CHAPTER I

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THE PHILOSOPHY

OF

SPINOZA

EDITED BY

JOSEPH RATNER

TUDOR PUBLISHING COMPANY

_Printed in the United States of America_

PREFACE

Selections usually need no justifications. Some justification, however,

of the treatment accorded Spinoza's _Ethics_ may be necessary in this

place. The object in taking the _Ethics_ as much as possible out of the

geometrical form, was not to improve upon the author's text; it was to

give the lay reader a text of Spinoza he would find pleasanter to read

and easier to understand. To the practice of popularization, Spinoza,

one may confidently feel, would not be averse. He himself gave a short

popular statement of his philosophy in the _Political Treatise_.

The lay reader of philosophy is chiefly, if not wholly, interested in

grasping a philosophic point of view. He is not interested in highly

meticulous details, and still less is he interested in checking up the

author's statements to see if the author is consistent with himself. He

takes such consistency, even if unwarrantedly, for granted. A continuous

reading of the original _Ethics_, even on a single topic, is impossible.

The subject-matter is coherent, but the propositions do not hang

together. By omitting the formal statement of the propositions; by

omitting many of the demonstrations and almost all cross-references; by

grouping related sections of the _Ethics_ (with selections from the

_Letters_ and the _Improvement of the Understanding_) under sectional

headings, the text has been made more continuous. It is the only time,

probably, dismembering a treatise actually made it more unified.

In an Appendix, the sources of the selections from the _Ethics_ are

summarily indicated. It would be a meaningless burden on the text to

make full acknowledgments in footnotes. For the same reason, there has

been almost no attempt made to show, by means of the conventional

devices, the re-arrangements and abridgements that have been made. Every

care has been taken not to distort in any way the meaning of the text.

And that is all that is important in a volume of this kind.

Wherever possible Spinoza's own chapter headings have been retained; and

some of the sectional headings have either been taken from, or have been

based upon expressions in the text. It would have been more in keeping

with contemporary form to use the title _On Historical Method_ or _The

New History_ instead of _Of the Interpretation of Scripture_; a chapter

on _Race Superiority_ would sound more important than one on _The

Vocation of the Hebrews_; but such modernizing changes were not made

because the aim has been to give the reader a text as faithful to the

original as the character of this volume would allow.

The selections have been taken from Elwes' translation of the _Tractatus

Theologico-Politicus_, _A Political Treatise_ and the _Improvement of

the Understanding_; and from White's translation of the _Ethics_. These

translations are no longer in copyright and hence it was not necessary

to secure permission from the publishers to use them. Nonetheless,

grateful acknowledgment is their just due.

White, in his translation, uses, not altogether without reason, the

stilted term "affect" instead of the natural English term "emotion."

"Affect" is closer to the Latin and it more clearly indicates the

metaphysical status of the emotions as "modes" or "affectiones" of

Substance. Still, practically no one has followed White in his usage.

The reasons are not difficult to discover. Besides being a stilted term,

having no legitimate English status, "affect" very often makes the text

extremely obscure, even unintelligible to one who has no antecedent

knowledge of it, because besides having also its ordinary English

meaning, "affect" is used by White to mean "mode" or "modification"

("affection") as well. In the circumstances, therefore, I thought it

advisable to change "affect" to "emotion" and "affection" to

"modification" or "mode." I also corrected White's translation of the

Definition of Attribute by deleting the word "if." In spite of the need

for these changes, it was desirable to use White's translation because

it is the most accurate and elegant extant.

Furthermore, in both White and Elwes I have consistently capitalized the

term Nature, in accordance with Spinoza's Latin text; White and Elwes

capitalize it only desultorily. I have made some slight changes in

Elwes' mid-Victorian punctuation and White's all-too-faithful

paragraphing. The Latin paragraphs of the _Ethics_ are extremely long.

These changes are all external and as far as I can see thoroughly

legitimate as well as justified. The very slight and very occasional

internal changes I have made--other than those already accounted for--I

have indicated by square brackets.

I am indebted to Mr. Houston Peterson, of Columbia University, for

suggesting to me the idea of arranging a volume of selections from

Spinoza. I am alone responsible, however, for the actual selections and

arrangements, and for the idea of taking the _Ethics_ out of its

geometrical form. Professor Morris R. Cohen, of the College of the City

of New York, read this volume in manuscript; I am indebted to him for

some valuable suggestions. I am also indebted very greatly to a friend

(who prefers not to be acknowledged) for invaluable help in getting the

manuscript into shape.

JOSEPH RATNER.

_October, 1926._

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE v

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA xi

INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPINOZA xxvii

FIRST PART

ON GOD

CHAPTER

I. OF SUPERSTITION 3

II. OF THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 11

III. OF PROPHETS AND PROPHECY 36

IV. OF THE VOCATION OF THE HEBREWS 64

V. OF THE DIVINE LAW 71

VI. OF THE CEREMONIAL LAW 88

VII. OF MIRACLES 103

VIII. OF THE DIVINE NATURE 122

SECOND PART

ON MAN

IX. THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN MIND 155

X. THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE 173

XI. DETERMINISM AND MORALS 191

XII. THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE EMOTIONS 211

XIII. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMOTIONS 236

THIRD PART

ON MAN'S WELL-BEING

XIV. OF HUMAN BONDAGE 251

XV. THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE MORAL LIFE 266

XVI. OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF A STATE 297

XVII. OF SUPREME AUTHORITIES 314

XVIII. FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND SPEECH 333

XIX. OF HUMAN FREEDOM 345

XX. OF HUMAN BLESSEDNESS AND THE ETERNITY

OF THE MIND 361

APPENDIX 377

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA

Baruch de Spinoza was born into the Jewish community of Amsterdam on

November 24, 1632. His parents were Jews who had fled, along with many

others, from the vicious intolerance of the Inquisition to the limited

and hesitant freedom of Holland. At the time Spinoza was born, the

Jewish refugees had already established themselves to a certain extent

in their new home. They had won, for example, the important right to

build a synagogue. Still, they did not enjoy the complete freedom and

peace of mind of an independent and securely protected people. Although

one could be a Jew in Amsterdam, one had to be a Jew with considerable

circumspection. Whatever might prove in any way offensive to the

political authority had to be scrupulously eschewed. For, as is always

the case, minority groups which are simply tolerated have to suffer for

the offenses of any of their members. The Jews of Amsterdam thoroughly

understood this. They knew that any significant default on the part of

one member of their community would not, in all likelihood, be

considered by the authorities to be a default of that one person

alone--a failing quite in the order of human nature; they knew it would

be considered a manifestation of an essential vice characteristic of the

whole community. And the whole community would have to suffer, in

consequence, an exaggerated punishment which the individual delinquent

himself may well not merit.

It was inevitable that the intellectual life of the Jews of Amsterdam

should bear the marks of their inner and outer social constraints. Their

intellectual life was cramped and ineffectual. Indiscriminate erudition,

not independent thought, was all the Jewish leaders, connected in one

way or another with the Synagogue, were able to achieve. It was far

safer to cling to the innocuous past than it was to strike out boldly

into the future. Any independence of thought that was likely to prove

socially dangerous as well as schismatic was promptly suppressed. The

humiliation and excommunication (circa 1640) of the indecisive martyr

Uriel da Costa when he ventured to entertain doctrines that were not

orthodox, were prompted as much by political as by religious

considerations. It is true, many of the faithful were attracted by

Cabbalistic wonders and the strange hope of being saved from a bitter

exile by a Messianic Sabbatai Zevi. But these wayward deviations, in

reality not so very far removed from orthodox tradition, exhibited only

the more clearly the fearsome inner insecurity which a strained

formalism in thought and habit bravely attempted to cover.

In such social and intellectual atmosphere Spinoza grew up. Of his early

life, practically nothing is known. His parents, we know, were at least

fairly well-to-do, for Spinoza received a good education. And we know

that he was, when about fifteen years of age, one of the most brilliant

and promising of Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira's pupils. Everyone who then

knew Spinoza expected great things of him. He proved himself to be a

very acute rabbinical student; at that early age already somewhat too

critical, if anything, to suit the orthodox. But all felt reasonably

confident he would become a distinguished Rabbi, and perhaps a great

commentator of the Bible. Of course, of the orthodox sort.

But the Rabbis were early disillusioned. Spinoza soon found the learning

of the Synagogue insufficient and unsatisfactory. He sought the wisdom

of secular philosophy and science. But in order to satisfy his

intellectual desires it was necessary to study Latin. And Latin was not

taught in the Synagogue.

An anonymous German taught Spinoza the rudiments of the language that

was to enable him to enter into the important current of modern ideas

especially embodied in the philosophy of Descartes. Francis Van den Ende

gave him a thorough technical, not literary, mastery of it. And Van den

Ende taught Spinoza much more besides. He acquainted him with the

literature of antiquity; he gave him a sound knowledge of the

contemporary fundamentals of physiology and physics; and it was he

possibly, who introduced him to the philosophy of Descartes and the

lyrical philosophic speculation of Bruno. He did much also (we may

easily infer) to encourage the independence of mind and the freedom in

thinking Spinoza had already manifested in no inconsiderable degree. For

although this Van den Ende was a Catholic physician and Latin master by

profession, he was a free thinker in spirit and reputation. And if we

are to believe the horrified public suspicion, he taught a select few of

his Latin pupils the grounds of his heterodox belief. As one can easily

understand, to study Latin with Van den Ende was not the most innocent

thing one could do. Certainly, to become a favorite pupil and assistant

teacher of Van den Ende's was, socially, decidedly bad. But Spinoza was

not deterred by the possible social consequences of his search for

knowledge and truth. He took full advantage of his opportunities and did

not hesitate to follow wherever his master might lead.

Van den Ende was also something of a political adventurer; he finally

paid the unsuccessful conspirator's price on the gallows in Paris. It is

not at all unlikely that Spinoza's hard-headed political and ethical

realism was, in significant measure, due to his early intimacy with his

variously gifted and interesting Latin master. We know that Spinoza was

at least strongly attracted, in later life, by the Italian political

insurgent Masaniello, for Spinoza drew a portrait of himself in the

Italian's costume. Machiavelli's influence, too, upon Spinoza was very

great--an influence that would but be a continuation of Van den Ende's.

Spinoza may have been indebted to Van den Ende for one other thing: his

only recorded romance. There is some question about this indebtedness

because tradition does not speak very confidently, in some essentials,

about Van den Ende's daughter Clara Maria. Clara, tradition is agreed,

was intellectually and artistically well endowed, although she was not

very good looking. In her father's absence on political affairs she took

his place in the school, teaching music as well as Latin. But tradition

is somewhat disconcerting when it comes to Clara's age when Spinoza

knew her. According to some chronological researches, the fair object of

Spinoza's supposed devotion, was only twelve years old. Hardly of an age

to warrant Spinoza's love, unless he loved her as Dante loved Beatrice.

A somewhat improbable possibility. The tradition that is less sparing of

Clara's age is, however, even more sparing of her character: the success

of Spinoza's supposed rival--a fellow-student by name, Kerkrinck--is

attributed to the seductive powers of a pearl necklace. In spite of the

fact that tradition reckons this gift to have been of decisive

importance, one does not like to believe that a girl of high

intellectual and artistic ability could be so easily and fatefully

overcome by a mere trinket. Still less does one like to believe that

Spinoza fell in love with a girl whose mind was so far removed from the

joys that are eternal and spiritual. But, of course, it is conceivable

that the girl took the trinket symbolically; or else that Spinoza, who

had given all his time to rabbinical and philosophical studies was, in

the circumstances, quite justifiably deceived.

Spinoza had not yet been graduated from his student days when the

Synagogue thought him a fit object for official censure and threat. It

seems Spinoza was betrayed into overt indiscretion by two

fellow-students from the Synagogue, who asked for his opinion regarding

the existence of angels, the corporeality of God and the immortality of

the soul. Spinoza's answers were not complete, but incomplete as they

were, they yet revealed a mind that was, to the faithful, shockingly

astray from the orthodox path. Spinoza was to have elaborated upon his

answers at a later date but the students had heard, apparently, quite

enough. Instead of returning to Spinoza they went to the authorities of

the Synagogue. The authorities were quite disposed by Spinoza's

association with Van den Ende and his perceptible neglect of ceremonial

observances, to believe him capable of any intellectual villainy. They

promptly set about to reclaim the erring soul. Report has it they sought

two means: they offered Spinoza an annuity of 1,000 florins if he would,

in all overt ways, speech and action, conform to the established

opinions and customs of the Synagogue; or, if he did not see the wisdom

and profit of compliance, they threatened to isolate him by

excommunication. Again social politics as much as established religion

demanded the action the Synagogue took. Their experience with Uriel da

Costa was still very fresh in their minds and they must have felt fairly

confident that Spinoza would be warned by the fate of his heretical

predecessor if not counseled by the wisdom of the Fathers. But Spinoza

was of a firmness they did not reckon on. He did not hearken to their

censure nor cower at their threat. The thirty days or so in which he was

given to reform passed without discovering in him any change.

Excommunication had to be pronounced. When barely twenty-four years old,

Spinoza found himself cut off from the race of Israel with all the

prescribed curses of excommunication upon his head.

Spinoza was not present when excommunication was pronounced upon him. He

had left Amsterdam to stay with some Collegiant friends on the Ouwerkerk

road, for, so one tradition relates, an attempt had been made by one of

the over-righteous upon Spinoza's life soon after he became an object

of official displeasure. Although Spinoza was, throughout his life,

ready to suffer the consequences of his opinions and actions, he at no

time had the least aspiration to become a martyr. When Spinoza heard of

his excommunication he sent a spirited and unyielding reply. The spirit

if not the words of that reply (not yet discovered) eventually made its

way into the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_. For the rest of his life,

whenever he had occasion to refer to the Jews, Spinoza referred to them

as he did to the Gentiles--a race to which he did not belong. And

immediately, with the perfect grace and humor of a cultured mind, he

changed his name from Baruch to Benedict, quite confident one can be as

blessed in Latin as in Hebrew.

The subsequent course of Spinoza's life was almost completely

untroubled, though it was unmitigatingly austere. He took up the trade

of polishing lenses as a means of earning his simple bread. He was

somewhat influenced in his decision by the advice in the _Ethics of the

Fathers_ that every one should do some manual work. But it was also

quite the fashion at that period for learned men, interested in science,

to polish lenses, as a hobby of course, not as a means of support.

Spinoza's choice was not altogether wise in spite of its learned

associations and the fact that he soon gained an enviable reputation as

a young scientist. The early recognition Spinoza received from men like

Henry Oldenburg, the first secretary of the Royal Society, from Robert

Boyle and Huyghens, was hardly adequate recompense for the fine dust he

ground which aggravated his inherited tuberculosis and undoubtedly

considerably hastened his death. Spinoza's accomplishment in his chosen

trade was not merely practical. Many looked forward, with warranted

confidence, to the time when Spinoza would make a distinguished

contribution to the science of optics. But the only strictly scientific

work Spinoza left behind (long considered to have been lost) was a short

treatise on the rainbow.

All Spinoza's intellectual energy went into service of his philosophy.

His earliest philosophical work (rediscovered (1862) in translated Dutch

manuscript) was a _Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being_. It is

a fragmentary, uneven work, chiefly valuable for the insight it gives

into the workings and development of Spinoza's mind. The _Ethics_, in

the completed form in which we have it (no manuscript of it is extant)

has the incredible appearance of a system of philosophy sprung

full-grown from an unhesitating mind. Even a most cursory reading of the

_Short Treatise_ completely dispels this preposterous illusion. The

_Ethics_ was the product of prolonged and critical toil.

But just how prolonged it is difficult to say. For already as early as

1665 almost four-fifths of the _Ethics_ seems to have been written. We

learn as much from a letter Spinoza wrote to one of his friends

promising to send him the "third part" of his philosophy up to the

eightieth proposition. From the letter it is fairly clear that at that

time the _Ethics_ was divided into three, not five, parts. Also, in

letters written that same year to William Blyenbergh one finds expressed

some of the chief conclusions published five years later in the

_Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_. And Spinoza wrote, at this early

period, not conjecturally or speculatively, but as one writes who knows

the firm and tested grounds of his belief. Why the _Ethics_, in final

form, began to circulate privately only two or three years before

Spinoza's death, and why his work on _The Improvement of the

Understanding_ and his _Political Treatise_ were left unfinished, must

remain something of an insoluble philosophico-literary mystery.

The only book Spinoza published in his own lifetime above his own name

was his _Principles of Descartes' Philosophy Geometrically Demonstrated_

with an appendix of _Cogitata Metaphysica_ which he had dictated to a

youth (one "Caesarius") "to whom (he) did not wish to teach (his) own

opinions openly." Discretion, as he had already learned and later

formally stated and proved, was not inconsonant with rational valor. The

only other book Spinoza published in his lifetime--the _Tractatus

Theologico-Politicus_--bore on its title page Spinoza's initials only,

and the name of a fictitious Hamburg publisher. When Spinoza heard, some

time later, that a Dutch translation of this work was being prepared, he

earnestly beseeched his friends to forestall its publication (which they

did) because only its Latin dress saved it from being officially

proscribed. It was then an open secret who the author was. Spinoza's

personal rule to incur as little official displeasure as possible made

him abandon his final literary project entertained in 1675. When he

began negotiations for the publication of the _Ethics_ a rumor spread

that he had in press a book proving that God does not exist. Complaint

was lodged with the prince and magistrates. "The stupid Cartesians,"

Spinoza wrote Oldenburg "being suspected of favoring me, endeavored to

remove the aspersion by abusing every where my opinions and writings, a

course which they still pursue." In the circumstances, Spinoza thought

it wisest to delay publication till matters would change. But,

apparently, they did not change, or change sufficiently. The _Ethics_

was first published about a year after Spinoza's death.

In spite of the consensus of adverse, and somewhat vicious opinion, the

author of the _Tractatus_ did find favor in the eyes of some. The

Elector Palatine, Karl Ludwig, through his secretary Fabritius, offered

Spinoza the chair of philosophy at Heidelberg (1673). But Spinoza

graciously declined it. Although a more welcome or more honorable

opportunity to teach could not be conceived, it had never been his

ambition to leave his secluded station in life for one involving public

obligations. Even in his secluded corner, he found he had aroused more

public attention and sentiment than was altogether consonant with the

peace and retirement he sought. Besides, he did not know how well he

could fulfill the desires of the Elector by teaching nothing that would

tend to discomfit established religion.

Spinoza had, in his young days, learned what extreme dangers one must

expect to encounter in a righteous community become inimical. In his

last years, he experienced a stern and tragic reminder. Two of Spinoza's

best friends, Cornelius and Jan de Witt, who had by a change in

political fortune become the enemies of the people, were brutally

murdered (1672). Spinoza for once, when this occurred, lost his

habitual philosophic calm. He could restrain neither his tears nor his

anger. He had to be forcibly prevented from leaving his house to post a

bill, at the scene of the murder, denouncing the criminal mob. A

somewhat similar crisis recurred shortly afterwards when Spinoza

returned from a visit to the hostile French camp. The object of his

mission is not unequivocally known. Some think it was to meet the Prince

of Conde solely in his private capacity of philosopher. It is certain

Spinoza was advised the French King would acknowledge a dedicated book

by means of a pension--an advice Spinoza did not act upon. Others think

his mission was political. His reputation as a distinguished man would

have made him a very likely ambassador. This conjecture would seem more

probable, however, if the de Witts, his intimate friends, had been still

in political power, instead of in their graves. But whatever Spinoza's

mission was, when he returned to the Hague, the populace branded him a

French spy. Spinoza's landlord feared his house would be wrecked, by an

infuriated mob. This time Spinoza exerted the calming influence. He

assured Van der Spijck that if any attempt were made on the house he

would leave it and face the mob, even if they should deal with him as

they did with the unfortunate de Witts. He was a good republican as all

knew. And those in high political authority knew the purpose of his

journey. Fortunately, popular suspicion and anger dissipated this time

without a sacrifice. Still, the incident showed quite clearly that

though Spinoza did not desire to be a martyr, he was no more afraid to

die than he was to live for the principles he had at heart.

Spinoza's character, manifested in his life, has won the high admiration

of every one not bitterly hostile to him. And even his enemies

maintained and justified their hatred only by inventing calumnious

falsehoods about him. Unfounded rumors of an evil nature began to

circulate during his lifetime, and naturally increased in virulence and

volume after his death. At that period in human history, it was

popularly recognized that nothing good could be true, and nothing vile

could be false of an atheist--which was what Spinoza, of course, was

reputed to be. Oldenburg even, for years unflaggingly profuse in

expressions of devoted friendship and humble discipleship, an eager and

fearless advocate (supposedly) of the truth, a friend who lamented the

fact that the world was being denied the invaluable products of

Spinoza's unsurpassed intellect, and who, therefore, constantly urged

Spinoza, by all the advice of friendship, to publish his work without

delay, irrespective of popular prejudice--even Oldenburg began to

conceive a far from complimentary opinion of Spinoza after the

publication of the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_! So prevalent were

the groundless rumors that the Lutheran pastor, Colerus--the source of

most of our information--felt obliged in his very quaint summary

biography to defend the life and character of Spinoza. To his

everlasting credit, Colerus did this although he himself heartily

detested Spinoza's philosophy which he understood to be abhorrently

blasphemous and atheistic. Colerus' sources of information were the

best: he spoke to all who knew Spinoza at the Hague; and he himself was

intimate with the Van der Spijcks with whom Spinoza had lived the last

five years of his life, and with whom Colerus was now living--in

Spinoza's very room.

Spinoza's courage and strength of mind are as impressively manifested in

the constant daily life he lived as in the few severe crises he

resolutely faced. For the twenty years of his excommunication he lived

in comparative retirement, if not isolation. The frugality of his life

bordered on asceticism. All his free time and energy Spinoza dedicated

with unusual single-hearted devotion to the disinterested development of

a philosophy he knew would not be very acceptable to the general or even

special philosophic reader. His mode of life is all the more remarkable

because it was not determined by embittered misanthropy or passionate

abhorrence of the goods of the world. It was dictated solely by what he

understood to be, in his circumstances, the reasonable life for him.

Although he was an eager correspondent, and had many friends whom he

valued above all things that are external to one's own soul, his

interest in his own work kept him from carrying on, for any length of

time, an active social life. He believed, too, that it is part of the

wisdom of life to refresh oneself with pleasant food and drink, with

delicate perfumes and the soft beauty of growing things, with music and

the theater, literature and painting. But his own income was too slender

to allow him much of these temperate riches of a rational life. And

always, rather than exert himself to increase his income, he would

decrease his expenditure. Still, he no doubt enjoyed the little he had.

He found very palatable, most likely, the simple food he himself

prepared in later life; and he must have gained additional satisfaction

from the thought that he was, because of his own cooking, living more

safely within his means. The pipe he smoked occasionally (let us hope)

was fragrant; the pint of wine a month very delectable. For mental

recreation he read fairly widely in literature, observed the habits of

insects, with the microscope as well as the naked eye. He also sometimes

drew ink or charcoal sketches of his visitors and himself. A fairly

plausible rumor has it that Rembrandt was his teacher. Unfortunately,

all of Spinoza's sketches were destroyed.

Although Spinoza wanted to be independent and self-supporting he was not

irrationally zealous about it. He did not accept all the financial help

his friends were eager to give him, but he did accept some. One of his

young friends, Simon de Vries, before his early death occurred, wanted

to bequeath all of his estate to Spinoza. But Spinoza persuaded him not

to deprive his own brother of his natural inheritance. Even the annual

500 florins de Vries finally left him, Spinoza would not altogether

accept, offering the plea that so much wealth would surely take his mind

away from his philosophy. But he would accept 300 florins, a sum he felt

would not be burdensome or dangerous to his soul. This annuity he

regularly received until his death. His friends the de Witts, pensioned

him too; the heirs to the estate contested Spinoza's claim, whereupon

Spinoza promptly withdrew it. This high-minded action corrected their

covetousness, and from the de Witts, too, he received financial help

until his death.

Spinoza's relations with the humble folk he stayed with exhibited the

modesty and grace of character that endeared him to his intimate

friends. When he was tired working in his own room, he would frequently

come down to smoke a pipe and chat with his landlady and landlord about

the simple affairs that filled their lives. His speech was "sweet and

easy;" his manner of a gentle, noble, beauty. Except for the occasion

when the de Witts were murdered, Spinoza never showed himself either

unduly merry or unduly sad. If ever he found that his emotions were

likely to escape his wise control, he would withdraw until such danger

had passed. We find the same characteristics exhibited in Spinoza's

correspondence. Although he found some of his correspondents sometimes

very trying, he never failed to be as courteous and considerate as the

circumstances would permit. Even when one Lambert de Velthuysen provoked

his righteous indignation, Spinoza tempered his caustic reply before

sending it off.

Spinoza lived the ethics he wrote. As is the _Ethics_, so is his life

pervaded by a simple grandeur. And as he lived, so did he die. He had

not been feeling very well, and had sent for his friend and physician

Dr. Ludwig Meyer. A chicken broth was ordered for Spinoza of which he

partook quite healthily. No one suspected that he was this time fatally

ill. He came down in the morning, and spoke for some time with his

hosts. But when they returned from a visit that same afternoon (Sunday,

Feb. 21, 1677) they learned the sad, surprising news that Spinoza had

gently passed away, the only one by his bedside, his doctor and friend.

Spinoza sought in his lifetime neither riches, nor sensual pleasure, nor

fame. He wrote and published his books when he could and thought

advisable because part of his joy consisted in extending, as he said, a

helping hand to others, in bringing them to see and understand things as

he did. If they did not see, or obdurately refused to understand, he did

not consider it part of his task to overcome them. He was animated by no

missionary zeal. He was content to search for the truth and to explain

what he found as best he could. The truth, he devoutly believed, would

make us free. But it was truth that we understood, not truth that was

forced upon us. He was quite satisfied to leave in his desk the

manuscript of his _Ethics_. People in his lifetime did not want to

listen to him. If ever they did after his death, they were cordially

welcome to. In death as in life they would find him faithful to his

ideal.

Spinoza has often been likened to the old Hebrew prophets. He does not,

it is true, exhort the people to follow in the path of righteousness; it

is the philosopher's task simply to show the way. But the morality

Spinoza stands for is the old prophetic morality purified and made

consistent with itself. And Spinoza was, in his own time, as the

prophets were in theirs, a heretic and a rebel, a voice calling in the

wilderness--a wilderness that was later to become the very citadel of

civilization. Excommunicated by the Jews and vilified by the Gentiles

during his lifetime, Spinoza has, since his death, been canonized by

both alike as the most saintly and exalted of philosophers. Like his

forerunners of old, Spinoza was a prophet _in_ Israel, _for_ Mankind.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPINOZA

I

Spinoza's philosophy has suffered not a little from the highly abstruse

and technical form in which the _Ethics_ is written. Some, who are not

inured to the hardships of philosophy, quite naturally jump to the

conclusion that its formidable geometry contains only the most

inscrutable of philosophic mysteries; and a wise humility persuades them

to forego the unexampled enlightenment a mastery of the difficulties

would yield. Others, who are devoutly wedded to what they consider the

unreservedly empirical character of modern (that is, true) philosophy,

avoid the _Ethics_ because they are convinced, on general principles,

that only a mind hopelessly lost in the dark night of medieval

speculation could conceive of philosophy in such ultra-deductive

fashion. Reason was for so long servile to idle theology, it is not at

all surprising that a work exemplifying reason to such high degree as

does the _Ethics_, should receive scant respect from intrepid

empiricists. It is so easy to confuse the rationalizations of reason

with the nature of reason itself.

Spinoza did not, however, choose the geometrical order because he

thought his philosophy too profound for ordinary exposition; nor did he

choose it because he was enmeshed in medieval philosophic speculation.

He chose it because his fundamental philosophic aim was to establish

ethics on a thoroughly tested, scientific foundation; and geometry, an

exemplar of all mathematical science, most completely embodied, at that

time, the highest scientific ideal. Man, Spinoza held, is a part of

Nature, and Nature is governed by eternal and immutable laws. It must be

just as possible, therefore, to apply the mathematical method to man, as

it is to apply it to matter. It must be possible to determine, with the

certitude obtainable in the exact sciences, what things are good for man

and what means he has for attaining them.

Spinoza's belief in the self-sufficing, lawful order of Nature, and the

adequacy of the natural powers of our mind to understand the mysteries

(popularly so appraised) of heaven and earth, the singular expository

style of the _Ethics_ emphasizes in unmistakable fashion. Even for our

understanding of God's own nature, Divine Revelation, as commonly

interpreted in Spinoza's day and our own, is wholly unnecessary. We need

only the revelation afforded by the natural powers of reason operative

in us. In geometry, we do not blindly accept conclusions on faith, nor

do we reject them by authority. We are guided in our discovery of the

true and the false, solely by the light of our natural understanding.

And the truths we discover are not temporary fabrications of the human

mind, but eternal truths about the nature of things. Perhaps no other

single aspect of Spinoza's philosophy distinguishes Spinoza from the

medievalists as thoroughly as does his use of the geometrical order of

exposition; and no other single aspect, perhaps, justifies as

thoroughly Spinoza's claim to rank with the moderns if not even the

contemporaries.

The geometer's method of starting with definitions and axioms and

proceeding from proposition to proposition especially appealed to

Spinoza, apart from the fact that geometry was an ideal science,

because, for Spinoza, the essence of logical method consists in starting

out with ideas that are of utter simplicity. Then, if the ideas are

understood at all, they can only be clearly and distinctly understood.

The absolutely simple we can either know or not know. We cannot be

confused about it. And ideas which are clearly and distinctly understood

are, according to Spinoza, necessarily true. Such unambiguously simple

and therefore necessarily true ideas Spinoza believed his definitions

and axioms expressed. Furthermore, if we gradually build up the body of

our science by means of our initial simple ideas, justifying ourselves

at every step by adequate proof, our final result will necessarily be as

firmly established and as certainly true as the elementary ideas we

started with. The reliability of this whole procedure more than

compensates for its tediousness--a defect Spinoza expressly recognizes.

Unfortunately, however, there are other defects in the geometrical

method when it is applied to philosophy, far more serious than its

tediousness,--defects, moreover, Spinoza apparently did not recognize.

Even though the geometrical method is preeminently scientific, it is

hardly a form suitable for philosophy. The Euclidean geometer can take

it for granted that the reader understands what a line or plane, a solid

or an angle is. For formality, a curt definition is sufficient. But the

philosopher's fundamental terms and ideas are precisely those in need of

most careful and elaborate elucidation--something which cannot be given

in a formal definition or axiom. Also, in the geometrical form, the

burden of the author's attention is shifted from the clarification of

the propositions to the accurate demonstration of them. Which, in a

philosophical treatise, is most unfortunate. For though it is

undoubtedly highly desirable that the philosopher should observe the

same care and precision as the scientist, admitting nothing he cannot

prove, it is nevertheless just as well for the philosopher to take

reasonable care that what he is conscientiously proving is understood.

That Spinoza did not always take such care but considerably

over-estimated the self-evidence of his definitions and axioms and the

simplicity of many of his important propositions, is an unhappy fact

conclusively established by the increasing volume of Spinozistic

literature.

II

However, in spite of the difficult, and to the literary repellent form

of the _Ethics_, the catholicity of Spinoza's influence has been

extremely remarkable. In time, his influence bids fair to equal in

range, if not in gross extent, the as yet unparalleled influence of the

artist-philosopher Plato. It took about a hundred years for Spinoza to

come into something of his own. For the _Ethics_ was condemned with the

_Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_ as an atheistic and immoral work. Only

when the romantic philosophers of Germany, following the lead of

Lessing and Jacobi, found in Spinoza a man who was, as they thought,

after their own heart, did Spinoza's mundane fortune change. As a result

of their efforts, Spinoza ceased to be a philosopher to be execrated in

public (though furtively read in private), and became a philosopher to

be eulogized on all occasions in most rhapsodic, if bewildering, terms.

Many others too, besides professional philosophers, began to read

Spinoza with much sympathy and unbounded admiration. Goethe, Matthew

Arnold, Heine, George Eliot, Flaubert, Coleridge, and Shelley--to

mention only a few distinguished lay names--found in Spinoza a powerful,

stimulating and, in varying degrees, congenial thinker. To-day, after

having been one of the liberating thinkers of mankind who was read but

not honored, Spinoza is fast becoming one of the canonized of mankind

who are honored but not read.

The reason for Spinoza's magnificent influence is not difficult to

discover: his philosophy deals in a grand, illuminating way with all

that is of profoundest importance in human life. There is no material

the universe offers for man's life but Spinoza seeks to understand and

explain its rational function and utility. For Spinoza set before

himself the hard task of laying down the principles whereby men may

guide themselves aright in all the affairs of life--the lowest as well

as the highest. His philosophy, as a result, is at once the most exalted

and the most matter of fact. There is no high sentiment or glorious

ideal to which Spinoza does not give proper attention and a proper

place. And yet he propounds nothing in his ethical theory that cannot

be clearly seen by reason and that cannot be fully substantiated by the

history of man. Spinoza's ethics is perfectly balanced, eminently sane.

And there is, pervading it all, a stately sustained resolution of mind,

a royal, often religious spirit and calm.

And Spinoza's thought, if not all of his terminology, is refreshingly

modern and contemporary. We find in him, as in contemporaries, an utter

reliance upon the powers of the human mind. All dogmatism, in the

pristine connotation of unexamined adherence to the doctrines of

tradition, is absent from his thought. Spinoza is thoroughly critical,

for only modern philosophic arrogance, in first full bloom in Kant, can

justly monopolize the term "critical" for itself. Naturally, though,

Spinoza is unfamiliar with the whole apparatus and style of philosophic

thinking which the last two centuries of excessively disputatious and

remarkably inconclusive philosophy have created. Spinoza has his own

technical philosophic style, inherited to some extent, but to a much

larger extent transformed by him for original use. But technical as his

style may be, it is simplicity itself when compared with the horrific

styles which were, until the last few decades, alone thought adequate to

express the profound and esoteric mysteries of modern philosophy. The

philosophic jargon of the 18th. and 19th. centuries is now almost

universally discarded, and with it preternaturally recondite and

ineffectual modes of thought. Those who have achieved at least some of

the new simplicity in thought and expression are better able than any

others to enter into the heart of Spinoza's philosophy, into the open

secret of his thought. For apart from the mere stylistic difficulties

of the _Ethics_ and some detail of his metaphysical doctrine, the few

great and simple ideas which dominate his philosophy are quite easy to

understand--especially if one uses the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_

as an introduction to them. It was an unexpressed maxim with Spinoza

that even at the risk of keeping our heads empty it is necessary we keep

our minds simple and pure.

III

The central controlling idea of Spinoza's philosophy is that all things

are necessarily determined in Nature, which he conceives to be an

absolutely infinite unified and uniform order. Instead of maintaining

that God is like man magnified to infinity, who has absolute,

irresponsible control of a universe which is external to him--the rather

rude anthropomorphic account of the ultimate nature of the universe

contained in the Bible--Spinoza maintains that God is identical with the

universe and must be and act according to eternal and necessary laws.

God is Nature, if we understand by Nature not merely infinite matter and

infinite thought,--the two attributes of Nature specifically known to

us--but infinite other attributes the precise character of which we can

never, because of our finitude, comprehend. Within this Being--God,

Nature or Substance (the more technical, philosophic term)--there is no

dichotomy; and there is outside of it no regulative or coercive

intelligence such as the Biblical God is conceived to be. Whatever is,

is one. And it is, in the special Spinozistic sense, supremely perfect

because absolutely real. There is, considered in its totality, no lack

or defect in Nature. There can be, therefore, no cosmic purposes, for

such purposes would imply that Nature is yet unfinished, or unperfected,

that is, not completely real. Something that cannot possibly be true of

an absolutely infinite Being.

Spinoza's conception of an absolutely infinite universe is a vast

improvement upon the pent-in, finite medieval universe inherited from

Aristotle. It exceeds by infinity, in breadth of vision, even our

contemporary notion of an infinite physical cosmos. And his conception

of universal necessity is as great an advance upon the view that

transformed natural occurrences into miraculous events. Miracles,

according to the Bible, most clearly exemplify God's omnipotence; for

omnipotence in the popular mind consists in nothing so much as in the

ability to satisfy any purpose or whim no matter how transitory it is,

or how incompatible with what has been antecedently desired or done.

Miracles may be extraordinary occurrences with reference to the order of

Nature, but they are, with reference to God, commonplace exhibitions of

His Almighty power. For Spinoza, however, miracles, did they actually

occur, would exhibit not God's power, but His impotence. The omnipotence

of the one absolutely infinite Being is not shown by temperamental

interruptions of the course of events; it is manifested in the immutable

and necessary laws by which all things come to pass.

Spinoza's conception of the universe, flawlessly operating under

necessary laws, effectively disposes of miracles. And to dispose of

miracles is one of Spinoza's primary concerns. For as long as miracles

happen, organized knowledge and rational control--the bases of a

rational life--are both impossible for man.

If events were not absolutely conditioned by the determinate nature of

things, instead of science, we should have superstition, and magic

instead of scientific control. When a god governs the universe according

to his transitory and altogether personal whims, or when chance, without

a god, reigns, man is hopelessly at the mercy of the flux of events. In

the conduct of his affairs memory is of no use to him, and forethought

is impossible. In such cases man, as we read in his history, and could

easily conclude from his nature, piteously grasps for salvation at

whatever happens his way. All things are then loaded with ominous powers

the strength of which is directly proportionate to the hope or fear that

enthralls him. If the universe were lawless, the irony of man's fate

would forever be what it was when he lived in abysmal ignorance: when in

bitterest need of sane guidance, he would be most prone to trust to the

feeblest and most irrational of aids. On the other hand, if things are

determined by necessity, nothing happening either miraculously or by

chance, science and a commensurate power of scientific control is

possible for man. No more important argument could Spinoza conceive in

favor of his doctrine.

IV

But the very doctrine which Spinoza placed at the heart of his

philosophy because of the inestimable advantages man could derive from

it, people loudly objected to on the ground that it robbed man's life of

all moral and religious value. Determinism, they exclaimed, reduces man

to the rank of inanimate Nature; without "free-will" man is no better

than a slave, his life doomed by an inexorable fate. True enough,

nothing is more abhorrent or more deadly to the striving soul of man

than to be bound in a fatalistic doctrine. But the anti-determinists

wildly confuse a perverted determinism of ends with a scientific

determinism of means. And only the former determinism is truly

fatalistic. This confusion is to be found equally central in Henry

Oldenburg's inconsequential letters to Spinoza and in Bernard Shaw's

shamelessly silly Preface to _Back to Methuselah_. Fundamental

confusions remain astonishingly stable throughout the centuries.

Spinoza, when he maintained that all things are necessarily determined

by the laws of their own being, certainly did not mean to say that, for

example, the toothbrush I shall buy to-morrow will be determined by the

stellar dust of aeons ago. He did not wish to maintain that the infinite

occurrences of the past were slowly but persistently moving to that far

from divine or distant event. No aboriginal astronomer royal could have

predicted the pending purchase merely by exhaustively analyzing the then

stellar dust. For toothbrushes and their purchase are determined by the

nature of human beings, not by the nature of embryonic stars. And

Spinoza's doctrine of necessity maintains that all events are determined

by their proper causes, not that everything is immediately caused by

some antediluvian event. And this is true even though we can start from

any event in the present, no matter how trivial, and go back to an event

causally antecedent, and from that to another, even until we recede into

the stellar dust itself. But this only amounts to saying, what is

undoubtedly true, that neither I nor the toothbrush could now exist if

the stellar dust, and the whole series of intervening events, had not

existed. But this is totally different from saying that the stellar dust

existed that I might exist to-day and buy a toothbrush to-morrow, or,

what equals the same, that I and the toothbrush exist so that the

stellar dust and the exceedingly long consequence of natural events

should have a final purpose, an ultimate end--even if not an ideal

fulfillment. Now only when causality, as in the latter case, is

perversely teleological is determinism fatalistic. Fatalism is the

result only when the ends of activity are necessarily but arbitrarily

determined. But when causality is not arbitrarily teleological, or when

only the natures of things, the instruments or means of activity are

necessarily determined, then determinism involves no fatalism at all.

The only truly fatalistic systems which have had an important influence

in the history of mankind, have been certain religious systems--the

Christian religion among them. The energies of western men were, for

over fourteen centuries, robbed of all vitality and meaning because

Christian theology irrevocably fixed the end of life, and man could do

nothing to alter it significantly in any respect. Arbitrary teleological

determinism is, in the Christian religion, the philosophic root of other

worldliness. And it was no alleviation of the state of affairs that

miracles could happen in the realm of Nature, that is, that Nature was

not determined, but was undetermined, accidental, or "free." On the

contrary, it was a decided aggravation that there existed side by side

with a perverse teleological determinism for the other world, an

instrumental indeterminism for this world. For the latter served as

effectively to put the means of man's life, as the former did to put his

end, out of his present reach and control.

Contrast the modern and contemporary Christian period with the medieval

and pre-medieval Christian period. What a vast difference there is! With

the introduction of the modern period man's energies were almost

instantaneously liberated. And why? Because of Chancellor Bacon's

discovery of the value of empirical investigation? Hardly. For this

discovery had been made long before Bacon. But it was only after Bacon

that the discovery had a great effect because an enormous intellectual

transformation had already partly taken place in the time between the

first medieval discovery of the empirical method and Bacon's

proclamation of it. The enormous change was that determinism had been

transferred from ends to means; and indeterminism from means to ends.

Mathematical physics had, as a system for explaining Nature, supplanted

theology.

With scientific determinism firmly established in the realm of Nature

and arbitrary determinism thoroughly disestablished in the realm of

ends, the two-fold fatality that crushed man with its oppressive power,

automatically disappeared. On the one hand, the world ceased to be

haunted by demonic powers; it was no longer a miraculous world subject

constantly to capricious perturbations. It was no longer a world alien

to man's nature and it therefore ceased to be sheerly brutal to him. For

the world is brutal only as long as we do not understand it. As soon as

we do, it ceases to be brutal, and becomes quite human, if not humane.

Knowledge transmutes a brute existent into a rational instrumentality.

And, on the other hand, man could now espouse any end consonant with his

nature. He was no longer bound and dwarfed by an alien, superimposed end

which is just as sheerly brutal to man's soul as an alien world is

sheerly brutal to man's body.

Of course, the ends that are consonant with man's nature are determined

by his nature, so that it may seem we have not really escaped the

fatality of "determinism." This is, however, only seemingly so. Because,

according to the teleological determinism of Christian theology the ends

were fixed independently of the natures that were to fulfill them; just

as, according to instrumental indeterminism events were caused

independently of the natures of the things that caused them. Otherwise

there would be nothing miraculous about miracles and nothing virtuous

about Calvinism. But if the ends are the ends of our natures,--that is,

if teleological determinism is not perverse and arbitrary but rational

and scientific--we are, as Spinoza constantly points out, free. Only

when we are subject to alien ends or the ends of alien natures are we

enslaved. For freedom is not opposed to necessity or determinism; it is

only opposed to an alien necessity or alien determinism. Freedom

consists not in absolute indetermination, but in absolute

self-determination. And self-determination is the very last thing that

can be called fatalistic.

Because Spinoza knew that freedom consists in self-determination he was

saved from falling into the absurdities of Rousseau's "Back to Nature"

doctrine even though Nature is, for Spinoza, the origin of everything

and its laws, the only laws that are divine. Still, the purpose and

conduct of man's life, if they are to be rational, must be defined by

man's nature not by any other nature; if man is to be free, he must be

guided by the particular laws of his own being, not by the laws of any

other being least of all by the general laws of so totally dissimilar a

being as absolutely infinite Nature. There is as much sense and

rationality in exhorting us to go back to the Realm of Nature, as there

is in exhorting us to go on to the City of God.

There is, in Spinoza's system, no teleological determinism (in the

perverted theological usage explained above); but neither is there, in

Spinoza's system, any "free-will" for man. And the hue and cry that is

always raised when "free-will" is denied, was raised against Spinoza.

The clamorous moralists protest that "free-will" is the necessary

(_sic!_) foundation of all morality, and hence of religion. This is the

starting point of Bernard Shaw's no less than of Henry Oldenburg's

infuriated argument. And, unfortunately, no less a thinker than William

James starts from the same misguided assumption. And yet nothing can be

more certainly clear than that if man as a matter of fact has no

"free-will" it is the very height of absurdity to maintain that man's

morality necessarily depends upon his having "free-will." Something man

does not possess cannot be made any condition, let alone _the_

indispensable condition of his being able to live a moral life. Man's

morality must be based upon his nature; and what his nature is cannot be

antecedently determined in accordance with the demands of any special

moral theory. Moral theory must be based upon man's nature; not man's

nature upon moral theory.

Far from "free-will" being a necessary foundation of morality

"free-will" would make all morality, of the kind we know and the

"free-will"-ists want, absolutely impossible. The central condition of

moral life is responsibility. So central is it, that it is now

acknowledged as such in all the penal codes of civilized countries. But

if man has, instead of a determinate nature, "free-will", responsibility

can in no way be fixed. Education, too, is necessarily impossible. Hence

all punishment would have to be retributive. Moral strife, as well as

legal penalties, would bear all the stigmata of unmitigated, imbecilic

cruelty. This is not the case however if man has an absolutely

determinate nature. Education is possible. And therefore although crime

loses none of its evil character, punishment can lose all of its inhuman

sting. The necessary condition of human morality is responsibility not

irresponsibility; reliability not unreliability; certainty not

uncertainty; a firm will, not a "free" will.

"Free-will" is necessary only in theological apologetics. According to

Christian theology, if man did not have "free-will" it would follow that

God is the Author of all the evil of the world. Something which is not

quite in keeping with His perfect goodness. By a queer twist of mind,

theologians therefore gave man, and not God (as they should have done)

"free-will." But they gave man "free-will" not to enable him to live

virtuously, but to enable him to sin. If man were able to live

virtuously as well as sinfully of his own "free-will" he would then be

altogether independent of God, which can in no way be admitted or

allowed. Hence the bitter and heart-rending cries of orthodox,

especially evangelical ministers that if left to themselves they can

only sin! They can live virtuously only when they are absolutely coerced

so to live by God! Their radical inability to understand or believe the

self-reliant moral person grows from the very heart of their theology.

For "free-will"--the only freedom they know--is the necessary condition,

not of man's morality, but of God's!

There is no fatalism in Spinoza's system. Fatalism is the moral value of

a theory of the universe. That theory is fatalistic, which makes the

activities man cherishes either futile or impossible. Any system that

puts man at the mercy of the flux of events does precisely this. This is

necessarily done by a system according to which the universe does not

faithfully observe an immutable order, does not obey certain fixed and

eternal laws. Nothing is as fatal as an accident; no universe as

fatalistic as an accidental universe.

There is no fatalism in Spinoza's system because there are no accidents

in Spinoza's universe. All things are necessarily determined by

immutable laws, and man, who is an integral part of the universe, is

necessarily without "free-will." In Spinoza's system, ends, being

undetermined (as contrasted with their being determined in the

theological sense explained above) they can exercise no fatalistic

power; and means, although determined (in the strict scientific sense)

are similarly impotent because they are, in the life of man, subordinate

to ends. Consequently, Spinoza was able to write upon Human Freedom with

a truth and clarity and force excelling by far all theological,

teleological, "free-will," idealistic philosophers from Plato to Josiah

Royce. Spinoza was able to write thus because, not in spite of the fact

that he placed at the heart of his philosophy the doctrine of necessity;

because, not in spite of the fact that he developed the only complete

system of philosophy strictly consistent with the principles of natural

science or mathematical physics. Spinoza is, perhaps, the only

thoroughly emancipated, the only thoroughly modern and scientific

philosopher that ever lived. And he is, much more certainly, the only

thoroughly emancipated, the only thoroughly modern and scientific

ethicist that ever lived.

To-day, in view of the extensive dominion and authority of science, the

objections against Spinoza's doctrine of necessity can hardly be as

self-righteous and as loud as they were two centuries ago. The principle

of the uniformity of Nature has become the established foundation of

natural science. And it is also acknowledged, except in the recent ranks

of superstition, that man is a part of Nature, not independent of it.

Man's connection with Nature is, in Spinoza's system, at least as

intimate as it is in the latest system of natural science. The original

doctrine of the origin of species, Spinoza would have found entirely in

harmony with his general philosophy, although what he would have thought

of subsequent evolutionary extravaganzas, it is impossible to say.

Darwinian biology made man consubstantial with the animal kingdom;

Spinoza's metaphysics makes man's body consubstantial with the infinite

attribute of extension or matter, and his mind consubstantial with the

infinite attribute of thought which is the mind of Nature or God. Man,

as a "mode" of extension and thought, is necessarily subject to the laws

of these two attributes of which he is compounded. The fundamental

relation of man to the universe, set forth in the Bible, is radically

transformed. Man is no longer an only child of God, enjoying his

privileges and protection (occasionally tempered by inexperienced

punishments); he is a mode of two attributes of substance inexorably

determined by their universal, immutable laws.

V

Of all the laws of the universe, it was Spinoza's chief object to discover

the mental laws. That there were such laws his metaphysics assured him;

and the existence to-day of a science of psychology substantiates his

belief. The most popular of recent psychologies--Freudianism--is based

upon the principle that nothing whatever happens in the mental life of

man, waking or asleep, that is not specifically determined by

ascertainable causes. Psychoanalytic therapy would be impossible

otherwise. Psychiatry, too, has conclusively demonstrated that only

metaphorically is the subject matter it deals with in the region of the

"abnormal." Actually, the insane are subject to laws of behavior which can

be scientifically studied no less than the sane. They are no more

possessed of an evil, designing spirit, as our witch-burning ancestors

consistently believed, than the ordinary human being is possessed of

"free-will."

Spinoza's psychology is dialectical. But it is no indictment of his

psychology to point out that it is. It is true, his formal definition of

sorrow, for instance, fails supremely to touch the strings of a

sympathetic heart. But the philosophical psychologist is not a novelist.

The recent claim that "literary psychology" is the only valid

psychology, is as well founded as the claim would be that only a

"literary physics" is valid. Mathematical physics gives us no more a

picture of the actual physical universe than Spinoza's psychology gives

us a picture of the mental and emotional life of an actual human being.

But the failure of these sciences to give us a picture of the living

world in no way invalidates their truth, or deprives them of their

utility.

Consider, as an example, Spinoza's psychological law freely expressed in

the dictum that Paul's idea of Peter tells us more about Paul than about

Peter. This conclusion follows strictly from fundamental principles of

Spinoza's abstract, dialectical psychology; but its truth or its

practical applicability is because of that not in the least impaired.

Indeed, because of its dialectical form its range of meaning is greatly

increased. Spinoza's dictum applies to what William James called the

"psychologist's fallacy." It also applies to what John Ruskin called the

"pathetic fallacy." Again, it applies to the fallacy Franz Boas exposed

and which he may justly have called the "anthropologist's fallacy." And

it applies also to what one may, with a great deal of benefit, dub the

"ethicist's fallacy." For the very same constitutional weakness of man

to identify confusedly his own nature with that of the object he is

contemplating or studying, is most flagrantly and painfully evident in

the fields of theoretical and practical ethics. The "ethicist's fallacy"

is the source of all absolutism in theory, and all intolerance in

practice.

All four fallacies just enumerated come under Spinoza's dictum as

special cases come under a general law. And these four are by no means

the only instances of the common habit of mind. From no field of human

endeavor is the mischief-working fallacy ever absent. We find it lodged

in the judge's decision, the propagandist's program, the historian's

record, the philosopher's system. In the field of metaphysical poetry it

has recently been identified by Santayana as "normal madness." In its

milder forms, the fallacy is now known by every one as the "personal

equation"; in its pronounced, abnormal manifestations it is known by the

psychoanalysts as "transference." It is a Protean fallacy woven into the

emotional texture of the human mind. Nothing, for it, is sacred enough

to be inviolate. For Spinoza discovered it sanctimoniously enshrined

even in the Sacred Scriptures. As he brilliantly shows us in the

_Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_, the prophets' ideas about God tell us

more about the prophets than about God.

The far-reaching significance of Spinoza's propositions is one of their

most remarkable characteristics. This is due to the fact, contemporary

philological philosophers notwithstanding, that Spinoza defined the

essence, the generating principle, not the accidental qualities, of the

human mind.

Another example may not be out of place. Spinoza's proposition that

anything may be accidentally (in the philosophic sense of "accident") a

cause of pleasure, pain, or desire seems to explain the essence of all

the particular variations of the psychological phenomena known now by

all who have been aroused to the significance of their vagrant cryptic

slumbers, as the phenomena of symbolism, sublimation, and fetich

worship. Spinoza's proposition explains all the phenomena adequately

because among the fundamental human emotions, Spinoza like Freud--if we

discount the recent attempt to go beyond the pleasure-principle--reckons

only three: desire, pleasure and pain. And with Spinoza, as with the

Freudians, it sometimes seems that desire is more fundamental than the

other two, for desire expresses, in Spinoza's terminology, the essence

of man. Desire however may be stimulated by almost anything. It requires

the least sanity of mind, therefore, to prevent one from scandalously

over-emphasizing one particular class of objects--of desire.

The striking similarity, if not identity, between Spinoza's

psychological doctrines and those of contemporaries, serves to give

conclusive lie to the crass contemporary contention that Truth

instinctively shuns the philosophical study, and that she only favors

the laboratory or clinic where she freely comes and frankly discloses

herself to the cold, impersonal embrace of mechanical instruments.

It is not altogether fortuitously that Spinoza's psychology embraces so

readily contemporary psychological conceptions. Spinoza made a

psychological, if not psychoanalytical, analysis of some portions of

Scripture. And Scripture is a very rich human material. Besides having

to explain the diverse and conflicting accounts the different Scriptural

authors gave of the nature of God, Spinoza had to account for the

superstitious beliefs commonly held by men that are incorporated in the

Bible--the beliefs in omens, devils, angels, miracles, magical rites.

Spinoza had to account for all these by means of his analysis of human

nature since he would not grant the existence of supernatural beings and

powers. Spinoza's psychology adequately performs the task. His

psychology demonstrates with unsurpassed thoroughness and clarity how

human emotions, when uncontrolled in any way by intelligence, naturally

attach themselves to all sorts of bizarrely irrelevant and absurd

things, and stimulate the imagination to endow these things with all the

qualities and powers the disturbed hearts of ignorant men desire.

Ignorant and frustrated man, Spinoza showed, frantically dreams with his

eyes open.

VI

Spinoza's method in psychology is dialectical, but his interest is

practical. His psychology one might almost say is a moral psychology.

Spinoza wants to explain mental phenomena through their primary causes

because a knowledge of man's nature is the radical cure for his ills.

The greatest obstacle man has to contend against is his emotional

nature. Not that it is inherently degraded or sinful--the grotesque

superstition some religious moralists have maintained; but man's

emotional nature masters, more often than not, man's rational nature,

and leads man astray. When the emotions are unrestrained and undirected

by knowledge and intelligence, they violently attach themselves to

anything that chances to excite them. Their stark immediacy vitiates

man's judgment. He is unable, while under their sway, to select and

follow the course that is best, because his mind is engulfed in the

evanescent present. In his hectic desire to gain the passing pleasure,

man loses his ultimate good.

But man's salvation, just as much as his damnation, is within his own

control. Salvation or blessedness is something man can achieve by his

own efforts; it is not something he can achieve only by Divine Grace.

For it is no innate perversion of soul, no inherent wickedness of man,

no malicious "free-will" that causes him to follow the lure of the Devil

rather than the light of God. The very elements in man's nature which

cause him to fall are the means by which he can make himself rise. He

can pit one emotion against another and the stronger will not merely

win, but will win over, the weaker. And it is in the nature of the

emotions not to have only one satisfying object, but to be able to

derive satisfaction from almost any object whatsoever. The most

spiritual forms of human love have the same emotional foundations as the

most bestial forms of human lust.

To learn how to become master of one's emotions, to learn how to free

oneself from their bondage, is, therefore, the primary condition of

sustained and rational happiness. The key to virtue, Spinoza

independently agreed with Socrates, is knowledge of oneself. Only when

we understand ourselves can we control our emotions. And only when we

have our emotions under control are we able consistently to direct our

activity towards a definite, rational goal. Our activity then follows

from our own nature, and not from the nature of external things which

arouse our emotions and determine their strength. And, as already

noticed, to be the necessary cause of our own activity is, according to

Spinoza, to be free.

It is impossible, of course, for man ever to be the sole cause of his

activity. To be such, he would have to be an entirely independent

being--an absolute power--something he can never be. No matter how

eloquently misguided enthusiasts extol the powerful merits of man's

"free-will" it will always be true that man's emotions, sensations and

ideas change very significantly with the organic changes that occur in

his body. The emotions, sensations and ideas of a child differ from

those of a man, and those of a man in maturity differ from those of a

man decrepit with old age. And these and similar changes are quite

beyond the control of man.

However, without denying man's intimate dependence upon Nature, it is

still possible to distinguish between those activities which follow, in

an important degree, from a man's individual nature--whatever it may

happen to be at the time--and those activities which follow only from

his own nature in conjunction with the nature of other things. The

movement of my pen on paper would be impossible without the general

order of Nature which allows such phenomena as motion, pen and paper, to

exist. Nevertheless, I can profitably distinguish between the movement

of my pen on paper and the movement of my body through stellar space.

The former movement follows, in an important sense, from my own peculiar

constitution; the latter, from the constitution of the stellar system.

Likewise, but more significantly for human welfare, one can distinguish

broadly between the activities and the passivities of the mind; between

man as an agent, a doer--man's intellect; and man as a patient, a

sufferer--man's passions. In this creative age such distinction should

be singularly easy to draw. In moral terminology one can distinguish

between man as free and man as enslaved.

Since man can never be the sole cause of his activity, he can never be

wholly free. The range of human power is extremely limited, and Spinoza

is ever careful to point that out. Spinoza is no incurable optimist, no

Leibnizian Pangloss who believes this is, for man, the best of all

possible worlds. To be humanly idealistic it is by no means necessary to

be super-humanly utopian. But neither is Spinoza a shallow

Schopenhauerian pessimist. Spinoza's realistic appraisal of man's

worldly estate is entirely free from all romantic despair. This world is

no more the worst than it is the best of all possible worlds for man.

Although man cannot completely alter his evil estate, he can better it.

And the wisdom of philosophy consists in recognizing this fact and

discovering what ways and means there are for bringing such betterment

about.

This Spinoza has in mind throughout the devious courses of his

philosophy. It is present to him when he delineates the character of

Nature or God, when he outlines the nature of the mind and its emotions,

no less than when he specifically addresses himself to the task of

describing the way to the highest blessedness of man. Indeed, so intent

is Spinoza upon reaching his ethical goal, and making all his doctrines

contributory to it, he purposely omits to treat of many philosophical

problems because they are, though interesting in themselves, of too

little value for the conduct of man's life. His philosophical system, as

a result, is in many respects merely sketched in massive outline.

VII

The dominant ethics of Christian civilization has made a special point

of disregarding the intimate connection that exists between human nature

and rational conduct. Morality has been identified, not with living a

life according to a rational plan and an adequate conception of an ideal

form of human existence, but with a strained attempt to live in

accordance with an inherited system of coercive social habits. Of this

morality, the Puritan is the popular type. Only in quite recent years

has some advance been made back to the sane naturalistic conception of

morals which is found in the Greeks and also in Spinoza.

It is a fundamental point with Spinoza that the ceremonial law, as he

puts it in the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_, can at best secure man

wealth and social position. Man's highest blessedness can be secured by

the divine law of Nature alone. Here Spinoza and Rousseau are at one.

It was relevant to Spinoza's purpose to treat only of religious

ceremonial law; but his conclusions apply with equal force and relevancy

to social and political ceremonial law as well. Spinoza's distinction

between ceremonial and divine law is peculiarly significant and

illuminating when applied to marriage. For to-day in marriage, if

anywhere, is it glaringly evident that the legal or religious or social

ceremonial law can at best secure man or woman wealth and social

position. Happiness or blessedness lie altogether beyond its powerful

reach. Marriage is sanctified and made blessed not by the ceremonial law

of priest or city clerk but by the divine law of love. Natural love, or

love free from all ceremonial coercions, is not merely not a

questionable source of marital happiness: it is the only source. The

ceremonial law, the legal or religious marriage custom, has nothing

whatsoever to do with human happiness. If by "free" love is meant love

free from all legal, social and religious ceremonial restraints, then

free love is, according to Spinoza, the only basis of rational marriage.

No man ever treasured the joys of the spirit more than did Spinoza; but

he did not because of that nourish a savage antagonism against the body.

The very bases of his philosophy of the mind saved him from any such

disastrous folly. What Havelock Ellis says "We know at last" Spinoza

knew all the time--"that it must be among our chief ethical rules to see

that we build the lofty structure of human society on the sure and

simple foundations of man's organism." It is because Spinoza knew this

so thoroughly and remembered it so well that he devotes so much of his

attention to the nature of the human mind and the human emotions in a

treatise on ethics.

Mind and body are not intrinsically alien or inimical to one another.

They are cooeperative expressions of the one reality. The mind is the

idea of the body and "in proportion as one body is better adapted than

another to do or suffer many things, in the same proportion will the

mind, at the same time, be better adapted to perceive many things."

Purely psychologically, all that we can ever discover about the

regulating influence glands have upon personality can only go to

corroborate, not to improve this general position. And morally, the

implications are equally far-reaching and profound.

The virtue of the mind is not to despise or reject but to understand and

transform. And it clearly must be more excellent for the mind to know

both itself and the body than it is for the mind to know itself alone.

For natural science is the result when the mind organizes into a system

what are, in their own nature, simply apprehensions of bodily

existences; and art is the result when the mind transfuses with an ideal

quality of its own what are, in their own nature, simply apprehensions

of bodily excellences of form or motion, color or sound. Matter is, in

its nature, no more hostile to spirit than body is alien to mind.

Paradise is not a non-or super-physical realm; it is a physical realm

made harmonious with the ideality of the soul. Spirit is an

appreciation, a transmutation of matter. For the lover, the physical

embrace is a spiritual revelation.

The fundamental metaphysical law from which Spinoza's ethical system

flows is that everything endeavors to persist in its own being. This law

is the metaphysical equivalent of the first law of motion in physics

which is itself the equivalent of the law of identity in logic. By his

law Spinoza does not mean anything which anticipates the

nineteenth-century doctrine of the competitive struggle for existence.

On the contrary, nothing is so clear to Spinoza as the fact that the

most efficient way of preserving one's own being is not by competitive

but by cooeperative activity. Especially is this true of human beings. By

his own efforts a solitary man cannot, even after he has been nursed to

maturity, maintain himself in a decent manner. Certainly he is unable

successfully to resist his foes. But with the aid of his fellows man can

develop a highly complex and tolerably stable civilization, all the

excellences of which he can enjoy at the comparatively small risk of

becoming a victim of its dangers. Social organization is the natural

expression of man's fundamental endeavor to preserve himself. A perfect

social organization naturally expresses the highest form of human

existence--individualism without anarchy and communism without

oppression.

Consistent with his primary law of being, Spinoza defines virtue not in

terms of negations, inhibitions, deficiencies or restraints; virtue he

defines in terms of positive human qualities compendiously called human

power. Virtue is power, however, not in the sense of the Renaissance

ideal of "manliness" as we glimpse it, for instance, in Benvenuto

Cellini; nor is it power in the vulgar sense of dominion which seems to

be the confused ideal of some ultra-contemporaries; virtue is power in

the sense of the Greek ideal that virtue is human excellence. It was

therefore very natural for Nietzsche who consciously went back to the

Greeks to hail Spinoza as his only philosophical forerunner, the only

philosopher who dwelt with him on the highest mountain-tops, perilous

only for those who are born for the base valleys of life. And it was

equally natural for Nietzsche to fail to see the important differences

between his own violent and turbid thinking and the sure and disciplined

thinking of Spinoza--on those very points upon which Nietzsche thought

they agreed.

Perfection and imperfection are, in Spinoza's thought, identical with

the real and the unreal. The perfect is the completed, the perfected;

the imperfect, the uncompleted, the unperfected. These terms have, in

their first intention, no specifically ethical significance. Nature is

perfect, that is, absolutely real or completed; but in no intelligible

sense is Nature ethically good. However, it is possible to convert

non-ethical into ethical terms. We can do this by designating, for

example, a certain type of character as the "perfect" type. If we reach

that type we are perfect or supremely "good"; insofar as we fall short

of it, we are imperfect, or "bad."

Just what constitutes human excellence is determined in each case by the

specific nature and relations of the individual involved. The excellence

of a child is not that of a man; and the excellence of a free man

differs from that of a slave. For the parent, the perfect child is

docile, beautiful and full of promise; for the ruler, the perfect man

is industrious, respectful of law and order, eager to pay taxes and go

to war; for the free man, the perfect man is a rational being, living a

harmonious life in knowledge and love of himself, his neighbor and God.

Moreover, within any one class the excellences vary in harmony with the

variations in the individuals. There is no excellence in general.

But because ethical standards are quite human and vary, they do not

lack, therefore, all validity. They are within their range of

applicability, absolute, even though they are, in a more comprehensive

universe, relative. A just appreciation of the relative nature, but

absolute value of specific ethical judgments, is above all things

vitally necessary in ethics. Such appreciation saves the ethicist from

the pernicious fallacy of erecting personal preferences into universal

laws; and it also saves him from falling into the ethical abyss where

all things are of equal value because all things are equally vain.

Ethical tolerance is different from ethical sentimentality. Every one

has the sovereign natural right to cherish the excellence in harmony

with his character. But the equality extends no further. A comprehensive

estimate of the powers of the mind can be made and they can be arranged

in a series of increasing value. No arrangement can ever be absolutely

final and authoritative, for what one free man considers the highest

perfection of human life, another will consider to be only of secondary

importance. Still, all free men will agree that certain powers of the

mind are superior to others. But superiority is not rationally endowed

with legislative power over others. The free man is superior to the

slave, but he has, because of that, no rational right to dominate him;

neither is it his office to revile or despise him; the slave was given

his nature, he did not ask for it.

But if it is not the office of the free man to dominate or revile the

slave still less is it the divinely appointed office of the slave to

rule and revile the free man--universal democratic prejudices

notwithstanding. And in support of the independent, and in case of

contest, superior right of the free man we have the very highest

authority for those who do not trust themselves to be guided by reason.

God Himself has pronounced upon this tremendous issue. And not in mere

words, but by unmistakable deeds. When Lucifer, the first absolute

democrat or equalitarian, the first one to maintain that no one was

better than he was, raised his impious standard, God assembled all His

faithful hosts together and hurled Lucifer out of Heaven into Hell. And

justly so. For Lucifer had, by his foul, sacrilegious doctrine and

action, revealed himself to be the Prince of Darkness not the Prince of

Light. To our untold and everlasting misery the Prince of Darkness who

failed to ensnare the majority of angels did succeed in ensnaring the

majority of mankind. So irredeemably so, even the sweetly and tenderly

lyrical Prince of Peace had to be sent to us bearing a ghastly sword.

Reason is not, according to Spinoza, a constitutive power in man's life;

it is a regulative principle. Spinoza is, in the traditional usage of

the term, anything but a rationalist in his ethics. Only if rationalism

consists in being unflaggingly reasonable is Spinoza an avowed and

thorough-going rationalist. Reason has, for Spinoza, no transcendental

status or power, and it plays no dictatorial role. Reason, for him, is

essentially an organizing not a legislative power in man's life. To take

a phrase from Professor Dewey, reason, for Spinoza, is reconstructive

not constitutive. The power of the intellect is not some underived,

original, independent power which can impose or, better, superimpose its

categorical imperatives upon human conduct. The power of the intellect

is wholly derivative, dependent upon the nature of the things that it

understands.

Reason gives man the power and insight to organize his life on the basis

of his knowledge, to chose an end harmonious with his nature, what is

for his best advantage--the basis of all virtue--and to select and

control the means by which it can be attained. For the happy governance

of our lives the object we must chiefly understand is ourselves.

Because--in Matthew Arnold's line--"the aids to noble life are all

within." When we become creatures conscious of our natural endowment we

cease to be blind instruments of our natures and become rational,

intelligent agents. For intelligence, in the fundamental sense of the

word, consists in knowing what we are and understanding what we can do.

A man who governs his life according to the dictates of reason tries,

insofar as possible, to harmonize his conflicting interests. He

balances, impartially, future with present goods, and he bases his

decision upon the broad foundation of all his needs. He does not madly

satisfy or repress one passion at the expense of the rest of his nature.

He satisfies a maximum rather than a minimum of his desires, evaluating

them not merely by numerical strength but by quality and duration. It is

only stupid and pernicious confusion that makes man's moral problem

consist in his discovering instead of a good "relative" to his nature,

an "absolute" good, good for no nature at all. Man's real moral problem

is to secure a permanent good instead of a transitory good; a more

inclusive good instead of a more restricted good; a higher good instead

of a lower good. Morally, it matters nothing whether an intellectual

good is "absolute" or whether it is only "relative" to man's mind and

his power of comprehension. But it matters everything, morally, whether

an intellectual good is more or less permanent, more or less inclusive,

more or less valuable than a sensory good. This is the real moral

problem man is faced with. And this is the moral problem Spinoza

considers and solves.

Everybody knows what is Spinoza's solution. One permanent intellectual

good is, according to him, of more importance and value in the life of

man than countless transitory sensory pleasures. The object most

permanent in character and greatest in value is Nature or God. The

highest virtue of the mind, therefore, the highest blessedness of man,

consists in the intellectual love of Nature or God. Thus Spinoza passes

from ethics to religion, which in his thought almost imperceptibly blend

together.

VIII

The beginning and the end, as familiar wisdom has long since propounded,

are the same. The ultimate origin of man is God, and the final end, the

blessed crown of life, is to return to God in fullest knowledge and

love. The philosopher who was during his lifetime and for over a century

after his death constantly execrated for being an atheist (he

occasionally still is by some hardy fools) made God a more integral part

of his system than did any one else in the whole history of philosophy.

Spinoza did not do occasional reverence to God; he did not, in lightly

passing, perfunctorily bow to Him; God is the veritable beginning and

end of all his thought.

The intellectual love of God does not demand as basis a knowledge of the

cosmic concatenation of things. Omniscience alone could satisfy such a

demand. The intellectual love of Nature or God depends solely upon a

knowledge of the order of Nature, upon a knowledge of the infinite and

eternal essence of God. And such knowledge is within the limits of our

reach.

We can apprehend the eternal essence of God because the temporality of

our thought is accidental to its meaning. It is the nature of reason to

see things under the form of eternity. And we can apprehend the infinite

essence of God or Nature because every particular finite thing is a

determinate expression of the infinite. The law of causality requires

that there be an essential identity of nature between cause and effect;

otherwise it would follow that something can be produced from nothing.

Since cause and effect belong to the same realm of existence, to the

same attribute of Nature, whenever we apprehend the essence of a

particular thing, we necessarily apprehend the infinite essence of that

attribute of Nature. For the infinite, with Spinoza, is not so much an

extent as a quality of being. Thus from the comprehension of any

particular thing, we can pass to a comprehension of the infinite and

eternal.

This is most commonly understood, curiously enough, not in religion, but

in art. The ecstatic power of beauty makes the soul lose all sense of

time and location. And in the specific object the soul sees an infinite

meaning. Indeed, one can almost say that the more specific or limited

the artistic object, the more clearly is the absolute or infinite

meaning portrayed and discerned. A sonnet is oftener than not more

expressive than a long poem; the _Red Badge of Courage_ reveals more

impressively than does the _Dynasts_ the absolute essential horror of

war. There are present, apparently, in the more pronounced mystical

visions, characteristics similar to those of significant esthetic

apprehensions. These visions are extremely rare and fleeting. But then

we can be at the highest peaks only seldom and for a short while. But in

a moment we see eternity, and in the finite, the infinite. It is for

this reason Spinoza says the more we understand particular things the

more do we understand God.

The great religious significance of Spinoza's doctrine of the

intellectual love of God is that it establishes religion upon knowledge

and not upon ignorance. The virtue of the mind is clearly and distinctly

to understand, not ignorantly to believe. There is no conflict between

science and religion; religion is based upon science. There is a

conflict only between science and superstition. Mysteries, unknown and

unknowable powers, miracles, magical rites and prayerful incantations

are instruments not of religion but of superstition which has its

origin in ignorant and ignominious fear.

The free man does not fear and he is not consumed by fear's boundless

conceit. He has no apprehensive conscience which unceasingly interprets

all unusual or untoward events as being deliberate signs of a god's

impending wrath. The free man knows that man is, cosmically considered,

impressively insignificant. Human loves and hatreds, human joys and

sorrows are, in the face of the eternal and infinite, the littlest of

little things. Human nature is only an infinitely small part of

absolutely infinite Nature; human life only a very tiny expression of

infinite life. Inordinate conceit alone could conceive Nature to have

been made designedly either for our pleasure or our discomfort. The

stars were not hung in the heavens so that we may steer our petty

courses across the seas; nor were the sun and moon put in their places

so that we may have the day in which to waste ourselves in futile labors

and the night to spend in ignorant sleep. Even if there were a cosmic

drama--which there is not--man is too trivial to play in it a leading

role. The free man knows all this; but his heart is tempered and strong.

He can contemplate his place in the universe without bitterness and

without fear. For the free man's love, as his worship, flows from his

knowledge of God.

IX

Spinoza is unsparing in his criticisms of the superstitions which are

in, and which have grown up around, the Bible. All Spinoza's major

conclusions have been embodied directly or indirectly in what is now

known as "the higher criticism" of the Bible, which is the basis of the

Modernist movement. It was Spinoza who established the fact that the

Pentateuch is not, as it is reputed to be, the work of Moses. It was

Spinoza, also, who first convincingly showed that other of the

Scriptural documents were compiled by various unacknowledged scribes;

not by the authors canonized by orthodoxy, Jewish or Gentile. The wealth

of philological and historical material at the disposal of the

contemporary Biblical investigator is incomparably richer than it was at

Spinoza's time. But modern scholarship has only added more

material--only extended in breadth Spinoza's modest researches. In

depth, nothing new has been achieved. The principles of investigation

and interpretation, and the general results Spinoza arrived at have not

been improved upon in the least, nor is it at all likely that they ever

will. Spinoza founded himself upon bed-rock.

Spinoza's aim in revealing the defectiveness of the Bible was not

theological but philosophical. Orthodox Biblical conceptions had in his

day, as they still have to a certain extent in ours, a peculiarly

sanctified power, because they were institutionalized and made the basis

of an authoritative system of conduct. The misbegotten doctrines

therefore could not be questioned with impunity, for a criticism of the

doctrines on intellectual grounds was invariably construed as an attack

upon the vested customs. The misfortunes of history made dissent from

palpable absurdities capital heresy. Social and religious bigotry burned

scientific men with political ardor.

However, although Spinoza suffered in his own person from religious

persecution, he never for one moment held as did, for example, Voltaire,

that the Church is the wily and unregenerate instrument of vicious

priests. On the contrary, Spinoza was quite sure that many of the clergy

were among the noblest of men, and that the Church was in large measure

a very salutary institution for the masses who cannot learn to govern

themselves by force of mind. But Spinoza was unalterably opposed to any

encroachment of Church authority upon the just liberties of men.

Especially did he object to the Church extending its prohibitive power

over men's thinking. It is the business of the Church to inculcate

"obedience" in the masses; not to dictate to philosophers what is the

truth. The fundamental purpose of Spinoza's attack upon the Bible is to

free philosophy from theology; not to destroy the Church but to

disestablish it.

Many readers of Spinoza conclude that because Spinoza tolerated Church

authority in matters of public morality he therefore either did not in

his own thought thoroughly adhere to his principles or else he was

excessively cautious, even timid, and did not fully or consistently

express his mind. No one would deny that there is some accommodation in

Spinoza's language. He certainly followed the practical wisdom of the

thinkers of his day. Even so, however, Spinoza was by no means as

cautious as was Descartes. Anyway, accommodation does not fully account

for Spinoza's attitude on this question; in fact, it does not account

for any significant feature of it.

Spinoza never believed a sound metaphysics was, for the masses, the

indispensable basis of a good moral life. The multitude, he was firmly

convinced, are controlled by their passions and desires, not by

knowledge and reason. The coercive law of the State and Nature, not

philosophy, keep them living within the bounds necessary for social

order and human well-being. Far from it being necessary to tell the

masses only the truth Spinoza believed, as did Plato before him, that it

may even be necessary in order to rule the masses successfully in the

ways of wisdom and virtue to deceive them to a greater or lesser extent.

Such deception is, as a political expediency, morally justified, for the

rulers would be lying in the interests of virtue and truth.

Spinoza did not suffer from the fond contemporary delusion that the

salvation of mankind will come about when philosophers become like all

other people. He knew, as Plato did, that the day of ultimate, universal

happiness will dawn rather when all other people become like

philosophers. In the meantime, it is the height of moral and political

folly to act as if that day had arrived or else could be ushered in by

morning. Spinoza had nothing but contempt for facile-tongued,

feather-brained Utopians. He loved humanity too sincerely to mislead

humanity or himself that way. And so we find in Spinoza's _Ethics_ as in

his _Tractatus_ two systems of morals--one for the many who are called,

and one for the few who are chosen. In the _Tractatus_, the religion of

the many is summarily called "obedience"; in the _Ethics_ it is more

fully shown to consist of utilitarianism in the conduct of our affairs,

high-mindedness towards our fellows, and piety towards Nature or God. To

this is added, as the rare religion of the few, what is designated in

both treatises alike as the intellectual love of Nature or God.

X

Spinoza's religion is as naturalistic as his ethics. By making God and

Nature equivalent terms Spinoza was not merely resorting to equivocation

to escape the penalty of his views. The identification of God and Nature

fully embodies Spinoza's doctrine that there is no supernatural realm;

and therefore if man is to have a God at all, Nature must be that God.

To contend, as so many do, that "true religion" must be based upon the

existence of a supernatural realm, no matter whether or not such a realm

exists, is as absurd as to contend that "true morality" must be based

upon man's "free-will" no matter whether or not man has "free-will."

Spinoza's system has been called pantheistic. But it is pantheistic only

in the sense that whatever man considers Godlike must be found in

Nature, for no other realm exists, and there are no gods.

But the question is always raised, how is it possible to love a Being

indifferent to our human miseries and blind to our hopes? How is even an

intellectual love of such a Being possible? Man, as his religions show,

wants God to be a father, a protector, One who cherishes man's desires

and cares for his wants. The least anthropomorphic of religions wants

God to be the depository of abstract human ideals. But Spinoza's God is

not even as human as this. Nature does not constitute the ideal type for

man.

Religion is, it is true, man's search for comfort and security in an

alien and hostile world. The simple demand of the human heart is to be

recognized and to be loved. Love is the magic touch that transforms all

that is barren and cold into all that is rich and warm and fruitful. But

man is neither loved nor recognized by the immensities of the universe.

And in face of the illimitable stretches of time and space even the

stoutest heart involuntarily quakes. We cannot consider the vast power

of the universe without feeling crushed and becoming despondent. And

ignorant man cannot see in the finite things about him the full

expression of the infinite beyond. He cannot derive any moral strength

or comfort from the world about him because he conceives that world to

be an implacable instrument of a god's uncertain, inexplicable will. He

therefore cosmically projects, in a frenzy of despair, his crying human

demand. And out of the wastes of space there arises for him a personal

God.

Anthropomorphic religions reveal man at his weakest, not at his best.

Man's true grandeur is shown when he transcends by his own power of mind

his insistent human desires. He can then stand free before the Almighty.

He may tremble, but he is not afraid. For his strength of soul is

grounded not in the external world but in his own ideal. If we are born

under a lucky star, and are fortunate and happy lovers of the ideal, the

ecstasy of the mystic's beatific vision is ours. But even if we are born

under an unlucky star, and are misfortunate and unhappy lovers of the

ideal, we still have the ideal to which we can hold fast and save

ourselves from being shattered in our despairs, from dying in spirit,

which is far more terrible than any death in the body could possibly be.

We have the ideal to give us the strength, if we are lovers of God, to

go to the cross with Jesus; or, if we are lovers of Virtue, to drink the

hemlock with Socrates.

The intellectual love of God is a devotion purged of all fear, of all

vain regrets and even vainer hopes. The wild and angry emotions of

sorrow and pain leave the strong and noble heart of man like the tidal

waves leave the scattered rocks of the shore. As the rocks, when the

waves return to their depths, smile securely in the glistening sun in

the sky, so does the brave, free heart of man, when the passionate

deluge is spent, smile serenely in the face of God. The free man is born

neither to weep nor to laugh but to view with calm and steadfast mind

the eternal nature of things.

To know the eternal is the immortality we enjoy. But to know the eternal

we must forget about ourselves. We must cease to be consumed by a

cancerous anxiety to endure in time and be permanent in space. In the

order of Nature our own particular lives are of no especial importance.

And unless we recognize this, we are necessarily doomed to a miserable

fate. We must recognize that our mere selves can never give us ultimate

fulfillment or blessedness of soul. Only by losing ourselves in Nature

or God can we escape the wretchedness of finitude and find the final

completion and salvation of our lives. This, the free man understands.

He knows how insignificant he is in the order of Nature. But he also

knows that if only he can lose himself in Nature or God then, in his own

insignificant particularity, the eternal and infinite order of Nature

can be displayed. For in the finite is the infinite expressed, and in

the temporal, the eternal.

It is this knowledge that makes man free, that breaks the finite fetters

from his soul enabling him to embrace the infinite and to possess

eternity. Once man is reconciled to the petty worth of his own person,

he assumes some of the majestic worth of the universe. And the austere

sublimity of soul that inscribes on the grave of the beloved _God is

Love_, inscribes, when it is chastened and purified by understanding, on

the grave of all that is merely human _Nature is Great_. Religion is the

joy and peace and strength that is all understanding.

JOSEPH RATNER.

FIRST PART

ON GOD

_The multitude, ever prone to superstition, and caring more for the

shreds of antiquity than for eternal truths, pays homage to the Books of

the Bible, rather than to the Word of God._

SPINOZA.

CHAPTER I

OF SUPERSTITION[1]

Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their

circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favored by fortune:

but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and

being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the

uncertainty of fortune's greedily coveted favors, they are consequently,

for the most part, very prone to credulity. The human mind is readily

swayed this way or that in times of doubt, especially when hope and fear

are struggling for the mastery, though usually it is boastful,

over-confident, and vain.

This as a general fact I suppose every one knows, though few, I believe,

know their own nature; no one can have lived in the world without

observing that most people, when in prosperity, are so over-brimming

with wisdom (however inexperienced they may be), that they take every

offer of advice as a personal insult, whereas in adversity they know not

where to turn, but beg and pray for counsel from every passer-by. No

plan is then too futile, too absurd, or too fatuous for their adoption;

the most frivolous causes will raise them to hope, or plunge them into

despair--if anything happens during their fright which reminds them of

some past good or ill, they think it portends a happy or unhappy issue,

and therefore (though it may have proved abortive a hundred times

before) style it a lucky or unlucky omen. Anything which excites their

astonishment they believe to be a portent signifying the anger of the

gods or of the Supreme Being, and, mistaking superstition for religion,

account it impious not to avert the evil with prayer and sacrifice.

Signs and wonders of this sort they conjure up perpetually, till one

might think Nature as mad as themselves, they interpret her so

fantastically.

Thus it is brought prominently before us, that superstition's chief

victims are those persons who greedily covet temporal advantages; they

it is, who (especially when they are in danger, and cannot help

themselves) are wont with prayers and womanish tears to implore help

from God: upbraiding reason as blind, because she cannot show a sure

path to the shadows they pursue, and rejecting human wisdom as vain; but

believing the phantoms of imagination, dreams, and other childish

absurdities, to be the very oracles of Heaven. As though God has turned

away from the wise, and written His decrees, not in the mind of man but

in the entrails of beasts, or left them to be proclaimed by the

inspiration and instinct of fools, madmen, and birds. Such is the

unreason to which terror can drive mankind!

Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear. If

any one desire an example, let him take Alexander, who only began

superstitiously to seek guidance from seers, when he first learned to

fear fortune in the passes of Sysis (Curtius v. 4); whereas after he had

conquered Darius he consulted prophets no more, till a second time

frightened by reverses. When the Scythians were provoking a battle, the

Bactrians had deserted, and he himself was lying sick of his wounds, "he

once more turned to superstition, the mockery of human wisdom, and bade

Aristander, to whom he confided his credulity, inquire the issue of

affairs with sacrificed victims." Very numerous examples of a like

nature might be cited, clearly showing the fact, that only while under

the dominion of fear do men fall a prey to superstition; that all the

portents ever invested with the reverence of misguided religion are mere

phantoms of dejected and fearful minds; and lastly that prophets have

most power among the people, and are most formidable to rulers,

precisely at those times when the state is in most peril. I think this

is sufficiently plain to all, and will therefore say no more on the

subject.

The origin of superstition above given affords us a clear reason for the

fact, that it comes to all men naturally, though some refer its rise to

a dim notion of God, universal to mankind, and also tends to show, that

it is no less inconsistent and variable than other mental hallucinations

and emotional impulses, and further that it can only be maintained by

hope, hatred, anger, and deceit; since it springs, not from reason, but

solely from the more powerful phases of emotion. Furthermore, we may

readily understand how difficult it is to maintain in the same course

men prone to every form of credulity. For, as the mass of mankind

remains always at about the same pitch of misery, it never assents long

to any one remedy, but is always best pleased by a novelty which has yet

proved illusive.

This element of inconsistency has been the cause of many terrible wars

and revolutions; for, as Curtius well says (lib. iv. chap. 10): "The mob

has no ruler more potent than superstition," and is easily led, on the

plea of religion, at one moment to adore its kings as gods, and anon to

execrate and abjure them as humanity's common bane. Immense pains have

therefore been taken to counteract this evil by investing religion,

whether true or false, with such pomp and ceremony, that it may rise

superior to every shock, and be always observed with studious reverence

by the whole people--a system which has been brought to great perfection

by the Turks, for they consider even controversy impious, and so clog

men's minds with dogmatic formulas, that they leave no room for sound

reason, not even enough to doubt with.

But if, in despotic statecraft, the supreme and essential mystery be to

hoodwink the subjects, and to mask the fear, which keeps them down, with

the specious garb of religion, so that men may fight as bravely for

slavery as for safety, and count it not shame but highest honor to risk

their blood and their lives for the vainglory of a tyrant; yet in a free

state no more mischievous expedient could be planned or attempted.

Wholly repugnant to the general freedom are such devices as enthralling

men's minds with prejudices, forcing their judgment, or employing any of

the weapons of quasi-religious sedition; indeed, such seditions only

spring up, when law enters the domain of speculative thought, and

opinions are put on trial and condemned on the same footing as crimes,

while those who defend and follow them are sacrificed, not to public

safety, but to their opponents' hatred and cruelty. If deeds only could

be made the grounds of criminal charges, and words were always allowed

to pass free, such seditions would be divested of every semblance of

justification, and would be separated from mere controversies by a hard

and fast line.

Now seeing that we have the rare happiness of living in a republic,

where every one's judgment is free and unshackled, where each may

worship God as his conscience dictates, and where freedom is esteemed

before all things dear and precious, I have believed that I should be

undertaking no ungrateful or unprofitable task, in demonstrating that

not only can such freedom be granted without prejudice to the public

peace, but also, that without such freedom, piety cannot flourish nor

the public peace be secure....

I have often wondered that persons who make a boast of professing the

Christian religion, namely, love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to

all men, should quarrel with such rancorous animosity, and display daily

towards one another such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the

virtues they claim, is the readiest criterion of their faith. Matters

have long since come to such a pass that one can only pronounce a man

Christian, Turk, Jew, or Heathen, by his general appearance and attire,

by his frequenting this or that place of worship, or employing the

phraseology of a particular sect--as for manner of life, it is in all

cases the same. Inquiry into the cause of this anomaly leads me

unhesitatingly to ascribe it to the fact, that the ministries of the

Church are regarded by the masses merely as dignities, her offices as

posts of emolument--in short, popular religion may be summed up as a

respect for ecclesiastics. The spread of this misconception inflamed

every worthless fellow with an intense desire to enter holy orders, and

thus the love of diffusing God's religion degenerated into sordid

avarice and ambition. Every church became a theater, where orators,

instead of church teachers harangued, caring not to instruct the people,

but striving to attract admiration, to bring opponents to public scorn,

and to preach only novelties and paradoxes, such as would tickle the

ears of their congregation. This state of things necessarily stirred up

an amount of controversy, envy, and hatred, which no lapse of time could

appease; so that we can scarcely wonder that of the old religion nothing

survives but its outward forms (even these, in the mouth of the

multitude, seem rather adulation than adoration of the Deity), and that

faith has become a mere compound of credulity and prejudices--aye,

prejudices too, which degrade man from rational being to beast, which

completely stifle the power of judgment between true and false, which

seem, in fact, carefully fostered for the purpose of extinguishing the

last spark of reason! Piety, great God! and religion are become a tissue

of ridiculous mysteries; men, who flatly despise reason, who reject and

turn away from understanding as naturally corrupt, these, I say, these

of all men, are thought, Oh lie most horrible! to possess light from on

High. Verily, if they had but one spark of light from on High, they

would not insolently rave, but would learn to worship God more wisely,

and would be as marked among their fellows for mercy as they now are for

malice; if they were concerned for their opponents' souls, instead of

for their own reputations, they would no longer fiercely persecute, but

rather be filled with pity and compassion.

Furthermore, if any Divine light were in them, it would appear from

their doctrine. I grant that they are never tired of professing their

wonder at the profound mysteries of Holy Writ; still I cannot discover

that they teach anything but speculation of Platonists and

Aristotelians, to which (in order to save their credit of Christianity)

they have made Holy Writ conform; not content to rave with the Greeks

themselves, they want to make the prophets rave also; showing

conclusively, that never even in sleep have they caught a glimpse of

Scripture's Divine nature. The very vehemence of their admiration for

the mysteries plainly attests, that their belief in the Bible is a

formal assent rather than a living faith: and the fact is made still

more apparent by their laying down beforehand, as a foundation for the

study and true interpretation of Scripture, the principle that it is in

every passage true and divine. Such a doctrine should be reached only

after strict scrutiny and thorough comprehension of the Sacred Books

(which would teach it much better, for they stand in need of no human

fictions), and not be set up on the threshold, as it were, of inquiry.

As I pondered over the facts that the light of reason is not only

despised, but by many even execrated as a source of impiety, that human

commentaries are accepted as divine records, and that credulity is

extolled as faith; as I marked the fierce controversies of philosophers

raging in Church and State, the source of bitter hatred and dissension,

the ready instruments of sedition and other ills innumerable, I

determined to examine the Bible afresh in a careful, impartial, and

unfettered spirit, making no assumptions concerning it, and attributing

to it no doctrines, which I do not find clearly therein set down....

FOOTNOTES:

[1] From the Preface to the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_.