of
God. After a few more propositions, following one another with the same
kind of coherence, we arrive successively at the conclusion that there
is but one substance; that this substance being necessarily existent, it
is also infinite; that it is therefore identical with the Being who had
been previously defined as the 'Ens absolute perfectum.'

Demonstrations of this kind were the characteristics of the period. Des
Cartes had set the example of constructing them, and was followed by
Cudworth, Clarke, Berkeley, and many others besides Spinoza. The
inconclusiveness of the method may perhaps be observed most readily in
the strangely opposite conceptions formed by all these writers of the
nature of that Being whose existence they nevertheless agreed, by the
same process, to gather each out of their ideas. It is important,
however, to examine it carefully, for it is the very keystone of the
Pantheistic system.

As stated by Des Cartes, the argument stands something as follows:--God
is an all-perfect Being,--perfection is the idea which we form of Him:
existence is a mode of perfection, and therefore God exists. The sophism
we are told is only apparent. Existence is part of the idea--as much
involved in it as the equality of all lines drawn from the centre to the
circumference of a circle is involved in the idea of a circle. A
non-existent all-perfect Being is as inconceivable as a quadrilateral
triangle.

It is sometimes answered that in this way we may prove the existence of
anything--Titans, Chimaeras, or the Olympian Gods; we have but to define
them as existing, and the proof is complete. But, this objection
summarily set aside; none of these beings are by hypothesis absolutely
perfect, and, therefore, of their existence we can conclude nothing.
With greater justice, however, we may say, that of such terms as
perfection and existence we know too little to speculate. Existence may
be an imperfection for all we can tell; we know nothing about the
matter. Such arguments are but endless _petitiones principii_--like the
self-devouring serpent, resolving themselves into nothing. We wander
round and round them, in the hope of finding some tangible point at
which we can seize their meaning; but we are presented everywhere with
the same impracticable surface, from which our grasp glides off
ineffectual.

Spinoza himself, however, obviously felt an intense conviction of the
validity of his argument. His opinion is stated wi