Van Den Ende, Franz

Dutch philospher and Biblical critic; born at Amsterdam Nov. 24, 1632; died at The Hague Feb. 21, 1677. The family name is derived from the town of Espinosa, in Leon, not far from the city of Burgos. Baruch's grandfather, Abraham Michael de Spinoza, was one of the leaders of the Sephardic community of Amsterdam, being president thereof in 1639. His father, Michael de Spinoza, was a merchant who married twice, and had three children—two daughters, Miriam and Rebekah, by his first wife, who died in 1627, and a son, the philosopher, by his second wife, Hannah Deborah, who died in 1638. Miriam married a brother of Simon de Caceres.

Spinoza was trained at the communal school, and at the Pereira yeshibah, over which Isaac de Fonseca Aboab, Manasseh ben Israel, and Saul Morteira presided. There he studied, from eight to eleven in the morning and from two to five in the afternoon, Hebrew, Bible, Talmudic literature, and, toward the end of his course, some of the Jewish philosophers, certainly Maimonides, Gersonides, and Ḥasdai Crescas. It was probably during this period that he studied also Abraham ibn Ezra's commentaries. The amount of his cabalistic knowledge is somewhat doubtful, but both Manasseh ben Israel and Morteira were adepts in Cabala. Spinoza was attracted by the atmosphere of free thought characteristic of the Dutch capital. He learned Latin, immediately after leaving school, from Franz van den Ende, an adventurer and polyhistor who had established himself in Amsterdam; under him he studied as well mathematics, physics, mechanics, astronomy, chemistry, and the medicine of the day. Spinoza likewise acquired a knowledge of the scholasticism developed in the school of Thomas Aquinas.

Epoch-making for the development of Spinoza's thought was his acquaintance with the works of Descartes, who led Europe in the attempt to found a philosophy based upon reason, not tradition. But the application of such an idea to Judaism could only be disastrous, and shortly after leaving the Pereira yeshibah rumors became persistent that young Spinoza had given utterance to heretical views, such as had led Uriel Acosta and Orobio de Castro into trouble. It would appear that no action was taken during the life of Spinoza's father, who died March 28, 1654, and there is evidence that Baruch was "called up to the Law" in synagogue on Dec. 5, 1654, offering a small sum as a "mi sheberak."It is recorded that his relatives disputed his claim to any share in his father's estate, and that he found it necessary to resort to legal proceedings, or the threat of them, to secure his rights; but, having obtained them, he took possession only of the best bed as a kind of heirloom.

This was probably after his heretical views had been formally ascertained, according to rabbinical law, by two of his companions, who put questions to him which elicited his opinion that, according to the Scripture, angels were merely fantoms, that the soul is identified in the Bible with life and is regarded as mortal, and that in calling God "great" the Scripture attributes to Him extension, that is, body. This last statement is of considerable interest in view of Spinoza's later philosophic doctrines on this point. He was summoned before the bet din, and seems to have made no concealment, of his views; it is claimed that his teacher Morteira offered him, on behalf of the congregation, a pension of 1,000 florins a year provided he would not give public utterance to his heretical views. This Marano expedient was refused, and the congregation proceeded to his formal excommunication on July 27, 1656, which was regularly reported to the Amsterdam magistrates. This latter action shows that the main object of the excommunication was to disa vow on the part of the community any participation in Spinoza's pernicious views, and was a natural precaution on the part of a set of men only recently released from persecution on account of their opinions and only half trusting in the toleration of the authorities of the land. At the same time there is no doubt that considerable feeling was aroused by Spinoza's views, and it is reported that a fanatical Jew even raised a dagger against him as he was leaving either the synagogue or the theater. Freudenthal suggests that this happened during an altercation with Spinoza himself.

Friends and Disciples.

Spinoza was thus cast out at the age of twenty-three from all communion with men of his own faith and race, and there is no evidence of his coming into communication with a single Jewish soul from that time to his death (the "I. O." among his correspondents, formerly assumed to be Isaac Orobio, turned out to be Jacob Oosten). It is clear that Spinoza had already formed a circle of friends and disciples, mainly of the Mennonite sect known as Collegiants, whoso doctrines were similar to those of the Quakers; and that he had attended a philosophical club composed mainly of these sectaries, one of whom, Simon de Vries, acted as secretary. After his excommunication Spinoza found it desirable to take up his abode with a Collegiant friend who lived two or three miles outside of Amsterdam on the Ouderkerk road, near the old Jewish cemetery. There he communicated with his friends in Amsterdam by letter, and they seem to have submitted to him their difficulties in the same way, leading to a regular philosphical correspondence. As a means of living Spinoza resorted to the calling of a practical optician, in which his mathematical knowledge was valuable, and he also appears to have taken pupils in philosophy, and even in Latin and Hebrew. He remained in his new abode five years, during which he wrote a defense of his position, afterward extended into the "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus," and a short tractate on "God, Man, and Happiness," afterward developed into his "Ethics."

Baruch Spinoza.(From a miniature in possession of the Queen of Holland.)

In 1661 Spinoza removed to Rhijnsburg, near Leyden, then the center of the Collegiants activity Here he spent the two most fruitful years of his life, during which he prepared for a pupil a résumé of the Cartesian philosophy, presenting it in a geometric form; composed his treatise on philosphical method, "De Intellectus Emendatione," which, however, remained unfinished; and wrote at least the beginning of his "Ethics," adopting the same geometric form. He finished the "Ethics" in Aug.,1665, at Voorburg, a suburb of The Hague, to which he had removed in April, 1663, probably to be near the De Witt brothers, then at the height of their power. John de Witt had become acquainted with Spinoza, and either at this time, or a little later, gave him a small pension. From Voorburg Spinoza used to send portions of his "Ethics," written in Dutch, to his band of disciples in Amsterdam, who translated them into Latin and wrote him letters in the same language dealing with the difficulties of his theories. Before publishing this work, however, so subversive of the ordinary views of theology and philosophy, Spinoza determined to pave the way by an animated plea for liberty of thought and expression in the commonwealth. To this he devoted the next-four years, the result being the "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus." This was published in 1670, without the author's name, and it brought such a storm of opprobrium that it was formally proscribed by the Synod of Dort and by the States General of Holland, Zealand, and West Friesland. It was found necessary, in order to evade this censure, to publish the work under false titles, representing it sometimes as a medical, sometimes as a historical, work.

This reception somewhat alarmed Spinoza, who, hearing in the following year (1671) that a Dutch translation was contemplated, urged his friends to prevent its appearance. Spinoza's reputation as a thinker, however, had by this time been fully established by his two published works, and he was consulted both personally and by letter by many important scientific men of the day, including Oldenburg, secretary of the Royal Society, London; Huygens, the optician; Louis Meyer, the physician; and Count von Tschirnhausen, afterward the discoverer of a new method of obtaining phosphorus and the rediscoverer of the method of producing procelain. Through von Tschirnhausen, Spinoza came into correspondence with Leibnitz, then (1672) in Paris. He appears to have had some suspicions of Leibnitz's trustworthiness, and it was not till four years later, when the brilliant young diplomat visited him at The Hague, that Spinoza exposed his full mind to Leibnitz and produced that epoch-making effect upon the latter which dominated European thought in the eighteenth century.

At The Hague (1670-77).

Spinoza settled at The Hague in 1670, possibly to be near his patron John de Witt, who was soon to fall under the assassin's dagger (1672). Spinoza was so aroused from his ordinary calmness by this act that he was with difficulty prevented from publicly denouncing it. The following year he received and refused an offer of a professorship in philosophy at Heidelberg University from the elector palatine. A somewhat mysterious visit to the French invading army in 1674 is the only remaining incident in Spinoza's life, which was drawing to a close. He had a hereditary tendency to consumption derived from his mother, and this can not have failed to be intensified by the inhalation of particles of crystal incidental to his means of livelihood. He died, while his landlady was at church, in the presence of his physician, Louis Meyer.

Spinoza left a considerable library, for the purchase of which, in all probability, the pensions he received from his patron John de Witt, and from his friend Simon de Vries were spent; a number of finished glasses which, owing to his reputation as an optician, brought high prices; and a few engravings and articles of furniture. The sum realized from the auction of his effects was so small that his sister Rebekah did not find it worth while to make application therefor. His funeral was attended by a number of his disciples and friends, who filled six coaches. He was buried in the cemetery of the new church on the Spuy, in a grave which can no longer be identified. His biographer, Colerus, however, asserts that he was never received into any Christian community, and Spinoza in one of his letters (, ed. Land) expressly declared that to him the notion that God took upon Himself the nature of man seemed as self-contradictory as would be the statement that "the circle has taken on the nature of the square." He thus lived and died apart from either Jewish or Christian prepossessions, in the greatest spiritual isolation, which enabled him to regard human affairs with complete detachment; at the same time, however, his calm, prudent, and kindly nature was not estranged from the simple pleasures of the ordinary life of the citizen.

Seal of Spinoza.

Works.

As has been mentioned above, only two of Spinoza's works were published during his lifetime: "Renati Des Cartes Principiorum Philosophiæ Pars et. More Geometrico Demonstratæ per Benedictum de Spinoza Amstelodamensem. Accesserunt Ejusdem Cogitata Metaphysica," Amsterdam, 1663, and "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus," published without the author's name and printed professedly at Hamburg, though really at Amsterdam, 1670. The latter work was published two years later as the "Opera Chirurgica" of Franciscus Villa corta, or as the "Operum Historicorum Collectio" of Daniel Heinsius. The remainder of Spinoza's works appeared in the year of his death (1677) at Amsterdam under the title "B. d. S. Opera Posthuma." They included the "Ethica," the "Tractatus Politicus," the "Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione," the "Epistolæ," both from and to Spinoza, and the "Compendium Grammatices Linguæ Hebreæ." The same works appeared simultaneously in Dutch under the title "De Nagelate Schriften van B. d. S."; as it seems that Spinoza sent his "Ethics" in the first place in Dutch to his disciples at Amsterdam, it is probable that this edition contains the original draft of the work. About 1852 traces were found of the short tractate ("Korte Verhandeling") which was the basis of the "Ethics," and likewise, in the Collegiant archives at Amsterdam, a number of letters; these were published by Van Vloten as "Ad Benedicti de Spinoza Opera Quæ Supersunt Omnia Supplementum," Amsterdam, 1862, including a tractate on the rainbow which was thought to have been lost, but which appeared at The Hague in 1687. Apart from the "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus," none of his works has been reproduced in the original in a separate edition, but they have always appearedas his "Opera Omnia," of which editions have been prepared by E. G. Paulus (Jena, 1802), A. Gfrörer (Stuttgart, 1830), C. H. Bruder (Leipsic, 1843), H. Ginzberg (ib. 1874-78), and Van Vloten and Land (2 vols., The Hague, 1883; 3 vols., ib. 1895), the last being at present the standard edition. Translations have been made into German by B. Auerbach (Stuttgart, 1841), into English by R. Willis (1862-70) and R. H. M. Elwes (1883), into French by E. Saisset (Paris, 1842); of the "Ethics" alone there have been published English versions by R. Willis, 1870, and Hale White, 1883, and a Hebrew version by S. Rubin (Vienna, 1887). An edition and translation of the "Korte Verhandeling" were produced by C. Schaarschmidt (Leipsic, 1874), as well as a translation by C. Sigwart (Tübingen, 1870).

There are four portraits extant of Spinoza, one an engraving attached to the "Opera Posthuma"; a second one at Wolfenbüttel; a third one at the beginning of Schaarschmidt's edition of the "Korte Verhandeling," from a miniature formerly in the possession of the late Queen of Holland; and, finally, one in the possession of the Hon. Mayer Sulzberger. The last can be traced to the possession of Cardinal de Rohan, to whom it is stated to have been given by Jewish tenants of his. It is signed "W. V., 1672" (or 1673), which would correspond to the initials of the painter W. Vaillant, who was living at Amsterdam in that year; Vaillant painted the portrait of the elector Karl Ludwig, who, in the following year, invited Spinoza to Heidelberg. This portrait has clearly Jewish features, thus agreeing with the Queen of Holland miniature, whereas the Wolfenüttel portrait is entirely without Jewish traits. Colerus declares that Spinoza was of marked Jewish type, which would confirm the authenticity of the Vaillant picture, though this has, unfortunately, been "restored." It has hitherto remained unpublished, but is given in facsimile as the frontispiece to this volume of The Jewish Encyclopedia.

Philosophy.

It has been both asserted and denied that the thoughts developed in Spinoza's short life of forty-four years, and put forth anonymously after his death with such remarkable influence on the history of European speculation for at least the last one hundred and fifty years, were derived in large measure from his Jewish training and reading. The question is a very difficult one to decide, owing to the close-linked chain of Spinoza's thought, which he designedly made in his "Ethics" a continuous course of reasoning, each proposition being dependent upon the preceding, exactly after the manner of Euclid. In order to determine the extent of his Jewish indebtedness it is necessary, therefore, to attempt some slight sketch of his whole system. Apart from this object it deserves such exposition as the most influential body of doctrine ever produced by a Jew since Philo.