THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

SPINOZA 125
Meyer alone remained with him. When they returned they found the
philosopher lying dead in the arms of his friend. Many mourned him;
for the simple folk had loved him as much for his gentleness as the
learned had honored him for his wisdom. Philosophers and magistrates
joined the people in following him to his final rest; and men of varied
faiths met at his grave.
Nietzsche says somewhere that the last Christian died upon the cross.
He had forgotten Spinoza.
II. THE TREATISE ON RELIGION AND THE STATE
Let us study his four books in the order in which he wrote them. The
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus is perhaps the least interesting of them to
us today, because the movement of higher criticism which Spinoza
initiated has made into platitudes the propositions for which Spinoza
risked his life. It is unwise of an author to prove his point too thoroughly;
ids conclusions pass into the currency of all educated minds, and his
works no longer have that mystery about them which draws us ever on.
So it has been with Voltaire; and so with Spinoza's treatise on religion
and the state.
The essential principle of the book is that the language of the Bible is
deliberately metaphorical or allegorical; not only because it partakes of
the Oriental tendency to high literary color and ornament, and ex-
aggerated descriptive expressions; but because, too, the prophets and the
apostles, to convey their doctrine by arousing the imagination, were compelled
to adapt themselves to the capacities and predispositions of the
popular mind. "All Scripture was written primarily for an entire people,
and secondarily for the whole human race; consequently its contents must
necessarily be adapted, as far as possible, to the understanding of the
masses." 21
"Scripture does not explain things by their secondary causes,
but only narrates them in the order and style which has most power to
move men, and especially uneducated men, to devotion. ... Its object
is not to convince the reason, but to attract and lay hold of the imagination."
22 Hence the abundant miracles and the repeated appearances of
God. "The masses think that the power and providence of God are most
clearly displayed by events that are extraordinary, and contrary to the
conception which they have formed of nature. . . . They suppose, indeed,
that God is inactive so long as nature works in her accustomed
order; and vice versa, that the power of nature, and natural causes, are
idle so long as God is acting; thus they imagine two powers distinct from
one another, the power of God and the power of nature." 23
(Here enters
the basic idea of Spinoza's philosophy that God and the processes of
nature are one.) Men love to believe that God breaks the natural order
^Tractatus Theologico-PoliticuSj, ch. 5.
a Ch. 6. **Ibid.