ce spontaneously produced an infinite
variety of particular forms. It has, however, no proper reality; it
exists only in and through the Substance. Finite things are the most
external, the last, the most subordinate forms of existence into which
the universal life is specialized, and they manifest their finitude in
that they are without resistance, subject to the infinite chain of
causality which binds the world. The divine Substance works freely
according to the inner essence of its own nature; individuals, however,
are not free, but are subject to the influence of those things with
which they come into contact. It follows from these metaphysical
grounds," Schwegler continues, "that what is called free-will cannot be
admitted. For, since man is only a mode, he, like any other mode, stands
in an endless series of conditioning causes, and no free-will can,
therefore, be predicated of him." Further on he adds: "Evil, or sin, is,
therefore, only relative and not positive, for nothing happens against
God's will. It is only a simple negation or deprivation, which only
seems to be a reality in our representation."[200] The late Samuel
Johnson, in his chapter on "The Morality and Piety of Pantheism,"
undertakes to defend both the Vedantic and the Spinozan philosophy by
pointing out a distinction between an "external compulsion and an inner
force which merges us in the Infinite. Though both are equally efficient
as to the result, and both are inconsistent with individual freedom, yet
real fate is only that which is external.... While destiny or fate in
the sense of absolute external compulsion would certainly be
destructive, not only of moral responsibility but of personality itself,
yet religion or science without fate is radically unsound." Again he
adds: "We cannot separate perfection and fate. Deity whose sway is not
destiny is not venerable, nor even reliable. It would be a purpose that
did not round the universe, a love that could not preserve it. Theism
without fate is a kind of atheism, and a self-dominated atheism. But
holding justice to be the true necessity or fate, is properly theism,
though it refuses the name."[201]

The reasoning here reminds one of the conclusions of a still more recent
writer, who while condemning what he considers the fatalism of
Calvinistic theology, still asserts that its logic leaves no alternative
but the denial of a personal God. And an early Buddhist philosopher has
left a fragment which