in the natural
state strives vainly. Wherefore, if a man, who is led by reason, has
sometimes to do by the commonwealth's order what he knows to be
repugnant to reason, that harm is far compensated by the good, which he
derives from the existence of a civil state. For it is reason's own law,
to choose the less of two evils; and accordingly we may conclude that no
one is acting against the dictate of his own reason, so far as he does
what by the law of the commonwealth is to be done. And this any one will
more easily grant us, after we have explained how far the power and
consequently the right of the commonwealth extends.

For, first of all, it must be considered that, as in the state of Nature
the man who is led by reason is most powerful and most independent, so
too that commonwealth will be most powerful and most independent which
is founded and guided by reason. For the right of the commonwealth is
determined by the power of the multitude, which is led, as it were, by
one mind. But this unity of mind can in no wise be conceived, unless the
commonwealth pursues chiefly the very end which sound reason teaches is
to the interest of all men.

In the second place it comes to be considered that subjects are so far
dependent, not on themselves but on the commonwealth, as they fear its
power or threats, or as they love the civil state. Whence it follows,
that such things, as no one can be induced to do by rewards or threats,
do not fall within the rights of the commonwealth. For instance, by
reason of his faculty of judgment, it is in no man's power to believe.
For by what rewards or threats can a man be brought to believe that the
whole is not greater than its part, or that God does not exist, or that
that is an infinite being, which he sees to be finite, or, generally,
anything contrary to his sense or thought? So, too, by what rewards or
threats can a man be brought to love one whom he hates, or to hate one
whom he loves? And to this head must likewise be referred such things as
are so abhorrent to human nature, that it regards them as actually worse
than any evil, as that a man should be witness against himself, or
torture himself, or kill his parents, or not strive to avoid death, and
the like, to which no one can be induced by rewards or threats. But if
we still choose to say that the commonwealth has the right or authority
to order such things, we can conceive of it in no other sense than that
in which one might sa