The Courtier And The Heretic Part 7

The subject of conversation swiftly turned to Leibniz's reigning obsession. The courtier divulged his plan to visit Spinoza in person on his way through Holland. Nearly two years had pa.s.sed since that other young German, Tschirnhaus, had come to London exuding a similar enthusiasm for Spinoza, and nearly one year had pa.s.sed since Oldenburg's correspondence with the sage of The Hague had broken down in fear and misunderstanding. Yet, evidently, the embers of friends.h.i.+p still glowed in Henry's heart. He penned one more letter to Spinoza, and entrusted it to Leibniz for personal delivery.

While the older German scribbled out his missive, Leibniz copied out three of Spinoza's letters to Oldenburg, which the latter allowed him to view. As was his custom, the young philosopher soon added marginal notes lengthier than the originals.

Later in the week, Leibniz called on resident German diplomats and aristocrats, including Prince Ruprecht von der Pfalz, a cousin of the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans. The Prince mentioned that he was sending his yacht back to the continent to fetch some of his favorite vintages, and Leibniz seized on the opportunity to secure free pa.s.sage to Holland.

On October 29 Leibniz boarded Prince Ruprecht's yacht. Two days later, under the command of Captain Thomas Allen, the bark sailed down the Thames estuary to Gravesend, arriving that same evening. For four days, the sailors loaded cargo. Then they tacked up to the English port of Sheerness-the scene of a stunning Dutch victory over the Royal Navy some years earlier. In Sheerness a strong headwind pinned the vessel in port for six tedious days.

Unable to move, the restless philosopher composed a dialogue on motion-the one featuring his alter ego Pacidius and an eager pupil named Charinus. In the dialogue, Leibniz returns to one of his favorite themes, neatly encapsulated in the claim that "certain metaphysical mysteries of a truly spiritual nature may be found in [motion]." The mysteries of motion, as we know, were intimately connected in Leibniz's mind with his ideas about the unique metaphysical status of the individual, the immateriality of the mind, and the doctrine of personal immortality. On the eve of his voyage to The Hague, it would appear, the young philosopher was committed as ever to theological doctrines to which Spinoza was unstintingly opposed.

With no one aboard with whom he could converse (save, presumably, the mariners), the temporarily silenced philosopher also turned his attention to "my old design of a rational writing or language" that would permit one "to grasp not words, but thoughts."

On November 11, the weather at last eased, and the crew weighed anchor. With the winds still gusting strongly, the crossing took a mere twenty-four hours. The yacht docked in Rotterdam, where Leibniz remained for the night. The next morning, he scurried to catch a ca.n.a.l-boat up to Amsterdam.

In the most beautiful city in the world, the ca.n.a.ls were thick with Spinozists. Leibniz promptly met all the important ones. He called on Georg Hermann Schuller, his chief liaison with Spinoza; Johannes Hudde, a local politician and mathematician who had corresponded with Spinoza on important philosophical matters; Lodewijk Meyer, a doctor, thespian, philosopher, and editor of Spinoza's book on Descartes; and Jarig Jelles, retired merchant, future editor of Spinoza's posthumous works, and Spinoza's oldest friend. From his new acquaintances in Amsterdam Leibniz gathered up and copied out still more of Spinoza's correspondence. Possibly, the purpose of his excursion to Amsterdam was to secure the letters of introduction he might have required to persuade the ever cautious sage of The Hague to open his door for him. In any case, he acquired personal news and gossip that would doubtlessly serve to smooth the path to friendly exchange.

On or around November 16 Leibniz returned south; over the next ten days he cruised the ca.n.a.ls of South Holland aboard an inland boat, which he used as a floating hotel. His first stops were Haarlem, Leiden, and the tile-making capital of Delft. In the last he spent some hours with Antoni von Leeuwenhoek, whose microscopic investigations greatly inspired the philosopher and later served him as evidence of a sort in support of his metaphysical theories.

SOMEWHERE IN THE course of his travels, perhaps while he was aboard Prince Ruprecht's yacht, if not a ca.n.a.l boat, Leibniz composed a draft of the argument he would soon make course of his travels, perhaps while he was aboard Prince Ruprecht's yacht, if not a ca.n.a.l boat, Leibniz composed a draft of the argument he would soon make viva voce viva voce to Spinoza. Its t.i.tle: "That a Most Perfect Being Exists." to Spinoza. Its t.i.tle: "That a Most Perfect Being Exists."

"I seem to have discovered a demonstration that a most perfect being...is possible," Leibniz begins. By "most perfect being," of course, he means G.o.d, whom he further defines as "one that contains all essence, or that has all qualities, or all affirmative attributes."

Whose G.o.d is this? The answer seems to come from Leibniz's earlier note on his discussion with Tschirnhaus: "[Spinoza] defines G.o.d as...a being that contains all perfections, i.e., affirmations, or realities, or things that can be conceived." It seems, then, that Leibniz intends to prove to Spinoza that Spinoza's G.o.d is possible.

Leibniz next sets out to demonstrate that such a G.o.d, if possible, necessarily exists. His argument is that such a G.o.d, if it exists, must have a reason for existing, and this reason must come from either without or within G.o.d. But it cannot come from without, for he has just proved that anything that can be conceived must be conceived through G.o.d. Therefore, G.o.d's reason for existing must come from within G.o.d itself-or, as he writes in the note of February 11: "The reason for G.o.d is G.o.d."

The door to Spinozism is now wide open. While mulling this concept of an utterly self-sufficient G.o.d of reason, Leibniz writes: It can be easily demonstrated that all things are distinguished, not as substances, but as modes. [He then writes "radically" over "substances."] This can be demonstrated from the fact that things that are radically distinct can be understood without another. But in truth this is not the case in things; for since the ultimate reason of things is unique, and contains by itself the aggregate of all requisites of all things, it is manifest that the requisites of all things are the same. So also is their essence, given that an essence is the aggregate of all primary requisites. Therefore, the essence of all things is the same, and things differ only modally, just as a town seen from a high point differs from a town seen from a plain.

The chain of logic here duplicates in abbreviated fas.h.i.+on the first, crucial propositions of Spinoza's Ethics Ethics: substances are radically distinct and can be understood without one another; but all things in the world are understood through the unique and ultimate reason for all things; therefore, there cannot be two or more substances in the world; therefore, there is only one substance, and all things are modes of this one substance. Since Leibniz's draft concerns the concept of a G.o.d who is the ultimate reason for all things, furthermore, it is evident that the one substance in question is just another word for G.o.d. In effect, Leibniz's argument begins with his irrevocable commitment to the principle of sufficient reason-that for every thing there must be a reason-and ends in a declaration of belief in the core doctrines of Spinoza. The pa.s.sage is all the more remarkable because Leibniz says that all of this "can be easily demonstrated" and is "manifest."

In case we missed the point, Leibniz jumps straight to the conclusion that all things are one: "If only those things are really different which can be separated, or, of which one can be perfectly understood without the other, it follows that no thing really differs from another, but that all things are one, just as Plato argues in the Parmenides Parmenides."

The only false note here is Leibniz's attribution of this doctrine to Plato. "Just as Spinoza argues in the Ethics Ethics" would have been more honest; for the train of thought here has the same destination as the boat on which Leibniz was sailing at around the time he wrote these lines: Spinoza.

Nor can there be any doubt that Leibniz knew very well in what direction he was heading. In his notes from the meeting with Tschirnhaus in February, he attributes to Spinoza the claims that "G.o.d alone is substance...and all creatures are nothing but modes." Even more telling is a note Leibniz made to himself on one of the letters to Oldenburg that he picked up in London. Where Spinoza says, "All things are in G.o.d and move in G.o.d," Leibniz writes: "One could say: all things are one, all things are in G.o.d in the way that an effect is entirely contained within its cause and properties of a subject are in the essence of the same subject." Leibniz here implicitly acknowledges that his own speculations-notably, his repeated suggestion that the things of the world are to G.o.d what properties are to an essence-are elaborations of the central doctrine of Spinoza's philosophy.

"An attribute is a predicate which is conceived through itself," Leibniz continues in his s.h.i.+pboard draft. (Spinoza himself says: "Each attribute...must be conceived through itself.") "An essence is..." Suddenly, the ma.n.u.script breaks off in midword, midsentence: Essentia est pr... Essentia est pr...

Something throws Leibniz off; his quill quivers; he stops to think about what he is doing. He retreats from philosophy to the "philosophy of philosophy." His next lines are perhaps the most revealing he ever committed to paper: A metaphysics should be written with accurate definitions and demonstrations. But nothing should be demonstrated in it apart from that which does not clash too much with received opinions. For in that way this metaphysics can be accepted; and once it has been approved then, if people examine it more deeply later, they themselves will draw the necessary consequences. Besides this, one can, as a separate undertaking, show these people later the way of reasoning about these things. In this metaphysics, it will be useful for there to be added here and there the authoritative utterances of great men, who have reasoned in a similar way....

Coming as it does after what seems like a restatement of Spinoza's core doctrines, and scribbled quite possibly aboard a s.h.i.+p that was just then steering its way along the waterways of The Hague, this pa.s.sage points to an inescapable conclusion: Leibniz was a Spinozist-at least at this moment-and he knew it. His strategy would be to conceal his true views wherever they offended the orthodox, to cite great thinkers like Plato and Parmenides as a diversion, and, in general, to work for the day when Spinozism might emerge out from under the false accusations of heresy and claim its rightful place in the sun. In the meantime, as this pa.s.sage itself demonstrates by cutting off his preceding, Spinozistic reflections, Leibniz would censor himself. Even in the privacy of his s.h.i.+pboard cabin, he would not permit himself to express thoughts that the world was not ready to receive.

Thirty years after the event, in a writing he withheld from publication at the last moment, the aging philosopher seemed to confess to his lapse: "You know I went a little too far in another time and that I began to lean to the side of the Spinozists, who grant nothing but an infinite power to G.o.d."

And yet-only a few months had pa.s.sed since he had written the notes in which he insists that "it must be shown" that G.o.d is not "nature," but a "person," and in which he rejects the doctrine that "the mind is the idea of the body" and only days had elapsed since he composed his un-Spinozistic dialogue on the philosophy of motion. Nor was there at this time any sign of a letup in his political activities on behalf of the theocratic establishment, nor of any change in the courtly lifestyle so absurdly at odds with that of the man he was about to visit. As ever, the philosopher-diplomat blended in so well with his surroundings as he traversed the motley landscape of seventeenth-century thought that it was never very clear which color was truly his. And it is surely more than mere coincidence that the great chameleon happened to produce his most Spinozistic writings at around the same time that his boat was gliding through the ca.n.a.ls of The Hague.

The only certainty, in fact, is that there were too many ideas in Leibniz's head for them all to add up in a single view of the world. One part of him believed in Spinoza's G.o.d of reason; another part of him believed in the providential deity of orthodox religion; and other parts, no doubt, adhered to a still wider variety of incompatible notions. Even as he closed in on the philosopher of The Hague, it seems, he held in reserve the commitments that would make true communion impossible. Leibniz came not just to agree with his host, but also-perhaps to his own surprise-to disagree.

On or around November 18, 1676, in any case, after painting himself in the hues of the local freethinker and then reminding himself not to express any ideas that might clash too much with received opinions, the thirty-year-old inventor of the calculus, the former privy counselor of Mainz, and newly appointed librarian to the Duke of Hanover stepped ash.o.r.e, arms flapping, wig billowing, perfume dissipating in the autumn wind, and gamboled in his awkward way along the leaf-strewn ca.n.a.ls toward the door of the house where Spinoza lived.

12.

Point of Contact A cloudy afternoon filters through rattling windowpanes. Outside, autumn leaves race past in their merciless a.s.sault on the civic order. From upstairs come the sounds of children squealing over creaky floorboards. The warm smell of chicken broth fills the air. In the front room of the house on the Paviljoensgracht, two men engage in earnest discussion over a small, wooden table. One is young, full of energy, and fas.h.i.+onably attired, the trademark wig looming over his forehead perhaps blown slightly off course by the November winds. The other is older, wears a simple s.h.i.+rt, and coughs too frequently into one of his five handkerchiefs (the checkered one). Such, presumably, was the scene when Leibniz and Spinoza met in The Hague in 1676. cloudy afternoon filters through rattling windowpanes. Outside, autumn leaves race past in their merciless a.s.sault on the civic order. From upstairs come the sounds of children squealing over creaky floorboards. The warm smell of chicken broth fills the air. In the front room of the house on the Paviljoensgracht, two men engage in earnest discussion over a small, wooden table. One is young, full of energy, and fas.h.i.+onably attired, the trademark wig looming over his forehead perhaps blown slightly off course by the November winds. The other is older, wears a simple s.h.i.+rt, and coughs too frequently into one of his five handkerchiefs (the checkered one). Such, presumably, was the scene when Leibniz and Spinoza met in The Hague in 1676.

The encounter between the two greatest philosophers of the seventeenth century in fact extended over several days. From a letter Leibniz posted to the Duke of Hanover's secretary from Holland, it is possible to infer that the courtier arrived in The Hague on or before November 18 and remained for at least three days and possibly as much as one week. Leibniz later told his Parisian friend Gallois that he had conversed with Spinoza "many times and at great length."

Sometime shortly after one of their engagements Leibniz scratched out a note to himself. "I spent several hours with Spinoza after dinner," he recorded. His host regaled him, he continued, with the story of his antics on the horrible night when the mob barbecued the de Witt brothers. Evidently, the suspicions with which Spinoza had first greeted Leibniz's overtures from Paris had dissipated. Leibniz, as we know from Eckhart, had the ability to get along with all sorts, and Spinoza, according to Lucas, could be a pleasing conversationalist. One may readily imagine then, that as the two men finished up their milk gruel and watery beer, or whatever was on the menu, they chatted about the miserable weather in the lowlands, the health of their mutual acquaintances across the continent, the fanatical hygiene of the housewives of The Hague, Louis XIV's pigheaded invasion of Holland, and other topics of the kind that serve to clear the table for amicable exchange.

The discussion soon turned to the eternal questions. In the same apres-dinner note, Leibniz went on to remark: "Spinoza did not see well the faults in M. Descartes's rules of motion; he was surprised when I began to show him that they violated the equality of cause and effect." The critique of the Cartesian philosophy of motion, of course, was the subject of the dialogue Leibniz penned in Sheerness, while hemmed in at port by the winds. The suggestion that Leibniz felt he had discovered some holes in Spinoza's philosophical armor is intriguing, and would be greatly amplified in his later comments on his erstwhile host. But there is also a hint here that, on the topic of their great French predecessor, the two dinner companions may have been talking past each other. Leibniz's chief aim in undermining Cartesian physics, it should be remembered, was to make room for a principle of activity which he identified with mind. Spinoza never showed a lack of enthusiasm in criticizing Descartes, but his aim in doing so was ultimately to destroy the very idea of mind that Leibniz implicitly hoped to defend.

The physics of motion, in any case, was just one of a range of philosophical topics that the two men discussed. In his later letter to Gallois Leibniz indirectly concedes that Spinoza presented him a variety of "demonstrations in metaphysics." Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that two such men, their lives ruled by the pa.s.sion for wisdom and their reputations based on their philosophical ac.u.men, should have done anything but engage in metaphysical parleys. But, equally, it would be a mistake to imagine that everything that happened in those days in The Hague could be reduced to the exchange of abstruse arguments.

Already the crucial first impressions would have been formed. In Spinoza's case, of course, we have no direct testimony on his reaction to Leibniz. It is worth noting, however, that Spinoza had found Tschirnhaus to be a most worthy friend, that Tschirnhaus in turn viewed Leibniz as a man "most skilled in the various sciences and free from the common theological prejudices," and that between the two young German enthusiasts who came to call on the philosopher of The Hague there can be little doubt on whose side the advantage in talent and experience lay. None of Spinoza's previous visitors, for that matter, could match Leibniz in erudition and force of intellect.

For his part, Leibniz could not overlook the obvious: that Spinoza was a Jew. Much later, he recorded something of his first impression in a characteristically dismissive note: "The famous Jew Spinoza had an olive complexion and something Spanish in his face; for he was also from that country. He was a philosopher by profession and led a private and tranquil life, pa.s.sing his time polis.h.i.+ng gla.s.s in order to make lenses for magnifying gla.s.ses and microscopes." But there is every reason to think that Leibniz formed a much deeper impression of his host than the one he retailed here.

More than a Jew, Spinoza became, for the later Leibniz, "that discerning Jew." Seven years after their meeting, even after his attacks on Spinoza's doctrines had hardened into a metaphysical reflex, he allowed that his former host was the type of man who "says what he believes to be true" and who believes (however erroneously) "that he is serving all humankind in delivering it from ill-founded superst.i.tions." Thirty years after the meeting Leibniz wrote, "I know that there are people of an excellent nature who would never be led by [their] doctrines to do anything unworthy of themselves." Leaving no doubt as to whom he had in mind, he immediately added: "It can be acknowledged that Epicurus and Spinoza, for example, led entirely exemplary lives." He then went on to say that Spinoza's ideas would one day soon set fire to the four corners of the earth. To the end of his life, Leibniz never shook the impression formed in that November that his great intellectual adversary-the philosopher on whose shoulders the blame for global calamity would eventually fall-was a man of unimpeachable virtue.

ONLY ONE PIECE of evidence survives directly from the encounter in The Hague. First published in 1890, the item in question consists of a single sheet of writing, in Leibniz's hand, t.i.tled "That a Most Perfect Being Exists." It offers a condensed version of the argument that Leibniz prepared in the days preceding the meeting, to the effect that a being with all perfections is possible, or conceivable, from which it follows that such a being necessarily exists. In a note at the bottom of the doc.u.ment, Leibniz explains its provenance: "I presented this argument to M. Spinosa when I was at The Hague, who thought it to be sound. Since at first he contradicted it, I wrote it down and read this paper to him." The remark is brief, and yet these few words express the essence of the two characters who met in The Hague and the philosophical dynamic between them. of evidence survives directly from the encounter in The Hague. First published in 1890, the item in question consists of a single sheet of writing, in Leibniz's hand, t.i.tled "That a Most Perfect Being Exists." It offers a condensed version of the argument that Leibniz prepared in the days preceding the meeting, to the effect that a being with all perfections is possible, or conceivable, from which it follows that such a being necessarily exists. In a note at the bottom of the doc.u.ment, Leibniz explains its provenance: "I presented this argument to M. Spinosa when I was at The Hague, who thought it to be sound. Since at first he contradicted it, I wrote it down and read this paper to him." The remark is brief, and yet these few words express the essence of the two characters who met in The Hague and the philosophical dynamic between them.

The debate about G.o.d offered a perfect culmination for the encounter between the two philosophers. Leibniz and Spinoza were two men with G.o.d on the brain. But did they have the same G.o.d in mind? The central question Leibniz faced in his confrontation with Spinoza was whether Spinoza's "G.o.d, or Nature" was truly a G.o.d-whether a divinity stripped of anthropomorphic attributes and residing only in the here and now could be considered divine at all.

According to a literal reading of his proof, little separates that which Leibniz identifies as "the subject of all perfections" from that which Spinoza defines in the Ethics Ethics as "substance consisting of infinite attributes." A certain part of Leibniz believed in Spinoza's G.o.d of reason-a perfect, infinite being whose essence and existence would s.h.i.+ne forth from philosophical proofs just as brilliantly as any theorem about the angles of a triangle. Yet, Leibniz arrived in The Hague with more than one idea about G.o.d in his head. It seems more than likely that with his tone of voice, his casual invocation of the customary pieties, and even with his clothes-the very costume of orthodoxy-he expressed his commitment to the providential deity of orthodox religion. He wore his faith on his sleeve. as "substance consisting of infinite attributes." A certain part of Leibniz believed in Spinoza's G.o.d of reason-a perfect, infinite being whose essence and existence would s.h.i.+ne forth from philosophical proofs just as brilliantly as any theorem about the angles of a triangle. Yet, Leibniz arrived in The Hague with more than one idea about G.o.d in his head. It seems more than likely that with his tone of voice, his casual invocation of the customary pieties, and even with his clothes-the very costume of orthodoxy-he expressed his commitment to the providential deity of orthodox religion. He wore his faith on his sleeve.

From Leibniz's note, it is clear that the proceedings began at his initiative. In a voice clear and keen, in impeccable and extemporaneous (if well-rehea.r.s.ed) Latin, the young German presented his subtle new argument. He was every inch the former childhood prodigy, the straight-A student and aspiring doctoral candidate who believes that he is saying exactly what his teachers want to hear. Now as ever, he had few doubts about the value of his work and his own importance.

Leibniz, it must be frankly acknowledged, was stupendously vain. In boastful letters to dukes, ecstatic a.s.sessments of his progress in Paris, and wors.h.i.+pful recollections of his own schoolboy triumphs, the young man from Leipzig rarely stinted in his praise of himself. In the philosophical system he unveiled to the world ten years after departing The Hague, he painted a picture of the universe and his place within it that glows with self-satisfaction-a world in which everything is for the best; in which individuals in the form of what he calls "monads" flourish in splendid isolation; and in which the philosopher himself receives thanks from G.o.d and humankind alike for having rendered these pleasing truths in living prose. Even Eckhart, the philosopher's loyal amanuensis in later life, had to admit that "his self-conceit, which would admit of no contradiction, even when he himself saw that he was in the wrong, was his greatest failing."

But Leibniz was no exception to the rule which says that the other side of self-love is a self desperately in need of love. In his ceaseless scramble for financial security, in his serial efforts to ingratiate himself with figures of authority, in his willingness to take punishment and keep coming back for more, and in his apparent inability to distinguish clearly his own opinions from those with whom he happened to be engaged at any one moment, he evinced a desperate anxiety to please, an insatiable longing to see his good deeds reflected back to him in the praise of others. And it was this second self-the picture on the other side of Leibniz's rapturous valentine to himself-that expressed itself most clearly in his mature philosophy, and that perhaps should be held primarily responsible for his behavior in Spinoza's presence as he presented his proof of the existence of G.o.d. It would have been astonis.h.i.+ng were it not so characteristic that Leibniz should have insisted on registering the approbation for his proof even of the philosopher whom he earlier called "intolerably impudent" and later blamed for the fall of western civilization.

Spinoza was on home ground. G.o.d was his territory, his corner in the philosophical marketplace. From Leibniz's note, it seems clear that the philosopher of The Hague promptly fell into a customary pose. Bento was a childhood prodigy, too, but of a very different kind. He was the rebel, the kind who picks his friends from the raffish margins of society as if to make a point. From an early age he immunized himself to the influence of others and staked his happiness on a supreme self-sufficiency. In the presence of Leibniz, as ever, he was the one who kept his own counsel. He was, we may be sure, both engagingly modest and insufferably arrogant, like an extraterrestrial come to sit in judgment on a wayward representative of the human imagination.

So, at first, according to Leibniz's note, Spinoza did not accept the argument. Did the older man glimpse the shadow of the providential deity of orthodoxy lurking behind his young visitor's proof? One is ent.i.tled to wonder if a certain expression pa.s.sed over Spinoza's eyes, a look of the sort that infuriated his peers at the synagogue, that sent Blijenburgh off to write his five-hundred-page polemic, that remained stuck like a piece of gristle in Limborch's mouth nearly three decades after the dinner party from h.e.l.l.

Leibniz's reaction is easy to imagine. He was uniquely unsuited to being contradicted; he could brook no condescension. The yellow bile inevitably erupted up from within. He cast aside the facade of pleasantries, furiously sharpened his metaphysical distinctions, and scribbled out his proof. Then he leapt out of his chair and articulated each word with violent precision. He demanded his listener's unconditional approval.

The moment is a perfect snapshot of the two philosophers in action: Spinoza sitting unmoved, deeply indifferent, perhaps silently contemptuous, the very incarnation of his own Nature-G.o.d; Leibniz pacing around the room, clinging to his proof, desperately shouting out his demands, the perfect representative of an ever needy human race.

In the event, all ended well for G.o.d and man, or so Leibniz triumphantly reported. Spinoza judged his proof to be "sound." Leibniz's note is the last word we have on the subject.

But did Spinoza in fact approve?

In the absence of any other evidence on the matter, and in view of the range of other sentiments that might very well have glimmered in the black opal eyes of the most ruthlessly frank philosopher of recent times, we should perhaps leave open for the time being the question as to whether or not this note, too, was less a statement of fact than an expression of its author's needs.

13.

Surviving Spinoza Hanover was not Paris. On its unpaved streets there were no bright lights; and, with a mere 10,000 inhabitants, it wasn't exactly a big city. The entire population of the surrounding province-150,000 people, mostly farming folk-was less than a third of that of the French capital. Even in downtown Hanover, the cows routinely outnumbered the pedestrians. There were plenty of drinking troughs for the town's four-legged visitors, but not a single coffeehouse for its lonely literati. The glory of the metropolis was an old cloister that the Duke's family had refurbished and claimed as their palace. In the oversized chapel where the nuns once prayed, the recently converted Johann Friedrich held elaborate, Romish ceremonies, much to the disgust of his predominantly Protestant subjects. On or around the afternoon of December 12, 1676, Leibniz stepped off his carriage onto the frozen earth outside the gates of the home that he would spend the remaining forty years of his life trying to leave.

The thirty-year-old junior courtier unpacked his trunks and tidied his new home in the former cloister's converted stables. There he had been a.s.signed a bed, a desk, and the three thousand books that made up the ducal library. He was eager to begin serving G.o.d and duke. His first professional concern, however, was to renegotiate the terms according to which he would render such service.

In the short, cold days of January 1677, the new hire snowed his employer with a half-dozen missives on the subject of his station in life. He was not happy with the t.i.tle of librarian, and wished for a promotion to privy counselor-the rank he had previously held in the court of Mainz. He also wanted to collect the salary promised him for the previous year-the year he spent in Paris desperately seeking other sources of employment-plus 200 thalers to cover the cost of his travels. ("Otherwise," he complains indignantly, "I will have made the trip at my own expense.") And he believed his efforts were worth at least 500 thalers per year, not the 400 to which he had previously agreed.

In his appeals for increased status and compensation, Leibniz did not stint on the bathos. The anxieties about his personal future that had driven him from the glittering salons of Paris to the glum safety of Hanover had evidently not abated upon his arrival in his homeland: "I may not now dream only of living, but must recover my losses and provide for the future, so as not to be crushed one day, after the flower of my youth has pa.s.sed, should misfortunes, changes in circ.u.mstances, or illness keep me from working with the same success or deprive me of supporters and protectors." The campaign had its intended effect. The ever pliant Johann Friedrich, who evidently had a heart to match the size of his body, awarded Leibniz some back pay, a salary increase to 500 thalers, and a promotion to privy counselor. The new position brought with it onerous judicial and administrative duties, but, the philosopher told his friends, it was well worth it. To Tschirnhaus he confided that "it is a great advantage" to spend time near such a prince, "who has at his command an unbelievable ma.s.s and shows such good intentions toward me."

Soon, however, Leibniz discovered that his fellow privy counselors in Hanover received 600 thalers per year for their services, and he became unhappy all over again. After baring his wounded self-esteem in still more letters to the Duke, he received another 100 thaler raise.

As a measure of Leibniz's relative wealth and status among the Hanoverians: the kitchen ladies in the Duke's cafeteria received 9 thalers per year and the rat catcher 11 thalers (along with all they could eat in both cases); the top courtier, on the other hand, received 2,000 thalers in salary, plus the opportunity to collect bribes worth many times as much.

With the matter of his personal circ.u.mstances settled (at least for the time being), Leibniz, true to form, immediately launched himself in several dozen directions. In his correspondence with the Duke concerning his compensation, he a.s.signs himself an inhuman number of tasks, including: to catalogue all of the library's holdings; to acquire many more books for the library; to maintain learned correspondence with his many contacts throughout Europe (he lists over thirty by name-including Spinoza); to alert the Duke to new developments in the arts and sciences (examples: new medicines, iron-forging techniques, mining techniques, firefighting technology, and a mysterious invention for transporting heavy loads); to pursue his own inventions and ideas in the fields of natural theology, jurisprudence, physics, geometry, and mechanics; and to resume the project of church reunion that he began as a young courtier in Mainz.

Leibniz also had no shortage of ideas about how the Duke should spend his his time. In a series of political memoranda, the junior courtier proposes a list of possible initiatives for local government, including: perform a comprehensive demographic and geographic survey of the princ.i.p.ality in order to measure population by occupation, wealth, and income and to inventory a.s.sets such as woods, streams, and so forth; establish an Academy of Commerce and Languages, modeled on Italian trade a.s.sociations (in effect, a Chamber of Commerce);create a time. In a series of political memoranda, the junior courtier proposes a list of possible initiatives for local government, including: perform a comprehensive demographic and geographic survey of the princ.i.p.ality in order to measure population by occupation, wealth, and income and to inventory a.s.sets such as woods, streams, and so forth; establish an Academy of Commerce and Languages, modeled on Italian trade a.s.sociations (in effect, a Chamber of Commerce);create a bureau d'addresse bureau d'addresse, where people could find out what goods and services were available in the economy, how they could spend free time, and so on (i.e., something like a tourist information office combined with the yellow pages); build department stores that would sell all kinds of merchandise at low, low prices; fund an insurance scheme for widows and orphans; found a society called L'Ordre de la Charite, a quasi-religious order akin to the Society of Jesus, that would militate "against the atheists" by mastering "the remarkable work of G.o.d and nature" establish a Ducal Archive for all government-related doc.u.ments; appoint as director of said archive Leibniz himself; offer incentives for farmers to adopt the best agricultural techniques and practices; encourage the development of country music and dancing in order to make the farmers' workload feel "light" introduce a "very good beer" to make it feel still lighter; and establish an Academy of the Sciences, modeled on the Royal Society of London and the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris.

In Leibniz's mind, clearly, there was no end of good things that the state could do. In fact, according to his way of thinking, the state has a positive duty to inst.i.tutionalize benevolence through rational planning. He was indeed the first apostle of the welfare state.

On the to-do list of good deeds for the Duke of Hanover, the one that was always dearest to Leibniz's heart-and the only one for which there is a clear record of implementation, albeit a quarter of a century later and not in Hanover-was the last: the Academy of the Sciences. Unfortunately, as Leibniz understood, the Duke of Hanover's generosity did not extend so far as to spend money he did not have on a group of scientists who for the most part did not yet exist. The philosopher therefore took it upon himself to raise funds for the project. From his berth in the old stables of Hanover he pursued a wide variety of business ventures: the manufacture of wool, silk, gold-and silver-embroidered textiles; the production of phosphorous; the distillation of brandy; trade in spices from the Far East; and many more schemes. None of these, sadly, turned a thaler for Leibniz or his prospective academy.

Even while still in Paris, the philosopher had beheld a fantastic vision of future material security, one that would enable him to fund his cherished academy and guarantee his own financial independence. The treasure that would at last put his world on solid foundations, he came to believe, lay buried in the misty, forest-covered hills of Lower Saxony-where Dr. Faustus, perhaps appropriately, made his pact with the devil. The Duke of Hanover, as it happens, owned controlling interests in a large silver-mining operation in the scenic Harz Mountains. Extracting silver ore was a difficult business, however, largely because the mines tended to flood. Leibniz's grand idea provided yet one more instance of the elegance and harmony of the world at work: he proposed to use the power of wind to pump water out of the earth and thus make accessible the silver below the surface.

Naturally, the endlessly inventive genius of Hanover could hardly settle for ordinary windmills and pumps. Instead, he designed a unique system that eliminated intermediary cogwheels, thereby reducing friction, and that was capable of pumping water from 1,000 feet underground (or so he maintained). If ever a mechanical invention deserved to be kept secret (on account of its miraculous, moneymaking properties), he a.s.sured the Duke, this was it.

Even as he juggled his many projects to improve the world, the Duchy of Hanover, the Harz mines, and himself, Leibniz continued to pursue an interest about which he was somewhat less than forthcoming with his employer.

THE FIRST SIGN that something went wrong appears in a note dated December 12, 1676. (Leibniz's earliest official communication to his fellow courtiers in Hanover dates from December 13, so the note in question must count as either the first thing he wrote on arrival or the last thing he jotted down in the carriage on the way back from Holland.) Leibniz writes: "If all possibles were to exist, there would be no need of a reason for existing, and mere possibility would be enough. So there would not be a G.o.d, except insofar as he is possible. But a G.o.d of the kind in which the pious believe would not be possible, if the opinion of those who believe that all possibles exist were true." "Those who believe that all possibles exist" is Leibniz's roundabout way of saying "Spinoza." If Spinoza is correct, Leibniz now concludes, then "a G.o.d of the kind in which the pious believe" does not exist. Days-or perhaps moments-after meeting with the philosopher of The Hague, Leibniz suddenly seems very clear on a matter about which he was previously in two minds: that Spinoza's G.o.d is incompatible with orthodox belief. that something went wrong appears in a note dated December 12, 1676. (Leibniz's earliest official communication to his fellow courtiers in Hanover dates from December 13, so the note in question must count as either the first thing he wrote on arrival or the last thing he jotted down in the carriage on the way back from Holland.) Leibniz writes: "If all possibles were to exist, there would be no need of a reason for existing, and mere possibility would be enough. So there would not be a G.o.d, except insofar as he is possible. But a G.o.d of the kind in which the pious believe would not be possible, if the opinion of those who believe that all possibles exist were true." "Those who believe that all possibles exist" is Leibniz's roundabout way of saying "Spinoza." If Spinoza is correct, Leibniz now concludes, then "a G.o.d of the kind in which the pious believe" does not exist. Days-or perhaps moments-after meeting with the philosopher of The Hague, Leibniz suddenly seems very clear on a matter about which he was previously in two minds: that Spinoza's G.o.d is incompatible with orthodox belief.

It may very well have been on the same, b.u.mpy ride to Hanover that Leibniz picked up his copies of Spinoza's letters to Oldenburg and added some additional notes in the margins. In new handwriting, Leibniz registers an insight that seems to follow from the thought in his note of December 12. Where Spinoza writes "all things follow necessarily from G.o.d's nature," Leibniz comments: "If all things emanate of necessity from the divine nature, then all possible things exist, with equal ease unfortunately for the good and the bad. Therefore moral philosophy is destroyed." Leibniz's position, again, suddenly seems unequivocal. He is now clear that Spinoza's doctrine concerning the necessary origin of all things in G.o.d-the same doctrine that he had apparently endorsed just days previously while aboard Prince Ruprecht's yacht-takes down not just the G.o.d of orthodoxy, but also all of morality. A note of anxiety sounds in the background of his comments on Spinoza here-a cacophonous note that will grow in volume until it drowns out all the others in the Leibnizian symphony.

Notwithstanding the alarming epiphany about Spinoza's (and his own) heresies, Leibniz's obsession with his rival waxed unabated. On the same sc.r.a.p of paper on which he presented to Spinoza his proof "That a Most Perfect Being Exists," Leibniz scrawled: "Propositions whose demonstration is desired." He then went on to list by number by number a half dozen of the most crucial propositions in Parts I and II of the a half dozen of the most crucial propositions in Parts I and II of the Ethics Ethics. Leibniz evidently had in his possession a list of the princ.i.p.al propositions of at least the first two parts of Spinoza's as yet unpublished masterwork, and he was keen to lay hands on the missing pieces of the text. The propositions in whose proof he showed particular interest, not surprisingly, are those that are central to the proof that G.o.d alone is the substance from whose nature all things follow necessarily.

Within moments of his arrival in Hanover, Leibniz set about trying to acquire those desired demonstrations from Spinoza. In a letter since lost, he asked Schuller to supply the proof of Proposition 5 in Part I, that "there cannot be two or more substances in the world." In his reply of February 6, 1677, Schuller copied out the missing proof for Leibniz, referring to other propositions by number only. Clearly, Schuller was aware that Leibniz had in his possession a numbered outline of the Ethics Ethics.

At around the same time, Leibniz received an extremely irate letter from Henry Oldenburg. "Why you have not delivered my letter to Spinosa," the secretary of the Royal Society fumed, "I truly cannot fathom." Unfortunately, we are in no better position than Oldenburg to understand why Leibniz should have failed to give Spinoza the letter with which he had been entrusted in London. In any case, Oldenburg would not have long to harangue Leibniz on the subject; he would be dead before the end of the year.

In his next letter to Schuller-posted within days and also lost-Leibniz promptly offered Schuller a series of objections to the proof of Proposition 5, clearly with a view to eliciting a response from Spinoza. Leibniz, it seems, had undertaken a project to debate the contents of the Ethics Ethics piecemeal with its author via third-party correspondence. But in his letter of February 6, Schuller had already hinted at a development that would soon bring an end to Leibniz's plan for carrying on the exchange with Spinoza through back channels: "I fear that [Spinoza] will not be with us much longer, for his lung disease (which runs in his family) seems to be growing worse daily." piecemeal with its author via third-party correspondence. But in his letter of February 6, Schuller had already hinted at a development that would soon bring an end to Leibniz's plan for carrying on the exchange with Spinoza through back channels: "I fear that [Spinoza] will not be with us much longer, for his lung disease (which runs in his family) seems to be growing worse daily."

ACCORDING TO HIS second biographer, Colerus, Spinoza was in fine spirits on the day before his death. In the afternoon, he joined his landlord, Hendrik van der Spyck, in the parlor of the house on the Paviljoensgracht. He lit a pipe, as was his custom, and conversed with Hendrik for several hours about the most recent sermon of the local Reformist minister. second biographer, Colerus, Spinoza was in fine spirits on the day before his death. In the afternoon, he joined his landlord, Hendrik van der Spyck, in the parlor of the house on the Paviljoensgracht. He lit a pipe, as was his custom, and conversed with Hendrik for several hours about the most recent sermon of the local Reformist minister.

On the following morning, February 21, 1677, Colerus reports, the affable iconoclast had another chat with Hendrik and his wife, Ida Margarete. Spinoza informed the van der Spycks that he would be receiving a visit from a doctor on that day. The doctor, he said, had ordered him to eat broth made from a chicken. Ida Margarete obligingly plucked a bird and set it to boil with some onions and a pinch of salt. The van der Spycks then gathered their children and set off for the Sunday morning church service.

When they returned, they found Spinoza conversing with the doctor in the parlor. The philosopher was eating the broth with a hearty appet.i.te.

At some point, Hendrik noted that Spinoza had absentmindedly left on the table a gold ducatoon, some small change, and a silver knife. Hendrik thought little of the matter, for the philosopher was often casual with his possessions in this way.

At two o'clock, the van der Spycks once again a.s.sembled their brood and set off for the second church service of the day, as was their custom.

At four o'clock, as they spilled out of the church doors, a neighbor rushed up to Hendrik and gave him the news.

Spinoza was dead.

He had died at three o'clock in the presence of the doctor from Amsterdam.

According to Colerus, the van der Spycks were stunned. They had no idea Spinoza's condition was so dire. He was only forty-four years old. They had not imagined that his illness would prove fatal so soon.

Back in the house on the ca.n.a.l, the van der Spycks found the doctor in the parlor with his bag packed. The philosopher's corpse lay in state on the small bed in the downstairs forechamber. Hendrik and the doctor agreed to go upstairs and perform an inventory of the dead man's possessions.

After hurriedly compiling a list of the philosopher's possessions, the doctor begged excuses and edged himself out the front door. He wanted to catch the evening boat back to Amsterdam. His hasty exit shocked Hendrik and Ida Margarete, for the philosopher's body had yet to receive proper care. But the doctor was gone before they could collect themselves to rebuke him.

On that same evening, as he glanced around the parlor, Hendrik noticed that the money and other items that Spinoza had left lying on the table in the morning had gone missing along with the young doctor from Amsterdam.

Hendrik a.s.sumed responsibility for the management of the funeral. Colerus reports that it was an impressive event. Six state carriages led the procession, and many persons of high social rank attended along with the philosopher's numerous admirers. Notwithstanding his solitary ways and international notoriety, it seems, the sage of The Hague had developed quite a following among his fellow citizens.

Spinoza left no will, but he had made an odd request some weeks previously. He had asked that, in the event of his death, Hendrik should s.h.i.+p his writing desk to Rieuwertsz-his publisher in Amsterdam. He insisted that the crate be unmarked, its contents not declared to the customs authorities. Locked inside the desk was the ma.n.u.script of his Ethics Ethics, along with other ma.n.u.scripts and his correspondence.

After the funeral, van der Spyck arranged to transport the desk-incognito-to Amsterdam. According to a letter from Rieuwertsz to van der Spyck sent a few weeks after the philosopher's death, the precious cargo made it safely to the publisher's offices. Spinoza's relatives went snooping around the wharves in hopes of locating the desk, Rieuwertsz added, for they were convinced that it contained great riches. Because van der Spyck had taken the precaution of not marking the crate, fortunately, its contents reached the publisher untouched. Van der Spyck auctioned off the philosopher's other worldly goods, which raised just enough money to cover funeral expenses and other debts.

The philosopher's death, no less than the life that preceded it, rapidly became the subject of rumor and controversy. Many among the orthodox claimed that in the midst of gruesome final agonies, the hateful heretic repented of his atheistic ways and pleaded mawkishly for absolution from a minister. Others said he had taken poison-opium, or "mandrake juice"-in order to hasten his miserable descent into h.e.l.l. Still others claimed that he ended his days in an unlit prison cell in Paris. The possibility that Spinoza might have died as happy and unrepentant as any of the other good citizens of The Hague was just as vexing to the seventeenth-century mind as the claim that he had lived free of the usual vices.

Colerus was in a good position to set the record straight. He interviewed Hendrik van der Spyck and others who were around at the time. As a devout minister of the Reformed Church, furthermore, he could not be suspected of any bias in favor of the deceased. (In fact, he was convinced that his subject was roasting in h.e.l.l at the moment of his writing.) In his account, Colerus flatly rejects the rumors concerning Spinoza's final hours. Eyewitnesses confirmed unequivocally, he says, that there was no sign of undue suffering, no deathbed recantation, and no last-minute plea for benediction. Colerus also notes, after reviewing the yellowing bills from the local chemist that came due upon Spinoza's death, that there was no evidence of the use of opium or any other toxin.

On one matter, however, Colerus's account is demonstrably inaccurate. He identifies the doctor who attended Spinoza in his final moments only with the initials L.M. This is odd because the biographer elsewhere does not hesitate to name names. Later commentators mostly a.s.sumed that L.M. stood for Lodewijk Meyer. Meyer would indeed have been a respectable choice for the part: he was an experienced physician, a radical philosopher in his own right, and Spinoza's trusted friend. Indeed, Meyer might have been too too respectable for the part: from what is known of his writings and his character, it is difficult to picture him stealing Spinoza's spare change and running off leaving the corpse unattended. respectable for the part: from what is known of his writings and his character, it is difficult to picture him stealing Spinoza's spare change and running off leaving the corpse unattended.

In fact, the individual who attended Spinoza in his final moments was not Lodewijk Meyer, but Georg Hermann Schuller-Leibniz's bungling, two-timing, uncredentialed, alchemical friend. Schuller must also be counted as the only suspect in the theft of the gold ducatoon, small change, and silver knife that Spinoza had left lying on the table before his death.