Spinoza exemplifies with extraordinary completeness the nature of the problem of all modern philosophies which have not deserted the classic tra- dition, and yet have made the conclusions of modern science their own. What makes Spinoza so admirably the exponent of this problem is that he adopted with ardor and without the res- ervations displayed by most modern thinkers the essential ele- ments in the Greek tradition of intellectualism and naturalism, the Hebrew-Christian idea of the priority and primacy of the properties of ultimate Being which concern the control of hu- man affection and endeavor, and the method and conclusions of the new natural science