e, 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 by 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, 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 ourselves
nothing; instruments which are employed for a special
work, and which are consumed in effecting it. So far,
on the contrary, as we know clearly what we do, as we
understand what we are, and direct our conduct not by
the passing emotion of the moment, but by a grave,
clear, and constant knowledge of what is really good, so
far we are said to act--we are ourselves the spring of
our own activity--we desire the genuine well-being of
our entire nature, and that we can always find, and it
never disappoints us when found.

All things desire life, seek for energy, and fuller and
ampler being. The component parts of man, his various
appetites and passions, are seeking for this while
pursuing each its own immoderate indulgence; and it is the
primary law of every single being that it so follows what
will give it increased vitality. Whatever will contribute
to such increase is the proper good of each; and the
good of man as a united being is measured and
determined by the effect of it upon his collective powers.
The appetites gather power from their several objects of
desire; but the power of the part is the weakness of
the whole; and man as a collective person gathers life,
being, and self-mastery only from the absolut