Baruch Spinoza

Baruch Spinoza was a Portuguese-Jewish lens grinder in Amsterdam, excommunicated by his synagogue at twenty-three for opinions never recorded, who lived quietly in Dutch towns, refused a professorship at Heidelberg, and published only one book under his own name. The Theologico-Political Treatise, issued anonymously, argued for freedom of thought and read the Bible as a historical document, and was banned everywhere. The Ethics, published by his friends after his death, proves in geometrical order that God and Nature are one substance and that freedom is understanding necessity. Novalis called him a God-intoxicated man.