Key Arguments

• He defines bondage as lack of mastery over one's emotions, linking it to subjection to fortune.
• He notes the practical consequence that one can cognitively apprehend the better course yet be compelled to follow the worse, indicating the dominance of passions over reason.
• He frames the ensuing Part as an inquiry into why this occurs and what is good or evil in the emotions.

Source Quotes

PREFACE Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage: for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse. Why this is so, and what is good or evil in the emotions, I propose to show in this part of my treatise.

PREFACE Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage: for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse. Why this is so, and what is good or evil in the emotions, I propose to show in this part of my treatise. But, before I begin, it would be well to make a few prefatory observations on perfection and imperfection, good and evil.

Key Concepts

• Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage
• when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune
• he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse
• Why this is so, and what is good or evil in the emotions, I propose to show in this part of my treatise

Context

Ethics, Part IV, Preface (lines 2909–2979), opening definition and programmatic statement