The origin of each of these concepts may thus be naturally accounted for by the known laws of our mental constitution, without having recourse to any faculty of _intellectual intuition_ such as Spinoza describes,--a faculty independent of experience, and superior to it,--a faculty which gazes direct on Absolute Being, and penetrates, without the aid of any intermediate sign or manifestation, into the very essence of God.

Spinoza has not discriminated aright between these two concepts, in respect either of their nature or their origin.

He has not overlooked, indeed, the distinction, between _abstract ideas_ and the _intellectual intuitions_, of which he speaks; but he confounds the concept of _being_ with the concept of _self-existent being_, as if the two were identical, or as if _being_ could not be predicated of anything, otherwise than as it is a "mode" or affection of the one only "substance." A sounder Psychology has taught us that our conception of existence arises, in the first instance, from our own conscious experience; and that, when this conception subsequently expands into the idea of Absolute Being, and results in the belief of a necessary, self-existent, and eternal Cause, the new element which is thus added to it may be accounted for by the _principle of causality_, which constitutes one of the fundamental laws of human thought, and which, if it may be said to resemble _intuition_ in the rapidity and clearness with which it enables us to discern the truth, differs essentially from that _immediate intuition_ of which Spinoza speaks, since it is dependent on experience, and, instead of gazing direct on Absolute Being, makes use of intermediate signs and manifestations, by which it rises to the knowledge of "the unseen and eternal." We submit, further, that a system which rests on the mere idea of Being as its sole support, cannot afford any satisfactory explanation of real and concrete existences.

The idea of Being is one of our most abstract conceptions; it is associated, indeed, with an invincible belief in the reality of Being,--a belief which springs up spontaneously, along with the idea itself, from our own conscious experience.

It is even associated with an invincible belief in necessary, self-existent, and eternal Being,--a belief which springs from _the principle of causality_, or that law of thought whereby, from the fact that something exists now, we instinctively conclude that something _must_ have existed from all eternity.