Every circumstance, favorable or unfavorable, in which a man finds himself, and every person, agreeable or disagreeable, in whose presence he is, causes him to react. Upon this reaction depends the man's happiness and his spiritual progress. If he has control over this reaction, it means that he is progressing; if he has no control over it, it shows that he is going backward. When you take two people, a wise and a foolish, the wise person reacts more intensely than the foolish one; also, a fine person naturally reacts more than a dense one, a just person more than an unjust one, and a spiritual person more than a materialist. And yet it is lack of mastery when one has no control over one's reactions. A person who is free, spiritual, sensitive, wise, and just, but who has no control over his reactions, is incomplete. And this shows that even becoming fine and just and spiritual is not sufficient; for all these qualities, though they make one finer and more sensitive, yet they weaken one in the face of the disturbing influences of the crowd; and when this is the case one will not be perfect.