noza suffered in his own person from religious
persecution, he never for one moment held as did, for example, Voltaire,
that the Church is the wily and unregenerate instrument of vicious
priests. On the contrary, Spinoza was quite sure that many of the clergy
were among the noblest of men, and that the Church was in large measure
a very salutary institution for the masses who cannot learn to govern
themselves by force of mind. But Spinoza was unalterably opposed to any
encroachment of Church authority upon the just liberties of men.
Especially did he object to the Church extending its prohibitive power
over men's thinking. It is the business of the Church to inculcate
"obedience" in the masses; not to dictate to philosophers what is the
truth. The fundamental purpose of Spinoza's attack upon the Bible is to
free philosophy from theology; not to destroy the Church but to
disestablish it.

Many readers of Spinoza conclude that because Spinoza tolerated Church
authority in matters of public morality he therefore either did not in
his own thought thoroughly adhere to his principles or else he was
excessively cautious, even timid, and did not fully or consistently
express his mind. No one would deny that there is some accommodation in
Spinoza's language. He certainly followed the practical wisdom of the
thinkers of his day. Even so, however, Spinoza was by no means as
cautious as was Descartes. Anyway, accommodation does not fully account
for Spinoza's attitude on this question; in fact, it does not account
for any significant feature of it.

Spinoza never believed a sound metaphysics was, for the masses, the
indispensable basis of a good moral life. The multitude, he was firmly
convinced, are controlled by their passions and desires, not by
knowledge and reason. The coercive law of the State and Nature, not
philosophy, keep them living within the bounds necessary for social
order and human well-being. Far from it being necessary to tell the
masses only the truth Spinoza believed, as did Plato before him, that it
may even be necessary in order to rule the masses successfully in the
ways of wisdom and virtue to deceive them to a greater or lesser extent.
Such deception is, as a political expediency, morally justified, for the
rulers would be lying in the interests of virtue and truth.

Spinoza did not suffer from the fond contemporary delusion that the
salvation of mankind will come about when philosophers become like all