XV.
I had an even deeper perception of my initiation when I went back from Hegel to Spinoza and, filled with awe and enthusiasm, read the Ethica for the first time. Here I stood at the source of modern pantheistic Philosophy. Here Philosophy was even more distinctly Religion, since it took Religion's place. Though the method applied was very artificial, purely mathematical, at least Philosophy had here the attraction of a more original type of mind, the effect being much the same as that produced by primitive painting, compared with a more developed stage. His very expression, God or Nature, had a fascinating mysticism about it. The chapter in the book which is devoted to the Natural History of passions, surprised and enriched one by its simple, but profound, explanation of the conditions of the human soul. And although his fight against Superstition's views of life is conducted with a keenness that scouts discussion, whereas in modern Philosophy the contention is merely implied, it seemed as though his thoughts travelled along less stormy paths.
In Hegel, it had been exclusively the comprehensiveness of the thoughts and the mode of the thought's procedure that held my attention. With Spinoza it was different. It was his personality that attracted, the great man in him, one of the greatest that History has known. With him a new type had made its entrance into the world's History; he was the calm thinker, looking down from above on this earthly life, reminding one, by the purity and strength of his character, of Jesus, but a contrast to Jesus, inasmuch as he was a worshipper of Nature and Necessity, and a Pantheist. His teaching was the basis of the faith of the new age. He was a Saint and a Heathen, seditious and pious, at the same time.