Spinoza tempered his caustic reply before
sending it off.

Spinoza lived the ethics he wrote. As is the _Ethics_, so is his life
pervaded by a simple grandeur. And as he lived, so did he die. He had
not been feeling very well, and had sent for his friend and physician
Dr. Ludwig Meyer. A chicken broth was ordered for Spinoza of which he
partook quite healthily. No one suspected that he was this time fatally
ill. He came down in the morning, and spoke for some time with his
hosts. But when they returned from a visit that same afternoon (Sunday,
Feb. 21, 1677) they learned the sad, surprising news that Spinoza had
gently passed away, the only one by his bedside, his doctor and friend.

Spinoza sought in his lifetime neither riches, nor sensual pleasure, nor
fame. He wrote and published his books when he could and thought
advisable because part of his joy consisted in extending, as he said, a
helping hand to others, in bringing them to see and understand things as
he did. If they did not see, or obdurately refused to understand, he did
not consider it part of his task to overcome them. He was animated by no
missionary zeal. He was content to search for the truth and to explain
what he found as best he could. The truth, he devoutly believed, would
make us free. But it was truth that we understood, not truth that was
forced upon us. He was quite satisfied to leave in his desk the
manuscript of his _Ethics_. People in his lifetime did not want to
listen to him. If ever they did after his death, they were cordially
welcome to. In death as in life they would find him faithful to his
ideal.

Spinoza has often been likened to the old Hebrew prophets. He does not,
it is true, exhort the people to follow in the path of righteousness; it
is the philosopher's task simply to show the way. But the morality
Spinoza stands for is the old prophetic morality purified and made
consistent with itself. And Spinoza was, in his own time, as the
prophets were in theirs, a heretic and a rebel, a voice calling in the
wilderness--a wilderness that was later to become the very citadel of
civilization. Excommunicated by the Jews and vilified by the Gentiles
during his lifetime, Spinoza has, since his death, been canonized by
both alike as the most saintly and exalted of philosophers. Like his
forerunners of old, Spinoza was a prophet _in_ Israel, _for_ Mankind.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPINOZA

I

Spinoza's philosophy has suf