Spinoza’s work represents the hypertrophy of one aspect of the Jewish spirit: its tendency not just to rationalize but to intellectualize. He was one of those who thought it might be possible to resolve all disputes and conflicts of opinion and reach human perfection by a process of logic. He believed the problems of ethics could be solved by geometrical-type proofs. He was thus in the tradition of Maimonides, who argued that perfect worldly peace could be achieved through reason – that was how he thought the Messianic Age would come. But Maimonides imagined this state being reached when the
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