Part 7 (1/2)

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.