nd insofar as the self acts according to reason--which for Spinoza is the only time human beings really act at all--it will pursue its true advantage and be resigned in those circumstance that are beyond its control. However, because human reason and power is limited, individual human beings are sometimes controlled by passive emotions. Such emotions constitute our bondage to external powers. Propositions 4 and 5 of Part Four of the *Ethics* state that: 4) It is impossible for a man not to be part of Nature and not to undergo changes other than those which can be understood solely through his own nature and of which he is the adequate cause. 5) The force and increase of any passive emotion and its persistence in existing is defined not by the power whereby we ourselves endeavor to persist in existing, but by the power of external causes compared with our own power. We see, then, that for Spinoza, unlike Augustine, evil is something which we suffer, not something we actively choose. However, this seems quite consistent with Augustine's notion of evil as a privation--a diminution of my ability to express my essence which is due, however, not to the free choice of my will, but to the force of external powers which happen to conflict with my essence.{6} I am "free" only insofar as I will my own essence, which, *a priori*, expresses the will of God. The degree of my self knowledge and the extent to which my essence finds expression in the world is dependent upon my environment. Insofar as I seem to will that which is contrary to my essence, I am in bondage and am not, strictly speaking, willing at all. Furthermore, because the power and will of God is manifest only in activity, Spinoza would agree with Augustine that insofar as anything *is*--insofar as it exists (endeavors to persist in its own being)--it derives its being from God. In his *Tractatus Theologico-Politicus*, Spinoza formulates these ideas as follows: Whatever man . . . acquir...
