Spinozism is the name given to a line of thought which goes back to Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza (1632–77), combining elements of Jewish and neo-Platonic philosophy With Cartesian principles to form a rationalistic and monistic doctrine of salvation. Its central theme is based on the conviction of the essential unity of reality, which Spinoza reduces to a single substance, called Deus sive natura, God or nature. Thought and extension are not independent substances but “attributes” or aspects of substance; they embody two wholly parallel orders of the same …