Spinoza maintains that there is no such thing as what is known as the world; it is merely a form of God, and in and for itself it is nothing. The world has no true reality, and all this that we know as the world has been cast into the abyss of the one identity. There is therefore no such thing as finite reality, it has no truth whatever; according to Spinoza what is, is God, and God alone. Therefore the allegations of those who accuse Spinoza of atheism are the direct opposite of the truth; with him there is too much God. They say: If God is the identity of mind and nature, then nature or the individual man is God. This is quite correct, but they forget that nature and the individual disappear in this same identity: and they cannot forgive Spinoza for thus annihilating them. Those who defame him in such a way as this are therefore not aiming at maintaining God, but at maintaining the finite and the worldly; they do not fancy their own extinction and that of the world. Spinoza’s system is absolute pantheism and monotheism elevated into thought. Spinozism is therefore very far removed from being atheism in the ordinary sense; but in the sense that God is not conceived as spirit, it is atheism. However, in the same way many theologians are also atheists who speak of God only as the Almighty Supreme Being, etc., who refuse to acknowledge God, and who admit the validity and truth of the finite. They are many degrees worse than Spinoza. The second point to be considered is the method adopted by Spinoza for setting forth his philosophy; it is the demonstrative method of geometry as employed by Euclid, in which we find definitions, explanations, axioms, and theorems. Even Descartes made it his starting-point that philosophic propositions must be mathematically handled and proved, that they must have the very same evidence as mathematics. The mathematical method is considered superior to all others, on account of the nature of its evidence; and it is natural that independent knowledge in its re-awakening lighted first upon this form, of which it saw so brilliant an example. The mathematical method is, however, ill-adapted for speculative content, and finds its proper place only in the finite sciences of the understanding. In modern times Jacobi has asserted (Werke, Vol. IV. Section I. pp. 217-223) that all demonstration, all scientific knowledge leads back to Spinozism, which alone is a logical method of thought; and because it must lead thither, it is really of no service whatever, but immediate knowledge is what we must depend on. It may be conceded to Jacobi that the method of demonstration leads to Spinozism, if we understand thereby merely the method of knowledge belonging to the understanding. But the fact is that Spinoza is made a testing-point in modern philosophy, so that it may really be said: You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all. This being so, the mathematical and demonstrative method of Spinoza would seem to be only