ld proceed from the beginning in parallel lines side by side in a
constantly corresponding harmony. The sense of seeing results, it
appears to us, from the formation of a picture upon the retina. The
motion of the arm or the leg appears to result from an act of will; but
in either case we mistake coincidence for causation. Between substances
so wholly alien there can be no intercommunion; and we only suppose that
the object seen produces the idea, and that the desire produces the
movement, because the phenomena of matter and the phenomena of spirit
are so contrived as to flow always in the same order and sequence. This
hypothesis, as coming from Leibnitz, has been, if not accepted, at least
listened to respectfully; because while taking it out of its proper
place, he contrived to graft it upon Christianity; and succeeded, with a
sort of speculative legerdemain, in making it appear to be in harmony
with revealed religion. Disguised as a philosophy of Predestination, and
connected with the Christian doctrine of Retribution, it steps forward
with an air of unconscious innocence, as if interfering with nothing
which Christians generally believe. And yet, leaving as it does no
larger scope for liberty or responsibility than when in the hands of
Spinoza,[O] Leibnitz, in our opinion, has only succeeded in making it
infinitely more revolting. Spinoza could not regard the bad man as an
object of Divine anger and a subject of retributory punishment. He was
not a Christian, and made no pretension to be considered such; and it
did not occur to him to regard the actions of a being which, both with
Leibnitz and himself, is (to use his own expression) an _automaton
spirituale_, as deserving a fiery indignation and everlasting vengeance.

'Deus,' according to Spinoza's definition, 'est ens constans infinitis
attributis quorum unumquodque aeternam et infinitam essentiam exprimit.'
Under each of these attributes _infinita sequuntur_, and everything
which an infinite intelligence can conceive, and an infinite power can
produce,--everything which follows as a possibility out of the divine
nature,--all things which have been, and are, and will be,--find
expression and actual existence, not under one attribute only, but under
each and every attribute. Language is so ill adapted to explain such a
system, that even to state it accurately is all but impossible, and
analogies can only remotely suggest what such expressions mean. But it
is as if i