The latter concept of activity has been formulated most clearly by Spinoza. He differentiates among the affects between active and passive affects, “actions” and “passions.” In the exercise of an active affect, man is free, he is the master of his affect; in the exercise of a passive affect, man is driven, the object of motivations of which he himself is not aware. Thus Spinoza arrives at the statement that virtue and power are one and the same. (Ethics IV, Def. 8.) Envy, jealousy, ambition, any kind of greed are passions; love is an action, the practice of a human power, which can be
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