In a democratic state nobody transfers his natural right to another so completely that thereafter he is not to be consulted; he transfers it to the m… - Benedictus de Spinoza

But human power is considerably limited and infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes, and therefore we do not have an absolute power of adapting things which are outside us for our use. But we shall bear with equanimity those things which happen to us contrary to that which a regard for our advantage postulates, if we are conscious that we have done that which we ought, and that we could not have extended the power we have to such an extent as to avoid those things, and moreover, that we are part of nature as a whole, whose order we follow. If we understand this clearly and distinctly, that part of us which is defined by our understanding, that is, the best part of us, will be wholly contented, and will endeavour to persist in that contentment. For in so far as we understand, we can desire nothing save that which is necessary, nor can we absolutely be contented with anything save what is true: and therefore in so far as we understand this rightly, the endeavour of the best part of us agrees with the order of the whole of nature.

Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.

It was not until the Twelfth Century of our era that the Pentateuch as a whole was subjected to rational scrutiny. The man who undertook the ungrateful task was a learned Spanish rabbi, Abraham ben Meir ibn Esra. He unearthed many absurdities, but... it was not until five hundred years later that anything properly describable as scientific criticism... came into being. Its earliest shining lights were the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes [with his Leviathan], and the Amsterdam Jew, Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza's "Tractatus Theologico-politicus", published in 1670, made the first really formidable onslaught upon the inspired inerrancy of the Pentateuch. It called attention to scores of transparent imbecilities … including a dozen or more palpable geographical and historical impossibilities … The answer of constituted authorities was to suppress the "Tractatus", but enough copies got out to reach the proper persons, and ever since then the Old Testament has been under searching and devastating examination.