45G 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



Again : 



" The spirit of men is overcome, not by force 

 of arms, but by love and high-miudedness." l 



The following maxim contains a lofty refine- 

 ment of morality, if one may so speak, to which 

 it would be difficult to find a parallel even in 

 Marcus Aurelius : 



" If a man wishes to help others by word or 

 deed to the common enjoyment of the highest 

 good, he shall first of all endeavor himself to win 

 their love to him ; but not to draw them into ad- 

 miration of him, that a doctrine may be called 

 after his name, nor in any manner to give cause 

 for offense. Also in common talk he will avoid 

 telling of men's faults, and will speak but sparing- 

 ly of human weakness. But he will speak largely 

 of man's excellence and power, and the means 

 whereby it may be perfected; that so men may 

 strive to live after the commandment of reason, so 

 far as in them lies, being moved thereto not by 

 fear or disgust, but in pure joyfulness." s 



The mention of M. Aurelius suggests a paral- 

 lel which I must note in passing, though I have 

 not room to work it out. There is a singular 

 coincidence between the ethical theory of Spi- 

 noza and that of the Stoics : I say coincidence, 

 for Spinoza's slender acquaintance with Greek 

 philosophy precludes the supposition of borrow- 

 ing. The effort or impulse of self-preservation, 

 which in his system is the mainspring of action, 

 is really involved in the Stoic conception of " fol- 

 lowing Nature." He holds that right action for 

 man lies in the preservation — taken in the largest 

 sense — of mankind ; not of the individual merely, 

 because, as a matter of fact shown by experience, 

 man is a social animal, and the welfare of the in- 

 dividual can be found only in society. He like- 

 wise constantly speaks of a moral life as equiva- 

 lent to a life which is reasonable or according to 

 reason. Both these positions are thoroughly 

 Stoic. Nor are these the only resemblances. 



Spinoza's health had been failing for some 

 years before his death, and he was attacked by 

 consumption, which possibly was aggravated by 

 his work of glass-polishing. The last illness was 

 short and almost sudden. It came on the 21st 

 of February, 1677. The day was a Sunday, and 

 in the morning Spinoza had been talking to his 

 hosts, Van der Spyck and his wife, as was his 

 custom. His friend and physician, Lewis Meyer, 

 came from Amsterdam at his request, and was 

 alone with him at the last. When the people of 

 the house came home in the afternoon, they found 

 Spinoza dead. 

 1 " Ethics," Append., cap. 11. 2 lb., Append., cap. 25. 



Some time before this Spinoza had committed 

 to Van der Spyck the trust of sending his unpub- 

 lished papers to a bookseller at Amsterdam. 

 This was duly fulfilled, and in the course of the 

 same year the philosopher's posthumous works, 

 including the " Ethics," appeared. They were 

 received with even more violent opposition than 

 the " Theologico-Political Treatise," and were 

 forbidden by the States-General of Holland. 1 



Spinoza's first biographer Colerus,' whose 

 frank and honest admiration of Spinoza's per- 

 sonal character went along with a no less frank 

 detestation of his philosophy, calls the "Opera 

 Posthuma " abominable productions, and states 

 that divers champions were providentially raised 

 up to confute them, who had all the success they 

 could desire. At this day there is probably no 

 man living who has read these refutations, while 

 the fame of Spinoza stands higher than ever. 



He was an outcast from the synagogue, a 

 stranger to the Church, a solitary thinker who 

 cast his thought in difficult and startling forms- 

 Notwithstanding all this, men of divers nations 

 and of widely different opinions have joined to- 

 gether to do honor to the memory of Benedict de 

 Spinoza, the philosopher, whose genius has made 

 him in some sort the founder of modern specula- 

 tion, and the man who in modern times has given 

 us the highest example of a true and perfect phil- 

 osophic life. 



It is impossible to attempt in this place any 

 account of Spinoza's philosophy ; and I may add 

 that he is eminently one of those writers whose 

 thought cannot be learned at second hand. It 

 may be worth while, however, to give a very brief 

 sketch of the manner in which his influence has 

 risen and spread in modern times. 



Spinoza very soon had eccentric followers as 

 well as bitter enemies in his own country ; 3 but 

 in the European world of letters he was entirely 

 misunderstood and neglected for the best part of 



1 June 20, 1678. The full text of the 'ordinance is 

 given in Van der Linde's Bibliografie, No. 24. 



2 The Dutch original of his book (No. 88 in Biblio- 

 grafle) is extremely scarce. There is one copy in the 

 Royal Library at the Hague : the only other known 

 one is, according to Dr. Van der Linde, at Halle. The 

 French version, by which it is commonly known, and 

 which Is often taken for the original, is also scarce, 

 but has been several times reprinted. The last re- 

 print is in Dr. Ginsberg's edition of Spinoza's corre- 

 spondence (Leipsic, 1876). 



3 See Van der Linde's "Spinoza, seine Lehre nnd 

 deseen erste Nachwirkungen in Holland" (GOttingen, 

 1862), and M. Paul Janet's article in the Revue des 

 Deux Mondes for July 16, 1867. 



