JBY Notes:

1,    The text, scanned from Elwes's "Introduction", Book II:Page v, was written
       in 1883.

2.    Page numbers given refer to Books I or II, except where otherwise noted.

3.    JBY added the Paragraph Numbers and are shown thus [X]:pg.#

4.    Symbols:  
       [Curley's Book VIII comment or note]  
       ]Shirley's Book XIII translation variance, comment, or endnote[ 
         <Parkinson's Book XV endnote> 
       {JBY comment or endnote} 

5.    Elwes's Footnotes, JBY Endnotes, Letters, Bibliography.

6.    Letters 1, 2, 3, 4, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 25A, 42, 49, 73, 74.

7.    The HTML version was abridged and formatted for conversion to an eBook.
       The abridged version is available to be read on various eBook Readers.

8.    This version was edited from "Elwes's Introduction" The unedited file
       has more definitions, much more commentary, many more links, and 
       latest revisions.

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CONTENTS:

Introduction
  
Original unpopularity of Spinoza's writings, their gradually increasing influence in Germany, France, Holland, and England

Authorities for the life of Spinoza: Colerus,

Birth, 1634, and education of Spinoza

His breach with the synagogue, 1656

Life near Amsterdam and at Rhijnsburg

Friendship with Simon de Vries

Removal to Voorburg and the Hague

Correspondence with Oldenburg, Leibnitz, Tschirnhausen, and

others. Publication of Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 1670

Massacre of the De Witts, 1672. Indignation and danger of Spinoza

Completion of the Ethics, 1674

Later life of Spinoza

Death and burial, February, 1677

Opera Posthuma published 1677

Sketch of Spinoza's philosophy

{Spinoza's Dictum}

{The Foundation Rock upon which Spinoza's philosophy stands: [37].
 Posit: 1D6—ONE.}

{Concluding Thought}

Scope of the present work

{The Highest Good is to know G-D. WHY?}

  

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Elwes's Introduction
 
[1]:v.    A very few years ago the writings of Spinoza were almost unknown in this country. The only authorities to which the English reader could be referred were the brilliant essays of Mr. Froude, (v:1) and Mr. Matthew Arnold, (v:2), the  graphic but somewhat misleading sketch in Lewes's "History of Philosophy," and the unsatisfactory volume of Dr. R. Willis (v:3). But in 1880 Mr. Pollock brought out his most valuable "Spinoza, His Life and Philosophy," (v:4) likely long to remain the standard work on the  subject; Dr. Martineau has followed with a sympathetic and gracefully written "Study of Spinoza;" Professor Knight has edited a volume of Spinozistic Essays by Continental Philosophers; Auerbach's biographical novel (vi:1)  has been translated, and many writers have made contributions to the subject in magazines and reviews.

[2]:vi.    At first sight this stir of tardy recognition may seem less surprising than the preceding apathy, for history can show few figures more remarkable than the solitary thinker of Amsterdam. But the causes which kept Spinoza in comparative obscurity are not very far to seek. Personally he shrank with almost womanly sensitiveness from anything like notoriety: his chief work was withheld till after his death, and then published  anonymously; his treatise on Religion was also put forth in secret, and he disclaims with evident sincerity all desire to found a school, or give his name to a sect.  {Letter 19}

[3]:vi.    Again, the form in which his principal work is cast is such as to repel those dilettante readers, whose suffrage is necessary for a widely-extended reputation; none but genuine students would care to grapple with the serried array of definitions, axioms, and propositions, of which "The Ethics" is composed, while the display of geometric accuracy flatters the careless into supposing, that the whole structure is interdependent, and that, when a single breach {35} has been effected, the entire {34} fabric has been demolished.

[4]:vi.  The matter, no less than the manner, of Spinoza's writings was such as to preclude popularity. He genuinely shocked his contemporaries. Advances {36} in thought are tolerated in proportion as they respond to and, as it were, kindle into flame ideas which are already smouldering obscurely in many minds. A teacher may deepen, modify, transfigure what he finds, but he must not attempt radical reconstruction. In the seventeenth century all men's deepest convictions were inseparably bound up with anthropomorphic notions of the Deity; Spinoza, in attacking these latter and endeavouring to substitute the conception of eternal and necessary law, seemed to be striking at the very roots of moral order: hence with curious  irony his works, which few read and still fewer understood, became  associated  with  notions  of monstrous impiety, and their author, who loved virtue with single-hearted and saintly devotion, was branded as a railer against God and a subverter of morality, whom it was a shame even to speak of. Those from whom juster views might have been expected swelled the popular cry. The Cartesians sought to confirm their own precarious reputation for orthodoxy by emphatic disavowals of their more daring associate. Leibnitz, who had known Spinoza personally, speaks of  him, whether from jealousy or some more avowable motive, in tones of consistent depreciation.

[5]:vii.    The torrent of abuse, which poured forth from the theologians and their allies, served to overwhelm the ethical and metaphysical aspect of Spinoza's teaching. The philosopher was hidden behind the arch-heretic. Throughout almost the whole of the century following  his death, he is spoken of in terms displaying complete misapprehension of his importance and scope. The grossly inaccurate account given by Bayle in the "Dictionnaire Philosophique" was accepted as sufficient.  The only symptom of a following is found in the religious sect of  Hattemists, which based some of its doctrines on an imperfect understanding of the so-called mystic passages in "The  Ethics". The first real recognition came from Lessing, who found in Spinoza a strength and solace he sought in vain elsewhere, though he never accepted the system as a whole. His conversation with Jacobi (1780), a diligent though hostile student of "The Ethics", may be said to mark the beginning of a new epoch in the history of Spinozism. Attention once attracted was never again withdrawn, and received a powerful impulse from Goethe, who more than once confessed his indebtedness to the Ethics, which indeed is abundantly evident throughout his writings. Schleiermacher paid an eloquent tribute to "the holy, the rejected Spinoza." Novalis celebrated him as "the man intoxicated with Deity" (der Gottvertrunkene Mann), and Heine for once forgot to sneer, as he recounted his life. The brilliant novelist, Auerbach, has not only translated his complete works, but has also made his history the subject of a biographical romance. Among German philosophers Kant is, perhaps, the last, who shows no traces of Spinozism. Hegel has declared, that "to be a philosopher one must first be a Spinozist." In recent years a new impulse has been given to the study of the Ethics by their curious harmony with the last results of physiological research.

[6]:viii.    In France Spinoza has till lately been viewed as a disciple and perverter of Descartes. M. Emile Saisset prefixed to his translation of the philosopher's chief works a critical introduction written from this standpoint. Since the scientific study of philosophic systems has begun among the French, M. Paul Janet has written on Spinoza as a link in the chain of the history of thought; a new translation of his complete works has been started, and M. Renan has delivered a discourse on him at the bicentenary of his death celebrated at the Hague.

[7]:viii.  In Holland there has also been a revival of interest in the illustrious Dutch thinker. Professors Van Vloten and Land were mainly instrumental in procuring the erection of a statue to his memory, and are now engaged in a fine edition of his works, of which the first volume has appeared (viii:1). In England, as before said, the interest in Spinoza has till recently been slight. The controversialists of the eighteenth century, with the exception of Toland, passed him by as unworthy of serious study. The first recognition of his true character came probably from Germany through Coleridge, who in his desultory way expressed enthusiastic admiration, and recorded his opinion (in a pencil note to a passage in Schelling), that the Ethics, the Novum Organum, and the Critique of Pure Reason were the three greatest works written since the introduction of Christianity. The influence of Spinoza has been traced by Mr. Pollock in Wordsworth, and it is on record that Shelley not only contemplated but began a translation of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, to be published with a preface by Lord Byron, but the project was cut short by his death. It is said that George Eliot left behind her at her decease a MS. translation of the Ethics.

[8]:ix.    It may strike those who are strangers to Spinoza as curious, that, notwithstanding the severely abstract nature of his method, so many poets and imaginative writers should be found among his adherents. Lessing, Goethe, Heine, Auerbach, Coleridge, Shelley, George Eliot; most of these not only admired him, but studied him deeply. On closer approach the apparent anomaly vanishes. There is about Spinoza a power and a charm, which appeals strongly to the poetic sense. He seems to dwell among heights, which most men see only in far off, momentary glimpses. The world of men is spread out before him, the workings of the human heart lie bared to his gaze, but he does not fall to weeping, or to laughter, or to reviling: his thoughts are ever with the eternal, and something of the beauty and calm of eternal things has passed into his teaching. If we may, as he himself was wont to do, interpret spiritually a Bible legend, we may say of him that, like Moses returning from Sinai, he bears in his presence the witness that he has held communion with the Most High.

[9]:ix.    The main authority for the facts of Spinoza's life is a short biography by Johannes Colerus (Kohler) (ix:1), Lutheran pastor at the Hague, who occupied the lodgings formerly tenanted by the philosopher. The orthodox Christian felt a genuine abhorrence for the doctrines, which he regarded as atheistic, but was honest enough to recognize the stainless purity of their author's character. He sets forth what he has to say with a quaint directness in admirable keeping with the outward  simplicity of the life he depicts.

[10]:x.    Further authentic information is obtainable from passing notices in the works of Leibnitz, and from Spinoza's published correspondence, though the editors of the latter have suppressed all that appeared to them of merely personal interest. There is also a biography attributed to Lucas, physician at the Hague (1712), but this is merely a confused  panegyric, and is often at variance with more trustworthy records. Additional details may be gleaned from Bayle's; hostile and inaccurate article in the "Dictionnaire Philosophique;" from S. Kortholt's preface to the second edition (1700) of his father's book "De tribus impostoribus magnis:" and, lastly, from the recollections of Colonel Stoupe (1673), an officer in the Swiss service, who had met the philosopher at Utrecht, but does not contribute much to our knowledge.

[11]:x.    Baruch de Spinoza was born in Amsterdam Nov. 24, 1634?. His parents were Portuguese, or possibly Spanish Jews, who had sought a refuge in the Netherlands from the rigours of the Inquisition in the Peninsula. Though nothing positive is known of them, they appear to have been in easy circumstances, and certainly bestowed on their  only son—their other two children being girls—a thorough education according to the notions of their time and sect. At the Jewish High School, under the guidance of Morteira, a learned Talmudist, and possibly of the brilliant Manasseh Ben Israel, who afterwards (1655) was employed to petition from Cromwell the readmission of the Jews to England, the young Spinoza was instructed  in the learning of the Hebrews, the mysteries of the Talmud and the Cabbala, the text of the {Hebrew Bible}, and the commentaries of Ibn Ezra and Maimonides. Readers of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus will be able to appreciate the use made of this early training. Besides such severer studies, Spinoza was, in obedience to Rabbinical tradition, made acquainted with a manual trade, that of lens polishing, and gained a knowledge of French, Italian, and German; Spanish, Portuguese, and Hebrew were almost his native tongues, but curiously enough, as we learn from one of his lately discovered letters, (xi:1) he wrote Dutch with difficulty. Latin was not included in the Jewish curriculum, being tainted with the suspicion of heterodoxy, but Spinoza, feeling probably that it was the key to much of the world's best knowledge, set himself to learn it (xi:2); first, with the aid of a German master, afterwards at the house of Francis Van den Ende, a physician. It is probably from the latter that he gained the sound knowledge of physical science, which so largely leavened his philosophy; and, no doubt, he at this time began the study of Descartes, whose reputation towered above the learned world of the period.

[12]:xi.    Colerus relates that Van den Ende had a daughter, Clara Maria, who instructed her father's pupils in Latin and music during his absence. "She was none of the most beautiful, but she had a great deal of wit," and as the story runs displayed her sagacity by rejecting the proffered love of Spinoza for the sake of his fellow-pupil Kerkering, who was able to enhance his attractions by the gift of a costly pearl necklace. It is certain that Van den Ende's daughter and Kerkering were married in 1671, but the tradition of the previous love affair accords ill with ascertained dates. Clara Maria was only seven years old when Spinoza left her father's house, and sixteen when he left the neighbourhood.

[13]:xii.   Meanwhile the brilliant Jewish student was overtaken by that mental crisis, which has come over so many lesser men before and since. The creed of his fathers was found unequal to the strain of his own wider knowledge and changed spiritual needs. The Hebrew faith with its immemorial antiquity, its unbroken traditions, its myriads of martyrs, could appeal to an authority which no other religion has equalled, and Spinoza, as we know from a passage in one of his letters (xii:1), felt the claim to the full. We may be sure that the gentle and reserved youth was in no haste to obtrude his altered views, but the time arrived when they could no longer be  withhonesty concealed. The Jewish doctors were exasperated at the defection of their most promising pupil, and endeavoured to retain him in their communion by the offer of a yearly pension of 1,000 florins. Such overtures were of course rejected. Sterner measures were then resorted to.It is even related, on excellent authority, that Spinoza's life was attempted as he was coming out of the Portuguese synagogue. Be this as it may, he fled from Amsterdam, and was (1656) formally excommunicated and anathematized according to the rites of the Jewish church {sic}.

[14]:xii.    Thus isolated from his kindred, he sought more congenial society among the dissenting community of Collegiants, a body of men who without priests or set forms of worship carried out the precepts of simple piety. He passed some time in the house of one of that body, not far from Amsterdam, on the Ouwerkerk road, and in 1660 or the following year removed with his friend to the head quarters of the sect at Rhijnsburg, near Leyden, where the memory of his sojourn is still preserved in the name "Spinoza Lane." His separation from Judaism was marked by his substituting for his name Baruch the Latin equivalent Benedict, but he never received baptism or formally joined any Christian sect. Only once again does his family come into the record of his life. On the death of his father, his sisters endeavoured to deprive him of his share of the inheritance on the ground that he was an outcast and heretic. Spinoza resisted their claim by law, but on gaining his suit yielded up to them all they had demanded except one bed.

[15]:xiii.    Skill in polishing lenses gave him sufficient money for his scanty needs, and he acquired a reputation as an optician before he became known as a philosopher. It was in this capacity that he was consulted by Leibnitz (xiii:1). His only contribution to the science was a short treatise on the rainbow, printed posthumously in 1687. This was long regarded as lost, but has, in our own time, been recovered and reprinted by Dr. Van Vloten.

[16]:xiii.   Spinoza also drew, for amusement, portraits of his friends with ink or charcoal. Colerus possessed "a whole book of such draughts, amongst which there were some heads of several considerable persons, who were known to him, or had occasion to visit him," and also a portrait of the philosopher himself in the costume of Masaniello.

[17]:xiii.    So remarkable a man could hardly remain obscure, and we have no reason to  suppose that Spinoza shrank from social intercourse. Though in the last years of his life his habits were somewhat solitary, this may be set down to failing health, poverty, and the pressure of uncompleted work. He was never a professed ascetic, and probably, in the earlier years of his separation from Judaism, was the centre of an admiring and affectionate circle of friends. In  his letters he frequently states that visitors leave him no time for correspondence, and the tone, in which he was addressed by comparative strangers, shows that he enjoyed considerable reputation and respect. Before the appearance of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, he  had published nothing which could shock the susceptibilities of Christians, and he was known to be a complete master of Cartesianism then regarded as the consummation and crown of learning. It is recorded that a society of young men used to hold meetings in Amsterdam for the discussion of philosophical problems, and that Spinoza contributed papers as material for their debates (xiv:1). Possibly the MS. treatise "On God, Man, and his Blessedness," which has been re-discovered in two Dutch copies during our own time, may be referred to this period.  It is of no philosophic value compared with the Ethics, but is interesting historically as throwing light on the growth of Spinoza's mind and his early relations to Cartesianism.

[18]:xiv.    Oblivion has long since settled down over this little band of questioners, but a touching record has been preserved of one of their number, Simon de Vries, who figures in Spinoza's correspondence. He had often, we are told, wished to bestow gifts of money on his friend and master, but these had always been declined. During the illness which preceded his early death, he expressed a desire to make the philosopher his heir. This again was declined, and he was prevailed on by Spinoza to reduce the bequest to a small annuity, and to leave the bulk of his property to his family. When he had passed away his brother fixed the pension at 600 florins, but Spinoza declared the sum excessive, and refused to accept more than 300 florins, which were punctually paid him till his death.

[19]:xv.    Besides this instruction by correspondence, for which he seems to have demanded no payment ("mischief," as one of his biographers puts it, "could be had from him for nothing"), Spinoza at least in one instance received into his house a private pupil (xv:1) generally identified with one Albert Burgh, who became a convert to Rome in 1675, and took that occasion to admonish his ex-tutor in a strain of contemptuous pity (xv:2). Probably to this youth were dictated "The principles of Cartesianism geometrically demonstrated," which Spinoza was induced by his friends to publish, with the addition of some metaphysical reflections, in 1663 (xv:3). Lewis Meyer, a physician of Amsterdam, and one of Spinoza's intimates, saw the book through the press, and supplied a preface. Its author does not appear to have attached any importance to the treatise, which he regarded merely as likely to pave the way for the reception of more original  work. It is interesting as an example of the method afterwards employed in the Ethics, used to support propositions not accepted by their expounder. It also shows that Spinoza thoroughly understood the system he rejected.

[20]:xv.    In the same year the philosopher removed from Rhijnsburg to Voorburg, a suburb of the  Hague, and in 1670 to the Hague itself, where he  lived till his death in 1677, lodging first in the house (afterwards tenanted by Colerus) of the widow Van Velden, and subsequently with Van der Spijk, a  painter. He was very likely led to leave Rhijnsburg by his increasing reputation and a desire for educated  society. By this time he was well known in Holland, and counted among his friends, John de Witt, who is said to have consulted him on affairs of state. Nor was his fame confined to his native country. Henry Oldenburg, the first secretary of the newly-established Royal Society of England, had visited him at Rhijnsburg, introduced possibly by Huyghens, and had invited him to carry on a correspondence (xvi:1), in terms of affectionate intimacy. Oldenburg was rather active-minded than able, never really understood or sympathized with Spinoza's standpoint, and was thoroughly shocked (xvi:2) at the appearance of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, {Letter 19}, but he was the intimate friend of Robert Boyle, and kept his correspondent acquainted with the progress of science in England. Later on (1671),  Leibnitz consulted Spinoza on a question of practical optics (xvi:3), and in 1676, Ludwig von Tschirnhausen, a Bohemian nobleman, known in the history of mathematical  science, contributed some pertinent criticisms on the Ethics, then circulated in MS (xvi:4).

[21]:xvi.    Amusing testimonies to Spinoza's reputation are afforded by the volunteered effusions of Blyenbergh (xvi:5), and the artless questionings of the believer in ghosts (xvi:6).

[22]:xvi    In 1670, the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was published anonymously, with the name of a fictitious printer at Hamburg. It naturally produced a storm of angry controversy. It was, in 1674, formally prohibited by the States-General, and, as a matter of course, was placed on the Index by the Romish Church. Perhaps few books have been more often "refuted," or less seriously damaged by the ordeal. Its author displayed his disinclination to disturb the faith of the unlearned by preventing during his lifetime the appearance of the book in the vernacular. {Letter 19}

[23]:xvii.    In 1672, men's thoughts were for a time diverted from theological controversy by the French invasion of the Netherlands, and the consequent outbreak of domestic faction. The shameful massacre of the brothers De Witt by an infatuated mob brought Spinoza into close and painful contact with the passions seething round him. For once his philosophic calm was broken: he was only by force prevented from rushing forth into the streets at the peril of his life, and proclaiming his abhorrence of the crime.

[24]:xvii.    Shortly afterwards, when the head-quarters of the French army were at Utrecht, Spinoza was sent for by the Prince de Conde, who wished to make his acquaintance. On his arrival at the camp, however, he found that the Prince was absent; and, after waiting a few days, returned home without having seen him. The philosopher's French entertainers held out hopes of a pension from Louis XIV., if a book were dedicated to that monarch; but these overtures were declined.

[25]:xvii.    On his arrival at the Hague, Spinoza was exposed to considerable  danger from the excited populace, who suspected him of being a spy. The calm, which had failed him on the murder of his friend, remained unruffled by the peril threatening himself. He told his landlord, who was in dread of the house being sacked, that, if the mob showed any signs of violence, he would go out and speak to them in person, though they should serve him as they had served the unhappy De Witts. "I am a good republican," he Added, "and have never had any aim but the welfare and good of the State."

[26]:xvii.    In 1673, Spinoza was offered by the Elector Palatine, Charles Lewis (xviii:1), a professorship of philosophy at Heidelberg, but declined it (xviii:2), on the plea that teaching would interfere with his original work, and that doctrinal restrictions, however slight, would prove irksome.

[27]:xviii.    In the following year {1674}, the Ethics were finished and circulated in MS. among their author's friends. Spinoza made a journey to Amsterdam for the purpose of publishing them, but changed his intention on learning that they would probably meet with a stormy reception {Letters 19 & 20}. Perhaps failing health strengthened his natural desire for peace, and considerations of personal renown never had any weight with him.

[28]:xviii.    To this closing period belong the details as to Spinoza's manner of life collected by Colerus. They are best given in the biographer's simple words, as rendered in the contemporary English version: "It is scarce credible how sober and frugal he was. Not that he was reduced to so great a poverty, as not to be able to spend more,  if he had been willing. He had friends enough, who offered him their purses, and all manner of assistance; but he was naturally very sober, and would be satisfied with little." His food apparently cost him but a few pence a day, and he drank hardly any wine. "He was often invited to eat with his friends, but chose rather to live upon what he had at home, though it were never so little, than to sit down to a good table at the expense of another man. . . He was very careful to cast up his accounts every quarter; which he did, that he might spend neither more nor less than what he could spend every year. And he would say sometimes to the people of the house, that he was like the serpent, who forms a circle with his tail in his mouth, to denote that he had nothing left at the year's end. He added, that he designed to lay up no more money than what would be necessary for him to have a decent burying. He was of a middle size; he had good features in his face, the skin somewhat black; black curled hair; long eyebrows, and of the same colour, so that one might easily know by his looks that he was descended from Portuguese Jews. . . If he was very frugal in his way of living, his conversation was also very sweet and easy. He knew admirably well how to be master of his passions: he was never seen very melancholy, nor very merry. . . He was besides very courteous and obliging. He would very often discourse with his landlady, especially when she lay in, and with the people of the house, when they happened to be sick or afflicted: he never failed, then, to comfort them, and exhort them to bear with patience those evils which God assigned to them as a lot. He put the children in mind of going often to church, and taught them to be obedient and dutiful to their parents. When the people of the house came from church, he would often ask them what they, had learned, and what they remembered of the sermon. He had a great esteem for Dr. Cordes, my predecessor, who was a learned and good-natured man, and of an exemplary life, which gave occasion to Spinoza to praise him very often: nay, he went sometimes to hear him preach.. . . It happened one day that his landlady asked him whether he believed she could be saved in the religion she professed. He answered: "Your religion is a very good one; you need not look for another, nor doubt that you may be saved in it, provided, whilst you apply yourself to piety, you live at the same time a peaceable and quiet life."        { Mark Twain }

[29]:xix.    His amusements were very simple: talking on ordinary matters with the people of the house; smoking now and again a pipe of tobacco; watching the habits and quarrels of insects; making observations with a microscope—such were his pastimes in the hours which he could spare from his philosophy. But the greater part of his day was taken up with severe mental work in his own room. Sometimes he would become so absorbed, that he would remain alone for two or three days together, his meals being carried up to him.

[30]:xx.    Spinoza had never been robust, and had for more than twenty years been suffering from phthisis, a malady which, at any rate in those days, never allowed its victims to escape. The end came quite suddenly and quietly, in February, 1677. On Saturday, the 20th,  after the landlord and his wife had returned from church, Spinoza spent some time with them in conversation, and smoked a pipe of tobacco, but  went to bed early. Apparently, he had previously sent for his friend and physician, Lewis Meyer, who arrived on Sunday morning. On the 21st, Spinoza, came down as usual, and partook of some food at the mid-day meal. In the afternoon, the physician stayed alone with his patient, the rest going to church. But when the landlord and his wife returned, they were startled with the news that the philosopher had expired about three o'clock. Lewis Meyer returned to Amsterdam that same evening.

[31]:xx.    Thus passed away all that was mortal of Spinoza. If we have read his character aright, his last hours were comforted with the thought, not  so much that he had raised for himself an imperishable monument, as that he had pointed out to mankind a sure path to happiness and peace. Perhaps, with this glorious vision, there mingled the more tender feeling, that, among the simple folk with whom he lived, his memory would for a few brief years be cherished with reverence and love.

[32]:xx.    The funeral took place on the 25th February, "being attended by many illustrious persons, and followed by six coaches." The estate left behind him by the philosopher was very scanty. Rebekah de Spinoza, sister of the deceased, put in a claim as his heir; but abandoned it on finding that, after the payment of expenses, little or nothing would remain.

[33]:xxi    The  MSS., which were found in Spinoza's desk, were, in accordance with his wishes, forwarded to John Rieuwertz, a publisher of Amsterdam, and were that same year brought out by Lewis Meyer, and another of the philosopher's friends, under the title, "B. D. S. Opera Posthuma." They consisted of the Ethics, a selection of Letters, a compendium of Hebrew grammar, and two uncompleted treatises, one on politics, the other (styled "An Essay on the Improvement of the Understanding,") on logical method. The last-named had been begun several years previously, but had apparently been added to from time to time. It develops some of the doctrines indicated in the Ethics, and serves in some sort as an introduction to the larger work.

[34]:xxi.    In considering Spinoza's system of philosophy, it must not be forgotten that the problem of the universe seemed much simpler in his day {1670's}, than it does in our own {1880's}. Men had not then recognized, that knowledge is "a world whose margin fades for ever and for ever as we move." They believed that truth was something definite, which might be grasped by the aid of a clear head, diligence, and a sound method. Hence a tone of confidence breathed through their inquiries, which has since died away, and a completeness was aimed at, which is now seen to be unattainable. But the products of human thought are often valuable in ways undreamt of by those who fashioned them, and long after their original use has become obsolete. A system, obviously inadequate and defective as a whole, may yet enshrine ideas which the world is the richer for possessing {and evolving}.

[35]:xxi.    This distinction between the framework and the central thoughts is especially necessary in the study of  Spinoza; for the form in which his work is cast would seem to lay stress on their interdependence. It has often been said, that the geometrical method was adopted, because it was believed to insure absolute freedom from error. But examination shows this to be a misconception. Spinoza, who had purged his mind of so many illusions, can hardly have succumbed to the notion, that his Ethics was a flawless mass of irrefragable truth. He adopted his method because he believed, that he thus reduced argument to its simplest terms, and laid himself least open to the reductions of rhetoric or passion. "It is the part of a wise man," he says, "not to bewail nor to deride, but to understand." Human nature obeys fixed laws no less than do the figures of geometry. "I will, therefore, write about human beings, as though I were concerned with lines, and planes, and solids."

[36]:xxii.    As no system is entirely true, so also no system is entirely original. Each must in great measure be the recombination of elements supplied by its predecessors. Spinozism forms no exception to this rule; many of its leading conceptions may be traced in the writings of Jewish Rabbis and of Descartes.

[37]:xxii.   The biography of the philosopher supplies us in some sort with the genesis of his system. His youth had been passed in the study of Hebrew learning {Endnote [37]}, of metaphysical speculations on the nature of the Deity. He was then confronted with the scientific aspect of the world as revealed by Descartes. At first the two visions seemed antagonistic, but, as he gazed, their outlines blended and commingled {synthesized} he found himself in the presence not of two, but of ONE, {James}; the universe unfolded itself to him as the necessary result of the Perfect and Eternal G-D {ONE—1D6}.

{From "Jews, God and History", ISBN 0451628667, Pg. 339. Thanks to Tim Bagwell.}

The nineteenth-century Jewish Enlightenment was like a beam of light refracted through a prism into a spectral band of brilliant intellectual colors spread across Western Europe. The prism through which Jewish thought was refracted was a Jew born in Amsterdam in 1632, a Jew so modern in his thinking that the second half of the twentieth century has not yet caught up with him. Excommunicated by the Jews in the seventeenth century, abhorred by the Christians in the eighteenth century, acknowledged great in the nineteenth century, Baruch Spinoza will perhaps not be fully understood even in the twenty-first century. But perhaps by then Spinoza's philosophy will have become the basis of a world religion for neomodern man.}

[38]:xxii.    Other influences, no doubt, played a part in shaping his convictions; we know, for instance, that he was a student of Bacon and of Hobbes, and almost certainly of Giordano Bruno, but these two elements, the Jewish and the Cartesian, are the main sources of his system, though it cannot properly be called the mere development of either. From Descartes, as Mr. Pollock points out, he derived his notions of physical science and his doctrine of the conservation of motion.

[39]:xxiii.    In the fragment on the Improvement of the Understanding, Spinoza sets forth the causes which prompted him to turn to philosophy (xxiii:1). It is worthy of note that they are not speculative but practical. He did not seek, like Descartes, "to walk with certainty," but to find a happiness {better Peace-of-Mind}, beyond the reach of change for himself and his fellow men. With a fervour that reminds one of Christian fleeing from the City of Destruction, he dilates on the vanity of men's ordinary ambitions, riches, fame, and the pleasures of sense, and on the necessity of looking for some more worthy object for their desires. Such an object he finds in the knowledge of truth, as obtainable through clear and distinct ideas, bearing in themselves the evidence of their own veracity.

[40]:xxiii.    Spinoza conceived as a vast unity all existence actual and possible; indeed, between actual and possible he recognizes no distinction, for, if a thing does not exist, there must be some cause which prevents its existing, or in other words renders it impossible. This unity he terms indifferently Substance or G-D, and the first part of the Ethics is devoted to expounding its Nature.

[41]:xxiii.    Being the sum of existence, it is necessarily infinite (for there is nothing external to itself to make it finite), and it can be the cause of an infinite number of results. It must necessarily operate in absolute freedom, for there is nothing by which it can be controlled; but none the less necessarily it must operate in accordance with eternal and immutable laws, fulfilling the perfection of its own Nature.

[42]:xxiii.    Substance consists in, or rather displays itself through an infinite number of Attributes, but of these only two, Extension and Thought, are knowable by us; therefore, the rest may be left out of account in our inquiries. These Attributes are not different things, but different aspects of the same thing (Spinoza does not make it clear, whether the difference is intrinsic or due to the percipient); thus Extension and Thought are not parallel and interacting, but identical, and both acting in one order and connection. Hence all questions of the dependence of mind on body, or body on mind, are done away with at a stroke. Every manifestation of either is but a manifestation of the other, seen under a different aspect.

[43]:xxiv.    Attributes are again subdivided, or rather display themselves through an infinite number of Modes; some eternal and universal in respect of each Attribute (such as motion and the sum of all psychical facts); others having no eternal and necessary existence, but acting and reacting on one another in ceaseless flux, according to fixed and definite laws. These latter have been compared in relation to their Attributes to waves in relation to the sea; or again they may be likened to the myriad hues which play over the iridescent surface of a bubble; each is the necessary result of that which went before, and is the necessary precursor of that which will come after; all are modifications of the underlying film. The phenomenal world is made up of an infinite number of these Modes. It is manifest that the Modes of one Attribute cannot be acted upon by the Modes of another Attribute, for each may be expressed in terms of the other; within the limits of each Attribute the variation in the Modes follows an absolutely necessary order. When the first is given, the rest follow as inevitably, as from the nature of a triangle it follows, that its three angles are equal to two  right angles. Nature is uniform, and no infringement {miracle} of her laws is conceivable without a reduction to chaos.

[44]:xxiv.    Hence it follows, that a thing can only be called contingent in relation to our knowledge. To an inflnite intelligence such a term would be unmeaning.

[45]:xxv.    Hence also it follows, that the world cannot have been created for any purpose other than that which it fulfils by being what it is. To say that it has been created for the good of man, or for any similar end, is to indulge in grotesque anthropomorphism.

[46]:xxv.    Among the Modes of thought may be reckoned the human mind, among the Modes of extension may be reckoned the human body; taken together they constitute the Mode man.

[47]:xxv.    The nature of mind forms the subject of the second part of the Ethics. Man's mind is the idea of man's body, the consciousness of bodily states. Now bodily states are the result, not only of the body itself, but also of all things affecting the body; hence the human mind takes cognizance, not only of the human body, but also of the external world, in so far as it affects the human body. Its capacity for varied perceptions is in proportion to the body's capacity for receiving impressions.

[48]:xxv.    The succession of ideas of bodily states cannot be arbitrarily controlled by the mind taken as a power apart, though the mind, as the aggregate of past states, may be a more or less important factor in the direction of its course. We can, in popular phrase, direct our thoughts at will, but the will {Mark Twain}, which we speak of as spontaneous, is really determined by laws as fxed and necessary, as those which regulate the properties of a triangle or a circle. The illusion of freedom, in the sense of uncaused volition, results from the fact, that men are conscious of their actions, but unconscious of the causes whereby those actions have been determined. The chain of causes becomes, so to speak, incandescent at a particular point, and men assume that only at that point does it start into existence. They ignore the links which still remain in obscurity.

[49]:xxvi.    If mind be simply, the mirror of bodily states, how can we account for memory? When the mind has been affected by two things in close conjunction, the recurrence of one re-awakens into life the idea of the other. To take an illustration, mind is like a traveller revisiting his former home, for whom each feature of the landscape recalls associations of the past. From the interplay, of associations are woven memory and imagination.

[50]:xxvi.    Ideas may be either adequate or inadequate, in other words either distinct or confused; both kinds are subject to the law of causation. Falsity is merely a negative conception. All adequate ideas are necessarily true, and bear in themselves the evidence of their own veracity. The mind accurately reflects existence, and if an idea be due to the mental association of two different factors, the joining, so to speak, may, with due care, be discerned. General notions and abstract terms arise from the incapacity of the mind to retain in completeness more than a certain number of mental images; it therefore groups together points of resemblance, and considers the abstractions thus formed as units.

[51]:xxvi.    There are three kinds of knowledge: opinion, rational knowledge, and  intuitive knowledge. The first alone is the cause of error; the second consists in adequate ideas of particular properties of things, and in general notions; the third proceeds from an adequate idea of some attribute of G-D to the adequate knowledge of particular things.

[52]:xxvi.    The reason does not regard things as contingent, but as necessary, considering them under the form of eternity, as part of the Nature of G-D. The will has no existence apart from particular acts of volition, and since acts of volition are ideas, the will is identical with the understanding.

[53]:xxvi.    The third part of the Ethics is devoted to the consideration of the emotions.

[54]:xxvi.    In so far as it has adequate ideas, i.e., is purely rational, the mind maybe said to be active; in so far as it has inadequate ideas, it is passive, and therefore subject to emotions.

[55]:xxvii.    Nothing can be destroyed from within, for all change must come from without. In other words, everything endeavours to persist in its own being. This endeavour must not be associated with the "struggle for existence" familiar to students of evolutionary theories, though the suggestion is tempting; it is simply the result of a thing being what it is. When it is spoken of in reference to the human mind only, it is equivalent to the will; in reference to the whole man, it may be called appetite. Appetite is thus identified with life; desire is defined as appetite, with consciousness thereof. All objects of our desire owe their choice-worthiness simply to the fact that we desire them: we do not desire a thing, because it is intrinsically good, but we deem a thing good, because we desire it. Every thing which adds to the bodily or mental powers of activity is pleasure; everything which detracts from them is pain.

[56]:xxvii.    From these three fundamentals—desire, pleasure, pain—Spinoza deduces the entire list of human emotions. Love is pleasure, accompanied by the idea of an external cause; hatred is pain, accompanied by the idea of an external cause. Pleasure or pain may be excited by anything, incidentally, if not directly. There is no need to proceed further with the working out of the theory, but we may remark, in passing, the extraordinary fineness of perception and sureness of touch, with which it is accomplished; here, if nowhere else, Spinoza remains unsurpassed (xxvii:1). Almost all the emotions arise from the passive condition of the mind, but there is also a pleasure arising from the mind's contemplation of its own power. This is the source of virtue, and is purely active.

[57]:xxviii.    In the fourth part of the Ethics, Spinoza treats of man in so far as he is subject to the emotions, prefixing a few remarks on the meaning of the terms perfect and imperfect, good and evil. A thing can only be called perfect in reference to the known intention of its author. We style "good" that which we know with certainty to be useful to us: we style "evil" that which we know will hinder us in the attainment of good. By, "useful," we mean that which will aid us to approach gradually the ideal we have set before ourselves. Man, being a part only of Nature, must be subject to emotions, because he must encounter circumstances of which he is not the sole and sufficient cause. Emotion can only be conquered by another emotion stronger than itself, hence knowledge will only lift us above the sway of  passions, in so far as it is itself "touched with emotion." Every man necessarily, and therefore rightly, seeks his own interest, which is  thus identical with virtue; but his own interest does not lie in selfishness, for man is always in need of external help, and nothing is more useful to him than his fellow-men; hence individual well-being is best promoted by harmonious social effort. The reasonable man will desire nothing for himself, which he does not desire for other men; therefore he will be just, faithful, and honourable.

[58]:xxviii.    The code of morals worked out on these lines bears many resemblances to Stoicism, though it is improbable that Spinoza was consciously imitating. The doctrine that rational emotion, rather than pure reason, is necessary for subduing the evil passions, is entirely his own.

[59]:xxviii.    The means whereby man may gain mastery over his passions, are set forth in the first portion of the fifth part of the Ethics. They depend on the definition of passion as a confused idea. As soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of a passion, it changes its character, and ceases to be a passion. Now it is possible, with due care, to form a distinct idea of every bodily state; hence a true knowledge of the passions is the best remedy against them. While we contemplate the world as a result of the perfect Nature of G-D, a feeling of joy will arise in our hearts, accompanied by the idea of G-D as its cause. This is the intellectual love of G-D, which is the highest happiness man can know. It seeks for no special love from G-D in return, for such would imply a change in the Nature of the Deity. It rises above all fear of change through envy or jealousy, and increases in proportion as it is seen to be participated in by our fellow-men.

[60]:xxix.   The concluding propositions of the Ethics have given rise to more controversy than any other part of the system. Some critics have maintained that Spinoza is indulging in vague generalities without any definite meaning, others have supposed that the language is intentionally obscure. Others, again, see in them a doctrine of personal immortality, and, taking them in conjunction with the somewhat transcendental form of the expressions concerning the love of G-D, have claimed the author of the Ethics as a Mystic. All these suggestions are reductions to the absurd, the last not least so. Spinoza may have been not unwilling to show that his creed could be expressed in exalted language as well as the current theology, but his "intellectual love" has no more in common with the ecstatic enthusiasm of cloistered saints, than his "G-D" has in common  with the Divinity of Romanist peasants, or his "eternity" with the paradise of Mahomet. But to return to the doctrine (xxix:1) in dispute {xxix:1A}. "The human mind," says Spinoza, "cannot be wholly destroyed with the body, but somewhat of it remains, which is eternal." The eternity thus predicated cannot mean indefinite persistence in time, for eternity is not commensurable with time. It must mean some special kind of existence; it is, in fact, defined as a mode of thinking. Now, the mind consists of adequate and inadequate ideas; in so far as it is composed of the former, it is part of the infinite mind of G-D, which broods, as it were, over the extended universe as its expression in terms of thought. As such, it is necessarily eternal, and, since knowledge implies self-consciousness, it knows that it is so. Inadequate ideas will pass away with the body, because they are the result of conditions, which are merely temporary, and inseparably connected with the body, but adequate ideas will not pass away, inasmuch as they are part of the mind of the Eternal. Knowledge of the third or intuitive kind is the source of our highest perfection and blessedness; even as it forms part of the infinite mind of G-D, so also does the joy with which it is accompanied—the intellectual love of G-D—form part of the infinite intellectual love, wherewith G-D regards Himself.

[61]:xxx.    Spinoza concludes with the admonition, that morality rests on a basis quite independent of the acceptance of the mind's Eternity. Virtue is its own reward, and needs no other. This doctrine, which appears, as it were, perfunctorily in so many systems of morals, is by Spinoza insisted on with almost passionate earnestness; few things seem to have moved him to more scornful denial than the popular creed, that supernatural rewards and punishments are necessary as incentives to virtue. "I see in what mud this man sticks," he exclaims in answer to some such statement. "He is one of those who would follow after his own lusts, if he were not restrained by the fear of hell. He abstains from evil actions and fulfils God's commands like a slave against his will, and for his bondage he expects to be rewarded by God with gifts far more to his taste than Divine love, (Letter 49:[3]—"and greater in porportion to his dislike to goodness.") and great in proportion to his original dislike of virtue." Again, at the close of the Ethics:269, he draws an ironical picture of the pious coming before God at the judgment, and looking to be endowed with incalculable blessings in recompense for the grievous burden of their piety. For him, who is truly wise, Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself. "And though the way thereto be steep, yet it may be found—all things excellent are as difficult, as they are rare."

[62]:xxxi.    Such, in rough outline, is the philosophy of Spinoza; few systems have been more variously interpreted. Its author has been reviled or exalted as Atheist, Pantheist, Monotheist, Materialist, Mystic, in fact, under almost every name in the philosophic vocabulary. But such off-hand classification is based on hasty reading of isolated passages, rather than on sound knowledge of the whole. We shall act more wisely, and more in the spirit of the master, if, as Professor Land advises, "we call him simply Spinoza, and endeavour to learn from himself what he sought and what he found."

[63]:xxxi.    The two remaining works, translated in these volumes {Books 1 & 2}, may be yet more briefly considered. They present no special difficulties, and are easily read in their entirety.

[64]:xxxi.    The Tractatus Theologico-Politicus:257 is an eloquent plea for religious liberty. True religion is shown to consist in the practice of simple piety, and to be quite independent of philosophical speculations. The elaborate systems of dogmas framed by theologians are based on superstition, resulting from fear.

[65]:xxxi.    The Bible is examined by a method, which anticipates in great measure the procedure of modern rationalists {1880's}, and the theory of its verbal inspiration is shown to be untenable. The Hebrew prophets were distinguished not by superior wisdom, but by superior virtue, and they set forth their higher moral ideals in language, which they thought would best commend it to the multitude whom they addressed. For anthropomorphic notions of the Deity as a heavenly King and Judge, who displays His power by miraculous interventions, is substituted the conception set forth in the Ethics:62 of an Infinite Being, fulfilling in  the uniformity of natural law the perfection of His own Nature. Men's thoughts cannot really be constrained by commands; therefore, it is wisest, so long as their actions conform to morality, to allow them absolute liberty to think what they like, and say what they think.

[66]:xxxii.    The Political Treatise was the latest work of Spinoza's life, and remains unfinished {Letter (84):357}. Though it bears  abundant evidence of the influence of Hobbes, it differs from him in several important points. The theory of sovereignty is the same in both writers, but Spinoza introduces considerable qualifications. Supreme power is ideally absolute, but its rights must, in practice, be limited by the endurance of its subjects. Thus governments are founded on the common consent, and for the convenience of the governed, who are, in the last resort, the arbiters of their continuance.

[67]:xxxii.    Spinoza, like Hobbes, peremptorily sets aside all claims of religious organizations to act independently of, or as superior to the civil power. {Where there are multiple Religions but not where there is a Universal Religion.} Both reject as outside the sphere of practical politics the case of a special revelation to an individual. In all matters affecting conduct the State must be supreme.

[68]:xxxii.    It remains to say a few words about the present version. I alone am responsible for the contents of these volumes, with the exception of the Political Treatise, which has been translated for me by my friend Mr. A. H. Gosset, Fellow of New College, Oxford, who has also, in my absence from England, kindly seen the work through the press. I have throughout followed Bruder's {1843 Latin} text (xxxiii:1) {xxxiii:J4, xxxiii:J5}, correcting a few obvious misprints. The additional letters given in Professor Van Vloten's Supplement (xxxiii:2), have been inserted in their due order.

[69]:xxxiii.    This may claim to be the first version (xxxiii:3) of Spinoza's works offered to the English reader; for, though Dr. R. Wiliss has gone over most of the ground before, he laboured under the disadvantages of a very imperfect acquaintance with Latin, and very loose notions of accuracy. The Tractatus Theologico-Politicus xxxiii:J6 had been previously translated in 1689. Mr. Pollock describes this early version as "pretty accurate, but of no great literary merit."

[70]:xxxiii.    Whatever my own shortcomings, I have never consciously eluded a difficulty by a paraphrase. Clearness has throughout been aimed at in preference to elegance. Though the precise meaning of some of the philosophical terms (e.g. idea) varies in different passages, I have, as far as possible, given a uniform rendering, not venturing to attempt greater subtlety than I found. I have abstained from notes; for, if given on an adequate scale, they would have unduly swelled the bulk of the work. Moreover, excellent commentaries are readily accessible.
 

                                                                                          R. H. M. ELWES, 1883.
 

End of Introduction.
 

LETTERS:
For a translation of the letters by Shirley, see Bk. XIII. For an introduction to Oldenburg correspondence see Bk.XIII:8.

From Bk.I:410
Letter 73 - Albert Burgh To Spinoza.

[Albert Burgh announces his reception into the Romish Church, and exhorts Spinoza to follow his example. The whole of this very long letter is not given here, but only such parts as seemed most characteristic, or are alluded to in Spinoza's reply {Letter 74:414}. —(TR.)]

[1]    I promised to write to you on leaving my country, if anything, noteworthy occurred on the journey. I take the opportunity which offers of an event of the utmost importance, to redeem my engagement, by informing you that I have, by God's infinite mercy, been received into the Catholic Church and made a member of the same. You may learn the particulars of the step from a letter which I have sent to the distinguished  and accomplished Professor Craanen of Leyden. I will here subjoin a few remarks for your special benefit.

[2]    Letter 73:410 - Albert Burgh To Spinoza.
Even as formerly I admired you for the subtlety and keenness of your natural gifts, so now do I bewail and deplore you; inasmuch as being by nature most talented, and adorned by God with extraordinary gifts; being a lover, nay, a coveter of the truth, you yet allow yourself to be ensnared and deceived by that most wretched and most proud of beings, the prince of evil spirits. As for all your philosophy, what is it but a mere illusion and chimera? Yet to it you entrust not only your peace of mind in this life, but the salvation of your soul for eternity. See on what a wretched foundation all your doctrines rest. You assume that you have at length discovered the true philosophy. How do you know that your philosophy is the best of all that ever have been taught in the world, are now being taught, or ever shall be taught? Passing over what may be devised in the future, have you examined all the philosophies, ancient as well as modern, which are taught here, and in India, and everywhere throughout the whole world? Even if you have duly examined them, how do you know that you have chosen the best? You will say: "My philosophy is in harmony with right reason; other philosophies are not." But all other philosophers except your own followers disagree with you, and with equal right say of their philosophy what you say of yours, accusing you, as you do them, of falsity and error.  It  is, therefore, plain, that before the truth of your philosophy can come to light, reasons must be advanced, which are not common to other philosophies, but apply solely to your own; or else you must admit that your philosophy is as uncertain and nugatory as the rest.

[3]    Letter 73:411 - Albert Burgh To Spinoza.
However, restricting myself for the present to that book of yours with an impious title ("Tractatus Theologico-Politicus") and mingling your philosophy with your theology, as in reality you mingle them yourself, though with diabolic cunning you endeavour to maintain, that each is separate from the other, and has different principles, I thus proceed.

[4]    Letter 73:411 - Albert Burgh To Spinoza.
Perhaps you will say: "Others have not read Holy Scripture so often as I have; and it is from Holy Scripture, the acknowledgment of which distinguishes Christians from the rest of the world, that I prove my doctrines. But how? By comparing the clear passages with the more obscure I explain Holy Scripture, and out of my interpretations frame dogmas, or else confirm those which are already concocted in my brain." But, I adjure you, reflect seriously on what you say. How do you know, that you have made a right application of your method, or again that your method is sufficient for the interpretation of Scripture, and that you are thus interpreting Scripture aright, especially as the Catholics say, and most truly, that the universal Word of God is not handed down to us in writing, hence that Holy Scripture cannot be explained through itself, I will not say by one man, but by the Church herself, who is the sole authorized interpreter? The Apostolic traditions must likewise be consulted, as is proved by the testimony of Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers, and as reason and experience suggest. Thus, as your first principles are most false and lead to destruction, what will become of all your doctrine,  built up and supported on so rotten a foundation?

[5]    Letter 73:412 - Albert Burgh To Spinoza.
Wherefore, if you believe in Christ crucified, acknowledge your pestilent heresy, reflect on the perverseness of your nature, and be reconciled with the Church.

[6]   Letter 73:412 - Albert Burgh To Spinoza.
How do your proofs differ from those of all heretics, who ever have left, are now leaving, or shall in future leave God's Church? All, like yourself, make use of the same principle, to wit, Holy Scripture taken by itself, for the concoction and establishment of their doctrines.

[7]    Letter 73:412 - Albert Burgh To Spinoza.
Do not flatter yourself with the thought, that neither the Calvinists, it may be, nor the so-called Reformed Church, nor the Lutherans, nor the Mennonites, nor the Socinians, &c., can refute your doctrines. All these, as I have said, are as wretched as yourself, and like you are dwelling in the shadow of death.

[8]   Letter 73:412 - Albert Burgh To Spinoza.
If you do not believe in Christ, you are more wretched than I can express. Yet the remedy is easy. Turn away from your sins, and consider the deadly arrogance of your wretched and insane reasoning. You do not believe in Christ. Why? You will say: "Because the teaching and the life of Christ, and also the Christian teaching concerning Christ are not at all in harmony with my teaching." But again, I say, then you dare to think yourself greater than all those who have ever risen up in the State or Church of God, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, doctors, confessors, and holy virgins innumerable, yea, in your blasphemy, than Christ himself. Do you alone surpass all these in doctrine, in manner of life, in every respect? Will you, wretched pigmy, vile worm of the earth, yea, ashes, food of worms, will you in your unspeakable blasphemy, dareto put yourself before the incarnate,  infinite wisdom of the Eternal Father? Will you, alone, consider yourself wiser and greater than all those, who from the beginning of the world have been in the Church of God, and have believed, or believe still, that Christ would come or has already come? On what do you base this rash, insane, deplorable, and inexcusable arrogance?

*        *        *        *        *
{Elwes summarizes the remainder of the letter. For the full letter see Bk.XIII:305.}

[9]    Letter 73:413 - Albert Burgh To Spinoza.
If you cannot pronounce on what I have just been enumerating (divining rods, alchemy, &c.), why, wretched man, are you so puffed up with diabolical pride, as to past rash judgment on the awful mysteries of Christ's life and passion, which the Catholics themselves in their teaching declare to be incomprehensible? Why do you commit the further insanity of silly and futile carping at the numberless miracle and signs, which have been wrought through the virtue of Almighty God by the apostles and disciples of Christ, and afterwards by so many thousand saints, in testimony to, and confirmation of the truth of the Catholic faith; yea, which are being wrought in our own time in cases without number throughout the world, by God's almighty goodness and mercy? If you cannot gainsay these, and surely you cannot, why stand aloof any longer? Join hands of fellowship, and repent from your sins: put on humility, and be born again.

[10]    Letter 73:413 - Albert Burgh To Spinoza - Elwes's Summary, for full text see Bk.XIII:307.

[Albert Burgh requests Spinoza to consider:

(i.)    The large number of believers in the Romish faith.

(ii.)   The uninterrupted succession of the Church.

(iii.)  The fact that a few unlearned men converted the world to Christianity.

(iv.)  The  antiquity, the immutability, the infallibility, the incorruption, the unity, and the vast extent of the Catholic Religion; also the fact, that secession from it involves damnation, and that it will itself endure as long as the world. ]Bk.XIII:310 note[

(v.)   The admirable organization of the Romish Church.

(vi.)  The superior morality of Catholics.

(vii.) The frequent cases of recantation of opinions among heretics.

(viii.) The miserable life led by atheists, whatever their outward demeanour may be.]

*         *        *        *        *

[11]    Letter 73:414 - Albert Burgh To Spinoza.
I have written this letter to you with intentions truly Christian; first, in order to show the love I bear to you, though you are a heathen; secondly, in order to beg you not to persist in converting others.

[12]    Letter 73:414 - Albert Burgh To Spinoza.
I  therefore will thus conclude: God is willing to snatch your soul from eternal damnation, if you will allow Him. Do not doubt that the Master, who has called you so often through others, is now calling you for the last time through me, who having obtained grace from the ineffable mercy  of God Himself, beg the same for you with my whole heart. Do not deny  me. For if  you do not now give ear to God who calls you, the wrath of the Lord will be kindled against you, and there is a danger of your being abandoned by His infinite mercy, and becoming a wretched victim of the Divine Justice which consumes all things in wrath. Such a fate may Almighty God avert for the greater glory of His name, and for the salvation of your soul, also for a salutary example for the imitation of your most unfortunate and idolatrous  followers, through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who with the Eternal Father liveth and reigneth in the Unity of the Holy Spirit, God for all Eternity. Amen.

Florence, (Sept. 3, 1675.) {The date is given in Roman numerals}
[Elwes's Note - There is a kind of affectation consistent with the letter in the use of the classical calendar and Roman numerals for the date.]

[End]    Letter 73:414 - Albert Burgh To Spinoza.
 

From Bk.I:414
Letter 74 in answer to Letter 73:410.

Spinoza To Albert Burgh. ]Bk.XIII:44 note[

[Spinoza laments the step taken by his pupil, and answers his arguments. The Hague, end of 1675.]

[1]    That, which I could scarcely believe when told me by others, I learn at last from your own letter; not only have you been made a member of the Romish Church, but you are become a very keen champion of the same, and have already learned wantonly to insult and rail against your opponents.

[2]    Letter 74:415 - Spinoza To Albert Burgh.
At first I resolved to leave your letter unanswered, thinking that time and experience will assuredly be of more avail than reasoning, to restore you to yourself and your friends; not to mention other arguments, which won your approval formerly, when we were discussing the case of Steno [Elwes's  Note - A Danish anatomist, who renounced Lutheranism for Catholicism at Florence in 1669.] in whose steps you are now following. But some of my friends, who like myself had formed great hopes from your superior talents, strenuously urge me not to fail in the offices of a friend, but to consider what you lately were, rather than what you are, with other arguments of the like nature. I have thus been induced to write you this short reply, which I earnestly beg you will think worthy of calm perusal.

[3]    Letter 74:415 - Spinoza To Albert Burgh.
I will not imitate those adversaries of Romanism, who would set forth the vices of priests and popes with a view to kindling your aversion. Such considerations are often put forward from evil and unworthy motives, and tend rather to irritate than to instruct. I will even admit, that more men of learning and of blameless life are found in the Romish Church than in any other Christian body; for, as it contains more members, so will every type of character be more largely represented in it. You cannot possibly deny, unless you have lost your memory as well as your reason, that in every Church there are thoroughly honourable men, who worship God with justice and charity. We have known many such among the Lutherans, the Reformed Church, the Mennonites, and the Enthusiasts. Not to go further, you knew your own relations, who in the time of the Duke of Alva suffered every kind of torture bravely and willingly for the sake of their religion. In fact, you must admit, that personal holiness is not peculiar to the Romish Church, but common to all Churches.

[4]    Letter 74:415 - Spinoza To Albert Burgh.
As it is by this, that we know "that we dwell in God and He in us" (1 Ep. John, iv. 13), it follows, that what distinguishes the Romish Church from others must be something entirely superfluous, and therefore founded solely on superstition. For, as John says, justice and charity are the one sure sign of the true Catholic faith, and the true fruits of the Holy Spirit. Wherever they are found, there in truth is Christ; wherever they are absent, Christ is absent also. For only by the Spirit of Christ can we be led to the love of justice and charity. Had you been willing to reflect on these points, you would not have ruined yourself, nor have brought deep affliction on your relations, who are now sorrowfully bewailing your evil case.

[5]    Letter 74:416 - Spinoza To Albert Burgh.
But I return to your letter, which you begin, by lamenting that I allow myself to be ensnared by the prince of evil spirits. Pray take heart, and recollect yourself. When you had the use of your faculties, you were wont, if I mistake not, to worship an Infinite G-D by Whose efficacy all things absolutely come to pass and are preserved; now you dream of a prince, God's  enemy, who against God's will ensnares and deceives very many men (rarely good ones, to be sure) whom God thereupon hands over to this master of wickedness to be tortured eternally. The Divine justice therefore allows the devil to deceive men and remain unpunished; but it by no means allows to remain unpunished the men, who have been by that self-same devil miserably deceived and ensnared.

[6]    Letter 74:416 - Spinoza To Albert Burgh.
These absurdities might so far be tolerated, if you worshipped a G-D infinite and eternal; not one whom Chastillon, in the town which the Dutch call Tienen, gave with impunity to horses to be eaten. And, poor wretch, you bewail me? My philosophy, which you never beheld, you style a chimera? O youth deprived of understanding, who has bewitched you into believing, that the Supreme and Eternal is eaten by you, and held in your intestines?

[7]    Letter 74:416 - Spinoza To Albert Burgh.
Yet you seem to wish to employ reason, and ask me, "How I know that my philosophy is the best among all that have ever been taught in the world, or are being taught, or ever will be taught?" a question which I might with much greater right ask you; for I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy. If you ask in what way I know it, I answer: In the same way as you know that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles: that  this is sufficient, will be denied by no one whose brain is sound ad who does not go dreaming of evil spirits inspiring us with false ideas like the true. For the truth is the index of  itself and of what is false.

[8]    Letter 74:417 - Spinoza To Albert Burgh.
But you, who presume  that you have at last found the best religion, or rather the best men, on whom you have pinned your credulity, you, "who know that they are the best among all who have taught, do now teach, or shall in future teach other religions. Have you examined all religions, ancient as well as modern, taught here and in India and everywhere throughout the world?  And, if you have duly examined them, how do you know that you have chosen the best" since you can give no reason for the faith that is in you? But you will say, that you acquiesce in the inward testimony of the Spirit of God, while the rest of mankind are ensnared and deceived by the prince of evil spirits. But all those outside the pale of the Romish Church can with equal right proclaim of their own creed what you proclaim of yours.

[9]    Letter 74:417 - Spinoza To Albert Burgh.
As to what you add of the common consent of myriads of men and the uninterrupted ecclesiastical succession, this is the very catch-word of the Pharisees {or the Pagans}. They with no less confidence than the devotees of Rome bring forward their myriad witnesses, who as pertinaciously as the Roman witnesses repeat what they have heard, as though it were their personal experience. Further, they carry back their line to Adam. They boast with equal arrogance, that their Church has continued to this day unmoved and unimpaired in spite of the hatred of Christians and heathen. They more than any other sect are supported by antiquity. They exclaim with one voice, that they have received their traditions from God Himself, and that they alone preserve the Word of God both written and unwritten. That all heresies have issued from them {as has their heresy issued from the Pagan}, and  that they have remained constant through thousands of years under no constraint of temporal dominion, but by the sole efficacy of their superstition, no one can deny. The miracles  they tell of would tire a thousand tongues. But their chief boast is, that they count a far greater number of martyrs than any other nation, a number which is daily increased by those who suffer with singular constancy for the faith they profess; nor is their boasting false. I myself knew among others of a certain Judah called the faithful [Elwes's Note—Don Lope de Vera y Alarcon de San Clemente, a Spanish nobleman who was converted to Judaism through the study of Hebrew, and was burnt at Valladolid on the 25th, July, 1644], who in the midst of the flames, when he was already thought to be dead, lifted his voice to sing the hymn beginning, "To Thee 0 God, I offer up my soul," and so singing perished.

[10]    Letter 74:418 - Spinoza To Albert Burgh.
The organization of the Roman Church, which you so greatly praise, I confess to be politic, and to many lucrative. I should believe that there was no other more convenient for deceiving the people and keeping men's minds in check, if it were not for the organization of the Mahometan Church, which far surpasses it. For from the time when this superstition arose, there has been no schism in its church.

[11]    Letter 74:418 - Spinoza To Albert Burgh.
If, therefore, you had rightly judged, you would have seen that only your third point tells in favour of the Christians, namely, that unlearned and common men should have been able to convert nearly the whole world to believe in Christ. But this reason militates not only for the Romish Church, but for all those who profess the name of Christ.

[12]    Letter 74:418 - Spinoza To Albert Burgh.
But assume that all the reasons you bring forward tell in favour solely of the Romish Church. Do you think that you can thereby prove mathematically the  authority  of that church?   As the case is far otherwise, why do you wish me to believe that my demonstration are inspired  by the prince of evil spirits, while your own are inspired by God, especially as I see, and as your letter clearly shows, that you have been led to become a devotee of this Church not by your love G-D, but by your fear of hell, the single cause of superstition. Is this your humility, that you trust nothing to yourself, but everything to others, who are condemned by many of their fellow men? Do you set it own to pride and arrogance, that I employ reason and acquiesce in this true Word of G-D, which is in the mind and can never be depraved or corrupted? Cast away, this deadly superstition, acknowledge the reason which G-D has given you, and follow that, unless you would be numbered with the brutes. Cease, I say, to call ridiculous errors mysteries and do not basely confound those things which are unknown to us, or have not yet been discovered, with what is proved to be absurd, like the horrible secrets of this Church of yours, which, in proportion as they are repugnant to right reason, you believe to transcend the understanding.

[13]    Letter 74:419 - Spinoza To Albert Burgh.
But the fundamental principle of the "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus," that Scripture should only be expounded through Scripture, which you so wantonly without any reason proclaim  to  be  false, is not merely assumed, but categorically proved to be true or sound; especially in chapter vii., where also the opinions of adversaries are confuted; see also what is proved at the end of chapter xv. If you will reflect on these things, and also examine the history of the Church (of which I see you are completely ignorant), in order to see how false, in many respects, is Papal tradition, and by what course of events and with what cunning the Pope of Rome six hundred years after Christ obtained supremacy over the Church, I do not doubt that you will eventually return to your senses. That this result may come to pass I, for your sake, heartily wish. Farewell,  &c.

[END]    Letter 74:419 -
             Spinoza To Albert Burgh.

Spinoza and Christianity:

.... It seems evident that in his classification of Moses, Spinoza was concerned not with what really happened in history but with pigeonholing the biblical evidence into Maimonides' theoretical framework so that it fit in with his own theologico-political purpose: to show that there could {by evolution} be a religion superior to Judaism {and Christianity}.

This purpose made it imperative to propound in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus:19 a theory concerning Jesus, whom Spinoza designates as Christus. The category and the status assigned to Jesus are by and large similar to those that Maimonides attributed to Moses. Thus, Jesus is referred to in the Tractatus as a religious teacher who makes recourse not to the imaginative faculty but solely to the intellect. His authority may be used to institute and strengthen the religion Spinoza called religio catholica ("universal religion"), which has little or nothing {except its moral values} in common with any of the major manifestations of historic Christianity.

From Bk.I:275
Letter 1 - Oldenburg to Spinoza.
{Oldenburg correspondence}

[Oldenburg, after complimenting Spinoza, asks him to enter into a Philososphical correspondence.]

[1]     ILLUSTRIOUS SIR, AND MOST WORTHY FRIEND,—So painful to me was the separation from you the other day after our meeting in your retreat at Rhijnsburg, that it is my first endeavour, now that I am returned to England, to renew, as far as is possible by correspondence, my intercourse with you. Solid learning, conjoined with courtesy and refinement of manners (wherewith both nature and art have most amply endowed you), carries with it such charms as to command the love of every honourable and liberally- educated man. Let us then, most excellent sir, join hands in sincere friendship, and let us foster the feeling with every zealous endeavour and kind office in our power. Whatever my poor means can furnish I beg you to look on as your own. Allow me in return to claim a share in the riches of your talents, as I may do without inflicting any loss on yourself.

[2]    Letter 1:275 - Oldenburg to Spinoza.
We conversed at Rhijnsburg of G-D, of extension, of infinite thought, of the differences and agreements between these, of the nature of the connection between the human soul and body, and further, of the principles of the Cartesian and Baconian philosophies.

[3]    Letter 1:275 - Oldenburg to Spinoza.
But, as we then spoke of these great questions merely cursorily and by the way, and as my mind has been not a little tormented with them since, I will appeal to the rights of our newly cemented friendship, and most affectionately beg you to give me at somewhat greater length your opinion on the subjects I have mentioned. On two points especially I ask for enlightenment, if I may presume so far; first: In what do you place the true distinction between thought and matter? secondly: What do you consider to be the chief defects in the Cartesian and Baconian philosophies, and how do you think they might best, be removed, and something more sound substituted? The more freely you write to me on these and similar subjects, the more closely will you tie the bonds of our friendship, and the stricter will be the obligation laid on me to repay you, as far as possible, with similar services.

[4]    Letter 1:276 -
        Oldenburg to Spinoza.
There is at present in the press a collection of physiological discourses written by an Englishman (Robert Boyle) of noble family and distinguished learning) They treat of the nature and elasticity of the air, as proved by forty-three experiments; also of its fluidity, solidity, and other analogous matters. As soon as the work is published, I shall make a point of sending it to you by any friend who may be crossing the sea. Meanwhile, farewell, and remember your friend, who is

Yours, in all affection and zeal,
HENRY 0LDENBURG.
London, 16/26 Aug., 1661

[End]    Letter 1:276 -
            Oldenburg to Spinoza.

From Bk.I:276 - With permission from Terry Neff
Letter 2 - Spinoza to Oldenburg.
{Oldenburg correspondence}

[Spinoza defines "G-D", and "attribute" and sends definitions, axioms, and first four propositions of Book I. of Ethics. Some errors of Bacon and Descartes discussed.]

[1]    Illustrious Sir,—How pleasant your friendship is to me, you may yourself judge, if your modesty will allow you to reflect on the abundance of your own excellences. Indeed the thought of these makes me seem not a little bold in entering into such a compact, the more so when I consider that between friends all things, and especially things spiritual, ought to be in common. However, this must lie at the charge of your modesty and kindness rather than of myself. You have been willing to lower yourself through the former and to fill me with the abundance of the latter, till I am no longer afraid to accept the close friendship, which you hold out to me, and which you deign to ask of me in return; no effort on my part shall be spared to render it lasting.

[2]    Letter 2:277 - Spinoza to Oldenburg.
As for my mental endowments, such as they are, I would willingly allow you to share them, even though I knew it would be to my own great hindrance. But this is not meant as an excuse for denying to you what you ask by the rights of friendship. I will therefore endeavour to explain my opinions on the topics you touched on; though I scarcely hope, unless your kindness intervene, that I shall thus draw the bonds of our friendship closer.

[3]    Letter 2:277 - Spinoza to Oldenburg.
I will then begin by speaking briefly of G-D, Whom I define as a Being consisting in infinite attributes, whereof each is infinite or supremely perfect after its kind. You must observe that by attribute I mean everything, which is conceived through itself and in itself, so that the conception of it does not involve the conception of anything else. For instance, extension is conceived through itself and in itself, but motion is not. The latter is conceived through something else, for the conception of it implies extension.

[4]    Letter 2:277 - Spinoza to Oldenburg.
That the definition above given of G-D is true appears from the fact, that by G-D we mean a Being supremely perfect and absolutely infinite. That such a Being exists may easily be proved from the definition; but as this is not the place for such proof, I will pass it over. What I am bound here to prove, in order to satisfy the first inquiry of my distinguished questioner, are the following consequences; first that in the universe there cannot exist two substances without their differing utterly in essence; secondly that substance cannot be produced or created—existence pertains to its actual essence; thirdly, that all substance must be infinite or supremely perfect after its kind.

[5]    Letter 2:278 - Spinoza to Oldenburg.
When these points have been demonstrated, my distinguished questioner will readily perceive my drift, if he reflects at the same time on the definition of G-D. In order to prove them clearly and briefly, I can think of nothing  better than to submit them to the bar of your judgment proved in the geometrical method. I therefore enclose them separately and await your verdict upon them.

[6]    Letter 2:276 - Spinoza to Oldenburg.
Again, you ask me what errors I detect in the Cartesians and Baconian philosophies. It is not my custom to expose the errors of others, nevertheless I will yield to your request. The first and the greatest error is, that these philosophers have strayed so far from the knowledge of the first cause and origin of all things; the second is, that they did not know the true nature of the human mind; the third, that they never grasped the true cause of error. The necessity for correct knowledge on these three points can only be ignored by persons completely devoid of learning and training.

[7]    Letter 2:278 - Spinoza to Oldenburg.
That they have wandered astray from the knowledge of the first cause, and