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Updated: June 28, 2025
There is no high sentiment or glorious ideal to which Spinoza does not give proper attention and a proper place. And yet he propounds nothing in his ethical theory that cannot be clearly seen by reason and that cannot be fully substantiated by the history of man. Spinoza's ethics is perfectly balanced, eminently sane.
A clean, comfortable inn on the site of the ruined chateau, a sympathetic companion, a trusty guide, plenty of tea and one book the book absolutely necessary to existence perhaps mine would be Spinoza's Ethics or Schiller's 'Letters on the AEsthetic Education of Mankind' under these conditions, months would glide by like an hour in such eerie, poetic, inspiring solitudes.
For mental recreation he read fairly widely in literature, observed the habits of insects, with the microscope as well as the naked eye. He also sometimes drew ink or charcoal sketches of his visitors and himself. A fairly plausible rumor has it that Rembrandt was his teacher. Unfortunately, all of Spinoza's sketches were destroyed.
Ah, Jarl! an honest, earnest Wight; so true and simple, that the secret operations of thy soul were more inscrutable than the subtle workings of Spinoza's. Thus much be said of the Skyeman; for he was exceedingly taciturn, and but seldom will speak for himself. Now, higher sympathies apart, for Jarl I had a wonderful liking; for he loved me; from the first had cleaved to me.
Spinoza's conception of an absolutely infinite universe is a vast improvement upon the pent-in, finite medieval universe inherited from Aristotle. It exceeds by infinity, in breadth of vision, even our contemporary notion of an infinite physical cosmos. And his conception of universal necessity is as great an advance upon the view that transformed natural occurrences into miraculous events.
Spinoza was the first great absolutist, and the impossibility of being intimate with his God is universally recognized. Quatenus infinitus est he is other than what he is quatenus humanam mentem constituit. Spinoza's philosophy has been rightly said to be worked by the word quatenus.
It is sometimes a warning, though the warning is often too late. But its function is immensely overrated by Mr. Le Gallienne and other religionists. It is all very well to talk about the "crucible," but half the people who go into it are reduced to ashes. Mr. Le Gallienne will not accept Spinoza's view that "pain is an unmistakable evil; joy the vitalising, fructifying power."
Spinoza brought man back into nature, and made him the nucleus of all moral values, showing how he may recognise his environment and how he may master it. But Spinoza's sympathy with mankind fell short of imagination; any noble political or poetical ideal eluded him. Everything impassioned seemed to him insane, everything human necessarily petty.
In the circumstances, Spinoza thought it wisest to delay publication till matters would change. But, apparently, they did not change, or change sufficiently. The Ethics was first published about a year after Spinoza's death. In spite of the consensus of adverse, and somewhat vicious opinion, the author of the Tractatus did find favor in the eyes of some.
But the philosophical psychologist is not a novelist. The recent claim that "literary psychology" is the only valid psychology, is as well founded as the claim would be that only a "literary physics" is valid. Mathematical physics gives us no more a picture of the actual physical universe than Spinoza's psychology gives us a picture of the mental and emotional life of an actual human being.
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