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GENERAL SURVEY. 13
since by the one we learn what it is that is meant, and by
the other that such a thing exists. Like an oracle of the
future, he pronounces the sentence : TO & eivai OVK ovaia
ovCfvi" ov yap yevoQ TO ov : (ESSE autem uullius rei essentia
est, quandoquidem ens non est genus) which means :
"
Existence never can belong to the essence of a thing."
On the other hand, we may see how great
was Herr von
Schelling s veneration for the Ontological Proof in a long
"
note, p. 152, of the 1st vol. of his Philosophische Schriften"
of 1809. We may even see in it something still more in
structive, i.e., how easily G-ermans allow sand to be thrown
in their eyes by impudence and blustering swagger. But for
so thoroughly pitiable a creature as Hegel, whose whole
pseudo-philosophy is but a monstrous amplification of the
Ontological Proof, to have undertaken its defence against
Kant, is indeed an alliance of which the Ontological Proof
itself might be ashamed, however little it may in general
be given to blushing. How can I be expected to speak with
deference of men, who have brought philosophy into con
tempt ?
*
8. Spinoza.
Although Spinoza s philosophy mainly consists in the
of the double dualism between God and the
negation
world and between soul and body, which his teacher,
Descartes, had set up, he nevertheless remained true to his
master in confounding and interchanging the relation be
tween reason and consequence with that between cause and
effect he even endeavoured to draw from it a still
;
greater
advantage for his own metaphysics than Descartes for his,
for he made this confusion the foundation of his whole
Pantheism.
A conception contains implicate all its essential predi
cates, so that they may be developed out of it explicite by
means of mere analytical judgments: the sum total of