aver kind were anticipated by
Spinoza himself, when he went on to gather out of his
philosophy "that the mind of man being part of the
Infinite intelligence, when we say that such a mind
perceives this thing or that, we are, in fact, saying that
God perceives it, not that he is Infinite, but as he is
represented by the nature of this or that idea; and
similarly, when we say that a man does this or that
action, we say that God does it not qua he is Infinite,
but qua he is expressed in that man's nature." "Here,"
he says, "many readers will no doubt hesitate, and
many difficulties will occur to them in the way of such
a supposition." Undoubtedly there was reason enough
to form, such an anticipation. As long as the Being
whom he so freely names remains surrounded with the
associations which in this country we bring with us out
of our child years, not all the logic in the world would
make us listen to language such as this. It is not so--
we know it, and it is enough. We are well aware
of the phalanx of difficulties which lie about our ordinary
theistic conceptions. They are quite enough, if religion
depended on speculative consistency, and not in
obedience of life, to perplex and terrify us. What are
we? what is anything? If it be not divine, what is it
then? If created--out of what is it created? and how
created--and why? These questions, and others far
more momentous which we do not enter upon here,
may be asked and cannot be answered; but we cannot
any the more consent to Spinoza on the ground that he
alone consistently provides an answer; because, as we
have said again and again, we do not care to have them
answered at all. Conscience is the single tribunal to
which we will be referred, and conscience declares
imperatively that what he says is not true. But of
all this it is painful to speak, and as far as possible we
designedly avoid it. Pantheism is not Atheism, but the
Infinite Positive and the Infinite Negative are not so
remote from one another in their practical bearings;
only let us remember that we are far indeed from the
truth if we think that God to Spinoza was nothing else
but that world which we experience. It is but one of
infinite expressions of Him, a conception which makes
us giddy in the effort to realize it.

We have arrived at last at the outwork of the whole
matter in its bearings upon life and human duty. It
was in the search after this last, that Spinoza, as we
said, travelled over so st