BENEDICT DE SPINOZA. 



445 



bonne, were its most conspicuous members. This 

 philosophical treatment of theology was on the 

 whole generally accepted, but did not pass without 

 controversy : in particular R. Chasdai Creskas, of 

 Barcelona (flour. 1410 a. d.), whom Spinoza cites by 

 name, 1 combated the peripatetics with great zeal 

 and ability from an independent point of view. 

 A mind like Spinoza's could not well have found 

 anything more apt to stir it to speculation and 

 inquiry than the works of the men I have named. 

 They handled their subjects with extreme inge- 

 nuity, and with a freedom and boldness of thought 

 which were only verbally disguised by a sort of 

 ostentatious reserve. Both Maimonides and Ibn- 

 Ezra delighted to throw out hints of meanings 

 which could not or must not be expressly re- 

 vealed. Maimonides, in the introduction to his 

 principal work, entreats the reader who may per- 

 ceive such meanings not to divulge them. Ibn- 

 Ezra says in his commentaries: "Herein is a 

 mystery ; and whoso understandeth it, let him hold 

 his peace." 4 The mysteries were, however, not so 

 carefully concealed but that an open-eyed reader 

 like Spinoza might easily find in them the princi- 

 ples of rational criticism which he afterward de- 

 veloped in the " Tractatus Theologico-Politicus." 

 At the same time Spinoza was far from neg- 

 lecting secular learning and even accomplish- 

 ments. His master in Latin, after he had ac- 

 quired the rudiments elsewhere, was Francis van 

 den Ende, a physician of Amsterdam who had a 

 high reputation as a teacher, and was also well 

 versed in the natural sciences. It is highly prob- 

 able that he communicated this part of his knowl- 

 edge also to Spinoza, who certainly had very 

 sound instruction of that kind at some time ; for 

 it is remarkable (as Mr. G. H. Lewes has well 

 pointed out) that Spinoza seldom or never makes 

 mistakes in physics. The references and allu- 

 sions in Spinoza's writings show that he had a 

 fair knowledge of Latin literature ; of Greek he 

 knew something, but not much. 3 He wrote a 

 Latin which, though not classical, was a very 

 sufficient instrument for his purposes, and which 

 he handled with perfect freedom. He seems to 

 have been also familiar with Italian ; and Spanish 

 and Portuguese must have been almost as native 

 to him as Dutch. About this time the philosophy 

 of Descartes was in the first flush of its renown, 

 and, like most new and brilliant things, was ve- 



1 " Judoenm quendam, Rab Ghaedaivocatum."— Ep. 

 XXIX., ad fin. 



2 Ap. Spinoza, " Tr.ict. Theol. Pol.," c. 8, § 9. The 

 mystery seems innocent enough to a modern reader. 



3 He expressly disclaims anything like critical 

 competence in it (." Tract. Theol. Pol.," cap. 10, ad Jin.). 



hemcntly suspected of heresy. Spinoza made 

 himself thoroughly familiar with it, his com- 

 panions in this study being Henry Oldenburg and 

 Dr. Lewis Meyer, the most constant of his friends 

 in after-life. It is at least doubtful, however, 

 whether he was at any time a Cartesian. When 

 he published a short exposition of the system in 

 1663 (the only work he ever set his name to), it 

 was with an express warning that it did not 

 represent his own opinions. At the same time it 

 is beyond question that Descartes exercised a 

 powerful influence upon the form and direction 

 of Spinoza's speculations. Until of late years his 

 part in this matter has been unduly exalted, and 

 that of the Jewish philosophers underrated, or 

 rather forgotten ; but it would be very possible to 

 carry the reaction to excess. In Spinoza's own 

 time it is pretty certain that those who knew him 

 only at second haud looked on him as a sort of 

 erratic Cartesian. We know what Locke thought 

 of the Cartesians as a body, and thus Locke's 

 entire neglect of Spinoza may be explained. 

 Those who followed Locke in England seem to 

 have taken for granted, after his example (though 

 in Berkeley we do find specific references to Spi- 

 noza), that Spinoza's philosophy was not worth 

 serious attention. 



To these graver studies Spinoza found time to 

 add no small skill in drawing. He filled a book 

 with sketches of distinguished persons of his ac- 

 quaintance, as we are told by his biographer Cole- 

 rus, 1 who had the book in his possession. The 

 same writer tells us that Spinoza's master, Van 

 den Ende, had a learned, witty, and accomplished 

 daughter, who took part in teaching his pupils, 

 and Spinoza among them. From a learner, the 

 tale says, he became a lover, but was supplanted 

 by a fellow-pupil named Kerkering, who wooed 

 and won the lady, not unassisted by the material 

 persuasion of a valuable pearl necklace. The 

 story passed current until it was rudely called in 

 question by the facts which Dr. van Vloten dis- 

 covered and published in 1862. True it is that 

 Van den Ende had a daughter, but she was only 

 eleven years old at the latest time when Spinoza 

 can have been her father's pupil. True it is that 

 she married Theodore Kerkering, but not till sev- 

 eral years after, in 16*71. He was, like her 

 father, a physician, and earned a considerable 

 scientific reputation by his work in medicine, 

 chemistry, and anatomy. The match appears to 

 have been a very natural and proper one, and the 



1 The name is a Latinized form of Kohler. He was 

 the minister of the German Lutheran congregation at 

 the Hague. 



