philosopher, who has been oftener despised than studied, that complete editions of his works were prepared, by Paulus 1802-03; Gfrörer, 1830; Bruder, 1843-46; Ginsberg (in Kirchmann's _Philosophische Bibliothek_, 4 vols.), 1875-82; and Van Vloten and Land,[2] 2 vols., 1882-83. B. Auerbach has worked Spinoza's life into a romantic novel, _Spinoza, ein Denkerleben_, 1837; 2d ed., 1855 [English translation by C.T. Brooks, 1882.] [Footnote 1: See L. Stein in the _Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie_, vol. i., 1888, p. 554 _seq_.] [Footnote 2: For the literature on Spinoza the reader is referred to Ueberweg and to Van der Linde's _B. Spinoza, Bibliografie_, 1871; while among recent works we shall mention only Camerer's _Die Lehre Spinozas_, Stuttgart, 1877. An English translation of _The Chief Works of Spinoza_ has been given by Elwes, 1883-84; a translation of the _Ethics_ by White, 1883; and one of selections from the _Ethics_, with notes, by Fullerton in Sneath's Modern Philosophers, 1892. Among the various works on Spinoza, the reader may be referred to Pollock's _Spinoza, His Life and Times_, 1880 (with bibliography to same year); Martineau's _Study of Spinoza_, 1883; and J. Caird's _Spinoza_, Blackwood's Philosophical Classics, 1888.--TR.] We shall consider Spinoza's system as a completed whole as it is given in the _Ethics_; for although it is interesting for the investigator to trace out the development of his thinking by comparing this chief work with its forerunner (that _Tractatus Brevis_ "concerning God, man, and the happiness of the latter," whose dialogistical portions we may surmise to have been the earliest sketch of the Spinozistic position, and which was followed by the _Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione_) such a procedure is not equally valuable for the student. In regard to Spinoza's relations to other thinkers it cannot be doubted, since Freudenthal's[1] proof, that he was dependent to a large degree on the predominant philosophy of the schools, _i.e._ on the later Scholasticism (Suarez[2]), especially on its Protestant side (Jacob Martini, Combachius, Scheibler, Burgersdijck, Heereboord); Descartes, it is true, felt the same influence. Joël,[3]: Schaarschmidt, Sigwart,[4] R. Avenarius,[5] and Böhmer[6] = have advanced the view that the sources of Spinoza's philosophy are not to be sought exclusively in Cartesianism, but rather that essential elements were taken from the Cabala, from the Jewish Scholasticism (Maimonides, 1190; Gersonides, died 1344; Chasdai Crescas, 1410), and from Giordano Bruno. In opposition to this Kuno Fischer has defended, and in the main successfully, the proposition that Spinoza reached, and must have reached, his fundamental pantheism by his own reflection as a development of Descartes's principles. The traces of his early Talmudic education, which have been noticed in Spinoza's works, prove no dependence of his leading ideas on Jewish theology.