ions as the
most bestial forms of human lust.

To learn how to become master of one's emotions, to learn how to free
oneself from their bondage, is, therefore, the primary condition of
sustained and rational happiness. The key to virtue, Spinoza
independently agreed with Socrates, is knowledge of oneself. Only when
we understand ourselves can we control our emotions. And only when we
have our emotions under control are we able consistently to direct our
activity towards a definite, rational goal. Our activity then follows
from our own nature, and not from the nature of external things which
arouse our emotions and determine their strength. And, as already
noticed, to be the necessary cause of our own activity is, according to
Spinoza, to be free.

It is impossible, of course, for man ever to be the sole cause of his
activity. To be such, he would have to be an entirely independent
being--an absolute power--something he can never be. No matter how
eloquently misguided enthusiasts extol the powerful merits of man's
"free-will" it will always be true that man's emotions, sensations and
ideas change very significantly with the organic changes that occur in
his body. The emotions, sensations and ideas of a child differ from
those of a man, and those of a man in maturity differ from those of a
man decrepit with old age. And these and similar changes are quite
beyond the control of man.

However, without denying man's intimate dependence upon Nature, it is
still possible to distinguish between those activities which follow, in
an important degree, from a man's individual nature--whatever it may
happen to be at the time--and those activities which follow only from
his own nature in conjunction with the nature of other things. The
movement of my pen on paper would be impossible without the general
order of Nature which allows such phenomena as motion, pen and paper, to
exist. Nevertheless, I can profitably distinguish between the movement
of my pen on paper and the movement of my body through stellar space.
The former movement follows, in an important sense, from my own peculiar
constitution; the latter, from the constitution of the stellar system.
Likewise, but more significantly for human welfare, one can distinguish
broadly between the activities and the passivities of the mind; between
man as an agent, a doer--man's intellect; and man as a patient, a
sufferer--man's passions. In this creative age such distinction should