g in contact with certain features of them. We have a very
imperfect acquaintance even with our own bodies, and the sensations
which we experience of various kinds rather indicate to us the nature of
these bodies themselves than of the objects which affect them. Now, it
is obvious that the greater part of mankind act only upon knowledge of
this latter kind. The amusements, even the active pursuits, of most of
us remain wholly within the range of uncertainty, and, therefore, are
full of hazard and precariousness: little or nothing issues as we
expect. We look for pleasure and we find pain; we shun one pain and
find a greater; and thus arises the ineffectual character which we so
complain of in life--the disappointments, failures, mortifications which
form the material of so much moral meditation on the vanity of the
world. Much of all this is inevitable from the constitution of our
nature. The mind is too infirm to be entirely occupied with higher
knowledge. The conditions of life oblige us to act in many cases which
cannot be understood by us except with the utmost inadequacy; and the
resignation to the higher will which has determined all things in the
wisest way, is imperfect in the best of us. Yet much is possible, if not
all; and, although through a large tract of life 'there comes one event
to all, to the wise and to the unwise,' 'yet wisdom excelleth folly as
far as light excelleth darkness.' The phenomena of experience, after
inductive experiment, and just and careful consideration, arrange
themselves under laws uniform in their operation, and furnishing a guide
to the judgment; and over all things, although the interval must remain
unexplored for ever, because what we would search into is Infinite, may
be seen the beginning of all things, the absolute eternal God. 'Mens
humana,' Spinoza continues, 'quaedam agit, quaedam vero patitur.' In so
far as it is influenced by inadequate ideas--'eatenus patitur'--it is
passive and in bondage, it is the sport of fortune and caprice: in so
far as its ideas are adequate--'eatenus agit'--it is active, it is
itself. While we are governed by outward temptations, by the casual
pleasures, by the fortunes or the misfortunes of life, we are but
instruments, yielding ourselves to be acted upon as the animal is acted
on by its appetites, or the inanimate matter by the laws which bind it;
we are slaves--instruments, it may be, of some higher purpose in the
order of nature, but in oursel