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294 echo this expression awoke in him, for he recollected that the Rabbis ordain: "When two go together to speak of the Revelation (the Thora), and one says, 'Look how beautiful that field is, how beautiful that tree'—he has committed a deadly sin."

Does the highest thought demand abstraction from the outer world?

The two friends left the house in silence; Cecilia met them just in front of it.

"You too must say, 'He that is able to receive it let him receive it'" (Matt. xix. 12), said Oldenburg; Spinoza pressed his hand and they separated.

After such a discussion he was obliged to go to the synagogue.