A History of Western Philosophy: And Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day

by Bertrand Russell

In so far as what happens to us springs from ourselves, it is good; only what comes from without is bad for us. “As all things whereof a man is the efficient cause are necessarily good, no evil can befall a man except through external causes.” Obviously, therefore, nothing bad can happen to the universe as a whole, since it is not subject to external causes. “We are a part of universal nature, and we follow her order. If we have a clear and distinct understanding of this, that part of our nature which is defined by intelligence, in other words the better part of ourselves, will assuredly acquiesce in what befalls us, and in such acquiescence will endeavour to persist.” In so far as a man is an unwilling part of a larger whole, he is in bondage; but in so far as, through the understanding, he has grasped the sole reality of the whole, he is free. The implications of this doctrine are developed in the last Book of the Ethics.