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A metaphysical system is a projection which issues from the deepest anxieties of men. Perhaps the most truthful way of writing a philosophy would be in the form of an autobiography. We would understand why a man saw reality as he did, what traits of reality he wished to repress, what he was motivated to exaggerate. But philosophers are great rationalizers. Each of them prefers to see his philosophy as the rational, scientific system. Each of them erects an edifice of argument, but tends to be most sparing as to personal details concerning himself. We are permitted to see only the finished play, never the actor as he really is, adjusting his make-up, rehearsing his lines. But here and there, in uncensored asides, in letters to their friends, in dreams, we get an invaluable clue which leads into the labyrinth of the philosopher's unconscious life. We even get a glimpse of components in the philosopher's unconscious which rebel against his own conscious metaphysics, and condemn it as false. And such is the one dream which Spinoza recorded. It was in a letter to his friend Balling in 1664:
“I can confirm and at the same time explain what I have just said by something which happened to me at Rhynsburg last winter. When I awoke one morning, when the sky was already growing light, from a very heavy dream, the images which had come to me in my dream remained as vividly before my eyes as if they had been real things, especially the image of a certain black and scabby Brazilian whom I had never seen before. This image for the most part disappeared when, in order to divert myself with something else, I fixed my eyes on a book or some other object: but as soon as I again turned my eyes away from such an object