Therefore it is nothing wonderful, if the desire arising from such knowledge of good and evil, in so far as it looks on into the future, be more readily checked than the desire of things which are agreeable at the present time.

(Cf.
IV.

xvi.) PROP.LXIII.

He who is led by fear, and does good in order to escape evil, is not led by reason.
Proof .-- All the emotions which are attributable to the mind as active, or in other words to reason, 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.