LXXV: I DISCUSS GOD WITH SPINOZA—NEW VISION—APOLLONIUS WALKS WITH US—I MAKE MY PEACE WITH JESUS

HOLLAND seemed, in truth, a more comfortable place than the rest of Europe. The inhabitants had recently proved their personal prowess and the advantage of their geographical situation to an astounded world. If it was not characteristic of their stolid nature to show much enthusiasm and exuberance, one breathed, at any rate, an air of confidence and quiet happiness. The small houses, white wood or brick, were spotless in their cleanliness. The men sat upon the thresholds, raised sufficiently to allow a comfortable posture and smoked enormous pipes in silence. The women spun at the open windows. In the distance, at every angle of the compass, the mills turned ceaselessly, glittering in the sun like dull mirrors.

People of a dozen religions lived if not lovingly together,—something which could hardly be expected—at least without murdering one another.

Nevertheless, being a foreigner and therefore naturally suspected—for man has this in common with the dog that strangeness intimidates and enrages him—I preferred not to ask freely for the whereabouts of a philosopher once excommunicated by his own people and generally considered, if not an atheist, at least a vague and indifferent believer.

From an old bookseller, I discovered that Benedictus Spinoza, finding Amsterdam unsuitable to his health, had for some time now been living at The Hague, if indeed he was still living.

“We must not linger too long, Kotikokura. Our sage seems to be of a very delicate constitution. It would be a pity to reach him after his departure from this troubled, superstition-devoured earth.”

At The Hague, a lens polisher informed me that the renegade lived on the outskirts of the city, taking greater care of his lungs than of his lenses.

An old woman, clean as if she too had been whitewashed and scrubbed like the houses, scrutinized me for a long minute.

“The master is in his room,” she said, pointing to the attic. “He has been writing for the last two days steadily. He should not do it. He is not feeling very well.”

“It is true, then,” I said, “that his lungs are not strong.”

She sighed. “It is, sir. And it is a pity. He is the best man in the world, whatever the others may say. He has lived with us for two years and never have I heard an unkindly word. And as for religion, whenever I beg him to come along to church, he accompanies us. He does not blaspheme or mock. It is not true, sir. He– —”

The stairs creaked.

“He is coming down, sir.”

Spinoza appeared,—a middle-aged man, his face drawn, his eyes large and brilliant as if they had just looked at a newly-discovered star.

“Master,” the old woman said quietly, “are you feeling well?”

He smiled, coughed drily, and answered, “I am feeling well… Thank you, little mother.”

“You are working too hard. It is not right,” she admonished. “Young people never understand that—”

He placed his hand, long and thin and nearly transparent, upon her shoulder. “Am I young?”

“Of course. But here I am chattering while this gentleman is waiting to see you, master.”

She walked out of the room. Spinoza gave me his hand.

“Master, I come from the end of the earth to see you.”

He smiled. His finely shaped lips curled a little. His eyes closed half-way. “I do not deserve this honor, sir, I am certain.”

“To see a man free from the superstitions that ravage the world is worth a trip from the moon.”

Spinoza played with one of the long black curls that fell over his cheek. “Experience has taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile, seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them.” He coughed. “But forgive me. I have just quoted a passage from my work. It may be totally irrelevant.”

“On the contrary, master. It is quite relevant and like a precious jewel, has many facets.”

“I wonder, my friend,” he said gently, “if you would care to walk with me along the shore? I love the sea. We come from the sea and shall eventually return to the sea. She is the Mother.”

We walked silently, leaving imprints upon the sand which the low tide endeavored, but in vain, to reach and fill. Spinoza stopped from time to time to breathe deeply or cough, bending upon his cane. His face was smooth and the two red spots upon his cheeks, the symbol of the fire that consumed his lungs, gave him a youthful appearance. His broad forehead, however, cut by three profound wrinkles, running almost parallel, refuted his youth and if judged by itself gave the impression of great age. His nose, long and sensitive, was Greek rather than Jewish, and his smooth chin, in contrast with the rest of the face, showed that determination essential to one who would remain unperturbed amid the malignity of the people about him.

“Master, have you read of Apollonius?”

“Only here and there. He was one of the few who understood God.”

“God?” I asked, a little ironically. “I thought there were gods but no God.”

He looked at me sadly and nodded. “The many gods do not refute God, my friend.”

“I am older than I seem, master,” I said, “and I have traveled the world over but I have never discovered God.”

“It is not necessary to live very long nor is it essential to travel the world over to discover God. God is everywhere and eternal. Neither time nor space bind Him and the foolishness of the people does not destroy Him. The world is one, and all things in it are parts of one self-evident, self-producing order, one nature which is the Substance, which is God. In it are we all; it makes us what we are; it does what its own nature determines; it explains itself and all of us. It is uncreated, supreme, omnipresent, unchangeable, the law of laws, the nature of natures.”

He coughed.

‘Apollonius,’ I whispered.

“The Substance is eternal, bearing no relation to time. No temporal view of time can exhaust its nature. All things, even those that happened a million years ago are eternally present. There is no before and no after.”

“Is God, an inanimate force or a living intelligence, master?”

He stopped, planted his cane in front of him, and answered: “God must have infinite ways of expressing Himself,—each perfect, self-determined. We know but two—body and mind, equally real, equally true,—constituting as far as we can judge, the whole Substance. From the faintest line to our own bodies, every visible or tangible thing is an expression of the extended or corporeal aspect of God. In the same manner, our minds are but the extended or mental aspect of God. Mind-body—two parallel lines and both the expression of divinity. God is therefore both the animate and inanimate, the living and the dead,—everything that is or ever was or ever can be.”

He straightened up and looked into the distance as if all space had been eliminated and infinitely stretched out before his enraptured gaze.

I could make no remark, ask no questions. His words thrilled me as if the sea in front of us had suddenly changed into a majestic orchestral composition; as if the sky had burst into a luminous white light.

‘Apollonius,’ I thought, ‘Apollonius come to life again. There is no past and no future.’

“Jesus,” he said softly, “claimed to be the Son of God, and so He was, and so was Mohammed and Moses, and so is everyone, every man, every creature, however humble, however powerful, each partaking of the divinity to the extent of his ability and nature. God is everywhere, always. We are not only His sons, we are He. Our finiteness is lost within His infinity, even as the thin stream that trickles down a mountain into a rivulet which flows into the large river, which in turn mingles and becomes the salty depths of this sea.”