e
concept of _being_ with the concept of _self-existent being_, as if the
two were identical, or as if _being_ could not be predicated of
anything, otherwise than as it is a "mode" or affection of the one only
"substance." A sounder Psychology has taught us that our conception of
existence arises, in the first instance, from our own conscious
experience; and that, when this conception subsequently expands into the
idea of Absolute Being, and results in the belief of a necessary,
self-existent, and eternal Cause, the new element which is thus added to
it may be accounted for by the _principle of causality_, which
constitutes one of the fundamental laws of human thought, and which, if
it may be said to resemble _intuition_ in the rapidity and clearness
with which it enables us to discern the truth, differs essentially from
that _immediate intuition_ of which Spinoza speaks, since it is
dependent on experience, and, instead of gazing direct on Absolute
Being, makes use of intermediate signs and manifestations, by which it
rises to the knowledge of "the unseen and eternal."

We submit, further, that a system which rests on the mere idea of Being
as its sole support, cannot afford any satisfactory explanation of real
and concrete existences. The idea of Being is one of our most abstract
conceptions; it is associated, indeed, with an invincible belief in the
reality of Being,--a belief which springs up spontaneously, along with
the idea itself, from our own conscious experience. It is even
associated with an invincible belief in necessary, self-existent, and
eternal Being,--a belief which springs from _the principle of
causality_, or that law of thought whereby, from the fact that something
exists now, we instinctively conclude that something _must_ have existed
from all eternity. But neither the simple concept of Being, which is
derived from experience and framed by abstraction, nor the additional
concept of self-existent Being, which springs from the action of our
rational faculties on the data furnished by experience, can afford any
explanation of the nature and origin of the real, concrete existences in
the universe. These must be studied in the light of their own
appropriate evidence; they must be interpreted, and not divined; they
cannot be inferred deductively from any, even the highest and most
abstract, conception of the human mind. Yet the philosophy of Spinoza
attempts to explain all the phenomena of the universe b