are confused. In this
sense we have not all the freedom of spirit that were to be desired, and we
may say with St. Augustine that being subject to sin we have the freedom of
a slave. Yet a slave, slave as he is, nevertheless has freedom to choose
according to the state wherein he is, although more often than not he is
under the stern necessity of choosing between two evils, because a superior
force prevents him from attaining the goods whereto he aspires. That which
in a slave is effected by bonds and constraint in us is effected by
passions, whose violence is sweet, but none the less pernicious. In truth
we will only that which pleases us: but unhappily what pleases us now is
often a real evil, which would displease us if we had the eyes of the
understanding open. Nevertheless that evil state of the slave, which is
also our own, does not prevent us, any more than him, from making a free
choice of that which pleases us most, in the state to which we are reduced,
in proportion to our present strength and knowledge.

290. As for spontaneity, it belongs to us in so far as we have within us
the source of our actions, as Aristotle rightly conceived. The [304]
impressions of external things often, indeed, divert us from our path, and
it was commonly believed that, at least in this respect, some of the
sources of our actions were outside ourselves. I admit that one is bound to
speak thus, adapting oneself to the popular mode of expression, as one may,
in a certain sense, without doing violence to truth. But when it is a
question of expressing oneself accurately I maintain that our spontaneity
suffers no exception and that external things have no physical influence
upon us, I mean in the strictly philosophical sense.

291. For better understanding of this point, one must know that true
spontaneity is common to us and all simple substances, and that in the
intelligent or free substance this becomes a mastery over its actions. That
cannot be better explained than by the System of Pre-established Harmony,
which I indeed propounded some years ago. There I pointed out that by
nature every simple substance has perception, and that its individuality
consists in the perpetual law which brings about the sequence of
perceptions that are assigned to it, springing naturally from one another,
to represent the body that is allotted to it, and through its
instrumentality the entire universe, in accordance with the point of view
proper