THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

122 THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY
selves the author of the rumor) took occasion upon this to lodge a com-
plaint against me with the prince and the magistrates. . . . Having received
a hint of this state of things from some trustworthy friends, who
assured me, further, that the theologians were everywhere lying in wait
for me, I determined to put off my attempted publication until such
time as I should see what turn affairs would take." 15
Only after Spinoza's death did the Ethics appear ( 1677) , along
with an
unfinished treatise on politics (Tractatus Politicus) and a Treatise on the
Rainbow. All these works were in Latin, as the universal language of
European philosophy and science in the seventeenth cenmry. A Short
Treatise on God and Man, written in Dutch, was discovered by Van
Vloten in 1852; it was apparently a preparatory sketch for the Ethics.
The only books published by Spinoza in his lifetime were The Principles
of the Cartesian Philosophy (1663), and A Treatise on Religion and the
State (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus) , which appeared anonymously in
1670. It was at once honored with a place in the Index Expurgatorius.
and its sale was prohibited by the civil authorities; with this assistance it
attained to a considerable circulation under cover of title-pages which
disguised it as a medical treatise or an historical narrative. Countless
volumes were written to refute it; one called Spinoza "the most impious
atheist that ever lived upon the face of the earth"; Colerus speaks of
another refutation as "a treasure of infinite value, which shall never
perish"; 16
only this notice remains of it. In addition to such public
chastisement Spinoza received a number of letters intended to reform
him; that of a former pupil, Albert Burgh, who had been converted to
Catholicism, may be taken as a sample:
You assume that you have at last found the true philosophy. How do you
know that your philosophy is the best of all those which have ever been
taught in the world, are now taught, or shall be taught hereafter? To say
nothing of what may be devised in the future, have you examined all those
philosophies, both ancient and modern, which are taught here, in India,
and all the world over? And even supposing that you have duly examined
them, how do you know that you have chosen the best? . . . How dare you
set yourself up above all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, doctors,
and confessors of the Church? Miserable man and worm upon the earth
that you are, yea, ashes and food for worms, how can you confront the
eternal wisdom with your unspeakable blasphemy? What foundation have
you for this rash, insane, deplorable, accursed doctrine? What devilish pride
puffs you up to pass judgment on mysteries which Catholics themselves
declare to be incomprehensible? Etc., etc. 17
To which Spinoza replied:
You who assume that you have at last found the best religion, or rather the
best teachers, and fixed your credulity upon them, how do you know that they
Epistle 19. "Pollock, 406. "Epistle 73.