al liberty. But it is not only under suffering,
in the restricted sense of the word, in the sense in which it marks only
the painful affections, but generally in all the cases in which the
appetitive faculty is strongly interested, that mind ought to show its
liberty, and that dignity ought to be the dominant expression. Dignity
is not less required in the agreeable affections than in the painful
affections, because in both cases nature would willingly play the part of
master, and has to be held in check by the will. Dignity relates to the
form and not to the nature of the affection, and this is why it can be
possible that often an affection, praiseworthy in the main, but one to
which we blindly commit ourselves, degenerates, from the want of dignity,
into vulgarity and baseness; and, on the contrary, a condemnable
affection, as soon as it testifies by its form to the empire of the mind
over the senses, changes often its character and approaches even towards
the sublime.

Thus in dignity the mind reigns over the body and bears itself as ruler:
here it has its independence to defend against imperious impulse, always
ready to do without it, to act and shake off its yoke. But in grace, on
the contrary, the mind governs with a liberal government, for here the
mind itself causes sensuous nature to act, and it finds no resistance to
overcome. But obedience only merits forbearance, and severity is only
justifiable when provoked by opposition.

Thus grace is nothing else than the liberty of voluntary movements, and
dignity consists in mastering involuntary movements. Grace leaves to
sensuous nature, where it obeys the orders of the mind, a certain air of
independence; dignity, on the contrary, submits the sensuous nature to
mind where it would make the pretensions to rule; wherever instinct takes
the initiative and allows itself to trespass upon the attributes of the
will, the will must show it no indulgence, but it must testify to its own
independence (autonomy), in opposing to it the most energetic resistance.
If, on the contrary, it is the will that commences, and if instinct does
but follow it, the free arbitration has no longer to display any rigor,
now it must show indulgence. Such is in a few words the law which ought
to regulate the relation of the two natures of man in what regards the
expression of this relation in the world of phenomena.

It follows that dignity is required, and is seen particularly in passive
affe