to his executors, in
which he was described as M. Spinoza of 'blessed memory.'

The account which remains of him we owe, not to an admiring disciple,
but to a clergyman to whom his theories were detestable; and his
biographer allows that the most malignant scrutiny had failed to detect
a blemish in his character--that, except so far as his opinions were
blameable, he had lived to outward appearance free from fault. We
desire, in what we are going to say of him, to avoid offensive collision
with popular prejudices; still less shall we place ourselves in
antagonism with the earnest convictions of serious persons: our business
is to relate what Spinoza was, and leave others to form their own
conclusions. But one lesson there does seem to lie in such a life of
such a man,--a lesson which he taught equally by example and in
word,--that wherever there is genuine and thorough love for good and
goodness, no speculative superstructure of opinion can be so extravagant
as to forfeit those graces which are promised, not to clearness of
intellect, but to purity of heart. In Spinoza's own beautiful
language,--'Justitia et caritas unicum et certissimum verae fidei
Catholicae signum est, et veri Spiritus Sancti fructus: et ubicumque haec
reperiuntur, ibi Christus re vera est, et ubicumque haec desunt deest
Christus: solo namque Christi Spiritu duci possumus in amorem justitiae
et caritatis.' We may deny his conclusions; we may consider his system
of thought preposterous and even pernicious; but we cannot refuse him
the respect which is the right of all sincere and honourable men.
Wherever and on whatever questions good men are found ranged on opposite
sides, one of three alternatives is always true:--either the points of
disagreement are purely speculative and of no moral importance--or
there is a misunderstanding of language, and the same thing is meant
under a difference of words--or else the real truth is something
different from what is held by any of the disputants, and each is
representing some important element which the others ignore or forget.
In either case, a certain calmness and good temper is necessary, if we
would understand what we disagree with, or would oppose it with success;
Spinoza's influence over European thought is too great to be denied or
set aside; and if his doctrines be false in part, or false altogether,
we cannot do their work more surely than by calumny or
misrepresentation--a most obvious truism, which n