Page:Auerbach-Spinozanovel.djvu/352

330 way for a true thinker. Our master, or, if you do not like to call him that, our teacher, Descartes, after a time of lonely seclusion, recognized that the truth must be extracted from the world if it would again pervade the world. He learned to know men in peace and war; he was even a soldier himself, and travelled much. And you must recognize this too as a revelation of our age, that it has been granted to our century first, in artistic recognition of silent nature, to open the mind's eye to landscape. You too must travel, and if you do not wish to teach the world you must at least learn to know it truly. You shall not want for money; de Vries and I will willingly give you all you need. You must not reject it, for it is not a present offered to a friend; we pay this tribute to science and mankind. You do more than we; you dedicate your life to it."

"If you please," answered Spinoza in a gentle voice, "if you do not intend to annoy me, let this be the last time that you make me offers of money. I explained to you and de Vries long ago that I could not accept it. Moreover, as far as I am concerned, I cannot endure this new sort of wandering philosophy which you so strongly recommend. I am no friend to disputation with this, that and the other man, and seldom see any advantage accrue from it; for what is opposed is usually not the expression of pure thoughts, but such personalities