* J. S. Mill, The Subjection of Women, p. 100.
But we are told that the sphere of woman's work is in the home, and that properly to perform her vocation there, she does not need the vigorous training required for men. That woman's mission ought to be and happily is in the majority of cases in the home, no one will gainsay. At the same time, we should not close our eyes to patent facts, facts such as these; that the number of women whose mission actually does not lie in the home, is exceedingly great; that according to the last census of the United States, for instance, the female population of the State of New York, is fifty-six thousand in excess of the male; that well nigh two millions of women in this country are engaged in working for their livelihood. Is it not cruel mockery to say to these women that their business is in the household? If the condition of things is such that they must seek outside labor; if we permit them to toil by hundreds of thousands in the fields and factories, on what plea of right or reason can we deny them admission to the higher grades of service? Is it not simple justice to admit them to all the professions, and to allow them the same advantages in colleges and professional schools as are enjoyed by men?
We need not fear that the privilege will be abused. If women undertake to engage in pursuits for which they are physically or mentally unfit, the effect of competition will quickly discourage them, and here as elsewhere, only the fittest will survive.
But aside from those who are destined to remain single, and considering the seven millions of women, or more, who will become wives and mothers of families; is not the demand for higher education equally imperative in their case? Young girls are but too often educated to be the agreeable companions, rather than the partners of their future husbands. They receive sufficient instruction to give them a general acquaintance with the surface of things, but not sufficient to develop what ought to be the chief end of every scheme of education—a permanent intellectual interest in any one direction. Much time is wasted on minor accomplishments. At an age when the young girl is still totally immature, she is often withdrawn from the influence of her preceptors, and hurried from dissipation to dissipation, to tread the round of society's gayeties, and to inhale the poisonous atmosphere of flattery and conventional falsehoods. She enters a new world. The contrast between the restraints of school life, and her novel sense of consequence intoxicates her; the desire for pleasure becomes a passion; the books of useful information, that never possessed a real charm for her, are cast aside, and the literature of the sentiments alone retains its attractions during the remainder of life. It is not astonishing that those whose minds are thus left barren, should employ their leisure hours in frivolous or vicious occupations; that an exorbitant luxury, the sign at all times, of deficient culture, should have infected the community. It is not wonderful that when the trials of life approach, these women grasp wildly at the nearest superstition, and prostrate themselves before any idol of the vulgar, in their blind ignorance and credulity.
I have said that higher education can alone make marriage what it ought to be, for it is not fancy or the glow of passion that can bind the hearts together in lasting wedlock. The marriage bond has deeper meanings. Two souls are united, each to be all in all to each. Here shall be the very consummation of love; love, that precious boon that assuages every pang, and stills every grief, and triumphs over sickness, sorrow, and the tomb. All nature's symbols fail to express its fulness; it has the hope of the dawning day; it has the tender pathos of the light of the moon; it has the melody of birds, the mystic stillness of the forest, the infinity of the fathomless sea! Bounteous love, how inexhaustible are its treasures! The fires of the passions kindle affection, but cannot secure it. If there be only the stubble of desire in the heart, that will quickly be consumed; if there be veins of true gold there, that will be melted and refined. Years pass, youth fades, the attendant train of the graces vanishes, loveliness falls like a mask, but the union only becomes firmer and trustier, because it is a union, not of the sentiments merely, but of the souls. The wife becomes the true sharer of her husband's thoughts; mutual confidence reigns between them; they grow by mutual furtherance; each sees in each the mirror of his nobler self; they are the true complement one to the other. Who does not know that such unions are rare! Common sympathies, common duties do indeed create a tolerable understanding in most households; but that is not wedlock that men and women should jog on tolerably well together for the better part of a lifetime.
The modern mind is constantly broadening; new facts, new discoveries are constantly coming to light, and loftier problems engage the attention of thinkers. If woman would not be utterly left behind in the race, then must she make an effort to acquire more solid knowledge, and educational reform is the first step in the cause of woman's emancipation. The electoral franchise, and whatever other measures may be included in the popular phrase of "Woman's rights" should be reserved for future discussion. If practicable at all, they are assuredly for the present of secondary importance.
Permit me to close by briefly formulating a few points that seem to me to deserve special consideration in this connection.
Woman, like man, should comprehend the age in which she lives and the great questions by which it is agitated. To this end a knowledge of history, and chiefly the history of her own nation, is requisite. She should learn to understand the principles of the language she speaks, and the literature in which it is preserved, not from dry text-books, but from the living works of the authors themselves. She should be able to pass an intelligent judgment upon the political issues of the day, that take up so large a share of men's conversation, and to this end the rudiments of political science might profitably be taught her. She should possess sufficient familiarity with the natural sciences to comprehend at least the main results of scientific investigations, and a training of this kind would have the further advantage of accustoming her mind to the methods of accurate thinking. She should gain some knowledge of the human body and of the laws upon which its health depends. Is it not strange that this important branch of knowledge is so generally neglected in the training of those who are to be mothers of the future generation? How often would proper attention to a few simple rules of hygiene prevent sickness; how often would more efficient nursing avert death, where it is now freely allowed to enter. Then too the outlines of pedagogy should be included in a course of advanced instruction for women. Mothers are the educators of the children, but the educators themselves require to be educated.
If the intellect of girls were braced and stimulated in this manner, they would exhibit greater self-possession and self-reliance in their later lives; they would be less apt to be deluded by false appeals to the feelings: "the woman's view" would be no longer proverbial for the weaker view; the whole of society would feel the beneficent change, and the problem which we set out to discuss in the beginning would in due time solve itself.
We do not for a moment apprehend that the increased cultivation of the intellect would entail any loss of sweetness or of those gracious qualities that make the charm of womanhood. Wherever such a result has been apparently observed, it is safe to ascribe it to other causes. Truth and beauty are far too closely akin in their inmost nature to exclude each other. Nor do we fear that the intensity of moral feeling, for which women are distinguished, would suffer under the restraining influence of reason's guidance. The moral feelings would indeed be purified, elevated and directed to their proper objects by the judicious use of reason; they would not therefore be enfeebled. In the past, the conservatism of women has been a mighty obstacle in the path of progress. It is but just to add that at the dawn of every great religious movement which promised the moral advancement of the race, gifted women, rising above the weakness of their sisters, have been among the earliest to welcome the new hope for humanity; have been among the most ardent, the most self-sacrificing of its disciples. The Liberal movement of our day also is essentially a movement for larger morality, and more and more as this feature will be clearly developed, may it hope to gain the sympathies of brave and good women to its side. In their support it will behold at once the criterion of its worthiness, and the surest pledge of its ultimate triumph.
{A discourse delivered on Sunday, April 29, 1877.}
We go out in these balmy days of spring into the reviving fields, and the eye drinks in with delight the fresh and succulent green of the meadows; the willows begin to put forth their verdant foliage, the brooks purl and babble of the new life that has waked in the forest: be glad, all nature cries, summer is coming. And the freshness of the season enters into our own hearts, our pulses beat more quickly, our step is more buoyant. We remember all that is joyful in existence; the arts that embellish, the aspirations that ennoble, the affections that endear it. Golden the future lies before us; our very cares lose their sombre hues; like the golden islands of cloud that glow in the glory of sunset skies.
But beneath the fair semblance of nature that for a time deludes our senses, a dark and terrible reality is concealed. Observe how pitilessly the destructive elements pursue their path, the earthquake the tornado, the epidemic. A few months ago a rise of the sea swept away two hundred thousand human lives in the course of a few hours. Myriads of sentient beings are daily cast up in the summer to perish with the first breath of cold. In the animal world, the strong feed upon the weak, and the remorseless struggle for existence extends even into the sphere of human activity. At this very moment the whole of Europe is filled with anxious alarm in view of an impending war of conquest. While industry is paralyzed, while trade is at a stand-still, while a virulent disease generated by starvation has broken out in Silesia, and the workmen of Lyons have become dependent on the public charity of France, the resources of nations, already well nigh exhausted, are drained to prepare for the emergencies of conflict. With a secret thrill of terror we read that beds for the wounded and millions of roubles for hospital appliances are being voted by the municipalities of Russia. Readily the imagination can picture to itself what these ghastly preparations mean. It is true, so long as all is well with us, the larger evils of the world do not greatly disturb our equanimity. Man has the happy faculty of abstracting his attention from things remote. The accumulated woes of a continent affect us less than some trifling accident in our immediate vicinity. But when the messengers of evil have cast their shadows across our threshold, when calamity has laid its heavy hand upon our shoulder, it is then that the general unsatisfactoriness of life recurs to us with added force in view of our own experience; the splendor fades from the surrounding scene; every dark stain takes on a deeper blackness, and the gloom that comes from within fills and obscures the entire field of our vision. We have sustained financial loss, perhaps we are harrowed by domestic discord, we are suddenly stricken in the midst of health, and drag on long years as hopeless invalids, or worse still, we stand at the bedside of some dear friend or kinsman, see him stretched upon the rack of pain, and can do nothing to alleviate his sufferings; we see the end slowly nearing; but oh, the weary waiting, the patient's agonizing cry for death, the cruel struggle that must still intervene. And when at last, it is over, and we have laid him away under the sod, and returned to our desolate homes, what hope remains! Whither now, we ask, shall we turn for consolation? Is there no outlook from this night of trouble? Is there no winged thought, that will bear us upward from out the depths; is there no solace to assuage our pangs?
Among the means of consolation commonly recommended the doctrine of Immortality seems to be regarded as the most appropriate and effective. It is needless to lament; the deceased has entered a better life. Yet a little and you will join him to be no more parted. Nor can we deny that to those who cordially entertain it, the belief in the soul's immortal continuance becomes a source of pure and inexpressibly tender satisfaction. But with a certain class of minds—and their number, I believe, is on the increase—the consoling influence of this doctrine is marred by the fatal uncertainty in which the whole question is involved, and which no efforts of man have ever yet, nor ever will, avail to remove. Christianity indeed claims to have settled the point. The Deity himself, it avers, intervened by direct revelation from on high, to set our doubts at rest, and Jesus when he arose on the third day forever deprived the grave of its sting and took away our fears of the tomb. But to those who read the books of revelations with unbiased mind, the fact of their human authorship becomes sadly apparent, and the resurrection itself is as difficult to prove as the doctrine which it is designed to substantiate.
In modern times spiritualism has likewise endeavored to demonstrate to the senses the existence of a world of souls beyond our own. But the phenomena on which it lies are in part disputed, in part the interpretation put upon them, must, to say the least, be regarded as premature.
Moreover we should remember that even if by some unknown means the fact of immortality could be established, the question of our re-union with friends in the hereafter, in which alone the heart of the mourner is interested, would still remain an open one and might be answered in the negative. The belief in immortality has been held in this way by some of the greatest intellects of the human race, Spinoza among the rest. If we knew that we shall continue to live, we should not therefore know how we shall continue to live. Perhaps it might prove that all our previous connections would be severed; and who can tell what new phases of existence, what endless metamorphoses might await us among the infinite possibilities of Eternity.
So deep seated is the sense of uncertainty concerning our fate beyond the tomb, that no religion, however great the control which it exerted over men, has ever been able to banish it entirely from their hearts. The most ardent Christian is hardly less anxious than the infidel to retain those who are dear to him in life. He prays as fervently for their health as though their present state were the sum total of their existence. And yet he should rather hail the day of death as a day of thanksgiving, and rejoice that those whom he loves have been translated to a sphere every way so much more desirable than our own. No, the natural feeling cannot be suppressed, loss is felt to be loss, and death remains death. No hope of a happier condition in the world to come, no confidence in the promises and prophesies of faith, can efface the sense of present bereavement, and as we all alike feel it, so are we all, believers and unbelievers, interested in seeking the means of its present relief.
Some of the most fervid, religious natures of the past endeavored to escape the sorrows of the world by having recourse to the cruel remedy of asceticism. The ascetic ponders the origin of suffering; he sees that the desire for pleasure is the cause of pain. Were we not eager to possess we should not regret to lose. He cuts the gordian knot saying, abjure desire! When you cease to want, you shall no longer be bruised. There are certain wants inherent in the body—the want of food, drink, sleep; the heart has its needs—friendship, sympathy; the mind—knowledge, culture. All these should be subdued. We should eat and drink the coarsest in quality and the least possible in quantity; we should avoid the attachments of love; we should be poor in spirit, and despise wisdom. The ascetic ideal took firm root in Christianity at an early period of its history. The extravagance of the Egyptian anchorites is well known. The "pillar saint," St. Simeon, who is said to have passed some thirty years of his life on the summit of a column twenty yards in height, taking only the scantiest nourishment, eschewing ablutions, covered with filth and sores, was worshipped as a holy man by the multitude and his example was followed by others, though with less rigor, during a period of nearly a thousand years. Among the Hindoos, too, the ascetic ideal acquired a baneful ascendency. We can hardly credit the tales that have come to us concerning the insane fanaticism which raged amongst this people. To what tortures of body and soul did they subject themselves, what cruel ordeals did they invent in order to steel themselves against the inevitable sufferings of life. It was their beau-ideal to achieve a state bordering upon absolute unconsciousness, in which the power of sensation might be entirely blunted, and even the existence of the physical man be forgotten.
This, indeed, is a capital remedy, a species of heroic treatment that attains its end. Man becomes passive in pain, incapable of sorrow, unmoved by any loss. But with the pains, the joys of existence have likewise fled. The human being walks as a shadow among shadows, a soulless substance, the wretched semblance of his former self. Who would not rather bear the heaviest ills that flesh is heir to, than purchase his release at such a cost.
And now in setting forth our own view of this mighty problem of human sorrow, let us bear in mind that our private hardships and those general evils which we see enacted on a scale of such appalling magnitude in the world around us, must be considered together, for the same cause constantly gives rise to both. It is of the utmost importance that we should weigh well what we have a right to expect, and ponder the conditions on which humanity holds the tenure of its existence. Perhaps our deepest disappointments are often due to the fact that we ask more than we have any legitimate title to receive, and judge the scheme of the Universe according to false analogies and preconceived notions which the constitution of things does not bear out. We are subject to two laws, the one the law of nature, the other that of morality: the two clash and collide, and a conflict ensues. Theology labors to show that this conflict is apparent rather than real, to admit it would seem to impugn the justice of the Deity. Thus we read in the Old Testament that when the sufferer Job protested his innocence, his friends assailed his veracity, and persisted in holding the bare fact of his misfortune as unimpeachable evidence of his sinfulness. And thus the Psalmist assures us, that he has grown old and never seen the righteous man in want. The experience of the Psalmist must have been limited indeed! The conflict exists, however it may be denied. Nature is indifferent to morality, goes on regardless. The great laws that rule the Kosmos, act upon this planet of ours, nor heed our presence. If we chance to stand in the way, they grind us to pieces with grim unconcern: the earth opens, the volcano sends forth its smoldering fires, populous cities are overwhelmed, locusts devastate the country; they do not pause before the field of the righteous; they have no moral preference. The seeds of disease also are scattered broadcast over the land, and the best, often those whom we can least afford to lose, are taken. These are the hostile forces, and against these man must contend. To them he opposes his intellect, his moral energy; he seeks to adapt himself to his place in the universe. He discovers that these foes are blind, not necessarily his enemies, if he can trace their path. If he can read the secret of their working, they cease to threaten him; he holds them with the reins of intellect, and binds them to his chariot, and behold like swift steeds they carry him whithersoever it pleases him, and on, on, they draw his car of progress. In this manner the sway of man's genius is extended on earth. Already life is far easier than it was among our ancestors ten thousand years ago; the epidemic is checked by wise sanitary regulations, greater justice prevails in government, and the means of happiness are extended over wider areas of the population. What we thus behold realized on a partial scale, we conceive in our visions of the future to be indefinitely prolonged, the course of development leading to higher and higher planes, healthier conditions, wiser laws, nobler manners. The moral order will thus increase on earth. The moral order never is, but is ever becoming. It grows with our growth, and to bring on the triumph of intellect over mechanism, of responsible morality over irresponsible force, is our mission. The purpose of man's life is not happiness, but worthiness. Happiness may come as an accessory, we dare never make it an end. There is that striving for the perfect within us: in it we live, by it we are exalted above the clod; it is the one and only solace that never fails us, and the experience of progress in the past, the hope of greater progress in the future, is the redeeming feature of life. But the condition of all progress is experience; we must go wrong a thousand times before we find the right. We struggle, and grope and injure ourselves until we learn the uses of things. Pain therefore becomes a necessity, but it acquires in this view a new and nobler meaning, for it is the price humanity pays for an invaluable good. Every painful sickness, every premature death, becomes the means of averting sickness and death hereafter. Every form of violence, every social wrong, every inmost tribulation, is the result of general causes and becomes a goad in the sides of mankind, pressing them on to correct the hoary abuses it has tolerated, the vicious principles of government, education and economy to which it has conformed. Wide as the earth is the martyrdom of man, but the cry of the martyr is the creaking of the wheel which warns us that the great car of human progress is in motion.
If we keep duly in mind the position which the human race occupies over against nature, we shall not accuse fate. Fate is our adversary; we must wrestle with it, we are here to establish the law of our own higher nature in defiance of fate. And this is the prerogative of man, that he need not blindly follow the law of his being, but that he is himself the author of the moral law, and creates it even in acting it out. We are all soldiers in the great army of mankind, battling in the cause of moral freedom; some to fight as captains, others to do valiant service in the ranks; some to shout the paean of victory, others to fall on the battle field or to retire wounded or crippled to the rear. But as in every battle so too in this, the fallen and the wounded have a share in the victory; by their sufferings have they helped, and the greenest wreath belongs to them.
It is strictly in accordance with the view we have taken, that we behold in the performance of duty the solace of affliction. All of us have felt, after some great bereavement, the beneficent influence of mere labor: even the mechanical part of duty affords us some relief. The knowledge that something must be done calls us away from brooding over our griefs, and forces us back into the active currents of life. The cultivation of the intellect also is a part of man's duty, and stands us in great stead in times of trouble. We should seek to accustom the mind to the aspect of large interests. In the pursuit of knowledge there is nothing of the personal: into the calm and silent realm of thought the feelings can gain no entrance. There, after the first spasms of emotion have subsided, we may find at least a temporary relief,—there for hours we drink in a happy oblivion. But more is needed, and the discharge of the duties of the heart alone can really console the heart. There is this secret in the affections, that they constantly add to our strength. Constant communion between allied natures leads to their mutual enrichment by all that is best in either. But when the rude hand of death interferes, we are as a stream whose outlet is barred, as a creeper whose stay is broken. A larger channel is needed then into which the waters of our love may flow, a firm support, to which the tattered tendrils of affection may cling anew. True, the close and intimate bond that unites friend to friend can have no substitute, but the warm love that obtains in the personal relations may be expanded into a wider and impersonal love, which, if less intense, is broader, which, if less fond, is even more ennobling. The love you can no longer lavish on one, the many call for it. The cherishing care you can no longer bestow upon your child, the neglected children of the poor appeal for it; the sympathy you can no longer give your friend, the friendless cry for it. In alleviating the misery of others, your own misery will be alleviated, and in healing you will find that there is cure.
This remedy is suggested in an ancient legend related of the Buddha, the great Hindoo reformer, who was so deeply affected by the ills of human life.* There came to him one day a woman who had lost her only child. She was wild with grief, and with disconsolate sobs and cries called frantically on the prophet to give back her little one to life. The Buddha gazed on her long and with that tender sympathy which drew all hearts to him, said, "Go my daughter, get me a mustard seed from a house into which death has never entered, and I will do as thou hast bidden me." And the woman took up the dead child, and began her search. From house to house she went saying, "Give me a mustard seed, kind folk, a mustard seed for the prophet to revive my child." And they gave her what she asked, and when she had taken it, she inquired whether all were gathered about the hearth, father and mother and the children; but the people would shake their heads and sigh, and she would turn on her way sadder than before. And far as she wandered, in town and village, in the crowded thoroughfare, and by the lonely road side, she found not the house into which death had never entered. Then gradually as she went on, the meaning of the Buddha's words dawned upon her mind; gradually as she learned to know the great sorrow of the race every where around her, her heart went out in great yearning sympathy to the companions of her sorrow; the tears of her pity fell free and fast, and the passion of her grief was merged in compassion. She had learned the great lesson of renunciation; had learned to sink self in the unselfish.
* We have ventured to offer this interpretation of thelegend in an article published in the Atlantic Monthly forJune, 1875, from which the account in the text is taken.
From the depths of the heart the stream of grief rises resistless, the dams and dykes of reason are impotent to stay its course. Prepare a channel therefore to lead out its swelling tide away to the great ocean of mankind's sorrow, where in commingling it shall be absorbed.
The consolations of the Ideal are vigorous: they do not encourage idle sentiment: they recommend to the sufferer, action. The loss indeed as we set out by saying, remains a loss, and no preaching or teaching can ever make it otherwise. The question is, whether it shall weaken and embitter us, or become the very purification of our souls, and lead us to grander and diviner deeds, lead us to raise unto the dead we mourn, a monument in our lives that shall be better than tiny pillared chapel or storied marble tomb.
Thus from whatever point we start, we arrive at the same conclusion still: "not in the creed but in the deed!" In the deed is the pledge of the sacredness of life; in the deed is the reward of our activities in health; in the deed our solace, and our salvation even in the abysmal gulfs of woe. In hours of great sorrow we turn in vain to nature for an inspiring thought. We question the sleepless stars; they are cold and distant: the winds blow, the rivers run their course, the seasons change; they are careless of man. In the world of men alone do we find an answering echo to the heart's needs. Let us grasp hands cordially and look into each other's eyes for sympathy, while we travel together on our road toward the unknown goal. To help one another is our wisdom, and our renown, and our sweet consolation.
Two centuries have elapsed since Spinoza passed from the world of the living, and to-day that high and tranquil spirit walks the earth once more and men make wide their hearts to receive his memory and his name. The great men whom the past has wronged, receive at last time's tardy recompense.
On the day that Columbus set sail for America, the Jews left Spain in exile. Many of their number, however, who could not find it in their hearts to bid adieu to their native land, remained and simulated the practice of devout Catholics while in secret they preserved their allegiance to their ancestral religion. They occupied high places in the church and state, and monks, prelates and bishops were counted in their ranks. Ere long the suspicions of the Inquisition were alarmed against these covert heretics, and their position became daily more perilous and insecure. Some were condemned to the stake, others pined for years in dungeons; those that could find the means, escaped and sought in distant lands security and repose from persecution. It was especially the Free States of Holland whose enlightened policy offered an asylum to the fugitives, and thither accordingly in great numbers they directed their steps. Their frugality, their thrift and enterprise, contributed not a little to build up the prosperity of the Dutch metropolis.
In the opening of the seventeenth century a considerable congregation of the Jews had collected in the city of Amsterdam. There in the year 1632, the child of Spanish emigrants, Benedict Spinoza was born. Of his childhood we know little. At an early age he was initiated into the mysteries of Hebrew lore, was instructed in the Hebrew grammar, and learned to read and translate the various writings of the Old Testament. He was taught to thread his way through the mazes of the Talmud, and its subtle discussions proved an admirable discipline in preparing him for the favorite pursuits of his after years. Lastly he was introduced to the study of the Jewish philosophers, among whom Maimonides and Ibn Ezra engaged his especial attention. Maimonides, one of the most profound thinkers of the middle ages, strove to harmonize the teachings of Aristotle with the doctrines of the Bible. Ibn Ezra on the other hand, was a confirmed sceptic. In his biblical commentaries he anticipates many noteworthy discoveries of modern criticism, and his orthodoxy in other respects also is more than doubtful.
In all these different branches of theology the young Spinoza made rapid progress and soon gained astonishing proficiency. He was the favorite of his instructors, and they predicted that he would one day become a shining light of the synagogue. Not content, however, with this course of study, Spinoza addressed himself to the study of Roman literature, and with the assistance of a certain Dr. Van den Ende, who had at that time gained considerable repute as a teacher of liberal learning, he soon became an accomplished Latin scholar. He also took up the study of Geometry and of Physics, and acquired considerable skill in the art of sketching. His mind being thus stored with various knowledge, he was prepared to enter the vast realm of metaphysical speculation and here the works of Rene Descartes, preeminently engaged his attention. Descartes, whose motto,De omnibus dubitandum est, sufficiently indicates the revolutionary character of his teachings, was the leader of the new school of thought on the continent. His influence proved decisive in shaping the career of Spinoza. Bruno also deserves mention among those who determined the bias of Spinoza's mind. I mean that Bruno was among the first followers of Copernicus, proclaimed the doctrine of the infinity of worlds and who himself inculcated a species of pantheism for which he paid the last penalty at Rome in the year 1600, thirty-two years before Spinoza was born. By all these influences the mind of the young philosopher was widened beyond the sphere of his early education. In the pursuit of truth he sought the society of congenial minds, and found among the cultivated Christians of his day that intellectual sympathy of which he stood in need. From the high plane of thought which he had now reached, the rites and practices of external religion dwindled in importance, and the questions of creed for which the mass of men contend appeared little and insignificant. His absence from the worship of the synagogue now began to be remarked; it was rumored that he neglected the prescribed fasts and he was openly charged with partaking of forbidden food. At first he was treated with great leniency. So high was his credit with the Rabbis, so impressed were they with his singular abilities, that they strove by every gentle means to win him back to his allegiance. They admonished him, held out prospects of honor and emolument; it is even stated that at last in despair of reclaiming him they offered an annual pension of a thousand florins to purchase his silence. Spinoza himself was keenly alive to the gravity of his position. It had been fondly hoped that he would shed new lustre upon the religion of Israel. He would be accused of vile ingratitude for deserting his people. He foresaw the inevitable rupture that would cut him off forever from friends and kinsmen, from the opportunities of wealth and honorable position, and deliver him over to privation and poverty. He himself tells us in the introduction of a work which had long been forgotten and has been only recently rescued from oblivion, that he saw riches and honor and all those goods for which men strive, placed before him on the one hand, and a sincere life serenely true to itself on the other; but that the former seemed veritable shams and evils compared with that one great good. Nay, he said, though he might never reach the absolute truth, he felt as one sick unto death, who knows but one balm that can help him and who must needs search for that balm whereby perchance he may be healed.
Great was the commotion stirred up against him in the Jewish community of Amsterdam. One evening a fanatic assaulted him on the street and attempted his life. The stroke of the assassin's dagger was successfully parried. But Spinoza felt that the city was now no longer safe for him to dwell in. He fled and for some time frequently changed his place of residence, until at last he settled at the Hague where he remained until his death. In the mean time the lenient spirit of the Jewish leaders had changed into stern, uncompromising rigor. Observe now how persecution breeds persecution. It had been the pride of Judaism from of old that within its pale the practice of religion was deemed more essential than the theory; that it permitted the widest divergence in matters of belief, and granted ample tolerance to all. But these Jews of Amsterdam, fresh from the dungeons and the torture chambers of the Inquisition, had themselves imbibed the dark spirit of their oppressors. Uriel d'Acosta they had driven to the verge of insanity and to a tragic death by their cruel bigotry. And now the same methods were employed against a wiser and greater and purer man, far than he.
On the 27th of July, 1656, in the synagogue of Amsterdam, the sacred ark, containing the scrolls of the law, being kept open during the ceremony, the edict of excommunication was solemnly promulgated. It reads somewhat as follows:
"By the decree of the angels and the verdict of the saints we separate, curse and imprecate Baruch de Spinoza with the consent of the blessed God and of this holy congregation, before the holy books of the Law with the commandments that are inscribed therein, with the ban with which Joshua banned Jericho, with the curse with which Elias cursed the youths, and with all the imprecations that are written in the Law. Cursed be he by day and cursed by night; cursed when he lies down, and cursed when he rises; cursed in his going forth, and cursed in his coming in. May the Lord God refuse to pardon him; may his wrath and anger be kindled against this man, and on him rest all the curses that are written in this book of the Law. May the Lord wipe out his name from under the heavens, and separate him for evil from all the tribes of Israel, with all the curses of the firmament that are written in the book of the Law. And ye that hold fast to the Lord God are all living this day! we warn you that none shall communicate with him either by word of mouth or letter, nor show him any favor, nor rest under the same roof with him, nor approach his person within four yards, nor read any writing that he has written."
When Spinoza heard of this anathema he calmly replied: "They compel me to do nothing which I was not previously resolved upon." He retired from the commerce of the world. He coveted solitude. Within his silent chamber he moved in a world of his own. There in twenty years of patient passionless toil he built up the mighty edifice of his system. It rises before us as if hewn of granite rock. Its simplicity, its grandeur, its structural power have been the wonder of men. I can offer only the barest outline of its design.
Man's questioning spirit seeks to penetrate to the heart of Nature, would grasp the origin of things. There is this mighty riddle: who will solve it? Various attempts have been made. Pantheism is one. Spinoza was the great philosopher of Pantheism.
Beneath all diversity there is unity. In all of Nature's myriad forms and changes, there is a substance unchangeable. It is uncreated, undivided, uncaused, the Absolute, Infinite, God. Thought and extension are its attributes; it is the One in All, the All in One. God is not matter, is not mind; is that deeper unity in which matter and mind are one; God or Nature, Spinoza says. This is not the God of theology. God is in the tree, in the stone, in the stars, in man. God does not live, nor labor for any purpose, but produces from the necessity of his Being in endless variety, in ceaseless activity. He is the inner cause of all things, the ultimate Reality, and all things are as in their nature they partake of him.
Man also is of God. The essence of man is in the mind. Man is a logical being. God alone owns truth; in so far as man thinks truly and clearly, he is a part of the infinite God. Logic is the basis of ethics. Spinoza ignores sentiment, ignores art. Good and evil are but other names for useful and not useful. But that alone is useful that we follow the necessary and universal laws, seeking by the depth and reach of intellect to know and understand.
Virtue is the pursuit of knowledge. There are three kinds of knowledge: the blurred perceptions of the senses, the light of the understanding, the intuition of intellect. The last is the highest.
Virtue is the sense of being; whatever heightens the joyous consciousness of our active faculties is therefore good. The wise man delights in the moderate enjoyment of pleasant food and drink, in the color and loveliness of green shrubs, in the adornment of garments, in music's sweetness. But our true being is to be found only in intellect; hence, virtue the joy of being, is the joy of thought; hence, the bold assertion—that is moral which helps, and that immoral which hinders thought.
Man is a social being. As a drop is raised upward in the great ocean by the onflowing of the wave, so the individual mind is exalted by the presence and communion of congenial minds moving in the same current.
'Tis thus that Spinoza deduces the social virtues. Hate is evil at all times, for hate implies the isolation and the weakness of the powers of reason. We should reward hatred with love and restore the broken accord of intellect. Love is the sense of kinship in the common search for reason's goal—wisdom. That all men should so live and act together that they may form, as it were, one body and one mind, is the ideal of life. Friendship therefore he prizes as the dearest of earth's possessions, and wedlock he esteems holy because in it is cemented the union of two souls for the common search of truth. We should be serene at all times and shun fear, which is weakness, and hope also which is the child of desire, and haughtiness and humbleness and remorse and pity should we avoid. But in stillness and with collected power shall we possess our souls obedient to the laws of mind that make our being and helping when we help for reason's sake. The passions bind us to passing phenomena. When they become transparent to our reason, when we know their causes then our nature conquers outward nature and we are masters, we are free.
Thus the emotional life is extinguished. The feelings lose their color and vitality, become blank "as lines and surfaces," and man, freed from the constraints of passion, dwells in the pure realm of intellect, and in constant intercourse with the mind of God, fulfills the purpose of his existence—to know and understand.
Against the blows of misfortune also reason steels us. Sorrow is but the lurking suspicion that all might have been otherwise. When we come to know that all things are by necessity, we shall find tranquillity in yielding to the inevitable. For so God works by necessity. For all things are in his hands as clay in the hand of the potter, which the potter taketh and fashioneth therefrom vessels of diverse value, some to honor and some to disgrace. And none shall rebuke him, for all is by necessity.
When the body passes away the mind does not wholly perish, but something remains that is infinite, an eternal modus dwelling in the depths of the eternal mind. But though we knew not that something of the mind remained, yet were goodness and strength of soul to be sought for above all else. For who, foreseeing that he cannot always feed on healthy nourishment, would therefore sate himself with deadly poison? or who, though he knew that the mind is not immortal, would therefore lead an empty life, devoid of reason's good and guidance? The wisdom of the wise and the freedom of the free is not in the aspect of death but of life. Religion and piety lead us to follow the laws of necessity in the world where they are manifest, to dwell on the intellect of God, of God their fount and origin.
But I forbear to enter farther into this wonderful system. We see a giant wrestling with nature, seeking to wrest from her her secret. Mysterious nature baffles him and the riddle is still unread. That substance of which he speaks is no more than an abstraction of the mind whose reality in the outward world he has failed to prove. He has also erred in turning aside from the rich and manifold life of the emotions, for the emotions are not in themselves evil, they are the seminal principle of all virtue.
On pillars of intellect, Spinoza reared his system. Still, solemn, sublime like high mountains it towers upward, but is devoid of color and warmth, and even the momentary glow that now and then starts up in his writings, passes quickly away like the flush of evening that reddens the snowy summits of Alpine ranges.
Spinoza's name marks a lofty peak in human history. He was a true man; no man more fully lived his teachings. If he describes the pursuit of knowledge as the highest virtue, he was himself a noble example of tireless devotion in that pursuit. He was well versed in the natural sciences, skillful in the use of the microscope, and his contributions to the study of the inner life of man have earned him lasting recognition. Johannes Mueller, the distinguished physiologist, has included the third division of Spinoza'sEthicsin his well known work on physiology.
Religion, however, was Spinoza's favorite theme, that religion which is free from all passionate longings and averse to superstition of whatever kind. He was among the first to hurl his mighty arguments against the infallible authority of the Bible, arguments that still command attention though two hundred years have since passed by. Miracles, he said, are past belief, the beauty of Cosmos is far more deserving of admiration than any so called miracle could possibly be. He demanded—this was a great and novel claim—that the methods of natural science be applied to the study of scripture, that the character of the age and local surroundings be considered in determining the meaning of each scriptural author. In brief that a natural history of the bible, so to speak, should be attempted. He claimed that the priesthood had falsified the very book which they professed to regard most holy. He denied the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and set forth in singularly clear and lucid language the discrepancies in which that work abounds. He closed the treatise in which these views are laid down—the Theologico-political Tract—with a magnificent plea for liberty of conscience and of speech. That state alone, he says, can be free and happy which rests on the freedom of the Individual citizen. Where the right of free utterance is curtailed, hypocrisy and shameful conformance flourish, and public contumely and disgrace which ought to serve as a mete punishment for the vicious, become a halo about the head of the most noble of men. Religion and piety, he concludes, the state has a right to demand, but nothing hereafter shall be known as religion and piety save the practice of equity and of a wise and helpful love.
It was a bold awakening note which thus rang out into the seventeenth century, and theologians were bitter in their replies. The book was confiscated and Christian curses were added to Jewish anathemas. But they failed to affect Spinoza.
Few men have suffered as he did. Few have preserved the same equanimity of soul in the face of adverse fortune. Twenty years he dwelt alone. For days he did not leave his student's closet, drawing his mighty circles, intent on those high thoughts that formed the companionship he loved. Those that knew him well revered him. De Witt the noble statesman, De Witt who ended his days so miserably, torn to pieces by a maddened mob, sought his counsel. Young ardent disciples from a distance sent him words of cheer into his solitude. His soul was pure as sunlight, his character crystal clear. He was frugal in the extreme: a few pence a day sufficed to sustain him. Not that he affected austere views in general, but the deep meditations that occupied his mind left him little time or inclination for the grosser pleasures. His sense of honor was scrupulously nice. Again and again did he reject the munificent pensions which his friends pressed upon him; he would be free and self-sustained in all things. In his leisure hours he busied himself with the grinding and polishing of optical lenses, an exercise that offered him at once the means of support and a welcome relaxation from the severe strain of mental effort. His temper was rarely ruffled; he was placid, genial, childlike. When wearied with his labors he would descend to the family of his landlord, the painter Van der Speke, and entering into the affairs of these simple people, he found, in their unaffected converse, the relief he sought.
He valued the peace of mind which he had purchased so dearly. When the Elector of the Palatinate offered him the chair of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg on condition that he would so expound his philosophy as not to interfere with the established religion, he declined, replying that he could teach the truth only as he saw it, and that evil and designing men would doubtless add point and poison to his words. Yet he was fearless. When toward the close of his career, his life was again imperiled, the grave tranquillity of his demeanor inspired his agitated friends with calmness and confidence.
He had gained his forty-fourth year. For half a life time he had been fighting a treacherous disease, that preyed in secret upon his health. His life was slowly ebbing away amidst constant suffering, yet no complaint crossed his lips and his nearest companions were hardly aware of what he endured. In the early part of the year 1677 one day in February, while the family of the painter were at church the end approached. Only a single friend was with him. Calmly as he had lived, in the stillness of the Sunday afternoon, Spinoza passed away.
He has left a name in history that will not fade. His people cast him out, Christianity rejected him, but he has found a wider fellowship, he belongs to all mankind. Great hearts have throbbed responsive to his teachings and many a sorrowful soul has owned the restful influence of his words. He was a helper of mankind. Not surely because he solved the ultimate problems of existence—what mortal ever will—but because he was wise in the secret of the heart, because he taught men to appease their fretful passions in the aspect of the infinite laws in which we live and are.
Sacred is the hour in which we read his Ethics. From the heat and glare of life we enter into its precincts as into the cool interior of some hallowed temple of religion. But no idol stands there; the spirit of truth alone presides and sanctifies the place and us. The great men of the past we will reverence. They are mile-stones on the highway of humanity, types of the Infinite, that has dawned in human breasts. Such an one was he of whom I have spoken. And more and more as the light increases among men will all that was good and great in him shine forth to irradiate their path. And as we stand here to-day on this day of remembrance to recall his teachings and his example, so when other centuries shall have elapsed, the memory of Spinoza will still live, posterity will still own him, and distant generations will name him anew: Benedictus—Blessed!