eibniz subordinate such conceptions
as these to the fundamental identity that pervades the whole. With
Spinoza the attributes belong to the same absolute substance, and with
Leibniz the monads represent the one universe. And with both, finally,
the perfection of knowledge, or the knowledge of God, is
indistinguishable from its object, God himself. The epistemological
subtleties peculiar to these philosophers are not stable doctrines, but
render inevitable either a return to the simpler and bolder realism of
the Greeks, or a passing over into the more radical and systematic
doctrine of absolute idealism.

[Sidenote: The Stoic and Spinozistic Ethics of Necessity.]

Sect. 168. We have met with two general motives, both of which are
subordinated to the doctrine of an absolute being postulated and sought
by philosophy. The one of these motives leads to the conception of the
absolutely necessary and immutable substance, the other to the
conception of a consummate perfection. There is an _interpretation of
life_ appropriate to each of these conceptions. Both agree in regarding
life seriously, in defining reason or philosophy as the highest human
activity, and in emphasizing the identity of the individual's good with
the good of the universe. But there are striking differences of tone and
spirit.

Although the metaphysics of the Stoics have various affiliations, the
Stoic code of morality is the true practical sequel to the
Eleatic-Spinozistic view of the world. The Stoic is one who has set his
affections on the eternal being. He asks nothing of it for himself, but
identifies himself with it. The saving grace is a sense of reality. The
virtuous man is not one who remakes the world, or draws upon it for his
private uses; even less one who rails against it, or complains that it
has used him ill. He is rather one who recognizes that there is but one
really valid claim, that of the universe itself. But he not only submits
to this claim on account of its superiority; he makes it his own. The
discipline of Stoicism is the regulation of the individual will to the
end that it may coincide with the universal will. There is a part of man
by virtue of which he is satisfied with what things are, whatever they
be. That part, designated by the Stoics as "the ruling part," is the
reason. In so far as man seeks to understand the laws and natures which
actually prevail, he cannot be discontented with anything whatsoever
that may be known to