rite what they please. It is not so. Discussion
is not free so long as the clergy who take any side but
one are liable to be prosecuted and deprived of their
means of living; it is not free so long as the expression
of doubt is considered as a sin by public opinion and as
a crime by the law. So far are we from free discussion
that the world is not yet agreed that a free discussion
is desirable; and till it be so agreed, the substantial
intellect of the country will not throw itself into the
question. The battle will continue to be fought by
outsiders, who suffice to disturb a repose which they
cannot restore; and that collective voice of the national
understanding, which alone can give back to us a peaceful
and assured conviction, will not be heard.
____

SPINOZA

Benedicti de Spinoza Tractatus de Deo et Homine ejusque Felicitate
Lineamenta Alque Annotationes ad Traclatum Theologico
Politicum. Edidit et illustravit EDWARDUS BOEHMER. Halae
ad Salam. J. F. Lippert. 1852.

This little volume is one evidence among many of the
interest which continues to be felt by the German
students in Spinoza. The actual merit of the book
itself is little or nothing; but it shows the industry
with which they are gleaning among the libraries of
Holland for any traces of him which they can recover;
and the smallest fragments of his writings are acquiring
that factitious importance which attaches to the
most insignificant relics of acknowledged greatness.
Such industry cannot be otherwise than laudable, but
we do not think it at present altogether wisely directed.
Nothing is likely to be brought to light which will much
illustrate Spinoza's philosophy. He himself spent the
better part of his life in working the language in which
he expressed it clear of ambiguities; and such earlier
draughts of his system as are supposed still to be extant
in MS., and a specimen of which M. Boehmer believes
himself to have discovered, contribute only obscurity
to what is in no need of additional difficulty. Of
Spinoza's private history, on the contrary, rich as it
must have been, and abundant traces of it as must be
extant somewhere in his own and his friends' correspondence,
we know only enough to feel how vast a
chasm remains to be filled. It is not often that any
man in this world lives a life so well worth writing as
Spinoza lived; not for striking incidents or large events
connected with it; but because (and no sympathy with
his peculiar