eably.

"I had been bigoted, aggressive, and intolerant in discussion, both in
public and private. I grew broadly tolerant and receptive toward the
views of others. I had been nervous and irritable, coming home two or
three times a week with a sick headache induced, as I then supposed, by
dyspepsia and catarrh. I grew serene and gentle, and the physical
troubles entirely disappeared. I had been in the habit of approaching
every business interview with an almost morbid dread. I now meet every
one with confidence and inner calm.

"I may say that the growth has all been toward the elimination of
selfishness. I do not mean simply the grosser, more sensual forms, but
those subtler and generally unrecognized kinds, such as express
themselves in sorrow, grief, regret, envy, etc. It has been in the
direction of a practical, working realization of the immanence of God
and the Divinity of man's true, inner self.

Lectures VI and VII

THE SICK SOUL

At our last meeting, we considered the healthy-minded temperament, the
temperament which has a constitutional incapacity for prolonged
suffering, and in which the tendency to see things optimistically is
like a water of crystallization in which the individual's character is
set. We saw how this temperament may become the basis for a peculiar
type of religion, a religion in which good, even the good of this
world's life, is regarded as the essential thing for a rational being
to attend to. This religion directs him to settle his scores with the
more evil aspects of the universe by systematically declining to lay
them to heart or make much of them, by ignoring them in his reflective
calculations, or even, on occasion, by denying outright that they
exist. Evil is a disease; and worry over disease is itself an
additional form of disease, which only adds to the original complaint.
Even repentance and remorse, affections which come in the character of
ministers of good, may be but sickly and relaxing impulses. The best
repentance is to up and act for righteousness, and forget that you ever
had relations with sin.

Spinoza's philosophy has this sort of healthy-mindedness woven into the
heart of it, and this has been one secret of its fascination. He whom
Reason leads, according to Spinoza, is led altogether by the influence
over his mind of good. Knowledge of evil is an "inadequate" knowledge,
fit only for slavish minds. So Spinoza categorically condemns
repentance.