ves nothing; instruments which are
employed for a special work, and which are consumed in effecting it. So
far, on the contrary, as we know clearly what we do, as we understand
what we are, and direct our conduct not by the passing emotion of the
moment, but by a grave, clear, and constant knowledge of what is really
good, so far we are said to act--we are ourselves the spring of our own
activity--we pursue the genuine well-being of our entire nature, and
_that_ we can always find, and it never disappoints us when found.

All things desire life; all things seek for energy, and fuller and
ampler being. The component parts of man, his various appetites and
passions, are seeking larger activity while pursuing each its immoderate
indulgence; and it is the primary law of every single being that it so
follows what will give it increased vitality. Whatever will contribute
to such increase is the proper good of each; and the good of man as a
united being is measured and determined by the effect of it upon his
collective powers. The appetites gather power from their several objects
of desire; but the power of the part is the weakness of the whole; and
man as a collective person gathers life, being, and self-mastery only
from the absolute good,--the source of all real good, and truth, and
energy,--that is, God. The love of God is the extinction of all other
loves and all other desires. To know God, as far as man can know him, is
power, self-government, and peace. And this is virtue, and this is
blessedness.

Thus, by a formal process of demonstration, we are brought round to the
old conclusions of theology; and Spinoza protests that it is no new
doctrine which he is teaching, but that it is one which in various
dialects has been believed from the beginning of the world. Happiness
depends on the consistency and coherency of character, and that
coherency can only be given by the knowledge of the One Being, to know
whom is to know all things adequately, and to love whom is to have
conquered every other inclination. The more entirely our minds rest on
him--the more distinctly we regard all things in their relation to him,
the more we cease to be under the dominion of external things; we
surrender ourselves consciously to do his will, and as living men and
not as passive things we become the instruments of his power. When the
true nature and true causes of our affections become clear to us, they
have no more power to influence us. Th