, are emotions of pleasure and
desire (III. lix.); therefore, he who is led by fear, and does
good in order to escape evil, is not led by reason.

Note.--Superstitions persons, who know better how to rail at
vice than how to teach virtue, and who strive not to guide men by
reason, but so to restrain them that they would rather escape
evil than love virtue, have no other aim but to make others as
wretched as themselves; wherefore it is nothing wonderful, if
they be generally troublesome and odious to their fellow--men.

Corollary.--Under desire which springs from reason, we seek
good directly, and shun evil indirectly.

Proof.--Desire which springs from reason can only spring from
a pleasurable emotion, wherein the mind is not passive (III.
lix.), in other words, from a pleasure which cannot be excessive
(IV. lxi.), and not from pain; wherefore this desire springs
from the knowledge of good, not of evil (IV. viii.); hence under
the guidance of reason we seek good directly and only by
implication shun evil. Q.E.D.

Note.--This Corollary may be illustrated by the example of a
sick and a healthy man. The sick man through fear of death eats
what he naturally shrinks from, but the healthy man takes
pleasure in his food, and thus gets a better enjoyment out of
life, than if he were in fear of death, and desired directly to
avoid it. So a judge, who condemns a criminal to death, not from
hatred or anger but from love of the public well--being, is guided
solely by reason.

PROP. LXIV. The knowledge of evil is an inadequate knowledge.

Proof.--The knowledge of evil (IV. viii.) is pain, in so far
as we are conscious thereof. Now pain is the transition to a
lesser perfection (Def. of the Emotions, iii.) and therefore
cannot be understood through man's nature (III. vi., and vii.);
therefore it is a passive state (III. Def. ii.) which (III. iii.)
depends on inadequate ideas; consequently the knowledge thereof
(II. xxix.), namely, the knowledge of evil, is inadequate.
Q.E.D.

Corollary.--Hence it follows that, if the human mind possessed
only adequate ideas, it would form no conception of evil.

PROP. LXV. Under the guidance of reason we should pursue the
greater of two goods and the lesser of two evils.

Proof.--A good which prevents our enjoyment of a greater good
is in reality an evil; for we apply the terms good and bad to
things, in so far as we compare them one with another (see
preface to this Part); therefo