Acting, therefore, with a deep, enlightened egoism and purely from intellectual impulses, a man behaves nobly in every relation of life. He strives to requite hatred, indignation, and contempt with love and noble feeling, because he knows that hatred causes him discomfort. He seeks at any price to create around him an atmosphere of peace. He never acts deceitfully, but always straightforwardly. He has no need to feel sympathy. Since he lives entirely under the guidance of reason, he does good whenever the opportunity offers, on principle, and therefore does not need to be roused to noble feeling by any experience of discomfort. In fact he avoids sympathy. Again and again he makes it clear to himself that everything that happens is brought about by some necessity in the divine nature and in obedience to eternal laws. Just as he finds nothing in the world which deserves hatred, mockery, and contempt, so he finds in it nothing to evoke sympathy. [pg 120] Man must be ever striving to be virtuous and happy, and if he is conscious of having done good within the limits of what is commanded him, he can with an easy mind leave his fellow-men and the world to their fate. Beyond the possibilities of his own immediate activities he need have nothing to do with them. The wise man who practises the higher life-affirmation possesses power. He has power over himself, power over his fellow-men, and power over circumstances. How very similar is the tone of Spinoza’s thought to that of Lao-tse, Chwang-tse, and Lie-tse! Spinoza lives out his own ethic. In contented independence he passes his life, till consumption brings it to an early close. He declines an invitation to be lecturer in philosophy at Heidelberg University. He is strict with himself, but his resignation is lighted up by a mild trait of considered humanity and friendliness. The persecutions to which he is exposed fail to embitter him. Intent though he is on thinking only in accordance with pure nature-philosophy, Spinoza does not concern himself so exclusively with the two natural entities, nature herself and the individual man, as do many of his Chinese predecessors, but maintains an interest in organized society. He is convinced that it betokens progress when men change, from the “natural” stage of society to the “civic.” Being formed for living with his fellows, man is freer if he settles by general agreement what belongs to each, and what the relations are to be between himself and society. The State must, therefore, have power to issue general orders as to how people are to live, and to secure respect for its laws by means of penalties.