French Declaration of Rights and the American
Declaration of Independence go back in part to
the forgotten treatises of the quiet philosopher of
Amsterdam. To have initiated or accelerated
such currents of thought -- theoretical in their
origin but extremely practical in their issue -- is
thereby once for all to have put one's self above the
reach of mere fault-finding. One wonders again,
as so many have wondered, what would have been
the extent of this man's achievement had he not
died at the age of forty-four. When Spinoza's
pious landlady returned from church on the morn-
ing of February 21, 1677, and found her gentle
philosopher dead, she stood in the presence of
one of the great silent tragedies of human history.

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