that in themselves--that is, in
God, who is the sole veritable reality--the difference between good and
evil disappears. In God there is no evil. But the difference between
good and evil can exist only on condition that God is the evil. But it
cannot be allowed that evil is an affirmative thing, and that this
affirmation is in God. God is good, and nothing else than good; the
distinction between good and evil is not present in this unity, in this
substance, and comes into existence only with differentiation.

God is unity abiding absolutely in itself. In the substance there is no
differentiation. The distinction of good and evil begins with the
distinction of God from the world, and particularly from man. It is the
fundamental principle of Spinozism with regard to this distinction of
God and the world that man must have no other end than God. The love of
God, therefore, it is that Spinozism marks out for man as the law to be
followed in order to bring about the healing of this breach.

And it is the loftiest morality that teaches that evil has no existence
and that man is not bound to permit the substantial existence of this
distinction, this negation. Yet it is possible for him to desire to
maintain the difference and even to push it to the point of sheer
opposition to God, who is the universal, self-contained and
self-sufficing. In this case man is evil. But, alternatively, he may
annul this distinction and place his true existence in God alone and in
his aspiration towards Him; and in this case he is good.

In Spinozism there is indeed the difference between good and evil,
opposition between God and man; but side by side with it we have also
the principle that evil is to be deemed a non-entity. In God as God, in
God as substance, there is no distinction. It is for man that the
distinction exists, as also for him exists the distinction of good and
evil.

_V.--THE DETERMINATION OF UNITY_

The superficial method of appraising philosophy is exemplified also in
those who assert that it is a "system of identity." It is perfectly true
that substance is this unity at one with itself, but spirit no less is
this self-identity. Ultimately, all is identity, unity with itself. But
when they speak of the philosophy of identity they have in view abstract
identity or unity in general; and they neglect the essential point, to
wit, the determination of this unity in itself; in other words, they
omit to consider whether this u