§373The story M. Bayle relates of Johan Bredenburg, a citizen of Rotterdam (Dictionary, art. 'Spinoza', lit. H, p. 2774) is curious. He published a book against Spinoza, entitled: Enervatio Tractatus Theologico-politici, una cum demonstratione geometrico ordine disposita, Naturam non esse Deum, cujus effati contrario praedictus Tractatus unice innititur. One was surprised to see that a man who did not follow the profession of letters, and who had but slight education (having written his book in Flemish, and had it translated into Latin), had been able to penetrate with such subtlety all the principles of Spinoza, and succeed in overthrowing them, after having reduced them by a candid analysis to a state wherein they could appear in their full force. I have been told (adds M. Bayle) that this writer after copious reflexion upon his answer, and upon the principle of his opponent, finally found that this principle could be reduced to the form of a demonstration. He undertook therefore to prove that there is no cause of all things other than a nature which exists necessarily, and which acts according to an immutable, inevitable and irrevocable necessity. He examined the whole system of the geometricians, and after having constructed his demonstration he scrutinized it from every imaginable angle, he endeavoured to find its weak spot and was never able to discover any means of destroying it, or even of weakening it. That caused him real distress: he groaned over it and begged the most talented of his [350] friends to help him in searching out the defects of this demonstration. For all that, he was not well pleased that copies of the book were made. Franz Cuper, a Socinian (who had written Arcana Atheismi Revelata against Spinoza, Rotterdam, 1676, in 4to.), having obtained a copy, published it just as it was, that is, in Flemish, with some reflexions, and accused the author of being an atheist. The accused made his defence in the same tongue. Orobio, a very able Jewish physician (that one who was refuted by M. Limbourg, and who replied, so I have heard say, in a work posthumously circulated, but unpublished), brought out a book opposing Bredenburg's demonstration, entitled: Certamen Philosophicum Propugnatae Veritatis Divinae ac Naturalis, adversus J.B. principia, Amsterdam, 1684. M. Aubert de Verse also wrote in opposition to him the same year under the name of Latinus Serbattus Sartensis. Bredenburg protested that he was convinced of free will and of religion, and that he wished he might be shown a possibility of refuting his own demonstration.

§374I would desire to see this alleged demonstration, and to know whether it tended to prove that primitive Nature, which produces all, acts without choice and without knowledge. In this case, I admit that his proof was Spinozistic and dangerous. But if he meant perhaps that the divine nature is determined toward that which it produces, by its choice and through the motive of the best, there was no need for him to grieve about this so-called immutable, inevitable, irrevocable necessity. It is only moral, it is a happy necessity; and instead of destroying religion it shows divine perfection to the best advantage.

§375I take this opportunity to add that M. Bayle quotes (p. 2773) the opinion of those who believe that the book entitled Lucii Antistii Constantis de Jure Ecclesiasticorum Liber Singularis, published in 1665, is by Spinoza. But I have reason for doubting this, despite that M. Colerus, who has passed on to me an account he wrote of the life of that famous Jew, is also of that opinion. The initial letters L.A.C. lead me to believe that the author of this book was M. de la Cour or Van den Hoof, famous for works on the Interest of Holland, Political Equipoise, and numerous other books that he published (some of them under the signature V.D.H.) attacking the power of the Governor of Holland, which was at that time considered a danger to the Republic; for the memory of Prince William the Second's attempt upon the city of Amsterdam was still quite fresh.[351] Most of the ecclesiastics of Holland were on the side of this prince's son, who was then a minor, and they suspected M. de Witt and what was called the Lowenstein faction of favouring the Arminians, the Cartesians, and other sects that were feared still more, endeavouring to rouse the populace against them, and not without success, as the event proved. It was thus very natural that M. de la Cour should publish this book. It is true that people seldom keep to the happy mean in works published to further party interests. I will say in passing that a French version of the Interest of Holland by M. de la Cour has just been published, under the deceptive title of Memoires de M. le Grand-Pensionnaire de Witt; as if the thoughts of a private individual, who was, to be sure, of de Witt's party, and a man of talent, but who had not enough acquaintance with public affairs or enough ability to write as that great Minister of State might have written, could pass for the production of one of the first men of his time.

§376I saw M. de la Cour as well as Spinoza on my return from France by way of England and Holland, and I learnt from them a few good anecdotes on the affairs of that time. M. Bayle says, p. 2770, that Spinoza studied Latin under a physician named Franz van den Ende. He tells at the same time, on the authority of Sebastian Kortholt (who refers to it in the preface to the second edition of the book by his late father, De Tribus Impostoribus, Herberto L. B. de Cherbury, Hobbio et Spinoza) that a girl instructed Spinoza in Latin, and that she afterwards married M. Kerkering, who was her pupil at the same time as Spinoza. In connexion with that I note that this young lady was a daughter of M. van den Ende, and that she assisted her father in the work of teaching. Van den Ende, who was also called A. Finibus, later went to Paris, and there kept a boarding-school in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He was considered excellent as an instructor, and he told me, when I called upon him there, that he would wager that his audiences would always pay attention to his words. He had with him as well at that time a young girl who also spoke Latin, and worked upon geometrical demonstrations. He had insinuated himself into M. Arnauld's good graces, and the Jesuits began to be jealous of his reputation. But he disappeared shortly afterwards, having been mixed up in the Chevalier de Rohan's conspiracy.

§377I think I have sufficiently proved that neither the foreknowledge nor the providence of God can impair either his justice or his goodness, [352] or our freedom. There remains only the difficulty arising from God's co-operation with the actions of the creature, which seems to concern more closely both his goodness, in relation to our evil actions, and our freedom, in relation to good actions as well as to others. M. Bayle has brought out this also with his usual acuteness. I will endeavour to throw light upon the difficulties he puts forward, and then I shall be in a position to conclude this work. I have already proved that the co-operation of God consists in giving us continually all that is real in us and in our actions, in so far as it involves perfection; but that all that is limited and imperfect therein is a consequence of the previous limitations which are originally in the creature. Since, moreover, every action of the creature is a change of its modifications, it is obvious that action arises in the creature in relation to the limitations or negations which it has within itself, and which are diversified by this change.

§378I have already pointed out more than once in this work that evil is a consequence of privation, and I think that I have explained that intelligibly enough. St. Augustine has already put forward this idea, and St. Basil said something of the same kind in his Hexaemeron, Homil. 2, 'that vice is not a living and animate substance, but an affection of the soul contrary to virtue, which arises from one's abandoning the good; and there is therefore no need to look for an original evil'. M. Bayle, quoting this passage in his Dictionary (art. 'Paulicians', lit. D, p. 2325) commends a remark by Herr Pfanner (whom he calls a German theologian, but he is a jurist by profession, Counsellor to the Dukes of Saxony), who censures St. Basil for not being willing to admit that God is the author of physical evil. Doubtless God is its author, when the moral evil is assumed to be already in existence; but speaking generally, one might assert that God permitted physical evil by implication, in permitting moral evil which is its source. It appears that the Stoics knew also how slender is the entity of evil. These words of Epictetus are an indication: 'Sicut aberrandi causa meta non ponitur, sic nec natura mali in mundo existit.'