 Nevertheless, as noted above, part of his response to Jacobi consists in demonstrating the shortcomings of Spinoza’s philosophy. As might be expected, he criticizes Spinoza’s idea that there is only one, infinite, and necessary substance. The idea is arbitrary, Mendelssohn contends, since one can legitimately distinguish between what is independent or self-standing (das Selbständige) and what obtains or persists for itself (das Fürsichbestehende). “Instead of proving that everything obtaining for itself is only one, he [Spinoza] establishes in the end only that everything independent is one. Instead of demonstrating that the entire aggregate of everything finite constitutes a single self-standing substance, he merely shows that this aggregate must depend upon the sole infinite substance” (Gesammelte Schriften, 3/2, p. 107).