BENEDICT, was born at Amsterdam the 24th November 1632. His father was a Jew of Portugal, by profeffion a merchant. After being taught Latin by a physician, he applied himfelf for many years to the study of theology, and afterwards devoted himfelf entirely to philosophy. He began very early to be diffatisfied with the Jewifh religion; and as his temper was open, he did not conceal his doubts from the synagogue. The Jews, it is faid, offered to tolerate his infidelity, and even promifed him a penfion of a thoufand dollars per annum, if he would remain in their fociety, and continue outwardly to praftice their ceremonies. But if this offer was really made, he rejected it, perhaps from his aversion to hypocri fy, or rather becaufe he could not endure the reftraint which it would have impofed. He also refufed being conftituted heir to an independent fortune, to the prejudice of the natural claimants; and he learned the art of polishing glafs for fpectacles, that he might fubfift independently of every one.

He would probably have continued in the synagogue for fome time longer, had it not been for an accident. As he was returning home one evening from the theatre he was ftabbed by a Jew: the wound was flipt; but the attempt naturally led Spinoza to conclude that the Jews had formed the design of afßafinating him. After leaving the synagogue he became a Chriftian, and frequented the churches of the Lutherans and Calvinists. He now devoted himfelf more than ever to his favourite philofophical fpeculations; and finding himfelf frequently interrupted by the visits of his friends, he left Amsterdam, and settled at the Hague, where he often continued for three months together without ever stirring from his lodging. During his residence in that city, his hoftefs, who was a Lutheran, afked him one day if he could be faved while he continued in her religion? "Yes (replied Spinoza) provided you join to your religion a peaceable and virtuous life." From this anfwer it has been concluded that he was a Chriftian in appearance only, while in reality he regarded all religions as indifferent. But this conclusion would be too severe, even if the woman had been a Mahometan. His Tractatus Theologico-politicus, which was publifhed about that time, is a better proof of his infincerity than a thoufand fuch conclufions; for this book contains all thoſe doctrines in embryo which were afterwards unfolded in his Opera Posthuma, and which are generally confidered as a fystem of atheifm.

His fame, which had now spread far and wide, obliged him fometimes to interrupt his philofophical reveries. Learned men visited him from all quarters. While the prince of Conde commanded the French army in Utrecht, he intreated Spinoza to visit him; and though he was abfent when the philofopher arrived, he returned immediately, and spent a confiderable time with him in conversation. The elector Palatine offered to make Spinoza profeffor of philofophy at Heidelberg; which, however, he declined.

He died of a consumption at the Hague on the 21st February 1677, at the age of 45. His life was a perpetual contradiction to his opinions. He was temperate, liberal, and remarkably difinterfeted; he was fociable, affable, and friendly. His converfation was agreeable and instructive, and never deviated from the strictest propriety.

The only edition of the works of Spinoza that we have seen is in two volumes small 4to; the former of which was printed at Hamburg in the year 1670, and the latter we know not where, in 1677, a few months after his death. In the Tractatus Theologico-politicus, already mentioned, he treats of prophecy and prophets; and of the call of the Hebrews, whom he affirms to have been distinguished from other nations only by the admirable form of their government, and the fitnefs of their laws for long preferving their political fiate. He is likewife of opinion, or at leaft pretends to be fo, that God may, in what we call a fupernatural way, have given political institutions to other nations as well as to the Hebrews, who were, he fays, at no time a peculiar people to the Supreme Lord of heaven and earth; for, according to him, all hiftory, sacred and profane, testifies that every nation was bleffed with the light of prophecy. That light, indeed, if his notions of it be juft, was of very little value. He labours to prove, that the prophets were diftinguifhed from other men only by their piety and virtue; that their revelations depended wholly on their imaginations and the difpositions of their minds; that they were often grofsly ignorant and highly prejudiced; that the speculative opinions of one prophet are feldom in unifon with thoſe of another; and that their writings are valuable to us only for the excellent rules which he acknowledges they contain respecting the prac- tice of piety and virtue. He then proceeds to treat of the divine law and of miracles; and endeavours to prove that no miracle, in the proper sense of the word, can have been at any time performed; because every thing happens by a necessity of nature, the result of the divine decrees, which are from all eternity necessary themselves. He acknowledges, that in the Scriptures, which he professes to admit as true history, miracles are often mentioned; but he says that they were only singular events which the sacred historians imagined to be miraculous: and he then gives some very extraordinary rules for interpreting the books of the Old and New Testaments where they treat of miracles, or appear to foretell future events. See our articles MIRACLE and PROPHECY.

Having thus divested the Scriptures of every thing characteristic of a revelation from heaven, he next calls in question their authenticity. He affirms, in contradiction to the clearest internal evidence, that the Pentateuch and all the other historical books must have been written by one man; and that man, he thinks, could not have flourished at a period earlier than that of Ezra. The grounds of this opinion are unworthy of the talents of Spinoza; for that he had talents is incontrovertible. His principal objection to the authenticity of the Pentateuch is, that Moses is made to speak of himself in the third person, and to talk of the Canaanites being then in the land; and because he finds in his writings, as well as in the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, &c. places designed by names which he supposes they had not in the early ages of which these books contain the history, he concludes that these writings must be one compilation from ancient records made at a very late period; more especially as the author often speaks of things of great antiquity remaining to this day. The books of Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, must have been compiled, he thinks, under the Maccabees; and he seems to consider as of equal value with them the story of Tobit, and the other two apocryphal treaties entitled the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus.

These femeles cavils, worthy only of one of those modern freethinkers whose learning, in the opinion of Bishop Warburton, is not sufficient to carry them even to the confines of rational doubt, we have sufficiently obviated in another place (see SCRIPTURE, No 8—31.). Spinoza urges them against the other books of the Old Testament. The prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, and Jonah, are, as we have them, only fragments, he says, of the writings of those men compiled by the Pharisees under the second temple from ancient and voluminous records.

In the midst of this dogmatical scepticism, if we may use such a phrase, he bears such a testimony to the last chapters of the book of Daniel, as we should not have looked for in the writings either of a Jew or of a Deist. After detailing the various hypotheses which in his time were held respecting the author and the intention of the book of Job; in which, he says, MOMUS is called SATAN, he proceeds in these words: "Treneto ad Danielis librum; hic fine dubio ex cap. 8, ipsius Danielis scripta continet. Undemum autem priora septem capita descripta fuerint, necio;" thus admitting the famous prophecy of the seventy weeks. The canon of the Old Testament, he says, was finally settled by rabbins of the Pharisaical sect, who wished to exclude from it the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Ezekiel, as they had actually excluded others of equal value; but the three books in question were inserted by the influence of two of the rabbis of greater wisdom and integrity than the rest.

That so paradoxical a writer, who had been originally a Jew, and was now almost a Deist, should have treated the New Testament with as little ceremony as the Old, will not surprize the intelligent reader. He begins his remarks, however, with affirming; that no man can peruse the Christian Scriptures, and not acknowledge the apostles to have been prophets; but he thinks that their mode of prophesying was altogether different from that which prevailed under the Mosiac dispensation; and that the gift, whatever it was, forsook them the infant that they left off preaching, as their writings have to him every appearance of human compositions. This distinction between Christian and Jewish prophecy is the more wonderful, that he founds it principally on the dissimilarity of style visible in the writings of the Old and New Testaments; though, in his second chapter, which treats of the works of the Jewish prophets, he says expressly, "Stylus deinde prophetiae pro eloquentia cuique prophetae variabat, prophetiae enim Ezekielis et Amosis non sunt, ut illae Efaeae, Nachumi, eleganti, sed rudiore stylo scripserunt." That the Hebrew scholar may be convinced of the truth of this remark, he recommends to him to study diligently the writings of these prophets, and to consider the occasions on which their prophecies were uttered: "Quae si omnia rectè perpendentur (says he) facile offendant, Deum nullum habere fylum peculiarem dicendi, sed tantum pro eruditione, et capacitate prophetae eatenus esse elegantem, compendiosum, fervorem, rudem, prolixum, et obfuscarum." Another objection brought by Spinoza against the prophecies of the New Testament arises from the authors of them having been at all times masters of themselves. This, says he, was peculiarly the case of St Paul, who often confirms his doctrine by reasoning, which the Jewish prophets never condescended to do, as it would have submitted their dogmas to the examination of private judgment. Yet, with singular inconsistency, he affirms, that the Jewish prophets could not know that the impressions made on their imaginations proceeded from God, but by a sign given them, which by their own reason or judgment they knew would never be vouchsafed to an impious or a wicked man.

After these very free remarks on the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, he naturally enough expresses a suspicion, that by those who consider the Bible as the epistle of God sent from heaven to men, he will be thought to have finned against the Holy Ghost by vilifying his dictates. This leads him to inquire in what sense the Scriptures are the word of God; and he gravely determines them to be so only as they actually contribute to make men more virtuous and holy. It is not enough that they are calculated to improve virtue and holiness: for should the words of the languages in which they are written acquire in process of time a figuration different from what they had originally; should mankind lose all knowledge of these languages; or even should they agree to neglect the books, whether from ignorance or from wilfulness—those books would cease to be the word of God, and become nothing better than waste paper and ink; just as the two tables, which Moses broke on observing the idolatry of his countrymen, were not the covenant between Jehovah and the Israelites, but merely two pieces of stone! The Scriptures, however, are the word of God, because they teach the true religion of which God is the author; and they have taught it in such a manner, he says, that it can never be lost or corrupted whatever become of the books of the Old and New Testaments, or of the languages in which they are written. The whole of religion, as the Scriptures themselves testify, consists in the love of God above all things, and of our neighbours as ourselves: whence it follows, that we must believe that God exists, and watcheth over all things by his providence; that he is omnipotent, and has decreed the pious to be ultimately happy, and the impious miserable; and that our final salvation depends solely on His grace or favour. These truths, with their necessary consequences, are the word of God: they are clearly taught in the Scriptures, and can never be corrupted; but every thing else in these volumes is vain, he says, and of no greater importance to us than facts related in any other ancient and authentic history.

Such are the opinions which were entertained of revelation by a man, whom a critic, writing in a Christian country, and professing to be a zealous Christian himself, has lately pronounced to have been a chosen vessel. For what purpose he was chosen it is not easy to conceive. His religion, as it appears in the Tractatus, is the worst kind of Deism, and his politics are such as our monthly critics are not wont to teach, and such as we trust shall never be seriously taught by any British subject. By the law of nature, he says, every man before the formation of civil government has an unquestionable right to whatever appears eligible either to his reason or to his appetites; and may get possession of it by treaty, by violence, by fraud, or by any other means attended with less trouble to himself (five vi, five dolo, five precibus, five quocumque demum modo facilius poverti); and may treat as an enemy every person who shall attempt to obstruct his purpose. But when men agree to devolve this right upon others, and to constitute a political state, which both reason and appetite must persuade them to do, then are they in duty bound to obey every mandate of the government, however absurd it may be (omnia mandata tamen absurdiissima), as long as that government can enforce its edicts, and no longer; for according to him, right and power are so inseparably united, that when a government loses its power, it has no longer the smallest claim to obedience. This doctrine, he says, is most obviously just when taught of democratical governments; but it is in fact equally true of monarchies and aristocracies: "Nam quisquis sum- mam habet potestatem, five unus sit, five pauci, five de- nique omnes, certum est ei summum jus quicquid velit imperandi, competere: et praetera quisquis potestatem se defendendi, five sponte, five vi coactus, in alium trans- fulit, eum suo jure naturali planè cessisse, et consequen- ter eidem ad omnia absolutè parere decretivisse quod om- nia præstare tenetur, quamdui rex, five nobiles, five po- pulus summam, quam acceperunt, potestatem, quae juris transferendi fundamentum fuit, conservant; nec his plu- * Tracta- tu, cap. xvi. p. 151. ra addere opus est." We heartily agree with him, that to this precious conclusion it is needless to add a single word.

Taking our leave therefore of his Tractatus Theologico-politicus, we shall now give our readers a short account of his Opera Posthuma. These consist of, 1. Ethica, more geometrico demonstrata; 2. Politica; 3. De Emendatione Intellectus; 4. Epistolæ, et ad ear Responsiones; 5. Compendium Grammatice Linguae Hebraeæ.

The Ethica are divided into five parts, which treat in order, de Deo; de natura et origine mentis; de origine et natura affectuum; de servitute humana, seu de affectuum viribus; de potentia intellectus, seu de libertate humana. As the author professes to tread in the footsteps of the geometers, and to deduce all his conclusions by rigid demonstration from a few self-evident truths, he introduces his work, after the manner of Euclid, with a collection of definitions and axioms. These are couched in terms generally ambiguous; and therefore the reader will do well to consider attentively in what sense, if in any, they can be admitted; for it will not be found easy to grant his premises, and at the same time refute his conclusions. His definition of substance, for instance, is so expressed as to admit of two senses; in one of which it is just, whilst in the other it is the parent of the most impious absurdity. We shall give it in his own words: "Per substantiam intelligo id, quod in se est, et per se conceptur: hoc est, ejus conceptus non indiget conceptu alterius rei, a quo formari debat." If by this be meant, that a substance is that which we can conceive by itself without attending to any thing else, or thinking of its formation, the definition, we believe, will be admitted by every reflecting mind as sufficiently distinguishing the thing defined from an attribute, which, he says, is that which we perceive of a substance, and which we certainly cannot conceive as existing by itself. Thus the writer of this article can shut his eyes and contemplate in idea the small 4to volume now before him, without attending to anything else, or thinking of its paradoxical author, or even of the Great Being who created the matter both of him and of it; but he cannot for an instant contemplate the yellow colour of its vellum boards without thinking of triple extension, or, in other words, of body. The book therefore is a substance, because conceivable by itself; the colour is an attribute or quality, because it cannot be conceived by itself, but necessarily leads to the conception of something else. But if Spinoza's meaning be, that nothing is a substance but what is conceived as existing from eternity, independent of every thing as a cause, his definition cannot be admitted; for every man conceives that which in himself thinks, and wills, and is conscious, as a substance; at the same time that he has the best evidence possible that he existed not as a conscious, thinking, and active being, from eternity.

His fourth axiom is thus expressed: "Effectus cognitio à cognitione causæ dependet, et eandem involvit;" and his fifth, "Quæ nihil commune cum se invicem habent, etiam per se invicem intelligi non possunt, five conceptus unius alterius conceptum non involvit." The former of these propositions, far from being self-evident, is not even true; and the latter is capable of two senses very different from each other. That every ef- fect proceeds from a cause, is indeed an axiom; but surely we may know the effect accurately, though we be ignorant of the particular cause from which it proceeds (see Philosophy, No 36; and Physics, No 91, &c.) nor does the knowledge of the one by any means involve the knowledge of the other. If different things have nothing in common, it is indeed true that the knowledge of one of them will not give us an adequate conception of the other; but it will in many cases compel us to believe, that the other exists or has existed. A parcel of gunpowder lying at rest has nothing in common with the velocity of a cannon-ball; yet when we know that a ball has been driven with velocity from a cannon, we infer with certainty that there has been a parcel of powder at rest in the chamber of that cannon.

It is upon such ambiguous definitions and axioms as these that Spinoza has raised his pretended demonstrations, that one substance cannot produce another; that every substance must necessarily be infinite; that no substance exists or can be conceived besides God; and that extended substance or body is one of the infinite attributes of God. We shall not waste our own time or the reader's with a formal confutation of these impious absurdities. We trust they are sufficiently confuted in other articles of this work (see Metaphysics, Part III. Providence, and Theology, Part I.); and whoever wishes for a more particular examination of the author's principles, may find it in Dr Clarke's Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God. The truth, however, is, that no man will need the assistance of that eminent metaphysician to discover the fallacy of the reasoning by which they are attempted to be proved, if he affix any one precise meaning to the definitions and axioms, and adhere to that meaning steadily through the whole process of the pretended demonstrations.

By way of apology for this jargon, it has been lately said, that " Spinoza takes the word substance in its most simple and perfect sense; which is necessary, as he writes mathematically, and proposes a simple idea as the foundation of his theory. What is the proper signification of a substance? Is it not that which stands alone, which has the cause of its existence within itself? I with that this simple meaning of the word could be universally admitted in philosophy. Strictly speaking, no worldly thing is a substance; since all mutually depend on each other, and finally on God, who, in this exalted sense, is the only substance. The word modification sounds harsh and improper, and therefore it cannot be expected to gain a place in philosophy; but if the school of Leibnitz may term matter the appearance of substances, why may not Spinoza be allowed a bolder term? Worldly substances are kept in union by divine power, as it was by divine power that they had existence. They represent also, if you please, modified appearances of divine power; each according to the station, the time, and the organs, in and with which it appears. The-

phrase used by Spinoza is concise, and it gives an unity and simplicity to his whole system, however strange it may found in our ears."

From this account of Spinozism, one who had never looked into the works of the author would be led to suppose that his system is the same with that of Berkeley; which, denying the existence of material substance, attributes all our perceptions of what we call the qualities of body to the immediate agency of the Deity on our minds (see Metaphysics, Part II. chap. 3.). But Spinoza's doctrine is very different. According to him, bodies are either attributes or affections of God; and as he says there is but one extended substance, he affirms that substance to be indivisible, and employs a long scholium † to prove that those are mistaken who suppose it finite and not essential to the Deity. That we do not misrepresent his sentiments, the learned reader will be convinced by the two following definitions, with which he introduces that part of his ethics which treats of the nature and origin of mind. 1. "Per corpus intelligo modum, qui Dei essentiam, quatenus, ut res extensa consideratur, certo et determinato modo exprimit." 2. "Ad essentiam aliquius rei id pertinere dico, quo dato res necessearii ponitur, et quo sublato res necesseario tollitur; vel id, sine quo res, et vice versa quod fine re nec esse nec concepi potest." In conformity with these definitions, he attempts to prove that God is an extended as well as a thinking substance; that as a thinking substance he is the cause of the idea of a circle, Prop. vii. and as an extended substance of the circle itself; and xi. Part ii. that the minds of men are not substances, but certain modifications of the divine attributes; or, as he sometimes expresses it. "Quod humanae mentis actualae constituit, est idea rei singularis actu existentis." Hence, he says, it follows that the human mind is a part of the intellect of the infinite God; so that when we speak of the human mind perceiving this or that, we can only mean that God, not as he is infinite, but as he appears in the human mind or constitutes its essence, has this or that idea; and when we speak of God's having this or that idea, we must conceive of Him not only as constituting the human mind, but as, together with it, having the idea of something else (A). In another place he tells us, that the human mind is nothing but the idea which God has of the human body as actually existing; that this idea of the body, and the body itself, are one and the same thing; and that thinking and extended substances are in reality but one and the same substance, which is sometimes comprehended under one attribute of the Deity, and sometimes under another *.

If this impious jargon be not Atheism, or as it has been sometimes called Pantheism, we know not what it is (see Pantheism). According to Spinoza, there is but one substance, which is extended, infinite, and indivisible. That substance indeed he calls God; but he labours to prove that it is corporeal; that there is no difference between mind and matter; that both are at-

(a) Hinc sequitur mentem humanam partem esse infiniti intellectus Dei; ac proinde cum dicimus, mentem humanam hoc vel illud percipere, nihil aliud dicimus quam quod Deus, non quatenus infinitus est, sed quatenus per naturam humanae mentis explicatur, sive quatenus humanae mentis essentiam constituit, hanc vel illam habet ideam: et cum dicimus Deum hanc vel illam ideam habere, non tantum, quatenus naturam humanae mentis constituit, sed quatenus simul cum mente humana alterius rei etiam habet ideam. Corol. prop. xi. part 2.

* Prop. vii. xi. xxii. xxi. Part ii. tributes of the Deity variouly considered; that the human soul is a part of the intellect of God; that the fame foul is nothing but the idea of the human body; that this idea of the body, and the body itself, are one and the same thing; that God could not exist, or be conceived, were the visible universe annihilated; and therefore that the visible universe is either the one substance, or at least an essential attribute or modification of that substance. He sometimes indeed speaks of the power of this substance; but when he comes to explain himself, we find that by power he means nothing but blind necessity*; and though he frequently talks of the wisdom of God, he seems to make use of the word without meaning. This we think evident from the long appendix to his 36th proposition; in which he labours to prove that the notion of final causes is an idle figment of the imagination, since, according to him, nothing but the prejudices of education could have led men to fancy that there is any real distinction between good and evil, merit and demerit, praise and reproach, order and confusion; that eyes were given them that they might be enabled to see; teeth for the purpose of chewing their food; herbs and animals for the matter of that food; that the sun was formed to give light, or the ocean to nourish fishes. If this be true, it is impossible to discover wisdom in the operations of his one substance; since, in common apprehension, it is the very characteristic of folly to act without any end in view.

Such are the reveries of that writer, whose works a German philosopher of some name has lately recommended to the public, as calculated to convey to the mind more just and sublime conceptions of God than are to be found in most other systems. The recommendation has had its effect. A literary journalist of our own, reviewing the volume in which it is given, feels a peculiar satisfaction from the discovery, that Spinoza, instead of a formidable enemy to the cause of virtue and religion, was indeed their warmest friend; and piously hopes that we shall become more cautious not to suffer ourselves to be deceived by empty names, which those who cannot reason (Sir Isaac Newton and Dr Clarke perhaps) give to those who can (Hobbes, we suppose, and Spinoza). But though we have the honour to think on this question with our illustrious countrymen, we have no desire to depict Spinoza as a reprobate, which the critic says has often been done by ignorance and enthusiasm. We admit that his conduct in active life was irreproachable; and for his speculative opinions, he must stand or fall to his own Matter.* His Ethics appear to us indeed a system shockingly impious; and in the tract entitled Politica, power and right are confounded as in the former volume; but in the treatise De Intellectus Emendatione, are scattered many precepts of practical wisdom, as well as some judicious rules for conducting philosophical investigation; and we only regret, that the reader must wade to them through pages of fatalism, scepticism, and palpable contradictions. His Compendium Grammatices Linguae Hebraeae, though left imperfect, appears to have so much merit, that it is to be wished he had fulfilled his intention of writing a philosophical grammar of that language, instead of wasting his time on abstract speculations, which though they seem not to have been injurious to his own virtue, are certainly not calculated to promote the virtue of others, or to increase the sum of human happiness.