Goethe agreed in his views of Spinoza with Herder, who in a letter to Jacobi writes: “The πρὼτον ψεῦδος, my dear Jacobi, in all anti-spinozistic systems is that God is supposed to be the great _ens entium_, the cause of all phenomena, a cypher, an abstract idea which we have formulated. However, that is not so according to Spinoza; God is to him the most real and active unity which says to itself ‘I am that I am, and shall be in all the changes of my phenomena that which I shall be.’ What you mean, my dear fellows, by an existence outside of the world, I do not understand. If God does not exist in the world, and indeed, everywhere unlimited in his totality and entirety, he does not exist at all. The limitation of personality does not belong to the infinite being, since a person originates with us by limitation as a kind of _modus_ or as an aggregate of beings whose activity is endowed with the illusion of unity.” A modification of Spinoza’s view consists in the recognition of the creative activity which Herder attributes to God. In another letter to Jacobi, Herder writes: “You wish God in the shape of man like a friend who thinks of you. Consider that in that case he must think humanly of you. If he is partial to you he will be partial against others. Explain to me why you need him to be human. He speaks to you, he affects you through all noble men who are his organs and most so through his organ of organs, the core of his spiritual creation, his only begotten. I must confess that this philosophy makes me exceedingly happy. Goethe has read Spinoza since your departure and it is a test case to me that he has conceived him exactly as I do.” Herder was a clergyman and he held the highest position of his church, being Superintendent General. Would the protestant state churches of to-day either in England or in Germany have room for a man like Herder? Goethe concurred with Herder, that the idea of an extramundane Deity has no sense, an outside God is powerless and an immanent God alone is a reality. He puts in the mouth of Faust the following lines: “The God that in my breast is owned Can deeply stir the inner sources. The God above my powers enthroned He cannot change external forces.” _Faust I, Scene 4, Tr. Bayard Taylor._ Spinoza makes a difference between _natura naturans_ and _natura naturata_. A similar contrast is made by Goethe in the following lines which are found among the _Zahme Xenien_, Part vii.