The Cautious Philosopher
The Correspondence of Spinoza. Translated and Edited by Professor A. Wolf. (Allen and Unwin. 15a.) FOR a hundred years after his death the reputation of Benedict de Spinoza was evil. He was the Jew .who had disbelieved in miracles, and had tried to prove that God was only nature. Hume, without reading him, referred to " this famous atheist " and " his hideous hypothesis." His works were said to have been " written in collaboration with the devil," " full of curious but abominable discoveries." Then, with a rush, he was rehabilitated. Goethe called him Christionissimus ; Novalis called him, a God-intoxicated man ; Hegel declared that to be a philosopher one must first be. a Spinozist. With such opposite views,- perhaps; it will be worth while .to examine the man, and see what his philosophy was to him.
, The motto engraved on Spinoza's seal was " saute," ". with care ! " It was an apprOpriate motto, too. perhaps his upbringing had been strict and had made him feel insecure as a child. We might guess as much when he describes God, the perfect being, as free from compulsion, though not free from necessity ; or when he rejects all obligation from his Ethics. Perhaps the position of a Jew among Christians was, in those days, good enough reason for feeling the need of, caution. Moreover, he was consumptive. From whatever cause, his hunger, for self-preservation, for a margin of safety, for regularity and order, was.strongly marked, and conditioned much of his philosophy.
Spinoza never married. Marriage implies risk and obliga- tion : it endangers the serenity of thought. He treasured the recollection of how he once nearly married his tutor's daughter ; but there is no sign that he had ever seriously made approaches to her. He lived withdrawn from the world, with a limited circle of friends, grinding optical glasses for a living. He would keep to his room for two or three days at a time ; then go downstairs and chat with his landlord for recreation. Once he stayed. in his room for three months on end. He never accepted imitations to go out, but he received visitors with courtesy.. He was neat in his habits- and very frugal, sometimes taking no more than a bowl of milk-soup during a .whole day. Strangers he regarded with suspicion, philosophers in especial. When Leibnitz wished to see the manuscript of the Ethics, Spinoza wrote to a friend : " He seemed to me a man of liberal mind and versed in every science, but still I consider it imprudent to entrust my writings to him so soon. I should like to know, first, what he is doing in France, and to hear the opinion of our friend ,Tschirnhaus, after he has associated with him longer, and knows his character more intimately." It was a year before his distrust of Leibnitz melted away.
In his philosophy he WO looking for a means of conceiving the universe as tranqu4 pacific, uniform. He has said that
his 'aim in taking to philosophy to " discover and attain something which'. would enable me to enjoy supreme, continuous and 'permanent happiness." The power of powers in gaining this end he saw as truth. It was truth which put men in command of their own lives : to know truth did not make men free ; but it enabled them to accept fate without suffering. Above all, it conduced to " the avoidance of all disturbing passion." Spinoza took the greatest pains to arrange his life so that no onslaught of emotion should surprise him, so that nothing should catch him off his guard. No one ever saw him, said one of his biographers, either very merry or very sad. But with all his philosophy the unregenerate man came out now and then in the symbolism of his actions. Underlying so much caution was plainly a hidden pugnacity. He was not only withdrawn from the world in his room ; he was also lying-in wait for it. One of his chief enjoyments was to place a fly in a spider's web or to set two spiders to fight each. other ; and he would roar with laughter at the sight.
The conduct of his life sprang from his desire for self-protec- tion.. He distinguished as necessary to the individual two modes of behaviour. The first was animositas, the spirited defence of one's own rights. At the root of the whole of nature he placed the effort of self-preservation, conatus sui conservandi ; thus projecting into the world around him his feeling that it was infinitely needful that a man should look after himself. But in human society, to balance this quality, there was equal call for generositas, a noble good-fellowship. No individual could preserve himself unless he helped also to preserve the society in which he lived. On the whole, however, it was self-protection that Spinoza saw as primary fellowship he saw as part of the wisdom of self-preservation. It was a prudent course : without it there would be no peace.
The world he wished to contemplate was uniform, con- tinuous, and governed by unbreakable laws, a universe all-of- a-piece, a reliable universe. In building up his conception he drew the background for all modern scientific theory ; for modern science would not be possible without the supposition of a world in which the same thing always happens under the same circumstances ; in which the future is as settled, as irrevocable, as the past. In bringing a rigid determinism into his world, in defining nature as a single, all-inclusiVe substance and in equating nature with God, Spinoza was building up a universe the principle of which was law and safety. It is not strange that he wished the Church to be subservient to the State, and regarded the end of faith as obedience. His world, indeed, was not unlike the familiar room he so seldom left.
He was bound to conclude, in formulating his theory of uniformity, that body and soul were identical in substance, that mind is nothing but a different aspect of the body, body nothing but ,a different aspect of the mind. It is for this reason chiefly, this and his determinism, that he excited the horror of the orthodox ; and it is true that he left very little place either for moral responsibility or for religious aspiration. On the other hand, he has been taken as a champion of religion and morals, because he made the government of the universe seem so steady and trustworthy.
As we read through his correspondence, we gain a clear picture of the man, a little touchy, 'very- sure of his own importance as a philosopher, anxious to stand by his rights and to economize his efforts, undertaking no correspondence that should be useless to him for the spread of his ideas or their clarification. Though his philosophy was elaborated to put him at ease with his world, it is still impressive and valuable through the tenacity with which, premises once chosen, he inflexibly followed out the processes of his thought. It is rare to find so single-minded a devotion to reason, and it was obtainable only at the sacrifice of some social qualities.
This volume Of Spinoza's correspondence, the publishers inform us, will be the first of five volumes giving a new trans- lation of the complete works of Spinoza.
ALAN PORTER.
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