The unity, especially of the human soul, its individuality, its self-consciousness, its identity, as a being, dependent, indeed, on God, but really distinct from Him, must be sacrificed, if the system is to be saved; and no other being can be recognized but the absolute "substance," with its infinite "attributes" and its finite "modes." This consideration appears to us to be fatal to the whole theory.

For it shows that the Pantheistic speculations, which are directed against _the personality of God_, are equally conclusive, if they be conclusive at all, against _the personality of Man_; that they run counter to the intuitive knowledge of the human mind; and that they cannot be embraced without doing violence to some of our clearest and surest convictions.
For what clearer or surer conviction can there be than that of my own personal existence, as a distinct, self-conscious, intelligent, active, and responsible being?
And yet the existence of our own bodies and souls is denied, except in so far as they are mere "modes" or affections of the one uncreated "substance," which is known, not by experience or observation, but by a transcendental faculty of intuition.
And, _finally_, the system of Spinoza is vicious, because the exposition of it is replete with the most manifest and glaring self-contradictions.

His logical power has been so much admired, and his rigorous geometrical method so highly extolled, that his Philosophy has acquired a certain _prestige_, which commends it to many ardent, speculative minds.

Yet there are few philosophical writers who have made a larger number of gratuitous assumptions, or who have abounded more in contradictory statements.

The "Antinomies" of Spinoza might make the subject of an amusing, and even instructive, dissertation.