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Authors: Barbara W. Tuchman
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burden of the future, that in 1620 ended at Plymouth Rock. Another fruitful group were the Jewish émigrés from Spain and Portugal bringing the parents of Spinoza, born in Amsterdam in 1632.
Attracted to the Netherlands by its luxuriant publishing activity, the most vigorous on the Continent, European writers and scholars, whose works were blocked by censorship at home, came to find in the Netherlands willing publishers and distribution in Latin to an international readership. So it was that the Dutch press had the honor to issue one of the world’s most significant books, by a Frenchman who preferred to live in Holland for twenty years rather than at home under the reign of Louis XIII: Descartes’
Discours de la Méthode
was issued in Leyden in 1637. Others of the most significant figures in European culture pursued their careers in Holland, although sometimes arousing the antagonism of colleagues. Baruch Spinoza, philosopher of humane religion, was a native of Amsterdam and though expelled as a Jew from his own synagogue for heretical views, he remained to live and publish his
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
in his native land. Antony van Leeuwenhoek, developer of the microscope, pursued his scientific work in his native Delft. Grotius of Delft, a Dutchman himself, formulated in
Mare Liberum
for all time the principle of freedom of the seas and in his
De Jure Belli ac Pacis
produced one of the most influential works on publiclaw ever written. It had to be published in Paris in 1625, when he suffered a jail term instigated by private enemies. The renowned scholar Pierre Bayle, exponent of a rational skepticism in religion, whose works propounded his view that popular religious beliefs were based on human credulity rather than on reason and reality, was not a philosopher agreeable to an authoritarian Catholic regime. Forced to leave France, he came to Holland where he was given a chair and stipend in Rotterdam at the
Ecole Illustre
, established by the city to provide working shelter for refugee scholars. His famous
Dictionnaire
, a one-man encyclopedia published in Rotterdam in 1697, illustrated his explanations of natural phenomena and, though banned in its first edition in France, became a source and inspiration for Diderot and the French Encyclopedists. In this welcome to Bayle, Rotterdam gave a home to a man who expressed a supreme statement of tolerance. Remarking the loyalty of religious minorities to the Dutch State, as long as they were allowed freedom of conscience, he suggested that “an ideal society would extend its protection to all religions, and that since most theological problems are incapable of proof, man should pray for those he cannot convince rather than oppress them.” * In these words Bayle antedates our First Amendment. Dutch rulers were unusual in that while enjoying security of position and comfort, they fostered a society that harbored the unorthodox. American Puritans of New England, whom the experience of real hardship had taught nothing of gentleness toward their fellowman but the reverse, formed in contrast a bigoted and punishing ruling group.
Owing to the tolerance of Dutch society, no large body of emigrants felt driven to find new homes in New Amsterdam, except merchants rich enough to support settlements of at least fifty colonists, who received land grants from the West India Company, becoming the patroons of the region. In the absence of a large rooted Dutch settlement, Peter Stuyvesant could not find enough men willing to form an army for defense when the English were to come in 1664 to capture the area and name it New York.
Was it the nourishing freedom of Dutch society that gave rise in the mid 17th century to the glory of the Golden Age of painting in the appearance of both Rembrandt, the master of humanity, and Vermeer, the exponent of serene perfection? At the same time flourished the vividportraitists Frans Hals and Van Dyck, and the portrayers of domestic scenes, Jan
Attracted to the Netherlands by its luxuriant publishing activity, the most vigorous on the Continent, European writers and scholars, whose works were blocked by censorship at home, came to find in the Netherlands willing publishers and distribution in Latin to an international readership. So it was that the Dutch press had the honor to issue one of the world’s most significant books, by a Frenchman who preferred to live in Holland for twenty years rather than at home under the reign of Louis XIII: Descartes’
Discours de la Méthode
was issued in Leyden in 1637. Others of the most significant figures in European culture pursued their careers in Holland, although sometimes arousing the antagonism of colleagues. Baruch Spinoza, philosopher of humane religion, was a native of Amsterdam and though expelled as a Jew from his own synagogue for heretical views, he remained to live and publish his
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
in his native land. Antony van Leeuwenhoek, developer of the microscope, pursued his scientific work in his native Delft. Grotius of Delft, a Dutchman himself, formulated in
Mare Liberum
for all time the principle of freedom of the seas and in his
De Jure Belli ac Pacis
produced one of the most influential works on publiclaw ever written. It had to be published in Paris in 1625, when he suffered a jail term instigated by private enemies. The renowned scholar Pierre Bayle, exponent of a rational skepticism in religion, whose works propounded his view that popular religious beliefs were based on human credulity rather than on reason and reality, was not a philosopher agreeable to an authoritarian Catholic regime. Forced to leave France, he came to Holland where he was given a chair and stipend in Rotterdam at the
Ecole Illustre
, established by the city to provide working shelter for refugee scholars. His famous
Dictionnaire
, a one-man encyclopedia published in Rotterdam in 1697, illustrated his explanations of natural phenomena and, though banned in its first edition in France, became a source and inspiration for Diderot and the French Encyclopedists. In this welcome to Bayle, Rotterdam gave a home to a man who expressed a supreme statement of tolerance. Remarking the loyalty of religious minorities to the Dutch State, as long as they were allowed freedom of conscience, he suggested that “an ideal society would extend its protection to all religions, and that since most theological problems are incapable of proof, man should pray for those he cannot convince rather than oppress them.” * In these words Bayle antedates our First Amendment. Dutch rulers were unusual in that while enjoying security of position and comfort, they fostered a society that harbored the unorthodox. American Puritans of New England, whom the experience of real hardship had taught nothing of gentleness toward their fellowman but the reverse, formed in contrast a bigoted and punishing ruling group.
Owing to the tolerance of Dutch society, no large body of emigrants felt driven to find new homes in New Amsterdam, except merchants rich enough to support settlements of at least fifty colonists, who received land grants from the West India Company, becoming the patroons of the region. In the absence of a large rooted Dutch settlement, Peter Stuyvesant could not find enough men willing to form an army for defense when the English were to come in 1664 to capture the area and name it New York.
Was it the nourishing freedom of Dutch society that gave rise in the mid 17th century to the glory of the Golden Age of painting in the appearance of both Rembrandt, the master of humanity, and Vermeer, the exponent of serene perfection? At the same time flourished the vividportraitists Frans Hals and Van Dyck, and the portrayers of domestic scenes, Jan
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