nown by our limited intelligence, and which
are discerned by an immediate "intuition of reason," are two, namely,
_extension_ and _thought_. We know nothing, and can know nothing, of God
beyond this: He has no will, or his will is mere intelligence or
thought; He has no law, or His law is merely His thought embodied in the
arrangements of nature; He has no moral properties that are cognizable
by the human faculties. It follows that God is not the creator of the
world, for creation implies an act of will, and God has no will; that He
is not the Lawgiver or Governor of the world, for there is no law
emanating from a superior, but such only as is created by _human compact
or agreement_, and there is "no natural obligation to obey God," no
invariable standard of right and wrong. The principles which are thus
assumed in regard to the nature of God are afterwards applied to many
important questions, relating, first, to the soul of man; secondly, to
the science of Ethics; thirdly, to the doctrine of political right and
liberty; and, fourthly, to the supposed claims of Revelation. And they
are carried out, with inexorable logic, into all their most revolting
results.

Such is a concise, but, as we believe, a correct outline of the leading
principles of the system of Spinoza. We shall now offer a few remarks
upon it, directed to the object of showing wherein consists the radical
fallacy on which it rests, and what are the considerations by which
thoughtful men may be most effectually secured against its pernicious
influence.

It has been well said by Professor Saisset, that the fallacy of this
system does not lie in any one proposition of the series, but that it is
a vicious circle throughout; that the paralogism is not in this or that
part of the "Ethics,"--it is everywhere; and that the germ of the whole
is contained in the _definitions_, which are assumed, but not
proved.[123] Our attention, therefore, must be given, in the first
instance, to the fundamental assumptions on which the whole
superstructure is built.

1. It is assumed, without proof, that the entire system of Being may be
ranked under the three categories of Substance, Attributes, and Modes.
It is assumed, equally without proof, that there can be no substance
which is not self-existent, necessary, and eternal, and that every being
which does not possess these properties must be only a "mode" or
affection of another being to whom they belong. It is further assu