Spinoza's radical political theory behind Spinoza's works.

ELEVENTH INTERNATIONAL SPINOZA COLLOQUIUM, RIO DE JANEIRO 16-21 NOV.2014 Van den Enden’s radical political theory behind Spinoza’s Wim Klever The thesis I am going to defend here in the new homeland of the Portugese/Dutch philosopher Espinosa is nothing less than: that the extremely rich and very radical theologico-political and theoretico-political theories of our common hero, whom we honour in this congress, is a wonderful, a congenial and nevertheless a rather original duplicate of the lessons he received from his master Franciscus Van den Enden, when he learned Latin language and culture on his Amsterdam school in the years before and after his being excommunicated from the Jewish synagogue in 1656 and which he shortly later must have read in the Dutch language underground pamphlets, which the master published in 1662 (KVNN) and 1665 (VPS), when Spinoza had already moved to Rijnsburg and Voorburg (near Leiden and The Hague). The best way to introduce my story and maybe also to catch your attention for the importance of the deep relationship between the two philosophers might be a reference to a certain expression Spinoza wrote down on the last page he ever wrote before his death. In the unfinished chapter of his democracy model (TPxi) one reads about the conditions for obligatory and exclusive membership of the people’s supreme council, apart from national loyalty and honest behaviour: that the candidates must be sui juris (to exclude women and servants, but that is another question). Scholars have much discussed and written about the meaning of this juridical concept and always chose for a kind of mental autonomy. In fact, however, Spinoza simply translates the purely social-economical category Van den Enden mentions already on the title page of his VPS when he speaks about his fight for the democratical co-decision of all “welbevoeghde borgeren”. Those are adult members of a society who actually care for their own maintenance (hun eigen onderhout bescharen) and that of their relatives. One may confirm this by indicating that also Spinoza himself, when talking about citizens in his democratic monarchy model, presupposes their practice of vitam [suam] sustentare (TP6/11). But this point is only the top of the common ice-mountain, where their political philosophy ends up to the same conclusion that democracy is only possible and is only a good system in the form of direct democracy. PART I - PRELIMINARY BIO / BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND PERSONAL INFORMATION Mentioned are here at first only a few elementary biographical, bibliographical and personal points for those whose knowledge isn’t quite up to date . Van den Enden was born 9-2-1602 in Antwerp, became a Jesuit 1619 In Leuven, taught grammar, syntaxis, poetics and rhetorics on various Jesuit colleges in Belgium and then continued his study theology after which he was ‘dismissed from the order on account of errors’. He established himself, after having married in 1642 and fulfilled some political missions, in 1644 in Amsterdam as ‘Doctor in medicine fugative’ (alchemy) and started soon afterwards a gallery (In de Konstwinckel) where he sold a.o. art products of his Antwerp relatives. This shop went bankrupt in 1652. Having experience as a teacher he, then, started with the help of friends his private Latin school for sustaining his with three daughters extended family. In a short time he acquired a great name and wide fame as an excellent ‘schoolmaster’ to whose talent many rich merchants and city-magistrates confided their children instead of sending them to the official but conservative reformed Latin school. Van den Enden practiced advanced methods of education, among which declamation of Latin poets as Virgil by his students and their playing the comedies of Terence in the city theatre. Spinoza – here he is again! – participated in various plays in the role of an older slave. Van den Enden also wrote himself as a playwright in Latin verses a pedagogical piece, PHILEDONIUS (1657) in which he sketched the struggles and maturing process of a young boy towards adulthood. I quote one verse, typical for the attitude of the author: “Rem volo. Rem, rem volo. Umbrae facessant” (I wish the thing. I want the thing, the thing. Let the shadows disappear). Another catchy verse, returning in Spinoza’s test, sounded: “Aeternitatis testis est animus tibi” (Your soul testifies to eternity). A few years later he will sign his furious black-book (KVNN) against the city fathers with M.V.Z.H (=who most loves things. i.e. the realist)! See Omero Proietti, PHILEDONIUS 1657. SPINOZA, VAN DEN ENDEN E CLASICI LATINI (EUM (=Edizioni Universita Macerata), 2010). Gives a complete historical survey of life and early (pre-1662) works of Franciscus van den Enden, analyzes the Terentius-recitations 1657-1658 and their innumerable traces in Spinoza’s text, and finally text, translation and commentary of/on PHILEDONIUS. This work is indispensable for the Van den Enden research. For Spinoza’s relation to the classical sources he profited so much from as a pupil of Van den Enden, see also Wim Klever, SPINOZA CLASSICUS. ANTIEKE BRONNEN VAN EEN MODERN DENKER (Budel: Damon 2005). Much biographical information on Van den Enden is under his name available on http://www.users.telenet.be of the Belgian historian Frank Mertens, who, however, mainly focuses on the Belgian period, the family roots and relations and their artistic context. Van den Enden migrated in 1670 to Paris, where he became involved in a conspiration against Louis XIV, which was betrayed by an inmate, Du Cause de Nazelle. Followed a trial. The man with grey hairs (74) was sentenced to the death at the gallow-tree. My way to Van den Enden Excusing myself for the personal approach in this section: somewhere in the mid eighties of last century this Spinoza scholar, who translated his works, produced many technical comments on their texts and was co-founder and co-chief editor of STUDIA SPINOZANA, became more and more fascinated by the great man on the background of our Spinoza. Nothing happens without a specific cause. In this case I was stimulated, first, by Meininger’s and Van Suchtelen’s publication of various quite revelatory sources about Van den Enden’s life and work to continue their research in the archives of Paris, for which research in the proceedings they, both friends of mine, had not got yet any possibility. Jan V. Meininger & Guido van Suchtelen, LIEVER MET WERCKEN, ALS MET WOORDEN. DE LEVENSREIS VAN DOCTOR FRANCISCUS VBAN DEN ENDEN, LEERMEESTER VAN SPINOZA, COMPLOTTEUR TEGEN LODEWIJK DE VEERTIENDE (Weesp: Heureka 1980). The headtitle, meaning: ‘Better with works than with words’ was Van den Enden’s favorite maxim. One of Spinoza’s fellow students, who also had imbibed the master’s wisdom, was the famous poet Pieter Rixtel, who in his MENGELRIJMEN 1969 casted it in the irresistible golden lines: Gods essence, that closes itself totally in the universe / You know in your mind and teaches us to acknowledge / How wellbeing originates from science and disaster from folly / You demonstrate us, in order to accustom us by truth to virtue. These and many other valuable testimonies are presented and partially translated in Wim Klever, FRANCISCUS VAN DEN ENDEN. FREE POLITICAL PROPOSITIONS AND CONSIDERTIONS OF STATE (1665). TEXT IN TRANSLATION, THE RELEVANT BIOGRAPHICAL DOCUMENTS AND A SELECTION FROM ‘Kort Verhael’ (Vrijstad 2007). And in another poem: Who seeks wisdom, behold all what time displays / And how the evil and the good punishes and pays its master / How religion makes rest the heart on believing: / How truth is suppressed, how the lie comes aloft; / How delusion and sham dazzle people’s understanding. / How Townhall, Church and Exchange Burse exist by going crippled. / Who so inspects the world in its entrails, / Seeks God in the All alone and doesn’t find anything besides. The second motive that forced me to continue my research into the dual complex Van den Enden-Spinoza was my finding (for the Spinoza community), anno 1985 the immensely important report of the Danish anatomist Olaus Borch in his travel journal about what was told him in Amsterdam. See Klever, “Spinoza aand Van den Enden in Borch’s diary in 1661 and 1662” in Studia Spinozana, vol. 5 (1989) p. 311-327. As rightfully assessed by Proietti, this material was explosive and demonstrated crystal clear Van den Enden’s central position in the Amsterdam heterodox circle. I simply run over the essentials. “That there are atheists here, mainly Cartesians, like Van der Enden, Glasemaker etc. who teach this to others too. Not that they openly propagate atheism, because they often speak about God, but by ‘God’ they understand nothing but this whole universe , as it broadly appears from a certain writing which was recently artificially composed in Belgian language and from which the name of the author is suppressed (…) That Van den Enden denied the holy things, denied everything that is done in holy service, and is an atheist; that his religion is nothing else than sane reason; he does not believe that Christ is God (…) That Van den Enden has communicated to some friends some manuscripts about the secrets of his philosopjy (philosophiae suae arcaniora). That public disputations were no longer allowed to Van den Enden on account of things proposed by him in the last disputation which seemed to savour of atheism”. Both informative treasures let me no choice: Paris was the obligatory next station of my unstoppable research trip. The proceedings of the trial were a huge packet of yellow paper in the Bibliothèque Nationale I had to wrestle through. But not with a meagre result. To make a long story short. On a question of the judge, whether and what the conspirator knew about the words ‘Vrye politicke stellingen en consideration van staet’, which were written on a piece of paper in the backsack of an arrested fellow complotter, the answer was without circumlocution: Yes. I know it. It’s a work of mine. You can imagine that this was nothing less than a breathtaking consternation. Van den Enden confessed his authorship of a political writing we never knew anything about. On another moment of the interrogation Van den Enden exposed that there exist three republican systems, those of Plato, of Grotius and of Morus. And that he had devised a fourth one that he had proposed to the States of Holland for to be founded in New Holland in Amerika. This fourth one is described in KVNN and rationally demonstrated in VPS. Back in Amsterdam I searched in the pamphlet catalogue of the University Library, where I had worked myself long before this period, on the first substantive: and there it was, hidden for centuries under a layer of dust. A precious treasure of philosophical theory of the highest destructive calibre (as also constructive), unknown to the whole world of erudite historians. And it was a double treasure. In the preface of the VPS the author explained that this work was the result of a process of mediating and thinking in behalf of a club of candidate colonists who had asked him to act in their name at the office of the Colonists Chambre of the city, for perpetrating favourable conditions, an undertaking which totally failed and lead to a sharp clash between the radical philosopher (that he had meanwhile become) and on the other hand the conservative short-sighted city fathers. The collection of the documents of the negotiation process were in 1662 published as a kind of blackbook (KVNN), showing the stupid attitude of the regents power, but likewise containing valuable comments on politics. I found a copy of this first political writing, originally titles ZEKERE VRYE VOORSLAGEN EN VERZOEKEN in the Provinciale Bibliotheek of the province Zeeland. – Shortly after ‘publishing’ the news of my discovery by giving it to newspapers and television, I received a letter from the Paris scholar Marc Bedjai, that he had done the very same discovery 20 years ago, in 1970. Never, however, he had informed the publicity or his scholarly colleagues about his ‘shocking’ findings. Being a teacher he had worked in utter silence and privacy on his dissertation, which now, by the end of 1989, had outgrown to four thick volumes, which together count 2008 pages under the title “Métaphysique, Ethique et politique dans l’oeuvre du docteur Franciscus Van den Enden (1602-1674): contribution à l’étude des sources des écrits de B. de Spinoza (1632-1677) . On the occasion of my entry in the news his promotion commission accelerated his permission to the doctorate, which, then, was given him on June 21st 1990. His thesis does not treat in the least the political ideas of Van den Enden (probably while he could not read the old-Dutch text of the VPS and KVNN) but concentrates mostly on his rather curious and quite disputable hermetico-alchimistic interpretation of the master’s writings. Being invited at his home after his promotion his two grown up sons were very excited to meet another ‘Van den Enden fanatic’. After all their father was not mad! In a moment we shall elaborate the contents of these two political writings, But first a few words on another declaration in the trial, in which Van den Enden refers to an other work of his hand: SECRETA QUAEDAM MEDICINAE. It must have been a systematic work because it was said to be divided in 75 chapters. The contents may have covered typical medicinal or eventually alchemistic subjects, a territory on which Van den Enden was also an expert according to various testimonies and the fame of his laboratory among contemporaries. But there is also reason to surmise that the voluminous work developed high quality but yet heretical philosophical stuff. We remember Borch writing about his entrusting a work about PHILOSOPHIAE SUAE ARCANIORA to one of his friends. From another source, a popular lampoon, we know that Bouwmeester was the privileged owner of ‘ALLE GEHEIME SCHRIFTEN’ (all secret writings) of Van den Enden! It is not far fetched to suppose that this confident of both, Van den Enden and Spinoza, asked the latter about man’s way to highest wisdom exactly on the basis of what he had read in the secret work of the first. According to Spinoza’s summary of the question in letter 37 his suggestion was that we don’t need a method for ascending unimpeded to the knowledge of the most glorious things but that human minds, just like their bodies, are obnoxious to casualties (casibus obnoxiae) and that our thoughts are more controlled (reguntur) by unforeseeable fortune than by technique (arte). Spinoza’s answer was, if not to the point, at least ambivalent. But much later, when writing the fifth part of the Ethica, he seems to have got afterthoughts and positions himself wholly on the side of Bouwmeester / Van den Enden, because in the series of 9 propositions (5/6 – 5/15) he sketches man’s automatically rising from unconnected imaginations as reflections of an unpredictable and intensifying network of affections towards the centralized intuitive knowledge of the immutable eternal Thing (5/20s). Much later, at the turn of the century, the son of Spinoza’s publisher Rieuwertsz showed his German visitors Stolle and Hallmann, after letting them first have a look on the Korte Verhandeloing (Short Treatise), another manuscript, transcribed by his father. “The main thing (Hauptthema) was that for acquiring knowledge of God and man one doesn’t need logic, metaphysic, physics etc., but that the common man can understand this by his own reflection”. Also this work was strongly structured, roughly in 12 questions, divided in two parts, which makes the identity of the Borch-item with the Secreta medicinae somehow probable. See the many details in Wim Klever, “Hoe men wijs wordt. Een gespannen doch vruchtbare relatie tussen Spinoza en Bouwmeester in het licht van een nieuw document” in GEWINA. Anyhow, the thesis of the sanity, sufficiency and reliability of the brains of any normal man as against the schooled brains of doctors and professors and their would-be science packed in an occult Latin cloth is a strong item in the VPS, which fully fits to the information we have about the contents of the manuscript. Ethica V, one may conclude, profits from the master’s heritage. This is certainly not the only typically Spinozistic item one retrieves chez the master. Before engaging in the political field I wish here to refer in passing (in a long footnote-excursion) to his fully fledged determinism and his heavy emphasis on the distinction between three kinds of knowledge. See VPS40-41: “Welke nootdwangh sich zodanigh heeft / dat geen mensch (zulx zijnde als hy voor die tijt is) anders kan doen / als hy doet” (The effect of this necessity is that nobody can behave differently given his earlier situation). This determinism is called “allerheiligste waerheit” (most holy truth) about which people have to be persuaded. “Want de menschen sich dwazelijk latende voorstaen, een eerste oorzaek hunner kennissen, en bedrijven te zijn, neemen hier uit oorzaek sich onderlingh te beroemen, en versmaeden, dienvolgende ook, elkander boven waerde te herheffen, en daerteghens ook te benijden, haten, ja op ’t strenghtst te vervolgen , en te dooden” (Because the humans claiming in their infatuation to be the first causes of their ideas and actions, take this as a reason justifying them in their mutual appraisals and despises, accordingly also in order to extol each other exceedingly and reversely also to envy, to hate, yes persecute most severely and kill each other). This is ‘Spinoza ante Spinozam’; one sees the Ethica in nucleo (cf Spinoza’s final remark on the utility of his theory E2/49s). The same has to be remarked concerning the cardinal distinction between three kinds of knowledge, which is explicitly taught by the master too in an appendix to VPS, where he mentions what is ‘het eerste begin’ (the startingpoint) of the ‘vaste reden’ (fixed reason) is ‘dat de menschen van hunne DRIEDERLEY kennissen, als daar zijn wanen, gelooven en klare kennisse wel en bondig wierden onderwezen’ (that people are well and concisely to be instructed about their THREE kinds of knowledge, namely imagining, belief and clear knowledge, VPS44).This is exactly the terminology of the title of Short Treatise 2/2: ‘Wat waan, geloof en klare kennisse is’! Van den Enden’s naturalism (God = the universe) was already clearly attested by Borch’s testimony. We know already by Borch about his naturalism and ‘atheism’. PART 2 – THE POLITICAL THEORY So, it is high time now to turn to the main thing in this lecture: Van den Enden’s radical political theory as exposed in the VPS. This work of 50 densely printed pages (in nearly unreadable Gothic character type) is expressly meant as a systematic work, which does not exclude that it is also an action-paper, a call-up to a revolutionary change of the lamentable political situation in which a cankered aristocracy has the sway. Let me claim immediately that this is a treatise, which might be considered a turning point in the world history of political thought. Never before, neither in the Renaissance nor even in classical Greece did ever appear a theoretical plea for radical democracy. Really: Van den Enden was the first advocate of a not yet existing political order that reminds everybody of the Greek practice of the small scale polis democracy. He, once, also gave sharp expression to his great admiration of this system. ‘Het N. Nederlants Indiaens Regeren, daer hier voren ook ietwes van aengeroerrt is / schijnt ons in aller manieren een ruigen Schets van een Atheenze, of Out-Roomsche Populare Regeringh, welke / ons oordeels / ook mede veer de beste voor de gemeene, en volx vryheit te achten is, die ér tot een eerst te beginnen, of op te rechten Societeit voornamentlijk te betrachten staet / en is ook noch veel beter als te Athenen of Romen te concipiëren / als mede te practiseren’(KVNN 31/17)(New Netherlands Indian government, about which we talked before, seems in all respects to be a rough sketch of the Athenian or old Roman popular government, which to our judgment has to be considered as the best one for the freedom of the common people; and has to be strived after in case one tends to a well shaped society; yea has to be much better conceived and to be better practiced as was the case in Greece or Rome). Van den Enden hints to his sketch of the ‘naturellen’(Indian natives) he gave on the basis of available secondary literature. The most striking particularity of the VPS is the intention of the writer, emphatically on his first page) to strictly demonstrate / deduce his concept of direct democracy “from the own nature and situation of man himself” (uit den eigen aert en gesteltenis van den mensch zelver). Compare this with Spinoza’s declaration on the second page of his TP (1/4) to “certa et indubitata ratione demonstrare aut ex humanae naturae conditione deducere” and try to find the difference in the project. The methodical intentions are undistinguishable. Both thinkers, master and disciple, found their common political theory on the properties of the material, in case man’s nature. Van den Enden refers primarily to the undeniable fact of our “essential inclination to seek for ourselves the best, our well-being, before and above all other things” “Van natuiren dan zo zijn alle menschen … vry gebooren en aan niemant eerder noch naerder verplicht als aen hun eigen zelfs besten en hun welstant voor alle andre te zoeken” (VPS1). We don’t have originally any inclination towards another; man is not born altruistic. “But considered that every man committed to himself is found to be very weak and impotent, even unable to supply his sober wants, and finds himself moreover also affected with the lust to procreation and similar inclinations, so reveal themselves, both for man and woman, also as a consequence of their very tender education and discipline as children, so many urgent needs that they are fully necessitated (genootzaekt) to look out for mutual help of their fellow men and to choose some kind of fixed or lasting dwelling-place”(1-2). We have to, but also long for and wish to work together in our own behalf. In this same passage and in one breath Van den Enden fulminates against court flatterers and pedantic schoolmen or theologians, who try to mislead us and who want us believe that our nature is spoiled from the beginning of history and best served by ‘submission’. Is it not surprising that Spinoza likewise starts with keeping himself aloof from satirical philosophers and arrogant (because deriding) theologians who praise an ideal, golden or utopian prehistory instead of analyzing our actual nature? A very important point, asserted against ecclesiastical and political authorities alike, is the fervent denial of any essential difference between people, between good and bad ones, between masters and slaves, on the basis of different character qualities or personal histories. Our natural qualities are the same in everybody. Spinoza’s ‘Natura humana ubique eadem’ naturally resounds this. The master certainly anticipates Spinoza’s theory of passions. It is “through the encounter with things and good casu quo bad treatment we endure” (door ontmoetingh van zaken, goede of quade onthalingh) that differences of behaviour originate. Wrong and harmful passions are the effect of ‘affecting injuries’ (overkomende swarigheden) or / and of ‘violent government’ (geweldige bestieringh). Mischievous behaviour is mostly the result of political disorder and malicious conditioning. We are reminded of the title of Ethica 4: ‘De servitute humana seu de affectuum viribus”, which seamless fits to the master’s argument, the allusion to slavery included. But how to break the wall of theological superstition and political imposture by which the common people is normally alienated from understanding its true interest? It is not so easy to convince them, that reality is different from the belief they cherished their life long. This reflection brings the master to a truly capital point in his writing: the upper priority of instructing the common people. All freedom detracting opinions have to be opposed and deleted by public clear reasoning in public schools. “The natural even equal freedom must most clearly be induced to each member of an assembly, mainly consisting in this: that nobody’s free judgment about what belongs to his wellbeing and his best may ever be filthily or slavishly subjected to whatever particular under whatever pretension”. Everybody has to be made conscious of his perfectly good right and even obligation to keep unconditionally to his own view on things. Nobody ought to let steal his natural judgment by would be privileged, higher positioned or pseudo-learned authorities. Contrary advice does only originate from malignant impostors. Other people’s proposals and prescripts are always inspired by their prospected advantage. The best way to protect oneself and care for oneself is to listen only to one’s own conscience. “Because the own particular progress (welvaren) is the highest and unique reason for us to do or not to do something that is to find in nature. And where this fails on account of a breakdown of a society, our loyalty towards it has to stop too” (3). Van den Enden formulates here his ‘principle of rebellion’, one’s right and obligation to cease one’s commitment where one’s personal progress is blocked by the breakdown of the state. We enter and engage in a society “only in order to acquire and obtain most safely and most surely our particular best and wellbeing” and where the result is zero or negative , there is no other choice for a rational man than to stop with this ineffective undertaking. “Want eigen en bijzonder welvaren is de hoogste reden, om iets te doen of te laten, die er voor ons menschen in de natuur te vinden is. En waar ons welvaren, door inwendige quade gesteltenis, eener Republiek of Societeit ophout, daar hout alle reeden van verplichting dier vergaderingh ook op”. The master even continues: “Yes, we have reason to consider as enemies and try to destroy all those who intentionally endeavour to deprive and debar us from our own well-being”. Civil disobedience is not enough. Logically the next step is to start a political revolution. And indeed, this was what Van den Enden actually perpetrated , in Holland and later in France. The VPS is for a large part a call to arms. Van den Enden has now sufficiently prepared his magisterial definition of a commonwealth, a definition never before presented by any political theorist. I quote it in full and literally: “The common-best (gemene-beste) of a congregation of people, as I understand it on the above mentioned foundation of an even-equal-freedom, includes such a proportion (gelijkmatigheit) of ranks, laws and supports (ordes, onderstanden) between more and less prudent, more and less well-to-do persons, between males and females, older and younger people, served and servants or governors and governed, to find out by reason and experience, that one is allowed to conclude with highest certainty and will also find it, THAT ANY MEMBER OF THIS SOCIETY IN HIS OWN CLASS OR DEGREE DOES NOT ONLY NOT BECOME WEAKER NOR GETS ANY DISADVANTAGE, BUT IS ON THE CONTRARY STRENGTHENED TO THE COMMON PROFIT (tot gemene nut) AND IS PROMOTED (opgeholpen) ACCORDING TO HIS LUST AND DESIRE (naar lust en zin)”(5). It is hardly possible to consider separately the many elements of the extremely rich definition. The kernel is welfare (welvaart) for everybody without exception, which means full equality in the community, not a mathematical equality, but a proportional equality: perceptible (!) progress for everybody in his specific situation. And this advantage has to be adapted, as the last words stipulate, to his drive and desire. So we will be happy receiving it. Where could we better live than in such a society, especially when it would do its uttermost to create for all its members the opportunity to care for their own maintenance (bescharen). Provision of employment, maintains our political master, is eventually hard duty of a ‘well shaped’ (rechtschape) Word from the VPS titlepage.society. In sharp foresight Van den Enden warns our age for the disastrous consequences of large scale unemployment: “In such a pretended (!) republic the unsatisfied multitude of people in permanent misery will hurt and push each other (tegen een horten en stoten) until they will earlier or later perish together” (5). A sane policy (ware politie) is oriented on an always growing and flourishing improvement of the whole society, which, however, can only be attained if (and only if) great differences of wealth don’t curb, let alone block, the progress in wellbeing of less privileged citizens, or even worse, bring about their decline. Continuous welfare of everyone is the necessary condition (sine qua non) of true commonwealth and ought to check exploitation by the powerful and superrich upper hundred. This is a very fundamental justice principle, better than the imaginary one of a certain Rawls. Never, Van den Enden emphasizes, never ought we let us mislead by the “extravagant totalitarians (buitensporige gemenebest Drijvers) who want us to strive after and support the common best without respecting our particular best” (6). I can’t refrain myself quoting the subsequent sentence in which Van den Enden reproaches the ‘idiot commonbest fanatics’ (my second translation of ‘buitensporige gemeenebest drijvers) that they in their bombastic language and confused speculations “fail to see and to remark that the common best is the sum or the whole collection of everyone’s particular best, and from which nobody of the members without injury of the common (!) may or can be excluded” (6). After all Van dn Enden is a political mathematician. Spinoza is universally acknowledged of having been the first and most powerful advocate in modern times for an unconditional libertas philosophandi, as being of highest value for a sound political order. We should not forget that the argument was actually condensed in the last, the 20th, chapter and that the TTP’s primary purpose was apologetic. Spinoza, living in Voorburg, was accused of being a ‘dangerous element’ in the society on account of his putative atheism and was in bad need to defend himself against the threatening attacks on his life in the not so tolerant regime of Jan de Witt and his aristocratic ‘regenten’-company, which had shortly before been under heavy fire of his master in KVNN. See Letter 30 (1665), not in OP. His Tractatus theologico-politicus (1670) shocked the world by its secular brutality and its unheard of political theology. In a moment we will see that the essential coupling of theology with politics was another brilliant lesson he drew from his highly original master. First, however, I confine myself to the idea of the TTP as THE treatise par excellence in modern times about the libertas philosophandi and tell you that the praise has at least to be extended to the brave fight of the master for the same ideal. He was the first. With those words (‘He was the first’) Einstein characterized his relation to Spinoza concerning the deterministic constraint of everything that occurs. Listen to his fully fledged anticipation of Spinoza’s plea. Because there are plenty of false prophets around, among them also political writers , deceiving us by making us believe in religious fairy tales about heaven and hell and in the higher values of a pure soul above corporeal benefits, Van den Enden sees the absolute necessity, in behalf of public enlightenment and a sound policy, of free public disputation. The fragment sounds: “I would like to consider a complete freedom of reasoning (volkomen vryheit van reedens-gebruik) been capable enough to dispel and let die out in course of time effecively and safely in behalf of the common profit (gemeen-nut) all those dangerous and harmful opinions. Because this free philosophizing (reedens-gebruik) and support of the common best and even equal freedom will be found not only enough powerful to destroy loosely conceived opinions and passions, but even also to the full destruction of all pretended highest respectabilities (achtbaarheden) of human writings and tenets (stellingen), which will appear to clash with the indubitable reason (onbetwijfelbare reden), the true buttress of the common best and even equal freedom. With this , namely the indubitable and therefore divine reason I will from now on investigate, how among a congregation of people the common-best can be strived after, attained and continued in a sure and safe way and its freedom defended and protected against all internal and external violence, towards an invincible and always growing and flowering wellbeing (welstant)” (9). Speaking for myself: I would not know what point is missing here that is elaborated in the TTP! In spite of its shortness the fragment shows even more aspects of the question. With ‘achtbaarheid’ of human writings, their axiomatic unassailability and divine holyness, one might in our time above all think of the role of the Koran in various parts of the World. TRUE CHRISTIANITY Spinoza anatomises Scripture in depth As mentioned above: in function of his self-protection and to show that there is nothing wrong with his personal way of life and ‘chirstianity’ for discovering its prophetic message, which appears to be a purely moral one: exhortation to a good life. He in advance summarized the conclusion of his research in the TTP-Preface. The revealed word of God is very simple: “obeying God with whole his heart via practicing justice and charity”. “Deo integro animo obediree iustitiam et caritatem colendo”. This, and only this, is religion, is true Christianity. The TTP demonstrates in its second part that justice and social cohesion can only be attained by a democratic political organization, towards which mankind normally develops from the natural wild life. It is not far fetched to claim that the impact to Spinoza’s fusion between theology and politics, according to which religion exclusively consists of political activity, was again signed ‘vandenendenistic’. The master’s VPS-titlepage declares his intention to formulate his free political propositions conform the freedom foundations of the true Christians application to a well shaped and true improvement of the state. “Gedaen na der ware Christenens ….” Van den Enden knows no other religion than the religion of the ‘commonbest’(gemenebest), the attitude which only focuses on social justice and welfare. Observation of external cults and ceremonies, belief in dogma’s and mysteries, churches and priestcraft etc are all worthless and can’t draw the least authority from Christ who is, on the contrary, magisterially assessed by Van den Enden as a cosmic political philosopher, namely the “Gemenebest betrachter aller volkeren” (promoter of the common best of all peoples). He taught Cf. Spinoza: “ut doctor documenta docebat”! that his disciples and followers should, in his ‘holy’ spirit, cooperate with others to the common best of the countries they would live in, eventually also by means of rebellion against repression and misgovernment, just like he himself did and would later do at the price of his life. In stead of being the founder of a church-religion Christ is in Van den Enden’s theologico-political and completely original onset never seen before, the founder of a new political theology, quite congenially and very precisely paraphrased and argued for by Spinoza in the TTP. ‘Caritas erga proximum’, the sumtotal of the divine law, enforces the true ‘christian’ to become politically active in order to realize the common good and has nothing to do with a minor social attitude versus personal acquaintances. “Proximum”, Spinoza adds in TTP17, “hoc est concivem”. It is worthwhile to remark that Christ’s assignment to love our neighbour like ourselves has not at all a universal scope but is confined to our countrymen. He does not promote, as is commonly but wrongly supposed, charity on a worldscale. “Love your neighbour and hate the enemy” is not cancelled by Christ according to Spinoza’s exegesis. In TTP7 he explains that Christ’s advice in Mattheus 5/43-4 to love one’s enemy, to pray for him and to offer him even more than he claims, is only meant for abnormal circumstances of anarchy and lawlessness as in the corrupt republic of his own time, in which one can better tolerate the customary unjust attacks of the impious than drag them before the upper court. Cf. Klever in “De nationale grenzen van de christelijke naastenliefde”, in MET OUDE GRIEKEN, VAN DEN ENDEN EN SPINOZA NAAR ECHTER DIRECTE DEMOCRATIE (Vrijstad 2007) 115-122). That the scope of Christian charity does not extend above national borders is a clear proposition of master and Latin student alike and includes for both of them obligatorily a nationalistic perspective. Van den Enden sharply clashed with the Dutch authorities precisely for his fervour in changing the political order towards true freedom of the aristocratically exploited people. His doomed pamphlet was a rebellious action paper for national reform, for an always growing and more and more flourishing national entity that would be profitable for all its inhabitants and which would have nothing to fear from the side of foreign powers. For Spinoza the situation was not different. The title of TTP19 sounds still traditional and moderate. The state has absolute sovereignty over holy things (ius circa sacra) and it is necessary, at least when we wish to obey God in a right way (si recte Deo obedire velimus), to accommodate external divine worship (religionis cultum externum) to the peace of the republic. But in the midst of the chapter the tone is louder and explicitly nationalistic. “It is certain that the loyal dedication to the fatherland (pietas erga patriam) is the highest service one can provide”. Why? In his elucidation of this free proposition Spinoza knows no better argument to offer than the one his master put in Dutch on the front-page of VPS: “’s Volks welvaert is de hooghste Wet”, which in Spinoza’s text became in the indirect modus: Salutem populi summam esse legem. Actually the phrase is a quote from Livius, HISTORIAE 8/7. ‘Pietas’, moreover, the word Spinoza takes for the service we have to grant to our fatherland (and is comparable to the Greek ‘leitourgia’), refers directly to Vergilius and in a broader sense to the obligatory services and ceremonies of the Roman people for their city. Further on in the chapter the OP-text is corrupt on account of a missing ‘m’ in the phrase “(eo docuit eos) ut omnes absolute pietate/m/ colerent”, as if Spinoza would have us love all people, whereas, in fact, he asks his readers to serve the fatherland above all. See Klever,”Spinoza’s concept of Christian Piety: Defence of a text correction by Bruder in the TTP”, NASS MONOGRAPHY #9 (2000) en Idem, “Vanderlandsliefde boven alles”, in DIRECTE DEMOCRATIE, o.c. – One might with good right qualify Spinoza as well as Van den Enden as convinced ‘anti-universalists’, the term Prof. Maria Villaverde de Madrid chooses for characterizing Rousseau’s fully comparable attitude. See her magisterial analysis of Rousseau’s work “Europ y el sueno de la paz perpetua” in QUADERNOS DE ALZATE, no. 26, 2002. In more than one respect I am inclined to consider Rousseau as the best heir of our Dutch couple. His CONTRAT SOCIAL can’t be thought without the deep imprint of the TTP and TP. After his heavy accent on the sound effects of free disputation Van den Enden starts a new section in his VPS, a more technical political fragment. First of all the commonbest he strives after is irreconcilable with any kind of subjection of parts of the people under other parts. In a well ordered republic the names and relations of master and slave (heer / slaaf) are forbidden, which does and must not exclude the useful practice of reciprocal services in daily economic life. The exclusion of inhuman servitude and subjection is the most important means (middle) for the reformation of the actual disorder in the society. He becomes furious against the political (Lycurgus is mentioned) or philosophical (Polybius) partisans of a mixed form of government Also Machiavelli is heavily criticised in this context. “As it is impossible to mix contrary things like water and fire, so also with dominating and governing (heersen en regeren). These are opposites that cannot be combined. Earlier or later the one has to yield for the other”. The millenarian existence of Sparta or Rome’s mixed forms of government is invalid as a counter argument. Those empires were full of strife and turmoil. If anything was good in them, it can only be credited to the co-ruling and authority (medesturing en gesach) of the people . In fact Sparta was a ‘liberty raping house of correction’ and Rome a ‘violating robbers den’. Van den Enden’s radical position is that all political bodies that are infected by some unequal privileged authority (uitmuntend gesach) above the commons ought to be considered to be struck by a mortal disease. The unique reason, being man’s fundamental property, is written by him in capitals and various versions: on account of the nature of men’s general infinite and insatiable coveting / DER MENSCHEN ALGEMEENE ONBEPAELDE BEGEERTENS NATUUR . Our human undeniable and uncontrollable property of endlessly desiring and catching what we can for our own profit absolutely precludes the possibility of whatever successful combination of unequal power in a society. Remains only the quintessential equality between the members of the society as the unique platform on which a community of the balanced ‘commonbest’ can be built. The adjective ‘quintessential’ is chosen to translate Van den Enden’s own terminology, in which he reinforces the concept of equality by duplicating it, as it were. So ‘gelijk’ (equal) is always preceded with ‘even’ (even) to ‘even gelijke’ (even equal). This is already visible on the titlepage and further innumerable other times. All votes have equal ‘weight’, i.e values and points of view, which compose together the judgment of the people. It is only the people as a whole, then, which does have the correct and perfectly true judgement on the bonum commune, as Spinoza later call’s the ‘common best’. In fact it means that this judgment is determined by the claims of ‘the greatest part of the people’ (eisch des meesten volx). And this dominating judgment of the people is mathematically constituted by the most agreeing general interests, views and purposes (van hunnen meest accordeerende algemeene interest, besten en ooghwit). The common best is - one cannot loogically conceive it otherwise - the sum, or better the common denominator, of all the various and slightly different views of the participants in the social pact. There is no other, no easier, no different and no faster method to achieve “the voice of the people”, argues the master. And this voice, he adds on the title page, is God’s voice. Naturally, as it becomes in a classical treatise, the author has to deal with objections. In the question of democracy nothing seems to be a greater threat for the general wellbeing than giving full and unconditional weight to the voice of normal and not professionally educated people. As one might expect from Spinoza’s master we find in him one of the most fervent advocates of the people’s wisdom. “Nobody can deny that like the whole is greater than its part, so also the wisdom and knowledge of a whole people concerning its best and particular wellbeing (eens geheel volx wijsheit en kennisse t’zijnen besten en zonderlingen welstant) is in all circumstances greater and reaching farther than the knowledge of one or a few among this same people” (7). This is a clear deduction and powerful defence of democracy, the first in Western history. There is no logical escape. That speedy decisions would be impossible, when the whole people has to deliberate on issues that don’t tolerate delay, is not a valid counterargument, because the real reason of slowness in decision making is not the great number of participants as well the opposition of interests which one finds not less in small than in large councils. And according to our master it is absolutely no solution to delegate political responsibility to a selected few, the so called representatives because 1) “we have no safe means to select the most intelligent persons from a council”; and 2) “we can never be sure , that the selected persons will not prefer their own interests above the interest of the commonwealth”. The reason is again and again underlined “on account of everyone’s boundless desiring nature” (wegens hun onbepaelde begeertens natuur). Cf. Rousseau, DU CONTRAT SOCIAL 3/15. “La souveraineté ne peut être représenté”. Our natural selfishness and the unsatisfiability of our desires not only excludes the option of any representation system (as later forcefully signalled by Rousseau), but includes, yea compels us also to introduce an institutional connection of all kinds of ‘official’care for the common good to the private profit of the magistrate. When in a democratic system things are so smartly organized that nobody can acquire private profit to the disadvantage of the common good, but only in a manner that strengthens the common power and well-being, then everybody will by his own nature (his essential selfishness) be determined to further the common good in behalf of his own pleasure. Van den Enden accentuates that this is one of the most valuable, yea axiomatic, propositions of any sound political theory. “And therefore I consider it as one of the highest (most respectable) insights (waardigste waarneemingen) concerning the best of a people, that all public things are regulated in such a way, that it is extremely difficult for each member to acquire private benefits at the expense of the public good. But that on the contrary everybody’s particular and special well-being not only does not weaken or injure the common-best but that by this its profiteer is more and more necessitated to promote it”. This highly important axiom, baptized by me ‘coupling principle’, See Wim Klever, “Koppelingsbeginsel bij Spinoza” in ACTA POLITICA 13 (1988) 359-378. is derived from a formidable formulation in the works of the brothers De la Court and is later broadly applied by Spinoza as the foundation stone for his political architecture in his Tractatus Politicus. Like his master also Spinoza refers to the Politijcke Weegschaal of ‘V.H.’(=Johan de la Court). The famous dlC-principle sounds in my translation: “Because the true interest of all countries does exist in the welfare of governors and governed together, and this depends on a good government, one has to know that a good government is not there, where the welfare or its opposite (qualik-vaaren) depends on the virtue or vice of the governors, but (which is very remarkable) where the well en qualikvaren (welfare and opposite) of the governors follows necessarily upon or depends on the well and qualikvaren (progress and regress) of the subjects. Because since one cannot but believe that the own (het eigen) has always preference, will in the first case private advantage also be searched to the disadvantage of the common subjects. But because in the second case the private advantage can only be acquired via service to the common, this will also be strived after by the governors.”. The brothers Pieter and Johan de la Court published this principle in a slightly different version in various books. Van den Enden as well als Spinoza were deeply impressed. One can follow the application of the principle on various places of the TP. Right in its beginning one reads it: “”Imperium igitur cuius salus ab alicuius fide pendet et cuius negotia non possunt recte curari, nisi ii., qui eadem tractant, fide velint agrere, minime stabile erit, sed, ut permanere posit, res eius publicae ita ordinandae sunt, ut qui easdem administrant, sive ratione ducuntur sive affectu, induci nequeant, ut male fidi sint seu prave agunt”. How immensely deep Spinoza is impregnated with the coupling-principle of his master and used it as his foundation stone, appears also in his fundamental article TP6/3: “Quod si cum humana natura ita comparatum esset, ut hominess id, quod maxime utile est, maxime cuperent, nulla esset opus arte (truc) ad concordiam et fidem. Sed quia longe aliter cum natura humana constitutum esse constat, imperium necessario ita institutum est, ut omnes, tam qui regunt, quam qui reguntur, velint nolint, id tamen agant, quod communis salutis interest, hoc est, ut omnes sponte vel vi vel necessitate coacti ex rationis praescripto vivere; quod fit, si imperii res ita ordinentur, ut nihil, quod ad communem salutem spectat, ullius fidei absolute committatur”. Spinoza develops Van den Enden’s democratic model and devises, moreover, astute mechanisms by which the citizens are forced to contribute to the common good, whereas they try to optimalize their own particular good. The republicanism of the brothers De la Court is an important background and source of inspiration for both our hero’s but they are not without criticism on their aristocratic elitism. There is an excellent new monography of Arthur Weststeijn, COMMERCIAL REPUBLICANISM IN THE DUTCH GOLDEN AGE . THE POLITICAL THYOUGHT OF JOAHN & PIETER DE LA COURT (LEIDEN: Brill 2012). Van den Enden explicitly claims with fullest right the originality of his political theory. Indeed, he has no predecessor. I wish I could let you feel and surmise his strong and indignant poetical protest against the old and new political writers, i.e. against their twisting and thronging (wringen en dringen), their high and low whistling and jumping (hoogh en laagh pijpen en springen ) in favour of a monarchy or an aristocracy as being the best constitution, but even more so against their “sophistic and dumb, courtly and schoolish dullness, trifles and impostures”. Listen to the allitarations in the Dutch: “vernufte en duffe hoofze en schoolze sufferyen en beuzelinghen … louter bedriegeryen”. Van den Enden was not only a master in Latin poetry, but also in Dutch language. Not a minor sub point, apart from democracy’s natural and religious properties, is its economy. Where the whole people participates in the deliberation and every citizen is obligated to judge by suffrage, no (more or less precious) view or insight of any part of the society gets lost; all interests have some effect. In regular meetings all grains of wisdom will in the end be taken into account. That is also why in their final schemes Van den Enden and Spinoza prescribe to have forsaking and absent members of the council punished with a non-symbolic penalty (gevoelige boete). But what is even a greater advantage of the people’s participation in the discussion and is more important for democracy’s fruitful output is the following. “By means of similar free assemblies of the people and mutual advices (onderlinge raetslagen) it becomes awakened to knowledge of the common best and its mind is sharpened and whetted (gescherpt en geslepen)”. Remember Spinoza’s echo in TP 9/14: ingenia accuuntur. These two are, as so often, literally words of Van den Enden. But the word ‘people’ may be dramatically misleading for the student of our twenty-first century. I referred already to this point when starting to discuss Spinoza’s ‘sui juris’ and have now to return to it to round it off. In Van den Enden’s and Spinoza’s model of democracy citizenship or membership of the council is exclusively reserved to the economically independent male adults of the country, the so called wel bevoeghde males, who are able to sustain by their work, trade or craft themselves and the members of their house and family. By this autonomous condition they have automatically shown their practical and intellectual capacities and earned the right to co-direct the common good of the society. Dependent persons belonging to the household like women, children, pupils and servants are not conceived to be citizens and don’t have any say in the national council. One has to remember that in the Dutch 17th century there were no women professionally and independently from their husband active in the public space, a thing that is nowadays totally different. But apart from this annotation it seems not quite extravagant to judge that only the productive part of the population regulates its common affairs and its defence. General elections for all, even half, adults from 18 years onwards in our contemporary types of pseudo-democracy, for 8/10th part existing as dependent people, would be considered by both our hero’s as the highest degree of aberration and stupidity. On what ground would they be entitled to play a determining role in public affairs? “We consider this [i.e. only the wel bevoeghden] to be the essential and proper definition of the popular government, because it would be unreasonableness itself, that in a well ordered (welgestelde) society or republic the poor, and needy, besides servants and other impotent people would be entitled to govern or would be promoted to it”. KVNN 1-2. I quote in full Van den Enden’s wonderful assessment of the democratic government in the Voorreeden: “dat de populare regeeringh is de Natuirlijkste, redelijkste… De beste regeering onder Menschen bedenkelijk (wordt gevonden) bij eene vergadering, bestaende uit alle de Ingezeten des Lants, die gepresumeert konnen warden machts en kennis genoegh te hebben, om hun eigen welvaren te versorgen… Wij houden dit de wezentlijke, en eigentlijke definitie eener recht populare regering: want het de onredelijkheit zelve zouw zijn, dat Arme, Behoeftige, welke in een welgestelde Societeit, of Republijk meest luije, slempende, en ongure Menschen zullen bevonden werden, dat die, mitsgaders dienstbare, en andere impotente Lieden tot regeeren souwen gerechtight zijn, of gevordert worden.” May be we ought to think about this classical position of a great master and meditate its possible use for the political order of today. Can we simply shove it aside as a form of archaic possessive liberalism? The next point Van den Enden asks our attention for is immediately relevant for this question. With the greatest possible assurance he proclaims emphatically and repeatedly that this (his) kind of direct democracy is the only political structure, which is always ready to and inclined towards self-correction and self-improvement, this in sharp contrast to systems of mixed government as well as a monarchy or aristocracy. These orders , are, by definition as it were, conservative and unchangeable, even when they are deteriorating and on the way to their downfall. Those people who are in power and well versed in profiting on the cost of their subjects, will not easily, no will never be moved to self-denial. But where the common people experiences damage and discomfort as an effect of its collective modus operandi, it will listen to the advice of its wise fellow citizens, of which there are always some among them, at least one upon the hundred according to Spinoza. Direct democracy is auto-revisionist; pseudo-democracy exactly the opposite, (auto-)conservative. The council of all free (and armed) citizens is according to our political writer ‘awe inspiring’ for anyone, chosen magistrate or official of the army, who intends to offend and obstruct it. Spinoza has the word ‘formidolosus’ for this situation. Such a council will consist of far more members than the city-councils of the big cities Amsterdam or Leiden which counted only a 40 members, chosen by cooptation out of aristocratic regent families. A rough calculation results in a number of at least 400 council members for a mediocre city of 40.000 and 4000 for a population as numerous as the inhabitants of the province Holland (a million) or the kingdom of Aragon, mentioned by Spinoza. Those amounts of citizens are not at all prohibitive for a regular deliberation via preparation in chambers, although in the latter case a big amphitheatre has to be built in which citizens can see and hear each other in a frontal circular setting. The natural amphitheatre in Athens, the pnyx, contained 6000 seats. Normally, continues Van den Enden, one finds in such an unselected congregation of ‘costwinners’ of their families (artisans, and merchants) three kinds of citizens. First a few ‘leader types’: those who are able to formulate freedom furthering proposals and have courage enough to propose them in the assembly. Second, a much greater number of members with an open mind, who can understand the arguments in favour of the proposals and are easily incited to their enactment. The greatest part, however, of a rough people’s council normally follows and obeys their outstanding fellow members, simply because it gives them a good feeling and they can’t devise objections. By frequent listening and incidental participating in the discussion they rise to the second group and maybe finally develop to a charismatic leadership (like the fisherman of Naples, Van den Enden’s idol). HOW TO CHANGE THE CURRENT POLITCAL SYSTEM? But how does Van den Enden think that a political system like a kingdom or an oligarchic aristocracy like the Dutch one might be changed into a democratic order as he has it in his mind? This does, of course, not happen as an effect of philosophy, however enlightened, which only occupies the mind of an educated elite and can never motivate a multitude. An absolute condition for a drastic political change, does he assert in the VPS, cannot be anything else than the situation of extreme distress, misery and destitution among the whole population. Theoretically this could lead to three solutions: 1) flight of the people for colonization elsewhere; 2) rebellion of the citizens; 3) the magnanimous decision of those who are in power to abdicate in behalf of the people. The latter way out must be thought to be blocked on account of human nature, which is essentially the prey of insatiable concupiscence. The ‘haves’ don’t give way. The first way out was already proven to be impossible on account of the obstruction of the mercantile regents, who wanted to enrich themselves by means of their special conditions and required unreasonable privileges for colonization in America under their high authority. Remains the second solution as the only possible access to true democracy. From now on in his flamboyant ‘treatise’ (yes) Van den Enden concentrates on the introduction and foundation of democracy by rebellion. He sees no alternative. No Greek philosopher, no schoolman in de Middle Ages, no Machiavellian or natural right philosopher had pleaded this before him. He was the first with advancing rebellion by demonstrating its necessity from human nature. Van den Enden was well aware of his dangerous position in this role of firebrand and takes, even in this VPS underground-paper, some precautions for self protection. His talent as a playwright enables him to compose a fictive speaker (Freemouth) in the times of Philip the Second, who delivers a fervent speech for revolting against his tyrannical regime in the Low Contries. Referring to the Dutch prehistory told by Tacitus in his Germania Freemouth reminds his audience of their noble origins as a self governing people. “The best thing I can find among our (!) ancestors is the necessity of our armament for the protection of our freedom”. And again: Spinoza follows his master and stresses repeatedly this very same point. Democracy is doomed to failure without the armament of its citizens. Like in Greece and in Rome the citizens have to provide themselves on their own cost with weapons and exercise regularly using them. The second capital element of Freemouth’s rebellious speech is its intended exclusion of the pernicious power of the church and its priestcraft. Their promises of a happy hereafter bring people to despising the earthly goods and tend to deprive it of its manly courage and strenuous orientation on its freedom. History – he gives an impressive survey – shows abundantly the fatal outcome of the cooperation between pope and king: Philip II’s dictatorial regime is founded on papal imposture. If we want to liberate ourselves from his political force, we must first liberate ourselves from papal deceit and superstition. Famous political writers (Polybius, Machiavelli again) are criticized for their admitting a function for religious misleading of the people. Van den Enden takes a very unusual radical stance: religion can in no way and never ought to become some kind of acceptable foundation for politics in the free republic and always leads straight on to oppression. As Freemouth, he is very indignant and writes beautiful pages about the people being tormented by the swindling of pilgrimages, indulgences, masses for souls, false miracles, oppressive taxes etc. The new and completely unexpected turn in his argument, then, is the opposite of the scandalous and always pernicious church-religion, namely the true Christian religion of the commonbest, about which we talked earlier in this paper. Christian religion, or better religion tout court, implies nothing but acting as a good citizen and so contributing to the foundation and conservation of our common good in a democratically organized state. Christian religion is above all loyal citizenship and active patriotism, conform Spinoza’s Vandenendenistic principle “Pietas erga patriam summa est quae praestari potest”. Freemouth becomes more and more furious in his speech and summons his fictive audience to fight against the devilish cooperation between church and worldly power. We must actively oppose this unholy pact., eventually at the price of our life. “Let us either live as a free people or die like the Numantines”, sounds his unconditional exhortation to courage. Van den Enden’s alter ego preaches political activism. And tells us that there is no excuse, when and in so far we complain about our fake democracy with hands in our pockets. Political responsibility implies action. Like the Dutch have thrown off in a bloody eighty years war (1578-1648) the Spanish (Habsburg) occupation and exploitation (via heavy taxation and ecclesiastical / inquisitional prosecution) of their country, it is now, he writes anno 1665, highest time for a new revolutionary war against the exploitation of the common man by the aristocratic regime of the damned magistrates, the regenten, which is not less oppressive than the former power of counts and kings. After the abjuration of the quasi-monarchical hereditary regime of the Orange dynasty in Holland’s Act of Seclusion and greatpensionary De Witt’s praiseworthy defence of this act in his Deduction (1654) one needed now, according to Van den Enden, a tough continuation of the republican movement in a second abjuration: the removal of the illegitimate superpower of the dominating class of regents in favour of a radical democracy, the council of the wel bevoeghde citizens in their perfect even equality among each other. When writing, as a political architect, about a democratically immunized system of monarchy and aristocracy in the TP, Spinoza was applying the principles he had learnt from his master. He did not devise his subtle mechanisms in vacuo. His work anno 1676 links seamless up to the VPS-1665. His definitive choice for a system of direct democracy (mind the meaning of sui juris ass the economically independent costwinner ) was hallmarked as authentic Vandenendenistic. And then Spinoza died. His TP was in principle finished! Given the sovereign council of citizens no rules fail; the council makes its own rules and revises them if circumstances require it. Van den Enden, however, did not stop here. He did not limit himself to his clarion summons to the revolutionary fight. He descends in his own name, no longer as the fictive Freemouth, to concrete details of a true democratic system, many of which he had already described in his constitution for New Netherland in America. He stresses the indispensability of 1) public education, 2) medical care in state colleges by male and female doctors, 3) a kind of socialism, i.e. the obligation of the community and her exclusive right to help its poor, sick and destitute members and this not parsimoniously; The society “is bound to support and help fairly all its disabled (impotente) men and women, needy widows and orphans, if necessary also to provide for their total maintenance, and that not by way of alms but as an obligatory debt, originating from antecedent agreement and profit”(KVNN 42/18-22). Cf. again Spinoza’s emphasis on the state’s duty for social support: “Pauperum cura integrae societati incumbit et ad communem tantum utilitatem spectat”(Ethica 4, cp. Xvii). 4) courageous defence of the fatherland against intruders, against external and internal (!) usurpators; 5) prohibition of advocates (because they always blow up conflicts). Last but not least, 6) Van den Enden prescribes for his radical democratic society a law of tolerance, implying toleration of alternative or opposite opinions, but certainly not accepting illegal behaviour of fellow citizens. CONCLUDING REMARKS Spinoza is everything for me, since I first started, as a newly appointed staff member in 1974 reading and loving him, and immediately also teaching him in my courses and fanatically researching his sources, context and influence. I would like to show you my personal text, the three volume Bruder edition. Nearly every sentence of the whole oeuvre is marked, underlined and commented upon in the margin, all these traces testifying to my admiration and inspiration of the moment as I had that page before my eyes. The work is so intensively studied and physically maltreated that its pages have become completely loosened and the volume practically total loss. Still, in spite of my ownership of many new editions of Spinoza’s works, among which the recent Italian bilingual Tutte le opere, I can’t take leave from this precious monument of my personal history with the great and always overwhelming Spinoza. My wife always reproaches me that I am married with Spinoza; and she is right. My philosophical and even normal life is bound up with his immense riches and immeasurable depth. When publishing posts on Facebook or devising tweets for my personal pleasure, it is always again Spinoza who crops up in my expressions about whatever subject. You probably know that I have discovered various documents about Spinoza’s life and works and have put much energy in searching his sources in the classical world and his influence, like the recycling of his work in the English 18th century: Mandeville, Locke and Hume. See on internet my manuscripts “Locke’s Disguised Spinozism”and “Spinozistic Hume”. The first of these two plays a crucial role in Matthew Stewart, “Nature’s God. Heretical origins of the Amsrican republic”(Norton 2014). I also would like to indicate here the necessity of a physicalistic reading of Spinoza’s Ethica, as a consequence of his critique on Descartes’ law of inertia. See my proposed correction of a spurious placement of a comma in Letter 58. Most of my arguments for this improved reading of the letter are summarized in “Inertia as an effect in Spinoza’s works. With an excursion on a misleading comma”, in C. Hermanin e Luisa Simonutti, LA CENTRALITÀ DEL DUBBIO (Firenze, Olshki, 2011) p. 599-611. See also on internet my “Randglossen heroverwogen” about the highly important marginal notes in the so-called ‘Leiden Opera Posthuma’ and my critique on the widely spread view (mainly in France) that Spinoza would have proposed in his TTP 14 a ‘credo minimum’, whereas he expressly emphasizes that the prince should not oblige people to keep themselves to other than the articles of the “fidei universalia dogmata” but let them free in this respect. Legal enforcement of their belief alone is wholesome for the state and tends to exclude pernicious religious conflicts. Since 1990, the year of my discovery of Van den Enden’s acknowledgement in Paris of his authorship of the VPS, the universally radiating glory of his Latin student in his TTP and posthumous OP, has not in the least diminished. Quite on the contrary, seeing literally through Spinoza’s transparent works the appearance of the equally rich, equally substantial, equally revolutionary and equally compact and well composed writings of his beloved master only enhances my appreciation and pious adoration of Spinoza’s words, his clear style, his methodical exposition and above all his comforting message. Spinoza’s political works are congenial paraphrases of the magisterial writings of the Amsterdam schoolmaster and ex-Jesuit. Van den Enden and Spinoza are forever an inseparable duo. The two have to be studied together. And together, as a couple, ought they be considered and further promoted by lovers of the common good of a society, as the co-founders of a brand new and age old type of basic direct democracy, gradually built up to larger regional and national unities. This, and only this, would I, proud compatriot of both, be prepared to interpret as the foremost political Dutch legacy of highest value for our and future times. But neither the Portugese Jewishness of the one, nor the Flemish / Dutch nationality of the other are relevant qualities, as also not the Englishness of a Locke and Scotchness of a Hume, Spinoza’s overseas followers, are relevant. Relevant is only what we do with and how we profit from the authentic heritage of the Dutch Enlightenment, a heritage with a clearly anti-universalistic focus. A heritage also, which is, to my firm persuasion, well understood and in rough outlines gratefully accepted by Rousseau, author of the ‘Spinozistic’ religion civile. Dear audience, on my age it is on account of memory problems rather difficult to organize one’s material in a well composed paper, precisely with the right divisions and notes as science wants to have it. Mine’s is disorderly; I realize it. I hope you will be benevolent in taking it as I gave it. The master himself was not a disorderly figure, but a super genius, putting his conspicuous seal on the ages. My deepest wish is that before long there will appear a scientific publication of all his works. Cf. Spinoza’s reference to ‘most prudent V.H.’([Pieter, wk] De la Court) in TP 8/31. D’après un dessin original du temps, reproduit dans M. Bedjai, o.c. 22