A few _specimens_ of this mode of thinking may be added in confirmation of these statements. Lessing, as reported by Jacobi, expressed his satisfaction with the poem "Prometheus," saying: "This poet's point of view is my own; the orthodox ideas on the Divinity no longer suit me; I derive no profit from them: [Greek: hen kai pan],--(_un et tout, the one_ and _the all_),--I know no other." Schelling, in his earlier writings, while he was Professor at Jena, and before the change of sentiment which he avowed at Berlin, represented God as the one only true and really absolute existence; as nothing more or less than Being, filling the whole sphere of reality; as the infinite Being (_Seyn_) which is the essence of the Universe, and evolves all things from itself by self-development. Hegel seeks unity in every thing and every where. This unity he discovers in the identity of existence and thought, in the one substance which exists and thinks, in God who manifests and develops himself in many forms. "The Absolute produces all and absorbs all; it is the essence of all things. The life of the Absolute is never consummated or complete. God does not properly exist, but comes into being: 'Gott ist in werden.'--_Deus est in fieri_. With him God is not a Person, but Personality, which realizes itself in every human consciousness as so many thoughts of one eternal Mind.... Apart from, and out of the world, therefore, there is no God; and so, also, apart from the universal consciousness of man, there is no Divine consciousness or personality. God is with him the whole process of thought, combining in itself the objective movement, as seen in Nature, with the subjective, as seen in Logic; and fully realizing itself only in--the universal spirit of Humanity."[109]
We select only two specimens from the recent literature of France; they might be multiplied indefinitely. Pierre Leroux, the editor of the "Encyclopedie Nouvelle," says, in his "Essay on Humanity," dedicated to the poet Beranger:--"It is the God immanent in the Universe, in Humanity, in each Man, that I adore."--"The worship of Humanity was the worship of Voltaire."--"What, is Humanity considered as comprehending all men? Is it something, or is it nothing but an abstraction of our mind? Is Humanity a collective being, or is it nothing but a series of individual men?"--"Being, or the soul, is eternal by its nature. Being, or the soul, is infinite by its nature. Being, or the soul, is permanent and unchangeable by its nature. Being, or the soul, is one by its nature. Being, or the soul, is God by its nature."--"Socrates has proved our eternity and the divinity of our nature."[110] The next specimen is a singular but very instructive one. It is derived from the treatise of M. Crousse, who holds that "intelligence is a property or an effect of matter;" "that the world is a great body, which has sense, spirit, and reason;" that "matter, in appearance the most cold and insensible, is in reality animated, and capable of engendering thought." It might be amusing, were it not melancholy, to refer to one of his proofs of this position: "Une horologe mesure le temps; certes, c'est là un effet intellectuel produit par une cause physique!"[111] His grand principle is the doctrine of what he calls "Unisubstancisme," and it is applied equally to the nature of God and the soul of man. God is admitted, but it is the God of Pantheism,--Nature, including matter and mind, but excluding any higher power. "God is the self-existent Being, which includes all, and beyond which no other can be imagined. The Infinite is identical with the Universe."--"God is and can only be the whole of that which exists. Let us proclaim it aloud, that the echoes may repeat it, God, the Great Being, is the All, and the All is One. God is every thing that exists; the Universe, that is the supreme Being. In it are life eternal, power, wisdom, knowledge, perfect organization, all the qualities, in a word, that are inseparable from the Divinity. Beyond the universe, or apart from it, there is nothing (_neant_); above the visible world and its laws there is for man--_nullité_."