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source of the evil and sin in the world. It is necessary to admit that Plato held that beneath the perpetual changes of sensible phenomena there was an unchangeable subject, different from the Deity and the Divine ideas, existing in a sphere independent of temporal origination, not produced by the Divine will, yet required as the means and occasion of the manifestation of Divine intelligence in the organisation of the world.

Aristotle distinctly taught the eternity both of matter and of the universe, but he conceived of primary matter as a mere capacity,-not as an actual substantial existence, which necessarily implies a synthesis of matter and form, dependent on the action of an energising cause, which must be both an efficient and a final cause. "Matter, in the theory of Aristotle," says Sir Alexander Grant, "is something which must always be presupposed, and yet which always eludes us, and flies back from the region of the actual into that of the possible. Ultimate matter, or 'first timber,' necessarily exists as the condition of all things, but it remains as one of those possibilities which can never be realised, and thus forms the antithesis to God, the ever-actual. From all this it may be inferred that Aristotle would have considered it very unphilosophical to represent Matter, as some philosophers of the present day appear to do, as having had an independent existence, and as having contained the germs, not only of all other things, but even of Reason itself, so that out of Matter Reason was developed. According to Aristotle, it is impossible to conceive Matter at all as actually existing, far less as the one independent antecedent cause of all things; and it is equally impossible to think of Reason as non-existent, or as having had a late and derivative origin."-Ancient Classics for English Readers, "Aristotle," pp. 167, 168.

The Stoic conception of the relation of God to the world is very similar to the Aristotelian. They are viewed as two distinguishable yet inseparable aspects of Being two sides of the one all-comprehensive existence -two phases of the one actual substance. God is the productive energy, and matter is the ground or substratum on and in which this energy works. God is that by which, and matter is that through which, everything is; and in all things both coexist, neither pure spirit nor pure matter having actual existence.

Various reasons were given by the Greek philosophers for denying the creation of matter and for affirming its eternity. Their weakness is very ably shown in Pearson's work 'On the Creed,' Art. I., chap. v.

NOTE XXXVII., page 358.

JORDANO BRUNO.

There never should have been any doubt entertained as to the indebtedness of Spinoza to Bruno; but since the discovery of the Brief Treatise' of the latter, it is possible only in the minds of those who are not competently informed. A single fact may be mentioned to show how the discovery has thrown light on the relationship.

Appended to the second chapter of the ' Brief Treatise' are two dialogues-the first between the personifications, Understanding, Love, Reason, and Desire; and the second between two interlocutors, Erasmus and Theophilus. The German critical historians of phil

osophy have started a controversy as to whether these dialogues were written before, or after, or along with the rest of the treatise. As to the direct and immediate object of their inquiry, they seem to me to have done. little more than raise a very thick cloud of dust, the reverse of helpful to clear vision; but they have brought out one important fact-viz., that the second and longer of these dialogues, which is occupied with the idea of God, the fundamental idea in Spinoza's system, may be almost composed, pieced together, from sentences of Bruno. That there were many general resemblances between the doctrine of Spinoza and of the celebrated Neapolitan pantheist-that there were even some resemblances so special that they could only be accounted for by the later thinker having received from the earlierhad already been perceived; but the fact now mentioned has naturally led to a great deal of renewed and minute inquiry in this direction. The consequence has been that Spinoza has been ascertained to have absorbed Bruno not less than Descartes.

On Bruno, see Chr. Bartholmèss, 'Jordano Bruno,' 2 tom. (1846-47), and Domenico Berti, 'Vita di Giordano Bruno' (1868). There are two instructive articles on his philosophy by Prof. Barach in the 13th vol. of the 'Philosophische Monatshefte.' His Italian works have been edited by Wagner, and some of his Latin works by Gfrörer.

There is a good 'Histoire du Panthéisme Populaire au Moyen Age et au Seizième Siècle,' by Auguste Jundt.

NOTE XXXVIII., page 375.

SPINOZA.

The discovery first of letters of Spinoza and then of the Brief Treatise, concerning God, Man, and Human Happiness,' has recently given a fresh stimulus to the study of his writings. It has brought into the foreground the questions, What were the sources of his philosophy? and, How did it grow up in the mind of its author? It has lighted the way to the answers.

As regards the inquiry into the sources of his doctrine, here, as everywhere else in the history of philosophy, the result of investigation has been proof of the falsity and shallowness of the notion of Hegel that philosophies have succeeded one another in a single linear series, like beads on a string, or Indians in a file, or like a straight line of buckets, each lesser destined to be emptied into a bigger in front of it. Here, as everywhere else, it has been found that the history of philosophy is not in the least like a single thread, but is rather like a very broad web; and that a great man does not hang on to a particular other great man, but rather to the whole past and the whole present. Another result is that Spinoza has been ascertained to have borrowed far more from others than was supposed. It has taken long to make out, even approximately, the extent to which he was indebted to others, because, like most writers of his age, he very seldom gives a reference to authors who had preceded him; when he does refer to them, it is generally to indicate dissent from some of their views. The result ascertained was, however, one which might

have been anticipated, and which will lower no reasonable man's estimate of Spinoza's ability. The vast system which he constructed, viewed as a whole, is one of the most original which the entire history of philosophy presents. It certainly would have been neither so vast nor so original had the architect attempted to make his bricks for himself.

In the previous note I have mentioned that Spinoza has been shown by the recent investigations to have owed not a little to Bruno. It must be added that he has been proved beyond all doubt to have derived far more from authors of his own race than had been supposed. He will never be understood by any one who forgets that he was by birth and training a Jew; that the first and most powerful influences which acted on his mind were Jewish; that he knew the Hebrew Scriptures from his youth; that he was early initiated into the study of the Talmud; that he had become conversant even before he left school with the writings of the famous Jewish scholars and thinkers who lived in France, Spain, North Africa, &c., during the middle ages. This has often been practically forgotten, however, owing to the want of Jewish learning which exists among Gentiles. A working knowledge of Hebrew is one of the rarest accomplishments among Gentile philosophers. Hence, had

the Jews themselves not come to the rescue, we would probably still have been ignorant of the closeness and comprehensiveness of the relation between Spinoza and earlier Jewish thinkers. But this they have done, and the works of Franck and Munk, Joël and Mises, Bernays, Benemozegh, and Jarackewsky, &c., have to a great extent laid bare those roots of Spinozism which were fixed in Jewish soil. They have amply proved that, to be

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