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 by the idea of Absolute Being; it accounts for the concrete by the abstract; it represents all individual beings as mere modes or affections of one universal substance; in other words, it _realises_ the abstract idea of thought and extension, but _denies the existence_ of bodies and souls, otherwise than as manifestations of these eternal essences.