fect equanimity. "This compels me," he said, "to nothing which I should not otherwise have done." Henceforth he disused his Hebrew name Baruch, and adopted the Latin form Benedict, which has the same meaning, and by which he is generally known. He now had to depend on his own work for a livelihood. It was a rabbinical precept that every one should learn a handicraft; and in compliance with this Spinoza had learned the trade of making lenses for optical instruments, which was no doubt chosen as congenial to his philosophical and scientific studies. He became so skilful in this art that the lenses of his make were much sought after, and some which were left undisposed of at his death fetched a high price. By this means he earned an income sufficient for his limited wants, and also a reputation for a thorough knowledge of optics which appears to have spread more quickly than his fame as a philosopher. In this manner he was brought into correspondence with Huygens and Leibnitz. We find Leibnitz, for instance, writing to him in 1671 to ask his opinion on certain optical questions, and treating him as a person of recognized authority. Leibnitz's behavior to Spinoza some years later can only be called shabby. He professed great interest in Spinoza's philosophy, and endeavored to get a sight of the unpublished MS. of the "Ethics," which Spinoza's prudence did not allow him. On his return from a stay in Paris, Leibnitz visited Spinoza in person. In later years he joined the vulgar cry against him, and borrowed a fundamental idea from his philosophy — which he also marred in the borrowing — without the slightest acknowledgment. The letter now in question begins thus: —
Among your other titles to fame [he says] I understand that you have excellent skill in optics. To you therefore I have chosen to send this attempt of mine for what it may be worth, as on this subject it would be difficult to find a better critic.
The friends who were best acquainted with his work believed that if he had lived longer he would have made some important addition to the science.[1] As it was, Spinoza's "excellent skill in optics" was only indirectly useful for the advancement of knowledge by affording him the means of cultivating philosophy. On the death of his father, indeed, he became entitled to share with his two sisters an inheritance of some value. The sisters, imagining, as it is conjectured, that the excommunication had deprived him of civil rights, endeavored to exclude him from his share. Spinoza was of opinion, as we know from his writings, that in a country where just laws prevail it is every citizen's duty to resist injustice to himself for the sake of the common weal, lest peradventure evil men find profit in their evil doing. He now acted on this principle, and asserted his rights before the law with success. Having done this, however, he declined to profit by them, and when the division came to be effected he gave up everything to his sisters but one bed, which he kept as a visible symbol of the established justice of his claim.
We know little of Spinoza's movements with certainty till the end of 1660 or beginning of 1661, when we find him at Rhijnsburg, a village near the mouth of the Rhine not far from Leyden. Thence he paid frequent visits to the Hague, where he increased his acquaintance with men of learning and eminence. This society must have had growing attractions for him as time went on, for in 1664 he moved to Voorburg, which is almost a suburb of the Hague, and finally about 1670 to the Hague itself. The greater part of what we know of his doings in after years is derived from the selection of his letters which was made — with a far too sparing hand unfortunately — by the editors of his posthumous works. The series of letters begins in 1661: the most important of Spinoza's correspondents, and also the most interesting to Englishmen, is Henry Oldenburg. Oldenburg spent the best part of his time in this country, where he settled in 1653. He was acquainted with Milton, and was the intimate friend of Robert Boyle; he shared Boyle's scientific tastes, - and was the first secretary to the Royal Society (1662), and editor of its "Transactions." His friendship with Spinoza was already of long standing at the time now in question; he had lately visited Spinoza at Rhijnsburg, and the letters are a sort of continuation of the philosophical conversation they had then held. The first of Spinoza's answers to him contains a characteristic point: "It is not my way," he says, "to expose the mistakes of others." A thoroughly constructive habit of mind, an almost insuperable aversion to enter on criticism for criticism's sake, runs through the whole of Spinoza's philosophical work.
- ↑ The only scientific work left by him was a small treatise on the rainbow. It was supposed to have been lost, but it was, in fact, published at the Hague in 1687 (Van der Linde, Bibliografie, No. 36), and has recently been discovered and republished in Van Vloten's "Supplement."
