f the strongest
convictions of the human mind.[125] The conception of Infinite Being
contains the positive element of _being_, abstraction being made of all
_limitation_ or _bounds_. That this is a real, legitimate, and useful
conception, we have no disposition to deny; we cannot divest ourselves
of it; it springs up spontaneously from the innermost fountain of
thought. But we cannot accept the account which Spinoza has given of its
nature and origin, and still less can we assent to the application which
he has made of it. He describes it as the idea of absolute, necessary,
self-existent, eternal Being; and he traces its origin, not to the
combined influence of experience and abstraction, acting under the great
primitive law of _causality_, but to an immediate perception, or direct
_intuition, of reason_. Now, we submit that the concept of _being_, and
the concept of absolute _self-existent being_, are perfectly distinct
from each other, and that they spring from different laws of thought.
The concept of _being_ applies to everything that exists, without
reference to the cause or manner of its existence; and this springs
simply from experience and abstraction. The concept of _self-existent
being_, which is equally suggested by the laws of our mental
constitution, does not apply to everything that exists, but only to that
whose existence is not originated or determined by any other being; and
this concept springs also from experience and abstraction, combined,
however, with the law or principle of _causality_, which teaches us that
no change can occur in Nature, and that nothing can ever come into
being, _without a cause_, and prompts us to infer from _the fact of
existence now_, the conclusion that _something must have existed from
all eternity_. The origin of each of these concepts may thus be
naturally accounted for by the known laws of our mental constitution,
without having recourse to any faculty of _intellectual intuition_ such
as Spinoza describes,--a faculty independent of experience, and superior
to it,--a faculty which gazes direct on Absolute Being, and penetrates,
without the aid of any intermediate sign or manifestation, into the very
essence of God. Spinoza has not discriminated aright between these two
concepts, in respect either of their nature or their origin. He has not
overlooked, indeed, the distinction, between _abstract ideas_ and the
_intellectual intuitions_, of which he speaks; but he confounds th