Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 136.pdf/781

 was also represented in Provence, where, in the fourteenth century, Levi ben Gerson, the most daring of all the Jewish philosophers, and Moses of Narbonne were its most conspicuous members. This philosophical treatment of theology was on the whole generally accepted, but did not pass without controversy: in particular R. Chasdai Creskas, of Barcelona (flor. 1410 A.D.), whom Spinoza cites by name, combated the peripatetics with great zeal and ability from an independent point of view. A mind like Spinoza's could not well have found anything more apt to stir it to speculation and inquiry than the works of the men I have named. They handled their subjects with extreme ingenuity, and with a freedom and boldness of thought which were only verbally disguised by a sort of ostentatious reserve. Both Maimonides and Ibn-Ezra delighted to throw out hints of meanings which could not or must not be expressly revealed. Maimonides, in the introduction to his principal work, entreats the reader who may perceive such meanings not to divulge them. Ibn-Ezra says in his commentaries: "Herein is a mystery; and whoso understandeth it, let him hold his peace." The mysteries were, however, not so carefully concealed but that an open-eyed reader like Spinoza might easily find in them the principles of rational criticism which he afterwards developed in the "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus."

At the same time Spinoza was far from neglecting secular learning and even accomplishments. His master in Latin, after he had acquired the rudiments elsewhere, was Francis van den Ende, a physician of Amsterdam who had a high reputation as a teacher, and was also well versed in the natural sciences. It is highly probable that he communicated this part of his knowledge also to Spinoza, who certainly had very sound instruction of that kind at some time; for it is remarkable (as Mr. G. H. Lewes has well pointed out) that Spinoza seldom or never makes mistakes in physics. The references and allusions in Spinoza's writings show that he had a fair knowledge of Latin literature; of Greek he knew something, but not much. He wrote a Latin which, though not classical, was a very sufficient instrument for his purposes, and which he handled with perfect freedom. He seems to have been also familiar with Italian; and Spanish and Portuguese must have been almost as native to him as Dutch. About this time the philosophy of Descartes was in the first flush of its renown, and, like most new and brilliant things, was vehemently suspected of heresy. Spinoza made himself thoroughly familiar with it, his companions in this study being Henry Oldenburg and Dr. Lewis Meyer, the most constant of his friends in after life. It is at least doubtful, however, whether he was at any time a Cartesian. When he published a short exposition of the system in 1663 (the only work he ever set his name to), it was with an express warning that it did not represent his own opinions. At the same time it is beyond question that Descartes exercised a powerful influence upon the form and direction of Spinoza's speculations. Until of late years his part in this matter has been unduly exalted, and that of the Jewish philosophers underrated, or rather forgotten; but it would be very possible to carry the reaction to excess. In Spinoza's own time it is pretty certain that those who knew him only at second hand looked on him as a sort of erratic Cartesian. We know what Locke thought of the Cartesians as a body, and thus Locke's entire neglect of Spinoza may be explained. Those who followed Locke in England seem to have taken for granted, after his example (though in Berkeley we do find specific references to Spinoza), that Spinoza' s philosophy was not worth serious attention.

To these graver studies Spinoza found time to add no small skill in drawing. He filled a book with sketches of distinguished persons of his acquaintance, as we are told by his biographer Colerus, who had