Spinoza Contra Kant

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Spinoza contra Kant and the Cause of Esprital Truth

By Constantin Brunner

Originally published in German in 1909 as an introduction to Spinoza und sein Kreis

: historisch-kritische Studien ber hollndische Freigeister/ Koenraad Oege

Meinsma.

Published in French asSpinoza contre Kant et la cause de la vrit spirituelle.

Translated and with and introduction by Henri Luri. - Paris : J. Vrin, 1932.

This English translation is based on an unpublished version translated by Henri

Luri. It has been edited and modified by Barrett Pashak. 2007.

Are you narrow-minded, upset by a new word?

Will you only hear that which you've already heard?J.W. Goethe, Spinozist and non-Kantian.

Other than Kant, none among those innovative men whom one calls philosophers

possesses the compelling force of Spinoza, whose majesty is such that it is not without a

certain 'popularity.'

Spinoza and KantSpinoza or Kant!

There lies in this opposition... however, what is to come now is central to the most

serious of matters, and is itself deeply serious, and is not for unthinking people, who

close their ears as soon as they hear anything revolutionary and frankly queer soundingcompared to that to which they are accustomed, especially when it concerns Immanuel

Kant; since they automatically, without knowing how, stand on their guard proclaiming:

"We, all, are Kantians!" So goes the first verse of the battlesong of the scholars: one after

the other they trot behind their Immanuel Kant like lambs behind their mama; against us,however, the meekest of these lambs acts like a tiger cub, straining to roar and act all

bloodthirsty.

For we say: Spinoza and Kant. And we say: Spinoza or Kant! And we find it more

agreeable if, when we say this, the Kant-people, in their fancy, seize us, break us and

annihilate us, than if they were to do the opposite, and pamper and flatter us.

Spinoza and Kantfrom one and from the other emanates respectively the best and the

worst of thought. In Spinoza's system the apparently numerous ideas find their conclusion

in the steadfast awareness of the One, wherefrom each idea emerges renewed in brilliance


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and force, manifesting its solidarity with all the others, together with its own thriving

existence, in the Onein all these ideas lives bright the One idea, as it is said that on all

the stones and pebbles of Mount Sinai a burning bush is reproduced. With all ourthinking we find ourselves enhanced through Spinoza's systematic ideology, which, like a

lively fountain, pervades heart and beingness, bringing purification and edification and

filling us with the pure joy of the Eternal.

On the other hand, Kant, with his metaphysics, splits the one and only reality into many

more disconnected thoughts than are to be found in the average mind, and never goesbeyond the crude data of sensory perceptions. And what could he bring us to modify our

steadfast mindhe, who is so uncertain and superstitious at the bottom of his heart?

Immanuel Kant, the great scholasticgreater than Duns Scotus, doctor subtilis; greater

than Thomas Aquinas, doctor angelicus; greater than Albertus, surnamed the GreatImmanuel the Greatest,scholasticissimus, doctor inexplicabilis, whom no one of his

diligent followers has yet been able to explore, and to tell us if we should consider him as

a skeptic, or as one who shares the superstition of the masses.

But there finally came a merry fellow, my alter-ego, who found out and faithfully

reported (in a work which will be often quoted below) that he, doctorsibi repugnans,belongs to both, to the skeptic and to the superstitious. As far as his superstition is

concerned, it stands midway between the dying religionto which his heart seems

mainly dedicatedand the post-religious new superstition of evolutionism, that young

successor, grown strong in our midst and about ready to take over the leadership, withoutwaiting until the old be dead and gone.

In Kant we have the condensed, palpable moulting of the dominant popular mentality, ie.of superstition; for, once more in human history, superstition is undergoing a

transformation: this time, from religion to that hundred times, thousand times greater

folly of evolutionism. Of course, people are completely unaware of the fact that evolutionrequires just as much faith and credulity on their part as formerly did religion, and that

they have simply found therein some new superstitions. Those who find themselves

liberated from the old superstitions believe themselves now to have freed themselvesfrom all superstition, since in their ignorance of the true nature of superstition, they think

that it may be overcome, and so go on arguing about it in purely negative terms, there

being now nothing left to believe in....

Since the idea that life and death are one and the same ( in Nature everything being

equally positive, as positive as is in general our relative nature itself)since they are

incapable of grasping that true idea, they eventually conclude, that after one passes away,there is nothing left and everything comes to an end. Unaware of the fact that they fall

constantly from one enslaving superstition into another, they would rather make us

believe that with each new one they have now found Truth and Freedom.

In these times of transition between the forms of superstition, many people experience the

same fate as my friend the modern-minded, who during his whole lifetop secret

informationreceived and still receives whippings: in his youth from his parents and


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teachers, as was then fashionable; and today from his children, after the now prevailing

fashion.

In the case of Immanuel Kant, what can we observe of the metamorphosis of superstition

from religion to evolutionism? What function, in the midst of these two superstitions,

does skepticism serve? And how did this supreme mixologist of religion, evolutionismand skepticism grow to become the famous Immanuel Kant, whom people find so

praiseworthy and whom we find so dreadful? Of all this one may find elsewhere the

most complete and pertinent analysis. Here, it will suffice to state the fact thateverybody is praising Kant whobend or breakencompasses in his conscience and

expresses in philosophical terms everything which they, in a less profound way, also

comprehend; and naturally, everything else which simpler people think and believe in.

Isn't that a fact? Aren't most of the people around us little Kants, disposing at theirfingertips of religion, skepticism and of evolutionism; and making out of these three

ingredients a convenient seasoning for their ever-changing opinions? It is their own

sagacity which they are rediscovering or, at least, could very judiciously rediscover

through Kant: for he is the most sagacious; and for him, effectively, the three havebecome one. Even those in whom these elements are more separated can appeal to Kant,

as he seems to reinforce anyone, whatever may be his opinion: a religious believer, areligious skeptic, or a skeptical evolutionist.

We have just defined the three basic types of our present transitional period: the believersin religion, those who combine religion with skepticism, and those who combine

skepticism with a belief in evolutionism. We still disregard for the moment those who

already espouse faithfully the doctrine of evolutionism, although they deserve most ofour attention since their kind will be the leaders in the days to come. For the time being,

however, they are still a minority, and we will be concerned here only with the class of

the most distinguished and advanced people in our present era of transition. This is thecategory of those who combine skepticism with a belief in evolution. Indeed, before the

new belief acquires its hermetical orthodoxy and "free thinking" drops again below zero,

as it had in the past hermetic era of religion, up to that timedespite the already decidedvictory of the new superstitionskepticism will remain on its side. People still have their

skeptical attitude, which had helped to fight against the previously dominant superstition

of religion, the fire of which is extinguished, but the hearth is still warm. It is clear that it

cannot happen without the middling of skepticism: from one summit of superstition to thenext, one passes necessarily over the abyss of skepticism.

We stand nowit is fair to judge an era after its most advanced spirits, who represent itbest and reflect its true characterwe stand presently, I say, under the conjunction of

skepticism and evolutionism, of that wretched evolutionism and that just as wretched

skeptical attitude. You must know: skepticism is an excellent servant and helper againstsuperstition, but it should not become your master in lieu of Truth; by itself, indeed,

skepticism is as wretched as superstition, for both are equally oblivious of Truth. No

doubt about, skepticism has done a good job against religious superstition, and could help

us against the new superstition! But the deep confusion of our times lies precisely in the


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fact that we perceive the conjunction of skepticism and evolutionism, without any

awareness that in reality they stand opposed to each other.

Being what it should be, a skeptical criticism is indeed opposition against any dogmatism

(and there is no other dogmatism than that of superstition, since free-thinkingacknowledges no dogma)whereas among us skepticism does not behave as it should, as

a servant, but as an intolerant master. Among us governs a skepticism sovereign unto

itself, which is sophistry, the sophistry of spiritlessness. One should pay due attention tothe fact that nowadays skepticism reacts differently to evolutionism than it had reacted in

the past to religion, whose enemy and destroyer it has been.

Today it's different, for our skepticism does not antagonize the romance of evolutionismat all; but, without hindering the progressive consolidation of that new superstition, it

thrives beside it as a skepticismper-se, thus as a sophistry which subverts its own essence

and raises itself against Spirit and Truth! "Who is not for me, is against me," would Truth

also say to the skeptic who pretends to remain nothing but a skeptic with his evasive, "Ihave no comment;" and would never commit himself in any direction nor to any opinion

but such an absolutely neutral and impartial doubter is quite unlikely. One shouldrather take for granted that such a position is impossible, and that, because no human

being subscribes to intellectual anarchy, all are inexorably committed either to Truth or to

Superstition. And as far as our modern skepticism is concerned, who could deny that,

instead of being simply neutral toward Truth, it is overtly in contention with Truth, and inopen alliance with the new superstition of evolutionism?

"All the advanced spirits of our times" find themselves, as I said, not with someadvocating skepticism, and the others evolutionismabsolutely not: they find themselves

unanimously devoted, with an apathetic unscrupulousness, to the one and to the other

opposite, to that dreadful mixture of skepticism and evolutionism; skepticism is theirmaster and the superstition of evolutionism is also their master and, hence, they are

serving two masters at once.

Such is the stand of all our advanced spirits, as those who happen to read these pages

could immediately ascertain for themselves and give me thumbs up: Yes, that's how it

looks in my heart, where skepticism and the belief in evolutionism coalesce, and I am one

of those human beings deprived of enthusiasm and of peace of mind!" Such is the standof our advanced spirits, and the stand of those lagging behind is not much better. Only

very few people are distressed and dissatisfied in their hearts and feel (a wonderful

feeling coming from the depth of their beingness!) that they could be happier, that theyhave the obligation to be happier! But although intrinsically alien to the icy skepticism

and to the superstition of their environment, none of them is able to reach out for the

Truth and for the certainty of joyful awareness; their case resembles someone who knowsthat his parents are not the people who during his childhood had usurped that function,

but does not succeed in finding his real parents and his true home.


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Such people will do well to inquire if the peace of mind they seek is to be found in

Spinoza's writings. On their behalf, for the sake of their elucidation and edification, I

have written extensively about the two kinds of human beings: the truly thinking, withtheir Truth; and the others, to whom Truth remains forever invisible and who, instead,

believe in its phantomthe Espritals and the Folk1; as to the last named, one would be

completely mistaken to take the word 'Folk' with its commonplace meaning, for I do notsuffer from such commonplace ailments and do not recognize any other fundamental

difference between human beings, except their unique specific distinction into Espritals

and Folk. This is an antagonism unlike all the other antagonisms encountered amonghumans. All the other antagonisms are those of culture and of prejudice, erected by the

individuals themselves; that's why their softening and reconciliation is always possible

and happens effectively in the course of history.

But the antagonism between the Espritals and the Folk is an antagonism of souls, of

natures, which must always remain what it is, and all attempts to put an end to it and allefforts to make partake the Folk of Esprital awareness were and will remain folly. I call

Folk all those individuals whose thinking is not of the Esprital kind, as apparent alreadyfrom the opposition in the title of my work, The Doctrine of the Espritals and the Folk. Icall therefore Folk all those who do not think like the Espritals, like those who are

productive and/or receptive, either in the scientific methods of philosophy, or in the

sublime arts, or in mystical love (where, of course, the distinction between production

and receptivity becomes meaningless, since here thinking remains entirely in its depth):to think in one of these three forms, that's what I call Espritality. All those whose

thinking is not Esprital I count among the Folk, however important be their scientific

formation and however amazing their intelligence. For intelligence and Espritality aretwo very different things, so that an intelligent individual may be as devoid of spirit i.e.,

of Esprital awareness, as the silliest of idiots; and, that one may be, like Immanuel Kant,

most intelligent and, nevertheless, completely devoid of Esprital awareness, of spirit,meaning, most intelligent and astute in the details, but in deep contradiction with regard

to the conflicts among these details, as I have demonstrated and shown to be the case

with Kant, and as it cannot be otherwise from the standpoint of spiritlessness. Should I be

more explicit about what I mean by spiritless?Well, it is (in opposition to Espritality inits three forms) a thinking incapable of detaching itself from the relativity and negativity

of the finite, or to use Plato's image, "from the ooze of matter," so as to arrive at the

firmness of that Esprital awareness of the absolute or eternal; and, instead, hypostatizesthe relative to a fictitious absolute.

One cannot be more explicit here about the nature of the Folk's superstitious thinking

which, in all respects, is the antithesis of Espritality, and constitutes its inversion. Inpaying due attention to the material content of human thinking, we must recognize the

existence of two energizing principles, fundamentally different and exclusive one of the

other, whereof each permeates all the particular thoughts of the individual who finds

himself under its domination (that's why no progressive instruction could produce hereany change, since there is nothing which could transform one of the principles into its


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opposite); The inner lives of those who are of the Spirit and of those who are of the

Folk are directed by two distinct principles of thinking.

We are constantly facing human beings who belong to two different kinds of inwardnessand whose thoughts are materially as far apart as positive reality is apart from

nothingness. Their specific difference and their antagonism have stirred my attention to

such a degree, that the Doctrine of the Espritals and the Folk had to come forth. Andinstead of saying Espritals and the Folk, I could also sayand in so doing our byword

"Spinoza or Kant" would be placed at the very focus of its meaning and its importance

it would be exactly the same if instead of Espritals and Folk, I would say: Spinozists and

Kantians!

Even though they do not at all call themselves that way and an overwhelming majority

completely ignores Spinoza or Kant, one could nevertheless call them Spinozists and

Kantians; all people are either Spinozists or Kantians.

For Spinoza and Kant are not simply of those particular individuals on account of whomit doesn't greatly matter how they have thought and spoken and what discipleship they

have had, different from the discipleship of others. This is not the way to look at Spinoza

and Kant. One has to view them rather as the two real representatives and protagonists of

the two human types that we postulate: for these two kinds of people never agree in theirways of thinking nor in their outlook on life, without any possible transition from one to

the other kind. Spiritlessness could never come to spirit; and Esprital thought could not

energize a spiritless life, any more than a bell can ring in a vacuum.

What a different inner life these two human types have, meaning: how different their

respective feeling, knowing and willing; and, transcending their relative conscience, howthey experience the ultimate awareness of the absolute. This is made plain by the two

individual paradigms, wherein both types of thinking have reached their highest levels, in

Spinoza and in Kant.

In grasping through them the overt antagonism between the two motivating principles, in

its clearest and loudest expression and with the highest intensity of contrast, we come to

understand how their antagonism effectively permeates and dominates mankind as awhole, and we see clearly the hidden twosome of motivations, generally appearing as

some blind natural drive, which splits humanity into two species.

No doubt, the truth of that difference and the antagonism between the two types of men

will be flatly rejected by one of these types, by all the individuals of the Folk; for, lacking

all Espritality, and without any connection to it, they are completely incapable ofgrasping its meaning. For whatever could there be, after all, that lies outside the

cleverness of the understanding? Instead, they constantly and incorrigibly mistake their

understanding for freethinking and Espritality. However, they do not remain within the

quantum of the practical understanding, but rather they end up in the realm of


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Superstition, where all their thoughts find their effective justification. But all this must

sound to each of them as the most stupid and foolish contention. It is therefore self-

evident that those of the Folk will flatly reject our truth of the division of men into twosoul-races, whereof indeed nothing is visible to the exterior eyes. But should an

individual of the Esprital type also reject it, unaware of the mental difference and of the

difference of people resulting therefrom, and of the constant feud going on between them,of that war without armies, the most gigantic, implacable and the most momentous war in

human history (which until now has been fought on both sides as a merciless war of

subjugation, but could not have been ended with such a result)he who is still unawareof it and ignores the facts, is very far from having adequate ideas about our species, or

maybe has prematurely given up his inquiry. Two types of thinking, that's all: a third, a

fourth, a fifth etc., type of thinking could only be assumed by some very naive and

ignorant people; but that the thinking of all mankind be of one and the same type, this isassumed only by some very naive, uneducated persons, in contradiction to all facts

provided by nature and by historical reality.

And, as among all men one could be certainly found to be the strongest in physicalfitness, such is also no doubt the case for strength of mind. Thus we have the two kinds of

thought which can occupy the human mind: on the one side, the thought of Truth,

wherein real beingness is the only object of our thinking, which thought is strictly

speaking the only one really thinkable; on the other side, that other thought (since wemust use here the same word for designating a thought which has been cheated of its own

content) wherein its own opposite is kept in mind, turned topsy-turvy as the mind's folly

or superstition.

One man exists and must be identified, and I have very good reason to say, as I do, that

Spinoza is that man, solely and uniquely, who has thought most clearly and perfectly inthe way Espritals think, and who has unfailingly thought the whole Truth, always the

same and in harmony with itself.

Then again, there must be also another man who is accordingly related to superstitious

thinking or to the mind's folly, and I have a serious suspicion, a good reason and certainty

enough to assume that in this, in the mind's folly, nobody has been as articulate as

Immanuel Kant, who precisely for that reason is the greatest of all minds among thosewhom I call the Folk. Which means simply: he has thought on all subjects exactly as does

the common man ( I have provided an irrefutable proof for that statement) and therefore

has been the most intelligent of them all, a scholastic who has mastered the whole contentof common thought, of common results, of common prejudice and superstition in the

most sophisticated form and in the most intelligent way. But we know that cleverness is

not EspritalityOh, his amazing soulless sophistication!

From all that is said and shown here about Kant and Spinoza, we simply perceive it as a

fundamental necessityrequiring a certain time for its realization in history, and which

will require still more time indeed as an unparalleled intellectual necessity, that


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Spinoza become more and more the leader of the Espritals, and that Kant become more

and more the leader of the Folk.

The separation started immediately after the first impact of both; and, so to speak, both

were born on the same day. In fact, Spinoza had come one full century earlier, but what

reputation had in his lifetime the great Saint, who accomplished his most amazingmiracles only after his death, after having remained longtime rejected like a "dead dog?"

A few had known him, but it did not count for much, and could hardly be taken into

account, even as exception: what during his lifetime the friends "understood" was badenough, but much worse was what some learned birds of prey, Leibniz the most famous

of them, had concocted out of some of his ideas, into inventions of their own original

philosophy2; and all those tirades of theologians and diabologians against the atrociousatheist have to be mentioned only insofar as they are the chief culprits for Spinoza's

century-long suppression.

It would seem, indeed, as if until one hundred years after his death nobody had beentaken in by his fire. But afterwards! Afterwardsat the same time that with Kant the

Folk's way of thinking had gained momentum and the blow against the Idea was dealt,

the counter-blow immediately followed. Miraculously awakening from the night of

oblivion, Spinoza rose in no time, out of nothingness, into a gigantic shapeirradiated bythe halo of Truth and of Sanctity, a figure as had not excited the imagination of men for

many centuries; and the password resounded: Spinoza or Kant.

***One saw then within a narrow circle what, since then, has appeared progressively

everywhere, in all parts of the world: the quibblers and jingle-rhymers (this is a prick on

Schiller!), the sly and witty, the narrow-shrewish, the great professors of teapots-and-philosophy, who brood nests since they do not have eggs to sit on, all these were

following Kant; whereas there took side at once with Spinoza the really great and free

spirits, our Goethe at their head, who calls Spinoza the Saint and christisissimum andtheissimum and calls himself a fervent disciple; he "feels himself" very close to themaster "although Spinoza's spirit be much deeper and purer than his own."

We will analyze at another occasion how far the thinker and how far the poet Goethe wasstirred by his enthusiasm for Spinoza; of course he was also the poet who, since, has been

called the Spinoza of poetry. In fact, without the spirit of Spinozist thinking no poet nor

artist is really conceivable, and, how important could Spinoza become to each of them!"Indeed, I do not understand how one could be a poet," writes Friedrich Schlegel in his

speech on mythology, "without admiring and loving Spinoza, and becoming his follower.

In the invention of particular subjects your own imagination is rich enough; and tostimulate, to excite it to activity and to provide it with nourishment nothing is more

appropriate than the poetry of other artists. In Spinoza, however, you find the beginning

and the end of all imagination, the general ground and basis on which your own thinking

reposes and that very separation of the primordial, of the eternal awareness, from allindividual and particular objects, should be very welcome to you. Seize the occasion and


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take a look! You are granted a penetrating glance into the innermost workshop of poetry.

And as is his imagination, so his also Spinoza's affectivity. No sensitiveness for this or

that, no passion which rises and falls; but a limpid fragrance hovers invisible-visible overthe whole: everywhere the eternal longing finds a reminiscence soaring from the depth of

the simple opus, which in its quiet grandeur breathes the eternal spirit of primordial

love."

3

I say that all free and active spirits paid homage to Spinoza as to their sovereignfor he

was not one of those pedantic philosophers, but the true king and savior of the Espritals,

of all those who find their inner life in Philosophy, in Art and in Love. And thisfamiliarity with Spinozas ideas coincided with the most important period of modern

German history, with the rising and liberation of all beautiful and noble trends in the

German being; the important part played by these ideas in the said events will be ignoredor undervalued only by those who do not know the power of ideas and how at that period

the rediscovery of Spinoza precipitated everything in utter tension and passion and wasthe fact and reason why all dynamic spirits joined Spinoza.

Their discovery of Spinoza became the discovery of themselves, and areas which until

then were nameless, as the hidden depth which directs their life and generates ideas in

their hearts, suddenly acquired a verbal expression. The limpidity and greatness of theideas then formulated, ideas really thinkable, unconditional and applicable to the whole

web of limitless thought, the grandeur of such a true thinking and the sublimity of its

manifestations, were in such complete harmony with the thinker. This elation has to beunderstood, not as some being-above-life, for such a sublimity would be a very poor one:

above life, outside life and nature is also Kantianism in its scholastic eccentricity and in

its gloomy futility, and was also Kant in his lifebut it was sublimity that was inSpinoza's life. The gigantic figure of that man, comparable to none but to Christ4; such

that, for the first time, it obliged even common sense people to call him "the Saint" and to

get some clue of what philosophy truly meansthat thought exists for lifes sake and that

the thinker is not some scientific investigator whose life, otherwise, would have nothingto do with the ideas of his discipline. Here rather was a man whose life perfectly agreed

with the conception of reality that he taught.

Truly, all the lively, the lively men from the school of Kant, became Neospinozists! In

other words, they became Spinozists. The Kantians became Spinozistswhat happened?

Why did the most prominent KantiansFichte, Schelling, Hegel, the best philosophicalbrains Germany has ever producedbecome Spinozists? One will try in vain to find an

answer to this question in our histories of philosophy, which do not even ask that

legitimate and obvious question. And there is no other answer to it than this one: that itcould not have been otherwise, since these truly philosophical men necessarily saw and

felt how different Benedict Spinoza's stance within philosophy was from that of Kant,

whoto say it in my blunt wayhad nothing in common with philosophy.

For neither his critique nor his postulates, which together constitute his philosophy, have


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in fact anything to do with philosophy. The whole content of his original-philosophy is

that of vulgar superstition, of thoughts out of the lowest levels of awareness, since he was

unable to learn anything from Spinoza, the content of whose ideasas the trulyphilosophical men were obliged to seecame from his own system, of that most genuine

philosophy which had shaken the foundations of superstition. It was therefore ridiculous

to allegedly submit the same foundations to a new shake-up with scholastic criticism,and, far worse than ridiculous, to extol them as still valid, once the critical shock was

over.

Truly philosophical minds were not willing to look at things in the same way as their

predecessors of the 18th century. For the great scholar of the Age of Enlightenment haddone nothing else in his laboriously concocted original-philosophy than what scholastics

had done all along: after having exercised their sharp criticism over the content of

superstition, to pledge their unbroken faith in it. That was not philosophy. The most

original oddity and fussiness in combating superstition and in embracing that samesuperstition is still not philosophy, for in order to merit its name, philosophy must deal

with the one and only positive Truth. It makes a tremendous difference to see and torecognize Truth, or to shriek in agony "Oh, God! Oh, God!"

He who does not know Immanuel Kant's writings will believe that I slander; he who

knows them and calls me nevertheless a slanderer, that I cannot help. But he who does

not know them as yet and, in this matter of crucial importance, is not willing to go onbelieving something just because a great many other people believe it, he will have to

read for himself the writings of Kant, or at leastwhich will be much easier for himto

read what I said on that subject in my Doctrine.

He will then say as I do: Everything, everything revolves for Kant around the trinity of

God, Liberty, and Immortality. These three words do not at all signify for him some

special meaning, for he uses them in the most familiar way of commonplace religion with

its personal God who has created man after His own likeness"So much the worse fordear God if I resemble Him!" could have said Immanuel Kant very conveniently with

Frederick the Great, if he were so capable. Also, from Goethe: "The honorable professor

is a person, but God is none!" If only he could have listened to this.5

But he could not do it, he could not think otherwise and could not discuss nor believe

something other than superstition. Such being the case and seeing that Spinoza's stance in

regard to philosophy was so entirely different, this was what then gave our important menof that time a new awareness and made the Kantians among them become non-Kantians


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and Spinozists. They saw and felt in what a unique relationship to philosophy stood the

man Spinoza, which by itself explains their enthusiastic statements about him.

As soon as they started thinking in his way, they also became well aware of the fact that

Spinoza did not come with new ideas nor with a new philosophy: it was the philosophy of

the human mind, it was their own unflinching conscience, unimpaired by superstition."Human reason left alone, leads to nothing other than to Spinozism and it is impossible

that it direct us elsewhereif the world still keeps on going for a countless number of

years, its universal religion will be some refined Spinozism," believed Lichtenberg; who

also said that "Spinoza has thought the highest idea that ever entered a human brain."

Schelling calls Spinoza "the first philosopher who found the concepts whereby all thefollowing centuries have grasped and fixed the two extremities of our knowing mind."

For Lessing and Herder philosophy and Spinozism were identical; and the samestatement was also made by Hegel, the most comprehensive and systematic, as well as

the most independent and firm, among the German philosophers, who did not attempt,

like Leibnitz, Fichte or Schelling, to reshape again and again his original-philosophy.

And Hegel also said, "either you have Spinozism or you have no philosophy!"

And this is certainly the right way of speaking about Spinozism, as we also intend to

speak about it, with an ever increasing emphasis, and in turning our backs on those petty

philologists who, also, become occasionally solemn in their lessons on Spinoza: they aresolemn at the start and at the end, but in between they exhibit an ecstatic self-confidence

(due to the present-day misconceptions of that miserable philology which is incapable of

any right approach to life) for being personally habilitated to reveal some importantmistakes and flaws of that same Spinoza, whom great men and the greatest have so

unconditionally glorified.

We turn our backs on all those incompetents, and look back to the competent men, how

they spoke about Spinozism, and in speaking in our turn as they did. For we could notspeak in another way about the one and only system of thinking that remains free of all

objections and of all contradictions. He who feels obliged to speak here differently

happens to speak about something other than Spinozism, and his criticism is irrelevantand futile, serving only to confuse weaklings and ignorant peopleand it must needs

proceed from a confused mind. To say it dryly and bluntly: all the many objections

against Spinozism, together with all the many alleged right things invented by our

original metaphysicians to counter Spinoza, all this is a matter of the Folk's way of


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thinking, which normally contradicts not only Spinozism, but even itself; we see how all

their pretended objections and truths cancel each other and sooner or later are rejected as

absurd, but Spinozism is not canceled thereby: if they contradict it because of its allegedflaws, it happens exactly in the same way as we call a solar eclipse that which in reality is

an eclipse of our Earth.

There is such a thing as an inability to think Spinozism, but there is no such a thing as acontradiction to a truly thought Spinozism. For Spinozism is the enunciated one and only

Truth of our mind; against it there is no contradiction nor any adverse criticism, for that

would have to be a "Critique of Pure Thinking," in other words of our very beingness,

which critique is only possible as an illusion and a scholastic game in a mind oblivious toits true self and with its split conscience completely entered into and lost amidst the

patterns of relativity, so that, blinded by all the absurdities, it tends to oppose its own

absolute being.

A Critique of pure thinking would be a critique of our beingness which we truly and

really are, and, without which we are really and truly nothing: a critique of pure thinking

would be Thought-critiquing-itself just as Baron Mnchhausen pulls himself out of the

morass. TheSse two mendacious stories do not fool us, despite the very temptingcharacter of the images, suggesting a Mnchhausen outside himself and also Thought

existing outside itself, and thereby thinking itself and mnchhausing.

It will suffice to indicate here their scholastic business in "pure nothingness," in theircritique of thinking, and in their critique of Spinozism, including naturally their

"immanent critique" of it. Let us repeat once more: Spinozism as such will never be an

object, and hence not a disputed object for a conscience where Truth instantly vanishesand is replaced by something other and opposite. It stands against that "otherness,"

against the degradation of absolute thought into absolutized relativity and negativity, into

that immanentized, antithethic thought of the Folk (and such it remains, even if one

introduces as one of its components a special scholastic term, e.g. the word "postulate"),which creates its critique against its own figments. But the Espritals, who think

positively, standing above all this antithesis, are aware of the Spinozist idea; as long as

they really abide by their free spirit, they have to speak about Spinozism in the way wehave just heard, as of the unique and natural system of thinking.

Spinoza himself spoke about it in a very significant way, in confessing that he hadn't

invented any new philosophy, that he knew only that he understood the true oneand

that philosophy was to him no less certain than that the three angles of a triangle equal


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two right angles.

Did one hear correctly this confession and did one derive from it a lesson? I doubt it,

but his statement is important and stands unique among all philosophers. Also, none ofthe others has ever tried to avoid having his opus named after him! One should start

thinking about that statement, in considering at the same time the simplicity and the

naturalness in the system of the man who denied to his philosophy any originality, incontrast to the system builders with their "original-philosophies" (including also those

plagiaristic botchers who pollute and poison the waters immediately at their source), with

all their artifice, violence, hoisting, whims and fakes, wherefrom none of them could

refrain, neither the greatest and smartest, nor the smallest and dullest. There are indeedpeople pretending that they have invented a new philosophy but who have not invented

even gunpowder!

But we do not browse around in the "danse macabre" of the original philosophers whoadvertise their own findings, the freaks of their knowledge, as the chief concern of

philosophy, since the chief concern of philosophy has nothing to do with findings, but

only with the finding-of-oneself; and not at all through knowledge but in beingness, the

finding of oneself in the unity of the truly essential Being.

This absolutely true philosophy stands before us in the works and sayings of Spinoza.

We have here more than philosophy!I would say so if only I knew another name for

our most precious jewel and treasure, and if it were not anyhow clear to all the clear-minded who keep it as the uppermost treasure of humanity, that they cherish in it

something else than the kind of philosophy of those finders and most prolific inventors.6

Those finders and inventors do not know what thinking and philosophy really are,because they are not aware of the chief concern of the human mind and its thinking. Only

insofar as they are preoccupied with their own originality do they enter into thinking, and

wishing to be original makes them act as fools.

What would mean Spinoza to me if I did not have to recognize what remains totally

hidden to the others because of their complete blindness of judgment through the sheer

prejudice of common talk? For I have to recognize and to confess that in theEthics of

Spinoza, in that most perfect life-tool, the innermost conscience of man is put into aneffective system, wherein philosophy i.e., the whole realm of ideas, generated out of the


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Spinoza's writings it is well known to what extent he possessed the gift of clarity, as well

as the rare ability to present, out of the profoundest depth of conscience, even difficult

and daring ideas in a large and vivid development and make it easy to grasp them.

No thinker will ever find a lack of clarity in Spinoza; indeed, he does not belong to those

writers of whom Marheineke once said that one must read their sentences three times: thefirst time understanding nothing at all, the second time understanding a little, and the

third time still nothing. Spinoza is clear at all times. Why, then, next to the fully

developed ideas, are some ideas given in a very concise form (and it is this concision thatis mistaken by many readers as confusion); and precisely so in the Ethics, in his life-

work? Because indeed the Ethics has been his life-work, but the work of a short life! He

knew that it was to be short, and so he had to keep on writing his work, but without

revealing his urgent haste, the oppressing "Terar dum prosim!" for "a free men thinks ofnothing less than of death and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life"

(Eth.IV./67)in making it as clear as possible, but also as concise as possible, so that it

might be available at all events and that he may die; for in this single respect he panders

to death and even fears death, that it may come to pass before his mission has beenaccomplished.

Spinoza accomplished his mission in life quite a number of years before he diedand yet

he had not finished it as long as he lived. His work was always finished and neverfinished. He had adopted that unique and peculiar arrangement whereby the writer was

subsequently able to lengthen the concise form and go here and there into details.

Without breaking the uniformity and without impairing the artful structure of his work,he was able to add by and by details to some of the essential propositions, and to enrich

the exposition through various explanations, corollaries, notes, and appendices. Spinoza

did so as long as he lived, as much as he was capable of; to create in still more places thatprecision of discourse, often of such a classical and heartful sincerity, and in adding

everywhere to its intelligibility also the compulsion to understandonly by death was it

cut short.

But, as already said, his work is nevertheless complete and none of the ideas of reality are

missing; although some are put so briefly and then left behind, such that only very few

readers indeed will catch their profound meaning, all the more so as good reading is asrare as good writing. To be sure, Spinoza's most powerful sayings are his shortest; but

precisely because they are so powerful and sublime, their shortness should not matter at

all: in Omnia animata quamvis diversis gradibus (whereof I have tried in thepneumatology of my doctrine to develop the profound meaning), or even more so in his

proposition of the infinitis attributis ( whereof I will provide later on an explanation)

[Done in Materialism and Idealism]. What a megathos of communication created out ofthe bottomless energy of scientific thinking and imagination, overwhelming our minds

and exalting to the skies our souls! Oh, no other man has ever spoken like Spinoza, the

great and nowhere mediocre. The longer and keener one clings to him the better one sees

how powerful and healthy is everything he offers, so entirely different from what is to be


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relation to the other states of motion of the world.

But in order to understand it that way, one has to grasp the complete inter-operability offeeling, knowing and willing; which all three together constitute our thinking, or our life

a life which exists, as exists the whole of relative reality and wherein consists its

nature, through motion and in motion. Our practical understanding i.e., our feeling-knowing-willing, or our consciousness, is our awareness of being what we are, or more

exactly: of our being moved and of our moving within the motion of the universe of

things.

Our consciousness of being and our being itself are truly one and the same, unum et idem.The fact that with our practical understanding we cannot comprehend anything other than

thingly motion (and that solely from the perspective of our specific thingly

consciousness), as well as the fact of this our faculty to grasp thingly motion in general,

are proofs of the unum et idem: Ordo et connexio idearum idem est ac ordo et connexiorerum, the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of

things, as writes Spinoza.

Thought concerning this relative existence of ours, which I call the practical

understanding because it is the understanding of our praxis, and serves its entire range, all

sciences included, in view of our life-oriented activities and our self-preservation, isincluded and sublimated in what I call our Esprital thinking. Here in Esprital thinking, as

idealists, we grasp ourselves absolutely and in truth, in the unity which constitutes the

true nature of the whole world of motion, of all the diverse and antagonisticindividualities, whereof none is in harmony with another, nor even with itself (for each

has parts and changes, is sometimes here, sometimes there), whereof none truly exists. In

the absolute unity of true beingness this simply unthinkable, nonexistent relativity(whereto we must attribute a substratum of beingness in order to think it relatively), in the

Absolute, I say, in the One which alone is truly thinkable, and where we finally acquire

the proper content of our thinking, the whole of relativity finds itself positivelysublimated.

And this is precisely the case of the Espritals, that they think in these two faculty-quanta,

the relativity of materialism, this world of evolving things; as well as the absoluteidealism of the eternal Spirit, or in other words, relativity on the basis of absolute Truth,

which manifests itself to them immediatelyas does relativity manifest itself to the

practical understanding in our feeling-knowing-willingand it is just this immediacy thatis itself the revelation, experience, or awareness of the Spirit, whomever it really modifies

(that is, it modifies his relative being) through art, philosophy, and love; that's why the

testimonies of genuine and direct Esprital awareness always present themselves asproductions of great simplicity, without constraint nor ruse, in contrast to all other

original inventions, deprived as they are of any authentic awareness.


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However, there are not merely the relative and the absolute, and nothing can be

understood unless we know about the three faculty-quanta, which we can consider asWorld, Paradise, and Hell. There is a third faculty-quantum of the human mind, which is

found in the Folk's thought in conjunction with their relative thinking. Instead of as

happens in the Esprital natures, where the relative content finds itself sublimated andtransposed to the Absolute in the true awareness of the Self, as the one really thinkable

idea of Unityinstead of that, one finds in the Folk's minds the Relative in conjunction

with theAnalogon, the simulacrum, the quid pro duo, which resembles Spirit in itsmental pattern, but opposes Espritality by its content and, hence, is a form of superstition

which renders unthinkable any genuine understanding of relativity. Upon analysis, the

Analogon is always found to be a sort of absolute materialism, whatever its name may be,

and whatever it believes itself to be. All religion, all the pantheism or monism of popular

philosophy is in reality materialistic.10

This is all I can say here about the three faculty-quanta of the human mind, whereof

Practical Understanding, our thinking of the relative reality, i.e., the thinking of ourworld, of thinghood in motion, is common to all mankind: all human beings possess itmore or less; all those of the Folk as well as all the Espritals. But, where the latter think

their practical understanding in concomitance with their Esprital awareness, the former

think their practical understanding in concomitance with the analogon or the pseudo-

absolute, namely, their own relative reality hypostatized to the absolute.

In examining now Spinoza on the basis of this orientation, we will find in his personality

the purest and the very finest combination of practical understanding and spirit, as typicalof genuine Espritals. We find in him the entire truth of practical understanding or the

materialistic theory of our cosmos with its thinghood in motion, as well as the whole truth

of idealism whereupon our materialistic world picture is based, namely upon the absoluteTruth of Esprital thinkingbut we find nothing in him of any thoughts of superstition or

of the Analogon, nothing, absolutely nothing! We do not find in him the slightest trace,

neither of religion, nor of evolutionism, not of any kind of superstition, and not even of

skepticism; not a trace of any of that in Spinoza, but only the unshaken trust and firmnessin Truth. I do not know of anybody so great in Truth and so free of superstition and error.

Nothing would be easier than to contradict me, but I have made my statement after athorough examination and comparison of all those who are reputed great men. If, before

contradicting me, one investigates as I did, it is most probable that one will come to the

same conclusion, and find in Spinoza the true meaning of Truth and Thinking. Go aheadand see for yourself that there is nothing of religion, nothing of evolutionism, nothing of

any superstition, and nothing of skepticism in Spinozas thoughts. And hence also his

"unice securus"!

The very essence of thinking is to be, with all precision, the clear and unique eternal

Truth, without the slightest doubt about whether perhaps something else is the Truth; not

as a gamble or as a dialectic of antinomies, wherein the mind becomes utterly entangled,and whereof the illusion would have to be dissipated through a 'Critique of Pure Reason."


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Those who think truly will isolate the faculty-quantum of relative thinkingwherein

generally and of necessity contradiction is to be found i.e., that which is not really

thinkable, and wherein therefore neither the thesis nor the antithesis of those antinomiesis any more thinkable, and where no truth whatsoever is to be foundand in keeping it

clearly apart from the faculty-quantum of Esprital thinking, where the Truth is to be

found, namely the One-and-Unique, truly thinkable and necessarythey will come tothat Truth which is the whole Truth. Half-truth, which invites skepticism, and even

superstition, do not exist for those who think truly. A half-truth is the business of those

whose half-truth is always their total confusion, whose skepticism is their sophistry andwhose superstition keeps itself busy in scholastic metaphysics.

And what else could I have against Kant, if I did not know what belongs to him, and if I

did not have to recognize that he is responsible for our new plunge into those hopelessdepths of sophistry and scholasticism whereof the echoes resound all around! Only

innocents can believe that scholasticism is simply a horrid cant that a few idlers, literally

dealers in so-called metaphysics, have picked up from him in order to tout their rags.11

Even those who do not themselves perpetrate such things are also scholastic. Our wholeera is profoundly scholastic. Indeed, all epochs, all collectivity standing under the

domination of the Folk's way of thinking is scholastic, but ours is the most scholastic of

all. All times are scholastic; of course, one had hoped that our human world could be

freed from scholasticism and even nowadays some people go on believing that our worldis already freed from it, from that refinement of form, bare of any content, without living

spirit or any relationship to it; but instead it remains, complete with its unbreakable link

to superstition (for one is absolutely wrong to see the nature of scholasticism only in

forma and not at the same time in materia).

He who is capable of seeing is well aware of the fact that only those can get free who are

not enslaved by the Folk's way of thinking, who in themselves and out of themselves

have the awareness, the living spirit out of the deepest depth of their existence. Theothers, however, are taken in, again and again, by the Folk's scholastic demeanor. Our

present times, indeed, are the most scholastic of all. Such scholastics as the ones we have

nowadays, always sitting on two thrones with one rump, have there never been in anyprevious era. Until now, scholasticism has been a mix of skepticism and superstition; but

this pairing has hitherto never been of such arrogance and brutality as we see in the

joining of our skepticism with the dogmatism of our modern evolutionism: so empty, sobottomless, dropping to unfathomable depths between its mutually antagonistic poles of

here-and-now and far-and-away! And there is not the slightest attempt made to reconcile

these opposites, which of course are not even seen as such; for there is no living heartbeatbehind the scene: their skepticism is not really skepticism and their superstition is not

really superstition, and it's as ice-cold all around us as January's wintry depths.

Only in times as highly scholastic as these, where ideas are degraded to a rigid and politemental fixity, whereof nothing transpires in the feelings of the educated individual and


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nothing even makes him aspire to anything elseonly here and now, among us, is

possible such a confused association of ideas, running from two starting points to two

opposite goals, such a miserable and eclectic concordia discors of skepticism andsuperstition, which have concluded their interim peace of stupidity. Stupidity, stupidity!

A Greek sage has stated that doubt and amazement are the start of all reflection. No

German nor other expert, however, will deny the fact that doubt and a stupid andfrivolous indifference signify the end of all reflection. Thoughtless stupidity and words,

nothing but words: everything coming down to a rhetorical scholasticism and to such a

soulless thinking that one could hardly be farther away from Truth than in standing at theheight of our culture.

From Truth? What is Truth?

Unfortunately I am not so uneducated as not to know how one reacts nowadays to this

word. I know that our culture is so highly educated that one cannot anymore use the word"Truth" (with a capital "T") without making a fool of oneself; and sure enough, many of

my intelligent readers have nurtured for quite a while already that famous question whichindeed, one day, a cultured person put to me: "What is Truth?" I answered him that it is

not my fault if he does not know it, and that I was sorry for him not knowing it. And I

give the same answer to my readers here, and I remind them, and I beg them from the

bottom of my heart, with all my love and honesty: Go, be severe with yourself; and tryvery hard to see if, after all, you cannot recognize the Truth.

To those who are incapable of it, by nature, I make no request whatsoeverbut do I

know to whom I am addressing myself? That wide open abyss of a frivolous skepticism,has it already swallowed up the whole world?! We live indeed in wretched times, where

almost everybody is making fun of Truth; especially those who have devoted themselves

to "scientific truth." Garbage of all shapes exists for them and they believe in it verystrongly; but "the Beautiful" and "the True" do not exist for them, and that's why they

laugh themselves silly! And we, of course, are expected to be ashamed to the bottom of

our souls for our faulty education and for our immaturity, in the face of those who

bombard us with their annihilating question: "What is Truth?"

For in this way they make you understand quite clearly that, as far as they are concerned,

they have already taken much greater pains in the pursuit of Truth; and that, indeed, onemust possess much stronger minds than ours in order to recognize the difficulties; and

finally, finally, finally, the tragic impossibility of solving that problem! And, by the way,

we could judge after their faces and gestures and their laughter how painfully thatrecognition affects them; and yes, they say, to be sure, there will be a constant progress in

the cognizance of Truth, as eventually we will have advanced more and more in our

evolutionism. You hopeless fools! That which would improve your understanding will

never come. Start thinking with your own mind, which is good; or forget the whole thing!


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But enough. Not that we said enough already, for we have not said anything as yet. But

enough, as I intended, to point to my Doctrine where the subject is completely dealt with.Without the Doctrine, all this herein would mean just gossip: but now here it is, and here

it comesWatch out! It will come for many a one, for whom it will be of more vital

concern than he might assume at the start; the word penetrates deep in his heart, andwhen I no longer whisper it into his ear, it will resound out of his own soul and will not

leave him. It will become so for many a one who will finally obey the important message

about our campaign for the rescue ofthe still existing Truth.

Hear it once more, you who live and do not despair, without even knowing about the life

of Truth and without getting any help to overcome the traditional and commonplace

patterns, by reminding you constantly of Freedom and EternityThe Truth lives! Hearye, hear gradually at least its announcement, coming from a very peculiar fellow. These

are the times where they declare the Truth dead without even mourning the deceased (for

we just reported that they laugh themselves silly about it!); and without being aware that

instead of Truth, once more, a new superstition dominates them, down from its chair ofarrogance and intolerance. These things are exactly as I say. They should take some

advice and some information, but not inside their own class, among their peers, amongthe other crows, for honor is binding even between thieves; but rather among the

outlawed, the cocky ones, who did not remain within the limits of their sacred

evolutionism and of their skepticism, and who have not participated in the sanctification

of the sacrosanct pillars of that new madness and of that slander of sane reason. Buttelling the truth has never been in vain, and how much less so the present saying

concerning the eternal Truth: Truth, all-certain and all-dependable, the blissful Truth of

the unique objective content of our mind is livingIS living!against all superstitionwhich, passing itself off for truth, cheats us out of Truth, and against all their sophistry,

whereby Truth's very existence is denied; against skepticism, the slander of sound reason

and the rejection of our own dignity, we will stand up, as long as we live, for thatdeclaration and, in so doing, for our sacred right and for our eternal nobility: TRUTH IS

ALIVE! And this is a life which is more precious to me than my own life: and it is as

certain as is death for born creatures such as us.

If you are not too ashamed, go and see by yourself how that living Truth looks at the

fool's and boor's place, who dares speak like that. But he does not pass off for Truth thesuperstition of the Jews, or of the Christians, or of those who advocate the "pantheism" of

Spinozanothing is farther from him, since he knows that individuals other than Jews

and Christians will quite sooner become true followers of Moses and of Jesus Christ, andsince he knows how little those Spinozists have in common with Spinoza! However, it is

still true that Moses, Christ and Spinoza are the great men of Truth, who all three

announce the One Great Truth of the Spirit. All three. Spinoza not otherwise than Christ,

Christ not otherwise than Moses, whose God says: I AM WHAT I AM (ie., the timeless


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Beingness, the truly One-Being) and who could never have said: "Let there be!" And

from the selfsame Moses resounds that still impressive and so mighty dictum: HEAR YE

ISRAEL, BEINGNESS IS OUR GOD, BEINGNESS IS ONE! But how Israel hears, andhow in the ears of Israel Truth immediately changes into superstition, thereof precisely

this saying offers a world-famous example in all its horror. For this grandiose saying, at

the same time an exultant hymn and an angry protest against idolatry of any sort, signifiesnow in the conception of Israelof the Jewish, the Christian and the Mahometan Israel

that well publicized sentence in its stupid and false translation: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord

our God is the only God!" Moses did not say it in that way, for he had not spokenotherwise than Christ and Spinoza of the One and Only Truth of the Spirit. Reader, you

do not know that Truth, and you have not the slightest idea of it. Do you know however

what is known to you? That Phantom which resembles it, that Analogon orquid pro quo,

the absurd bogey of the idols of Superstition adored by the Folk, you know it! Be itknown to you in the form of religion, or in the form of the new superstition of

evolutionism, and, you believe in it as if it were the Truthor be it that you keep entirely

to skepticism and refuse to hear about Truth, because you pretend to know everything

which is advertised under that name? But I repeat once more: you know perhaps all thosepretended truths, but of the real, One-and-Only-Truth, you surely do not have the

slightest idea. And do not presume that we have exactly the same thing in mind as you,when you hear talk about it, namely some untenable and unthinkable entities, for our

One-and-Only Truth is thought necessarily as soon as one really thinks, and there is no

possibility, I say, that something else should also be the Truth; and, no possibility,

neither, that there be no Truth at all. And, as far as your skepticism is concerned, whereinyou believe yourself to be secure, I repeat once more that perfect philosophical indecision

is a chimera and a self-deception; no human being, in the whole spectrum of creation,

could be found whose mind is not based either on Truth or on Superstition.

And now, let me tell you what I have not reported as yetthe whole answer I gave to

him who had asked me "What is Truth? I did not simply answer that I was sorry for him

not knowing it, but I also asked him in my turn: As he did not know what Truth is, if atleast he knew exactly what Superstition is, and what in general belongs to it? Watch out

my friend, see where you stand and do not be ashamed! To know where you stand with

your ideas, you must look in good faith to the ideas of others; and do not be ashamed,

dearest man, and look further out for that One-and-Unique Truth. That one, I alsoproclaimin my own way, as I think it good and necessary. Always aware of that Truth

and always aware also of Superstition, I think it appropriate to proclaim Truth so as to

unmask at the same time Superstition which is always dissembling in the colors of Truth.Believe me, it is necessary to do so and the ancient Lacaedemonians were right in

showing to their children the disgrace of drunken Helots. The right thing as model is not

sufficient; we need also a view of the absurd, to deter us from it. For who could thinkTruth if he thinks Absurdity in taking it for Truth? And since there is either the One or

the Other, whereof each penetrates a mind and fills it completely, we must of necessity

abandon and extirpate the Other when we desire the One. Do you still ask What is

Truth?" Very well. To your surprise we take it as a very serious question and its answer


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to be in our charge; and those who consider it an impossible task will be astonished to

hear that, voluntarily, we take a double charge on our shoulders, in adding the answer to

that other question, "What is Superstition?" That other question which they did not ask,we will answer it unasked. This is necessary indeedor could it be that they had already

inquired in depth into the nature of Superstition? Methinks that they have not even

started, but have forsaken it together with the inquiry about Truth. And, in beinginformed about the nature of Superstition, they will come to learn many unexpected

things: about the concordance of all kinds of superstition, that there is only one

Superstitionand ipso facto they will also learn unexpectedly something about the OneTruth and its nature. And the two sets of data will fit into a unique model, supplying the

all important answer to their question, and henceforth a fundamental change will take

place in their behavior and in their expectations.

"What is Truth?" I have already mentioned how dangerous it has become nowadays to

even use the word "Truth," almost as dangerous as it is to use the word "God," the mainconcept of their previous superstition: and how, in their conceited megalomania, they do

not even expect any answer to, "What is Truth?"; so completely have they gone astrayfrom Truthand nevertheless that question still remains; it is the eternal question

whereto there is the eternal answer which I also give. They may keep questioning, and

hear the answer which will be new only insofar as it is connected to the answer to the

other question, "What is Superstition?" This is a way which may help those who arepresently cut off from Truth, but could still be rescued, since one cannot force them by

miracles to believe in Truth. On the contrary, as they pretend all miraculous stories to be

trash, one has to prove to them that, precisely, what they now believe in is in reality puresuperstition, full of miraculous works. And a totally different relationship between

superstition and Truth will become manifest to them, fundamentally different from the

one taken for granted by the scientific enlightenment of our present state of the world. Asto the pretense of our most enlightened and educated people, that Truth is not to be found

anywhere, nor by anyone, whereas superstition exists in many peoplewell, is there

nobody to see that this affirmation of an existing superstition and of a non-existing Truthamounts to a most inconsistent and absurd assumption? If the One IS, is the Superstition,

then most certainly also the Other IS, is the Truthwhich seems almost self-evident and

becomes manifest and clear to one who has penetrated with us the nature of Superstition

which is nothing other than perversion i.e., a perversion of the proper thinking of Truth,and hence could not be investigated otherwise than together with Truth; the being of

Superstition is not even thinkable without the being of Truth. Truth exists as well as

Superstition existsthis fact will become as convincing as the fact of day and night; andthe one who has never believed that such a thing as Truth exists and could never exist for

him, he may start believing, when he finds out that Superstition has been a reality within

himself! And I repeat: he who really gets rid of Superstition will ipso facto become awareof Truth. We take very seriously the Truth, and so must we take very seriously also

superstition, whereof I am here to reveal an amazing property: the truth of our thinking

can only be statedper se as Truth, but is nevertheless capable of a demonstration, indeed:

superstition penetrated to its very essence is actually an indirect demonstration of Truth!


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But nothing will do and our way of approach will remain awkward and in vain, if we do

not sit superstition at the right place, namely in ourselves, and proceed very seriously: not

in that joking way, as we see all around us dealing with the numerous superstitions of thepast and with the superstition of those staying behind. Not that useless business of our

scholars in pointing to some manifest examples of an absurd superstitionnot that

condescending and cultured laughter about others, while Satan seizes us by the scruff ofthe neck and carries us off. To proceed seriously against Superstition means to recognize

it so thoroughly in its essence, that it is still recognizable to us in all its eternally changing

disguisesfor this is the way Superstition proceeds and must proceed: in order toconceal its emptiness, it must eternally change its coverings and disguises, to be finally

unmasked nevertheless. We must catch this one in its thousand shapes, and remain

thereafter even the more on our guard and scrutinize ourselves constantly, to make sure

that it has not taken hold of us in one of its newest and most dangerous disguises, whereinthe eternal deceiver, once more, allures and catches and corrupts the most advanced and

the most enlightened people of our times, in appearing to them as the epitome of Truth

and Freedom.

There was and still is much to be done: even against accidental and minor dangers one

has to be urgently and strongly cautioned. Those for instance who have been so miserablytaken in by some friedrichnietzschean superlatives in their weaknesswell then, to those

who drown, it makes no difference if it is in the village pond or in the Atlantic Ocean.

But the major danger still remains that big and wild Kantianism; we hit there upon waterswhich have neither bottom nor shores and we are completely lost. It is nowadays

unavoidable that he who stands up for Truth must turn himself against Kantand never

will one be able to speak about Truth without speaking also of Spinoza; to whom, Ibelieve, due importance and function is given in my writings, more than ever before, and

in such opposition to Kant that perhaps even some of those who had lost their vision

because of Kant will now be able to recover it thanks to Spinoza. Amen! And hence,blissful rejoicings all through the seven heavens!

Certainly, in order to know what I have to say about Spinoza and Kant, one must read the

whole expos in the connection and in the sequence that I have put it in accordance withmy art. One must read it from the beginning to the endfor neither Spinoza nor Kant

have ever been so important to any Spinozist or Kantian as they are to me; and nobody as

yet has shown in the right light, as I have done it, the exceptional importance of both forpurposes of orientation in human problems. That's why these two men are so closely and

inseparably involved in the totality of ideas wherewith I hope to serve mankind's interests

in matters of vital information. In order to hear about these two men, one will have tohear therefore my whole systematic expos concerning mankind and, of course, about the

eternal Truth. Quite certainly those whose interests are opposed to this and who stick

rather to their preconceived opinions and to their self-deception, the indifferent whose

dullness and carelessness are quite arrogant nonetheless, and not to forget that big class


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of those who are impatient and have no time to waste except for idleness in futilities and

whose impatience, laziness and bibliomania (so as not to die of their stinking boredom!)

convincingly show that they lack also something else, namely the prerequisiteall thesepeople will find much too long a coherent text demanding fifty hours of their lifetime.

They will hardly understand what all this is about, and I will not be able to capture their

attention for any longer than the time for them to pick up some sweets, which due to theirhaste, flippancy and hostility, will get perverted and vanish right at the picking, leaving

behind, at the most, a supplement for their empty talks. But those who understand that

which is understandable will behave differently, and those who are coming earnestly forthe Truth's sake and are not looking for some pastime, they have all their time. "How

about that," said Thrasymachus, "do you think these people come here to find gold rather

than to hear speeches?""Yes," I answered, "But for a certain measure.""For those

who understand," said Glaucon, "the measure to hear such speeches is indeed their wholelifetime."

Those who understand shall find out how everything looks in its natural context, for what

I have quoted here out of its connection (and though I did it myself) will seemextravagant enough even to them. They will see how the whole stands and supports itself,

and even if it happened that they feel repulsed by many a detail(indeed, it remains true

also for the work as a whole, that it can speak only to those who will hear it up to the very

end, even if at the start it has displeased them and has badly impressed them; hence, onlyto those who accept to be contradicted, a talent which according to Lessing, as far as

scholars are concerned, is to be found only among the dead ones)and even if, to start

with, they are furious about what I have stated e.g., against Kantthey will neverthelessstand by and not reject the whole work because of that; they will not be deterred by some

foreboding, nor by any misunderstanding arising along the way; but will stand by

patiently, in remembering that at first one may be sometimes hostile, very hostile, tosomething which, later, one cherishes the most. And in such a manner it may, it will, it

must finally occur that they share my views concerning Kantthey must only look very

carefully at Kant, not simply to the particular issues, but also to the agreement betweenthem and Kant as such, the perfect Folk's philosopher with his ideas; and they should not

change their opinion simply because his words sound so strangely unpopular, nor because

the great majority of the Folk stands behind him. And they must look at Kant as though

they saw him for the very first time, and as if his writings were not yet printed, but stoodin manuscript before their eyes! They must really hear the ideas of the man, and not be

influenced nor disturbed by the fact that they are facing Kant's ideas. And next, they will

hear also what may be said and even thought about those ideas of Kant. Now, if what Ihave said against Kant is not refuted in point detail, and if one does not prove that Kant

did not say himself all those things which I have been quoting as being his own words,

i.e., if they fail to establish that I have behaved in those matters as a phony and senselessreviler, scoundrel, forger and slanderer, it will happen (these alleged crimes being

entirely imaginary, since, on the contrary, I have come in the name of all the Good), there

will and must certainly flow from my words the necessary energy to make people turn

away from Kant and turn to Spinoza, all those to whom the said Kant is not the mirror


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and the expression of their own beingness, and who can enjoy true happiness and a really

blissful life; which for nobody in the world can consist in something other than in the fact

that he be transformed from a negatively to a positively thinking being, in becoming fullyaware of the living reality whereto he belongs. What I am speaking about is necessarily

coming, and will constitute the start of a much more important and gigantic

transformation which also is coming, which in the advancement of the Esprital cause willreach its goal automatically. Mountains will not be leveled and waters of the seas will not

dry out and our mother earth will continue, as usual, her orbit among the planets, heavily

loaded with Superstition. But one thing will have changed: this state of entanglement ofSuperstition and Truth, which has dominated the history of mankind as far back as we

know, this state of confusion will ceaseone battle will be fought to its very end: the two

kinds of equally indestructible thinking patterns will be separated after a bitter strife and,

with them, the two mental species of human beings; whereof each will become aware ofits specific inner difference, and who thereafter, in their separateness, will live together in

better agreement than before! And the Esprital natures will find their own way of life!

Thereto aspires our Esprital awareness which does not accept any hereafter-happiness,

but wants all happiness and sanctity to be realized in this world and in this time! And asthey are trying to realize that genuine life of Espritality, freed also externally from all

coercion through superstition, so it will come to pass that they find their life! Andeverything will be with the Espritals and with the Folk as it is recorded in the Doctrine

which got from them its name! But suddenly a strange idea crosses my mind: I follow it

without running after, and without mingling with things wherewith I do not want to be

involved. I comply thereto in my way, as I have learnt it from the wise king Solomonwho says: "Answer the fool after his foolishness, otherwise he will believe himself to be

intelligent"; but he also says: "Do not answer the fool after his foolishness, otherwise you

will resemble him."

The public could judge it not very polite nor tactful on my part to speak so much and in

such a manner about a work conceived by myself and to push forward so passionately myown venture (in calling it the Cause of Esprital Truth)Oh! do we find such judges?!

But the public may be mistaken with regard to its competence as a judgeand even as a

public! Those who in all other respects show themselves stone-deaf on our behalf, as if

they were all in all like the man on the moon, who has no ears and lacks many otherthings as well: instead of the one item, on account of which they sit in judgment over us,

they should have rather understood that proclamation of ours which has been put in

writing quite clearly and without any patching up: we are not of their writers and aretherefore not bound to show them the usual tokens of respect! What they find fitting does

not fit our hearts, which are full of something else than of their tactfulness; and when our

thoughts flare up like flames to the skies, we are above the range of tactlessness.


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Go ahead then, you tactful people, and prepare the Hell for me who carries the

joy and the burden of my Doctrine among all those thoughtless, apathetic, indifferent,

heartless, and tactful people. I cannot listen to you: but I will, untroubled, continuespeaking to the others about my Doctrine, at all times and at all occasions; and those

others will listen to me. They, who have not any cause of their own in this world besides

this common cause of ours, the only which truly counts and which is sacred to ustheywill not say that I am pushing forward my own venture. I cannot listen to you, nor wait

with the pursuit of this cause until you may notice that it is not my propertysince on the

contrary, I am its subject and its servantnor until you give me the instructions in whatform and manner, tune and tack, I should pursue it. I might have to wait quite a while

before you come to help me in the pursuit of a cause whereof the opposite is what you are

promoting so stubbornly; until you help me against yourselvesfor, don't you see that I

am pursuing a cause against you, which hence could not possibly be my cause to you? Onthe other hand, your writers, as the golden daylight shines upon them, and as they tell and

sing to you and for you, they all go after their own business, each one looking after his

own vanity and folly; and though he must appeal to your vanity and folly and evenas

some of your writers put it so proudly and disgracefullylower himself to your level,whereas we say that he who wants Truth must ascend with us toward her. Your writers

must put their causes into yours, and appeal to your vanity and folly, to your superstitionand to your skepticism. Such are your causes; and you should not behave as if you had a

common interest with us in a cause, but did not approve of the way we are pursuing it.

Make as you wish, and have it your way with your authors, and for your cause, and keep

it mutually in giving and taking as it suits your nature; but do not attempt to render us asvain as you are. We do not write that kind of stuff you call literature, a plaything which

pleases you for a while and becomes boringa fine literature that, which can become

boring in its turn! Splendid truths, all those truths of your literature which after a whilehave become lies! With our literature we pursue the Unchanging One and the cause of

our lifethe extremely urgent duty to draw up into our daily life, from its hidden depth,

our mind's awareness of Truth or Eternity in order that, as Truth remains firm in itself, wealso may remain firm with our life on the firm foundation of Truth. Go along with that

fact: we are not your writers, and you are not our public. We cannot ask you: "Hear ye

also!" You do not hear and we do not speak to you about what you cannot hear; you haveforgotten it when you drank from the cup of superstition.And we have ceased to speak to

you about the Truth. Since we acquired clear insight into the nature of our thinking, we

had to abandon that most pathetic dream: it is impossible that you ever become other,

against your nature, and that your thinking could depart so far out of itself as to geteventually "bettered" into its opposite. In such a way you would be transformed into

something else, i.e., destroyedbut you are, you are and remain what you are: the Folk.

And we do not speakforyouonly among and amidst of you!as requires from us thestill continuing state of promiscuity of the two kinds of human beings, so that, out of it,

may join us those in whose souls the Truth, the awareness and reminiscence coming from

their innermost depth, has remained awake; together with those in whose souls thelonging for it is strongthe longing is the beginning of the remembrance and of the

awakening. Might it come to pass that we all awake, that waves after waves of light

penetrate us and that our life become wholly blissful!


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3

This is my preface to the work of Meinsma, which promises to give for the first time a

clear image of Spinoza's life and, since I am already in harness, the carriage will have to

go as and whereto I pull it. My contribution concerns the inner life of Spinoza's ideas,according to their importance for us and for our ideas. This and nothing else is here my

subject matter and it is about time that I start speaking about it. To be sure, there havebeen enough important people to whom Spinoza's ideas have meant quite a lot, but the

advancement of the Cause of these ideasfor all ideas proceed from a cause, have a final

purpose, a practical goal to attain, without which they are completely futile; and the cause

of Espritality is ultimately the life of Espritality, as it is required from our Espritalawareness. The advancement of this our cause has stood still since the days of Spinoza.

Indeed, who knows or who has told us that there is such a cause which we call ours and

which we have to promote? As I know and as I talk about, I am also aware of the fact thatI am serving that same One-and-Only and eternally constant and unchanging Truth and

its Iause, as it has been uttered from all eternity by all the Espritals, whereof Spinoza

such as he has lived as the greatest of themhas been its wonderful legislator. This Iausecounts more to me than Spinoza, for it is to me the One-Unique-and-the-All; and only

through what he meant and means for that cause is Spinoza important to me. Speaking

about him is for me equivalent to speak about our cause, which signifies quite a lot. Howcould I therefore act like that famous originalphilosopher of the neo-post-Christian era,

that first freak of the evolutionist superstition? Am I a professional aphorist, so as to

babble in haste and in windiness about the most earnest subject matter? Better to do

nothing than to do that; if not done with all justification, thoroughness, objectivity,certainty and clearness so that, as lively as the real, it may touch and enrich us as

decisively as reality itselfif not in that way, then rather nothing at all and never! And

then there would be nothing more left for this preface than to serve as an indicator to thatother work, as a simple guide thereto. In the continuity of its convincing discourse, the

Doctrine of the Espritals and the Folk gives also about Spinoza all the vital information

which hitherto has remained unexplored, stressing his importance and his necessity forour thinking.


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We need Spinoza and we need ways of approach to him. We need commentaries which

open for us theEthics and introduce us to that center-point of world literature. Of course,

Documents

Spinoza Contra Kant