[Footnote 1:  J. Freudenthal, Spinoza und die Scholastik in the Philosophische Aufsaetze, Zeller zum 50-Jaehrigen Doktorjubilaeum gewidmet, Leipsic, 1887, p. 85 seq.  Freudenthal’s proof covers the Cogitata Metaphysica and many of the principal propositions of the Ethics.]

[Footnote 2:  The Spanish Jesuit, Francis Suarez, lived 1548-1617. Works, Venice, 1714 Cf.  Karl Werner, Suarez und die Scholastik der letzten Jahrhunderte, Regensburg, 1861.]

[Footnote 3:  M. Joel, Don Chasdai Crescas’ religions-philosophische Lehren in ihrem geschichtlichen Einfluss, 1866; Spinozas Theo.-pel.  Traktat auf seine Quellen geprueft, 1870; Zur Genesis der Lehre Spinozas mit besonderer Beruecksichtigung des kurzen Traktats, 1871.]

[Footnote 4:  Spinozas neu entdeckter Traktat elaeutert u. s. w., 1866; Spinozas kurzer Traktat uebersetzt mit Einleitungen und Erlaeuterungen, 1870.]

[Footnote 5:  Ueber die beiden ersten Phasen des Spinozistischen Pantheismus und das Verhaeltniss der zweiten zur dritten Phase, 1868.]

[Footnote 6:  Spinozana in Fichte’s Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie vols. xxxvi., xlii., lvii., 1860-70.]

The logical presuppositions of Spinoza’s philosophy lie in the fundamental ideas of Descartes, which Spinoza accentuates, transforms, and adopts.  Three pairs of thoughts captivate him and incite him to think them through:  first, the rationalistic belief in the power of the human spirit to possess itself of the truth by pure thought, together with confidence in the omnipotence of the mathematical method; second, the concept of substance, together with the dualism of extension and thought; finally, the fundamental mechanical position, together with the impossibility of interaction between matter and spirit, held in common with the occasionalists, but reached independently of them.  Whatever new elements are added (e. g., the transformation of the Deity from a mere aid to knowledge into its most important, nay, its only object; as, also, the enthusiastic, directly mystical devotion to the all-embracing world-ground) are of an essentially emotional nature, and to be referred less to historical influences than to the individuality of the thinker.  The divergences from his predecessors, however, especially the extension of mechanism to mental phenomena and the denial of the freedom of the will, inseparable from this, result simply from the more consistent application of Cartesian principles.  Spinoza is not an inventive, impulsive spirit, like Descartes and Leibnitz, but a systematic one; his strength does not lie in brilliant inspirations, but in the power of resolutely thinking a thing through; not in flashes of thought, but in strictly closed circles of thought.  He develops, but with genius, and to the end.  Nevertheless this consecutiveness of Spinoza, the praises of which have been unceasingly