Spinoza
Spinoza names 4 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Spinoza BARUCH freethinking physician Van den Ende
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
BARUCH freethinking physician Van den Ende; came under the influence of the new philosophic teaching of Descartes; ceased to attend the synagogue; refused a pension offered by the rabbis for his conformity, and was expelled from the Israelitish community; fled from Amsterdam to the suburbs to escape the دو BARUCH SPINOZA enmity of the fanatical Jews; removed from thence, after five years' seclusion, to Rynsburg, where he lived till 1663; subsequently went to Voorburg; and ultimately (1671) settled in The Hague. By his craft as a grinder of optical lenses he maintained a frugal position in the households of the friends with whom he lived. He refused a pension from the French king and a professorship in Heidelberg because their acceptance might hazard freedom of thought and conduct; but he accepted a legacy from his friend De Vries. The first result of his labor was published anonymously in 1670 under the title of "Theological-Political Tract," and because it put forth a strong plea for liberty of speech in philosophy it was placed on the "Index" by the Catholics and condemned by the authorities in Holland. Such, indeed, was the storm which this treatise occasioned that the author himself published nothing nothin further. After his death all his unpublished writings were conveyed to Amsterdam, and there the "Posthumous Works" was published (1677). In the "Ethics," therein included, his system of philosophy was developed; each of its five books being dignified by a series of axioms and definitions after the method of Euclid in his geometry. In all there are 27 definitions, 20 axioms, and 8 postulates; and the central conception of the whole system is that God, who is Cyc-Vol. 1X
Spinoza spe-no'za (1632-1677)
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
spe-no'za (1632-1677), a Dutch philosopher. He was of Jewish descent. His parents fled from Portugal to escape persecution. He was born and educated at Amsterdam. He became noted for his views as a thinker in the field of philosophy. Though offered a professor's chair at Heidelberg, and later a pension by Louis XIV , he preferred to support himself by his trade of lens making. He lived a lonely, frugal, gentle life. In the history of philosophy he follows Descartes and precedes the German philosophers Fichte, Hegel, etc. His writings are credited with having exerted a peculiar influence on the thought of Goethe and Schiller. His theological views were pantheistic, that is to say, instead of denying the existence of God, he asserted that whatever is, is God.
Spinoza BARUCH the inherent cause of the universe
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
BARUCH the inherent cause of the universe, is one absolutely infinite substance, of which all the several parts which we recognize are but finite expressions; that man, being but a part of this greater whole, has neither a separate existence nor a self-determining will; but that he can, by means of knowledge and love, so far control his passions as to enter into the joy which springs from this idea of an all-embracing God. He died February 21, 1677.
Spinoza BARUCH, or BENEDICT DE SPINOZA
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
BARUCH, or BENEDICT DE SPINOZA, a Dutch philosopher; born in Amsterdam, Holland, November 24, 1632. He was trained in Talmudic and other Hebrew lore by Rabbi Morteira; acquired a knowledge of Latin from the C
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The biographical outline in Collier's (1921) and Aiton's (1910) still holds "" Amsterdam birth in 1632, the herem of 1656, lens-grinding, the refused Heidelberg chair and Louis XIV's pension, the anonymous Tractatus Theologico-Politicus of 1670, death in 1677 and the Opera Posthuma. What has changed is his standing and the evidence behind it. Aiton's brisk summary that he was a "pantheist" who held "whatever is, is God" and lived "a lonely, frugal, gentle life" has given way to a Spinoza embedded in Dutch republican politics and a busy correspondence, and read as a founder of biblical criticism and of secular liberalism rather than a curious link between Descartes and Hegel. Textual work has moved too: Carl Gebhardt's critical edition appeared in the 1920s, Edwin Curley's English Collected Works between 1985 and 2016, and in 2010 scholars identified an early manuscript copy of the Ethics in the Vatican Library, the only known one to survive.
Written for this edition, 2026.