3. The question must be examined carefully, for it will later be
applied to the divinities. Responsibility has been traced to the
will, and this to reason first, and later to right reason. Better, to
reason enlightened by knowledge; for freedom of will is not possessed
incontestably if one be ignorant of why his decision or action is
good, if one have been led to do the right thing by chance, or by some
sensible representation. Since the latter is not within our power, we
could not impute to free will the actions it inspired. By "sensible
representation," or, "phantasy,"[181] we mean the imagination excited
within us by the passions of the body; for it offers us different
images according as the body has need of food, of drink, or of sensual
pleasures. Those who act according to the "sensible representations"
excited within them by divers qualities of the humors of the body are
not wholly responsible for their actions. That is why depraved men, who
usually act according to these images, do not, according to us, perform
actions that are free and voluntary. We ascribe free will only to him
who, enfranchised from the passions of the body, performs actions
determined solely by intelligence. We refer liberty, therefore, to the
noblest principle, to the action of the intelligence[182]; we regard
as free only the decisions whose principle it is, and as voluntary,
only the desires it inspires. This freedom is that which we ascribe to
the divinities, who live in conformity with Intelligence, and with the
Desire of which it is the principle.[183]