He did, replied Crito, demonstrate ; but it was after such a manner
as one may demonstrate anything. Allow a man the privilege to make



356 SPINOZA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY

his own definitions of common words, and it will be no hard matter
for him to infer conclusions which in one sense shall be true and in
another false, at once seeming paradoxes and manifest truisms. For
example, let but Spinosa define natural right to be natural power, and
he will easily demonstrate that "whatever a man can do" he hath a
right to do.^ Nothing can be plainer than the folly of this proceed-
ing : but our pretenders to the lumen siccum are so passionately
prejudiced against religion, as to swallow the grossest nonsense and
sophistry of weak and wicked writers for demonstration.
It appears, however, that Berkeley had really read Spinoza ;
which is more than can be said of either Locke or Hume. It is
possible that Locke, taking the general Continental estimate on
trust, set down Spinoza as a kind of erratic Cartesian ; and we
know that from Cartesianism in any form he expected no solid
profit. As to Hume, Professor Huxley has pointed out that he
was pretty uniformly indolent in making himself acquainted with
philosophical literature even on points that immediately concerned
his work. If he ever did take up Spinoza, it is unHkely that he
had the patience to pierce through the rind of definitions and
axioms. Indeed it has been the common fate of many readers
and critics of Spinoza to stick fast in the First Part of the Ethics.
