To the portraits of Spinoza which have come down to us we may add a word of description from Colerus. “He was of a middle size. He had good features in his face, the skin somewhat black, the hair dark and curly, the eyebrows long and black, so that one might easily know by his looks that he was descended from Portuguese Jews. As for his clothes, he was very careless of them, and they were not better than those of the meanest citizen. One of the most eminent councillors of state went to see him, and found him in a very untidy morning-gown; whereupon the councillor reproached him for it, and offered him another. Spinoza answered that a man was never the better for having a fine gown, and added, ‘It is unreasonable to wrap up things of little or no value in a precious cover.’”13 Spinoza’s sartorial philosophy was not always so ascetic. “It is not a disorderly or slovenly carriage that makes us sages,” he writes; “for affected indifference to personal appearance is rather evidence of a poor spirit in which true wisdom could find no worthy dwelling-place, and science could only meet with disorder and disarray.”14
It was during this five years’ stay at Rhynsburg that Spinoza wrote the little fragment “On the Improvement of the Intellect” (De Intellectus Emendatione), and the Ethics Geometrically Demonstrated (Ethica More Geometrico Demonstrata). The latter was finished in 1665; but for ten years Spinoza made no effort to publish it. In 1668 Adrian Koerbagh, for printing opinions similar to Spinoza’s, was sent to jail for ten years; and died there after serving eighteen months of his sentence. When, in 1675, Spinoza went to Amsterdam trusting that he might now safely publish his chef-d’œuvre, “a rumor was spread about,” as he writes to his friend Oldenburg, “that a book of mine was soon to appear, in which I endeavored to prove that there is no God. This report, I regret to add, was by many received as true. Certain theologians [who probably were themselves the author of the rumor] took occasion upon this to lodge a complaint against me with the prince and the magistrates . . . . Having received a hint of this state of things from some trustworthy friends, who assured me, further, that the theologians were everywhere lying in wait for me, I determined to put off my attempted publication until such time as I should see what turn affairs would take.”15
Only after Spinoza’s death did the Ethics appear (1677), along with an unfinished treatise on politics (Tractatus Politicus) and a Treatise on the Rainbow. All these works were in Latin, as the universal language of European philosophy and science in the seventeenth century. A Short Treatise on God and Man, written in Dutch, was discovered by Van Vloten in 1852; it was apparently a preparatory sketch for the Ethics. The only books published by Spinoza in his lifetime were The Principles of the Cartesian Philosophy (1663), and A Treatise on Religion and the State (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus), which appeared anonymously in 1670. It was at once honored with a place in the Index Expurgatorius; and its sale was prohibited by the civil authorities; with this assistance it attained to a considerable circulation under cover of title-pages which disguised it as a medical treatise or an historical narrative. Countless volumes were written to refute it; one called Spinoza “the most impious atheist that ever lived upon the face of the earth”; Colerus speaks of another refutation as “a treasure of infinite value, which shall never perish”;16—only this notice remains of it. In addition to such public chastisement Spinoza received a number of letters intended to reform him; that of a former pupil, Albert Burgh, who had been converted to Catholicism, may be taken as a sample:
You assume that you have at last found the true philosophy. How do you know that your philosophy is the best of all those which have ever been taught in the world, are now taught, or shall be taught hereafter? To say nothing of what may be devised in the future. Have you examined all those philosophies, both ancient and modern, which are taught here, in India, and all the world over? And even supposing that you have duly examined them, how do you know that you have chosen the best? . . . How dare you set yourself up above all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, doctors, and confessors of the Church? Miserable man and worm upon the earth that you are, yea, ashes and food for worms, how can you confront the eternal wisdom with your unspeakable blasphemy? What foundation have you for this rash, insane, deplorable, accursed doctrine? What devilish pride puffs you up to pass judgment on mysteries which Catholics themselves declare to be incomprehensible? Etc., etc.17
To which Spinoza replied:
You who assume that you have at last found the best religion, or rather the best teachers, and fixed your credulity upon them, how do you know that they are the best among those who have taught religions, or now teach, or shall hereafter teach them? Have you examined all those religions, ancient and modern, which are taught here, and in India, and all the world over? And even supposing that you have duly examined them, how do you know that you have chosen the best?18
Apparently the gentle philosopher could be firm enough when occasion called for it.
Not all the letters were of this uncomfortable kind. Many of them were from men of mature culture and high position. Most prominent of these correspondents were Henry Oldenburg, secretary of the recently established Royal Society of England; Von Tschirnhaus, a young German inventor and nobleman; Huygens, the Dutch scientist; Leibnitz the philosopher, who visited Spinoza in 1676; Louis Meyer, a physician of The Hague; and Simon De Vries, a rich merchant of Amsterdam. The latter so admired Spinoza that he begged him to accept a gift of $1000. Spinoza refused, and later, when De Vries, making his will, proposed to leave his entire fortune to him, Spinoza persuaded De Vries instead to bequeath his wealth to his brother. When the merchant died it was found that his will required that an annuity of $250 should be paid to Spinoza out of the income of the property. Spinoza wished again to refuse saying, “Nature is satisfied with little; and if she is, I am also”; but he was at last prevailed upon to accept $150 a year. Another friend, Jan de Witt, chief magistrate of the Dutch republic, gave him a state annuity of $50. Finally, the Grand Monarch himself, Louis XIV, offered him a substantial pension, with the implied condition that Spinoza should dedicate his next book to the King. Spinoza courteously declined.
To please his friends and correspondents, Spinoza moved to Voorburg, a suburb of The Hague, in 1665; and in 1670 to The Hague itself. During these later years he developed an affectionate intimacy with Jan de Witt; and when De Witt and his brother were murdered in the streets by a mob which believed them responsible for the defeat of the Dutch troops by the French in 1672, Spinoza, on being apprised of the infamy, burst into tears, and but for the force which was used to restrain him, would have sallied forth, a second Anthony, to denounce the crime on the spot where it had been committed. Not long afterward, the Prince de Condé, head of the invading French army, invited Spinoza to his headquarters, to convey to him the offer of a royal pension from France and to introduce certain admirers of Spinoza who were with the Prince. Spinoza, who seems to have been rather a “good European” than a nationalist, thought it nothing strange for him to cross the lines and go to Condé’s camp. When he returned to The Hague the news of his visit spread about, and there were angry murmurs among the people. Spinoza’s host, Van den Spyck, was in fear of an attack upon his house; but Spinoza calmed him, saying: “I can easily clear myself of all suspicion of treason; . . . but should the people show the slightest disposition to molest you, should they even assemble and make a noise before your house, I will go down to them, though they should serve me as they did poor De Witt.”19 But when the crowd learned that Spinoza was merely a philosopher they concluded that he must be harmless; and the commotion quieted down.