Spinoza

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. A great system of philosophy is exposed to that kind of injustice which arises from the multiplicity of its interpreters, and from the fact that these interpreters are apt to contemplate and criticise it, not from the point of view of its author, but from their own. Critics and commentators of different schools and shades of opinion are naturally desirous to claim for their own views the sanction of a great writer's name, and unconsciously exercise their ingenuity in forcing that sanction when it is not spontaneously yielded. If any ambiguities or inconsistencies lurk in his doctrines, they are sure to he brought to light and exaggerated by the tendency of conflicting schools to fasten on what is most in accordance with their own special principles. And even when a writer is on the whole self-consistent, it is possible for a one-sided expositor so to arrange the lights and shadows, so to give prominence to what is incidental and throw into the shade what is essential, as to make him the advocate of ideas really antagonistic to his own.