  As is well known, Hegel, in various respects, considered himself to be modifying Spinoza’s doctrine (“to be a follower of Spinoza is the essential commencement of all philosophy”) and his interpretation of Spinoza was extremely  influential.[13]  In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel says that what has utmost reality for Spinoza is the absolute (or the infinite substance) and that anything else (finite modes, in particular) are ways of negating this absolute. He goes on to explain that the understanding [or “intellect”] grasps the reality of substance through attributes, but “it is only reality in view of the understanding.” He stresses that understanding in terms of attributes is due to the nature of the understanding and not because of the nature of the absolute (or the infinite substance) as such. It is clear that he considers the understanding to be the understanding of finite minds, because he goes on to explain that Spinoza’s claim that there are “infinite attributes” has to be interpreted as “infinite in character” and not in number and that there are only the two attributes known to finite minds—Thought and Extension.