Evidently, Voltaire didn’t kick Leibniz hard enough, because here comes Matthew Stewart to give that old corpse the boot. The Courtier and the Heretic follows Wittgenstein’s Poker in the growing tradition of brief and earth-shattering moments in the history of western civilization books. Here, Stewart claims a meeting between Leibniz and Spinoza so obsessed the former that his thinking was framed by it for the rest of his life.

The hero is Spinoza, and his hat is the purest white. Run out of his Jewish community for blasphemy with death threats, his “pantheism” could only be embraced by followers, for the most part, secretly. Caricatured as a hermit antichrist by his enemies, Spinoza, according to Stewart, was not only right about everything he wrote, but he was also well-loved in his new neighborhood. He was that rare intellectual who walked the walk. Leibniz, according to Stewart, most decidedly did not. His hat is a floppy burgundy. He is vain, ambitious, intellectually dishonest, and fat. Spinoza is strikingly handsome and Leibniz is a slob. The latter’s bald head bulged with some weird protuberance and he discharged some noxious gas at his death that gave the attendant a headache. Stewart revels in Leibniz’s failures, which is odd considering he calls him the “the last universal genius” and “one of the two greatest philosophers of the 17th century.” Little evidence, however, is given for those claims, and you can almost see Stewart’s sardonic grin as Leibniz’s inventions break down and his efforts at court fall short.

When Stewart sticks to ideas, the book shines, as he produces clear explanations of both men's work. He is so one-sided in his praise and attacks, however, that you can hear the ax grinding with each turn of the page. Nobody is as noble as Spinoza’s portrayal here, and Leibniz’s accomplishments, which are extraordinary, are poopooed as almost insignificant compared to his personal failings and obsession with Spinoza. There just ain’t the evidence to paint in these bold strokes. If, like me, you find Spinoza's prose difficult to penetrate, this is a good place to start. But poor old Leibniz- wasn't Pangloss enough?