One of the greatest thinkers of the world was Benedict Spinoza--a Jew, born at Amsterdam in 1638. He studied medicine, and afterward theology. He asked the rabbis so many questions, and insisted to such a degree on what he called reason, that his room was preferred to his company. His Jewish brethren excommunicated him from the synagogue. Under the terrible curse of their religion he was made an outcast from every Jewish home. His own father could not give him shelter, and his mother, after the curse had been pronounced, could not give him bread, could not even speak to him, without becoming an outcast herself. All the cruelty of Jehovah was in this curse. Spinoza was but twenty-four years old when he found himself without friends and without kindred. He uttered no complaint. He earned his bread with willing hands, and cheerfully divided his poor crust with those below. He tried to solve the problem of existence. To him the universe was one. The infinite embraced the all. The all was God. According to him the universe did not commence to be. It is; from eternity it was; and to eternity it will be. He insisted that God is inside, not outside, of what we call substance. To him the universe was God.
Poverty was his mother--Necessity his master. He had more brains than books; more sense than education; more courage than politeness; more strength than polish. He had no veneration for old mistakes--no admiration for ancient lies. He loved the truth for the truth's sake, and for man's sake. He saw oppression on every hand; injustice everywhere; hypocrisy at the altar, venality on the bench, tyranny on the throne; and with a splendid courage he espoused the cause of the weak against the strong--of the enslaved many against the titled few.
322. The Greatest of all Political Writers
In my judgment, Thomas Paine was the best political writer that ever lived. "What he wrote was pure nature, and his soul and his pen ever went together." Ceremony, pageantry, and all the paraphernalia of power, had no effect upon him. He examined into the why and wherefore of things. He was perfectly radical in his mode of thought. Nothing short of the bed-rock satisfied him. His enthusiasm for what he believed to be right knew no bounds. During all the dark scenes of the Revolution, never for one moment did he despair. Year after year his brave words were ringing through the land, and by the bivouac fires the weary soldiers read the inspiring words of "Common Sense," filled with ideas sharper than their swords, and consecrated themselves anew to the cause of Freedom.