within the last fifty years. German philosophy, always prolific,
and often productive of monstrous births, has given to the world many
elaborate systems, physical and metaphysical, whose most prominent
feature is the deification of Nature or of Man. France, always alert and
lively, has appropriated the ideas of her more ponderous neighbors, and
has given them currency through educated Europe on the wings of her
lighter literature. And even in England and America there are not
wanting some significant tokens of a disposition to cherish a kind of
speculation which, if it be not formally and avowedly Pantheistic, has
much of the same dreamy and mystic character, and little, if any,
harmony with definite views of God, or of the relations which He bears
to man.

One of the most significant symptoms of a reaction in favor of Pantheism
may be seen in the numerous republications and versions of the writings
of Spinoza which have recently appeared, in the public homage which has
been paid to his character and genius, and in the more than philosophic
tolerance--the kindly indulgence--which has been shown to his most
characteristic principles. He is now recognized by many as the real
founder both of the Philosophic and of the Exegetic Rationalism, which
has been applied, with such disastrous effect, to the interpretation
alike of the volume of Nature and of the records of Revelation. In
Germany his works have been edited by Paulus (1803) and by Gfroerer
(1830); in France they have been translated by Emile Saisset, Professor
of Philosophy in the Royal College; while a copious account of his life
and writings has been published by Amand Saintes, the historian of
Rationalism in Germany.[103] All this might be accounted for by
ascribing it simply to the admiration of philosophical thinkers for the
extraordinary talents of the man; and it might be said that his writings
have been reprinted, just as those of Hobbes have been recently
reproduced in England, more as a historical monument of the past than as
a mirror that reflects the sentiments of the present age. But it is more
difficult to explain the eulogiums with which the reappearance of
Spinoza has been greeted, and the cordiality with which his daring
speculations have been received. He has not only been exculpated from
the charge of Atheism, but even panegyrized as a saint and martyr! "That
holy and yet outcast man," exclaimed Schleiermacher,--"he who was fully
penetrated by the