To Spinoza the Jew, it is declared two-hundred-fifty years after his death, from the heights of Mount Scopus, from our Temple-in-miniature (mikdash-h… - Benedictus de Spinoza

Non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere.

Most writers on the emotions and on human conduct seem to be treating rather of matters outside nature than of natural phenomena following nature's general laws. They appear to conceive man to be situated in nature as a kingdom within a kingdom: for they believe that he disturbs rather than follows nature's order, that he has absolute control over his actions, and that he is determined solely by himself. They attribute human infirmities and fickleness, not to the power of nature in general, but to some mysterious flaw in the nature of man, which accordingly they bemoan, deride, despise, or, as usually happens, abuse:

...I love Spinoza, because he, more than any other philosopher, led me to the complete conviction that certain things cannot be explained, that because of this one need not close one's eyes to them, but rather take them as one finds them.