the
relation of the human soul and body. The soul is the idea of the body,
and the body is the object of the soul, whatever is in the one really
is in the other ideally; yet this relation of object and subject does
not imply any connexion. The motions and changes of the body have to
be accounted for partly by itself, partly by the influence of other
bodies; and the thoughts of the soul in like manner have to be
accounted for partly by what God thinks as constituting the individual
mind, and partly by what he thinks as constituting the minds of other
individuals. But to account for thought by the motions of the body, or
for the motions of the body by thought, is to attempt to bridge the
impassable gulf between thought and extension. It involves the double
absurdity of accounting for a thing by itself, and of accounting for
it by that which has nothing in common with it.

Spinoza's higher idealsim.

In one point of view, this theory of Spinoza deserves the highest
praise for that very characteristic which probably excited most odium
against it at the time it was first published, namely, its exaitation
of matter. It is the mark of an imperfect spiritualism to hide its
eyes from outward nature, and to shrink from the material as impure
and defiling. But its horror and fear are proofs of weakness; it flies
from an enemy it cannot overcome. Spinoza's bold identification of
spirit and matter, God and nature, contains in it the germ of a higher
idealism than can be found in any philosophy that asserts the claims
of the former at the expense of the latter. A system that begins by
making nature godless, will inevitably end, as Schelling once said, in
making God unnatural. The expedients by which Descartes keeps matter
at a distance from God, were intended to maintain his pure
spirituality; but their ultimate effect was seen in his reduction of
the spiritual nature to mere will. As Christianity has its superiority
over other religions in this, that it does not end with the opposition
of the human to the divine, the natural to the spiritual, but
ultimately reconciles them, so a true idealism must vindicate its
claims by absorbing materialism into itself. It was, therefore, a true
instinct of philosophy that led Spinoza to raise matter to the
co-equal of spirit, and at the same time to protest against the
Cartesian conception of matter as mere inert mass, m