Page:Journal of Speculative Philosophy Volume 16.djvu/256

249 relative difference, or of their absolute indifference, or of their philosophical difference in indifference — that is, of their harmony or mediated union. (To be continued.)

— THE PANTHEISM OF SPINOZA. BY JOHN DEWEY. The problem of philosophy is to determine the meaning of things as we find them, or of the actual. Since these things may be gathered under three heads, the problem becomes: to determine the meaning of Thought, Nature, and God, and the relations of one to another. The first stage of thought being Dogmatism, the first philosophy will be that of the common uneducated mind — Natural Realism. God, self, and the world are three independent realities, and the meaning of each is just what it seems to be. If, however, they are independent realities, how can they relate to each other? This question gives rise to the second stage of Dogmatic Philosophy, which, according to the mind of the holder, takes either the direction of Dogmatic Idealism or a Dualism with God as the Deus ex Machina, like that of Descartes. The reconciliation of the elements here involved leads to the third stage, where God becomes the Absolute, and Nature and Self are but his manifestations. This is Pantheism, and the view-point of Spinoza. Thought and being become one; the order of thought is the order of existence. Now a final unity seems obtained, and real knowledge possible.

The problem of philosophy being to determine the meaning of the Actual, its final test must be the completeness with which its answer agrees with and accounts for the Actual. By this we do not mean, of course, that its interpretation must agree with the common interpretation. There is certainly no shadow of reason for supposing that the metaphysic of the uneducated mind is the final one to which all metaphysic must conform. But every philosophy must answer this question: Does it provide the factors which in their development account for the Actual as it is inter-