Geist_ (Berlin, 1797), wherein he originated a speculative, monistic
idealism, which pervaded not only philosophy, but all sciences during
the first half of the nineteenth century, the system by which Fichte,
Schelling, and Hegel were influenced. According to Bernfeld, he was the
greatest Jewish philosopher since the time of Spinoza, with whose depth
of reasoning he combined an ease and straightforwardness of illustration
characteristic of Benjamin Franklin.[25]

With all this he remained an ardent lover of the Talmud to the last. In
fact, his philosophy is distinctively Jewish. Like Spinoza, he exhibited
the effects of the Cabbala and of rabbinic speculation, with which he
had been familiar from childhood. The honor of the Talmudic sages was
always dear to him, and he never mentioned them without expressing
profound respect. Persecuted though he was by his German coreligionists,
he never bore them a grudge. As a man he loved them as brothers, but as
a philosopher he could not subscribe to their views implicitly. But for
friends and benefactors his affection was unusually strong. With what
love he talks of Mendelssohn in the chapter dedicated to him in his
autobiography, even though "he could not explain the persistency of
Mendelssohn and the Wolffians generally in adhering to their system,
except as a political dodge, and a piece of hypocrisy, by which they
studiously endeavored to descend to the mode of thinking common to the
popular mind!" His devotion to his wife was not diminished even after he
had been compelled to divorce her because of his supposed heretical
proclivities. "When the subject [of his divorce] came up in
conversation, it was easy," says his biographer,[26] "to read in his
face the deep sorrow he felt: his liveliness then faded away sensibly.
By and by he would become perfectly silent, was incapable of further
entertainment, and went home earlier than usual." Of his Russo-Polish
brethren he speaks in the highest terms. He cannot bestow too much