or will teach other systems of religion? Have you examined all the ancient and modern systems of religion which are taught here, in India, and all over the face of the earth? And even if you have, how do you know you have chosen the right one?
Burgh's letter runs to a great length, and is a curious specimen of unrefined theological amenity. I can give only a condensed extract as a specimen: —
Do not flatter yourself [he cries] with the reflection that the Calvinists, or so-called Reformers, the Lutherans, the Mennonites, the Socinians, etc., cannot refute your doctrine. All those poor creatures, as I have already said, are in as wretched a state as you, and are sitting along with you in the shadow of death.
Worm and ashes and food for worms that you are, how dare you set up for knowing better than all the Church? What foundation have you for this rash, insane, deplorable, accursed arrogance? What business have you to judge of mysteries which Catholics themselves declare to be incomprehensible?
One of his arguments is that it is presumptuous to disbelieve in alchemy and ghosts because Julius Cæsar would probably not have believed a prophecy of gunpowder. Finally, he threatens Spinoza with eternal damnation if he is not convinced. The immortal discourse delivered by Brother Peter in the "Tale of a Tub," which ends with invoking similar consequences on those who offer to believe otherwise, is hardly a caricature of this effusion.
Spinoza's answer,[1] which I have anticipated in part, was much the sharpest he ever wrote. As far as argument went he had no serious task; the letter contains, however, some striking passages. "As for your argument about the common consent of multitudes, the unbroken succession of the Church, etc., that is just the story I know of old from the Pharisees: for they produce their multitudes of witnesses with no less confidence than the adherents of Rome." They are the most ancient, the most persistent, the most obstinate of all the Churches; and if martyrs are evidence, they have more to show than any other. Even in ecclesiastical discipline, he says, Rome is surpassed by the Mohammedans, for they have had no schisms. This seems a rash statement for a writer versed in Jewish philosophy, which abounds in allusions to the different Mohammedan sects. It is, however, true in the sense that there has been in Islam no great visible rupture like the Reformation in Europe.
Of Spinoza's habits in daily life we know just so much as to make us regret that we do not know more. In outward appearance he was unpretending, but not careless. His way of living was exceedingly modest and retired; often he did not leave his room for many days together. He was likewise almost incredibly frugal his expenses sometimes amounted only to a few pence a day. But it must not be supposed that he shared the opinion of those who profess to despise man and the world. There was nothing ascetic in his frugality, nothing misanthropic in his solitude. He kept down his expenses simply in order to keep them within his means and his means remained slender because he did not choose to live at other people's charges. He used to say of himself that he was like a snake with its tail in its mouth, just making both ends meet. Doubtless he was indifferent as to money and the world's goods, but with the genuine indifference which is utterly removed from the affected indifference of the cynic. A man to whom he had lent two hundred florins — which must have been a considerable sum in proportion to Spinoza's income — became bankrupt. Spinoza's remark on hearing of it was this "Then I must lessen my expenses to make up the loss; that is the price I pay for equanimity." In like manner he kept himself retired not because he was unsociable, but because he found retirement necessary for his work. There is ample evidence that he was none of those who hate or disdain the intercourse of mankind. He kept up, as we have seen, an extensive correspondence, of which we must regret that so little has been preserved. He was free and pleasant in familiar conversation with the people of his house. On Sundays he would talk with them of the sermon they had heard, and would praise the sound learning and morality of their worthy Lutheran pastor, a certain Dr. Cordes who was succeeded in his office by Spinoza's biographer Colerus. Thus he won the esteem and affection not only of his philosophic friends, but of the simple folk among whom he lived; and such affection, as M. Renan has well said, is in truth the most precious of all.
Thus he showed in action the ideal of life set forth in those writings which he could not venture to publish in his lifetime, and which were supposed to strike at the foundations of religion and morality. And what is the rule proposed for the guidance
- ↑ Ep. LXXIV.
