SPINOZA, spin-o'xa, Benedict de ( 1632-16ff ), Dutch philosopher, who emphasixed the role of reason in metaphysics and ethics. Spinoxa, whose first name is often given in the Hebrew form of Baruch, was born in Amsterdam, Holland, on Nov. 24, 1632. Descended from Spanish and Portuguese Jewish refugees, he was well educated in Judaism but became estranged from the Amsterdarm community, which expelled him in 1656 after some attempts to reclaim him. He had gained a sufficient mastery of Latin in the school of the freethinking F. A. Van den Ende, where also, perhaps, a study of the "new philosophy" of Rene Descartes directed his closer attention to contenmporary Western thought and stinmulated his originality.

                                                             Early Life and Thought.

Little is known of Spinoxa's life. It is certain that he had learned the craft of grinding lenses for use in optical instruments, from which he earned a modest living, devoting his leisure hours to the development of his own views in a wide field. He appears to have been a leading member of a small discussion group to which he may have contributed some chapters of a work that sheds some light on the development of his thought. Variant Dutch manuscripts of this work, translated from an original Latin, were discovered only in the mid-19th century and published by F. Van Vloten in 1862 under the title of the oldest of them: Korte Verhandeling van God, den Mensch, en Desxelfs Welstand ( Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-being).

Spinoxa's first, and only acknowledged, publication was a "geometrical" exposition of the philosophy of Descartes: Renati Des Cartes Principrorum Philosophiae, Pars I et II, More Geometrico Demonstratae per Benedictum de Spinoxa (1663; Parts I and II of Descartes' PrincipLes of Philosophy, Demonstrated in the Geometrical Manner by Benedict de Spinoxa), containing an Appendix of MetaphysicaL Reflections (Cogitata MetapTrysica) . The work was confined to exposition, and contained a preface by Ludovic Meyer denying the author's complete agreement with the Cartesian doctrines. Spinoza was al ready a "reformer of the new philosophy." When this work was publislied he had left Amsterdam. After his excomnmunication he had lived first with friends at the nearby village of Ouwerkerk, and in 1660 at Rijnsburg near Leiden, the headquarters of the Collegiant religious community to which some of his friends belonged.

In 1663, Spinoxa moved to Voorburg near The Hague, and it was there that he brought to cormpletion, and anonymously published in 167O, the celebrated Tractatus Theologico-PoLl iticus (Theological-PoLitical Treatise) . This is a reasoned plea for liberty of thought and speech in the true interests of piety and public order. A great part of the work is devoted to biblical criticism. It attempted to show that men ought to look to the Bible, not for philosophical or scientific truth, but only for moral guidance. Its representations of God, the world man and society are not rational but "imaginational, " framed solely for the promotion of true obedience to nmoral laws and the advancement of justice and charity. The Bible is "necessary For salvation" among men who do not possess high intellectual gifts-namely, the majority of menbut it should in no way limit the free exercise of the intellect in the search for truth. This same liberty of thought and speech should be accorded by the secular state in the interests of its particular ends. This view leads Spinoza to an account of the nature and purposes of political organizations, which is treated in greater detail and scope in his later, unfinished Tractatus Politicus ( 1677; Political Treatise ) . In the earlier work, however, the aim is to show that for the most part civic order is not endangered but enhanced by allowing freedom of thought and expression, provided that this is not of a seditious nature.

                                                             Later Life and Works.

In 1677, Spinoza moved to The Hague, where prior to his death he lodged on the Paviljoensgracht with the painter Hendrik Van der Spyck. In spite of the privacy and modesty of his life, he had become well known in his country and abroad as a skillful optician and a philosophical thinker of merit. He corresponded with, and was visit by, scholars and thinkers of repute. In 1673 he was offered the chair of philosophy at Heidelberg by its patron the Elector Palatine, with an as surance of broad liberty of philosophizing. In view of Spinoza's own experience of religious bigotry among both Jews and Christians the realization of such liberty seemed too dubious to be worth risking the quietude and unhindered reflection which he valued, and he returned a grateful refusal. The little he had amassed from his craft and two small pensions from the Ducth statesman, Jan de U'itt, and his friend Simon de Vries, apart from a select library, was sufficient only to defray his few last debts and funeral expenses. Spinoza died at The Hague on Feb. 21, 1677.

Spinoza had directed his executor to deliver the manuscripts of his unpublished work to his printer. Later in 1677 there appeared the vol ume B. D. S. Opera Posthuma, bearing no place of publication or publisher's name, containing the Ethica More Geometrico Demonstrata (Ethics Demonstrated in the Geometrical Manner); Tractatus Politicus ( Political Treatise ); Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione ( Treatise on the Im provement of the Vnderstanding ); a select Cor respondence; and a Hebrew Grammar.

Of these the Ethics is the principal and only finished treatise, and it is on this work that Spin oza's fame as a philosopher chiefly rests. Its aim is to investigate the nature and sources of the good life for man, and the hindrancees to its achievement. Spinoza probes so deeply into the foundations from which these are derived that the work as a whole has a profoundly metaphys ical character' and air, emphasized by its form and literary flavor. It is set forth, as was his early work on Descartes, in the "geometrical manner," like Euclid's Elements, beginning with axioms, postulates, and propositions and their  corollaries, and proceeding to conclusions. It is also illuminated by frequent notes, often in a vigorous literary style, as well as by summary prefaces and appendices. The work is divided into five parts: the first sets forth the nature of the primordial reality which Spinoza call "Gods," and His relation to the created world; the sec ond, the nature and origin of the human mind, which is the finite, created being most relevant to morals; the third, the origin and nature of the mind's dispositions; the fourth, the strength of the mind's dispositions by which man's ethical bondage is measured; and the fifth, the power of the intellect in which lie moral freed achievement

                                                                  Basic Concepts.

The interpretation that must be placed on the metaphysical foundations of Spinoza's moral doctrine depends, more profoundly than has traditionally been realized, upon the priniarmy conceptions in terms of which they are elaborated. In particuilar, the notions of cause, substunce, attribute, mode, freedom, and determination, key terms in Spinoza's system, re quire most careful consideration lest an alien inter pretation derived from later and more familiar usage serioursly impair, or even reverse, the prin cipies advanced. Thus the traditional accournt of Spinoozism as a mechanistic determinism with an ethical superstructure that it cannot logically support prolbably issues from an anachronistic application of the term "caurse," already excluded by the opening definition of Part I of the Ethics: "By cause of itself ( causa sui) I understand that of which the essence involves existence, or that of which the nature cannot be conceived save as existing." Such a cause cannot be mechanistic for no being can exist as the transient cause of itself as effect. By the "cause" of any actual heing, Spinoxa means the power that is thus actualized, so that his determinism is not extrinsic or  transient ccoercion but the free necessity of selfexpression. Substance with its infinite attributes is the power that is actualized in creation, not a distinct actuality that produces the world out of nothing. The world, or created nature, is the actuality of this power. Spinoza's doctrine, therefore, is not mechanistic but activistic.

             This power, though real, is not in itselt actual and determinate. It is actualized in various modes among which minds must be included. Minds are thinking beings that are intimtiately related to objects other than themselves, such as bodies in the case of human minds. Thus in thinking of the prirmordial powwer which Spinoxa calls subitance, of wwhich they are actualixations, human uminds must regard that powwer, which in itself is indeterminate, as the reflectively determinate source of minds and bodies. Accordingly, subtance consists of the infinite and etemal attributes of tho@ight and extension, and, to satisfy its native indeterminates, also consists of an infinite variPty of other infinite and eternal attributes that are not known by the intellect.

                                                          Human Nature and Values.

Created man is eternal as a finite act@ialixation of divine power. How then, are men as duritional, striving beings related to God and to each other? According to Spinoza thry are "imaginational" appear,nnces of their natures as created. Each man is but a part of Nature, lying within its bounds, but as a

 mirocosm he is inclined to view the world in terms of his own finite being, while God Himself views it in ternis of creation. human's view's of "him self and God, and things" are th@is partially frag mented and confused. Their integrity, eternity, and agency are made deficient by partition, dura tion and striving. The derived "free necessity" of man's causality snffers the privation of contin gency as more or less free choice, and his perfection in his grade of being becomes an alter nation of good and evil. It is redemption fronm this partial privalion of nature that is the end of morality. It can be achieved only insofar as "reference to self" gives place to "reference to God" So far as this is achieved, human endeavor is crowned with goodness. So far as there is recession from it, evil and misery ens@ie. Yet it is by the good that the agent lives, and evil is parasiti cal, presenting the false appearance of good.

Man, however, is a genuine part of Nature and his "imaginations" are not wholly or neces sarily false, but rather lapes in the rational and intuitive knowledge of "himself, and God, and things." It is by the ememdation of imagination by hearsay, sense, and "vagrant exprricnce" generally that man attains the reasoned judgement about the cornmon properties of things. Emenda tion of imagainition also leads to intuitive knowvl edge or perfect understanding of things in the order of eternal creation wvhich rovides the due measure of true freedom, blessedness, and "intel lectual love" that is available even in this present life.

             Spinoxa's theory of the three kinds of knowl edge is elaboratPd in the nnfinished Tractatus de Initellectus Emenidationie and in Part II of the Ethics, together with his important acconnt of ideas as mental actions rather than mental pictures.

             Spinoxa displays his theory of human lihera tion from the passions which enmerge under finite self-reference in the final parts of the Ethics. He gives eloquent exprrssion to the profound satis factions of the intellectul life, in which a man partakes of the divine nature in intellectnal love and is freed fronm the limitations of dnration. He becomes immortal, not as a being living again in a time after death, but as eternal and delighting  in full creation.

The political theory of Spinoxa is closely fashioned on his etaphysics and ethics. The state is a rationalixation of the self-defeating "state of nature." Under the state the natural     power or right of individuals is redeemed from futility by willing or unwilling subjection to coin mon laws under a ruler or rulers. The function of the state is not moralixation or cultivation but pacification, to he a rampart within which moral ity and culture may safely be developed.