=8. Results.=――To the world, the value of Spinoza is as a thinker; to his people, a small section of whom in mistaken zeal cast him off, his chief worth seems to lie in his mode of life. Among the more temperate charges which have been brought against Jews, it has been often urged that, whilst the race has produced good learners and clever adapters, among the world’s teachers there have been no Jews in the foremost rank. Jews need not be greatly concerned to deny whatever there may be of truth in this impeachment. Their mission is not to be pioneers in any particular path, but to be witnesses in the way of life. And it is in so far as they fail in this, that as Jews they fail altogether. Therefore that Spinoza, in the character of his genius, was an exceptional Jew may be granted with all equanimity. Genius is always exceptional in its nature, and of no especial nationality. But putting his genius altogether on one side, we claim that in his steadfast, lovable nature, in his temperate, frugal, hard-working life, and in his sober, but humorous acceptance of the circumstances of his lot, Spinoza was a typical Jew, and, moreover, a Jew of no uncommon type. Not an easy-going, nor even a willing ‘witness’ often to the beauties of Judaism was Spinoza, but always, and for all time, a powerful one, and perhaps the more powerful because, to some extent, unconscious. Most of the incidents of his biography have come down to us through a Lutheran clergyman named Colerus, to whom all Spinoza’s philosophical theories were detestable. Thus there can be no suspicion of undue praise about these records of ‘M. Spinoza of blessed memory,’ as he was called by a poor tradesman who knew the man, but had never read a line of the author. CHAPTER XXXV. IN NORTHERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE, BEFORE THE DAWN.