for our pleasure or our discomfort. The
stars were not hung in the heavens so that we may steer our petty
courses across the seas; nor were the sun and moon put in their places
so that we may have the day in which to waste ourselves in futile labors
and the night to spend in ignorant sleep. Even if there were a cosmic
drama--which there is not--man is too trivial to play in it a leading
role. The free man knows all this; but his heart is tempered and strong.
He can contemplate his place in the universe without bitterness and
without fear. For the free man's love, as his worship, flows from his
knowledge of God.

IX

Spinoza is unsparing in his criticisms of the superstitions which are
in, and which have grown up around, the Bible. All Spinoza's major
conclusions have been embodied directly or indirectly in what is now
known as "the higher criticism" of the Bible, which is the basis of the
Modernist movement. It was Spinoza who established the fact that the
Pentateuch is not, as it is reputed to be, the work of Moses. It was
Spinoza, also, who first convincingly showed that other of the
Scriptural documents were compiled by various unacknowledged scribes;
not by the authors canonized by orthodoxy, Jewish or Gentile. The wealth
of philological and historical material at the disposal of the
contemporary Biblical investigator is incomparably richer than it was at
Spinoza's time. But modern scholarship has only added more
material--only extended in breadth Spinoza's modest researches. In
depth, nothing new has been achieved. The principles of investigation
and interpretation, and the general results Spinoza arrived at have not
been improved upon in the least, nor is it at all likely that they ever
will. Spinoza founded himself upon bed-rock.

Spinoza's aim in revealing the defectiveness of the Bible was not
theological but philosophical. Orthodox Biblical conceptions had in his
day, as they still have to a certain extent in ours, a peculiarly
sanctified power, because they were institutionalized and made the basis
of an authoritative system of conduct. The misbegotten doctrines
therefore could not be questioned with impunity, for a criticism of the
doctrines on intellectual grounds was invariably construed as an attack
upon the vested customs. The misfortunes of history made dissent from
palpable absurdities capital heresy. Social and religious bigotry burned
scientific men with political ardor.

However, although Spi