozism revived on a Fichtean basis. Besides the example of Spinoza, Giordano Bruno had most influence on this form of Schelling's philosophy.
Moreover, Fechner does not fail to connect his psycho-physics, the presuppositions and results of which have recently been questioned in several quarters, with his metaphysical conclusions. That which appears to us as the external world of matter, is nothing but a universal consciousness which overlaps and influences our individual consciousness. This is Spinozism idealistically interpreted.
M. Javari gives a similar testimony. The Biographer of Spinoza, referring to the recent progress and prospective prevalence of these views, affirms that "the tendency of the age, in matters of Philosophy, Morals, and Religion, seems to incline towards Pantheism;" that "the time is come when every one who will not frankly embrace the pure and simple Christianity of the Gospel will be obliged to acknowledge Spinoza as his chief, unless he be willing to expose himself to ridicule;" that "Germany is already saturated with his principles;" that "his philosophy domineers over all the contemporary systems, and will continue to govern them until men are brought to believe that word, 'No man hath seen God at any time, but He who was in the bosom of the Father hath revealed Him;" that it is this "Pantheistic philosophy, boldly avowed, towards which the majority of those writers who have the talent of commanding public interest are gravitating at the present day;" and that "the ultimate struggle will be, not between Christianity and Philosophy, but between Christianity and Spinozism, its strongest and most inveterate antagonist."
The objection is undoubtedly final, because it is absolutely valid; for by freedom we mean the ability to do or leave undone, to act thus or thus, and apart from such an ability moral judgments are quite unthinkable. Where we pronounce praise or blame, the tacit presupposition is always that the object of the pronouncement could have acted differently; and this Spinozism denies.
For not everything which has a reality has a reality of its own, or subsists by itself. God is the only absolute reality, and thereby the absolute substance. If we stop at this abstract thought we have Spinozism, for in Spinozism subjectivity is not yet differentiated from substantiality, from substance as such.
But if "Spinozism," as it is called, is but a stage of development there is something in Spinoza which can be superseded as little as the Imitation of Christ or the Pilgrim's Progress, and it is this which continues to draw men to him. Goethe never cared for set philosophical systems.
And this, indeed, Spinoza in one sense actually affirms, when he denies to the mind any power of retaining consciousness of what has befallen it in life, 'nisi durante corpore. But Spinozism is a philosophy full of surprises; and our calculations of what must belong to it are perpetually baffled.
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