[111] Ep. xlvii, to Jellis, Feb. 1671. [↑]
[112] Ep. xix, 1675, to Oldenburg. [↑]
[113] “Spinozism is atheistic, and has no valid ground for retaining the word ‘God’” (Martineau, p. 349). This estimate is systematically made good by Prof. E. E. Powell of Miami University in his Spinoza and Religion (1906). See in particular ch. v. The summing-up is that “the right name for Spinoza’s philosophy is Atheistic Monism” (pp. 339–40). [↑]
[114] Ethica, pt. i, App.; pt. ii, end; pt. v, prop. 41, schol. Cp. the Letters, passim. [↑]
[115] The solution is, of course, that the attitude of the will in the forming of opinion may or may not be passionally perverse, in the sense of being inconsistent. To show that it is inconsistent may be a means of enlightening it; and an aspersion to that effect may be medicinal. Spinoza might truly have said that passional perversity was at least as common on the orthodox side as on the other. In any case, he quashes his own criticism of Bacon. Cp. the author’s essay on Spinoza in Pioneer Humanists. [↑]
[116] Pt. iv, prop. 68, schol. [↑]
[117] Ep. 1; 2 June, 1674. [↑]
[118] Colerus, as cited, p. liv. Cuper appears to have been genuinely anti-Spinozist, while his opponent, Breitburg, or Bredenburg, of Rotterdam, was a Spinozist. Both were members of the society of “Collegiants,” a body of non-dogmatic Christians, which for a time was broken up through their dissensions. Mosheim, 17 Cent. sec. ii, pt. ii, ch. vii, § 2, and note. [↑]
[119] Theologisch, Philosophisch, en Historisch process voor God, tegen allerley Atheisten. By Francis Ridder, Rotterdam, 1678. [↑]
[120] L’Impiétié Convaincu, “par Pierre Yvon,” Amsterdam, 1681. Really by the Sieur Noël Aubert de Versé. This appears to have been reprinted in 1685 under the title L’Impie convaincu, ou Dissertation contre Spinosa, ou l’on réfute les fondemens de son athéisme. [↑]