If Leibniz had remained consistent, he would have ended in atheism, as does the Indian Samkhya philosophy, which similarly makes the world consist of a multiplicity of [pg 124] eternal individualities. Instead of that, he introduces into his nature-philosophy, in order to rescue for himself a satisfactory world-view, a theistic notion of God, and by giving it an optimistic, ethical, and theistic expression, he makes it acceptable to the eighteenth century. His philosophy, popularized till it is almost unrecognizable by Christian Wolff (1679-1754), helps to lay the foundations of German rationalism. But in spite of the treason of which he is thus, though with the best intentions, guilty against nature-philosophy, Leibniz cannot undo the fact that thinking on nature-philosophy lines awoke at that time to activity through him. Without wishing it, he too contributes to making Spinoza an influence. But to let oneself be mixed up with nature-philosophy is for the spirit of the time to step into the dangerous unknown. It therefore resists as long as possible. At last, however, since Kant and Spinoza together are undermining the optimistic-ethical world-view of rationalism which has been built upon the real world and so conveniently fitted up, it has to make up its mind to rebuild, and attempt the process of arriving at a conception of optimism and ethics by direct thinking on the essential nature of the world. For the carrying out of this undertaking the German speculative philosophy offers its services. [pg 125] CHAPTER XI J. G. FICHTE’S OPTIMISTIC-ETHICAL WORLD-VIEW Speculative philosophy and Gnosticism THE vision of an optimistic-ethical philosophy cast in one mould hovers in front of speculative philosophy, which hopes to discover the meaning of the world by the most direct route. It will have nothing to do with analysing the phenomena of the universe in order to deduce its nature from them. It proceeds deductively, not inductively. In pure abstract thinking it hopes to learn for itself how the real world has evolved out of the notion of Being. It is imaginative nature-philosophy in a logical dress. The right to deal with the world in this fashion is derived by speculative thought from the results of the theory of knowledge, according to which the world as we observe it is more or less our own representation of it. We have, somehow or other, a creative share in its coming into existence. It follows that the logic which is the rule with the finite ego is to be conceived as an emanation of that which holds good with the Absolute. The individual is therefore entitled to disclose in his own thinking the motives and the process of the emanation of the empirical world out of the notion of Being. Speculation, or in other words constructive logic, is the key to the secret door into knowledge of the world.