2. Inasmuch as it teaches us, how we ought to conduct ourselves
with respect to the gifts  of fortune, or matters which are not
in our power, and do not follow from our nature.  For  it shows
us, that we should await and endure fortune's smiles or frowns
with an equal  mind, seeing that all things follow from the
eternal decree of God by the same necessity,  as it follows from
the essence of a triangle, that the three angles are equal to two
right  angles.

3. This doctrine raises social life, inasmuch as it teaches us to
hate no man, neither to  despise, to deride, to envy, or to be
angry with any.  Further, as it tells us that each should  be
content with his own, and helpful to his neighbour, not from any
womanish pity,  favour, or superstition, but solely by the
guidance of reason, according as the time and  occasion demand,
as I will show in Part III.

4. Lastly, this doctrine confers no small advantage on the
commonwealth; for it teaches  how citizens should be governed and
led, not so as to become slaves, but so that they may  freely do
whatsoever things are best.

I have thus fulfilled the promise made at the beginning of this
note, and I thus bring the  second part of my treatise to a
close.  I think I have therein explained the nature and 
properties of the human mind at sufficient length, and,
considering the difficulty of the  subject, with sufficient
clearness.  I have laid a foundation, whereon may be raised many 
excellent conclusions of the highest utility and most necessary
to be known, as will, in  what follows, be partly made plain.





END OF PART II