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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
95
all bliss and blessedness. Nor can its springs of happiness ever run dry, for the joy that arises from within one's being can only be an attribute of one's own self, since there can be no other meaning to the term 'inside' with reference to an indivisible, partless substance like the soul. Now, since a substance and its natural attri butes are eternal, it is impossible that the happiness which pertains to the soul should ever become exhausted when once the obstacles to its realisation are completely removed.
We can now perceive why every one feels happy when the desires and passions that robbed him of mental serenity and peace have subsided. As for grief and pain, they arise from causes external to the soul, and are, for that reason, but temporary conditions of our life. If it were otherwise, that is to say, if pain and misery were the attributes of our being, then they should have arisen in the soul from the quiescence or subsidence of our desires and passions, because whatever is a natural attribute of a thing always arises without a cause as soon as the obstacles which bar its way are removed from its path. Now, both grief and misery arise from extraneous causes which may be summed up under two general heads for the sake of brevity, namely,
(1) the association, real or imaginary, with that which is undesirable, and
(2) the dissociation from what is desirable and desired.
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