To begin with, this Necessity and Fate would by their excess destroy
themselves, and render impossible the sequence and concatenation of
the causes. It is, indeed, absurd to insist that our members are moved
by Fate when they are set in motion, or innervated, by the "governing
principle." It is a mistake to suppose that there is a part which
imparts motion, and on the other hand, a part which receives it from
the former; it is the governing principle that moves the leg, as it
would any other part. Likewise, if in the universe exists but a single
principle which "acts and reacts," if things derive from each other
by a series of causes each of which refers to the preceding one, it
will no longer be possible to say truly that all things arise through
causes, for their totality will constitute but a single being. In that
case, we are no longer ourselves; actions are no longer ours; it is no
longer we who reason; it is a foreign principle which reasons, wills,
and acts in us, just as it is not our feet that walk, but we who walk
by the agency of our feet. On the contrary, common sense admits that
every person lives, thinks, and acts by his own individual, proper
life, thought and action; to each must be left the responsibility of
his actions, good or evil, and not attribute shameful deeds to the
universal cause.