divine government or providence, or distribution of rewards and penalties;" and thinks he is not far from the truth in judging the author "tectis et fucatis argumentis merum atheismum docere." The manuscript draft of Spinoza's reply has been discovered, and it is very interesting from the manner in which it shows us the philosopher writing at first under the sway of a flush of wrath, but cooling down, after reflection, into more perfect reasonableness. The first draft began thus (the reply is addressed of course to Isaak Orobius): You are doubtless astonished at my having made you wait so long for my answer; the fact is that I feel the greatest difficulty in bringing myself to reply to the ineptitudes (ineptias) of that man." On second thoughts he ran his pen through the word "ineptias," and substituted that of "libellum," feeling probably that to throw hard words at a theological adversary was mere waste of energy. A little further on in the draft we find a passage that attributed Velthuysen's misrepresentation of the "Tractatus" to malice or ignorance, and his vituperations of the author to malevolence (malum animum) and hatred of truth. This passage also he afterwards erased, and substituted a simple "but to proceed (sed ad rem)" Again, after his explanation of his doctrine of the liberty of God, he at first wrote a contemptuous "which seems to surpass this man's understanding," — and subsequently softened it down into the inoffensive "I really can see nothing in this that any one should fail to understand." The dispute was conducted, on Spinoza's side at all events, with great dignity. The "Jew" nourished so little rancour in his heart, that four or five years afterwards he proposed to Velthuysen that a second attack on the "Tractatus" that the latter had written should be published between the same covers as the notes to the "Tractatus" that he was then thinking of bringing out. But no very great length of time can have elapsed before the "Tractatus" was hunted down and suppressed by the authorities. Three years after its first appearance, it was brought into circulation again as "Danielis Heinsii operum historicorum collectio prima. Editio secunda priori editione multo emendatior et auctior. Accedunt quædam hactenus inedita. Lugduni Batav., apud Isaacum Herculis, 1673." It circulated also at the same time under the titles of "Francisci de la Boe Silvii totius medicinæ idea nova. Edit. ii., Amstelodami, 1673;" and "Francisci Henriquez de Villacorta, doctoris medici, a cubiculo regali Philippi IV. et Caroli II., archiatri, opera chirurgica omnia, sub auspiciis potentissimi Hispaniorum regis Caroli II. Amstelodami per Jacobum Pauli, 1673;" these two last ingenious titles having been imagined for the purpose of smuggling the book into Spain and Portugal. It appeared in England as the treatise of Daniel Heinsius.
On the 5th November, 1671, the celebrated Leibnitz wrote our thinker a flattering letter addressed to him with the odd superscription, "A Monsieur Spinosa, médecin très-célèbre et philosophe très-profond; à Amsterdam." The matter of the letter is of little interest; it accompanied a copy of an optical treatise of Leibnitz', on which the latter asks Spinoza's opinion, "having heard, amongst the other praises that report has published concerning you, that you are remarkably skilled in optics." Spinoza replied politely in the same strain, touching on no subjects other than optical, and accepted with thanks the offer made him by Leibnitz of a copy of his "Physical Hypothesis;" offering in return to send a copy of the "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus." Shortly afterwards, namely, in the very next month of January, Leibnitz wrote to his old master, Thomasius, concerning Spinoza in terms that implied that the latter was totally unknown to him, speaking of him as "a certain Jew, excommunicated on account of his monstrous opinions — as they write to me from Holland." (!) Other letters, now no longer extant, passed between the philosophers. From those of Leibnitz, Spinoza learned that he had to do with a man of most eminent talents; but they failed to inspire him with confidence in his character. To Leibnitz' endeavors to obtain, through Tschirnhaus, a sight of the "Ethica," Spinoza opposed a quiet but firm "I do not think it desirable that my writings should be communicated to him so soon." On his return from Paris through Holland, he visited Spinoza at the Hague. "I saw him when I passed through Holland," he wrote to the Abbé Galloys, "and had speech with him many times and at great length. He has a strange system of metaphysics, full of paradoxes." A system, we may remark en passant, that was not so "strange" as to prevent him from plagiarizing from it his doctrine of the "pre-established harmony," one of the most celebrated of the theories of the relation between "body" and "soul" that have been developed out of the position in which the problem was left by Descartes. Having to touch upon this visit in his
