Part 8 (1/2)

On the inventory taken the day of Spinoza's death, next to the signature of Hendrik van der Spyck, appear the Latin forenames-subsequently crossed out-of a witness to the proceedings: ”Georgius Hermanius.” In a later letter to Leibniz, Tschirnhaus reports that Schuller has written him to say that he was indeed present with ”our friend in The Hague” on his last day. ”After [Spinoza] gave orders concerning how his posthumous ma.n.u.scripts should be handled” to Schuller, Tschirnhaus recounts, ”he died.” A subsequent letter from Schuller to Leibniz seems to confirm the story: ”before and after [Spinoza's] death (for your ears only) I scrutinized all of his papers thoroughly one by one, and, at the bidding of his friends and himself (while he still lived), I removed any that smelled of erudition [sic] or oddity.”

Schuller lived with a fellow Spinoza enthusiast, Pieter van Gent, who harbored a great dislike for his lodger, describing him as a good-for-nothing and scoundrel in his treatment of his fiancee. From Schuller, presumably, van Gent learned something about the circ.u.mstances surrounding Spinoza's death. He later wrote to his friend Tschirnhaus: ”G.o.d willing, I shall give you an account in person of what happened when our friend [Spinoza] died, and then I shall tell you more that will astonish and dumbfound you.” Unfortunately, van Gent's story never made it into any of the surviving correspondence.

Why did Spinoza call for Schuller? What exactly happened on the day that Spinoza died? Why did Schuller, along with perhaps Tschirnhaus, van Gent, Leibniz, and even Colerus, connive to cover up his role in the affair? The astonis.h.i.+ng and dumbfounding questions that linger over Spinoza's death can only be the subject of speculation. Only two facts about the case seem certain and relevant for us: whatever it was that happened on the day that Spinoza died, Schuller was involved; and Leibniz was in the know.

LEIBNIZ GOT THE news within days. In a letter dated February 26, 1677, Schuller informs him of Spinoza's demise, adding: ”It seems that death took him so much by surprise that he left no testament to indicate his last will.” In his next breath, the Amsterdam doctor makes a startling proposal: news within days. In a letter dated February 26, 1677, Schuller informs him of Spinoza's demise, adding: ”It seems that death took him so much by surprise that he left no testament to indicate his last will.” In his next breath, the Amsterdam doctor makes a startling proposal: The ma.n.u.script of the Ethics Ethics, in the author's hand-the same one you saw at his house-is being held at a friend's house. It is for sale, provided the price (150 guilders, I believe) corresponds with the dignity of the object. I thought that since no one knows better than you the significance of the work, perhaps you could persuade your prince to buy it at his cost.

Schuller does not explain how he came into control of the ma.n.u.script in question. It is impossible to know whether he refers to the papers locked in the desk van der Spyck was in the process of s.h.i.+pping to Rieuwertsz-which would imply that Spinoza's publisher was the ”friend” hoping to cash in on the goods-or to a ma.n.u.script that he acquired by some other means.

If Leibniz had any scruples about the legality of Schuller's offer, he kept them well hidden. He was evidently more than keen to buy the precious doc.u.ment, whose significance, as Schuller rightly points out, he better than anyone understood. Naturally, he intended to take the money from the Duke of Hanover's library budget; but it seems that he preferred not to inform his patron about the potential acquisition for the time being.

Four weeks after making the offer, however, Schuller suddenly changed his tune: I am greatly relieved that you have said nothing to your prince about the purchase of the Ethics Ethics, for I have changed my mind entirely, and I do not want to be responsible for the exchange (even if the seller raised his price). The reason is that I have been able to arrange a consensus among his friends, who were in much disagreement, to publish for the public good not only the Ethics Ethics, but also all the ma.n.u.script fragments (the greatest part of which...in the author's hand has fallen into my hands).

Here Schuller takes credit for one of the greatest adventures in the history of publis.h.i.+ng: the publication of Spinoza's posthumous works. Yet it is hard to escape the conclusion that he claims more credit than is properly his due. In the interval between Schuller's two letters to Leibniz, Rieuwertsz had received Spinoza's ma.n.u.scripts in Amsterdam and posted a letter of acknowledgment to van der Spyck. A more likely story is that Schuller lost control of the publication process to Rieuwertsz, but preferred to represent the new development to Leibniz as the fruit of his own effort.

With Spinoza's papers out of his (and presumably Schuller's) hands, Leibniz now became greatly alarmed. In April 1677, Tschirnhaus relayed the news from Schuller that among the dead philosopher's papers was ”a writing” from Leibniz. The ”writing” in question was most likely one of the letters Leibniz had sent Spinoza. The horrifying prospect for Leibniz was that Spinoza's correspondence might now be published in full. Would the editors include his letters to the reviled atheist? Leibniz's career, if not more, hung in the balance.

WHILE KEEPING A nervous eye on developments in Amsterdam, Leibniz abruptly pulled the trigger on another intellectual front. In a letter that same month in which he introduces himself to a professor of philosophy in a nearby town, Leibniz suddenly steps outside the flow of the discussion in order to fire off a brutal fusillade against the late Descartes. The attack comes out of nowhere, and yet it slams its victim from all sides. Before, Leibniz had little but anodyne praise for the work of the great French philosopher; indeed, just one year previously, he had gone hunting for Cartesian ma.n.u.scripts with his friend Tschirnhaus in the bookshops of Paris. Now, it seems, the Cartesian philosophy is a catalogue of outrageous errors. Leibniz himself characterizes his violent critique as the consequence of a revelation of sorts. ”I was vexed to discover such things nervous eye on developments in Amsterdam, Leibniz abruptly pulled the trigger on another intellectual front. In a letter that same month in which he introduces himself to a professor of philosophy in a nearby town, Leibniz suddenly steps outside the flow of the discussion in order to fire off a brutal fusillade against the late Descartes. The attack comes out of nowhere, and yet it slams its victim from all sides. Before, Leibniz had little but anodyne praise for the work of the great French philosopher; indeed, just one year previously, he had gone hunting for Cartesian ma.n.u.scripts with his friend Tschirnhaus in the bookshops of Paris. Now, it seems, the Cartesian philosophy is a catalogue of outrageous errors. Leibniz himself characterizes his violent critique as the consequence of a revelation of sorts. ”I was vexed to discover such things chez chez M. des Cartes,” he says. ”But I could see no way to excuse them.” M. des Cartes,” he says. ”But I could see no way to excuse them.”

Leibniz's criticisms of Descartes have a nasty, personal edge. Descartes has ”a rather mean spirit,” he sneers. He is unduly ”arrogant” with respect to other philosophers. His ignorance in chemistry ”causes pity” and ”one had best forget the beautiful novel of physics he has given us.” His skills as a mathematician and geometer are nothing like what they are cracked up to be. And he fabricated his war record. Above all, says Leibniz, the philosophy Descartes propounded is ”dangerous.”

To readers of the time, the dawn raid on Descartes must have seemed reckless and inexplicable, as it in fact did to his first correspondent on the matter. ”It seems that Mr. Leibnits wishes to establish his reputation on the ruins of that of Mr. Descartes,” laments a horrified reviewer, after the dispute went public. In that initial declaration of war of April 1677, however, Leibniz offers us a very discreet clue as to the genesis of the conflict. In cataloguing some of Descartes's errors, he writes: ”nor do I approve of his dangerous idea, that matter a.s.sumes all forms of which it is capable successively.” A reader of the time, of course, would have had no way of knowing that the doctrine Leibniz here attributes to Descartes (that matter a.s.sumes all forms of which it is capable) looks suspiciously like the one he attributes to Spinoza (that all possible things exist) in both his personal note of December 12,1676, and his marginalia on Spinoza's letter to Oldenburg.

WHILE LEIBNIZ WAS jousting with the strangely Spinozistic ghost of Descartes in Hanover, a scramble broke out along the ca.n.a.ls of Amsterdam. Rieuwertsz, Jarig Jelles, Schuller himself, and a small band of unsung heroes of the early Enlightenment were making rapid progress in their clandestine effort to publish Spinoza's posthumous works. The material in the philosopher's unmarked crate had to be transcribed into fair copies for use by the printers. Spinoza's Latin required some correction-apparently, he sometimes slipped into Spanish or Portuguese constructions-and letters written in Dutch had to be translated into Latin. For the Dutch edition, conversely, all of the Latin material required translation. Along the way, crucial editorial decisions concerning what to include had to be made. Many of Spinoza's letters were deemed to be of merely personal interest, and, to the unheard groans of future historians, they were destroyed. jousting with the strangely Spinozistic ghost of Descartes in Hanover, a scramble broke out along the ca.n.a.ls of Amsterdam. Rieuwertsz, Jarig Jelles, Schuller himself, and a small band of unsung heroes of the early Enlightenment were making rapid progress in their clandestine effort to publish Spinoza's posthumous works. The material in the philosopher's unmarked crate had to be transcribed into fair copies for use by the printers. Spinoza's Latin required some correction-apparently, he sometimes slipped into Spanish or Portuguese constructions-and letters written in Dutch had to be translated into Latin. For the Dutch edition, conversely, all of the Latin material required translation. Along the way, crucial editorial decisions concerning what to include had to be made. Many of Spinoza's letters were deemed to be of merely personal interest, and, to the unheard groans of future historians, they were destroyed.

The editors carried out their feverish labors in the back rooms of private houses along the ca.n.a.ls of Amsterdam. They were running from the law and they were running from G.o.d, too-or, at least, so the Vatican avowed. Shortly after Spinoza's death, the papal secretary of state, Cardinal Frances...o...b..rberini, got wind of the publication effort and convened an emergency meeting in Rome. The Vatican committee resolved to spare no effort in suppressing the insurgency. They alerted the vicar of the Dutch Catholic Church, who a.s.signed the case to a leading priest in Amsterdam, who in turn called on all the denominations to contribute fellow spiritual detectives to his squad. On the ca.n.a.ls of Amsterdam at the time, it seems, a visitor might well have espied the proverbial boat with a rabbi, a Protestant minister, and a Catholic priest.

At the same time, in Hanover, it seems that Leibniz himself wanted to get in on the fray. With his friend Johann Daniel Crafft, he plotted a secret journey to Amsterdam, in hopes of reviewing Spinoza's posthumous ma.n.u.scripts. No doubt the ma.n.u.scripts that most interested him were the ones in his own handwriting. But his obligations in Hanover prevented him from making the trip, so Leibniz remained in his library, writing panicky letters to his man in Amsterdam, Georg Hermann Schuller.

Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, the priestly sleuths prowled the waterways, stopping in many of the city's hundreds of bookshops and printing houses. After some months without a break in the case, the rabbi picked up the first lead. Possibly tipped off by the philosopher's f.e.c.kless sister Rebecca, the investigators turned up at Rieuwertsz's door.

But the poker-faced publisher professed to have no connection with the author after printing the Tractatus Tractatus of 1670. He feigned surprise that Spinoza should have written any more works. Astonis.h.i.+ngly, the ministers fell for it, and thereby lost the opportunity to prevent the publication of the work that one of their colleagues later deemed the vilest book written ”since the beginning of the world.” of 1670. He feigned surprise that Spinoza should have written any more works. Astonis.h.i.+ngly, the ministers fell for it, and thereby lost the opportunity to prevent the publication of the work that one of their colleagues later deemed the vilest book written ”since the beginning of the world.”

In his infrequent comments on Spinoza to scattered correspondents at this time, Leibniz maintains an air of calm detachment. To his friend Gallois in Paris, for example, he writes: Spinoza died this winter. I saw him when pa.s.sing through Holland, and I spoke with him many times and at great length. He has a strange metaphysics, full of paradoxes.... I noted that some of the pretended demonstrations that he showed me are not exact. It is not as easy as one thinks to give true demonstrations in metaphysics. Still, there are some, and quite beautiful ones, too.

For the benefit of the Duke of Hanover, Leibniz also took the time to a.n.a.lyze the exchange of letters between Spinoza and Albert Burgh, an estranged young friend who converted to Catholicism and accused the philosopher of being in league with the Prince of Darkness. Naturally, Leibniz rejects out of hand Spinoza's critique of revealed theology; but he adopts a surprisingly conciliatory stance with respect to the philosopher's commitment to the guidance of reason. ”What Spinoza says about the certainty of philosophy and of demonstrations is good and incontestable,” he tells the Duke.

Behind the scenes, however, Leibniz was anything but cool about the Spinoza affair. He could scarcely conceal his impatience to lay hands on Spinoza's writings. Above all, he agonized over the possible publication of his earlier correspondence. He obviously made his feelings clear to Schuller, for in a reply of November 1677, the latter takes pains to calm the sleepless philosopher, a.s.suring him that on the day of Spinoza's death he personally cleaned his files of anything that might offend the living.

It is worth noting that Leibniz at this point was in a position to have put a stop to the publication effort. He knew who the renegade editors were, for he was in direct contact with one of them and had met the rest on his travels through Holland. Furthermore, he now worked alongside Nicholas Steno-one of Spinoza's epistolary antagonists and a zealous Catholic convert who had contacts at the highest levels in Rome. A word to Steno and Spinoza's writings-along with his editors-might very well have gone up in smoke, quite literally. But Leibniz remained silent.

In the final days of 1677, the Opera Posthuma of BDS Opera Posthuma of BDS at last careened forth from the secret presses of Amsterdam. The work immediately reignited the firestorm of denunciation and censors.h.i.+p that was left smoldering after the publication of at last careened forth from the secret presses of Amsterdam. The work immediately reignited the firestorm of denunciation and censors.h.i.+p that was left smoldering after the publication of Tractatus Tractatus in 1670. It is ”a book which...surpa.s.ses all others in G.o.dlessness and which endeavors to do away with all religion and set G.o.dlessness on the throne,” said a typical reviewer of the time. in 1670. It is ”a book which...surpa.s.ses all others in G.o.dlessness and which endeavors to do away with all religion and set G.o.dlessness on the throne,” said a typical reviewer of the time.

On January 25, 1678, Schuller hastily arranged to deliver a copy of the Opera Posthuma Opera Posthuma to Leibniz by means of secret courier, referred to only as ”the Jew.” Upon receipt of the unmarked package, Leibniz locked himself in the Duke's library and feverishly scanned the seven hundred pages of Spinoza's posthumous work. to Leibniz by means of secret courier, referred to only as ”the Jew.” Upon receipt of the unmarked package, Leibniz locked himself in the Duke's library and feverishly scanned the seven hundred pages of Spinoza's posthumous work.

He soon experienced the kind of anguish known only to those who have seen their own words in print in a most unbecoming context. There in black and off-white was his 1671 letter to the ”celebrated and profound philosopher.” Next to it was Spinoza's courteous reply, offering Leibniz a copy of his Tractatus Tractatus and inviting clandestine correspondence. Flipping a few pages further, the horrified reader came upon Schuller's 1675 letter to Spinoza, in which Tschirnhaus describes Leibniz as ”free from the usual theological prejudices” and ”ready to receive” the rest of Spinoza's writings. and inviting clandestine correspondence. Flipping a few pages further, the horrified reader came upon Schuller's 1675 letter to Spinoza, in which Tschirnhaus describes Leibniz as ”free from the usual theological prejudices” and ”ready to receive” the rest of Spinoza's writings.

Leibniz was beside himself. He fired off a furious reprimand (since lost) to Schuller. The Amsterdam alchemist, true to character, groveled. In his reply, he pleads that he had no prior knowledge of the inclusion of Leibniz's first letter to Spinoza, and that in any case ”the letter is no danger to you, for it concerns only mathematics.” (Actually, as we know, it was about optics.) Schuller had a point, though: he knew that Leibniz had to count himself lucky that his other presumed letters, such as the one in which he reportedly praised the Tractatus Tractatus, did not make it into the book.

By February 4-ten days after Schuller sent him his copy and presumably less than a week after having received it-Leibniz had devoured the Opera Posthuma Opera Posthuma. On that date, he offered his judgment to Henri Justel, a friend from Paris who had already made known his view that Spinoza was a diabolical atheist. With Justel, Leibniz is measured but firm in his verdict: ”The Posthumous Works of the late M. Spinosa have at last been published.... I find there a number of beautiful thoughts in agreement with my own, as some of my friends who were also friends of Spinoza know. But there are also paradoxes that I find neither true nor even plausible.” He goes on to list the princ.i.p.al doctrines with which he does not agree, including: that G.o.d alone is substance; that all creatures are but modes of substance; that G.o.d has no will or intellect; that immortality entails no personal memory; and that happiness is the patient acceptance of the inevitable. In other words, Spinoza is wrong on every point, beginning with the very notion that fifteen months earlier Leibniz had intimated was ”easily demonstrated”: that G.o.d alone is substance. In a contemporaneous letter to another correspondent, Leibniz repeats the same list of unacceptable doctrines and exclaims: ”How much better and more true are the Christian ones?!” To Justel he concludes: ”This book is dangerous for those who would take the trouble to read it profoundly. The rest will not be able to understand it at all.”

To judge from the extensive notes he made on his personal copy of Opera Posthuma, Opera Posthuma, Leibniz would have been compelled to number himself among those for whom the book was dangerous. His comments on the Leibniz would have been compelled to number himself among those for whom the book was dangerous. His comments on the Ethics Ethics extend for fifteen pages. The largest share of his notes refers to Part I, ”On G.o.d,” where he registers his responses to almost every definition and proposition. But these are not the casual remarks of a curious reader; they are the notes of a man who is determined to disagree with what he is reading. extend for fifteen pages. The largest share of his notes refers to Part I, ”On G.o.d,” where he registers his responses to almost every definition and proposition. But these are not the casual remarks of a curious reader; they are the notes of a man who is determined to disagree with what he is reading.

The a.s.sault begins on the second line of Spinoza's text and does not let up through the entire first part of the Ethics Ethics. Leibniz takes no prisoners: Spinoza is wrong on just about every point. Although the criticisms range far and wide, Leibniz returns reliably to the claim that he first made on December 12, 1676: that Spinoza's belief that all possible things exist is incompatible with the existence of a G.o.d ”of the kind in whom the pious believe.”

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Leibniz's commentary is its pointedly personal tone. He derides Spinoza's proof of Proposition 20 as an ”empty, pretentious device to twist the whole into the form of a demonstration.” On the next proposition, he scrawls: ”He demonstrates this obscurely and at length, though it is easy.” Then, on the subsequent proofs: ”this demonstration is fallacious” ”this proof carries no weight” ”this demonstration is obscure and abrupt, being carried through by the abrupt, obscure, and questionable propositions that have preceded it” ”he proves this in an obscure, questionable, and devious way, as is his wont.” By the time he reaches Proposition 30, Leibniz is fuming: ”It seems that our author's mind was most tortuous: he rarely proceeds in a natural and clear way, but always advances in abrupt and circuitous steps.” As these notes were never intended to be read by any one other than Leibniz himself, they must count as about as sincere as anything he ever wrote. And they make clear that the honeymoon, such as it was, is over.

Indeed, Leibniz's disagreements with Spinoza are by now so emphatic that one may even be inclined to doubt whether there ever had been a honeymoon. But, at around the same time that he recorded his reactions to the Ethics Ethics, Leibniz himself provided the evidence to remove any such doubts. In ”On Freedom,” an unpublished essay dating from 1678 or 1679, he confesses: When I considered that nothing occurs by chance...and that nothing exists unless certain conditions are fulfilled from all of which together its existence at once follows, I found myself very close to the opinions of those who hold everything to be absolutely necessary.... But I was pulled back from this precipice by considering those possible things which neither are nor will be nor have been.

”Those who hold everything to be absolutely necessary,” of course, just means ”Spinoza.” Leibniz here confirms that his earlier rapprochement with Spinoza was quite real.

Perhaps most revealing is Leibniz's choice of metaphor to describe his earlier lapse into Spinozism. A ”precipice” is the kind of peril that one may encounter unexpectedly in the midst of a journey and that may be averted in an instant, by simply pulling back. Most important, it evokes the fear of a ”fall” in more than just a physical sense.

Not for another twenty-five years did Leibniz feel ready to make a similar confession about his youthful affair with Spinozism. Yet, crucially, in his famous comment in the unpublished New Essays on Human Understanding New Essays on Human Understanding, he expresses almost exactly the same thought: that he had once ”leaned to the side of the Spinozists,” whom he specifically accuses of holding everything to be absolutely necessary. In that celebrated pa.s.sage, he goes on to say that ”these new lights have healed me, and since that time I have sometimes taken the name of Theophile.” Clearly, the story of Leibniz's fateful bite of the Spinozist apple and his subsequent recovery from such a hideous lapse marks a pivotal moment in his own narrative of his life. The tone of both confessions is something like that of a repentant sinner or recovering alcoholic. If (per impossibile) there were more people like Leibniz in the world, one could imagine them circling together in a kind of Spinozists Anonymous to trade qualifications, share lessons about their illness, and discuss the twelve steps to healing.

Leibniz's claim that he settled on the name Theophile only after curing himself of the affliction of Spinozism is intriguing, and seems to refer to an important step on his road to recovery. Sure enough, a dialogue in his unpublished notes from 1678, the year in which he received Spinoza's posthumous works, features a fictional character bearing Leibniz's new pseudonym. (In the dialogue on motion he wrote just days before visiting Spinoza, incidentally, Leibniz also names one of the partic.i.p.ants Theophile; but he does not in that instance identify himself with the character in question.) Theophile, says Leibniz now, ”had a certain self-effacement and simplicity which gave ample evidence of great resources and an enlightened and tranquil soul.” He is clearly everything Leibniz wants to be.

Theophile's debating partner is a man named Polidore, who is pretty much what Leibniz does not want to be. Polidore suffers from a kind of vanitas vanitas not at all unlike that of the author of not at all unlike that of the author of The Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect The Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect: ”Now that I have attained the things I wanted,” he says, ”I have come to recognize their vanity.” He dismisses the ”presumptuous” doctrine of personal immortality, and he dabbles in the theory of a world-soul. G.o.d, he seems to think, is nothing but nature, and nature is cruel: A wretched sheep is torn apart by a wolf, a pigeon falls prey to some vulture, the poor flies are exposed to the malice of spiders, and men themselves-what a tyranny they exercise over other animals, and even among themselves...[we] must say that [G.o.d] cares not at all for what we call justice and that he takes pleasure in destruction.... Individuals must give way; there is room only for the species.

Polidore, in other words, is Spinoza without the aura of metaphysical enchantment.

Naturally, Theophile gets the better of the argument. He eventually brings Polidore around to the recognition that G.o.d has a will and intellect, that he actively plans everything for the best, that the individual soul is immortal, and that there is no such thing as a world-soul. In other words: that Spinoza is wrong about everything. The dialogue concludes with a spectacular pa.s.sage in which Leibniz announces the creed that served to guide his entire life: I see that virtue and honor are not chimeras. I recognize that the general lament about the misery of life poisons our satisfaction and strangely deceives us. Instead we must remember that we are the most perfect and happiest of all known creatures, or at least that it takes only us to become so. Most blessed are those who know their own good. Hereafter let us no longer complain of nature; let us love this G.o.d who so loved us, and know, once and for all, the knowledge of great truths, the exercise of divine love and charity, and the efforts which one can make for the general good-by a.s.suaging the ills of men, contributing to the happiness of life, advancing the sciences and arts and everything that serves to acquire true glory and immortalize oneself through good deeds-all these are pathways to this felicity, which lead us as far as we are capable of going toward G.o.d and which we may take as a kind of apotheosis.

Among the thousands of pages that fill the Leibniz Archive, this one offers perhaps the most heartfelt declaration of the great philosopher's ambition to serve the human race princ.i.p.ally in advancing the arts and sciences and always according to the maxim ”Justice is the charity of the wise.” According to the editors of this ma.n.u.script, his handwriting grows larger and rounder as the pa.s.sage progresses, overflowing the margins of the paper. He was clearly in a state of deep exultation as he made this statement of what he took to be his most n.o.ble aspiration.

But it should not be overlooked that the character in whose voice this final, breathless profession of faith emerges is not the serene Theophile, but the recovering Spinozist Polidore. Leibniz, it seems, was the latter as much as he was the former. Theophile is perhaps best interpreted as Leibniz's idea idea of himself-the idea with which he was ever so much in love. But Polidore should be counted as his other, more real self-the multiplicitous one who desperately needed affirmation, who perhaps secretly still doubted that the world had enough love to go around. of himself-the idea with which he was ever so much in love. But Polidore should be counted as his other, more real self-the multiplicitous one who desperately needed affirmation, who perhaps secretly still doubted that the world had enough love to go around.

In other writings from this time, Leibniz's a.s.sault on Descartes takes on a highly revealing character. Though the attack remains fierce and scattered, it is no longer inexplicable. Leibniz returns time and again to the critique of the ”dangerous” Cartesian doctrine he first attacked in April 1677: the belief that ”matter receives all forms possible successively.” It is a curious nit to pick with Descartes, since other commentators would not necessarily have regarded this as one of the French philosopher's central doctrines. Why pick on this particular nit, then? By early 1680, Leibniz allows himself to be explicit: If matter a.s.sumes all forms possible successively, then it follows that one cannot imagine anything so absurd nor so bizarre nor contrary to that which we call justice, that has not happened or will not happen one day. These are precisely the thoughts that Spinoza explained more clearly, to know that justice, beauty, and order are naught but things that are relative to us, that the perfection of G.o.d consists in the amplitude of his work, that nothing is possible or conceivable that he does not actually produce....This is, in my view, the proton pseudos proton pseudos [first lie] and foundation of the atheistic philosophy. [first lie] and foundation of the atheistic philosophy.

The problem with Descartes, in a word, is Spinoza. And the problem with Spinoza is that he is an atheist. Indeed, he is the world's first and foremost atheist, the one who best articulates the ”first lie and foundation of the atheistic philosophy.” Thus Leibniz announces his definitive response to the single most important question that can be raised about Spinoza's philosophy: Is his G.o.d really a G.o.d?

Leibniz's use of the term ”atheism” here marks a pivotal moment in European culture. Unlike almost all his contemporaries, Leibniz did not use the label of atheism in order to suggest that Spinoza led a debauched life. Quite to the contrary, Leibniz would go out of his way to acknowledge that the philosopher of The Hague was irreproachable in his manner of living. Rather, perhaps for the first time, Leibniz understood that atheism stood for a new and very different kind of problem, a latent, philosophical potentiality of modernity, a condition afflicting especially those who, like Spinoza, did little but meditate on the existence and nature of G.o.d.

It is equally important to note that although Descartes preceded Spinoza, chronologically speaking, it is the later philosopher who has logical priority over the earlier one in Leibniz's mind. Descartes's theory of G.o.d, according to Leibniz, ”is nothing but a chimera and consequently it would be necessary to conceive of G.o.d in the manner of Spinoza, as a being who has no intellect or will.” And again: ”Descartes thinks in a whisper what Spinoza says at the top of his voice.”