Heathenism, in my opinion, is distinguished from Judaism mainly by the fact, that the latter rests upon the _formal_, absolutely necessary laws of reason, while the former (even if it be founded on the nature of things and therefore real) rests upon the _material_ laws of nature which are merely hypothetically necessary. From this the inevitable result is polytheism; every particular cause is personified by imagination, that is, represented as a moral being, and made a particular deity. At first this result was a matter of mere _Empiricism_; but by and by men had occasion to observe that these causes, which were represented as particular deities, were dependent on each other in their effects, and in a certain aspect subordinate to each other. There thus arose gradually a whole system of heathen theology, in which every deity maintains his rank, and his relation to the rest is determined. Judaism, on the other hand, in its very origin contemplated a _system_, that is, a unity among the forces of nature; and thereby it received at last this _pure formal_ unity. This unity is merely of _regulative_ use, that is, for the complete systematic connection of all the phenomena of nature; and it presupposes a knowledge of the _multiplicity_ of the various forces in nature. But owing to their excessive love of system, and their anxiety for the preservation of the _principle_ in its purity, the Israelites seem to have wholly neglected its application. The result was that they preserved a religion which was pure indeed, but at the same time very unfruitful, both for the extension of knowledge and for its application in practical life. By this cause may be explained their constant murmuring against the leaders of their religion, and their repeated relapse into idolatry. They could not, like enlightened nations at the present day, direct their attention to purity of principle and useful application of their religion at the same time, and therefore of necessity they failed either in the one or in the other. Finally the Talmudists introduced a merely _formal_ application of religion which aimed at no real end; and by this means they made matters worse and worse. This religion, therefore, which, by the intention of its founder, should have formed the Jews into the wisest and most intelligent of nations, made them by its injudicious application the most ignorant and unreasonable of all. Instead of the knowledge of nature being combined with the knowledge of religion, and the former subordinated to the latter merely as the material to the formal, the former was altogether neglected; and the principle, maintained in its mere abstractness, continued without any application.