more than Hobbes he withdrew from the affairs
of men and sought in the protection of a suburban
attic the peace and solitude which were the vital
medium of his thought. He found that some-
times at least, "truth hath a quiet breast." "Se
tu sarai solo," wrote Leonardo, "tu sarai tutto
tuo." And surely Goethe thought of Spinoza
when he said: "No one can produce anything
important unless he isolate himself."

But this dread of the crowd was only a part of
Spinoza's nature, and not the dominant part.
His fear of men was lost in his boundless capacity
for affection; he tried so hard to understand men
that he could not help but love them. "I have
labored carefully not to mock, lament, or exe-
crate, but to understand, human actions; and to
this end I have looked upon passions . . . not
as vices of human nature, but as properties just
as pertinent to it as are heat, cold, storm, thunder,
and the like to the nature of the atmosphere." ¹
Even the accidents of time and space were sinless to
his view, and all the world found room in the abun-
dance of his heart. "Spinoza deified the All in
order to find peace in the face of it," says Nietz-
sche: ² but perhaps, too, because all love is deifi-
cation.

All in all, history shows no man more honest and
independent; and the history of philosophy shows
no man so sincere, so far above quibbling and

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