146 INTRODUCTION 



special freedom of will, is rather lacking in freedom, 

 since its determining reason is so obscure or confused 

 that it is hardly possible to describe it. Its obscurity 

 leads people to overlook it and to fancy that the action 

 is entirely without reason. No human action is unde- 

 termined, as none is absolutely necessitated ; but the 

 highest freedom accompanies the most perfect knowledge, 

 and God is the freest of beings, not because He can do 

 whatever He pleases, nor because He always acts spon- 

 taneously, from the necessity of His own nature, but 

 because every act of His is determined by infinite wisdom 

 to 'the best possible ends. 



Good and Evil The End of Conduct. 



So also good and evil are relative terms. Actions are 

 good in so far as they are determined by clear and distinct 

 perceptions, evil in so far as their determining reasons 

 are confused. As error is confused perception and is thus 

 imperfect truth, so sin is the action or appetition which 

 flows from confused perception, and is thus imperfect 

 righteousness. Now since it is of the essence of the soul 

 to be continually active, since its activity is more free 

 the clearer and more distinct are its perceptions, and 

 since pleasure consists in the freedom of its activity, the 

 end of conduct is the highest degree of freedom, which is 

 at once the highest degree of pleasure or felicity and the 

 highest degree of perception or knowledge. Every soul 

 more or less blindly seeks pleasure ; but the blinder it is 

 the more does it tend to seek satisfaction in present, 

 momentary pleasure. Its blindness or confusedness of 

 perception means that it does not think the matter out, 

 that it does not take into account the deeper nature and 

 connexions of things, and thus fails to find the best way 

 to freedom, felicity, wisdom. The soul instinctively tries 

 to take the shortest way to happiness ; but the way that 

 is really shortest is apt to appear to purblind souls a 



