But neither the simple concept of Being, which is derived from experience and framed by abstraction, nor the additional concept of self-existent Being, which springs from the action of our rational faculties on the data furnished by experience, can afford any explanation of the nature and origin of the real, concrete existences in the universe.

These must be studied in the light of their own appropriate evidence; they must be interpreted, and not divined; they cannot be inferred deductively from any, even the highest and most abstract, conception of the human mind.

Yet the philosophy of Spinoza attempts to explain all the phenomena of the universe by the idea of Absolute Being; it accounts for the concrete by the abstract; it represents all individual beings as mere modes or affections of one universal substance; in other words, it _realises_ the abstract idea of thought and extension, but _denies the existence_ of bodies and souls, otherwise than as manifestations of these eternal essences.
4.

The system of Spinoza is vicious, because his whole reasoning on the subject of Creation is pervaded by a transparent fallacy.

He affirms the impossibility of Creation, and attempts to demonstrate his position.