[Footnote 1: The conception amor Dei intellectualis in Spinoza is discussed in a dissertation by C. Lülmann, Jena, 1884.]

These thoughts in Nature, which we are too prone to call simply facts, when in reality they are the ideal conception antecedent to the very existence of all created beings, are expressed in the objects of our study.

In addition to agnosticism another doctrine of Spencer's is Evolution, but in maintaining this he fails to see he is arguing for an empty conception barren of all thought, which thought is the alpha and omega of the whole process, and is as much an ultimate as and still more so than the energy in which he absorbs God.

The whole scene is overhung with a close and enervating gloom; one apprehends somehow that the air swims with a heavy fragrance; and though one feels that the artist's hand failed to represent his thought, he was painting with a desperate intentness, and the dark quality of the conception contrives to struggle out.

Some gross and confused conceptions men indeed ordinarily have, to which they apply the common words of their language; and such a loose use of their words serves them well enough in their ordinary discourses or affairs.

And, most assuredly, the conception narratives [of the New Testament], by retaining the sex process to the important extent of normal pregnancy and parturition, foreshadowed and hallowed this development of ethical thought.

This was the conception prevalent among the Puritans.

In very undeveloped minds such a conception results in the idea of numerous gods, each having, so to say, his own particular line of business; and the furthest advance this mode of thought is capable of is the reduction of these various deities to two antagonistic powers of Good and of Evil.

" In German aesthetic theory, the conception tragische Schuld"tragic guilt"plays a large part.