  The Spinoza Letters is a cumbersome work, its disjointed composition indicative of the haste with which it was put together. The first edition opens with the text of a poem by Goethe that was however dropped in the second edition. The poem carried the name of its author but had been mechanically edited by Jacobi to bring out, by printing certain key phrases in relief, images especially important to him. Thus edited, the poem conveyed the idea that the pagan gods are Man writ large, and are therefore to be praised, since they reveal what is most noble in the human being. Brute nature is without feelings or discernment, whereas humans can judge, draw distinctions, and dare the impossible. They transcend nature. This was a humanistic message with which Jacobi agreed wholeheartedly. After a brief explanation of how the exchange of letters with Mendelssohn had originated, the main text goes on with a somewhat abbreviated version of the correspondence itself. The first letter gave an account of the conversation Jacobi had had with Lessing on the subject of Spinoza during his visit to Wolfenbüttel, and included the text of another poem of Goethe — the Prometheus, one that had been the occasion of the conversation in the first place. This poem, hitherto still unpublished, was printed without the author’s name (some thought it was Jacobi’s own) and conveyed quite a different image of the gods than was found in the other poem. It suggested that they, no less than mortal men, are subject to the blind ‘almighty time’ that rules over all.  In a universe thus ruled by ‘eternal fate’, they are therefore even more wretched than human beings, for the latter have at least the power to rebel against the order of things and thereby retain their dignity. At least as typified by Prometheus, human beings can rejoice in their own sufferings, and by this defiance uphold their individuality in the face of Fate.