SPINOZA
STACPOOLE
tributions to thought, but his comprehensive
and thorough application of evolution to
all culture is an historical monument. Of
separate works, his Education was pub
lished in 1861, the Data of Ethics in 1879,
Facts and Comments in 1902, and his
Autobiography in 1904. His Autobiography
does not do justice to his fine character,
which should rather be studied in Dr. Dun
can s Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer
(1908). His integrity and severity of
character are known to the whole world ;
but he was a much more affectionate,
generous, and gesthetic man than is com
monly supposed, and more human in
personal ideals. " Life is not for learning,"
he said, " nor is life for working ; but
learning and working are for life " (Duncan s
Life, p. 507). He refused honours, and
thought only of the enlightenment of his
fellows. D. Dec. 8, 1903.
SPINOZA, Baruch Benedict, Jewish philosopher. B. Nov. 24, 1632. Ed. Amsterdam. Son of Jewish parents named d Espinosa, who had come from Portugal to Holland, Baruch was trained as a rabbi ; but in 1663 or 1664 he was excommuni cated by the Synagogue because of his nationalistic opinions. He left Amsterdam and Judaism, changing his name from Baruch to Benedict, and, after some wandering, settled at the Hague in 1667. He supported himself by teaching and by grinding optical lenses while he worked out his philosophy and wrote his famous works. He refused offers of money, and even the position of professor at Heidel berg ; and, after ten years of privation and of scandalous obloquy from Jews and Chris tians, he developed consumption, and died prematurely and miserably poor. While Christian writers of the time, and of long afterwards, reviled him as an "Atheist," modern divines are fond of repeating the epithet " God-intoxicated " which Novalis applied to him. He has become famous, and his character is above the dimmest suspicion. It is said that at Amsterdam he had had a Eationalist teacher, who first 753
inspired him with heresy. However this
may be, he took the Cartesian philosophy
of the time, which represented " extension "
as the attribute of matter and "thought"
as the attribute of spirit, and made them
aspects of one " substance." He was a
Monist or Pantheist. This substance he
calls God ; but his system leaves no room
for free will or personal immortality. His
chief works were De Deo et Homine ejusque
Felicitate (written in 1655), Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus (1670), and Ethica
ordine geometrico demonstrata (1677) : all
written in Latin. His moral idealism was
almost a miracle of the corrupt seventeenth
century, and was quite dissociated from the
personal Theism of any of the creeds.
D. Feb. 21, 1677.
SPITZER, Professor Hugo, Ph.D., M.D., Austrian philosopher. B. Apr. 7, 1854. Ed. Klagenfurt Gymnasium and Gratz University. In 1882 he began to teach at Gratz University, and since 1893 he has been professor there. Spitzer was one of the earliest advocates of Darwinism in Austria (Beitrdge zur Descendenztheorie, 1885), and he has especially distinguished himself in tracing aesthetic evolution. In Was Wir Ernst Haeckel Verdanken he proclaims himself " a pupil of Haeckel," and speaks in the highest terms of The Eiddle of the Universe. He thinks that the only philo sophers who ought to attack it are those who embrace a " childish Dualism," or who want "not the clearing-up, but the further obscuring and complicating, of the great problems of existence" (ii, 224-32).
STACPOOLE, Henry de Yere, J.P.,
novelist. Ed. Malvern College and St. Mary s and St. George s Hospitals. Son of the Eev. Dr. Stacpoole of Dublin, he followed the medical profession for some years, but developed literary interests which withdrew him from it. He studied Carlyle and German philosophy, then the great French stylists. In 1903 he ventured into literature with a description, in The World s Work, of deep-sea exploration, in 754
