"A free man
thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is not a meditation
upon death, but upon life." {43b} This is the celebrated sixty-seventh
proposition of the fourth part. If we examine the proof which directly
depends on the sixty-third proposition of the same part--"he who is led
by fear, and does what is good in order that he may avoid what is evil,
is not led by reason"--we shall see that Spinoza is referring to the
fear of the "evil" of hell-fire.
All Spinoza's teaching with regard to the passions is a consequence of
what he believes of God and man. He will study the passions and not
curse them. He finds that by understanding them "we can bring it to
pass that we suffer less from them. We have, therefore, mainly to
strive to acquire a clear and distinct knowledge of each affect." {43c}
"If the human mind had none but adequate ideas it would form no notion
of evil." {44a} "The difference between a man who is led by affect or
opinion alone and one who is led by reason" is that "the former, whether
he wills it or not, does those things of which he is entirely ignorant,
but the latter does the will of no one but himself.
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