In the chapter on “Shaftesbury and Spinoza” in his monumental biography of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm Dilthey makes a puzzling claim. Not only does he identify the Earl of Shaftesbury, along with Spinoza, as one of Schleiermacher's most significant influences, he does this in a way that suggests that Shaftesbury may actually have had the greater weight. This assertion is surprising enough. More perplexing still is that Dilthey offers almost nothing by way of concrete evidence to back it up. Instead, he presents only a general account of Shaftesbury as the leading representative in eighteenth-century German thought of what he calls “pantheistic monism.” According to Dilthey, it was in this manner that Shaftesbury “everywhere prepared the way” for what would eventually become the widespread acceptance of Spinoza later in the century and would lead ultimately to Schleiermacher's own enterprise.Wilhelm Dilthey, Leben Schleiermachers (ed. Hermann Mulert; 2d ed.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1922) 1:174.