The monistic idea of God, which alone is compatible with our present knowledge of nature, recognises the divine spirit in all things. It can never recognise in God a "personal being," or, in other words, an individual of limited extension in space, or even of human form. God is everywhere. As Giordano Bruno has it: "There is one spirit in all things, and nobody is so small that it does not contain a part of the divine substance whereby it is animated." Every atom is thus animated, and so is the ether; we might, therefore, represent God as the infinite sum of all natural forces, the sum of all atomic forces and all ether-vibrations. It comes virtually to the same thing when (as was done here by a speaker on a former occasion) God is defined as "the supreme law of the universe," and the latter is represented as the "working of universal space." In this most important article of belief it matters not as to the name but as to the unity of the underlying idea; the unity of God and the world; of spirit and nature. On the other hand, "homotheism," the anthropomorphic representation of God, degrades this loftiest cosmic idea to that of a "gaseous vertebrate."[19] Of the various systems of pantheism which for long have given expression more or less clearly to the monistic conception of God, the most perfect is certainly that of Spinoza. To this system, as is well known, Goethe also paid the tribute of his highest admiration and approval. Of other, eminent men who have given a similar pantheistic form to their natural religion, we shall here mention only two of the greatest poets and students of man, Shakespeare and Lessing; two of the greatest German rulers, Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen and Frederick II. of Hohenzollern; two of the greatest scientists, Laplace and Darwin. In adding our own pantheistic confession to that of these great and untrammelled spirits, let it only be noted further, that it has received an empirical confirmation, never before imagined, through the wonderful advances of natural knowledge within the last thirty years.