Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/150

144 Blyenbergh took place in this period. Mijnheer Willem van Blyen Bergh was a well-to-do merchant of Dordrecht, who occupied his leisure hours with dilettante metaphysics. On the 12th December, 1664, he wrote to his "unknown friend" Spinoza, to beg that he would explain certain doubts that had arisen in his mind on the perusal of the treatise of Descartes' "Principia." God is the creative cause of all actions, as well as of all substances. Therefore he created the act of will that caused Adam to eat that apple. Therefore, either the eating of that apple was not a sin, or God is the cause of evil. A few days after receiving this letter, Spinoza answered it at great length, with that grand sweetness of his that we feel to be of so much higher worth than mere politeness. As regards that apple, he called Mijnheer van Blyen Bergh's attention to the fact that he had not specified what he meant by "evil." "As for me," he added, italicizing the statement as we have italicized it, "I am unable to admit that sin and evil are anything of a positive nature at all." No! in this world, which is the splendid phantasmagory reflected from the changing outside of the infinite substance of God, all is good; and all is perfect; even the impious are units of the perfectness of the whole; they are the necessary shadows in the great scheme of chiaroscuro. The above italicized statement is not to be taken to be in any way an acceptance of the position that if sin be nothing positive, then the impious serve God equally well with the righteous. Once more, no! They are indeed, after their own fashion, expressions of the perfect will of God; but they are not to be compared with the righteous.


 * For they who know not God are but as the tool in the workman's hand, that serves unconsciously, and in its service is consumed; but the righteous serve God consciously, and through the service become ever more perfect (improbi, quia Deum non cognoscunt, non sunt nisi instrumentum in manu artificis, quod inscium servit et serviendo consumitur; probi contra conscii serviunt, et serviendo perfectiores evadunt).

More than one noble mind has found in this noble thought of Spinoza's a refuge of inestimable value, and has felt for it a quite unbounded gratitude. Mijnheer van Blyen Bergh saw in it nothing but hard words, which he resented. He could not perceive what Spinoza meant by "τό perfectiores evadere," nor what may be the meaning of "τό continuo perfectiores evadere." He returned to the charge with a very foolish letter of forty-two lengthy paragraphs, full of "objections." With similar heavy paper bullets of the brain he continued for the next three months to bombard the philosopher. He even managed to personally penetrate into his retreat at Voorburg, and argue with him there. Of the conversation that took place on that occasion, no record has been preserved. We learn from Blyen Bergh's next letter, that notwithstanding the intense efforts that he made to commit the colloquy to memory, he was unable to do so; and that when on the first opportunity he sat down to commit it to paper, he found that he could not remember one-fourth of the matter. He therefore begged that Spinoza would be kind enough to refresh his memory for him, and took the liberty of propounding five new questions. Concerning these, we shall probably have done our duty towards the curious reader, by relating that one of them is, "Whether, properly speaking, there be such a thing as error?" The persecution could be borne no longer, and, in his reply, Spinoza gently but firmly gave his questioner to understand that the demands on his time did not allow him to continue the correspondence. More agreeable was the renewal of the correspondence with Oldenburg, that had been allowed to lapse for nearly two years; and that now was carried gaily on with a new impetus through the greater part of the year 1665. Physical and metaphysical subjects were pleasantly discussed in these letters, and now and then some item of political gossip calls forth a tiny ripple on the surface of their philosophic calm. "I pass on to politics," wrote Oldenburg on the 8th December, 1665, at the end of a letter in which he had discussed the mechanics of Descartes, and of Hugens, and the physiological observations that were being made by the Royal Society at Oxford: —


 * In every mouth here there is a rumor of the return of the Jews into their fatherland, after their dispersion for more than two thousand years. Few here believe it, but many hope it. You will signify to your friend what you have heard of the thing, and what you think about it. I long to know what the Amsterdam Jews have heard of the matter, and in what way they are affected by such a piece of news, which, if it were true, would certainly seem to herald some catastrophe of the whole world.

Over his young friends of the philosophical club Spinoza continued to keep a fatherly watch. To one of them, namely,