Betraying Spinoza (30 page)

8.
In this regard Spinoza did not have the typical mathematician’s personality, which is often exclusively interested in abstract systems rather than in people. (The autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen argues that the “autistic continuum,” going from Asperger syndrome to full-fledged autism, represents the systematizing—or male!—mind run amuck, leading him to predict that autism increases when both parents are systemetizer types. He has a longitudinal study set up at MIT to test his hypothesis. See his
The Essential Difference: The Truth About the Male and Female Brain
[Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 2003]. One of the gorgeous treats of Spinoza’s sweeping system is how he manages to enfold within it, often in his “Notes” to the proofs, little nuggets of psychological insight. His trenchant observations of specific types of characters are so sharply drawn that one can well imagine the people who must have served him as models. My own copy of
The Ethics
is crowded with marginalia, often including names of personal acquaintances called to mind by such offhand remarks as these: “However, these emotions, humility and self-abasement, are extremely rare. For human nature, considered in itself, strives against them as much as it can; hence those who are believed to be most self-abased and humble are generally in reality the most ambitious and envious.” Or: “[N]one are so prone to envy as the dejected; they are specially keen in observing men’s actions, with a view to fault-finding rather than correction, in order to reserve their praises for dejection, and to glory therein, though all the time with a dejected air” (Part I V. IVII, Note). Or: “Again, as it may happen that the pleasure wherewith a man conceives that he affects others may exist solely in his imagination, and as everyone endeavors to conceive concerning himself that which he conceives will affect him with pleasure, it may easily come to pass that a vain man may be proud and may imagine that he is pleasing to all, when in reality he may be an annoyance to all.” Besides being on target, Spinoza is really quite funny, no? Why, I always wonder when I read Part III of
The Ethics
, the part that includes both his grand psychological theory of the emotions and his “derivations” of the various psychological types, does no one ever comment on Spinoza’s sense of humor?

V. For the Eyes of the Mind

1.
The Ethics
, Part III. Preface.

2.
Ibid., Part III. LIX, Note.

3.
Ibid., Part I V. XXXVII.

4.
Ibid., Part V. XXIII, Note.

5.
Tractatus
, chapter 6.

6.
Ibid., chapter 3.

7.
Ibid., chapter 2.

8.
So he wrote to Oldenburg: “I am now writing a Treatise about my interpretation of Scripture. This I am driven to do by the following reasons: 1. The Prejudices of the Theologians; for I know that these are among the chief obstacles which prevent men from directing their mind to philosophy; and therefore I do all I can to expose them, and to remove them from the minds of the more prudent. 2. The opinion which the common people have of me, who do not cease to accuse me falsely of atheism; I am also obliged to avert this accusation as far as it is possible to do so. 3. The freedom of philosophizing, and of saying what we think; this I desire to vindicate in every way, for here it is always suppressed through the excessive authority and impudence of the preachers.”
Correspondence
, Letter XXX, Voorburg, September or October 1665, p. 206.

9.
This bed is mentioned in Lucas’s biography. Spinoza kept it throughout his life, moving it with him from Amsterdam to Rijnsburg, and from Rijnsburg to Voorburg.

10.
Isaac Spinoza died in 1649, at the age of eighteen or nineteen. Baruch was seventeen.

11.
This is, as I’m sure the reader has surmised, pure speculation on my part. I am actually having Spinoza think thoughts here that echo Plato in the
Euthyphro
. But we know that Spinoza considered this train of reasoning from the evidence of
The Ethics:
“I confess that the theory which subjects all things to the will of an indifferent deity, and asserts that they are all dependent on his fiat, is less far from the truth than the theory of those, who maintain that God acts in all things with a view of promoting what is good. For these latter persons seem to set up something beyond God, which does not depend on God, but which God in acting looks to as an exemplar. Or which he aims at as a definite goal. This is only another name for subjecting God to the dominion of destiny, an utter absurdity in respect to God, whom we have shown to be the first and only free cause of the essence of all things and also of their existence. I need, therefore, spend no time in refuting such wild theories.” Part I. XXXIII, Note II.

12.
This story is told in Lucas’s biography.

13.
Spinoza’s charitable contributions are well documented. His last pledge came in March 1656. Spinoza was excommunicated in July of that year.

14.
The Ethics
, I V. Prop. XXVIII. The last line in the paragraph is Prop. XXVIII. The previous line is taken from the proof of that proposition.

15.
Vaz Dias and van der Tak,
Spinoza, Merchant and Autodidact
, pp. 155–56. For an analysis of De Barrios’s account of Morteira’s yeshiva, see Wilhelmina C. Pieterse,
Daniel Levi de Barrios als Geschiedschrijver van de Protugees-Israelietische gemeente te Amsterdam in zign “Triumpho del govierno Popular
(Amsterdam: Scheltema and Holkema, 1968), pp. 106–8.

16.
The Ethics
, III. LV, Note.

17.
Tractatus
, chapter 3.

18.
The Ethics
, IV. XXXV.

19.
Ibid., I V. Appendix VII.

20.
It is no accident that the renegade who gave us modernity also first gave us modern biblical criticism.

21.
Ibid., I V. Appendix IX.

22.
Ibid., III. XIII, Note.

23.
Ibid., V. XX, Note.

24.
This story is related by Pierre Bayle in his biography of Spinoza. Bayle was by no means a sympathetic admirer of the heretic Jew.

25.
The Ethics
, IV. LXIII, Note.

26.
Ibid., I. Appendix.

27.
Ibid., V. XXIII, Note.

28.
Ibid., III. Definition of the Emotions. XX, Explanation.

29.
Ibid., II. VII.

30.
Ibid., I, Axiom I V.

31.
Correspondence
, VII.

32.
Gershom Scholem’s diagnosis of manic-depression seems hardly debatable.

33.
Unfortunately, Spinoza’s response has not survived.

34.
Scholem, in
Sabbatai Sevi:
“As regards its role in Sabbatian history, the Jewish community of Amsterdam may well compete with Italy for the first place. … Circumstances in Amsterdam were indeed uniquely propitious for the success of the Sabbatian message. Amsterdam Jewry, which was by far the greater part of the Jewry of the Low Countries, was made up of two elements, each—for its own reason— particularly responsive to the messianic tidings. The Sephardic (Portuguese) community, founded by Marranos from Spain and Portugal, counted many members who had themselves escaped the Inquisition. In the Ashkenazic community the memory of the Cossack massacres of 1648 was still very much alive, particularly as many of the survivors (including Sabbatai’s wife and her brother) had found refuge in Amsterdam. The relative freedom enjoyed by the Jews of Amsterdam further contributed to their responsiveness. They had indeed found a haven of safety in the Dutch republic, but they were still close enough to the tempests and catastrophes of the immediate past to make the messianic call meaningful. Their sense of safety—unique in that age—enabled them to react freely and without the inhibiting fear of ‘What will the gentiles say?’ ” (pp. 518–19).

35.
Scholem,
Sabbatai Sevi
, p. 5.

36.
Tractatus
, chapter 6, pp. 71–72.

37.
Scholem, pp. 540–41. The letter is lost.

38.
This was from 1665 to 1669. Meyer was probably the most important of the group of Spinoza’s personal friends, and the most secular. He was an enthusiastic admirer of Spinoza’s, and, more than anyone else, was responsible for seeing the philosopher’s works published, both during his life and posthumously. Some people believe that he was present at Spinoza’s death, but this is dubious. Unfortunately, he didn’t see fit to publish their letters because of their personal nature.

39.
The identity of this fortunate fellow lodger is in dispute. Some believe it to have been Johannes Casear (or Casearius), ten years younger than Spinoza, who went on to become a Reformed preacher. Others are almost certain that it was none other than Albert Burgh, whose religious passions would darken the last months of Spinoza’s life.

40.
De Vries to Spinoza.
Correspondence
, Letter XXVI (VIII).

41.
This was Lodewijk Meyer, whose broad humanistic interests included the arts, most particularly literature and drama. He was the director of the Amsterdam Municipal Theater from 1665 to 1669.

42.
The Ethics
, I. XVI.

43.
The Ethics
, IV. Appendix. I V.

44.
Ibid., V. XXXII, Corollary.

45.
Ibid., V. X V.

46.
Ibid., V. XVI.

47.
Ibid., V. XIX.

48.
Ibid., V. XX.

49.
Ibid., I V. XXXVII, Note I.

50.
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
, chapter 3.

51.
The Ethics
I. XXXIII, Note I.

52.
Ibid., I. XXXIII.

53.
Ibid., I V. LXXIII, Note.

54.
Ibid., V. XVIII, Note.

55.
Correspondence
, Letter XXX, to Oldenburg, September or October 1665, pp. 205–6.

56.
Freudenthal,
Die Lebensgeschichte Spinoza
, p. 194.

57.
The Ethics
, IV. LXIX.

58.
Spinoza himself told this story to Leibniz when the latter came to visit him in The Hague in 1676.

59.
The Ethics
, I. Appendix.

60.
The Ethics
, V. XXXII.

61.
Correspondence
XIX (LXVIII).

62.
The synagogue still stands, and still serves the Sephardic community. Not far from it is a statue of Spinoza.

63.
The Ethics
, IV. I V, Proof.

64.
Ibid., I V. LXVII.

65.
Ibid., V. XXXVIII, Note.

66.
Ibid., V. XLII. These are the very last words of Spinoza’s magnum opus.

VI. Epilogue

1.
Colerus speaks of a “Dr. L. M.,” which suggests Spinoza’s old and loyal friend Lodewijk Meyer, who was, in addition to other things, a doctor. However, he also reports, on the testimony of an outraged van der Spyck, of the doctor in attendance at Spinoza’s death “who just that evening returned to Amsterdam by the nightboat, not even seeing to the care of the deceased. But he made off with some money that Spinoza had left lying on the table, along with some ducats and a few gold pieces, and a knife with a silver handle.” It is possible, if indeed this was Meyer, that the disappearance of the items was, as Steven Nadler suggests in
Spinoza: A Life
(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), “more likely explained as a case of memento collecting rather than theft” (p. 350). However, another young physician, Georg Hermann Schuller, a shadier character who had insinuated himself into Spinoza’s circle in the early 1670s, claimed in letters to have been present at Spinoza’s death, and told Leibniz that he had searched through Spinoza’s things “thoroughly, one by one, before and after his death.” On Schuller’s possible presence at the philosopher’s death, see Steenbakker’s,
Spinoza’s Ethica from Manuscript to Print
, pp. 50–63.

2.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to his young nephew Peter Carr, August 10, 1787. From Adrienne Koch, ed.,
The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society
(New York: George Braziller, 1965), pp. 320–21.