God is good, and good alone; the distinction between evil and good is not present in this One, in this Substance; it is with the element of distinction, or differentiation, that it first enters at all.
God is the One absolutely self-sufficing Being; in substance there is no distinction, no element of difference. With the distinction of God from the world, and especially from man, there first appears the distinction between good and evil. It is a fundamental principle of Spinozism, with regard to this distinction between God and man, that man must have God alone as his chief end. And thus the love of God is law for the element of difference, that is to say, for man; this love to God is alone to be his guide; he is not to ascribe value to his separate existence, to his difference in itself, not to desire to continue in it, but to direct his entire thought towards God alone.
This is the most sublime morality, that evil is nonexistent, and that man is not to allow to this distinction, this nullity, any valid existence. Man may wish to persist in this difference, to carry this separation on into a settled opposition to God—the essentially existing Universal—and then man is evil. But it is also possible for him to regard his difference as non-existent, to place his true being in God alone, and direct his aim toward God—and then man is good.
In Spinozism, the distinction between good and evil undoubtedly makes its appearance with reference to God and man—and it appears in it with this qualification, that evil is to be regarded as non-existent. In God as such, in His character as Substance, there is no distinction; it is for man that this distinction exists, as does also the distinction between good and evil.
In accordance with that superficiality with which the polemic against philosophy is carried on, it is added, moreover, that philosophy is a system of Identity. It is quite correct to say that Substance is this one self-identity, but Spirit is just as much this self-identity.
