'It is, in my view, all important,' says Hegel[1], 'to apprehend and express the True not as _Substance,_ but equally much as _Subject_.' Substance, as Spinoza defines it, is that which is in itself and which is conceived through itself, something which does not need the conception of something else by which its concept may be formed[2]. Substance, in other words, is something which serves to explain itself, which is _causa sui._ The mind, looking out on the wide world of mutable and manifold objects, finds its rest in the great calm of a something at their base, the eternal nature which, itself unmoved, is the one foundation, complete and sufficient, of all things,--a _res aeterna et infinita,_ which can feed the mind with joy alone[3]. These words suggest only an object--a transcendent object--the basis of an objective order. They seem to leave little for the contemplating subject to do save to discern it and, so discerning, to rest in it and to love. They seem to leave substance a mere datum, a far-off all-embracing end in which the variety of human effort can find a central object and a final close. Yet, in the end it appears[4] that this _Res aeterna_ loves himself with an intellectual love, and this love is identified with the love of man to God, so far at least as man's mind, considered _sub specie aeternitatis_, can be said to 'explicate' Deity. From this conclusion it might be said that Spinoza rises above the mere category of substance: God is no longer the mere foundation of things--the absolute object of all objects. He rises in human spirit (regarded in its eternal significance) to the rank of a true subject. He is not merely known as the True; but He himself, living and moving in the essential spirit of man, knows himself and acquiesces in his infinite beatitude. But if this be the legitimate inference to be drawn from the closing sections of the _Ethics_, it is not the view ordinarily suggested by the mention of Spinoza's doctrine. That doctrine, on the contrary, seems, as it first confronts us, and as it has taken its place in history, to omit the subjectivity which had found so decided a recognition in the commencement of Cartesianism. In the _cogito ergo sum_ so much at least is clearly stated: true being--the true--is not merely known, but itself knows; not a mere object, but a subject: a subject-object, or, an Idea. It is to be admitted, indeed, that Descartes hardly remains at this altitude, but he touches it for a moment. Even when he finds in the conception of God a security for truth and reality, and thus seems to base these on a one-sidedly objective standard, he regards God as, on the other hand, the truth and reality postulated and presupposed by the structural system of our ideas. God--such seems the tendency of his so-called 'proof'--is the inevitable prius and presupposition of our thought and being: He makes us know, as much as He is ultimately the object known: