SPINOZISM. The principles of Benedict or Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677). He was the son of a Jewish merchant of Amsterdam. At a comparatively early age Spinoza showed a great interest in learning. He was encouraged and helped in his studies by the Chief Rabbi of Amsterdam, Saul Levi Morteira. But he lost the sympathy of his Jewish friends, and even of his own family, when he developed religious views which were considered heterodox. He was excommunicated in 1650, and had to leave his father's house and earn his living as best he could before he was twenty-four years old. The study of Descartes (Cartesius, 1596-1650) had given him a deep and abiding interest in philosophy. After the publication of Spinoza's Principle Philosophiae Oar tesianae, he was offered the chair of Philosophy in the University of Heidelberg. He declined it, being unable to comply with one of the conditions of acceptance, namely, that he would not teach anything contrary to the established religion. The persons with whom he cor responded included Henry Oldenburg (1615?-1677), first Secretary of the Royal Society, and G. W. Leibnitz (1646 1716). Spinoza died of consumption in 1677, when he was only forty-five years old. His work, Tractatus Theo logico-Politicus (1670) caused a great sensation, and its sale was prohibited nearly everywhere. In it he con tends that the Word of God had been greatly misunder stood, and that the Bible required to be re-examined and re-interpreted. Prophecy be explains in a natural way, denying that it was a gift peculiar to the Jewish people. Miracles, he argues, in the sense of interferences with Nature, do not happen. Nothing contrary to Nature can possibly happen. Miracles have been understood in the Old Testament where they were not intended. Meth phorical language has been misinterpreted, understood literally. The authorship of books of the Old Testament was not such as commonly it has been supposed to be. The Pentateuch and other books were written long after the events which they describe. The Pentateuch was written, not by Moses, but by Ezra. The books of Chronicles were perhaps written by Judas Naccabaeus. The Psalms were collected in the days of the Second Temple. The Word of God is a living revelation from the Divine Mind, and is not confined to any one book, or indeed to any book. Holy Scripture supplies, not a body of speculative theology, but a collection of simple rules or principles. The spheres of theology and philosophy are distinct. The main principles of a universal faith are as follows: "That there is a God, a Supreme Being, who is most just and merciful, by whose example every man ought to regulate his life; secondly, that this God is One, which opinion is absolutely necessary to make a man adore, admire, and love God—for devotion, admira tion, and love, are caused by that excellency which is in one above all others; thirdly, that He is everywhere present, or that all things are known to Him, for if any thing were hidden from Him, or if men did not think that He seeth all things, we might doubt of His equity and justice, whereby He governeth all things; fourthly, that He bath supreme power and dominion over all things, that He cloth nothing by compulsion, but of His own goodwill and pleasure; fifthly, that the worship of God, and obedience to Him, consists only in justice and charity towards our neighbours; sixthly, that only they who obey God by such a course of life will be saved; and others, who are slaves to their lusts and pleasures, will be condemned: lastly, that God pardoneth the sins of those that repent, because there is no man living with out sin: therefore, if this were not an article of faith, all would despair of salvation " (after Sir Frederick Pollock). Spinoza contends that everyone should be
free to think what he likes and to say what he thinks. In his Ethics (1677), published after his death, Spinoza seeks to construct from human reason a mathematically demonstrated system of ethics. The work, in part, treats of God, who is regarded as the foundation of all exist ence. Substance is that which stands under (Lat. substans) all appearance, making it seem real. The one absolute eternal substance is God. God is the cause of all things, but He is immanent and not transient. Whatever exists, exists in God, and without God nothing can exist or he conceived. The one eternal Substance has eternal Attributes. Of these Attributes there are only two which can be apprehended by man, Extension (Eatensio) and Thought (Cogitatio). Everything material is a Mode of God's Extension; everything intellectual is a Mode of His Thought. The material runs quite parallel to the intellectual. The order and connexion of ideas is the same as the order and connexion of things. From the infinite power or infinite nature of God has followed necessarily the immanent, invisible Cause, Nature naturans, and the visible Material, Nature naturata. Nothing happens by chance. The Ethics treats also of the mind. The body of man is a Mode of God's Exten sion: the mind of man is a Mode of God's Thought. Particular things are only Modes of expressing God's Attributes in a definite way. " In so far as our mind perceives things truly, it is part of the infinite intelli gence of God; and it is as much matter of necessity that all clear and distinct ideas of the mind should be true as that the idea of God in our mind is a truth." As to the Human Will, it is not absolutely free. As to Good and Evil, they are only relative ideas. True existence is knowledge; the highest knowledge is the knowledge of good. The greatest good is intellectually to know and to love God. That part of the human mind which experiences the intellectual love of God is eternal. Happiness is not merely the reward of virtue; it is virtue itself. According to Sir Frederick Pollock, the central idea of Spinoza's philosophy is that of the union of man with the order of the world, or, in other words, with God. Spinoza's private life was blameless. He lived very simply. Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) has said that the only life with which that of Spinoza can be compared is the life of Jesus Christ. See Spinoza: Four Essays by Land, Kuno Fischer, J. Can Vlotcn, and Ernest Rcnan, 1882; B. Puenjer; Kuno Fischer, Gcschichte der ncuern Philosophie, vol. I., pt. 2, 4th edition, 1897; J. H. Blunt; C. J. Deter; R.S.W.; Rudolf Eucken. The Life of the Spirit, 1909; Max B. Weinstein, Welt- and Leben Anschauungen, 1910.