middling sort
I have been told that several people claim, that I have not understood Spinoza’s theory at all. I have heard this from several quarters, but nobody has been able to tell me what those who make this judgment base it on. Thus, I cannot answer them precisely, or examine if I ought to give in to their arguments since they are unknown to me. I can only justify myself in a general way: and I think that I can say that, if I did not understand the proposition I undertook to refute, it is not my fault. […] No doubt, it would have happened more than once that I did not understand what he intended; and it is improbable that he completely understood himself and could make all the consequences of his hypothesis intelligible in detail.
I have read many books, but to little purpose, for want of good method; I have confusedly tumbled over divers authors in our libraries, with small profit, for want of art, order, memory, judgment. […] I am not poor, I am not rich; nihil est, nihil deest, I have little, I want nothing: all my treasure is in Minerva’s tower.