In this year appeared the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, issued anonymously, and purporting to have been printed at Hamburg, Henry Künrath, whereas it was done at Amsterdam, Christoph Kunrad. Such perilous difficulties still beset the utterance in print of any free individual thought. This tractate deals with problems of deep and permanent practical interest. The relations of men to the ecclesiastical and civil power, the connections and interdependencies of these upon each other, the true scope and limitations of each respectively, present questions even yet not sufficiently examined and understood. These questions had especial emphasis at that time, as under the shock of the Reformation all foundations had been much disturbed; and especially were they apposite in Holland, which, with the freest government in Europe, was distracted and torn with the violence of theologic faction. Spinoza declares for the largest liberty, yet favors no license. He advocates full freedom of thought and expression, and, while he would take away all power of ecclesiastical infliction, he yet invokes for the state, out of regard to the public order, the right to regulate all outward observances. It fell also in his way to examine the matter of miracles and the institution of the priesthood. The insignificance of the one for purposes of authentication, and the unfriendliness of the other in its bearing upon human welfare, are effectively exposed. The vitality of the book may be judged somewhat from the amount of opposition excited. Its sale was quickly prohibited, and a host of adversaries, numbering representatives from all the sects and parties, Jew and Gentile, orthodox and heterodox, Lutheran and Socinian, at one in this matter, appeared against it. The number of "refutations" issued within the next few years is very remarkable. Readers were, however, found. The book was surreptitiously sold. Issued under the oddest and most illusive title-pages, to avoid the vigilance of the Inquisition, it was passed into France, England, and Spain. One Stoupa, a military official of Louis XIV., stationed for the time in the Netherlands, writing in 1673 of the Religions of Holland, describes the adherents of Spinoza as then already pretty numerous. Some of the so-called refutations are in reality the work of friendly hands, endeavors in disguise at exposition and support of the proscribed system. Wholly without pecuniary resources, yet inflexibly averse to being in any measure a pensioner upon the bounty of his friends, Spinoza supported himself by the grinding of glasses. His fare was of the plainest, and his eating and drinking singularly moderate, never, under any circumstances, exceeding the bound of nature's requirement. At the Hague he was brought in near contact with those popular excitements and exasperations with which Holland was distracted. Jan de Witt visited him; they met intimately, the man of the world and the recluse philosopher, and spent much time together. The friendship, warm and lasting, was terminated only by the death of De Witt. This death, August 20th, 1672, so tragic and cruel, a ruthless murder done by the infatuated populace, in a fit of rage, upon their life-long friend and benefactor, brought heavy grief to Spinoza, and, it is said, drew tears from those calm eyes. For a moment he gave way to the bitter sorrow; but he presently commanded himself, and, seeing one of the friends utterly overcome, quietly asked him, "Of what value then to us were wisdom, if like the multitude we surrender ourselves entirely to feeling, without power of self-recovery?" - During the invasion of Holland by Louis XIV.,- an invasion which, by the way, had relation to the terrible outbreak which occasioned the death of De Witt, Condé, whose head-quarters were at Utrecht, had great desire to see Spinoza. He sent him a military pass, accompanied with a warm invitation to visit him. Spinoza went to Utrecht, but some important business had called the Prince away ere his arrival.* He was received very hospitably, however, by Luxembourg, and urged to remain awaiting Condé's return. Stoupa, at the instance of Louis, solicited that he would dedicate his next book to that monarch, promising a pension as the reward. Spinoza declined with emphasis to do anything of the sort, and without longer delay set off to his home at the Hague. The popular suspicion now fell upon him as being a spy, *The time of Condé's departure from Utrecht is fixed in history as during the month of July, 1673. Lambert Van den Bos, Kriegschauspiel, IV. 18. for he had been in communication with the enemy, and there was danger that the house he lived in might be assailed and torn down by the mob. Spinoza bade his landlord feel no fear. "I can easily justify myself," said he; "there are persons enough, and of the first in the land, who know the object of my journey. But be that as it may, soon as the people appear before your door, I will go out to them, even should they do with me as with the ill-fated De Witt." Fortunately, however, the anticipated outbreak did not occur. Carl Ludwig, Elector Palatine, offered him the chair of philosophy at Heidelberg, with the provision, however, that he should teach nothing in conflict with the prevailing religion. Spinoza was very well aware of the direct and inevitable bearing of his philosophy upon the current dogmas, and, unwilling to submit, at whatever price, to any abridgment of his freedom, he courteously declined the offer. Meanwhile the studies and the writing went forward. The Tractatus Politicus and the Ethica were already finished, and lay waiting opportunity of publication. In 1675 he went to Amsterdam in reference to this business. But an untoward report, that in this work he had denied and attempted to disprove the existence of God, a report started with the clergy, and generally accredited, encouraged also by the narrow Cartesians, who were extremely jealous of being suspected of holding anything in common with Spinoza, - and an accusation lodged with the authorities against him on this ground, prevented his accomplishing his design. He returned to the Hague, and both works remained in manuscript to the day of his death. Being naturally of slender constitution, with predispositions to pulmonary consumption, his intense application to study, ' coupled with his omission to take requisite physical exercise, broke him down early. In the beginning of the winter of 1674 he writes in one of the letters that his health was "not quite firm." From this time he seems steadily to have lost ground. In 1676 we find him suffering much from consumption already fastened upon him. "If life serves," he writes to a friend, July 15th, 1676, "I may perhaps some time explain myself of this with you more fully," referring to a certain point in philosophy. He was throughout calm and contained, and to the end intently occupied upon the great problems to which he had dedicated his life. "Neither his landlord nor the other people of the house," writes Colerus his biographer, Lutheran minister at the Hague, "supposed that his end was so near; nor did they think it even till a short time before his death. For on February 20th, 1677, which, that year, came upon the Saturday before Lent, the family went to church to hear the discourse preparatory to the sacramental supper. As Van der Spyck casually entered the house about four o'clock, Spinoza came down and talked long with him, and especially upon the matter of the pastor's discourse, and after smoking a pipe of tobacco, he retired to his room and to bed. Sunday early, before church, he came down again to his landlord, and held conversation with him and his wife. He had written to Amsterdam for the physician Ludwig Meyer to come. Meyer had the family procure a fowl and cook it, that Spinoza at noon might eat of the broth; he did eat, and with good relish, on the return of the family from church. In the afternoon the physician remained alone with Spinoza; the family went again to church, and returning learned with astonishment that he expired about three o'clock. It was on the 21st of February, 1677, his age forty-four years two months twentyseven days." The story of the seizure by the physician of the coin and silver-handled knife on the table is probably a base scandal, so far as the intimation of theft is concerned. Meyer was an intimate and very much trusted friend of Spinoza, and, if he took these things at all, probably did so at the instance of the owner, who, feeling his end approach, may have desired to testify in some way his remembrance, as also his obligation for the kindness of the visit. The burial, Colerus tells us, was four days after, "in the new church upon the Spuy," and in the procession were six carriages with a number of prominent persons. "On their return from the grave, the particular friends or neighbors were, according to the custom of the country, entertained in the house of the deceased with some flagons of wine." Rebecca de Spinoza, his sister, and Daniel Carceris, his nephew, appeared as heirs, but gave up their claim rather than pay the little sum which lay against the few effects left. De Vries of Schiedam came forward, and assumed the debt, taking the effects. The inventory drawn up shows upon how little this man lived, and was content.* Spinoza had commissioned his landlord, Van der Spyck, directly upon his death to convey his desk, with the correspondence it contained, to his publisher and friend, Riewerts, at Amsterdam, a commission executed promptly and faithfully. In the same year appeared, under the initials only of the author, and without date of place, but certainly at Amsterdam, the Opera Posthuma, embracing the Ethica, the Tractatus Politicus, the Letters, and two works incomplete, one on the Improvement of the Mind, the other a Hebrew Grammar. Add to these a treatise on God, Man, and Blessedness, (unknown till recently even by name to the world of letters,) some annotations upon passages in the Tractatus TheologicoPoliticus, and the catalogue of his writings, so far as yet discovered, is complete. In person Spinoza was of medium stature, dark complexion, black, bushy, curly hair, heavy eyebrows, a smallish, black, vivacious, deep-beaming eye, his features throughout very regular and attractive, and having strong marks withal of his Jewish Portuguese extraction. The portraits professing to represent him vary much among themselves, some of them differing widely from the recorded descriptions both of Colerus and Luke, and must therefore, beyond doubt, be ungenuine. In temperament he was calm, equable, and self-poised, always cheery and genial, of exhaustless patience and untiring * Besides some books, copper-plates, ground glasses, and tools for the manufacture of these, enumerated in the auction inventory, are the following. They are set down doubtless just as they were "struck off," with the prices annexed. 2 Red Window-shades, 1 Bed-quilt, 1 small Feather-bed, In all, a little more than $25 of our money. The entire proceeds of the sale (including, we suppose, the books, &c.), "after deducting the fees, were 390 florins 14 stivers," or about $155.36. VOL. LXXIV. —5TH S. VOL. XII. NO. III. 28 |