An Historical and Critical Dictionary, Selected and Abridged (Volume 3) - Softcover

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This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1826. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... SPINOZA. Benedict De Spinoza a Jew by birth, who forsook Judaism, and at last became an Atheist, was a native of Amsterdam. He was a systematical Atheist, and brought his Atheism into a new method, although the ground of his doctrine was the same with that of several ancient and modern philosophers, both in Europe and the east. I think that he is the first who reduced Atheism into a system, and formed it into a body of doctrine, ordered and connected according to the manner of the geometricians; but otherwise his opinion is not new. It has been believed long ago that the whole universe is but one substance, and that God and the world are but one being. Pietro della Valle mentions certain Mahometans who call themselves "Ehl eltahkik, or, men of truth, men of certainty, who believe that there is nothing existent but the four elements, which are God, man, and every thing else." He also mentions the Zindikites, another Mahometan sect. "They come nearer the Sadducees, and have their name from them. They do not believe a Providence, nor the resurrection of the dead, as Giggoius shews upon the word Zindik. One of their opinions is, that whatever is seen, whatever is in the world, whatever hath been created, is God." There have been such Heretics among Christians, for we find in the beginning of the thirteenth century, one David of Dinant, who made no distinction between God and the first matter. It is a mistake to say that he is the first who vented such a foolish doctrine. Albertus Magnus mentions a philosopher who had done the like. "Alexander, the Epicurean, held that God was matter, or was not different from it, and that all things were essentially God, and that forms were imaginary accidents, and had no real entity, and, therefore he said all things were ...