Hegel's History of Philosophy presents French materialism as the realization of Spinozistic Substance, which in any case is more comprehensible than … - Benedictus de Spinoza

CAUSA (causa) Todo lo que existe se relaciona causalmente, de manera que este vínculo constante permite hablar de «orden y conexión» (E2P7), de leyes naturales, etc., por contraste con lo que sería el caos o la excepción sobrenatural (el milagro). Como ya afirmó la tradición y la ciencia moderna lleva al límite, la inteligibilidad de lo real descansa en el conocimiento de los efectos por las causas (TIE 85, E1Ax4), lo que se resume en el adagio causa sive ratio o dar razón causal de algo. Hay que partir de lo que es causa de sí (Dios) y comprender desde ahí las secuencias productoras (E1Def1, P16, P18, P28) que eliminan la contingencia y la indeterminación (E1P27 y P29). Ahora bien, a menudo no es posible conocer la concatenación causal de la realidad a escala microfísica, lo que abre la puerta a la consideración — en la vida cotidiana — de las cosas «como si» fueran posibles.

Not only Goethe's poetry but his science is Spinozistically motivated. Convinced of the oneness of nature, he approached it with a certainty to discover in it oneness, and his discovery of the os intermaxtllare in man, which influenced the development of comparative anatomy, is one of the by-products of his Spinozistic sentiments. In his theory of the metamorphosis of the plants, which he expounded scientifically and poetically, he also expressed a good deal of Spinozism. Spinoza enabled him to read the various pages of nature as one book. Goethe respected Kant and may be described as a Kant scholar, but he was a Spinoza adherent. His world-picture is Spinozistic and not Kantian.

In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible ; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another. For no one by the law of nature is bound to please another, unless he chooses, nor to hold anything to be good or evil, but what he himself, according to his own temperament, pronounces to be so ; and, to speak generally, nothing is forbidden by the law of nature, except what is beyond everyone's power.