ONE of the greatest thinkers was Benedict Spinoza, a Jew, born at
Amsterdam, in 1632. He studied medicine and afterward theology. He
endeavored to understand what he studied. In theology he necessarily
failed. Theology is not intended to be understood,--it is only to be
believed. It is an act, not of reason, but of faith. Spinoza put to the
rabbis so many questions, and so persistently asked for reasons, that
he became the most troublesome of students. When the rabbis found
it impossible to answer the questions, they concluded to silence the
questioner. He was tried, found guilty, and excommunicated from the
synagogue.
By the terrible curse of the Jewish religion, he was made an outcast
from every Jewish home. His father could not give him shelter. His
mother could not give him bread--could not speak to him, without
becoming an outcast herself. All the cruelty of Jehovah, all the
infamy of the Old Testament, was in this curse. In the darkness of the
synagogue the rabbis lighted their torches, and while pronouncing the
curse, extinguished them in blood, imploring God that in like manner the
soul of Benedict Spinoza might be extinguished.
Spinoza was but twenty-four years old when he found himself without
kindred, without friends, surrounded only by enemies. He uttered no
complaint.
He earned his bread with willing hands, and cheerfully divided his crust
with those still poorer than himself.
He tried to solve the problem of existence. To him, the universe was
One. The Infinite embraced the All. The All was God. According to his
belief, the universe did not commence to be. It is; from eternity it
was; to eternity it will be.
He was right. The universe is all there is, or was, or will be. It is
both subject and object, contemplator and contemplated, creator and
created, destroyer and destroyed, preserver and preserved, and hath
within itself all causes, modes, motions and effects.
In this there is hope. This is a foundation and a star. The Infinite
is the All. Without the All, the Infinite cannot be. I am something.
Without me, the Infinite cannot exist.
Spinoza was a naturalist--that is to say, a pantheist. He took the
ground that the supernatural is, and forever will be, an infinite
impossibility. His propositions are luminous as stars, and each of his
demonstrations is a Gibraltar, behind which logic sits and smiles at all
the sophistries of superstition.
Spinoza has been hated because he has not been answered. He was a
real republican. He regarded the people as the true and only source of
political power. He put the state above the church, the people above
the priest. He believed in the absolute liberty of worship, thought and
speech. In every relation of life he was just, true, gentle, patient,
modest and loving. He respected the rights of others, and endeavored to
enjoy his own, and yet he brought upon himself the hatred of the Jewish
and the Christian world. In his day, logic was blasphemy, and to think
was the unpardonable sin. The priest hated the philosopher, revelation
reviled reason, and faith was the sworn foe of every fact.
Spinoza was a philosopher, a philanthropist. He lived in a world of his
own. He avoided men. His life was an intellectual solitude. He was a
mental hermit. Only in his own brain he found the liberty he loved. And
yet the rabbis and the priests, the ignorant zealot and the cruel bigot,
feeling that this quiet, thoughtful, modest man was in some way forging
weapons to be used against the church, hated him with all their hearts.
He did not retaliate. He found excuses for their acts. Their ignorance,
their malice, their misguided and revengeful zeal excited only pity in
his breast. He injured no man. He did not live on alms. He was poor--and
yet, with the wealth of his brain, he enriched the world. On Sunday,
February 21, 1677, Spinoza, one of the greatest and subtlest of
metaphysicians--one of the noblest and purest of human beings,--at the
age of forty-four, passed tranquilly away; and notwithstanding the curse
of the synagogue under which he had lived and most lovingly labored,
death left upon his lips the smile of perfect peace.