adversary in check, he failed to gain any signal advantage over him. The destruction of the Spanish fleet, however, by the Dutch admiral, Heemskerk, near Gibraltar, in 1607, at length induced the cabinet of Madrid to agree to an armistice, which was arranged by the two great rivals in 1609, and lasted for twelve years. War broke out again in 1621, and Spinola was placed at the head of the Spanish army. Though thwarted by the intrigues and interference of the Spanish court, and their tardiness in sending him reinforcements, the marquis was successful in his operations. Reide, Juliers, and Breda fell one after the other into his hands; and the prince of Nassau, while trying to relieve Breda, died of a fever caught in the marshes which surround that town. With the characteristic ingratitude of the Spanish court, Spinola, whose health was greatly weakened, was removed from his command in 1627. In the following year, however, his services were once more required to resist the progress of the French in Italy. But his scanty and badly-equipped forces were quite unable to cope with the powerful army led by Louis XIII. in person. The ministers of Philip IV. turned a deaf ear to all Spinola's earnest entreaties for reinforcements, and his own pecuniary claims on the government were treated with equal neglect. His vexation and disappointment aggravated his bodily weakness, and he died on the 23rd of September, 1630. Spinola was famous for his success in training his men, as well as for his military skill; so that his soldiers were as remarkable for their obedience and discipline, as the other Spanish troops were notorious for their insubordination.—J. T.
SPINOZA, Benedict de, is, of all speculative men of the seventeenth century, the one by whom the thoughts and theories of an influential class of minds in Western Europe in this nineteenth century have been most powerfully influenced. In any circumstances, the intellectual magnitude of this recluse metaphysician entitles him to a prominent place among the great thinkers of the world. The virtual revival of his system in new forms in Germany, as well as in other parts of Europe and in America, after a long interval of comparative oblivion, invests the forty-four years of the life of Spinoza with additional present interest. In the hundred years and more which followed his death, he was decried as an atheist and a blasphemer. In the last seventy or eighty years, especially in Germany, he has received homage as a saint. The pious Malebranche, Clarke and the philosophical theologians of England in the age of Locke, the sceptical Bayle, and the antichristian Voltaire, treat Spinoza as the prince of systematic atheists. By Lessing and Novalis, Göthe and Schleiermacher, he is canonized for his virtues and piety. Once anathematized by Jews and Christians as an audacious enemy of all religion, this proclaimed atheist is described by Novalis as a devout mystic, drunk with Deity. Between these extremes men have oscillated in their interpretation of Spinoza, as they saw in him the purely speculative and apparently atheistical reasoner, or the qualities which he had in common with the mystical devotee.
In the case of no philosopher is it more necessary than in that of Spinoza that we should study his life as a help to the interpretation of his doctrine. It is thus that we can in some degree explain the apparent contradictions of his paradoxical character, formed in proud isolation from his fellow-men. This strange recluse was born at Amsterdam on the 24th of November, 1632. His life was passed there and in other parts of Holland—in the same century, the country of Grotius, the adopted country of Descartes and Bayle, and the chosen refuge of Locke. His father, a Portuguese Jew, was a merchant in Amsterdam in easy circumstances. The philosopher seems to have been the only son of his parents, who named him Baruch, which he exchanged for Benedict when he abandoned Judaism. Forty years after his birth we find him in the small lodging in the Hague in which he afterwards died—surrounded by poor people and strangers, excommunicated by the Jews, without family or ecclesiastical connection, in a manner without a country, supporting himself by manufacturing glasses, and absorbed in metaphysical study. By what steps had he passed into this poor retreat, from the comfortable mansion in which he was born, upon the Burgwal at Amsterdam? Let us follow his course. His quick fancy and subtle intellect were recognized in his early years, when he studied the Bible and the Talmud, and perplexed his teachers by doubts and difficulties. He was taught Latin by Van den Ende, whose school at Amsterdam was in high repute with the sons of the wealthy merchants there. This schoolmaster is said to have been a political and theological free-thinker, who sowed the seeds of atheism in the minds of his pupils, but we have no proof that he influenced Spinoza. His daughter, who occasionally acted in her father's place in school, is, however, said to have done so. Her wit and jollity wrought upon the heart of her dark-complexioned, thoughtful pupil, as well as upon another scholar of Van den Ende. Spinoza in the end was disappointed in his love. The girl gave her hand to his rival. The young philosopher betook himself to physical science, and to theology and Hebrew literature under Moses Morteira, a learned rabbi. He became absorbed in philosophical studies, under the inspiration of Descartes, some of whose works about this time fell into his hands, pointing him to paths which connect physics with metaphysical, moral, and theological researches, and at the same time making him familiar with a high standard of proof in all matters of belief. He was charmed, he tells us, with the Cartesian maxim which forbids us to receive as true aught that has not been proved by good and sufficient reasons. He began to doubt more than ever the traditions of the rabbins, because they gave no reason for the profession that what they taught was divine truth. The suspicions of his heterodoxy increased in the synagogues, where he was seldom seen. He shunned the society of the Jewish doctors, and was entrapped into expressions of opinion at variance with their doctrine. Their most terrible sentence of excommunication was soon fulminated. The Anathema Schammatha was pronounced against him. He was pursued as a blasphemer and an apostate by a malignant sect, and was forced to leave Amsterdam, in danger of his life. Neither threats nor the allurements of a bribe could afterwards entice him back to his ancestral communion, and he never united himself to any other, though he often associated with Christians, and admired the character of Jesus.
Spinoza, rudely expelled from the synagogue and banished from his early associates, resolved to assert his personal independence, and at the same time to be faithful to one at least of the traditions of the Jews. They teach that a purely intellectual life is not enough for a man, and that he ought to conjoin with it some mechanical calling. Spinoza did not reject what was wise and reasonable in the Jewish maxims, notwithstanding his excommunication. He chose the art of making spectacles, and became a good optician. Some of his glasses, found in his cabinet after his death, were exposed to sale and fetched a high price. He was also addicted to drawing, in connection with physiognomy, and left at his death a large collection of illustrative sketches. Thus he devoted his mind to study, while he maintained himself by manual work. After leaving Amsterdam he had lodgings for some time at Anwerkerke. About 1664 he moved to Rynsberg, near Leyden, and in the following year to Voorburg, where he passed several years, during which he formed some distinguished friendships at the Hague. He was at length induced to settle at the Hague, in the lodgings in which he spent the last ten years of his life, in industrious retirement—sober, frugal, and disinterested in a remarkable degree. It is incredible, as we are told by his biographer, Colerus—the honest Lutheran minister, who has given us that interesting picture of Spinoza, produced a few years after his death—it is incredible how good a manager he was. It appears from his accounts, found among his papers, that he lived whole days on milk soup made with butter, which cost threepence, along with a pot of beer at three halfpence. Two half-pints of wine was his largest allowance for a month. Such was the nourishment which this powerful intellect permitted to go to the support of that slender consumptive-looking frame. As to his person, says Colerus, there are still many at the Hague who knew him well. He was of middle stature, of well-formed features, dark skin, black and curled hair, long eyebrows of the same colour, so that one could easily recognize in him a descendant of the Portuguese Jews. Of his dress he was very regardless, saying that it is unreasonable to put up things of little value in a valuable wrapper. Thus simple in his way of living, his conversation was modest and gentle. He was a wonderful master of his passions, being never known to yield to extremes either of sorrow or joy. In any sudden access of anger which he experienced, he was so completely master of himself that no outward signs of his emotion were apparent. He was, moreover, extremely courteous and easy of access, and kindly in his attentions in times of sickness to the pious family in which he lived, and by whom he was tenderly loved On these occasions he never failed to comfort and piously exhort them to endure with patience the evils which God appointed. He explained to the children the advantage of
