Spinoza in The Hague

Spinoza finished his 'Ethics' during the Rijnsburg years but he had long since decided that his ever-growing reputation as a dangerous atheist meant that the work could never be published in his lifetime, even without his name on it.

His 'Theological-Political Treatise' (arguing for toleration in a secular state) was published anonymously in 1670, the same year that he moved into the centre of the Hague.

In 1673 he turned down the Chair of Philosophy at Heidelberg University, explaining that as a philosopher he must be free from the fetters that always accompany any official position.

He was not a total recluse however; in the previous year, at considerable risk to his own safety, he had attempted to denounce the mob who had murdered his friends the De Witt brothers.

But Spinoza had always been consumptive, even as a child, and the constant inhalation of the fine dust from the grinding of lenses must have aggravated his condition.

He died around 3 o'clock on Sunday February 20th 1677, aged only 44; the work on which he was engaged, the 'Political Treatise', remains unfinished.

As Matthew Arnold puts it: 'Glory had not found him out.'