Pantheism is rather difficult, and Goethe once remarked: "I have never yet met anybody who knew exactly what the word signified." The term was first made use of by Toland in 1705, and is derived from the Greek πâv (pan), everything, and Ocós (theos), God, and thus teaches, as the name indicates, that God is everything, or that everything is God. God and the cosmos, or the world, are not separate, but one and the same substance. There is no personal, extra-mundane God, as anthropomorphic Theism or even Deism maintains. Pantheism deprives God of all His human attributes, disanthropomorphizes Him, denies His personality, and identifies Him with the universe. He is the ever-creative, ever-active force of nature, the cause and design, the spirit whose thoughts are nature and reality. The world is His manifestation, nature His robe. If there were anything besides God, He would no longer be infinite, omnipotent, and omnipresent. According to Pantheism, God is present in every atom of the universe, in every grain of sand in the desert, and in every blade of grass in the field. He is present in the leaf that quivers in the breeze, and in the worm that creeps on the ground. Yet not the lightest leaf, That quivers to the passing breeze, Yet not the meanest worm, That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead, Pantheism proclaims, to quote another line of the same poet, Shelley The omnipresence of that spirit In his admirable book, "Religion and Philosophy in Germany," Heinrich Heine gives the following definition of Pantheism, "the hidden religion of Germany": "God is identical with the world. He manifests Himself in the plants, which, without consciousness, lead a cosmicmagnetic life. He manifests Himself in the animals, which in their sensuous dream-life feel a more or less dumb existence. But most gloriously He manifests Himself in man, who both feels and thinks. In man God reaches self-consciousness, and through man He reveals this selfconsciousness; not in and through the individual man, but in and through the whole of mankind. Of all mankind it can truly be said that it is an incarnation of God." $11. To give a complete historical sketch of the theologicocosmological theories would practically mean a history of Philosophy. I shall therefore only mention a few names of those who are connected with the various theories above described, viz. Atomism, Theism, Deism, and Pantheism. The atomic doctrine was first formulated by Leucippus and his disciple, Democritus. Anaxagoras (of Clazomenæ, in Ionia), however, felt the necessity of some power or organizing spirit which would account for the order of the cosmos. He therefore assumed the existence of an element endowed with force, life, and intelligence, active and free, which is the source of order, life, and movement in the world. This power he called vous, nous. His nous, however, is only the spirit that evolves order from chaos; he is the prime mover, but not the creator of matter, which is eternal. In contradistinction to this philosophical view, Theism conceived God as the creator of matter "ex nihilo." This belief is at the basis of all religious creeds. Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, and Kant are all theists. They admit a personal God as the first Cause of the universe. Deism, or Rationalism, conceiving a Supreme Being hovering above things and governing them, not according to its free will, but by means of unchangeable laws, first appeared in England in the eighteenth century, where Toland, M. Tindal, and Shaftesbury were its bestknown defenders. With regard to Pantheism, it had been taught in the Rig-Veda, the Indian sacred book, and by the ancient Greek philosophers of Elea, in Lucania, who were known under the name of the Eleates. And even St. Paul teaches Pantheism when he says, "In Him we live, and move, and have our being." Xenophanes taught that there is only one God, who is identical with the universe Virgil clearly teaches Pantheism in the Sixth Æneid, when he makes Anchises give the following reply: Principio cælum, ac terras, camposque liquentes, Seminibus quantum non noxia corpora tardant, Towards the end of the sixteenth century, Giordano Bruno, braving the threats of the Inquisition, raised his voice against anthropomorphic Theism, and in favour of Pantheism. God, the infinite Being, and the universe are, according to Bruno, but one and the same thing. Those who imagine God as existing by the side of other beings make Him finite. He is neither the creator nor the first mover, but the soul of the world. It was, however, Benedict Spinoza, of Amsterdam (1632–1677), who elaborated the Pantheistic doctrine, and who is therefore considered the Father of Modern Pantheism. Spinozism and Pantheism have, in fact, become synonymous. Spinoza's doctrine can be briefly summed up as follows: There is one substance in the world, which is God. He is infinite and absolute. All other finite substances proceed from God, and are contained in Him. They have only a fleeting, transient existence. God, or the Infinite, has two attributes by which He reveals Himself to us: extension and thought. Extension modified forms bodies, thought modified forms minds. These attributes are the garments woven for God by the "ever-moving shuttles of the roaring loom of time. When Spinoza, the lonely sage of Amsterdam, proclaimed his doctrine, the whole "Swiss Guard of Divinity' rose against the enemy, accusing him of Atheism. He was, however, far from atheistic. On the contrary, Spinoza was full of love for the Deity, which he felt throughout nature. From the brimming goblet of nature he had drunk divinity in deep draughts, until he was intoxicated with it. There was nothing but divinity for him. In spite of the violent attacks directed against him, Spinoza exercised an immense influence over the greatest minds of Europe. Schiller, Goethe, Lessing, Herder, Schleiermacher, Heine, and Shelley were all Pantheists or Spinozists. Goethe has expressed his pantheistic creed in "Faust and in his poem, "Gott und die Welt." Was wär' ein Gott, der nur von aussen stiesse, So das, was immer lebt, und webt, und ist, PROCEMION.' Der Allumfasser, Der Allerhalter, Fasst und erhält er nicht Dich, mich, sich selbst? Und drängt nicht alles Nach Haupt und Herzen dir, Und webt in ewigem Geheimniss, Unsichtbar Sichtbar über dir, Erfüll davon dein Herz so gross-es ist, Und wenn du ganz in dem Gefühle selig bist Nenn's Glück! Herz! Liebe! Gott!-FAUST.2 1 What God would outwardly alone control, And does not all that is, Seen and unseen, mysterious All, Around thee, and within, Untiring agency, Press on thy heart and mind, Fill thy whole heart with it, and when thou art Then call it what thou wilt, Happiness-heart-love-God! CHAPTER XII THE ETHICAL PROBLEM § 1. AMONG the ethical and moral problems which philosophers of all ages have endeavoured to solve, and to which they have devoted their thoughts, are following: the (1) The origin and source of our sense of morality; (2) The inner motives which make us obey the dictates of our moral sense, and thus shape our conduct; (3) The aims, purpose, and ultimate result which we endeavour to attain by our moral actions; (4) The criterion and standard by which our actions are regulated. §2. The first question is that of the origin of the moral feeling: How do we know that one particular action is moral and another immoral? How does the human conscience apprehend and distinguish the good from the bad, the right from the wrong? And, do we not see that what is considered moral, right, and good by some men, by some generations, or in certain localities, is judged as bad, wrong, and immoral in a different age or locality? To this question two answers have been given. Certain philosophers maintained that the capacity of distinguishing between right and wrong, good and evil, moral and immoral, is innate in every man. It may differ slightly according to period and environment, but it is fundamentally present in every individual. Everybody is possessed of an immediate knowledge which teaches him to recognize the intrinsic worth of moral ideals. This knowledge is intuitive. We feel without being taught that a |