Perhaps there is no system more repugnant to the admirers of Spinoza than the Hegelian; and yet Hegel himself felt, and with considerable reason, that he was simply doing in aspecific and concrete way what Spinoza had undertaken in aformal and mathematical way. However, the point important for our purpose is that in both Fichte and Hegel there is expressed the animating spirit of modern ideal- ism in dealing with the basic problem of all modern philoso- phies. They have sought by examination of the structure of the knowing function (psychological structure in the subjective idealisms and logical structure in the objective idealisms and usually with aunion of both strains) to show that no matter what the detailed conclusions of the special sciences, the ideal authority of truth, goodness, and beauty are secure possessions