/lit/ - Literature

>>11861273
>There can be little doubt just who, in Leibniz’s mind, first manufactured these venomous ideas. In the New Essays, he at last puts a name to the deed. Spinoza, he acknowledges, led an exemplary life. But his followers are capable of “setting fire to the four corners of the earth.” Worst of all are those ideas, the horrific ideas emanating from The Hague: “I find that similar ideas are stealing gradually into the minds of men of high station who rule the rest and on whom affairs depend, and slithering into fashionable books, and are inching everything towards the universal revolution with which Europe is threatened.” In Leibniz’s nightmare scenario, then, the corrupt rule of Louis XIV prepares the ground on which the slithering Spinozists flourish, and these serpents of materialism then spread their soul-destroying ideas and bring about a global revolution in which western civilization collapses into anarchy. The program at the core of all of Leibniz’s political activities throughout his career can be summarized in a single slogan: Stop Spinoza.

stewart's book doesn't necessarily present leibniz in the best light, but it doesn't lack for drama. spinoza/leibniz/louis XIV.

also, nice poster, yowza.