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SPINOZA
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Betstedictus de Spi^toza
Cui na"tui'a,De~us,reruni cui coer'ni'tws ordo. Hoc Spinola fiatu confpicnendus erat
E<x:pfeflere 'viri laciein.letJ pme*ere men1:eitt ^fetijcidis airtifices . lion valuere tnanus ,
Ilia vig^ fcrrplris : ilLic ruDlmiia tractat: Hiuic quicunq^ue cupis nolcere.fcnpta leg-e .
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,ifiiA^.c (s^iUutm^ ho.'^^te^f^.^ci'
SPINOZA
HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY
BY
FREDERICK POLLOCK
BARRISTER-AT-LAW : LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND HONORARY DOCTOR OF LAWS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
' Weliseeie, komm, uns zu durchdringen ! Dann mit detn Weligeist selbst zu ringen,
iVird 7insrer Krdfte Hock&eruf. Theilnekmendfahren gute Getsterj GeliTtde ieitend, hSckste Metsfer, Zu dent, der alles schaffi und schuf*
Goethe : Eins und Alles.
LONDON G. KEGAN PAUL & CO., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE
?77
G'S-^- ("'"J. A^ tU^i^
(The rights of translation and of reproduction are reset ved)
TO THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND
WILLIAM KINGDOM CLIFFORD
HOMO LIBER
DE NULLA RE MINUS
QUAM DE MORTE COGITAT
CONTENTS.
[Note. — Throttghout this Table and the Index the abbreviation Sp. is used for Spinoza, except where it might be ambiguous^
INTRODUCTION.
PAGE
Preliminary . xv
Sp.'s Works : original publications xvi
Editions xvii
Translations xix
Authorities for Sp.'s life xxii
Portraits of Sp xxvi
Early literature relating to Sp xxvii
English books xxxi
Modern accounts of Sp.'s philosophy xxxv
Special monographs xxxix
CHAPTER I.
THE LIFE -OF SPINOZA.
Birth of Sp I
The Jewish Settlement at Amsterdam 3
Their leaders : Manasseh ben Israel 6
Uriel da Costa 8
State of Jewish education lo
Sp.'s training in youth : Van den Ende 1 1
Story of Clara van den Ende 13
Difficulties with the synagogue 16
Attempt on Sp.'s life : excommunication 17
Change of name : lawsuit with sisters 20
Changes of residence 22
Friendship and correspondence with Simon de Vries . . .23
Friendship with Oldenburg 25
viii CONTENTS.
PAGE
Correspondence as to publication of his works 26
The ' Principles of Descartes' Philosophy ' published . . • ■ 3° The ' Tractatus Theologico-politicus ' published ... • -31
Controversy, and prohibition of the book 33
Invitation to Heidelberg declined 34
French invasion of 1672 : Sp.'s visit to Condi's quarters . . . 36
Plan of pubUshing ' Ethics ' abandoned 38
Death of Sp 39
Publication of ' Opera Posthuma ' 40
Sp.'s manner of life 41
CHAPTER II.
Spinoza's correspondence.
Letters not strictly philosophical the subject of this chapter . . 44
Sp. questioned by Blyenbergh on origin of evil 46
His reply, and further correspondence 47
Reason and Scripture 50
Anthropomorphism of theology 53
Close of the correspondence ... . . . . 56
Letter to Peter Balling on omens 56
Anonymous correspondent on ghosts 59
Sp. on perfections of divine nature 63
Letter on an alchemical experiment 64
Reply to Van Velthuysen's criticism on 'Tractatus Theologico-
politicus ' . 65
Sp.'s general view of religion 69
Later correspondence with Van Velthuysen as to publication . . 70
Correspondence and acquaintance with Leibnitz 71
With Tschimhausen 73
Letter from Albert Burgh on his conversion to Church of Rome . . 75
Sp.'s answer 77
CHAPTER III.
IDEAS AND SOURCES OF SPINOZA's PHILOSOPHY.
Part I. — Judaism and Neo-Platonism.
Philosophy must renounce finality go
Ideas permanent, not systems g.
Leading ideas of Sp. : uniformity (pantheism) g4
Identity of body and mind (monism) gc
Self-preserving effort (natural law) g5
CONTENTS.
PAGE
General view of sources of these ideas 87
Uniformity : the Essay on God and Man 89
Not Cartesian in metaphysics . . go
Sp.'s metaphysics developed from theology 92
Jewish theologico-philosophical authors 93
Maimonides 94
Chasdai Creskas 95
Alleged influence of Kabbalah on Sp 97
Possible allusions to it in Sp. . . 100
Giordano Bruno and Avicebron 102
Points of resemblance in Bruno and Sp 104
Part II. — Descartes.
Influence on Sp. most important in physics 107
Sp.'s ' things immediately produced by God ' , . . . .108
Motion and Rest treated as things 109
Descartes' axiom of conservation oi quantity of motion - . . .110
His consequent errors iii
Aim of his physical speculations 112
Sp.'s criticism of Descartes 114
' Derivation of principle of self-conservation from Descartes . ,116
Sp.'s gradual divergence from Descartes in psychology . . . 118
CHAPTER IV.
THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD.
Sp.'s treatise ' De Intellectus Emendatione ' 121
Search for the Chief Good 122
Contrast with Descartes' object 123
The good to be aimed at 125
Knowledge and its degrees 126
The test of truth 128
Double use of z(/^a by Sp 131
Reflective knowledge 133
Problems of method stated I3S
Fiction and error I37
Sp.'s conception of truth 139
Sp.'s ' most perfect being ' 141
Doubt and imagination I43
Discipline of the reason I4S
Theory of definition 146
Sp.'s definition includes explanation 147
' Eternal things ' ijo
Identified witb ' infinite modes ' of £'/'/^zVj 152
CONTENTS. CHAPTER V.
THE NATURE OF THINGS.
PAGE
State of philosophical ideas and terms in Sp.'s time . 156
Sp.'s geometrical method I57
Definitions of ^^^/fj, Part I IS9
Sp.'s caKJa JKz' and conception of Cause 160
Substance 162
Attributes 163
Modes 165
Infinity of Attributes 166
Parallelism of Attributes .168
Difficulties of Sp.'s theory . 171
Implicit idealism of the system 175
Kant's approximation 176
Summary 178
Sp. on infinity 179
On notions of time, measure, and number 181
Sp.'s ' aids of the imagination ' not Kantian 185
Note on the Infinite Modes 187
CHAPTER VI.
BODY AND MIND.
The doubleness of experience 189
Subject and Object, Mind and Matter 190
Theories of relation between Mind and Matter 192
Sp.'s account 193
Complexity of human mind 195
Doctrine of association 106
Confused knowledge and error 198
Universals 200
Degrees of knowledge 201
Sp.'s determinism 202
No distinct faculties of mind 205
Will and judgment 206
Automatism of body 207
Advantages of necessarianism according to Sp 210
No distinct theory of perception in Sp. 212
CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII.
THE NATURE OF MAN.
PAGE
Preface to Part 3 of £"//kcj 214
Self-preservation 216
Sp.'s use of conattts . . . . . . . . . .218
What is a thingl 210
Self-preservation and desire 221
Self-preservation as incident to life ....... 222
Pleasure and pain 224
Love, hatred, &c 226
Extension of emotions by sympathy 228
Active emotions 230
The definitions of the emotions 233
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BURDEN OF MAN.
Introduction to Part 4 of Ethics 245
Remarks on the argument from design 246
Perfection and imperfection, good and evil 250
Emotion controllable only by emotion 252
The life according to reason 253
Agreement of Sp. with the Stoics 255
Development of ethical doctrine 257
Virtue as intelligence 258
Element of common-sense morality in Sp 260
Society and law 261
What things are useful 263
Enjoyment of life 264
Returning good for evil 265
Some passions relatively good 266
The reasonable or free man .... .... 26S
Sp.'s appendix of maxims . ... . . . 271
CHAPTER IX.
THE DELIVERANCE OF MAN.
The power of reason 278
Criticism of Descartes' physical theory of will 279
Division of Part 5 of Ethics 280
The government of the passions 283
xii CONTENTS.
PAGB
The use of moral precepts 285
The love of God 287
The eternity of the mind 288
Aristotelian and Averroist doctrines of immortality : Gersonides . 289
Sp.'s argument 292
Discussion of his meaning 295
The mind's knowledge ' under the form of eternity ' . . . . 296
The ' intellectual love of God ' 300
Return to physical aspect : concurrent development of body and
mind • . . 303
Morality independent of eternity of mind 305
Virtue its own reward 306
Conclusion of the Ethics 308
CHAPTER X.
THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE,
Sp. as publicist belongs to English school 310
Relation to Hobbes 312
Theory of sovereignty as compared with Hobbes . . • . 315
Sovereignty never absolute 317
Special revelations not to hold against law 315
Review of ' Tractatus Politicus ' 321
Scientific treatment of subject 323
General ideas . . ; ' 325
' Natural right ' . 327
The State and its power 328
Can the State do wrong ? 330
Ideal of government 332
Ideal of special forms of government : Monarchy . . . . 333
Aristocracy ,,,
Federal government ,34
Democracy ,,5
The treatise broken off ,,g
CHAPTER XI.
SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY.
Theology and philosophy
Sp.'s personal position
Criticism of theological doctrines in Ethics, Part i ": necessity of
God's action
Things could not have been otherwise . .
349 341
343 344
. CONTENTS.
PAGE
Deity and moral law 346
Final causes 348
God as conceived by Sp 352
The ' infinite understanding ' . . , , , . • . 353
Personality 354
Sp.'s pantheism 355
Sp. on historical revelations ... .... 357
The voice from Sinai ... 360
Revelation in general , . .^61
Religion and morality . . 363
Sp. on pre-eminence of Christ 365
Sp.'s letters to Oldenburg on the Resurrection 366
Religion as guide of life for the unlearned 368
CHAPTER XII.
SPINOZA AND MODERN THOUGHT.
Nature of Sp.'s influence 373
Early controversy in Netherlands 375
Spinozistic heresies in the Reformed Church : van Hattem and
Leenhof 376
Cartesian opposition ; attitude of Leibnitz 379
Slight notice by English philosophers 381
English theological criticism 383
French writers on Sp 386
Voltaire 387
Boulainvilliers 388
Montesquieu's knowledge of Sp 389
Lessing's vindication of Sp 390
Conversation with Jacobi 391
Goethe 394
Later recogition of Sp. in Germany 397
Post-Kantian philosophers 397
Study of Sp. in England : Coleridge 4C»
Shelley's intended translation 403
Later English criticism 404
Study of Sp. in France 405
Bicentenary commemoration in Holland 405
xiv CONTENTS,
APPENDIX A.
PAGE
The Life of Spinoza by Colerus 409
APPENDIX B.
Ordinance of July 19, 1674, condemning the ' Tractatus Theologico-
politicus ' 444
APPENDIX C.
1. Dutch originals of certain letters of Sp. ... . 446
2. Unpublished letter of Sp. to Dr. Meyer (in V. Cousin's library) . 447
APPENDIX D. Circular of the Spinoza Committee 45 1
APPENDIX E. Table showing Sp.'s position in the history of Philosophy 456
INDEX .... 457
Erraiuin. Page 45, note i/ the first essendi should be existeiidi
INTRODUCTION.
The purpose of this book is to put before English readers an account, fairly complete in itself and on a fairly adequate scale, of the life and philosophy of Spinoza. It aims, in the first instance, at being understood by those who have not made a special study of the subject ; but I hope that it may also be not useless to some who already know Spinoza at first hand, and even to critical students of philosophy. In order to reconcile these objects as far as possible, I have thought it well to collect once for all in this introductory chapter a certain amount of critical and bibliographical matter, which the reader who is interested in it will thus find ready to his hand, while the less curious may with equal ease pass it over. I propose here, not to enter at large on the bibliography and literature of Spinoza, but to give sufficient indications to any one who desires to go further on his own account. This will involve some partial repetition of matters elsewhere touched upon in the course of the book. But I prefer repetition to obscurity.
First let me premise that a most useful, one may indeed say an indispensable, companion to anything like a critical study of Spinoza is Dr. A. van der Linde's Benedictus Spinoza : Bibliografie (the Hague, 1871). This is a classified catalogue of the literature of the subject, which, if not absolutely com- plete, is as complete down to its date as the learning and industry, of one man could in the nature of things make it. While I am mentioning the work of a Dutch scholar, I may at the same time gratefully acknowledge my personal obliga- tions to several members of the Spinoza Memorial Committee
xvi INTRODUCTION.
in the Netherlands for help and information freely given on various points. Herein I am specially bound to Dr. Betz, the Secretary of the Committee, Dr. Campbell, of the Royal Library at the Hague, and Professor Land, of Leyderi.
What has to be said here may be distributed under the following heads : —
I. Editions and translations of Spinoza's works. II. Authorities for Spinoza's life. III. The early or controversial stage of Spinoza literature. VI. Modern writings on Spinoza's philosophy as a whole. V. Monographs and special discussions treating of parts (especially the De Deo et Honiine) and particular aspects of Spinoza's work. Dr. van der Linde's work is referred to as Bibliogr. simply. It brings us down, as I have said, to 1871. Much more has appeared since that time, as to which I can only call attention to the more important of the publications with which I have become acquainted. In some few particulars I am able to supplement Dr. van der Linde's information as to writings of earlier date.
I. The Works of Spinoza.
These, in the original order of publication, are as follows : —
1. Renati des Cartes Principiorum Philosophise pars I & II, more geometrico demonstratas per Benedictum de Spinoza Amstelodamensem. Accesserunt ejusdem cogitata meta- physica, &c. Amsterdam, 1663.
2. Tractatus Theologico-politicus, continens dissertationes aliquot, quibus ostenditur libertatem philosophandi non tantum salva pietate et reipublicse pace posse concedi : sed eandem nisi cum pace reipublicjE ipsaque pietate tolli non posse. Hamburg (really Amsterdam), 1670. Some notes of Spinoza's own to this treatise came to light later. See Bruder's preface, and Ed. Bohmer : Ben. de Sp. Tractatus de Deo et Homine &c. atque Adnotationes ad Tractatum Theologico- politicum. Halle, 1852.
3. B. d. S. Opera Posthuma. Amsterdam, 1677. The con- tents arc :
INTRODUCTION. xvii
Ethica ordine geometrico demoiistrata.
Tractatus politicus.
Tractatus de intellectus emendatione.
Epistolse doctorum quorundam virorum ad B. d. S.
et auctoris responsiones. Compendium grammatices linguae hebraese.
4. (Tractatus de Iride.) Stelkonstige reeckening van den Regenboog. The Hague, 1687. {Bibliogr. no. 36.)
This work was long lost sight of and supposed to have perished. It was recovered and reprinted by Dr. van Vloten in his Supplementum (see below).
5. Letter of Spinoza to Dr. Lambert van Veldhuysen. 1844. Published by Prof. Tydeman, and given in ed. Bruder as Ep. 75. {Bibliogr. no. 35.)
6. Ad Benedict! de Spinoza opera quae supersunt omnia supplementum. Amsterdam, 1862.
By Dr. J. van Vloten. Uniform with Bruder's ed. (see below), so as to make a supplementary volume to it. Contains Spinoza's early Essay on God and Man, the Treatise on the Rainbow, and some letters and parts of letters not before published.
7. In 1705 two letters written in Dutch by Spinoza, and including a paragraph not given in the Opera Posthuma, ap- peared in a periodical called Boekzaal der Geleerde Werrelt. They seem to have been forgotten till Prof. Land quite recently lighted upon them : see his paper reprinted from the proceedings of the Dutch Academy of Sciences, ' Over de eerste uitgaven der brieven van Spinoza,' Amsterdam, 1 879 ; and Appendix C to this book.
8. Letter of Spinoza to Dr. Meyer of Aug. 3, 1663. French translation given by Saisset, CEuvres de Spinoza, iii. 458. The original is printed for the first time in this book (Appendix C). This letter might conveniently be cited as Ep. xxix. a.
Three collected editions of Spinoza's works have been published : by Paulus (Jena, 1802, 2 vols.), Gfrorer (Stuttgart, 1830), and Bruder (Leipzig, 1843-6, 3 vols.). Full titles and particulars in Bibliogr. 38, 39, 41. The edition by Paulus is still useful to the student, as all the authorities then known for the life of Spinoza are conveniently brought together in
a 2
xviii INTRODUCTION.
the Collectanea at the end of vol. ii. Unfortunately the text is by no means free from misprints ; and more unfortunately this edition seems to have been used to print from in both Gfrorer's and Bruder's, and some serious errors, though not all, thus remain uncorrected. I have noted the following in the Ethics : —
Part I, Prop. 22 : ' Quicquid ex aliguo Dei attributo,' &c. So 0/>/>. Posth., as the sense requires. All the modern editions give alio.
Part 3, Prop. 21, Demonst. : 'Deinde quatenus res aliqua tristitia afficitur,' &c. Modern editions have re.
Part s. Prop. 33, Schol. : '. . . nisi quod »2^«j easdem has perfectiones . . . aeternas habuerit,' &c. Modern editions (except Gfrorer) have metus. Errors in the original edition of the Opera Posthuma have likewise remained uncorrected. See Ed. Bohmer, Spinozana, in Fichte's Zeitschrift fiir Philo- sophic und philosophische Kritik, i860, vol. xxxiii. p. 153. But as to two of the remarks there made, see ib. vol. xlii. 1863, p. 97, «. where they are retracted by the author.
Gfrorer's edition has a Latin preface of considerable merit, in which the argument for determinism is put with a certain freshness of topics and instances. In this preface there is also a misprint or lapsus calami odd enough to deserve special notice. In the part relating to Spinoza's letters we read:' ' Penultima a iuvene nobili Edmundo Burk [Alberto Burgh] conscripta est'
Bruder's edition is the handiest and altogether best equipped of the three, and the most convenient for reference.
Dr. Hugo Ginsberg has more lately undertaken a new edition, in which I have seen the Ethics, the Letter.s, and Tractatus Theologico-politicus. (Leipzig, 1875, &c.) A fourth volume, apparently completing the edition, is announced this year. The introductions contain much useful matter carefully brought together. The text professes to be an improvement on Bruder's ; but as regards the Ethics and Letters the editor's intention of collating the original text of the 0pp. Posth. has not been thoroughly carried out by those entrusted with the work. All the errors above noted are repeated ; besides which the number of new misprints can only be called
INTRODUCTION. xix
enormous. The additions to the Letters first published in Dr. van Vloten's Supplementum are also not fully given. See Mind, vol. ii. p. 273.
As to translations : —
Dutch. — A version of the ' Principles of Descartes' Philo- sophy ' (Renatus des Cartes beginzelen der wysbegeerte, &c.) was published at Amsterdam in 1664. The translator, named only as P. B., is stated to have been Peter Balling, one of Spinoza's correspondents {Bibliogr. no. 2). The Tractatus Theologico-politicus was translated into Dutch as early as 1673, and agaiu in 1694 (Bibliogr. nos. 17, 18); and the Opera Posthuma appeared in Dutch almost as soon as in Latin (De nagelate Schriften van B. d. S. &c. Bibliogr. 23). This last work is well and carefully executed. The purity of the language contrasts remarkably with the Latinisms which in- fested the current writing of the time, and some errors in the Latin text of the 0pp. Posth. are tacitly corrected. There do not seem to be any modern Dutch versions.
English. — There is no complete English translation of Spinoza, nor any trustworthy one of his most important philosophical works. The Tractatus Theologico-politicus was translated in \ 689, and again (a reprint .') in 1 737. The trans- lation of 1689 is, like the original, anonymous ; neither is Spinoza's name mentioned by the translator. So far as I have looked at it, the rendering is pretty accurate, but it has no great literary merit. . Lastly, in 1 862, and in a second edition, 1868, there appeared a version which was on the face of it anonymous, but was known to be the work of the late Dr. R. Willis, and afterwards acknowledged by him. The same writer published some years later a translation of the Ethics and Letters. (Benedict de Spinoza ; his Life, Cor- respondence, and Ethics. Triibner & Co., London, 1870.) Of this book Professor Flint has lately said, with perfect judgment and discretion, that it may be recommended to the merely English reader. I should be glad to imitate his reserve, but silence might be misunderstood. The fact is that Dr. Willis, with extensive reading, a fair knowledge of philosophy, and great interest in his subject, had not either scholarship adequate to his task, or that habit of an exact use of language which is
XX INTRODUCTION.
almost as needful to the translator as knowledge of the original tongue. The result (though, for many reasons, it is painful to have to say it) is that this version is far too inaccurate to be of any serious use. Not only shades of meaning are missed, and Spinoza's terse Latin spread into loose paraphrase, but there are constant errors in the rendering of perfectly common Latin particles, idioms, and constructions. The same remarks apply to the translation of the Tractates Theologico-politicus. There is a still later anonymous translation of the Ethics (New York and London, 1876). Unfortunately the writer looked upon Dr. Willis as an authority, and copied neariy all his mistakes. In 1854 there appeared a translation of the Trac- tatus Politicus by W. Maccall (Bibliogr. no. 32, in Corrigenda), a small book in an apparently obscure series called The Cabinet of Reason. It is in the British Museum, but has escaped the libraries of both Oxford and Cambridge Uni- versities. The translator speaks with enthusiasm of Spinoza ; why this particular work was chosen for translation does not plainly appear.
It appears from a diary kept by Shelley's friend Williams at Pisa and Lerici in 182 1-2, that Shelley not only planned ■but executed to some extent a new translation of the Trac- tatus Theologico-politicus: 'to which Lord B. [Byron] has consented to put his name, and to give it greater currency, will write the life of that celebrated Jew to preface the work.' This passage was first published in Mr. R. Garnett's article, 'Shelley's Last Days,' Fortnightly Revieiv, June 1878 (vol. xxiii. N.S., p. 858). A fragment of the first chapter, written it would seem in England, and accidentally preserved, and a fac-simile of the MS., may be seen in Mr. C. S. Middleton's ' Shelley and his Writings ' (London 1858). See p. 403, below. No other trace of Shelley's design remains.
The treatise De Intellectus Emendatione, the Principia PhilosophicB and Cogitata Metaphysica, and the book De Deo et Homine, have never to my knowledge been done into English.
French. — The Tractatus Theologico-politicus was translated in 1678, and appeared under several false titles at once {La clef du sanctuaire . . . Reflexions curieuses d'un esprit dMn-
INTRODUCTION. xxi
t^resse . . . Traits des CMmonies superstitienses des Juifs. Bibliogr. nos. io, ii, 12). More recently the principal works of Spinoza have been translated by E. Saisset {CEuvres de Spinoza. Paris, 1842 ; 2nd ed. 1861, 3 vols. : reprinted without alteration, 1872). The first volume is a critical introduction. The translation is faithful, but the Principles of Descartes' Philosophy and a good many of the letters are omitted. The critical and bibliographical information has to some extent become obsolete since Dr. van Vloten's publication of new matter. Another version, intended to be complete, has been begun' by M. J. G. Prat, and is still in progress {CEuvres com- plies de B. de Spinoza. Premiere sdrie : ' Vie de Spinoza, par Lucas ; ' ' Vie de Spinoza, par Colerus ; ' ' Principes de la Philosophie de Descartes et Meditations m^taphysiques.' Paris, 1863. Deuxi^me serie: Traits Th^ologico-politique, 1872. Ethique, Premiere Partie, 1880). A version of the Traciatus Politicus, by the same hand, appeared separately in i860. In 1878 M. Paul Janet gave for the first time a French version of the De Deo et Homine, of which more presently.
German. — There have been several German translations of the Ethics and other works of Spinoza. It will suffice to mention here Auerbach's (last edition entitled B. de Spinoza's sdvtmtliche Wi?r^^, . Stuttgart, 1871, 2 vols.), and a yet more recent one in J. H. von Kirchmann's Philosophische Bib- liothek, Berlin, 1868-72, which since its completion is also to be had in a collected form. Auerbach's version contains the whole philosophical works of Spinoza, including in the last edition the essay De Deo et Homine, and is wonderfully close to the original. The preface and life of Spinoza prefixed to the first volume contain in a^ort compass nearly all the ex- traneous information which the reader is likely to want, and form an excellent introduction to fuller study.^
Italian. — The Tractatus Theologico-politicus has recently appeared in an Italian version, namely :
Trattato Teologico-politico di Benedetto de Spinoza, &c.
' I may here mention that Auerbach's novel Spinoza : ein Denkerleben, is still practically inaccessible to English readers who do not know German. A French version appeared some time ago in the Revue Germanique, but has not been sepa- rately published. There are two Dutch translations, the latest dated 1875 ; and a Spanish one by Gonzales Senano (n.d.).
xxii INTRODUCTION.
(translating full title of original), tradotto dal testo latino per Carlo Sarchi. Milan, 1875. Pp. xlii and 368. Preface by way of dedication to S. Cesare Correnti. At p. xxxiii the translator says : ' Non solamente concorda lo Spinoza colla metafisica del Vico, di cui non fu mai incolpata la cattolica ortodossia, ma sono consentanei i suoi principii con quelli di S. Tommaso, del Dottore angelico, siccome se ne pu6 accertare chiunque voglia meditare le Quest, ii, iii, iv, v, e seguenti della Somma Teologica!
Spanish. — Still more lately there has appeared the first instalment, containing the Tractatus Theologico-politicus, of a Spanish version of Spinoza's philosophical works :
Obras filosoficas de Spinoza vertidas al castellano y pre- cedidas de una introduccion por Don Emilio Reus y Baha- monde, &c. Madrid, 1878, 8vo. pp. cxvi and 368.
II. Authorities for Spinoza's Life.
I, Colerus. — First and chiefly we have the life of Spinoza by Johannes Colerus (Kohler), German minister of the Lutheran congregation at the Hague. This congregation, existing side by side with the Dutch Reformed Church in freedom and security much beyond any rights officially, allowed to it, was to some extent under the protection of German Lutheran princes ; and, for the convenience of Ger- mans residing at the Hague in the service of the States or otherwise, there was a German minister as well as a Dutch one. This office was filled by Colerus from 1693 to 1707. The usage of a bilingual ministry was kept up till 1832, when the last German pastor died. Colerus first published his life of Spinoza in Dutch, together with a controversial sermon against Spinozism (Amsterdam, 1705. Bibliogr. 88). This original edition Is extremely rare. Only two copies are known, one of which is in the Royal Library at the Hague and the other at Halle (Bibliogr. p. vii). It was almost im- mediately followed, and for all practical purposes supplanted, by a French version (La v^rit6 de la r&urrection de J6sus Christ d^fendue centre B. de Spinoza et ses spectateurs [secta-
INTRODUCTION. xxiii
teurs]. Avec la vie de ce fameux philosophe, tir^e, tant de ses propres Ecrits, que de la bouche de plusieurs personnes dignes de foi qui I'ont connu. Par Jean Colerus, Ministre de I'Eglise Luth^rienne de la Haye. The Hague, 1706. Bibliogr. 90.) This French version of the life has been several times re- printed ; it is to be found in Paulus' edition of Spinoza, in Saisset's and Prat's translations, and at the end of Dr. Gins- berg's edition of the Letters. An English translation of it appeared in the same year, which is reprinted at the end of this book (Appendix A), and a German one in 1723, remark- able for a portrait of Spinoza, in the lettering of which he is described as ' characterem reprobationis in vultu gerens.' There was a later German translation from the original Dutch, 1734 (Bibliogr. 91-93). Many details have been added or cleared up since, but Colerus remains the principal authority. What gives his witness a singular value is its freedom from all suspicion of designed panegyric. He detests the philosophy of Spinoza, but is too honest to slander his character as a man, or even to conceal his admiration for it.
2. Opera Posthtimasxid Supplementum. — Some biographical information is given in the editors' preface to the Opera Posthuma, and something may be gathered from various passages in Spinoza's correspondence, notably in the portions first made known by Dr. van Vloten, who has also given other documentary evidence bearing on Spinoza's life both in the Supplementum and in his Dutch work on Spinoza (see below).
3. Leibnitz. — A few personal recollections of Spinoza are preserved in Leibnitz's writings. They will be specially mentioned in their place in the biographical part (Paulus, Collectanea ; Foucher de Careil, Leibnis, Descartes, et Spinoza).
The remaining sources of information are of less weight.
4. Lucas. — Early in the eighteenth century, we cannot say vs^hen first, but it seems before 171 2 at all events (see extract from Brit. Mus. MS. below), there became cur- rent in MS. a biography of Spinoza, attributed in the preface to one Lucas, a physician of the Hague. It was often asso- ciated, under the common title La vie et V esprit de Mr. Benott de Spinosa, with a certain Traits des trois imposteurs.
xxiv INTRODUCTION.
which has nothing to do with Spinoza, and is again distinct from the Latin book De tribus impostoribus, though it pre- tends to be from a Latin original. In this form the hfe was printed at Amsterdam in 17 19, in a publication called Nouvelles Litteraires, and also in a separate book. The book was almost immediately called in ; the life was reissued alone at Hamburg [.?], 173S, and this edition also became very scarce (the British Museum has a copy).' Meanwhile the Count de Boulainvilliers, who possessed an early MS. copy, had worked it up with the life by Colerus into a not very coherent whole (La vie de Spinosa ^crite par M. Jean Colerus . . . augment^e de beaucoup de particularMs tiroes d'une vie manuscrite de ce philosophe, faite par un de ses amis) in his book called a refu- tation of Spinoza, but really a popular exposition, v/hich was published after the author's death (Brussels [.'], 1731. Bibliogr. 107, where the date is given as 1726 by the misprint of XXVI. for XXXI.).
The additions in Boulainvilliers, and some passages of Lucas omitted by him (these from a MS. copy), are given in Paulus' edition as footnotes to Colerus ; and Lucas is reprinted at large from ed. 1735 by M. Prat (he does not mention whence he obtained the use or a transcript of the book) in his CEuvres computes de B. de Spinoza, ire s6rie. The history of this work, and the connexion of the different forms in which it has existed, were first unravelled by Paulus (preface to vol. ii. of his edition). One could wish it were better worth so much trouble. It is the production of an ardent and undiscriminating panegyrist, confused in its narrative, and not always consistent with what is known from other quarters. As Auerbach justly says, Lucas' enthusiasm prevents him from telling his story clearly or soberly. His unsupported evidence is, in my opinion, worth very little, and at best we can only use him as a witness auxiliary and subordinate to Colerus. The authorship of this biography has been called in doubt on the ground that Lucas (of whom, by the way, very little seems to be known, save that he was the author of a
' At the foot of p. 47 is the catchword L'ESPRIT, belonging to the title ' L'Esprit de M. de Spinosa,' which followed on p. 49 in the original issue of 1719, p. 48 being blank.
INTRODUCTION. xxv
satirical work called Les Quintessences) was not capable of it (Prosper Marchand, Diet. Historique, article ' Impostoribus '). But the question is not worth discussing.
5. Bayle, Kortholt, &c. — The remaining evidences may be taken in the lump. A few touches are contributed by the article on Spinoza in Bayle's Dictionary (reprinted as appendix to Dr. Ginsberg's edition of the Tractatus Tkeologico-politicus), which however is very loose in its facts, and by a notice prefixed by Sebastian Kortholt to a second edition of his father's book De tribus impostoribus magnis (Hamburg, 1700. Bibliogr. 82 : the passages about Spinoza are given in Paulus' Collectanea). The ' three great impostors ' of the last-named book are Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Hobbes, and Spinoza. ^\^lat is said of Spinoza personally in the preface is remark- able as the testimony of a very unwilling witness to the sim- plicity and blamelessness of his life. Colerus had Bayle and Kortholt before him when he wrote his Hfe of Spinoza. Then we have a little book by one Stoupe,' a Swiss officer in the French service, La religion des hollandois, 1673 (Bibliogr. 63, where the passages in question are given), containing a rather confused account of Spinoza, who was then living, and of the Tractatus Theologico-politicus. The Dutch theologians are accused of lukewarmness, or worse, for not coming forward more strongly to refute Spinoza ; this piece of evangelical zeal is not unlikely, as Paulus suggests, to have had a political motive. Dutch writers presently replied to these charges. One of them, described as ' Jean Brun, Ministre du Roy des Armies,' expresses astonishment at Stoupe's zeal against Spinoza ; for Stoupe, he says, himself sought Spinoza's ac- quaiiitance, and made much of him on the occasion of his visit to Condi's head-quarters at Utrecht (Bibliogr. 6"]). In 1847 there appeared in the Berlin Allgemeine Zeitschrift fUr Geschichte some notes of travel made in 1703 by Gottlieb Stolle, afterwards a professor at Jena (Bibliogr. 86). At Amsterdam he picked up some gossip about Spindza from an old man who professed to have known him well. This com- munication is of no importance, and in part manifestly absurd.
' The name is variously spelt. Dr. van Vloten, in his recent address on the unveiling of the Spinoza statue (see p. xxxvi. below), prints it Stoffa,
xxvi INTRODUCTION.
But StoUe likewise made the acquaintance of Rieuwerts (or Riewerts, as the name appears on the title-page of the Principia Philosophice), the publisher of the 0pp. Posth., and got from him some interesting particulars; he also visited Bayle, and spoke with him of Spinoza. See Ginsberg's In- troduction to his edition of the Ethics, pp. 20-25, where these passages are reprinted.
Some other miscellaneous publications of the eighteenth century contain statements or allusions touching Spinoza's life ; but, so far as I know, these are either copied from the authorities already mentioned, or were idle tales contradicted by the known facts (e.g. Bibliogr. 98, no).
I may here say a word of the portraits of Spinoza. Three only that I know of (if so many) may be reasonably considered authentic : —
1. Engraving found in some copies of the 0pp. Posth. It is not described as rare in Bibliogr., but is difficult to meet with in this country. After searching without result in public libraries, we found an example in the copy of the 0pp. Posth. belonging to the London Institution, of which the frontispiece to this book is a reproduction.
2. Miniature belonging to the late Queen of the Nether- lands, in the Summer Palace at the Hague. A chromo- lithographic copy is given as frontispiece to Schaarschmidt's edition of De Deo et Homine.
3. Painting formerly belonging to Professor Paulus, the editor of Spinoza, since to Dr. van Vloten, and by him pre- sented to the Town Museum at the Hague. Comparison of the three suggests that No. i may be to some extent idealised. On the other hand. No. i is by far the most artistic and lifelike. Cf. Ed. Bohmer, Spinozana, i. p. 144, ii. pp. 86, 87 (in Zeitschr. fur Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, Halle, vol. xxxvi.
i860, vol. xlii. 1863).'
' No. I also occurs without the inscription, but in that state is very rare. No. 2 was bought at Leyden in 1866, with some sort of tradition of Spinoza being the person represented. Opinions differ as to the value to be attached to it. No. 3 has been engraved as frontispiece to Paulus' edition of Spinoza. Recent inspection of the original has led nie to suspect that it may be only a fancy picture by some painter who had no. i before him : if this were so, it would of course be of no {luthority.
INTRODUCTION. xxvii
III. Early Literature relating to Spinoza.
Andala. — The following book, not without curiosity for the elaborate comparison of Spinoza's philosophy with Stoi cism, is not in Bibliogr. ; —
Apologia I pro | vera & saniore | philosophia | quatuor partibus comprehensa, | auctore | Ruardo Andala, | Phil, et SS. Theol. Doctore & Professore | ordinario. | Franequerse, | Ex Officina Wibii Bleck, Bibliopolae | MDCCXIX. 4to. pp. 3 unnumbered (title-page and preface) and 210. ,
Parts I. and II. relate to Spinoza ; the pages of Part I. are headed: ' Philosophia R. Descartes | Spinosismo opposita.' Those of Part II. : ' Spinosus Stoicismus fons Spinosismi | et puritas philosophise R. Descartes.' The Stoic philosophy is compared with Spinoza's in parallel columns through a series of numbered heads.
For my acquaintance with this book (as for the references to some of the others hereafter mentioned) I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. I. Bywater, of Exeter College, Oxford, the owner of the copy I have seen. It is not in the British Museum, the Bodleian, or the Cambridge University library. The full title of the same author's book described in Bibliogr. 303 is : —
Cartesius | verus Spinozismi | eversor, | et | physicae ex- perimentalis | architectus, | auctore ( Ruardo Andala, | Phil, et SS. Theol. Doctore et Professore | ordinario. | Franequerse | Ex officina Wibii Bleck, Bibliopolae, MDCCIX. 4to.
Pp. 1-282, headed : ' Cartesius verus Spinozismi eversor.' New title : Dissertatio physica | qua repraesentatur \ Car- tesius I physicae experimentalis architectus, | ventilata public^ A.D, 21. Jun. MDCCXIX. | Defendente | Georgio SzoboE- zlai, I Transylvano-Hungaro.
Pp. 1-44, headed : 'Cartesius physicae experimentalis ar- chitectus.'
The same author's Dissertationum philosophicaruM heptas (Franeq. MDCCXI) contains at least one incidental attack on Spinoza, of whom it is said, among other amenities, in the
xxviii INTRODUCTION
fifth dissertation, De voluntatis libertate (p. 190) : ' Hsecet alia ostendunt Atheum avTOKUTaKpiTov.'
Bontekoe.—'Dr. Cornelius Bontekoe's unexecuted intention of refuting Spinoza is noticed in the text further on (ch. xii.).
Boulainvilliers. — Spinoza's name was strangely mixed up, as above mentioned, with a certain Traiti des trots imposteurs which had a half-occult circulation in MS. in France and the Low Countries ; a performance, for the rest, of no particular merit, and itself a clumsy imposture as regards its pretended origin and date. Later in the eighteenth century it was printed, but without the use of Spinoza's name in any way. See for detailed bibliography of this work Ed. Bohmer, Spino- zana, i860 {ubi stipra), pp. 156 sqq. I now add my contribu- tion for what it may be worth. In an eighteenth century MS. in the British Museum (Add. 12064) there occurs, after a copy of this treatise, a note which maybe worth transcribing. It is as follows (I modernize the spelling and accents, and correct one or two words) :
' J'ai vu une copie MS. de I'ouvrage de Monsieur le comte de BoullainviUiers touchant la doctrine de Spinoza faite sur I'original de I'auteur au mois d'aoiit 1712, in-4to. Ce MS. contient la Metaphysique et I'Ethique de Spinoza, son Esprit \i.e. the Traiti des trois imposteurs'] et sa vie,^ comme il \sic\ porte le titre. II commence par la vie de Spinoza, qui est fort abr^gee, et dont le plus essentiel et remarquable a iti ajout^ a la vie de Spinoza ecrite par Colerus, et a ete imprimd depuis peu dans le livre de la Refutation des erreurs de Benoit Spinoza, a Bruxelles chez Francois Foppens en 1731, in-8vo, comme porte le titre, mais veritablement en HoUande. \Bibliogr. 107, and see above.]
' Apr^s la vie de Spinoza est place I'ouvrage de Monsieur BoullainviUiers avec ce titre :
' Essai de Mdtaphysique dans les Prmcipes de B . . . de Sp . . . composd par M.L.C.D.C.D.B., c'est-a-dire—
' II y precede un avertissement qui fait la preface de I'imprime dans la Refutation de Spinoza, mais au commence- ment, ou il est dit : J'entreprends de faire parler dans les trois traitfe suivans — on a retranch^ le mot trois — parce qu'on n'a pas os^ d'imprimerl'Espritde Spinoza, qui fait le troisieme
INTRODUCTION. ' xxix
traite. . . . Le troisi^me traits est intituld : L'Esprit de Mon- sieur de Spinoza, c'est-^-dire ce que croit la plus saine partie du monde.'
It would be rash to infer anything from this memorandum as to the authorship of the Traits des trois imposteurs, which is indeed quite beneath Boulainvilliers' ability, particularly as shown in the so-called Refutation, with which it was associated in the MS. of 17 12 seen by the annotator. But it does appear to connect Boulainvilliers with the affixing of Spinoza's name to the work. It is not surprising that the writer of the MS. now cited did not know (as he obviously did not) that it had been printed in 17 19. The 'copie MS.' mentioned by him would seem to be that in the library of the Arsenal at Paris, described ex relatione by Bohmer, Spinozana, ii. p. 157. The British Museum possesses another MS. copy of the Traiti, which, however, does not offer any peculiar feature.
In Paris MSS. have apparently been searched for by Bohmer. One would think, however, there must yet be several unexamined copies in French libraries {cf. Spinozana, ii. 89, 90).
Langenhert. — Arnoldi Geulincx | compendium physicae | illustratum | a | Casparo Langenhert. | | Franequerae, | Ex Officinal Leonardi Strick Bibliopolae | Anno MDCLXXXVIII. At p. 116: 'Quomodo autem Philosophi nonnuUi atque Theologi, liberrimum hoc arbitrium cum Deo non competere vaferrimo Spinosse (qui libertatem hanc, ut suo tempore dante Deo demonstrabimus, ne quidem per somnium novit) largiantur, ex ejus sese liberent tricis, id ego nje ignorare profiteor.'
Langenhert's intention, like Dr. Bontekoe's, appears to have remained unperformed.
Rijcke. — Theodori Ryckii, etc. ad diversos epistolce ineditE. Ed. G. D. J. Schotel. Hagse Comitum, 1843. At p. 6, in letter to Adrian BIyenburg, Aug. 14, 1675 : — ' Inter nos rumor est auctorem Tractatus Theologico-politici in promptu habere librum de Deo et Mente multo priore isto periculosiorem.'
Compare Spinoza's Ep. 19, of about the same date. Ryssel (J. J. cl) gives a short account of Spinoza and
XXX INTRODUCTION.
his philosophy in his edition of Vossius de philosophorum sectis, Lips. 1690, 4to. p. 203.
Witte (Henning). — Diarium biographicum, in quo scrip- tores seculi post natum Christum xvii. pr^cipui . . . concise descripti magnd adducuntur numero. Gedani [Danzig] 1688, 4to. At sig. Nnnn, fo. 4, verso (the book is unpaged) sub ann. 1677, is the name of Spinoza and a list of his works : the exact date of his death is added in a supplement.
An anti-Spinozist bibliography was attempted as early as 1725 by Joh. Albert Fabricius in his wordily entitled book :
Delectus argumentorum et syllabus scriptorum qui veri- tatem religionis Christianas adversus atheos, Epicureos, Deistas seu naturalistas, idololatras, Judaeos et Muhammedanos lu- cubrationibus suis asseruerunt. Hamburg 1725, 4to.
Cap. XIII., p. 355:
Adversus Spinosam et alios mundum sternum confin- gentes.
At p. 357 is a list of writers against Spinoza : some names of authors and books are given which I do not find in Bibliogr. Besides Brampton Gurdon (as to whom see below among English writers) the following are referred to, if re- ference it can be called.
Gerardus de Vries in exercitationibus rationalibus de Deo.'
D. Jo. Jachimi^ Weidneri Homo Spinosae religionem exer- cens : qii. whether a separate work from ' Numen Spinozje in refutationem erroris atheistici,' &c. {Bibliogr. 394), the title of which is inaccurately cited by Fabricius.
Petrus van Mastricht in Gangraena. (Novitatum Car- tesianarum Gangraena, s. Theologia Cartesiana detecta. Amstelod. 1677. In University Libraries of Cambridge and Leyden, and in the Bodleian : not in Brit. Mus. The author was Professor of Theology at Utrecht, 1677-1706). The
' Gei-ardi de Vries exercitationes rationales de Deo, divinisque perfectionibus, necnon pliilosophemata miscellanea, &c. Trajecti ad Rhenum, MDCXCV, 4to. At p. 34 is a pious wish for unhappy persons who may be ' istis Spinis suffocati ' ; at p. 43 the Ethics are named : ' consonant haec per omnia eis, qus occurrunt in ipso limine profanae Ethicte ordine geometrico demonstratse. ' The book is mainly anti-Cartesian. The author was a Professor at Utrecht.
" Read Jo. Joachimi. The D. apparently stands for ' Domini. '
INTRODUCTION. xxxi
full title is : Novitatum Cartesianarum Gangraena, nobiliores plerasque corporis theologici partes arrodens & exedens. Seu theologia Cartesiana detecta auctore Petro van Mastricht, S. literarum in ecclesia & academia Duisburgensi doctore & professore. Prostant Amstelodami : apud Janssonio- Waesbergios. Anno MDCLXXVII.
In cap. 3, De Philosophia non ancilla Theologiae, occurs criticism of the 'Tractatus Theologico-politicus.' Spinoza is described as ' Athens quidem, sed Cartesianus tamen ' on p. 35, and on p. 44 we find an early instance, perhaps the earliest, of a pun which afterwards became current (see citations from Andala and De Vries above) : ' Spinosam Spinosse argutiam proHxius obtundere visum.' ' Van Mastricht shared the mis- take, not uncommon at the time, of attributing to Spinoza the anonymous book ' Philosophia Scripturae interpres,' really by Dr. Meyer. ' Idem (et forte etiam ipse idem) aliis licet verbis, habet Exercitator paradoxus de P kilos. Interp. Script! &c. (p. 35).
Jo. van de Weyen (read van der Waeyen) in Summa Theologiae (Pars Prior, Franeq. 1689).
The following English works of the late seventeenth and eighteenth century, more or less concerned with Spinoza, are not in Bibliogr.
Cudworth (Ralph, D.D.). — True Intellectual System of the Universe, book i. c. 5, p. 707 (the pagination is the same in ed. pr. 1678, fo., and ed. 1743, 2 vols. 4to.) :
'As for that late theological politician, who, writing against miracles, denies as well those of the former [by natural power of angels, &c.] as of this latter [supernatural] kind ... we find his discourse every way so weak, ground- less, and inconsiderable, that we could not think it here to deserve a confutation.'
Blackmore. — Creation. A philosophical poem. In seven books. By Sir Richard Blackmore, Knt. M.D.,and Fellow of the College of Physicians in London. London : MDCCXII. 8vo.
' Such ornaments of argument were then in fashion, and Spinoza is here in no less orthodox company than Hildebrand's, of whom our author speaks thus (p. 3) ' Gregorius Septimus, Hildebrandus (Hellebrandum suo nomine dixeris ') .
b
xxxli INTRODUCTION.
Also to be fcfund in the collection of English Poets edited by Johnson. It is a didactic poem on natural theology ; in the course of which, as the author announces (Preface, p. xviii.) 'the modern atheists, Vaninus, Hobbs, and Spinosa' are spoken of in their turn. Again he says in the Preface (p. xlv) :—
'Will they [the irreligious gentlemen of the age] derive their certainty from Spinosa ? Can such an obscure, perplext, unintelligible Author create such Certainty, as leaves no Doubt or Distrust ? If he is indeed to be understood, what does he alledge more than the ancient Fatalists have done, that should amount to Demonstration ? '
The confutation of Spinoza in the body of the work is in Book 3, V. 742. It is not without curiosity as a specimen of what then passed muster in England as philosophy and
poetry : —
Spinosa next, to hide his black design,
And to his Side th' unwary to incline,
For Heav'n his Ensigns treacherous displays,
Declares for God, while he that God betrays :
For whom he's pleas'd such Evidence to bring,
As saves the Name, while it subverts the Thing.
Now hear his labour'd Scheme of impious Use ; No Substance can another e'er produce. Substance no Limit, no Confinement knows, And its Existence from its Nature flows. The Substance of the Universe is one, Which is the Self-existent God alone.
The Spheres of Ether, which the World enclose. And all th' Apartments, which the Whole compose ; The lucid Orbs, the Earth, the Air, the Main, With every diff'rent Being they contain. Are one prodigious Aggregated God, Of whom each Sand is part, each Stone and Clod. Supream Perfections in each Insect shine, Each Shrub is Sacred, and each Weed Divine.
Sages, no longer Egypt's Sons despise. For their cheap Gods, and Savoury Deities ! No more their course ' Divinities revile ! To Leeks, to Onions, to the Crocodile, You might your humble Adorations pay. Were you not Gods your selves, as well as they. ' Sic.
INTRODUCTION. xxxiii
As much you pull Religion's altars down, By owning all Things God, as owning none. For should all Beings be alike Divine, Of Worship if an Object you assign, God to himself must Veneration shew, Must be the Idol and the Vot'ry too ; And their assertions are alike absurd. Who own no God, or none to be ador'd.
Colliber. An Impartial Enquiry into the Existence and Nature of God &c. The third edition. By Samuel Colliber. London, 1735. 8vo, pp. 276. Spinoza is several times cited in order to be contradicted ; in some places the words of the original are given.
Brampton Gurdon. A Defence of Natural and Revealed Religion : Being a collection of the sermons preached at the lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. ; (from the year 1691 to the year 1732). 3 vols. Lond. 1739, fo.
At p. 277. The Pretended Difficulties in Natural or Reveal'd Religion no Excuse for Infidelity. Sixteen Ser- mons preached in the church of Saint Mary le Bow, London ; in the years 1721 and 1722. At the lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. By Brampton Gurdon, A.M. Chaplain to the Right Honourable Thomas Earl of Maccles- field, Lord High Chancellour of Great Britain.
Criticism of Spinoza occurs at pp. 297, 299-308, 329-30,
345, 358, 363-5-
Ramsay. The | philosophical | principles | of | natural and revealed | religion. | Unfolded | in | a geometrical order | by the Chevalier Ramsay | author of the travels of Cyrus. | Glas- gow : I printed and sold by Robert Foulis. | MDCCXLVIII. 2 vols. 4to. Vol. I. (pp. viii and 541) contains frequent cri- ticism on Spinoza. At p. 497 :
Appendix | to the | foregoing work : | containing | a | refuta- tion |pf the first book of | Spinosa's Ethics ; | by which | the whole structure | is undermined. At pp. 539-541 :
' From all this it appears that Spinosa's monstrous system is composed of Cabbalism, Cartesianism, and Predestinarian- ism differently conjoined and interwoven. . . . With regard to moral actions, the Spinosian errors are not so much abuses,
ba
xxxiv INTRODUCTION.
as natural and necessary consequences of the Predestinarian scheme. If this be so, then it is possible that Spinosa did not think himself an Atheist. . . .
' Those who have undertaken the confutation of this philo- sopher have not as yet succeeded. All that Bayle says against Spinosa is unworthy of our notice. That ingenious author scarce ever dipt beyond the surface of things. . . .
' We have endeavoured to disclose the mysterious jargon of this dark system, represent it in its true light, and confute it in two different manners, by demonstrating truths diametrically opposite to its principles, and by proving that all its demonstra- tions are sophistical. We conclude with this sole remark, that till Predestinarian and Cartesian principles be ban- ished from the Christian schools, Spinosism can never be solidly confuted.'
Vol. ii. (pp. 462) is on ancient religions and mythology, and appears to contain no further mention of Spinoza.
Dugald Stewart. In the First Preliminary Dissertation of the Encyclopcedia Britannica (vol. i, p. 144 in 7th ed.) a few pages are given to Spinoza. They are of no value at the pre- sent day.
Gibbon. In the Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of the y^neid {Misc. Works, ii. 5 10), Gibbon speaks of ' the prin- ciples which the impious Spinoza revived rather than invented' The context sufficiently shows that ' the impious Spinoza ' was for Gibbon merely a stick to beat Warburton with.
One other book may be noticed under this head, merely to save trouble to other students of Spinoza literature who may come across it. It is : ' APETH-AOFIA, or An En- quiry into the Original of moral Virtue ; wherein the false Notions of Machiavel, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Mr. Bayle, as they are collected and digested by the Author of the Fable of the Bees, are examined and confuted, and the eternal and un- alterable Nature and Obligation of moral Virtue- is stated and vindicated. To which is prefixed a prefatory Introduction, in a Letter to that Author.' By Alexander Innes, D.D., &c. Westminster, MDCCXXVIII., 8vo., pp. xlii and 333.
There is not a word in the body of the book about Spinoza, nor yet about Hobbes and Bayle. Machiavelli is once cited
INTRODUCTION. xxxv
as an authority. The argument against Mandeville, who is the sole object of attack, proceeds on hedonistic principles, and there is even an attempt at what late writers have called a hedonic calculus (p. 199), so that I fancy the work may be of some interest for the history of utilitarianism.
IV. Not as a matter of bibliography, but for the reader's general convenience, I shall here mention some of the modern accounts of Spinoza.
It, will be generally admitted, I believe, by competent persons that Kuno Fischer's (Geschichte der neueren Philoso- phie, vol. i. part 2) is on the whole the fullest and best._ The author has the merit, too rare in philosophical literature, of combining thorough analysis with clear exposition and an admirable style.
In English the best general view is still given by Mr. Froude's essay reprinted from the ' Westminster Review ' in Short Studies on Great Subjects. The chapter on Spinoza in Lewes' History of Philosophy is good for the biographical part ; as to the philosophy, it excites an interest which it hardly does enough to satisfy. There is a good article in Blunt's Dictionary of Sects, Heresies, &c. (London, 1 874), s. v. ' Spinoza,' showing careful study and great familiarity with the Ethics ; but it is of necessity much condensed. Com- pare ' Spinozism ' in the same editor's Diet, of Doctrinal and Historical Theology. London, 1871.
Hallam's account must be mentioned as occurring in a work classicaf in its own line (' Literature of Europe,' part iv. ch. iii., ss. 71-96, ch. iv. ss. 9-12). It is painstaking and perhaps as free from material inaccuracy as a inere abstract can be. A more popular one, candid and careful as far as it goes, is in Milman's ' History of the Jews,' vol. iii. p. 374, sqq. (3rd ed. 1863).
Dr. van Vloten's Benedictus de Spinoza naar Leven en Werken (2nd ed., Schiedam, 1871) is a work more addressed to non-philosophical readers than Kuno Fischer's, but his account is thus far, unfortunately, accessible only to those who can read Dutch. Spinoza's doctrines are stated, as far as possible, in his own language, so that the book has a value
■xxvi TATRODUCTION.
indeper.dent of Dr. van Vloten's interpretation, which on many points is open to discussion. I am bound to say, how- ever (the more so as divers philosophers by profession, both in the Netherlands and in Germany, have unduly slighted his work), that in the main I agree with his results.'
The most determined adversary of Dr. van Vloten is Dr. Spruyt, now a professor of philosophy at Amsterdam (Van Vloten's Benedictus de Spinoza beoordeeld door C. B. Spruyt. Utrecht, 1876. 8vo., pp. xi. and lOo). His work, though short, has three distinct aims : vindi.cation of Descartes, especially as to his services to physical science ; criticism of Dr. van Vloten's treatment of Spinoza; and criticism of Spinoza himself. As to the first topic, I do not know that Dr. van Vloten would really have much to say to the contrary, and I certainly have nothing. As to the second. Dr. van Vloten is well able to take care of himself, and moreover Mr. Lotsy has come to support him. But it is curious that, not- withstanding Dr. Spruyt's vehement and supercilious criticism of most parts of Dr. van Vloten's work, his own remarks on Spinozism amount to a virtual admission that Dr. van Vloten's view of the general effect and tendency of Spinoza's philo- sophy is correct. The real difference is on the question how far Spinoza was himself aware of its tendency, and a question of this kind is seldom so free from doubt as to justify one in treating with absolute contempt an opinion different from one's own. As to Spinoza himself, there is only one thing to be said of Dr. Spruyt's criticism. Haeret in cortice. It is the kind of criticism that naturally occurs to a reader instructed '' in modern philosophy who looks into Spinoza without any serious endeavour to discover what was really in his mind. It makes verbal points effectively, but adds no more to our understanding of Spinoza than the abundant criticism of the same kind that has gone before it. One point of substance is well seen, namely, that Spinoza's philosophy is not the flawless miracle of consistency imagined by many writers. But Dr.
> On the unveiling of the statue of Spinoza at the Hague on September 14, 1880, Dr. van Vloten delivered an address, which is printed in the form of a pamphlet (Spinoza de blijde boodschapper der mondige menschheid. 's Grav«n- hage, 1880).
INTRODUCTIOTv. xxxvii
Spruyt runs into the other extreme, and seems to think no inconsistency too gross to ascribe to him. Dr. Spruyt is espe- cially scandalised at Spinoza's theory of politics (which, according to him, is quite irreconcilable with the Ethics), and has devised for it the neat phrase ' brutale machtsvergoding ; ' which has, I believe, been a source of great comfort to anti- Spinozistic clergymen and journalists.
In the last year or two there have appeared Herr Theodor Camerer's Die Lehre Spinoza's (Stuttgart, 1877), and Mr. Lotsy's Spinoza's Wijsbegeerte (Amsterdam, 1878). Herr Camerer's book is a minute analysis of the philosophy of the Ethics, which has the merit of never shirking a difficulty, though the difficirlties are sometimes exaggerated. Those who know Spinoza already may find it suggestive ; and for such only it appears to be written. The total absence of his- torical criticism is a rather serious defect. Some things in Spinoza are naturally obscure if one does not look back at least as far as Descartes. Mr. Lotsy takes much the same line as Dr. van Vloten, but even more emphatically. The book is vigorous, clear-headed, and often original in treatment. It is noticed more at length in a review contributed by myself to Mind {]u\y 1879, p. 431).
Then there is a class of writings which may be described as mixed exposition and criticism, with criticism predominat- ing. Among these, which are very numerous, a chief place is held by Trendelenburg's essays, (/el>er Spinoza's Grund- gedanken und dessen Erfolg and Ueber die aufgefundenen Ergdnsungen zu Spinoza's Werken und deren Ertrag fiir Spinozds Leben und Lehre (Historische Beitrdge zur Philoso- pkie, vol. ii. p. 31, and vol. iii. p. 277). The later of the two essays is occasioned by the publication of De Deo et Homine, but is by no means confined to points immediately raised thereby.
H. C. W. Sigwart's Der Spinozismus historisch und philo- sophisch erldutert, &c., Tubingen, 1839 {Bibliogr. 310), has suffered the fate of many good books in being assimilated by later ones, till there is little actual need to consult it in its original form. But a good and valuable book it remains.
An elaborate criticism is given in the introductory volume
xxxviii INTRODUCTION.
to Saisset's translation. It is avowedly polemical, and belongs to a school of philosophy which may now happily be consi- dered pretty well extinct even in its own country, where till quite lately it sat in high places. But Saisset is an able and fair combatant, and stands, I think, at or near the head of the distinctly adverse writers on Spinoza. In English it has not been my fortune to meet with anything of the kind (save Prof Flint's work mentioned below) showing competent acquaint- ance with the subject.
One or two recent works are on the line between general and special monographs. I will name here : —
Busolt (Dr. Georg) : Die Grundziige der Erkenntnisz- Theorie und Metaphysik Spinoza's dargestellt, erlautert und gewiirdigt. Von der Universitat zu Konigsberg gekronte Preisschrift. BerHn, 1875.
Turbiglio (Sebastiano) : Benedetto Spinoza e le trasforma- zioni del suo pensiero. Libri tre. Rome, 1874.
Signor Turbiglio seems to hold that Spinoza never fully developed his own thought ; he distinguishes between ' lo Spinoza reale,' and 'lo Spinoza fenomenico.' Of Spinoza's influence he says, ad fin, : ' In qualunque punto dell' eta moderna voi interroghiate il pensiero filosofico, vi si revela la presenza dello Spinoza.'
Last, not least, come M. Renah's commemorative address (Spinoza, Discours prononcd ^ la Haye le 21 fdvrier 1877, il I'occasion du 200^ anniversaire de sa mort. The Hague, 1877), a masterpiece in its kind ; and Professor Land's lecture Ter Gedachtenis van Spinoza (Leyden, 1877), which, with its illustrative notes, gives in a small compass an accurate his- torical and critical survey of Spinoza's philosophy, and extracts from many authorities in the originals. I may here note that any one who wishes to make a special study of Spinoza will find it amply worth his while to be able to read Dutch.
The only formal commentary on Spinoza's works which I know of is J. H. von Kirchmann's. It has appeared in parts in the Philosophische Bibliothek, and is now to be had as a book complete in itself, or together with the translation {suh tit, Benedict von Spinoza's sammtliche philosophische Werke
INTRODUCTION. xxxix
iibersetzt und erlautert von J. H. v. Kirchmann und C. Schaarschmidt).
It is hardly needful to add that the general histories of philosophy, such as Erdmann's and Ueberweg's, may also be usefully consulted.
V. Among special monographs and discussions those on the treatise De Deo et Homine form a class apart.
Avenarius (Dr. Richard) : Ueber die beiden ersten Phasen des Spinozischen Pantheismus, &c. Leipzig, 1868 (Bibliogr. 146).
Schaarschmidt (Prof C.) : Benedicti de Spinoza korte Ver- handeling van God, de Mensch en deszelfs Welstand, tractatuli deperditi de Deo et homine ejusque felicitate versio Belgica. Ad antiquissimi codicis fidem edidit et praefatus est de Spi- nozae philosophiae fontibus Car. Schaarschmidt. Amstelodami 1869 {Bibliogr. 51).
Sigwart (Dr. Christoph) : Benedict de Spinoza's kurzer Tractat von Gott, dem Menschen und dessen Gluckseligkeit, &c. Tiibingen, 1870 {Bibliogr. 53). A translation with com- mentary: cf. the same author's earlier monograph Spinoza's nettentdeckter Tractat, &c. Gotha, 1866 {Bibliogr. 144).
All these are important, and also Trendelenburg's essay already mentioned. I must be allowed to express the pleasure I have found in Professor Schaarschmidt's preface, apart from its considerable philosophical merits, as an example of elegant and unafifected modern Latinity. Quite lately M. Paul Janet has given us the first French version of the treatise, with an excellent introduction :
Supplement aux OEuvres de Spinoza : Dieu, I'homme et la beatitude : traduit pour la premiere fois en fraiigais et pr^c^d^ d'une introduction. Paris, 1878.
Monographs on special aspects and relations of Spinoza's philosophy are too numerous to be effectively dealt with here. Dr. Joel's researches on the Jewish predecessors of Spinoza {Beitrdge zur Geschichte der Philosophie, Breslau, 1 876, a re- issue of , several earlier published essays of various dates) are mentioned in the body of the work (ch. iv.). Dr. Joel's inferences are criticised by Mr. W. R. Sorley in Mind, No.
xl INTRODUCTION.
IQ, July 1880, 'Jewish Mediaeval Philosophy and Spinoza,' who holds that Spinoza's relation to these thinkers ' was as much one of antagonism as Descartes' relation to Christian Scholasticism, and indeed much more so.'
Spinoza's Relation to Descartes. — Bouillier, Histoire de la Philosophie Cartesienne, 3rd ed., Paris, 1868, 2 vols., chaps. xv-xix in vol. i. being on Spinoza (not in Bibliogr).
Dr. F. G. Hann : Die Ethik Spinoza's und die Philosophie Descartes, Innsbruck, 1875.
Encyclopcedia Britannica, 9th ed., art. Cartesianism, by Professor Caird.
All these writers adhere to the view that Spinoza's philo- sophy is a direct development from Descartes, and little or nothing else.
Bearings of Spinoza on Modern Theology. — Heine : Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland, 2tes Buch. Sdmmtl. Werke, vol. v. p. 123 sqq.
Matthew Arnold : Spinoza and the Bible. In Essays in Criticism, 3rd ed. London, 1875, at p. 357.
Prof. Robert Flint : Anti-theistic theories. Being the Baird lecture for 1877. Edinburgh and London, 1879.
Pp. 358-375 are on Spinoza; also note xxxviii. pp. 547-552.
Prof Flint's opinions as to the value, speculative and practical, of Spinoza's philosophy belong to a school from which I widely differ : he speaks, for example, of the ethical and political applications of Spinoza's doctrine as ' immoral and slavish.' But his work deserves respect as that of a' thoroughly competent scholar. The note will be found useful by students.
Dr. M. M. Kalisch: Path and Goal. London, 1880: see pp. 377-405, in title ' Pantheism.'
Relations of Spinoza to Modern Philosophy and Literature. — Conrad von Orelli : Spinoza's Leben and Lehre, &c., 2nd ed. Aarau, 1850 {Bibliogr. 130).
The specific object of this work is to defend Spinoza against the criticisms of Schelling, Hegel, and their followers. It contains a careful discussion of Spinoza's philosophy, and collects manyopinions and sayings of modern writers on him..
INTRODUCTION. xli
Nourrisson : Spinoza et le naturalisme contemporain. Paris, 1866 {Bibliogr. 141).
In this little book literary and bibliographical notices of real interest are strangely associated with superficial and de- clamatory criticism. Cf. M. Paul Janet's article in Revue des Deiix Mondes, July 15, 1867.
Dr. S. E. Lowenhardt : Benedictus von Spinoza in seinem Verhaltnisz zur Philosophie und Naturforschung der neueren Zeit. Beriin, 1872.
An able vindication of the harmony of Spinoza's doctrine with modern physiology and psychology. Several modern criticisms of Spinoza are considered in detail.
Paul Janet : French Thought and Spinozism. In Contem- porary Review, May 1 877.
Dr. Karl Rehorn : G. E. Lessing's Stellung zur Philoso- phie des Spinoza. Frankfurt am Main, 1877.
Guyau : La morale d' Epicure et ses rapports avec les doctrines contemporaines. Paris, 1878.
Pp. 227-237 are on Spinoza. ' Le vaste systeme de Spinoza, ou ceux d'Epicure et de Hobbes sont absorbes, con- tient d'avance les theories fondamentales de I'ecole utilitaire frangaise et anglaise.'
Jellinek (Dr. Georg) : Die Beziehungen Gothes zu Spinoza. Vortrag gehalten im Vereine der Literaturfreunde zu Wien. Wien, 1878.
Frohschammer (Prof. J.) : Ueber die Bedeutung der Einbildungskraft in der Philosophie Kant's und Spinoza's. Miinchen, 1879. The part concerned with Spinoza (pp. 1 18-172) is an ingenious attempt to read into Spinoza, or exhibit as necessary for the completeness of Spinoza's system, an approximation to the author's own point of view.
In conclusion, it may be proper to say a word of the method I have myself followed. While I have endeavoured to make myself acquainted as far as practicable with the modern literature of the subject, my opinions of the meaning and value of Spinoza's philosophy have been formed by the study of Spinoza at first hand ; and if this book induces even a few readers to do the same thing for themselves, and to
xlii INTRODUCTION.
forget as far as possible, in so doing, what they may have read about Spinoza here or elsewhere, I shall desire no other success. The only way to understand a great philoso- pher is to meet him face to face, whatever the apparent diffi- culties. A certain amount of historical preparation is indeed at least advisable ; for to apprehend rightly the speech of a past time one must know something of its conditions. Apart from this, the author is his own best interpreter, and it has been my aim rather to make Spinoza explain himself than to dis- cover explanations from the outside. As Herder says, ' Einen Schriftsteller aus sich selbst zu erklaren ist die honestas jedem honesto schuldig.'
SPINOZA:
HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
CHAPTER I.
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA.
Quae cum magna modis multis miranda videtur gentibus humanis regio visendaque fertur, rebus opima bonis, multa munita virum vi, nil tamen hoc habuisse viro praeclarius in se, nee sanctum magis et mirum carumque videtur.
Lucretius, i. 726.
Baruch de Spinoza was bom at Amsterdam on November 24, 1632.' His parents, of whose circumstances and position in life nothing certain is known, were members of the com- munity of Jewish emigrants from Portugal and Spain which had then been established in the Netherlands for something more than a generation. Before we enter on Spinoza's life, it may be not amiss to let our attention rest for a while on the society in which he was brought up, the vicissitudes of its foundation and growth, and the tone of thought and in- struction which prevailed in it.^ Something we may there
' The house has been identified with great probability within the last few years. Certainty is to be attained, however, only by the inspection of documents which the owner of the house refuses to produce.
' My chief authority on this subject is Gratz, Geschichte der Juden, vols. ix. and X. I have also consulted Koenen, Geschiedenis der Joden in Nederland (Utrecht, 1843). *\ B
2 SPINOZA . HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
find to throw light on the manner in which the early signs of Spinoza's philosophical genius, were received by his own people, though we shall assuredly be disappointed if we look in external circumstances of education or study, in the in- fluence of masters or companions either Jewish or Gentile, for an explanation of that genius itself. It was well said of an Indian poet : ' Of mighty men and of great rivers the springs are obscure.' The enlarged and purified vision of modern science may perceive much, and guess more, of the conditions that make the appearance of genius possible. But the conditions which fix it at the very time and place, the secret workings of nature which bring it to pass that an .iEschylus, a Lioriardoj a Faraday, a Kant, or a Spinoza is born upon the earth, are as obscure now as they were a thou- sand years ago. The power of these men still bears with it the reverence and awe that belong to great things unaccount- able.
The result of the persecutions, banishments, and forcible conversions which had earned for the sovereigns of Spain the title of Catholic, and laid the foundation of their country's ruin at the very height of its prosperity, had been to leave in Spain and Portugal a large class of ' new Christians,' nominally con- verted and openly conforming Jews who in many cases kept up in secret; from generation to generation, some remnant of Jewish usages. Their tendencies to covert persistence in the faith and customs of their fathers were watched by the In- quisition with an evil and sleepless eye. Persecutions; autos da //, and, notwithstanding all the vigilance of the Spanish govern- ment, flights from the land of the oppressor were constant. Towards the close of the sixteenth century it seemed as if the precarious state of the Marranos — so these unacknowledged Jews were called — was about to become hopeless. The power of Spain still waxed in Europe ; where Spain went, there the Inquisition followed ; and where the Inquisition came, there justice and mercy ceased to be.
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 3
The Italian States, which had formerly offered a refuge to the exiles, were no longer safe for them. England, now the chief Protestant country, had driven out the Jews three centuries before, and they did not agaitt find admission till the last days of the Commonwealth. It was out of the dominion of Spain herself that the' light of deliverance first shone. The fury of the Inquisition defeated its own purpose. The Netherlands revolted from the intolerable combination of secular'with spiritual tyranny ; and from the desperate rising, as it at first seemed, of a handful of subjects in a corner of the Spanish Empire there sprang a commonwealth which for the greater part of a century was the most free, the most pro- sperous, and the most tolerant in Europe.
No sooner was the independence of the Netherlands practically secure than the new Christians of Spaifn and Portugal began to look thither for a refuge. In or about 1591 overtures were made to the magistrates of Middelburg for a settlement of Marranos, which would have secured to the province of Zealand the first advantages of Jewish industry and commerce. The civil authorities were disposed to enter into the plan, but theological prejudice stood in the way. The Reformed clergy set themselves against the proposal, and nothing came of it. But in the spring of 1593 a vessel sailed in secret from Portugal with a small comparty of Marranos,' determined to adventure themselves on th6 Dutch coasts, and trust their fortunes to the principles of toleration that had been proclaimed by William of Orange. After a not uneventful voyage they landed at Emdeh, and found assistance at the hands of German Jews already settled some time past irr East Friesland. By their advice the fugitives made their way to Amsterda:m, where they arrived on April 23. This little nucleus of a colony soon received accession. In 1 596 the English fleet under Essex, returning from the sack of Cadiz, brought a number of new Christians, presumably not un-
' Gratz, ix. 492, and, as to the exact date, ib. note 10, B 2
4 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
willing prisoners, who openly returned to Judaism as soon as they were safe in Holland. It was some time before any official notice was taken of the new community, and its recognition was hastened by a curious accident. The celebration of the Day of Atonement attracted the suspicion of the citizens, who knew that the immigrants came from Popish lands, and guessed that their mysterious meeting could be nothing else than a Popish plot. The congregation was surprised by armed force, and the leaders arrested. These, once in the presence of the magistrates, speedily convinced them that the Pope and the Inquisition were as odious to themselves as to the Protestants of the United Provinces. Being thus made known to the civil powers, the Jews were emboldened to ask leave to build a synagogue. After some discussion this was granted, and the first syna- gogue of Amsterdam was opened in 1598. Ten years later the numbers of the colony had so much increased that a new synagogue was needed. This was itself only temporary. In 167s, when the Jewish community of Amsterdam had reached the height of its prosperity, the present Portuguese synagogue was completed, amidst the felicitations not only of Jewish but of Christian theologians and poets.
Meanwhile some years more seem to have passed before the Jews acquired a distinct legal status. They were ex- posed to inconvenience from an unexpected quarter ; for in the battle of Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants the worsted Remonstrants took the line of complaining that various strange sects, including Jews,' enjoyed a freedom of worship which was denied to themselves. These complaints did the Remonstrants no good, but they did the Jews some little harm. Mixed marriages were forbidden ; the Jews were once threatened, if not more, with the closing of the
' 'Ja de Joden zelfs, die Christus verzaken, welke zij supplianten (i.e. your petitioners) houden voor hun eenigen Heiland. '—Remonstrant Petition, 1617, ap. Koenen, p. 145.
THE LIFE OF SP.INOZA. 5
synagogue ; and it seems that in other parts of the Nether- lands they were not always sure even of personal liberty. In 1619 an ordinance was made by the States of Holland, on the report of a commission appointed some time before, by which provision was made for the regular admission and government of the Jews.' After this the Hebrew colony waxed and throve apace. We have still a living record of their prosperity in Rembrandt's grave and majestic portraits of Jewish merchants and rabbis. And they increased and multiplied with every fresh act of persecuting folly in the Spanish peninsula. Had the Catholic rulers intended to impoverish their own countries and enrich the heretical provinces, they could not have done it better. The exiles, though they pre- served among themselves (as their descendants still preserve for official purposes) the use of the Portuguese and Spanish languages, and even in their ceremonies and manners had some remnants of their old outward conformity to the Church of Rome, soon repaid the hospitality of their adopted country with faithful attachment, as well as with the material advan- tages that accompanied their settlement. Spinoza was a good citizen if not an active one ; and several passages of his writings show that the free institutions of the Dutch Republic were to him the object not merely of esteem but of patriotic affection. Yet he has been accused even in our own time of preaching maxims of despotism. But for the present let us return from his critics to his immediate ancestors and contemporaries. The occasion was a great one for the rising Jewish community, the New Jerusalem, as it was already called in Spinoza's generation. The leaders of the Amsterdam syna- gogue might, in the opinion of the latest and most exact historian of the Jewish nation, have done wonders if they had been capable of making the most of their fortune. But they
' Koenen, 147. Each Province was to make its own rules, subject to the condition that no distinctive dress or badge (such as was usual in Catholic countries) should be imposed. Koenen gives no particulars of what was done at Amsterdam.
6 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
were not men of that stamp. Ability, industry, and fortitude they possessed : the renovating power of genius was wanting. Their learning was rather of that formalist kind which is dis- concerted by genius, and forces a quarrel on it. And so it was when genius appeared among them in the person of Spinoza. The conjecture which deals with lost possibilities might aniuse itself wqrse than with the contemplation of what the author of the ' Tractatus Theplogico-Politicus ' and friend of De \yitt might have done for hfs people in civil and political njatt^rs if he had remained in their community.
SauJ Levi Morteira, said to have been Spinoza's instructor, was a man who had no claim to original powers. He was not specially remarkable for eloquence, nor did he stand in the first rank of Jewish learning ; altogether he was of those who care not to commit themselves out of beaten paths. His cglleague, Isaac Aboab de Fon^eca, presided over the synagogue of Anjstqrdam for nearly seventy years. Eloquence was his chief, it would seem his only gift. His discourses comnjanded admiration, but he was npither eminent in learning nor fitted to deal with questions of practical moment. His character was lacking in force, his perceptipns in width and comprehension ; he was not capable of firm and clear- sighted action.
A better known personage than either of these two was Manassgh ben Israel. His father, like others of the first founders of the colony, had escaped from the pious cares of the Holy Office, shattered in body and ruined in estate, to find his last resting-place among his own people. The son has a place in the social history of England by hig unsparing efforts to procure from Cromwell the readmission of the Jews, He had to encounter much opposition, including an extra- ordinary polemic frqm Prynne, in which a great deal of curi- ous learning was mixed up with repetition of all the medieval stories of Jewish child-murder, cannibalism, and sacrilege. Nor did he live to see his purpose effected : he died in 1657,
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 7
and the Jews found their way back into England on a footing of informal but unquestioned liberty only after the Restora- tion. But the way had none the less been made for them by Manasseh ben Israel's endeavours. It may be (as Dr. Gratz suggests) that the very foibles of his character, his turn for mystical interpretations of theology, and his credulity • as to prophetic signs and seasons, were additions to his strength for that particular work, and that a stronger man would not have done it so well. His credulity was indeed nothing singular : about the same time a deputation of Asiatic Jews came to England to inquire if Cromwell were not the Messiah. For his learning, it was ample and various, and extended to European as well as Hebrew literature. But it did not save him from giving himself over to superstition and letter- worship which often ran into puerilities. He was a voluminous writer, but wrote with an undiscerning hand, mixing up in his compilation things wise and foolish. Yet he had one power which may at times almost fill the place of genius — the power of winning men's friendship. He was of an open and generous nature, which showed itself in that frank urbanity and polished conversation which is wont everywhere to draw confidence to it.
At the time when the congregation of Amsterdam con- demned Spinoza, Manasseh ben Israel was absent on his mission to England. It may be doubted whether his presence would have ensured any more rational course of action. A believer in the verbal inspiration of the Talmud could have had nothing to urge for moderation, unless on grounds of secular policy ; and in this case it is by no means clear that policy was not for once on the side of the fanatics.
In the generation before Spinoza the Jewish common- wealth of Amsterdam did not enjoy unbroken peace within itself For many years there was a schism in the synagogue, arising out of the scandal caused to the stricter members by
8 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
the survival of Spanish-Catholic practices and manners ; and in Spinoza's first years the congregation was troubled by the strange career of Uriel da Costa. He too, deserves brief mention here ; not that he was a person of any weight or in- fluence, much less a precursor of Spinoza ; but his fate illus- trates- the temper of the times, and his excommunication may have served as a precedent in Spinoza's case. He was born of a New Christian family in Oporto ; his parents were, how- ever, orthodox in conviction as well as in name, and he re- ceived a learned education under Jesuit instructors. Dissatis- fied with their formal dogmatism, he betook himself to the study of the prophets of the Old Testament ; and the result was that he fled to Amsterdam, together with his mother and brothers, joined the synagogue, and changed his former Chris- tian name Gabriel for the purely Jewish one of Uriel. But here also disappointment awaited him. He was perplexed and shocked by the discrepance between Judaism such as he found it, or thought to find it, in the Scriptures, and such as it had been made by Rabbinical gloss and tradition. He denounced the modern teachers and rulers as Pharisees, and set their ceremonies at naught ; they replied to his criticism by excommunicating him. He went on to publish a contro- versial tract against the immortality of the soul ; upon this the chiefs of the synagogue denounced him to the civil authorities, and he was fined and imprisoned, and his book publicly burnt. For fifteen years he endured the social penalties of excom- munication, but at length his patience gave way, and he was formally reconciled. But he seems to have made no secret of the purely outward character of his conformity.' At this very time his course of unregulated speculation was leading him on from an anti-Rabbinical and as it were Puritan Judaism to a doctrine of bare natural Deism. Nor did he observe ordinary caution in his conversation. There followed a new and more stringent excommunication, to be taken off only
1 Er wollte, wie er sagte, 'unter Affen auch ein Affe sein.' Gratz, x. 137.
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. g
on condition of a solemn and public act of penance. Da Costa held out this time for seven years, and then again submitted. He underwent a humiliating ceremony, modelled on those of the Inquisition, which were probably known by bitter personal experience to some of those present.
It is a general fact in human history, and one of the sad- dest, that no sooner has a persecuted community secured its freedom than it takes to persecuting in its turn. This was shown at the very same time by the Reformed Church of the Netherlands : ' Those who but a few years before had com- plained of the cruelty of the Church of Rome were no sooner delivered from that, than they began to call for the same ways of persecuting those who were of the other side.' ' And it was not far from this time that the Puritan colonists of New England set up an ecclesiastical tyranny far more oppressive and searching than that from which they had fled. Da Costa's penance was completed by his lying down athwart the thresh- old of the synagogue, so that the whole congregation stepped over him as they passed out. Humiliation he must have ex- pected, but the reality was too much for his pride. He deter- mined to live only so long as was needful to commit to writ- ing, in the form of an autobiography, a fierce denunciation of his enemies and persecutors. Having completed this writing, he shot himself in his own house.
It does not seem that Da Costa's speculations had any value, and his character cannot be said to call for admiration. Martyrs and confessors in the cause of free thought have not been so few or so weak that one who was twice excommiini- -cated, and twice recanted, can claim a high place among them ; and there was at least a large element of personal pique and resentment in Da Costa's later courses. But we cannot refuse our pity to a life cast among such untoward surroundings, nor can we acquit the chiefs of the synagogue of excessive and ill-judged harshness throughout their dealings with this un-
' Burnet, History of his own Time, i. 315.
lo SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
happy man. His story prepares us to hear with much less surprise of Spinoza's treatment sixteen years later.
As to the general state of education among the Jews of Amsterdam, they were exceedingly well provided with the appliances of learning and literature then current. So much would sufficiently appear from Spinoza's works and corre- spondence alone. His writing is th?it of a man who has been brought up among scholars and has mastered betimes all the knowledge that: a scholar is expected to possess. But high literary culture and great literary facility are compatible with great feebleness of intellectual grasp. Scholarship is in itself no warranty of sound thinking. And so it was that the Hebrew scholars whp exchanged mpre or less elegant Latin verses with European scholars of the stamp of Grotius or Barlseus were ready and eyen eager to give ear to the wildest and most idle fancies in matters of theology and philosophy. The doctrine of the Kabbalah, likened by the historian to whom I am so much indebted to a fungus growth creeping over the body of the Law and the Traditions, was almpst uni- versally received. A generation filled with thp east wind of mystical ravings hungered after signs and wonders, and signs and wonders came without stint. Demoniacs, exorcisms, miracles, false prophets, even false Messiahs, fed the credulity of the Levantine Jews, and deceived not a few elsewhere. The most singular appearance of this kind, the career of Sabbatai Zevi, belongs however to a somewhat later date. Accounts of the dreams, revelations, and supernatural feats of the new prophets were published and eagerly read; and besides these the epidemic of superstition produced a specu- lative literature of its own. One of these works, composed by a Polish Jew, Naphtali bep Jakob Elchanan, who had caught the Kabbalistic contagion in Palestine, and published at Amsterdam in 16.^8, is described by Dr. Gratz ' as not containing a single rational sentence : ' yet leading rabbis of
' Gratr, a. 131.
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. ii
Germany and Poland accepted this puddle of nauseous blasphemy as a fountain of divine wisdom.' If these were the studies in favour among Spinoza's teachers and companions, we can hardly wonder at the tone of something like contempt in which he generally speaks of current Jewish opinion.
Such, then, was the society into which Spinoza was born. The accustomed course of education was almost if not alto- gether confined to the Hebrew language and literature. With these, therefore, Spinoza was early made familiar, and at the age of fifteen he had gone so far in the study of the Talmud as to be one of Rabbi Morteira's most promising pupils, In the advanced classes of the Amsterdam school he had the oppor- tunity of mastering the philosophical writings of the golden age of modern Jewish learning, the commentaries of Maimonides and Ibn Ezra. The probable effect of these on the develop- ment of his thought will be more fully spoken of in a later place. Enough to say here that he found in the hints and questionings of these men much more than his teachers expected him to find or were themselves capable of find- ing.
Secular learning and accomplishments had to be sought in other quarters. The elements of Latin were imparted to Spinoza by a German master whose name is not known ; he continued the study with Francis van den Ende,' a physician^ as well as a man of letters, whose high reputation as a teacher was qualified by the suspicion that he taught his pupils-free- thinking as well as Latin. The charge may have been true, but it may just as well have been a mere popular inference from the known fact that he was a proficient in the natural sciences. So much is certain, and it is probable that he communicated this part of his knowledge, no less than that which he specially professed to teach, to those who showed
' His name is given in the documents relating- to the Chevalier de Rohan's plot as Francis Affinius van den Enden. See Clement, Episodes de VHisloire de France, Paris, 1859.
12 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
themselves apt for it : for Spinoza's works afford unmistak- able evidence of thorough and sound instruction in physical science, -and more especially physiology, which cannot well have been acquired at a later time of his life ; not that he makes any great display of knowledge, but that with many occasions for mistakes he commits few or none. As to Latin, at all events. Van den Ende's charge, was efficiently per- formed. Spinoza mastered it completely, not indeed accord- ing to the fine and exacting standards of later scholarship, but more completely in one sense, for he made it a living instrument of thought. His language is not what we call classical, but it is handled with perfect command and per- fectly adapted to its ends. At the same time it appears by quotations and allusions that he was fairly well at home with the Latin classics. His knowledge of Greek was more limited, and by his own account not critical.' Of modern languages he knew French, German, and Italian, besides Portuguese and Spanish, one or both of which were native to him. It appears from evidences made public early in the last century, but afterwards lost sight of until quite recently, that he always regarded Dutch as a foreign language, and wrote it only with difficulty. Such little circumstances help us to realize the self-contained isolation in which the Hebrew com- munity must have dwelt even among well-wishers.
It was perhaps through his intercourse with Van den Ende that Spinoza became acquainted with the writings of Giordano Bruno and Descartes. As to Descartes, indeed, explanation may be dispensed with ; no young man with a philosophical turn of mind could help reading him. But as to Giordano Bruno, if one assumes (on the grounds to be mentioned hereafter) that Spinoza had read him, one may be fairly called on to assign the occasion for it. Giordano Bruno would not otherwise have come naturally in Spinoza's way ; his theories were scarcely less abhorrent to Jews and Pro,-
' Tract. Theol.-Pol. cap. x. ad fin.
' THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. I3
testants than to Catholics. But it is quite possible that Van den Ende may have more or less cherished Bruno in private, and discussed him with a select few of his learners. This would have been just the kind of study to procure for Van den Ende the alarming reputation handed down to us by Colerus. Besides his graver pursuits Spinoza contrived to acquire considerable skill in drawing : he filled a book with portrait sketches, many of them being of distinguished per- sons. This book was at one time in the possession of Colerus, but there is no further trace of it.
There is a story that Van den Ende was assisted in his teaching by a daughter, of singular wit, learning, and accom- plishments. Spinoza, the story goes, was among her pupils, and- from a pupil became a lover. But he had a rival in a fellow-pupil named Kerkering, who finally won the lady's hand by the help of a valuable pearl necklace. Now it is true that Van den Ende had a daughter named Clara Maria, who married Theodore Kerkkrinck (such is the authentic form of the name). The date of the marriage, however, has been ascertained by Van Vloten to be 1671 (the year when Van den Ende left Holland), and it appears by the register that the bride was twenty-seven years old. Now Spinoza was excom- municated and left Amsterdam in 1656. Clara Maria van den Ende was therefore eleven or twelve years old at the latest time when Spinoza could have been her father's pupil, and the tale of the students' rivalry and the pearl necklace must be dismissed. Kerkkrinck was a physician, who published works on medicine, anatomy and chemistry, and earned a consider- able scientific reputation, so that the match was in itself a natural one enough for Van den Ende's daughter. The question remains whether the tale of Spinoza's love for her is absolutely without foundation. There is no reason whatever to suppose that Spinoza did not keep up his acquaintance with Van den Ende in the visits which we know that he made from time to time tQ Amsterdam ; and thus we have
U SPINOZA ; HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
occasion and room enough for a friendship extending into Klaartje's riper years, which may have passed into a serious inclination. A i-oniarttic affectidn we cannot ascribe to Spinoza at this time : it would be too much out of keeping with all his habits and character; and one may shrewdly suspect that his inclination never in truth got beyond a hypothetical stage. He was likely enough to be rallied by host or friends on his hermit life, and not unlikely to put them off with som'e such answer as that, if he married a wife, it should be Van den Ende's daughter. A Speech of two of this kind would be ample foundation for the story giten by ColerUs, ahd a simple confusion of dates would do the rest.
Yet there is one chance left if we are minded tef hold fast to the' solitary piece of romance that can be suggested in Spinoza's life. Nothing forbids us to suppose that at the earlier time there sprang up some half ideal, hailf childish affection between Spiitoza and Clara: Van den Ende ; there is no violation of possibility in conceiving her as standing to him iri a relation like that of Beatrice to Dante. As far as ages go the probaibility is evfen greater than in Dante's case' ; so that, unless'we join ourselves to those ovef-curious persons who would allegorize aWay the Vita Nuova, we have a fair precedent enough. Beatrice was nine years old, Dante him- self only ten, when the 'glorious lady of his soul' first showed herself to his eyes, and the word came to him, Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi. Spinoza was not a poet, some one will say. No, but he was a mystic at the time in question, which for this purpose will do at least as well. But I throw out this merely for the chance of anyone finding comfort in it. As a hypothesis it seems to me much less probable than the other ; and even if the facts' had been as suggested, Spinoza was not the man to be very communicative about them. The truth is that we have no positive evidence at all. We have only a story which, as it stands, cannot possibly be true, and which does not rest on any satisfactory
THE.I.IFE OF SPINOZA, 15
authority. The absence of any apparent motive for inventing the whole of it raises a certain presumption that it contains in a more or less distorted form elements of genuine fact, derived from statements made by Spinoza himself. But what those elements may be we have no means of determining.
As to Van den Ende himself^ one is sorry to know that he came to a bad end. In his old age he settled in France, and had been there only a few years when he was drawn into the conspiracy of the Chevalier de Rohan and La Treau- mont, partly by working on his patriotism with hopes that the affair would turn to the profit of the Netherlands, partly by flattering his speculative fancy with dreams of a Utopian republic to be established on the ruins of the French monarchy. A general rising in Normandy was to be supported by a descent of the Dutch fleet : the admiral, Cornelius Tromp, was fully prepared to take his part, and long hovered on the French coast awaiting the signal, which never came. But the conspiracy, though carefully planned, was hollow from the first ; it was a venture of disappointed and desperate personal ambitions. It was discovered before any part of it could be put in execution, and its leaders paid the usual penalty Of unsuccessful conspirators.- Van den Ende was hanged at Paris oil November 27, 1674.
So much is known of Spinoza for the first twenty-three years of his life. Not long after he had fully attained man's estate the elders of his people began to remark in him an unwonted freedom of discourse, and possibly some laxity in ceremonial observances which would of itself have sufficed as an ostensible ground of censure. One anecdote of this time, plausible enough to be worth repeating, has come down to us.' Two fellow-students, it is said, questioned Spinoza closely on theology ; he put them off with general reference to the authority of Moses and the Prophets as sufficient for all
' This is from Lucas ; in other words we may give it just so much credit as it appears on the face of it to deserve.
l6 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
true Israelites. But as far as their authority goes, answered one of his companions, I cannot find any such thing as that God is incorporeal, the soul immortal, or angels real beings. What say you, then, to these matters } Spinoza replied that he could see no objection in point of orthodoxy to holding that God has a body,^ or that angels are mere apparitions created for the special occasion of their ministry (for which, indeed, or for something very like it, there is Talmudic authority : a circumstance likely enough to be known to Spinoza and overlooked by his questioners), and that the Scriptures use soul as a pure synonym of life, without saying anything about immortality. The two friends were only half satisfied ; but Spinoza, while he promised to give them fuller explanations another time, contrived not to find any oppor- tunity of renewing the discourse. We have no trustworthy or distinct account of the events that led to Spinoza's rupture with the congregation ; but certain it is that in the early part of the year 1656 it was considered by Morteira and his colleague that action of a decided kind must be taken.
It has already been remarked that the persecuted of Spain and Portugal had brought a leaven of persecuting zeal to their new asylum. But in this case reasons of secular policy were potent counsellors to the same effect. The Jewish community was a kind of state within a state, a society foreign in religion, language, and manners to its hosts. To expose themselves to the charge of fostering novelties in speculation might well have been a serious danger to them. As prudent governors of their household, it behoved the chief men to suffer no more scandals within it like that of Da Costa. And Spinoza's particular novelties might be thought eminently fitted to bring them into trouble. He busied himself with Descartes, and the Synod of Dort (not the first and famous, but a second one) had just condemned Cartesian ism. The best way wOuld be to make things quiet while it was yet time ; the next best, " Compare Hobbes's arguments on this point.
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA.
'7
if the erratic member could not be brought to take the fitting measure of heed, at least in his pubhc ways, was to cut him off at once and disclaim all responsibility for him. Accord- ingly the way of compromise was first tried, and an annuity of lOOO florins was offered to Spinoza as the price of apparent conformity. This however was positively declined. The next step ' was to summon Spinoza before the congregation and inflict on him the first degree of ecclesiastical censure, the lower excommunication, which excluded the offender for thirty days from the society of the faithful, and was intended to operate as a serious invitation to repentance.
During the period of suspense which followed, Spinoza's life was aimed at by an unknown enemy, presumably some fanatic outrunning the zeal of his masters, or thinking himself a divinely appointed messenger to rebuke their tardiness in defending the faith by a striking example. This man set upon Spinoza with a dagger one evening as he was leaving the Portuguese synagogue.^ But he avoided the blow in time, and it pierced only his coat, which he afterwards kept in the same condition as a memorial. Being warned by this attack that Amsterdam was no longer a safe place for him, he betook himself to the hospitality of a friend who dwelt a little way out of the city, on the Ouwerkerk road. His host belonged to the small dissenting community of Remonstrants or Collegiants. Here, under the roof of heretics anathe- matized by the Synod of Dort, he learnt the final decision of the Jewish congregation on the charge of heresy against himself. The sentence was pronounced on July 27, 1656, in the Portuguese language, and its effect is as follows : —
' Our data for these events are still meagre, and their order in time uncertain: but we caimot doubt that a lesser excommunication preceded the final one. See Gratz, X. 175. Lucas gives what purport to be details of the earlier proceedings, but in his usual confiised manner and with improbable circumstances*
' I follow Colerus's account as the best supported and most probable. Diffi- culties have been raised about the incident : they are discussed in Van Vloten's Levensbode, ix. 419.
C
i8 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
' The chiefs of the council do you to wit, that having long known the evil opinions and works of Baruch de Espinoza, they have endeavoured by divers ways and promises to with- draw him from his evil ways, and they are unable to find a remedy, but on the contrary have had every day more know- ledge of the abominable heresies practised and taught by him, and of other enormities committed by him, and have of this many trustworthy witnesses, who have deposed and borne witness in the presence of the said Espinoza, and by whom he stood convicted ; all which having been examined in the presence of the elders, it has been determined with their assent that the said Espinoza should be excommunicated and cut off from the nation of Israel ; and now he is hereby excommunicated with the following anathema : —
' With the judgment of the angels and of the saints we excommunicate, cut off, curse, and anathematize Baruch de Espinoza, with the consent of the elders and of all this holy congregation, in the presence of the holy books : by the 613 precepts which are written therein, with the anathema where- with Joshua cursed Jericho, with the curse which Elisha laid- upon the children, and with all the curses which are written in the law. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night. Cursed be he in sleeping and cursed be he in waking, cursed in going out and cursed in coming in. The Lord shall not pardon him, the wrath and fury of the Lord shall henceforth be kindled against this man, and shall lay upon him all the curses which are written in the book of the law. The Lord shall destroy his name under the sun, and cut him off for his undoing from all the tribes of Israel, with all the curses of the firmament which are written in 'the book of the law. But ye that cleave unto the Lord your God, live all of you this day.
' And we warn you, that none may speak with him by word of mouth' nor by writing, nor show any favour to him, nor be under one roof with him, nor come within four cubits of him, nor read any paper composed or written by him.'
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 19
From the terms of the excommunication something, but not much, may be gathered as to the form which the accusa- tion had assumed. It is not on the face of it a condemnation for mere speculative opinions ; indeed such a condemnation would not be warranted by Jewish law. The ' heresies practised and taught ' (' horrendas heresias que praticava e ensinava ') point at some active _ attempt to spread his opinions, and the mention of ' other enormities ' on Spinoza's part (' yhormes obras que obrava ') probably refers to breaches of ceremonial rules, and is not .(though to an English reader it looks so at first sight) a meaningless addition like the alia enormia of old-fashioned English pleadings.
Thus was Baruch de Spinoza made, an ciutcast from Israel, and cut off from his own people and from his father's house. The ties of kindred, ties which for that people have ever been of exceeding strength and sanctity, were for hirrt severed beyond recall. The bond of fellowship among Israelites is of strength and sanctity only less than that of actual kindred ; and this also was at once and irrevocably dissolved. The excommunicated Jew became as it were a masterless man ; he had no title by which he could call upon either Jew or Christian to stand by him or answer for him. tf it is a good preparation for philosophy to be alone in the world, the need- ful discipline came upon Spinoza with terrible completeness. It is hardly possible for men at this time, either in Spinoza's country or in our own, to realize the full effect of such a blow. But Spinoza never faltered under it :_ the passionate weakness of Uriel da Costa was far from his nature. ' This compels mej' he said on receiving the news, ' to nothing which I should not otherwise have done.' Thus it would seem that he held him- self to have renounced the synagogue of his own motion rather than to have been driven from it ; and the title of a defence which he wrote in Spanish and sent to the elders points the same way. This paper itself has never been found ; • it is
' Unless it was identical with or developed into the polemic against the Jews
20 SPINOZA,: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
supposed, however, to have contained some foreshadowing of the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.' It is said that the chiefs of the synagogue were not content with inflicting their utmost ecclesiastical penalty. They represented to the civil authori- ties that Spinoza was a dangerous person ; their request was backed by the Reformed clergy, and a sentence of banishment for a short time was pronounced against Spinoza, who must have already left the city. But sentences of this kind against men who have forestalled them by absence are common enough in history. The incident does not rest on good autho- rity,' but the fact that similar proceedings had been taken in the case of Da Costa renders it not improbable in itself. From this time forth, in any case, we have to think of Spinoza as removed from Amsterdam and the associations of his youth. He marked the severance himself by disusing his Hebrew name Baruch, and substituting for it the Latin equi- valent Benedict. Only once more in his lifetime do we hear anything of dealings with his family. Spinoza became en- titled upon the death of his father to share the inheritance with his two sisters. The sisters disputed his title, presum- ably under the belief that an excommunicated heretic would have no part in the estate of a faithful Israelite. Spinoza has left on record his opinion that in a state where just laws are in force it is not only the right of every citizen, but his duty towards the common weal, to resist injustice to himself, lest peradventure evil men should find profit in their evil-doing. In his own case, then, he acted on this principle : the civil law was just, whether on the high ground of indifference to
mentioned by Rieuwertz, the publisher of the Opera Posthuma, to the German traveller StoUe as existing in MS. and having been in his possession. See Ginsberg's edition of the Ethics, p. 20.
' It is in Lucas, with confiision of time and circumstance, as usual. Colerus knows nothing of it, and Spinoza's tone of admiration and deference for the civil powers of his country (in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus) is likewise against it. The precedent of Da Costa turns the scale in favour of giving it a place in the text,
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 21
theological strife, or, as is more likely, because Judaism was only a tolerated religion ; and Spinoza's claim to share with his sisters was made good. But, having established his rights, he did not choose to take any material advantage by them. When the partition came to be effected he gave up to his sisters everything but one bed : ' qui 6tait en v^rit^ fort bon,' says Colerus in the French version.
Spinoza was now dependent on his own work for a liveli- hood. In compliance with the Rabbinical precept which commands every man to learn some handicraft, and guided by his philosophical and scientific temper, he had acquired the art of making and polishing lenses for optical instruments. Perhaps a desire to imitate the example of Descartes, who had likewise made himself a practical optician, may have entered into Spinoza's motives. At this time his admiration of Descartes was probably at its height. The art enabled him to earn an income, slender indeed, but sufficient for his limited wants, and a reputation for skill and knowledge of optics which preceded his fame as a philosopher. The lenses made by him were sought after, and those left undisposed of at his death fetched a high price. It was as an optician, moreover, that he made the acquaintance of Huygens and Leibnitz. In 1671 Leibnitz wrote to consult him on certain optical questions, and his letter addresses Spinoza as a critic of recognized authority. It was believed by Spinoza's friends that but for his early death he would have made some con- siderable contribution to the science ; as it was, the only work of that kind which he completed was a small treatise on the Rainbow, long supposed to have been lost. It was in truth published at the Hague in 1687, and has been found and reprinted in our own time by Dr. Van Vloten.' We are also told that Spinoza had formed the plan of writing a concise treatise on Algebra ('breviori et magis intelligibili methodo '), and other unspecified works.
' The original copy, believed to be unique, is in the Royal Library at the Hague.
22 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
It appears that Spinoza stayed with his Remonstrant friend till the end of 1660 or beginning of 1 661, when they removed together to the village of Rijnsburg, near Leyden,then the head- quarters of the sect. The house where they lived is still stand- ing, and the road bears to this day the name of ' Spinoza Lane.' The Remonstrants were by this time practically tolerated, but had no regular clergy or public ministrations. There could therefore be no outward evidence that a person living among them, and not being a member of any other religious cofnmunity, was not one of themselves. Hence the report that Spinoza had become a Christian would very naturally arise. It gained currency enough to be thought by Colerus worth an express Goi|i,tradiction.
The meagre information given by Colerus and others of the philosopher's movements and occupations in after years is partly filled in by his letters, of which we possess only the selection made, unhappily with a far too sparing hand, by the editors of his posthumous works, and a few more which have been discovered in the orphan asylum at Amsterdam formerly belonging to the CoUegiants. Spinoza paid frequent visits to the Hague, where he became well known in the society of men of letters ; and it is clear that as time went on he found more and more content in his entertainment there, for in 1664 he moved again to Voorburg, which is a suburb of the Hague, aPid in ^670 to the Hague itself, where he spent the rest of his life.
In 1663 vfe find that Spinoza had already sketched out some of the leading ideas of his nietaphysical system, sub- stantially in the same form in which they eventually appeared in the ' Opera Posthuma,' and had entrusted his papers to a number of his younger friends at Amsterdam, They had formed a sort of philosophical club,' at whose meetings the
' Terhaps a section or offshoot of the society Nil volentibus ardmim (it was and is the practice in Holland for the motto of a society to be used as the name of the society itself), of which Dr. L. Meyer is known to have been an active member. (Van Vloten, Bened. de Spinoza, p. 29. )
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 23
members took it in turns to read out and comment on Spinoza's manuscript. If after discussion any point re- mained obscure, a note was made of the difficulty, and one of the company would write to Spinoza for explanation. Such a letter is extant, written by Simon de Vries, a young student of medicine, and of much promise, who had conceived for Spinoza an intellectual attachment which grew into a warm friendship. He would willingly have shown his gratitude to his master by substantial benefactions ; we are told of a gift of 2000 florins offered by him to Spinoza and declined.
Spinoza's life, as we shall see, was not a robust one ; but that of his young disciple seems to have been yet frailer, for he died in Spinoza's lifetime, and r^ot so unexpectedly but that he had time to form the design of n;aking Spinoza his heir, and to be dissuaded from it by his friend's own entreaties. De Vries had a brother living, and Spinoza pressed upon him the duty of thinking first of his own kindred. The master prevailed with the disciple against his own interest, and the bulk of the estate was left by De Vi:ies to his brother, charged however with a sufficient annuity for Spinoza's maintenance. Even this was accepted only in part. The heir offered to fix the amount at 500 florins ; but Spinoza pretended that it was too much, and refused to take more than 300. De Vries's letter to Spinoza shows all the generous enthusiasm of a learner in presence of a beloved teacher.
' I have long desired,' he says, ' an occasion to be with you, but weather and the hard winter have not allowed me. Sometimes I complain pf my fate in being removed from you by a distance that keeps us so much apart. Happy, most happy, is that companion who dwells with you under the same roof, and who can at all times, dining, supping, or walking, hold discourse with you of the most excellent matters. But though we are so widely separated in the body, yet you have constantly been present to my mind, especially when I apply myself to your writings.'
Spinoza's answer approves the plan of the society, and
24 SPINOZA: HIS' LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
gives the desired explanations. To De Vries's complaint of their long separation he replies as follows : —
' Your long continued absence has been no less disagreeable to me than to you ; but meanwhile I am glad that my exercises (lucubra- tiunculae) are of use to you and our friends. For thus I speak with you while we are away from one another. As to my fellow-lodger, you need not envy him. There is no one I like less, or with whom I have been more cautious ; so that I must warn you and all our friends not to communicate my opinions to him till he has come to riper years. He is still too childish and inconstant, and cares for novelty more than truth. Yet I hope he will amend these youthful failings some years hence ; indeed I am nearly sure of it, so far as I can judge from his disposition ; and so his general character moves me to be friendly with him.'
It appears that Spinoza's expectations of this young man wfere too sanguine. He is identified by plausible conjecture with one Albert Burgh, who many years afterwards was re- ceived into the Church of Rome, and on that occasion favoured Spinoza with an extraordinary letter, of which a specimen will come before us hereafter.
A solitary letter of 1665 containing some personal detail."; has been lately discovered.' An allusion to the fleet then fitting out against England, and the m.ention of a journey of Spinoza's to Amsterdam, of which we have other indications, fix the date towards the end of May, or in the first days of June. The person addressed is supposed to be the ' J. B.,' to whom a letter of the following year (Ep. 42) was written, and who is identified with the Dr. J. Bresser mentioned else- where in Spinoza's correspondence. Spinoza complains of having missed him both when he went to Amsterdam and when he came back to Voorburg. He then begs his friend to be diligent in philosophy while he is young and has time, and not to be afraid of writing to him freely.
' I have before now suspected, and I am pretty sure, that you
' Ep 4za. Van Vloten, Supp!. p. 303.
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 2?
-have some unreasonable distrust of your own parts, and fear to ask or propound something unworthy of a scholar. It is not fit for me to praise your talents to your face ; but if you fear my showing your letters to others who may ridicule you, I give you my promise on this point that I will scrupulously keep them, and will communicate them to no mortal, unless with your leave. On these terms you may begin your correspondence with me, unless indeed you doubt my good faith, which I do not suppose possible. I trust to hear your opinion of the matter by your first letter, and to have with it some of the conserve of red roses, as you promised, though I am now much better. After I left this [for Amsterdam] I once let myself blood, yet the fever did not cease (though I was somewhat brisker even before the blood-letting, I think by the change of air), but I was twice or thrice troubled with a tertian ; but by dint of good diet at last I drove it out and sent it packing ; where it has gone I know not, but I am taking care that it shall not come back.'
He then promises to send ' the third part of my philo- sophy,' or a considerable part of it, as far as the 8oth proposi- tion or thereabouts. As the third part of the ' Ethics,' as it now stands, contains nothing like that number, the third and fourth parts must in the first draft have formed but one. He ends by asking for news of the fleet.
This is the only letter preserved to us in which Spinoza says anything about himself as distinct from his works, and it is preserved only by chance : the editors of the ' Opera Post- huma,' adhering rigidly to the principle of selecting only what illustrated the philosophy, had put it aside as ' of no value.' ' Ten years later we hear of Dr. Bresser as returned to Amster- dam from a journey to Cleves, and having brought a cask of beer as a present for Spinoza.^
Another constant friend of Spinoza's was Henry Olden- burg, well known in the scientific history of England as the first secretary of the Royal Society and the intimate friend of Robert Boyle. He had settled in this country, where he spent the best part of his life, in 1653 ; and in the course of a
• Adscripserunt enim : ' is van geender waarde. ' (Van Vloten, /. c. ) 2 Ep. 65a, Supp. p. 316.
26 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
journey on the Continent he visited Spinoza at Rijnsburg and formed an apquaintance with him, which, though opportunities of meeting were few, was assiduously kept up by correspond- ence. Olderiburg had, within discreet limits, a lively interest in philosophy, and in the earlier years of his intercourse with Spinoza was always pressing him not to keep back his know- ledge from the world. In the same letter in which he informs Spinoza of the incorporation of the Royal Society, Oldenburg thus exhorts him to boldness : — ■
' I would by all means advise you not to begrudge to men of letters the ripe fruits of your learning in pliilosophy and theology, but let them go forth into the world, whatever grumblings may proceed from petty theologians. Your commonwealth is most free, and therein the philosopher should work most freely. Your own prudence will counsel you to publish your thoughts and opinions with as little ostentation as may be ; I would have you, for the rest, commit the issue to fortune. Come, then, my friend, cast out all fear of stirring up against you the pigmies of our time ; too long have we made sacriiices to their ignorance and trifling scruples ; let us spread our sails to the wind of true knowledge, and search out the secrets of nature more thoroughly than has yet been done. In your country it will be safe, I should think, to print your reflections ; nor is any oifence from them to be feared among men of learning. If such are your patrons and promoters — and such, I answer for it, you will find — ^why should you fear the detraction of the ignorant ? ' '
Writing some little time afterwards, in the spring of 1663, Oldenburg presses Spinoza yet more urgently to complete his work then in hand.
' Permit me to ask you,' he says, ' whether you have finished that important essay in which you treat of the origin of things and their dependence from their first cause, as well as of the amendment of our understanding ? Surely, my excellent friend, I beheve that nothing can be published more pleasant or acceptable to men of learning and disfcernmerit than such a treatise as yours. This is what a man of your wit and temper should regard, more than what pleases theo- logians of the present age and fashion, for by them truth is less
' Ep. 7-
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 27
regarded than their own advantage. I adjure you, therefore, by the bond of our friendship, by every duty of multiplying and spreading abroad the truth, not to withhold from us your writings on those subjects. But if there is any reason more grave than I perceive which hinders you from setting forth the work, I heartily beseech you to be at the pains to give me a summary of it by letter ; and by this service you shall know that you have earned a friend's gratitude.' '
In the following letters these requests and exhortations are repeated in even stronger terms. We collect that Olden- burg had some knowledge, though it was \>y no means exact, of the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' of the treatise ' De Intellectus Emendatione,' vy^hich was never finished, and has come down to us as a fragment, and perhaps of an early draft of the ' Ethics.' Oldenburg's language seems to mix up the different works, and hJs later conduct still more plainly shows that he did not at this time know much of their coritents.
He was abundantly valiant in counsel before he had measured the risk ; but after the publication of the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus' we find that his valour has all evaporated. In 167 s, when Spinoza thought of publishing the ' Ethics,' Oldenburg's talk was no longer of spreading all sail and defying the malice of theologians. Now he is all for caution and conformity ; he again invokes friendship, but this time to warn Spinoza against giving any sort of ground for attacks upon religion and virtue. Not that he refuses to take some copies of the book ; they may be consigned to a Dutch friend in London for him, and he can doubtless find purchasers for them ; but he would rather not have it talked about. And when he learnt from Spinoza that the publication was indefinitely put off, his expression of regret was, to say the least, but lukewarm.^
In the earlier days of which we are now speaking Olden- burg was not unaided in his encouragement to Spinoza's
1 Ep. 8. ^ Epp. 18-20.
28 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
philosophical work. Boyle's name is joined once and again in his messages of greeting and exhortation, and considerable parts of these letters are taken up with communications on questions of chemistry and pneumatics, conveyed through Oldenburg, which amount in effect to a scientific correspond- ence between Spinoza and Boyle. They obviously knew and esteemed one another's work ; but there is no trace of any more direct intercourse.
The miseries of the great plague and of the war between England and Holland are brought before us by a letter of Oldenburg's .in the autumn of 1665. He has no news yet of a book about which Spinoza had asked him, ' because the plague forbids almost all traffic ; besides which, this cruel war brings in its train a very Iliad of mischiefs, and is like to leave but little civility in the world.' The public meetings of the Royal Society, he adds, are suspended by the danger of the times ; but the individual fellows are not unmindful of their quality, and pursue their experiments in private. Indeed meetings were shortly afterwards held at Oxford, whither several of the members had followed the Court.' But the war did not, for some time at least, interrupt the correspondence, nor abate Oldenburg's curiosity for information.
In December 1665 he writes of a wide-spread report that the dispersed nation of Israel was about to return to its own country. The news not having been confirmed from Con- stantinople, Oldenburg refuses credit to it, but would Hke to know how it has been received in the Jewish society of Amsterdam. The allusion is to the stir produced throughout the Jewish world by the impostor Sabbatai Zevi, of Smyrna, who proclaimed himself as the Messiah or something more, and obtained a large following not only in the Levant but in all the synagogues of Europe. In London the believers in his mission were testifying to their faith by laying heavy odds that Sabbatai Zevi would be the crowned and anointed
' Epp. 13a, 14.
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA.
29
king of Jerusalem within two years.' But within an even shorter time, so far from being crowned at Jerusalem, he was a prisoner at Constantinople, and completed the discomfiture of those who had committed themselves to him by turning Mahometan : a step which, decisive as it seemed against his pretensions, was ineffectual to sober a certain number of enthusiasts. The delusion survived in various forms for at least two or three years longer.^ One would give something to know what were Spinoza's reflections on seeing the ortho- dox elders who had excommunicated him (for Isaac Aboab was carried away with the rest) fall an easy prey to a new heresy of the most gross and vulgar kind. But his answer to Oldenburg's inquiry is unluckily not preserved : we know not, indeed, if any answer were sent, for at this point there ensues a break of ten years in the correspondence of the two friends.
In 1663 Spinoza published the only work to which he ever set his name ; the origin of it is described by himself in one of his letters to Oldenburg. He had prepared a summary of the second part of Descartes' ' Principles of Philosophy ' for the use of a pupil whom he did not choose to make fully acquainted with his own opinions, probably the young man of whom we have already heard. Certain of Spinoza's friends became curious about this manual, and desired him to treat the first part of Descartes' work also in the same manner. This was done within a fortnight, and Spinoza was then urged to publish the book, which he readily agreed to do upon condition that one of his friends would revise the language, and write a preface explaining that the author did not agree with all the Cartesian doctrine set forth by him in the text.
' Gratz, X. 226, 229.
2 ' And yet most of them affirm that Sabatai is not tum'd Turk, but his Shadow only remains on Earth, and walks with a white Head, and in the habit of a Mahometan : But that his natural Body and Soul are taken into Heaven, there to reside until the time appointed for the accomplishment of these Wonders.' — ' The Counterfeit Messiah of the Jews at Smyrna, 1666 ' (in Two Journeys to Jerusalem, &c., collected by R. Burton, London, 1738).
30 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
This task was undertaken by Dr. Meyer, and the book appeared at Amsterdam in the same year ; in the following one a Dutch translation was issued by the same publisher. The contents were the exposition of two parts of Des- cartes' Principles, a fragment of a third part, and an appendix of ' Metaphysical Reflections,' professedly written from a Cartesian point of view, but often giving signifi- cant hints of the author's real divergence from Descartes. Spinoza took little trouble in the matter himself, and attached no value to the publication except as a means of preparing the way for more important things. 'On this opportunity,' he writes to Oldenburg, 'we may find some persons, holding the highest places in my country ' — meaning the De Witts, who certainly were among Spinoza's visitors at Rijnsburg and the Hague — ' who will be anxious to see those other writings which I acknowledge for my own, and will therefore take such order that I can give them to the world without danger of any inconvenience. If it so happens, I doubt not that I shall soon publish something ; if not, I will rather hold my peace than thrust my opinions upon men against the will of my country and make enemies of them.' The design of Spinoza and his friends was but partly effected. The book on Descartes excited considerable attention and interest, but the untoward course of public events in succeeding years was unfavourable to a liberal policy, and deprived Spinoza of the support for which he had looked.
We may here make a note in passing of two facts which are established by this exposition of Descartes, and which have been often overlooked. One is that if Spinoza had ever been a disciple of Descartes, he had completely ceased to be so by the time when he was giving lessons in philosophy to Albert Burgh. The other is that he did not suppose the geometrical form of statement and argument to be an infallible method of arriving at philosophical truth ; for in this work he made use of it to set forth opinions with which he himself did not agree,
THE LIFE OF Sfi.INOZA. 31
and proofs with which he was not satisfied. We do not know to what extent Spinoza's manual was accepted or taken into use by Cartesians, but its accuracy as an exposition of Descartes is beyond question. One of the many perverse criticisms made on Spinoza by modern writers is that he did not understand the fundamental proposition cogito ergo sum} In fact he gives precisely the same explanation of it that is given by Descartes himself in the Meditations.
The next notable event in Spinoza's life is the publica- tion of the ' Tractatus Theologico-Pohticus : ' the full title, as Englished by an early translator (1689), runs thus : —
'A treatise partly theological and partly political, con taining some few discourses to prove that the liberty of phi- losophizing (that is, making use of natural reason) may be allowed without any prejudice to piety, or to the peace of any commonwealth ; and that the loss of public peace and, religion itself must necessarily follow, where such a libertj of reasoning is taken away.'
The scope of the book is political and practical, not speculative. The final thesis to which all its apparatus of criticism leads up is that ' in a free commonwealth it should be lawful for every man to think what he will and speak what he thinks : ' a proposition which, with due reservations in behalf of decency and civil order — and the reservations were in no wise neglected by Spinoza — has now become common learning for the greater part of the civilized world. It looks to our modern eyes infinitely less bold than the arguments by which Spinoza maintained it. In order to gain his desired foundation for the freedom of speculative opinion, he plunges into an investigation of the nature of prophecy, the principles of Scriptural interpretation, and the true provinces of theology] and philosophy, anticipating with wonderful grasp and insigh almost every principle, and not a few of the results, of th^
' Foucher de Careil, Leibniz, Descartes, et Spinoza, Paris, 1862, p. 75 : ' il n'a jamais compris le cogito ergo sum.''
32 SPINOZA: HIs/lIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
school of historical criticism which has arisen within the last two or three generations ; a school which, through Lessing and ,his circle, is connected by direct descent with Spinoza. Taking the whole contents of the treatise together, we cannot be surprised that even in the United Provinces, then the freest country in the world, it was thought needful to issue it without the name of the author and with that of a fictitious printer at Hamburg. The tone and form are conciliatory, but with the kind of high-handed conciliation that exasperates. Much hard hitting will be taken without complaint in downright argument ; but few men can endure to be confuted from their own premisses by an adversary who never fully shows his hand. It is more tolerable for a dog- matist to be confronted with novelties in speculative opinion than to be told that speculative opinions are in themselves indifferent ; and the truth that conduct does not depend on speculation, though exemplified abundantly by all generations of men, is still unfamiliar and unwelcome to most of us. It is just to this unwelcome truth that Spinoza bears a testi- mony of unsurpassed power in the ' Tractatus Theologico- Politicus ; ' but if anything more were needed to explain the storm of polemic that burst upon him, there is yet more to come. We have said that Spinoza does not omit the neces- sary reservations in favour of the civil power ; we must add that he makes them not only freely but amply, so amply that he has been charged by some of his modern censors with going about to deify mere brute force. He appeals, more- over, from the Churches to the State, as representing the worldly common sense of the lay mind. He looks to an enlightened civil magistrate to deliver men from the barren clamour of anathemas, almost as an Indian heretic vexed by the Brahmans may look to the impartial secular arm of the British Government. ' This is the conclusion of the whole matter for him ; a fervent appeal to the State to save us from the untoward generation of metaphysical Article-makers ; '
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 33
SO Mr. Arnold sums it up in his admirable essay.' If the English translator had been minded to give the bocJk\a second title, after the manner of English controversialists of that day, he might fairly have called it ' Erastianism not' Unscriptural.' Now it is a great error to suppose that the metaphysical Article-makers are stupider undiscerning people. Whatever qualities may be desirable in those who are to/ believe articles after they are made, a great deal of energy/ and acuteness have gone to the making of them ; and tha faculties thus employed are, as a rule, very sufficient td perceive the drift of any new ideas that may imperil thei ■ finished handiwork. In 1 670 the generation of Article-maker 1 was mighty in the Netherlands, and still pretty fresh from\ its great exercise at the Synod of Dort. It was fully on the alert, and lost no time in showing itself equal to the occasion. And the occasion, was no common one, for the attack was not only powerful, but vital. If there is anything that ecclesiastical dogmatists of all parties are united in hating with a perfect hatred, it is the Erastian view of thfe relation of the State to religious differences. /
Spinoza probably never disguised from himself the oppo- sition he would have to encounter. In 1671 he wrote thus to his friend Jarig Jellis : —
' When Professor N. N. [Wittichius ?] ^ lately saw me, he told me, among other things, how he had heard of my Theologico- political treatise being translated into Dutch, and that a person whose name he did not know was on the point of printing the translation, I therefore earnestly entreat you to inquire diligently into the matter, and stop the printing if it can be done This request is not from me alone, but also from many of my friends and acquaintance, who would be sorry to see the book prohibited, as it certainly will be if it appears in Dutch.'
It seems that Spinoza's wishes were attended to, for no
' ' Spinoza and the Bible,' in Essays in Criticism. ' Van Vloten, ^c«f(/. de Spinoza, p. 81, note.
D
34
SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY,
Dutch version appeared until 1693/ some years after an English one had been published in London. But the Synods were already up in arms, and in the spring of 167 1 addressed a solemn complaint to the States-General concerning the printing and publishing of divers ' Socinian and blasphemous books, to wit, the books called "Bibliotheca Patrum Polonorum quos unitarios vocant," the famous book of Hobbes called " Leviathan," and moreover the book entitled " Philosophia Sacrae Scripturae interpres," ^ as well as that called " Tractatus Theologico-Politicus." ' In 1674 eiifect was given to this by a formal prohibition of the book, which, either in anticipation of such a measure, or in order to obtain a sale in Catholic countries, had already been issued in a second edition with various false title-pages, as of works on medicine or history.' Rome was not far behind the Reformed churches in dili- gence. The ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ' was ere long put on the Index, and it still Holds its place in the strangely mixed company of that catalogue with many of the best and some of the worst books of the world. But the celebrity which came to Spinoza by reason of this publication was not altogether of a disagreeable kind even in official quarters. When his treatise had been some three years before the world he received an invitation to the Chair of Philosophy at Heidelberg, written by Professor Fabritius at the command of the Elector Pala- tine Charles Lewis, and couched in the most honourable terms. The only hint of a restriction was in the following sentence : ' You will have the largest freedom of speech in philosophy, which the prince is confident that you will not misuse to disturb the established religion.' Now it is hardly possible to suppose that the Elector and his advisers were unacquainted with the ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ; ' and if they were acquainted with its general purport, one is
' Bibliografie, No. 17.
2 This was for a time erroneously attributed to Spinoza.
8 Bibliografie, Nos. 4-7. See Appendix B for the text of the ordinance.
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 35
tempted to suspect that a phrase of such very mild caution may have been inserted only as a matter of form ; especially when we remember that established religion, as such, is treated by Spinoza with great respect in the treatise itself. The test seems almost framed to invite evasion.
But even the semblance of evasion was repugnant to Spinoza's ideal of intellectual truthfulness. He answered the invitation thus : —
' Had it ever been my desire to occupy a chair in any faculty, I could have wished for no other than that which the Most Serene Elector Palatine offers me by your hands ; and especially on account of that freedom in philosophy which the prince is pleased to grant, to say nothing of the desire I have long entertained to live under the rule of a prince whose wisdom is the admiration of all men. But since I have never been minded to give public lectures, I cannot persuade myself to accept even this splendid opportunity, though I have given long consideration to it. For I reflect, in the first place, that I must give up philosophical research if I am to find time for teaching a class. I reflect, moreover, that I cannot tell within what bounds I ought to confine that philosophical freedom you mention in order to escape any charge of attempting to disturb the established religion. Religious dissensions arise not so much from the ardour of men's zeal for religion itself as from their various dispositions and love of contradiction, which leads them into a habit of decrying and condemning everything, however justly it be said. Of this I have already had experience in my private and solitary life ; much more, then, should I have to fear it after mounting to this honourable con- dition. You see, therefore, that I am not holding back in the hope of some better post, but for mere love of quietness, which I think I can in some measure secure if I abstain from lecturing in public. Wherefore I heartily beseech you to desire the Most Serene Elector that I may be allowed to consider further of this matter.' »
The call to Heidelberg was in 1673. We have anticipated the order of events to' keep the philosophic side of Spinoza's life distinct from the one point at which it was visibly touched by the turmoil of public affairs. The misfortunes of the Nether-
' Ep. S4- D 2
36 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
lands in 1672 are the property of general history. Then took place the sudden and overwhelming invasion in which ' the king of France came down to Utrecht like a land flood ; ' ' and this war of insolent aggression, so far from uniting all parties in resistance to the enemy, bred in the Commonwealth a passion of panic that let loose the worst excesses of domestic faction. The brothers De Witt, after lives spent in the service of their country, were massacred by a frantic mob at the Hague. Spinoza had been the friend of John de Witt ; he had accepted a small pension from him, and is said to have been consulted by him in affairs of State. It was not common with Spinoza to be visibly disturbed or angry, but by this event he was moved as by no other in his life. So much was his wonted self-control shaken that he was hardly restrained from expressing his indignation in public at the risk of his life.^ He was shortly afterwards, as it fell out, to be exposed to a similar risk, and for a not dissimilar cause. While the headquarters of the French army were at Utrecht the Prince of Cond^, then in command of it, invited Spinoza to visit him. There is no reason to suppose any other motive than a genuine desire to ma:ke the philosopher's acquaintance, still less to ima- gine (as one or two writers have done) a secret political errand. Spinoza proceeded to Utrecht with a safe-conduct, but found that Cond^ had been in the meantime called away. He waited some days, but Conde's absence was prolonged, and he finally returned to the Hague without having seen him. The French officers who entertained Spinoza suggested that if he would dedicate some Work to Louis XIV. he might probably count upon a pension ; but the proposal fell upon deaf ears. A man
' Burnet, i. 321.
^ This was communicated by Spinoza himself to Leibnitz. 'J'ay passe quelques heures ap(^s diner avec Spinoza ; il me dit qu'il avait est^ porte, le jour des massacres de MM. de Witt, de sortir la nuit et d'afficher quelque part, proche du lieu, un papier oii il y aurait ultimi barbarorum. Mais son h&te luy avait ferme la maison pour I'empgcher de sortir, car il se serait expose \ etre d^chire.' MS. note of Leibnitz, ap. Foucher de Careil, Leibniz, Descartes, et Spinoza, p. 74.
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 37
who could scarcely be prevailed on to accept favours from his friends at home was not likely to sell the reputation of patronizing him to the ruler of a hostile country. But at the Hague, men's minds being still in a ferment, sinister rumours about Spinoza's journey had got abroad ; and he found him- self on his return the object of the most alarming and most insidious charge that can fall upon a citizen in time of war. The landlord feared an assault, if not the sack of the house, from the populace among whom these reports were passing, and who might at any moment resolve to lay violerit hands upon Spinoza as a French spy.
Spinoza, however, comforted his host with these words : — ' Fear nothing on my account ; I can easily justify myself; there are people enough, and of chief men in the country too, who well know the motives of my journey. But, whatever comes of it, so soon as the crowd make the least noise at your door, I will go out and make straight for them, though they should serve me as they have done the unhappy De Witts. I am a good republican, and have never had any aim but the honour and welfare of the State.'
The danger passed off; but Spinoza's conduct under it is none the less worthy of admiration, for it was unquestionably a very serious one. Even in our own times, notably in France during the war of 1870, many innocent persons have been in imminent peril, or have actually lost their lives, on far slighter circumstances of supposed evidence than appeared in this case. The incident also has its value in the light it throws, on the general esteem in which Spinoza then stood. For the con- sciousness, not merely of an innocent purpose, but of a cha- racter above the possibility of rational suspicion, was necessary to make his visit to the French headquarters prudent or justifiable ; and the authorities of his own country would assuredly never have consented to it had they not felt absolute confidence that the public good would in no way suffer by it. It is indeed almost surprising that Spinoza, a
38 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
known friend of John de Witt, was in the existing state of affairs allowed to go to the French camp at all.
Meanwhile Spinoza had been working at the Ethics, and before the end of 1674 manuscript copies of the finished work were in the hands of some of his friends.' About the end of July 167s he made an excursion to Amsterdam in order to arrange for the publication of the book. What befell him there is best told in the words of his own letter to Oldenburg.
' While I was busy with this, the report was spread everywhere that a Certain book of mine was in the press, wherein I endeavoured to show that there was no God ; and this report found credence with many. Whereupon certain theologians (themselves perhaps the authors of it) took occasion to complain of me to the prince and the magis- trates ; moreover the stupid Cartesians, being supposed to side with me and desiring to free themselves from that suspicion, were diligent without ceasing in their execration of my doctrines and writings, and are as diligent still. Having knowledge of these matters from trust- worthy persons, who likewise told me that the theologians were laying plots against me on all sides, I determined to put off the publication until I could see the issue of the affair, and then to signify my designs to you. But the business inclines, as it seems, to the worse from day to day, and I know not yet what I shall do.'
The result was that nothing more was done in Spinoza's lifetime. He had shown that he could endure much in silence rather than barter a jot of his freedom, but he did not choose to be vexed with the petty warfare of clerical controversy ; he must have felt the assurance that his work would live, and that a few years sooner or later in the date of its appearance would be indifferent. Can he have surmised that the few years by which the publication was postponed would be a mere fraction in comparison with the time during which his thoughts were in the world but not perceived by it, misunder- stood by those who took notice of them, and unheeded by those who might have understood } Can he have even dreamt
' Epp. 63, 66,
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. 39
of the splendour with which his work was to shine forth to a newer world after the period of eclipse, giving up its hidden treasures of light and vital fire to inform the philosophy and poetry of a mighty nation ? Such fame as Spinoza's is the reward only of those who are above fame in their lives.
Spinoza had now but little more of life before him. For many years he had suffered from consumption, aggravated per- haps by his work of glass-polishing. On Sunday, February 2 r, 1677, the end came unexpectedly, and almost suddenly. Spinoza had indeed sent to Amsterdam for his friend and physician Lewis Meyer ; but on the Saturday he had spent the afternoon in talk with his hosts as usual ; and on the Sunday he came down again in the morning, and spoke with them before they went to hear Dr. Cordes, Colerus's predecessor in the Lutheran church at the Hague. They were so far from any immediate apprehensions that they went out again in the afternoon, leaving him alone with Meyer. When they came home they found, to their surprise, that Spinoza was no longer alive. Dr. Meyer, the only person who was with him at the last, returned forthwith to Amsterdam. He is charged by Colerus with neglect of duty and rapacity ; or rather, in plain terms, with making booty of a silver-handled knife and the loose money in the room. But this is so grossly improbable that we can only disregard it. Colerus may have not been sorry to compensate himself for the admiration his native honesty compelled him to yield to Spinoza's character by giving currency to a piece of malignant gossip about a friend of Spinoza's, known or suspected to share Spinoza's opinions, and who, as a person only coming incidentally into the story, had no particular claim to be treated with justice. But credit must be given to Colerus, on the other hand, for his downright contradiction of the tales concerning Spinoza's death-bed which were circulated, it would seem, by persons who thought it would tend to edification to represent Spinoza as the blus- tering infidel of popular orthodox polemics, who is invariably
40 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
assailed by doubt and disquietude in his last moments, and as invariably strives to disguise them with feeble bravado.' Colerus very honestly says that the people of the house, whom he more than once questioned, knew nothing of any such matters, and did not believe a word of them.
Spinoza left behind him but a scanty estate : some thirty or forty volumes, a few engravings, the tools of his trade, and a certain number of finished lenses ; which last, we are told, fetched a good price ; besides these a modest list of per- sonal effects, carefully enumerated by Colerus, and in all so little more than would cover debts and expenses that the sur- viving sister Rebekah, who at first was disposed to assert her rights, concluded that the inheritance was not worth having. Yet Spinoza had one precious legacy to dispose of — the desk containing his letters and unpublished work. Van der Spijck had been charged to convey this after Spinoza's death to Jan Rieuwertz, a publisher at Amsterdam. The trust was faithfully executed, and the ' Opera Posthuma ' appeared in the course of the same year, but without the author's full name. The editors' preface explains tha.t this was by his own request.
' The writer's name/ they say, ' is expressed on the title-page and elsewhere only by his initials ; which is done for no other reason than that, shortly before his death, he specially desired that his name should not be pr§iixed to his Ethics, while he directed the printing of them. The only reason for this prohibition was, as we think, that he chose not that his doctrine should be called after his name. For he says in the Appendix to the fourth part of the Ethics, cap. 25, that they who desire to aid others by counsel or deed to the common enjoyment of the chief good shall in no wise endeavour themselves that a doctrine be called after their nanie. Moreover in the third part of the Ethics, in the nth definition of the Passions, where he explains the nature of ambition, he plainly charges with vain-glory those who do after this sort'
In the following year the States of Holland and West
•■-Oije of these stories is circumstantially repeated by Bayle, Pensies Diverses, J 181, ' Vanite de Spinoza k I'heure de mort,'
THE LIFE OF, SPINOZA. 41
Friesland, being satisfied that the book entitled ' B. D. S. Opera Posthuma ' ' labefactated ' various essential airticles of the faith and ' vilipended the authority of miracles,' expressed ' the highest indignation ' at the disseminating thereof, declared it profane, atheistic, and blasphemous, and forbad printing, selling, and dealing in it, on pain of their high displeasure.'
The framers of this well-meant enactment earned a per- manent remembrance for their work, but not quite as they desired. Instead of their ordinance extinguishing Spinoza's ' Ethics,' the ' Ethics' have preserved the meriiory of the ordinance.
It remains to say something of Spinoza's manner of daily life and outward habit ; which however, as we know them almost entirely through Colerus's account, so they are pre- sented by Colerus with a kind of simple quaintness more impressive than any studied description can be. The effect of those particulars which we possess is to show us a man who was led to a retired life by choice and circum- stance, not by ostentation ; to an almost incredible frugality by reasons of health and economy, not by ascetic pride ; who could be freespoken and of good will towards all sorts of men, but would be dependent on none. His living and diet were of the simplest, his expenses amounting sometimes only to a few pence for the whole day. But he kept down his expenses in this manner chiefly, if not wholly, in order to keep them within his means ; just making both ends meet, as he would say of himself, like a snake with its tail in its mouth. And his means remained slender to the last because he did not choose to live on patronage, and the studies to which he devoted the best of his mind had even less bread-winning virtue then than they have now. It is reported that Spinoza, on hear- ing that a man who owed him 200 florins had become bankrupt, said with a smile, ' I must retrench my allowance to make
' June 25, 1678, Qroot Pl<fcael Boek, 3de dee), p, 535 : Bibliografie, No. 24.
42 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
up for this little matter ; at this price one buys equanimity.' ' But the story seems doubtful.
Again, Spinoza lived in a retirement which at times might be called solitude ; when absorbed in work he would hardly leave his chamber for many days together ; once he did not leave the house for three months.^ But if on these occasions he chose to be alone, it was not that he loved solitude for its own sake. He had none of the shallow pride and arrogance which fancies that the way to show superior knowledge is to disdain the common intercourse of mankind. There was no touch of misanthropy in the retirement from the world which he imposed upon himself Besides keeping up a not inconsiderable correspondence, Spinoza visited and was visited by not a few men of letters and learning ; there was a time, as we gather from his own statements, when their civilities left him few hours to call his own.
Nor did he limit his converse to scholars : he knew how to win the esteem and affection of the simple folk of the household where he dwelt, an esteem which, as M. Renan has well said, is in truth the most precious of all. He talked freely and familiarly with his hosts the Van der Spijcks, and would counsel their children to good behaviour and obedience. He discussed with them the sermons of Dr. Cordes, the Lutheran pastor who preceded Spinoza's biographer Colerus in the charge of the Lutheran congregation at the Hague, and recommended them to give all attention to the discourses of so excellent a teacher. Bold as he was in speculative thought, and detached in his own person from all sects and doctrines, Spinoza was no furious iconoclast in private life.
' This anecdote is only in Lucas, and as given by him has a slightly theatrical air. He adds a sort of apologetic explanation : ' Je ne rapporte pas cette action comme quelque chose d'^clatant, mais comma il n'ya rien enquoi le genie paraisse davantage qu'en ces sortes de petites choses, je n'ai pu I'omettre sans scrupule.' I cannot but suspect that the turn of the saying at least is borrowed from Epictetus (Man, c. 12, 2), ItriXiyi 8ti roiroirov ■ir<ii>\e7Tai &iriiBna, Toffoirov arapa^ia.
' Pref. to 0/era Fosthima.
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. +3
He did not seek to make nominal proselytes who would have been neither the wiser nor the happier for their conversion, and when the good woman of the house attacked him with a point-blank question as to the sufficiency of her religion for salvation, he answered that her religion was good if it led her to a good life, and she had no need to seek further.
But the strength of Spinoza's social feelings, and the importance he attached to fellowship among men as the only means by which man can live a life worthy of his nature, are most evidently shown in his ' Ethics ; ' and the ideal of human life which he there sets forth, and to which he himself was faithful in action, will come under our notice when we endeavour to obtain a view of his philosophy.
44 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
CHAPTER II.
SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE.
Treu dem Gesetz und treu
Dir selbst— so bleibst du frei. —Proverb.
He that feeds men serveth few ;
He serves all who dares be true. — Emerson.
We have already made use of some of Spinoza's letters in order to supplement the rather meagre outlines of his bio- graphy which we possess from other sources. Hereafter we shall have to refer to others as containing important passages of authentic commentary on his philosophy. But we have a certain number of an intermediate character, which, while their interest is literary and speculative rather than personal, yet lie outside the main lines of Spinoza's systematic thought. They contain much that is curious in itself, and much that is useful as an introduction to Spinoza's general manner of thinking and discussion ; and we may find it worth while to dwell a little upon them before we finally quit the ground of biography and enter upon that of criticism. It is pleasant to linger in a borderland where speculation is still relieved by per- sonal incidents. Of Spinoza's correspondence with Oldenburg and De Vries we have already seen something : what remains in those quarters is of strictly philosophical interest. Another friend of Spinoza who must haye been in constant intercourse with him was Dr. Lewis Meyer, who undertook the publica- tion of the • Principles of Cartesian Philosophy,' and was after-
SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 45
wards joint editor of the 'Opera Posthuma.' What has become of the letters which passed between these two ? At present, unfortunately, the answer is that we have one, and only one, preserved in the ' Opera Posthuma,' this being an answer to a letter of Meyer's, probably written on behalf of the philosophical club at Amsterdam, and asking Spinoza for the result of his speculations on the Infinite. Here, again, we must leave the contents for the present untouched, only re- marking the comparatively early date (1663) of the letter. It belongs to the Rijnsburg time, and shows, together with the letters to De Vries, that the groundwork at least of Spinoza's system as we now have it was by that time fully formed.
Oldenburg, Meyer, and De Vries naturally wrote, as scholars, in Latin (De Vries not without a touch of Batavism), and Spinoza replied to them in the same language, writing carefully, and even indulging in purisms : he will not put the scholastic form ' essendi ' before Meyer without an apology.' But there were other less learned correspondents who pre- ferred the vernacular.
The originals of their letters are apparently preserved in the Dutch version of the ' Opera Posthuma,' which was pub- lished almost simultaneously with the Latin text. But with Spinoza's own replies to them it is not so. Two of Spinoza's Dutch letters are preserved as he wrote them, and the editors of the ' Nagelate Schriften ' found it necessary to make con- siderable amendments in their composition. In one of them Spinoza expressly apologizes for not being perfect in the language. There is some reason to think the Latin versions of the letters originally sent in Dutch were prepared for pub- lication by Spinoza himself.^
The lion's share of the miscellaneous correspondence, in
' ' In6nitam essendi sive (invita Latinitate) essendi fruitionem. ' — Ep. 29. ^ See Prof. Land's paper, Over de eerste uitgaven der brieven van Spinoza, Amsterdam, 1879 ; and Appendix C below.
46 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
point of bulk at least, belongs to William van Blyenbergh, a worthy merchant and municipal officer of Dort, and a citizen of good family, who was mightily taken, by his own account, with Spinoza's 'Principles of Cartesian Philosophy.' In December 1664 he wrote to Spinoza in these terms : —
' Dear Sir and unknown Friend, — I have already had the pleasure of several times carefully reading over your treatise lately published, together with its Appendix. It will be more proper for me to speak to others than to yourself of the exceeding solidity I found in it and of the pleasure I derived from it This much I cannot forbear saying, that the oftener I go over it with attention, the more I am pleased with it ; and that I constantly find something which I had not marked before.'
He proceeds to enlarge (in a style much improved by the Latin translation) on his sincere love of philosophic truth as the only thing deservirig of affection in this transitory life, on his admiration for the knowledge and philosophic felicity shown in Spinoza's work, and his desire to make the personal acquaintance of a man so favoured, and on his disappoint- ment in having been prevented, by various causes, from intro- ducing himself to Spinoza face to face instead of by letter. He had meant only to ask, in a preliminary way, whether he might trouble Spinoza with some of his difficulties ; but, ' not to leave the letter quite empty,' he states one of them forth- with, which concerns the question of creation, especially as bearing on the origin of evil. If, according to what is said in various places by Spinoza, both in his exposition of Descartes and in his own commentary, God is the immediate cause, not only of the existence of the human soul but of its particular operations, is not God the immediate cause of evil volitions, for example, the determination of Adam to eat the forbidden fruit ">. Blyenbergh professes himself puzzled, but confidently awaits a satisfactory answer, and adds a sentence ominous of future garrulity : ' Be assured, dear sir, that I ask this for no other cause than desire for the truth, and have no particular
SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 47
interests ; I am unattached, dependent on no profession ; I live by honest merchandise, and spend my leisure on these subjects. I humbly pray you not to find my difficulties troublesome.'
Spinoza seems to have thought from this first letter that Blyenbergh was a man of some real capacity, and that he had gained a valuable acquaintance. At any rate, he received his unknown correspondent with a warm welcome.
'Unknown Friend,— From your letter I understand your exceed- ing love of truth, and how that only is the aim of all your desires ■ and since I direct my mind upon naught else, this constrains me to determine, not only fully to grant your request, which is to answer to the best of my skill the questions which you now send or shall send hereafter, but to perform all else on my part which may avail for our better acquaintance and sincere friendship. For myself, there is among things out of my own control none I prize more than entering into the bond of friendship with men who are sincere lovers of truth. For 1 believe that nothing in the world, not being under our own control, can be so securely taken for the object of our love as men of this temper ; since 'tis no more possible to dissolve that love they have for one another (seeing it is founded on the love each of them hath for the knowledge of truth) than not to embrace the truth itself when once perceived. This love is moreover the most perfect and delightful which can exist towards objects not in our control, since no other thing has such virtue as truth to unite men's minds and affections. I say nothmg of the exceeding conveniences that spring from it, that I may no longer detain you with matters which you doubtless well know ; I have however done so thus far, the better to show how pleasant it is to me now, and will be in future, to find any occasion of doing you service.'
He then takes up the question proposed by Blyenbergh. After observing that Blyenbergh has not defined his notion of evil, Spinoza declares that for his part he cannot allow that sin and evil have any positive reality, much less that anything happens contrary to God's will : nay, it is only an inexact and human fashion of speech to say that man can sin against or offend God. For every really existing thing, if we consider
48 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
it apart from its relation to other things, is perfect as far as its existence goes (this equivalence of reality and perfection is one of the key-notes of Spinoza's metaphysic). Thus, taking Blyenbergh's example of Adam's determination to eat the forbidden fruit, there is no imperfection in the act as such. Approval or disapproval implies a standard of comparison ; we are simply amused by actions in animals which are the object of moral condemnation in men. Sin is a note of im- perfection, and therefore something apart from the action itself, in so far as it partakes of or ' expresses reality.'
Again, we cannot say that Adam's will was evil inasmuch as it displeased God. For we cannot assume anything to happen against God's will without assuming imperfection in God, whose will, indeed, being coextensive with his under- standing, an event against God's will could only be an event i-epugnant to the laws of understanding. Adam's determina- tion, then, was not evil considered in itself, nor yet, strictly speaking, contrary to God's will ; and there is no difficulty in admitting God to have been the cause of it, so far as it was a real action. Its evil consisted in Adam's losing in consequence of it the state of perfection he enjoyed before. But loss is merely negative, and the conception of it a relative one which has no place in absolute intellect. Our notion of imperfection arises from an individual not conforming to the type of the class which we have obtained by a process of abstraction. But infinite intellect has no need of abstraction or definition, and therefore does not and cannot regard anything as imper- fect. Everything is as real and as perfect as the divine power has made it: in other words, as perfect as it can be. We call things good or bad in their kinds ; but the divine intel- lect sees everything as perfect in itself.' This Spinoza thinks
' Cf. CogU. Met. pt. ii. u. 7, § 4 : ' Quum ergo mala et peccata in rebus nihil sint, sed tantum in mente humana res inter se comparante, sequitur Deum ipsa extra mentes humanas non cognoscere.' And §S : '. . . . Deo singularium cognitionem tribuimus, universalium denegamus, nisi quatenus mentes humanas ihtelligit '
SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 49
a sufficient answer on speculative grounds ; but he goes on to the practical bearings of the matter. As to the language of the Scriptures, they speak in a popular, not a philosophic manner, ascribing to God anger, jealousy, and even liability to error. ' Thus the precept given to Adam consisted only in this, that God revealed to Adam that eating of that tree caused death ; just as God reveals to us through natural understanding that poison is deadly to us. If you ask for what purpose God revealed this to Adam, I answer, in order to make him to that extent more perfect in knowledge.' ' If you ask, again, why he did not give Adam a more perfect will, it is like asking why God has not endowed the circle with the properties of the sphere.
Then as to the objection that if all men do the will of God, the wicked do it no less than the good : they do it in- deed in their fashion, but their lot is nevertheless very different. Knowing not God, they serve him as a blind instrument in the workman's hand, which perishes in the using ; the righteous do their service with knowledge, and are made more perfect therein.
The letter discloses only parts of Spinoza's ethical theory, and in language adapted to the assumptions of his questioner ; but these parts are characteristic. Even in this form they may still seem daring to many readers, and Blyenbergh was entirely taken aback by them. Yet the leading idea of the letter — namely, that the notions of good and evil are re- lative, and have place only in finite intellects — had been enun- ciated centuries before by Maimonides. Observe also Spinoza's complete Nominalism, and the important practical use he makes of it against the anthropomorphic view of the govern- ment of the world.
Ten days later Blyenbergh replied in a very long epistle, the contents of which it is needless to state further than that
' Cf. Tract. Theol.-Polit. c. 4, §§26, 27, where it is said that the revelation was a command or precept only in respect of Adam's imperfect knowledge.
E
JO SPINOZA . HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
he repeats and enlarges on his objections. He protests that Spinoza's doctrine destroys all practical difference between right and wrong, and leaves no ground for preferring virtue to vice. As for desiring virtue for its own sake, human nature is far too weak for that. ' See what ground we give to all godless men and their impiety ! We make ourselves like stocks, and our actions no better than the works of a watch.' Blyenbergh also explains to Spinoza at the begin- ning of the letter that he has two rules wherewith to guide himself in philosophy, Reason and Scripture ; and that if the apparently clear conclusions of his reason differ from the re- vealed word, he can only suppose that his reason is wrong.'
This disclosure was a surprise to Spinoza, who answered that on such conditions discussion would not be very profit- able.
' When I read your first letter, I thought that our opinions pretty- well agreed ; but from the second I understand it is quite otherwise, and perceive that we differ not only in the consequences that may be drawn from first principles, but also in the principles themselves ; in- somuch that I can scarce believe that we shall be able to instruct one another further by letters. For I see that no demonstration, however firm it may be according to the laws of demonstration, may prevail with you unless it agree with the interpretation that you, or other theologians familiar to you, put upon Holy Writ. ^ If you find the light of Scripture clearer than the light of reason (which also is given us by divine wisdom), you are doubtless right in your own conscience in making your reason yield. For my part, since I plainly confess that I do not understand the Scriptures, though I have spent many years upon them, and since I know that when once I have a firm proof I cannot by any course of thought come to doubt of it, I rest wholly upon that which my understanding commends to me, without any suspicion that I am deceived therein, or that the Scriptures, even though I do not search them, can speak against it. For one truth cannot conflict with another, as I have already clearly shown in my Appendix to the " Principles of Descartes " (I cannot give the chapter, as here in the country I have not the book by me).*
2 Cogit. Met. pt. ii. c. 8, § 5. ' Veritas veritati non repugnat, nee scriptura
SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 51
But if in any case I did find error in that which I have collected from my natural imderstanding, I should count it good fortune, since I enjoy life, and endeavour to pass it not in weeping and sighing, but in peace, joy, and cheerfulness, and from time to time climb thereby a step higher. I know, meanwhile (which is the highest pleasure of all), that all things happen by the power and unchangeable decree of the most perfect Being.' 7
He then turns to the matter of Blyenbergh's objections, which depend on his way of regarding God in his relations to man as a magnified human judge ; whereas in Spinoza's view the reward of serving God is not as it were a prize, but the necessary consequence of the work itself. The love of God, which is man's highest happiness, follows from the knowledge of God as necessarily as it follows from the nature of a triangle that the sum of its angles is two right angles. ' One may easily give a general proof of this, if one will only consider the nature of God's decrees, as I have explained in my Appendix.' But I confess that all those who confound the divine nature with that of man are very inapt to compre- hend this.' Spinoza further shows how Blyenbergh had mis- understood both himself and Descartes, and then replies with some warmth to the charge that his doctrine is likely to have mischievous consequences. ' When you say that by making men so dependent on God I make them like the natural elements, herbs, or stones, that is full proof that you take my meaning much amiss, and confuse things which are of the understanding with things of the imagination. For if you had clearly conceived in your understanding what dependence on God is, you would never think that things, forasmuch as
nugas, quales vidgo fingunt, docere potest. Si enim in ipsa inveniremus aliquid, quod lumini naturali esset contrarium, eadem libertate, qua Alcoranum et Thalmud refellimus, illam refellere possemus.'
' CogU. Met. pt. ii. c. 9 ; cf. c. 7, § 7 : Dei volitiones et decreta = eius cognitio circa res creatasj: 'Dei idea sive decretum.' Cf. too Tract. T/ieol.-Pol. c. 4, §§ 24, 25 : ' respectu Dei unum et idem afBrmamus, quum dicimus Deum ab aeterno decrevisse et voluisse tres angulos trianguli aequales esse duobus rectis, vel Deum hoc ipsum intellexisse,'
52 SPINOZA: rllS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
they depend on God, are dead, corporeal, and imperfeet (as who has ever dared speak so meanly of the most perfect being ?) ; you would understand, on the contrary, that thereby, and forasmuch as they depend on God, they are perfect ; so that we best understand this dependence, and the necessary operation of things by God's decrees, when we look, not upon stocks and herbs, but upon the most reasonable and perfect creatures. ... I cannot forbear saying that I am greatly amazed when you say. If God were not to punish evil (to wit, as a judge doth, with a punishment that the evil itself brings not with it, for that is our only difference), what reason is there that I should not run into all manner of wickedness .' Surely he who abstains from such things only for fear of pun- ishment (which I will not think of you) is in no way moved by love towards God, and has mighty little affection for virtue. For my part, I let such things alone, or endeavour so to do, because they would be clearly at strife with my proper nature, and lead me astray from the knowledge and the love of God.'
As to the rule of submission to the Scriptures, Spinoza says that in his opinion it is a more respectful way of treat- ing the Scriptures to recognize that they speak in human language and in parables than to put hasty and absurd interpretations upon them for the purpose of contradicting natural reason. ' Matters of high speculation have, I think, nothing to do with the Scriptures. For my part, I have learnt none of God's eternal attributes from Scripture, nor have been able to learn any.'
One would think this answer not very encouraging, but Blyenbergh, nothing daunted, returned to the charge with another letter ' nearly as long as the former one. He mildly complains of Spinoza's censures, but makes a kind of apo- logy for persisting in his objections. He asks many new questions, most of them unanswerable and some irrational,
' Ep. 35.
SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 53
and winds up with this sage postscript : ' Through haste I have forgot to add this question, whether we cannot by our foresight prevent that which otherwise would befall us ? ' Spinoza replied ' in courteous terms, but obviously beginning to lose patience, that his purpose had been not merely to criticize, but to point out to Blyenbergh the fundamental nature of their difference. ' I had thought,' he says in substance, ' that you wished to discuss these matters in a purely philosophical manner, but you showed me that it was otherwise, and that the foundation on which I thought to build our friendship was not laid as I had supposed.' He consents once more, however, to address himself to Blyen- bergh's objections. The leading passage is so characteristic that it seems profitable to give it nearly in full.
' In the first place I say that God is perfectly and truly the cause of everything whatsoever that hath any being. Now if you can show that evil, error, crimes, and the like are anything which expresses real being, I shall fully grant to you that God is the cause of these things. I have sufficiently shown, to my mind, that that which constitutes the nature of evil, error, crimes, and so forth consists not in anything that expresses real being ; and therefore we cannot say that God is their cause. For example, Nero's matricide, in so far as it comprehended anything positive, was not a crime. For the outward act, and likewise the intention to slay his mother, were the same in Orestes' case, and yet he is not blamed, at least not in the same degree as Nero. What, then, was Nero's crime? Nothing else but that by such a deed he showed himself ungrateful, unmerciful, and disobedient. 'Tis certain that none of these things express real being, and therefore God was not the cause thereof, though he was of Nero's act and intent. Further, I would here have you note that while we speak in the manner of philosophy we must not use the language of theology. For since theology constantly represents God as a perfect man (and that not without reason) it suits well enough in theology to say that God has desire, that he is angered at the works of the ungodly, or that he takes pleasure in those of the righteous, But in philosophy, where we clearly under-
' Ep. 36.
54 SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
stand that it is as little fit to ascribe to God the properties that make a man perfect as if one should ascribe to man such as belong to the perfection of the elephant or the ass, there, I say, the forementioned sort of terms have no place, and we cannot so use them without greatly confounding our conception of the matter. Therefore, philosophically speaking, we may not say that God desires anything of any man, or that anything is displeasing or agreeable to him ; for all these are human qualities, which in God have no place.'
He goes on to say, in answer to specific questions of Blyenbergh's, that however indifferent acts may be in theniT selves, considered from the philosophic or universal point of view, this does not affect our moral judgment of the agents. Blyenbergh asks whether homicide is equally acceptable to God with almsgiving.? 'Philosophically speaking,' says Spinoza, ' I do not know what you mean by acceptable to God. If the question is whether God hates the one and loves the other, and whether the one has given offence to God and the other done him a favour, then I answer No. If the question is whether murderers are equally good and perfect with those who give alms, I again say No.' The similar question, whether stealing be in the sight of God as good as honesty, is similarly disposed of. The acts of the thief and the honest man, so far as they are real actions, are equally perfect. Spinoza's meaning may want illustration for modern readers ; suppose, for example, a thief putting forth his hand to steal, and an honest man laying hands on him to stop him. The motion of the hand, considered as a natural event exhibiting the structure and functions of human limbs, is in itself no better or worse in the honest man's anatomy than in the thief's. Or, again, a thief may steal goods with violence, and an officer of justice may afterwards recover them from the thief, by actions in themselves precisely similar. But the honest man and the thief are not therefore alike in perfection or happiness of estate. ' For by an honest man ' (Spinoza continues) ' I understand one who desires that every one should have his
SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 55
own ; and I show in my Ethics (as yet unpubhshed) that this desire necessarily arises in righteous men from the clear know- ledge they have of themselves and of God.' Evil-doers, not having this desire, must be without the knowledge of God, and so miss the great foundation of human happiness.
There was yet a third question : if there existed a mind so framed that vice and crime were not repugnant to its proper nature but agreed with it, could any rational motive be assigned why such an agent should do good or avoid evil .' Spinoza says that this is to assume a contradiction.
' It seems to me no otherwise than if one asked, supposing it agreed better with his nature to hang himself, whether there would be any reason for not hanging himself.' Assuming that a man could really find hanging to agree better with him than eating and drinking, his only rational course would be to hang himself ; assuming that such a perverse human being as suggested by Blyenbergh could exist, vice would with respect to such a being become virtue.
' As to the last question, which you have added at the end of your letter, since one could put- a hundred such in an hour without coming to a conclusion in any case, and you do not much press for an answer yourself, I shall not answer it.' The question was indeed a formidably vague one. Probably Blyenbergh wanted to extract from Spinoza some- thing capable of being used as an admission of free-will.
Blyenbergh, still unabashed, paid Spinoza a visit in person, and finding that he could not remember to his own satisfac- tion what Spinoza had said to him, sent yet another epistle, asking a new string of questions, which rambled pretty well over the whole ground of the ' Principia Philosophise ' and ' Cogitata Metaphysica.' He concluded by asking, as a favour necessary to his complete understanding of Spinoza's answers, that Spinoza would furnish him with the principal heads of the ' Ethics.'
Philosophers are men (though the contrary seems to be
56 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
not uncommonly believed), and human long-suffering has limits. After some delay Spinoza now replied very shortly,' to the effect that he really could not undertake to answer questions of such a scope, but hoped to find an opportunity of explaining by word of mouth that it was impracticable; the chief reason being that, even if he could do it, the funda- mental differences between his views and Blyenbergh's would remain where they were before. He hopes that, on further consideration of the matter, Blyenbergh will waive this last' request, and remain his good friend. With this Blyenbergh disappears from Spinoza's correspondence, but we hear more of him from Colerus, who speaks with much admiration of a controversial treatise against the 'Tractatus Theologico- Politicus ' published by Blyenbergh in 1674. Notwithstand- ing his former friendly intercourse with Spinoza, the worthy merchant of Dordrecht pronounced the book to be ' full of curious but abominable discoveries, the learning and inquiries whereof must needs have been fetched from hell.' He under- took to prove Spinoza's opinions ruinous to the welfare of souls and of States, \ Ziel- en Landsverderffelyck.' But such were the usual amenities of controversy at the time. In most cases they probably implied no personal ill-will. Eight years later Blyenbergh also published a refutation of the ' Ethics,' ^ with the vcvofio Ardua quae pulckra, probably meant as a counterblast to Spinoza's own concluding words, ' omnia praeclara tam difBcilia quam rara sunt'
The curiosity of Spinoza's questioners was not limited to the proper field of philosophy ; they made no scruple of con- sulting him on omens and ghosts. A friend named Peter Balling, of whom we know very little,' but for whom, judging from the tone of the answer, Spinoza must have had a sincere regard, announced the death of a child, and at the same time
' Ep. 38. 2 Bibliografie, 380.
» It appears that he was the translator of Spinoza's Principles of Descartes' Philosophy, of which a Dutch version came out not long after the Latin.
SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 57
(seeking perhaps distraction in a speculative question) desired Spinoza's opinion of a supposed forewarning that had come to him. In other circumstances it is possible that Spinoza might have dealt with such a query rather summarily. We cannot suppose for instance that Blyenbergh would have taken much by throwing it in among his other difficulties. But now Spinoza was full of consideration for his friend's distress, and whatever he may have thought of the" wisdom of the question in itself, he answered it,' gently and patiently, though with his usual decision. After expressing his sympathy and en- treating Balling to write to him again at length, he proceeds to the matter of the warning.
' As to the omen you mention, namely, that while your child was still in good health you heard it groan in the same manner that it did when it had fallen into the sickness whereof it soon after died : I should think these were no real groans, but mere imagination, since you say that when you rose up and set yourself to listen for them, you heard them not so clearly as either before, or afterwards when you had fallen asleep again. Surely this proves that these groans were nothing else than imagination, which, being detached and free, could frame to itself a sound of groans in a more forcible and lively manner than in the time when you rose up to listen in a certain direction. I can both confirm and explain what I now say by another chance which befell me last winter at Rijnsburg. One morning as I woke out of a very heavy dream (it being already day), the images which had come before me in my dream remained before my eyes as lively as if they had been the very things, and specially that of a scurvy * black Brazilian, whom I had never before seen. This image vanished for the most part, when, in order to divert myself with somewhat else, I cast my eyes on a book or any other thing ; but so soon as I removed my eyes from their object, without looking with attention anywhere, the image of this same negro appeared as lively as before, and that again and again, until it vanished even to the head. Now I say that the same thing which happened to me in the inward sense of sight happened in your sense of hearing, - But since the causes were very different, there was in your case an omen, and in mine none. [The effects of the imagination are
' Ep. 30. '^ Or, 'leprous.'
SS SPINOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
various, according to, the exciting cause, which may be either mental or bodily.' Where it is bodily, as in the delirium of fever, there can be no question of any relation to future events.] But the effects of imagination, or images, which have their origin from the condition of the mind, may be omens of something future, because the mind can have a confused presentiment of such a thing. It can therefore frame to itself as firm and lively an image of such a thing as if the thing were present. Thus, to take an example like yours, a father so loves his son that he and his beloved son are as it were one and the same being.'
Spinoza goes on to say, referring for details to some fuller exposition of the subject which cannot be identified with anything in his extant works, that in so far as the father is united by sympathy with the son, he shares not only in his actual existence, but in the consequences de- termined by his present state and potentially included in it. Under favourable conditions, then, he may have an extremely vivid imagination of something depending on the son's own constitution and likely to happen to him, and which does in fact happen to him shortly afterwards.
Spinoza's language is not altogether clear. It seems to assume a physiological theory of presentiments and other similar occurrences, designed to afford a natural explanation not only of the subjective facts, but of the supposed warnings being verified in a certain proportion of cases. Some such theory may have been struck out by Spinoza in the days when he still believed in animal spirits ; as indeed various physical conjectures of a similar kind have been started in our own time with much less excuse. Even very ingenious persons will try the most improbable suppositions rather than resign themselves to the incredulity of healthy common sense.
It is fairly certain that the * confused presentiment ' spoken of in the letter does not mean a revelation or literal foreseeing
' Spinoza is here speaking in a popular manner. We shall see hereafter that he does not admit any causal connexion between mental and ryiaterial phenomena, but only a parallel correspondence excluding such a relation.
SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 59
of a future event as such, but a sort of unconscious judgment of the possibilities involved in existing conditions. But the exact nature of this operation is not defined, still less the nature and extent of the sympathy which enables us to form a presentiment as to persons closely connected with us. The conception of love as an impulse to unionwith the beloved object, which is here pressed to an almost fantastic conse- quence, is taken from Descartes, who himself probably had it from some older source. It -plays an important part in Spinoza's essay ' On God and Man/ — confided in manuscript to a limited number of friends, of whom perhaps Balling was one — but has disappeared in the Ethics. On the whole the re- marks now in question seem to belong to an early stage of Spinoza's psychology. Compared with other letters of about the same date (1664) they present something like an anachron- ism. But such anachronisms must exist in the mind of every man whose thoughts are still maturing ; and, under the special circumstances, Spinoza was probably willing to strain a point in favour of treating Balling's question seriously.
Ten years later another correspondent, whose name has been charitably suppressed by the editors of the ' Opera Posthuma,' wrote to Spinoza, without any particular occasion that appears, to ask what he thought about ghosts. He comes to the point without preface or preparation. ' The reason of my writing to you,' he says, ' is that I desire to know your opinion concerning apparitions, and ghosts or goblins ; and if they exist, what you think of them, and how long they live t for some consider them mortal and some immortal.' He is quite aware, however, that Spinoza may entertain the preliminary doubt whether there be ghosts at all : ' but 'tis certain the ancients believed in them. . . . Some say they are made of a very thin fine matter, others that they are incorporeal.' Spinoza's answer' begins with a neatly turned compliment: —
, ■ Ep. 56.
6o SriNOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
' Your letter, received yesterday, was most acceptable to-ane, as well because I desired some tidings of you, as because I see that you have not quite forgotten me. And though others might perhaps take it for a bad omen that ghosts or goblins should be the cause of your writing to me, I find on the contrary something much more to the purpose ; for I perceive that not only real things but trifles of the imagination may thus turn to my profit.'
He deals with the question in a tone of perfect courtesy, but with a touch of banter. ' I esteem you too much,' he says, ' to contradict you ; much less can I flatter you with a feigned assent. As a middle course I will beseech you to produce one or two thoroughly authenticated ghost stories of your own choice. To be plain with you, I am so far from having met with a satisfactory account of any ghost, that I cannot even make out what a ghost is. If the philosophers choose to name those things ghosts which we do not know, I will not contradict them, for there are an infinity of things whereof I have no knowledge.' He lastly observes that all the ghosts he ever heard of were at best very foolish creatures, and seemed to have nothing better to do than to make dull prac- tical jokes.
The questioner replies ^ that he expected some such answer, as from a friend not sharing his opinion (so it would seem his original purpose was to start a discussion) ; but friends, he adds, may well differ in things indifferent and yet preserve their friendship.
Before proceeding to give reasons for his belief he notes, with a judicial gravity which need not surprise us, seeing that it is maintained at the present day by believers in table- moving, slate-writing, funipotent and other goblins, that preconceived opinions hinder the investigation of truth. He does not meet Spinoza's challenge, but gives a priori reasons why there must be disembodied or semi-material spirits — such
' Ep. 57-
SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 6 1
creatures being, in his opinion, indispensable for the com- pleteness of the universe. On their natural history he is a little uncertain. ' I think there are spirits of all sorts, though, perhaps, none of the female sex.' Being aware, however, that these reasons will not be convincing to people who think the world was made by chance, he passes to evidence. He does not accept the stories of demons and magicians ; but for ghosts in general he cites Plutarch, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Lavater, and others ; the experience of a burgomaster of his own acquaintance, ' a learned and wise man, yet living, who told me that a noise of working was heard all night in his mother's brewhouse, just like that which brewing made in the day time,' and some similar and never-to-be-forgotten experience of his own — of which no particulars are disclosed.
After a while Spinoza replied,' still in the tone of bis first answer. He had been able to consult only Pliny and Sueto- nius among the list of authorities given by his friend ; but he found these quite enough, for they convinced him that the historians who report ghost stories do so merely for the sake of astonishing their readers. ' I confess that I am not a little amazed, not at the stories that are told, but at those who set them down.' The suggestion that there are male but not female ghosts is presumably not serious, ' otherwise I could only compare it to the imagination of the common sort, who take God to be masculine and not feminine.' He explains that he entirely repudiates the notion of the world having been made by chance, but he nevertheless cannot admit his friend's assertion that ghosts are necessary to its perfection. For perfection and beauty are ±erms relative to the observer. ' He who says that God has made the world beautiful must needs assert one of two propositions : either that God has framed the world according to the desire and the eyes of men, or the desire and eyes of men according to the world. Now,
' Ep. 58.
62 S/>INOZA: HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
whether you assert the former or the latter, I see not why God must have made goblins and ghosts to attain either of these two ends. For perfection and imperfection, they are terms not much different from beauty and ugliness. So, not to be tedious, I only ask, is the existence of ghosts more necessary to the adornment and perfection of the world than that of various other monsters like Centaurs, Hydras, Harpies, Satyrs, Griffins, Argus, and other like vanities .' A pretty world it should have been, indeed, had God adorned and beautified it after the good pleasure of our fancies with such things as any man may easily imagine and dream, but none have yet been able to understand.' Having disposed of the other reasons, Spinoza regrets that his friend has not been able to furnish him with any better example than the burgo- master's ghost in the brewhouse, which he considers laughable. ' To cut the matter short, I take for my authority Julius Caesar, who, as Suetonius reports, made sport of such things and yet prospered. And so must all do who consider the effects of human imagination and passions, whatever Lavater, and others who in this matter dream in company with him, may say to the contrary.'
The rejoinder ' was delayed by a passing indisposition: of the writer. It was mostly taken up with a theological digression. Spinoza's friend asks, among other things, as a retort to his demand for a clearer definition of ghost or spirit, whether he has so clear an idea of God as of a triangle. As to the main point, he takes refuge in thc' general consent of ancient and modern philosophers. ' Plutarch bears witness of this in his treatises of the Opinions of the Philosophers, and of the Daemon of Socrates ; as do all the Stoics, Pythago- reans, Platonists, Peripatetics, Empedocles, Maximus Tyrius, Apuleius, and others.'
Spinoza must have had reasons of private friendship for being indulgent to this correspondent; for he not only
' Ep. 59-
SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 63
answered him again, but took up his remarks on points quite collateral to the existence of ghosts. Part of this letter ' is of some importance. Spinoza points out that he conceives freedom as opposed, not to necessity, but to external com- pulsion. Every one admits, for example, that God's know- ledge of himself is both free and necessary. So, again, man's love of life is necessary, but not compelled. The correspon- dent had expressed surprise at Spinoza's refusal to ascribe human qualities to God. To this Spinoza replies : ' When you say that, if I allow not in God the operations of seeing, hearing, observing, willing, and the like, nor that they exist eminently in him, you know not what sort of God mine is: I thence conjecture that you believe there is no^reater perfection than such as can be explained by the attributes aforesaid. I do not wonder at it ; for I believe that a triangle, if it could speak, would in like manner say that God is eminently tri- angular, and a circle that the divine nature is in an eminent manner circular ; and thus should every one ascribe his own attributes to God, and make himself like God, counting everything else as misshapen." . . . When you ask me whether I have so clear an idea of God as of a triangle, I answer Yes. But if you ask me whether I have such a clear image of God as of a triangle, I shall answer No : for we cannot imagine God, but we can understand him.' This distinction between imagination and understanding runs through the whole of Spinoza's philosophy. He repeats that nothing has been advanced to make the existence of ghosts even probable, and altogether declines to submit to the authority of the ancients.
' The authority of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates does not count
' Ep. 60.
' Cf. the fragment of Xenophanes :—
' If oxen and horses had hands like ours, and fingers, Then would horses like unto horses, and oxen to oxen, Paint and fashion their gods.' — (G. H. Lewes's trans.).
64 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
for much with me. I should have been surprised if you had cited Epicurus, Democritus, Lucretius, or any of the Atomic school. For it is nothing strange that the inventors of occult qualities, intentional species, substantial forms, and a thousand other vanities, should have also devised goblins and ghosts, and given credence to old wives, in order to destroy Democritus' reputation, whose good name they so envied that they burnt all the books he had published with so much renown. If you choose to believe them, what reason have you for denying the miracles of Our Lady and all the saints ? which are described by so many philosophers, theologians, and historians of renown that I can produce a hundred of them for one of the others.'
This last passage is material, as disclosing how very im- perfectly Spinoza was acquainted with Greek philosophy. It would seem that he thought Aristotle responsible for all the developments of the schoolmen and knew Plato only by name. His sympathy with the Epicureans is no doubt founded on the fact that their system was a genuine attempt at a scientific explanation of the world, and was in its day the solitary protest against the contempt of physics which prevailed in the other post-Aristotelian schools. But he obviously did not know Lucretius except by hearsay; for Lucretius and his masters, so far from venturing to deny the objective reality of apparitions, provided an elaborate physical hypothesis to account for them.
Alchemy was a kindred topic which still exercised men's minds in Spinoza's time, and we have some evidence of the manner in which he regarded it. In 1667 he wrote to Jarig Jellis on an alleged conversion of silver into gold efifected by an unknown stranger in the presence of the naturalized Ger- man chemist Helvetius (Schweizer), who had by this time taken up alchemy with full belief.
He made inquiries of both the goldsmith who had assayed
the gold and Helvetius himself; and though he expresses
no opinion, he was obviously disposed to think seriously of
the matter at that time.' But in 1675, when Dr. Schaller had
■ Ep. 45- See Lewes, Hist. Phil. 2. 180. Helvetius published his Vitulus
SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 6$
sent him an account of some similar experiment, he simply- replied that he did not care to repeat it, and that the more he considered it the more sure he felt that no gold was produced which was not there already.'
We have also letters more nearly connected with Spinoza's philosophical work, and attached to particular landmarks of it. In 1673 the Jewish physician Isaac Orobio de Castro' forwarded to Spinoza a long letter, written nominally to him, but for Spinoza's perusal, by a certain Dr. Lambert van Velt- huysen of Utrecht. This critic went through all the common topics of censure against the 'Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' and concluded that the principles of that treatise destroy the foundations of religion,- ' introduce atheism, or set up a God himself subject to destiny, whom men can have no reason for worshipping ; leave no room for divine government or pro- vidence, and abolish all dispensations of reward and punish- ment.' In short, the author of such a work has no injury to complain of if he is denounced as teaching mere atheism in a disguised form.'
Spinoza thought the criticism not only wrong but perverse ; so perverse, indeed, as to be hardly consistent with good faith : and he replied with a sharpness beyond his wont. The original draft of the letter has been found, and contains even stronger expressions, which on consideration he struck out. The tone
Aureus in this same year, 1667. His family is a remarkable example of hereditary talent ; his son and grandson were both eminent as physicians in France, where the son settled early in life ; his great grandson (1715-1771) was the philosopher by whom the name is best known.
' Ep. 75 b. Van Vloten, Suppl. p. 318.
' Balthasar, afterwards Isaac Orobio de Castro (circ. 1620-1687) was of a New Christian family, and had lived many years in Spain, where he was a distinguished physician. He fell into suspicion of Judaism, and was imprisoned and tortured by the Inquisition, and finally banished from Spain. Alter spending some time in France, he settled in Amsterdam and professed himself a Jew. He became well known as a controversial writer, and was the author of a critique on one of Spinoza's critics, whom he charged with being himself a Spinozist, (Certamen PhUosophkum, etc. Bibliogr. 108, 209). Gratz, x. 302.
• Ep. 48.
F
66 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
of this letter shows us an aspect of Spinoza's character which we could ill afford to miss. His indignation is not the mere intellectual disgust of a philosopher at the stupidity of an un- reasonable critic, it is the moral resentment of a man loving truth and righteousness at the imputation of teaching what he abhors. It seems well to give here a considerable part of the letter.
' He begins with saying it concerns him little to know what is my nation or way of life. If he had known it, he would ■ not have so easily convinced himself that I teach atheism. It is the character of atheists to seek rank and wealth beyond measure, things which I have ever despised, as all know who are acquainted with me. . . . Then he proceeds : In order to avoid the reproach of superstition, he seems to me to have cast off religion altogether. What this writer means by religion and what by superstition, I know not. Does he, I would ask, cast off all religion who affirms that God is to be accepted for the chief good, and that as such he is to be loved with a free affection ">. that in this only consists our per- fect happiness and perfect liberty .' more, that the reward of virtue is virtue itself, and the punishment of folly and vice is folly itself.' and, lastly, that every man's duty is to love his neighbour and to obey the commands of the supreme power 1 These things I have not only said, but proved by most solid reasons. But methinks I see in what mud this fellow sticks.' He finds, it should seem, nothing to please him in virtue and knowledge by themselves, and he would choose to live by the mere impulse of his passions but for this one difficulty, that he fears the penalty. So he abstains from ill deeds and follows God's commandments like a slave, unwilling and with a hesitating mind, and for this service looks to be rewarded by God with gifts far more grateful to him than the love of God itself; so much the more, I say, as he finds the more distaste
' ' Quo in luto hie homo haereat.' Spinoza was scholar enough to know the. classical force of homo in controversial usage, and I think he intended it.
SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. 67
and repugnance In well-doing. And thus it comes about that in his conceit all men who are not restrained by this fear must live without discipline and cast off all religion. But I leave this, and pass to his conclusions where he would fain show that I teach atheism by covert and glazing arguments.
' The foundation of his reasoning is this, that he thinks I take away God's freedom, and make him subject to fate : which is manifestly false. For I have affirmed that all things follow of inevitable necessity from God's nature no otherwise than all affirm that it follows from God's nature that he understands himself This surely no one denies to follow necessarily from God's nature, and