situation be its condition, the volition is not the condition, but the
conditioned, for it does not remain fixed in the actual situation,
nor repeats and makes a duplicate of it, which would be superfluous
and therefore impossible in the effective development of the real,
which does not allow of superfluity. The volition produces something
different, that is, something new, something that did not exist
previously and that now comes into existence: it is initiative,
creation, and therefore act of _freedom._ Were this not so, volition
would not be volition, and reality would not change, would not become,
would not grow upon itself.
And since without necessity there cannot be liberty, because without
an actual situation there cannot be volition, so without liberty there
cannot be necessity, the actual situations are not formed, which are
always new and always necessary in respect to the new volitions. Actual
situations are events, and events are the result of the concourse of
individual volitions. The two terms cannot be separated, for if one
be removed, so is the other; but neither can they be looked upon as
identical or synonymous. They are the two moments of the volitional
act, distinct and united, which act is the _unity_ of both, and
therefore, as was said, is at once free and determined.
This consciousness of necessity and liberty inseparably united is found
in all men of action, in all political geniuses, who are never inert or
reckless: they feel themselves at once bound and unbound; they always
conform to facts, but always to surpass them. The fatuous, on the other
hand, oscillate between the passivity of the given situation and the
sterile attempt to overleap it, that is, to leap over their own shadow.
They are consequently now inert, now forward. They do not therefore fix
or conclude anything, they do not act; or, if they do, it is always
according to what of the actual situation they have understood, and
what of initiative they have displayed.
[Sidenote: _Comparison with the æsthetic activity._]
The best comparison is afforded on this occasion also by the æsthetic
activity. No poet creates his poem outside definite conditions of
space and time, and even when he appears to be and is proclaimed "a
soul of other times," he belongs to his own time. The historical
situation is given to him. The world of his perceptions is such, with
those men, those customs, those thoughts, those works of art. But
when the new poem has appeared, there is in the world of reality (in
the contemplation of reality) something that was not there before,
which, although connected with the previous situation, yet is not
identical with it, is indeed a new form, and therefore a new content,
and so the revelation of a truth previously unknown. So true is this,
that in its turn the new poem conditions a spiritual and practical
movement, becomes part of the situation given for future actions and
for future poems. He is a true poet who feels himself at once bound
to his predecessors and free, conservative and revolutionary, like
Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare, who receive into themselves centuries of
history, of thought and of poetry, and add to those centuries something
that is the present and will be the future: _chargés du passé, gros de
l'avenir._ The false poet, on the other hand, is now a blind follower
of tradition and imitator, now a charlatanesque innovator, and if in
the vacuity in which he labours he sometimes does produce a fragment of
poetry, this happens only when he is made to look into himself and to
have a vision, be it great or small, of a world that arises.--But the
comparison instituted is rather an analogy than a comparison, for that
which happens in the practical sphere happens in that of poetry and in
all the other spheres of the spiritual activity. The Spirit is freedom,
and in order to be so, not in the abstract, but in the concrete, it
must also be necessity.
[Sidenote: _Critique of determinism and of arbitrarism._]
This indissoluble connection of necessity and liberty confutes both the
partial theories which dispute the field in the problem of freedom:
the _deterministic_ theory and that of _free will._ The determinists
do not see in the volitional act anything but the actual situation;
the followers of the theory of free will see nothing but the moment of
freedom. These conceive a volition that is as it were a duplication,
triplication, quadruplication of the given fact, and so on to the
infinite; those a volition that bursts forth from nothing, or rains
down from above and then inserts itself, no one knows how, into the
course of the real. Both exaggerate, and since exaggerations are called
in science errors in sense, both err, and being one-sided are proved
false. But since, on the other hand, it is a quality of errors opposed
to one another, to become identified and to pass, the one into the
other, it is given to us to assist at a like spectacle in this case
also, and to see the determinists change into arbitrarists and the
believers in free will into determinists. The first, in fact, passing
from cause to cause, abandon the concept of cause at the end of the
chain, as though (to use the expression of Schopenhauer), they were
dismissing the hired carriage, made use of during the day for their own
affairs, and return to free will. The others, being unable to justify
freedom in the world of reality and of experience, justify it in a
transcendental way, as the effect of a divine cause, which excludes
free will, and excludes it also when it concedes it; for by the very
fact of conceding, it determines, limits, and produces it.
[Sidenote: _General form of this antithesis: materialism and
mysticism._]
But with this explanation of our thesis, and of the two theses opposing
it, we are transported into the heart of one of the greatest problems
of Gnoseology, so great in fact as to appear to contain in it the whole
problem of philosophy. In fact, that which is called determinism and
free will in the Philosophy of the practical is the same antithesis
that in Gnoseology is called _materialism and mysticism._ And that
which we here oppose to the two one-sided theses, as theory of that
liberty which is also necessity, is called in Gnoseology, _idealism._
The thesis and antithesis are therefore to be found in all the
particular problems of philosophy, since they concern the logical form
in universal. This, then, is the reason why the question of freedom of
willing has become so grave and complicated as to appear insoluble. To
obtain a solution, it was necessary to construct a Logic of philosophy,
and intrinsically necessary to renew the whole system of philosophy.
Herbart wisely counselled never to discuss the freedom of the will with
the laity, in order not to be misunderstood.[3]
Had this advice been followed, we should not have seen both determinism
and free will torn asunder by advocates in the law courts, dragging
in the one or the other to suit their purposes, and thus insulting
good sense, which should alone rule in those places. The freedom of
the will is doubted and discussed among philosophers, as the reality
of the external world is doubted and discussed, but this is not done
because it is wished to set in doubt the existence of the boots of
this gentleman or of that gentleman's overcoat. If a confirmation be
sought that the question of the freedom of willing is, as was said, the
universal gnoseological or metaphysical question, let it be observed
how the determinists and the advocates of free will affirm or deny the
freedom of willing, not only in that field, but in all fields. Indeed,
whoever, for instance, should admit spiritual activity to knowledge and
deny it to the will, would not, properly speaking, be a determinist,
but an intellectualist or an æsthetician. That is to say, he would be
a theoretician, who, in denying the freedom of the will, would simply
mean to deny the existence of a practical activity side by side with
the theoretic; for freedom is the very essence of every spiritual form,
and with the denial of the freedom of that form is denied the form
itself. Determinism, arbitrarism, libertarianism reflect, then, the
universal gnoseological thesis of naturalism and mechanicism in the
special practical field.
[Sidenote: _The materialistic sophisms of determinism._]
Determinism of the will, like materialism and mechanicism in general,
consists in nothing but the transference to philosophical speculation
of the form proper to the physical disciplines. By dint of classifying
practical facts and presenting them as empirical concepts, and thus
as merely related by cause and effect, they end by forgetting that
those formulæ are not thoughts and that their content is not real
reality; and causes or motives (abstractive transformation of the
actual situation) are given as agents of the will, and thus the agent
is destroyed for the cause, the form for the abstract material. Hence
these timid phrases that on close inspection turn out to be tautologies
or mistakes: "Freedom is an illusion; what prevails is always the
strongest motive." But if we ask what is the strongest motive, we are
told (and no other reply is possible) it is _that which prevails._
This, translated into our language, amounts to saying that the actual
situation is the actual situation, and conditions the will, which is
what it is and can be no other than it is.--Virtue is a mere product,
like vitriol. Certainly, vitriol is also in its way a creation, a
manifestation of the spirit, as is virtue, and if it be permitted to
falsify vitriol by changing it into something material and mechanical,
nothing forbids doing the same for virtue. Virtue, too, can be produced
just like vitriol, that is to say, by setting in motion the spontaneous
forces of the spirit and of so-called nature, which itself is also
spirit, and nothing forbids endowing educators with the title of
chemists and apothecaries of virtue.
But metaphors are not arguments--Statistics prove the determinism of
human actions, which always reappear in the same way and in the same
quantity whenever certain actual circumstances appear.--But Statistics,
if they collect and simplify facts and construct views and tables
that are more or less useful, do not thus prove anything; for neither
are the instances that they give as equivalent, really so, nor the
relation that they declare between certain facts a real relation.
If we turn from artificial formulæ to the immediate observation of
the real, we find ourselves confronted with nothing but individuated
volitional acts, resulting from necessity and liberty.--The individual
has a constant character, of which action is the consequence: _operari
sequitur esse._--But the constant character is nothing but the
abstraction of the single acts done by the individual. It is therefore
natural that the actions should appear to be referable to the character
which is derived from them; but it is not correct to say that there
is equivalence, for abstraction is not equivalent to concretion.--The
individual, even if he can be conceived as free in respect to his
external environment, would be always subject to the law of his own
nature.--But the law of his own nature is not a contingent thing, but
the law itself of the Spirit, or, precisely, freedom, and it is quite
clear that freedom is not free not to be free.--The social organism
has its natural laws, which govern the action of the individual.--The
social organism is also an abstraction, which is turned into a being
only by the false interpretation of a metaphor. In all these examples,
and in the many others that could be brought forward, the error is
always the same as has been said: the substitution of the naturalistic
for the speculative construction, Physic for Metaphysic. And since
physical or naturalistic construction has no material other than given
historical facts, the doctrines above mentioned, when they are not
false, are always tautological and lead to the affirmation that the
volitional fact is a fact, or that in it is the moment of necessity.
[Sidenote: _The mysticism of arbitrarism._]
Arbitrarism, on the other hand, arises in the same way as mysticism,
from distrust of thought; being unable to dominate the fact that should
be explained, recourse is had to the inconceivable, to the absurd, to
miracle; subjective and individual ignorance is hypostasized and of
it is made a metaphysical reality. Arbitrarism, like mysticism, has
its element of truth, in the negation of determinism, that is, in the
recognition of the impotence of the naturalistic method and in the
affirmation that the truth lies beyond that method, in the concept of
creation and of freedom. But freedom separated from its logical and
necessary moment becomes transformed into will, just as in mysticism
in general God is transformed into the mystery, ready to receive all
individual caprices into himself, and to confer upon them an appearance
of truth.
[Sidenote: _The doctrine of necessity-liberty, and idealism._]
The concept of freedom (necessity-liberty), which is at once scientific
and not mechanical, and if it surpass the categories of Physic, does
not surpass those of Metaphysic, is opposed to both these views. As
idealist philosophy, it tends in general to conciliate the ideal with
the actual, thought with complete reality, philosophy with the whole of
experience. With the concept of freedom is eliminated the inertia of
determinism, and the unstable springing about of arbitrarism. The gross
material conception of the real disappears, because that which seems to
be matter is revealed as spirit, the fact as creation, necessity as the
product of liberty. But miracle disappears with them. For if the spirit
be the eternal, omnipresent, continuous miracle, unattainable by the
physical method,-a continual miracle, omnipresent and eternal, is no
longer a miracle, but the same simple and ordinary reality, which each
one of us contributes to create and each one of us can and does think.
[Sidenote: _The doctrine of double causality; dualism and agnosticism._]
Strict determinism and strict arbitrarism are not, however, the
sole adversaries of the concept of liberty-necessity, as rigorous
materialism and mysticism are not the only adversaries of idealism.
There exists another which must be called more dangerous (if
misunderstanding be more dangerous than error). This doctrine, since
it goes by the name of dualism, spiritualism, and neocriticism in
general philosophy, could be called the doctrine _of double practical
causality,_ in the field of the practical problem. The supporters
of this line of thought, despite many individual differences, are
all agreed in positing two distinct series of facts: one which obeys
mechanical causality, another which is initiative and creation, or (as
they say) obeys causality through freedom. There are thus two series
that interpenetrate one another or alternate at every instant and
are mutually blended, the one in the other. Hence there is something
of each in the volitional act, something of the strongest motive and
something of free choice. Such a solution has some external resemblance
with that which we maintain, but is intrinsically most different.
Our solution is _fusion_ of liberty and necessity, while this is
_juxtaposition;_ our solution is _conciliation,_ this _transaction._
Like every juxtaposition and transaction it displeases both the
contending parties, and falls into the power, now of the one, now of
the other. Thus, if, according to the theories of that tendency, it
be maintained that freedom exists, but that there are also causes
tending to diminish it, or that there exist volitional acts, but that
involuntary acts also exist, one does not understand how a series of
facts that has its own law in itself (freedom, the will) can ever be
subordinated to facts that obey a different law (diminution of freedom,
involuntariness of acts). If this happen sometimes or many times, we
must suspect that it happens always, and that the surviving freedom is
a mask of freedom, illusion. Thus, if it be affirmed that side by side
with causality, with equivalence of causes and effects, or with the
possibility of foreseeing the effect by means of the cause, there is
another causality, in which the effect is not equivalent to the cause,
and that not only is it not to be foreseen, but is such that only after
it has happened does it allow its cause to be discovered; then the
doubt arises that one of the two causalities does not exist, because
either the effect is equivalent to the cause, and so it must always be,
or it is not equivalent to it, and so it will never be; or it can be
foreseen by means of the cause, and so it will always be, or it cannot
be foreseen, and never will be foreseen. The strict determinists and
arbitrarists have the loyalty of error, and they are rare, because
energetic spirits are rare, but the doctrine of double causality is
tinged with some of the rouge of truth, and thus seduces the many,
and is proper to weak and irresolute spirits, as indeed are dualism,
spiritualism, agnosticism, neocriticism, of which this doctrine forms a
particular case. When the absurdity of determinism and of arbitrarism
has been recognized (and their very presence is an autocriticism), it
is necessary to satisfy with a new and single concept the claim that
they represent, certainly not with _the sum of two errors,_ and the new
single concept is that of true freedom.
[Sidenote: _Its character of transaction and transition._]
The doctrine of double causality has had its historical importance, not
because it is a _transaction,_ but rather because it is a _transition;_
that is, a gradual approximation to the true concept, with the
introduction into the naturalistic concept of an element of ferment and
dissolution: the concept of a causality by means of freedom, that is,
of a causality that is so only in name. The concept of freedom cannot
tolerate that of causality at its side, and of the two series posited,
one of the two is not real in itself, but simply a particular product
of the other: mechanical causality is not a fact, nor a conception, but
an instrument created for its own ends by spiritual freedom itself.
And only in this sense can it be admitted that freedom avails itself
of causality for its effectuation, and the truth of the observation be
realized, that the classifying of the perceptions in series of cause
and effect becomes itself also a presupposition of will and action.
The historical knowledge as to the actual situation that precedes the
volition, since it includes of necessity philosophical universal in
itself, so it can also include empirical universals, concepts, and
pseudo--concepts: the consciousness of the productivity of the spirit
and the mnemonic formulæ in which this productivity is fixed, and
for which it certainly appears to be mechanical, but only to him who
forgets that the formulæ themselves are mechanical.
[1] Summonte, _Historia di Napoli,_ ed. 1675, iv. 205, "Miracle caused
by fear."
[2] Dante, _Parad._ iv. 76.
[3] _Einleit. in die Phil._ § 128, trad. Vidossich, p. 169.
II
FREEDOM AND ITS OPPOSITE. GOOD AND EVIL
[Sidenote: _Freedom of action as reality of action._]
Since, then, the volitional act is freedom, the question as to whether
in a given case an individual has or has not been free, is equivalent
to this other question: _Has there really been volition_ (action) in
that case? This question can have and has (as any one who lends an
ear to such discussions as are frequently heard can verify) but two
meanings. The first is, whether the case under discussion be _action_
or _event,_ and, therefore, if it be or be not accurate to present it
as an individual act. For example:--Was Jacobinism the crime or the
glory of Voltaire and Rousseau? Was the defeat of Waterloo the fault of
Marshal Grouchy? The second is, if it be really a question of _action,_
what, _precisely,_ has that action been? For example:--What were the
respective parts of Voltaire and of Rousseau in the propaganda of the
revolutionary spirit and of the Jacobin mode of thought? What did
Marshal Grouchy really know and will when, instead of listening to
Exelmans and to others of his generals and marching whither the cannon
was thundering, he obeyed to the letter the order he had received and
attacked the Prussian army corps of Thielman?
[Sidenote: _Inconceivability of the absolute absence of action._]
There is a third meaning that is to be excluded: namely, as to whether
at a given moment of time there has been any sort of action or, on
the contrary, a void and total absence of action. For the only case
in which the individual does not act is that in which he is dead or
partially dead, be the death physiological or spiritual, that of a
corpse or of a madman. The glory of putting poor madmen on a level
with the guilty and the delinquent is to be left to the thinkers of
the "new school of penal law." In every other case, man always acts,
always wills, and is always responsible and free, because life, so long
as it lasts, is nothing but a web of volitions and therefore of free
acts. He is also responsible for the acts that contribute to put man
in such conditions as amount to madness more or less transitory, and
so of irresponsibility: such is the case of drunkenness and of moral
dangers imprudently sought, and so on. At no point of life does the
_practically indifferent_ exist.
Those actions, too, that appear to be neither willed nor free,
because they have become habitual, mechanicized, instinctive, are
willed and free, not indeed because (though this be true enough in
itself) habitual acts were once acts of will, but because (as we have
already had occasion to remark), although they have become facts
almost external to the individual willing, yet it is always the will
that permits them to act and can always arrest their action: they
are therefore to be looked upon as conditions of fact that every new
volition modifies, even when it accepts them. A machine is not the
work of the arm that moves it, but of hundreds and thousands of other
arms that were previously moved in order to construct it. But once
constructed, that which sets in motion the machinery is always the
work of one arm, an act of will, just as an act of will can stop its
movement and finally cause its disaggregation and destruction.
[Sidenote: _Non-freedom as antithesis and contrariety._]
But excluding the absolute absence of freedom of action (and of
existence in so far as it is action), and on the other hand the
presence of something different from it called causality having been
previously excluded from the idea of freedom, it remains nevertheless
indubitable that in the very bosom of freedom, there is _non-freedom.
_ Every volition is at the same time nolition, as every affirmation
is negation. Volition is love, nolition hate; and, as we know, every
love is hate, and the more we love, the more we hate. Antigone was
born to love intensely, and for that very reason, to hate profoundly.
What can be that which we hate in love and abhor in volition? What can
this internal enemy be, which does not consist either in the absence
of volition or in the presence of an extraneous and indifferent
element?--Since it is neither absent nor indifferent, it cannot be
anything but the _opposite or contrary_ of freedom, anti-freedom, which
constitutes the contradiction in its effective concretion.
[Sidenote: _Nullity and arbitrariness of non-freedom._]