_Of the System of Man's free agency._
Those who have pretended that the _soul_ is distinguished from the body,
is immaterial, draws its ideas from its own peculiar source, acts by its
own energies without the aid of any exterior object; by a consequence
of their own system, have enfranchised it from those physical laws,
according to which all beings of which we have a knowledge are obliged
to act. They have believed that the foul is mistress of its own conduct,
is able to regulate its own peculiar operations; has the faculty to
determine its will by its own natural energy; in a word, they have
pretended man is a _free agent_.
It has been already sufficiently proved, that the soul is nothing more
than the body, considered relatively to some of its functions, more
concealed than others: it has been shewn, that this soul, even when it
shall be supposed immaterial, is continually modified conjointly with
the body; is submitted to all its motion; that without this it would
remain inert and dead: that, consequently, it is subjected to the
influence of those material, to the operation those physical causes,
which give impulse to the body; of which the mode of existence, whether
habitual or transitory, depends upon the material elements by which it
is surrounded; that form its texture; that constitute its temperament;
that enter into it by the means of the aliments; that penetrate it by
their subtility; the faculties which are called intellectual, and those
qualities which are styled moral, have been explained in a manner purely
physical; entirely natural: in the last place, it has been demonstrated,
that all the ideas, all the systems, all the affections, all the
opinions, whether true or false, which man forms to himself, are to be
attributed to his physical powers; are to be ascribed to his material
senses. Thus man is a being purely physical; in whatever manner he
is considered, he is connected to universal Nature: submitted to the
necessary, to the immutable laws that she imposes on all the beings
she contains, according to their peculiar essences; conformable to the
respective properties with which, without consulting them, she endows
each particular species. Man's life is a line that Nature commands him
to describe upon the surface of the earth: without his ever being
able to swerve from it even for an instant. He is born without his own
consent; his organizations does in no wise depend upon himself; his
ideas come to him involuntarily; his habits are in the power of those
who cause him to contract them; he is unceasingly modified by causes,
whether visible or concealed, over which he has no controul; give the
hue to his way of thinking, and determine his manner of acting. He
is good or bad--happy or miserable--wise or foolish--reasonable or
irrational, without his will going for anything in these various states.
Nevertheless, in despite of the shackles by which he is bound, it is
pretended he is a free agent, or that independent of the causes by which
he is moved, he determines his own will; regulates his own condition.
However slender the foundation of this opinion, of which every thing
ought to point out to him the error; it is current at this day for
an incontestible truth, and believed enlightened; it is the basis or
religion, which has been incapable of imagining how man could either
merit reward or deserve punishment if he was not a free agent. Society
has been believed interested in this system, because an idea has gone
abroad, that if all the actions of man were to be contemplated as
necessary, the right of punishing those who injure their associates
would no longer exist. At length human vanity accommodated itself to an
hypothesis which, unquestionable, appears to distinguish man from all
other physical beings, by assigning to him the special privilege of
a total independence of all other causes; but of which a very little
reflection would have shewn him the absurdity or even the impossibility.
As a part, subordinate to the great whole, man is obliged to experience
its influence. To be a free agent it were needful that each individual
was of greater strength than the entire of Nature; or, that he was out
of this Nature: who, always in action herself, obliges all the beings
she embraces, to act, and to concur to her general motion; or, as it
has been said elsewhere, to conserve her active existence, by the motion
that all beings produce in consequence of their particular energies,
which result from their being submitted to fixed, eternal, and immutable
laws. In order that man might be a free agent, it were needful that
all beings should lose their essences; it is equally necessary that
he himself should no longer enjoy physical sensibility; that he should
neither know good nor evil; pleasure nor pain; but if this was the case,
from that moment he would no longer be in a state to conserve himself,
or render his existence happy; all beings would become indifferent to
him; he would no longer have any choice; he would cease to know what he
ought to love; what it was right he should fear; he would not have any
acquaintance with that which he should seek after; or with that which it
is requisite he should avoid. In short, man would be an unnatural being;
totally incapable of acting in the manner we behold. It is the actual
essence of man to tend to his well-being; to be desirous to conserve
his existence; if all the motion of his machine springs as a necessary
consequence from this primitive impulse; if pain warns him of that which
he ought to avoid; if pleasure announces to him that which he should
desire; if it is in his essence to love that which either excites
delight, or, that from which he expects agreeable sensations; to hate
that which makes him either fear contrary impressions; or, that which
afflicts him with uneasiness; it must necessarily be, that he will be
attracted by that which he deems advantageous; that his will shall be
determined by those objects which he judges useful; that he will be
repelled by those beings which he believes prejudicial, either to his
habitual, or to his transitory mode of existence; by that which he
considers disadvantageous. It is only by the aid of experience, that man
acquires the faculty of understanding what he ought to love; of knowing
what he ought to fear. Are his organs sound? his experience will be
true: are they unsound? it will be false: in the first instance he will
have reason, prudence, foresight; he will frequently foresee very remote
effects; he will know, that what he sometimes contemplates as a good,
may possibly become an evil, by its necessary or probable consequences:
that what must be to him a transient evil, may by its result procure him
a solid and durable good. It is thus experience enables him to foresee
that the amputation of a limb will cause him painful sensation, he
consequently is obliged to fear this operation, and he endeavours
to avoid the pain; but if experience has also shewn him, that the
transitory pain this amputation will cause him may be the means of
saving his life; the preservation, of his existence being of necessity
dear to him, he is obliged to submit himself to the momentary pain with
a view to procuring a permanent good, by which it will be overbalanced.
The will, as we have elsewhere said, is a modification of the brain, by
which it is disposed to action or prepared to give play to the organs.
This will is necessarily determined by the qualities, good or bad,
agreeable or painful, of the object or the motive that acts upon his
senses; or of which the idea remains with him, and is resuscitated
by his memory. In consequence, he acts necessarily; his action is the
result of the impulse he receives either from the motive, from the
object, or from the idea, which has modified his brain, or disposed
his will. When he does not act according to this impulse, it is because
there comes some new cause, some new motive, some new idea, which
modifies his brain in a different manner, gives him a new impulse,
determines his will in another way; by which the action of the former
impulse is suspended: thus, the sight of an agreeable object, or its
idea, determines his will to set him in action to procure it; but if a
new object or a new idea more powerfully attracts him, it gives a
new direction to his will, annihilates the effect of the former, and
prevents the action by which it was to be procured. This is the mode in
which reflection, experience, reason, necessarily arrests or suspends
the action of man's will; without this, he would, of necessity, have
followed the anterior impulse which carried him towards a then desirable
object. In all this he always acts according to necessary laws, from
which he has no means of emancipating himself.
If, when tormented with violent thirst, he figures to himself an idea,
or really perceives a fountain, whose limpid streams might cool his
feverish habit, is he sufficient master of himself to desire or not
to desire the object competent to satisfy so lively a want? It will no
doubt be conceded, that it is impossible he should not be desirous to
satisfy it; but it will be said,--If at this moment it is announced
to him, the water he so ardently desires is poisoned, he will,
notwithstanding his vehement thirst, abstain from drinking it; and it
has, therefore, been falsely concluded that he is a free agent. The
fact, however, is, that the motive in either case is exactly the same:
his own conservation. The same necessity that determined him to drink,
before he knew the water was deleterious, upon this new discovery,
equally determines him not to drink; the desire of conserving himself,
either annihilates or suspends the former impulse; the second motive
becomes stronger than the preceding; that is, the fear of death, or
the desire of preserving himself, necessarily prevails over the painful
sensation caused by his eagerness to drink. But, (it will be said) if
the thirst is very parching, an inconsiderate man, without regarding
the danger, will risque swallowing the water. Nothing is gained by this
remark: in this case, the anterior impulse only regains the ascendency;
he is persuaded, that life may possibly be longer preserved, or that
he shall derive a greater good by drinking the poisoned water, than by
enduring the torment, which, to his mind, threatens instant dissolution:
thus, the first becomes the strongest, and necessarily urges him on to
action. Nevertheless, in either case, whether he partakes of the water,
or whether he does not, the two actions will be equally necessary; they
will be the effect of that motive which finds itself most puissant;
which consequently acts in a most coercive manner upon his will.
This example will serve to explain the whole phaenomena of the human
will. This will, or rather the brain, finds itself in the same situation
as a bowl, which although it has received an impulse that drives it
forward in a straight line, is deranged in its course, whenever a force,
superior to the first, obliges it to change its direction. The man who
drinks the poisoned water, appears a madman; but the actions of fools
are as necessary as those of the most prudent individuals. The motives
that determine the voluptuary, that actuate the debauchee to risk their
health, are as powerful, their actions are as necessary, as those
which decide the wise man to manage his. But, it will be insisted, the
debauchee may be prevailed on to change his conduct; this does not imply
that he is a free agent; but, that motives may be found sufficiently
powerful to annihilate the effect of those that previously acted upon
him; then these new motives determine his will to the new mode of
conduct he may adopt, as necessarily as the former did to the old mode.
Man is said to _deliberate_ when the action of the will is suspended;
this happens when two opposite motives act alternately upon him.
To deliberate, is to hate and to love in succession; it is to be
alternately attracted and repelled; it is to be moved sometimes by one
motive, sometimes by another. Man only deliberates when he does not
distinctly understand the quality of the objects from which he receives
impulse, or when experience has not sufficiently apprised him of the
effects, more or less remote, which his actions will produce. He
would take the air, but the weather is uncertain; he deliberates in
consequence; he weighs the various motives that urge his will to go out
or to stay at home; he is at length determined by that motive which is
most probable; this removes his indecision, which necessarily settles
his will either to remain within or to go abroad: this motive is always
either the immediate or ultimate advantage he finds or thinks he finds
in the action to which he is persuaded.
Man's will frequently fluctuates between two objects, of which either
the presence or the ideas move him alternately: he waits until he has
contemplated the objects or the ideas they have left in his brain; which
solicit him to different actions; he then compares these objects or
ideas: but even in the time of deliberation, during the comparison,
pending these alternatives of love and hatred, which succeed each other
sometimes with the utmost rapidity, he is not a free agent for a single
instant; the good or the evil which he believes he finds successively in
the objects, are the necessary motives of these momentary wills; of
the rapid motion of desire or fear that he experiences as long as his
uncertainty continues. From this it will be obvious, that deliberation
is necessary; that uncertainty is necessary; that whatever part he
takes, in consequence of this deliberation, it will always necessarily
be that which he has judged, whether well or ill, is most probable to
turn to his advantage.
When the soul is assailed by two motives that act alternately upon it,
or modify it successively, it deliberates; the brain is in a sort of
equilibrium, accompanied with perpetual oscillations, sometimes towards
one object, sometimes towards the other, until the most forcible carries
the point, and thereby extricates it, from this state of suspense,
in which consists the indecision of his will. But when the brain is
simultaneously assailed by causes equally strong, that move it in
opposite directions; agreeable to the general law of all bodies, when
they are struck equally by contrary powers, it stops, it is in _nisu_;
it is neither capable to will nor to act; it waits until one of the
two causes has obtained sufficient force to overpower the other, to
determine its will, to attract it in such a manner that it may prevail
over the efforts of the other cause.
This mechanism, so simple, so natural, suffices to demonstrate, why
uncertainty is painful; why suspense is always a violent state for
man. The brain, an organ so delicate, so mobile, experiences such rapid
modifications, that it is fatigued; or when it is urged in contrary
directions, by causes equally powerful, it suffers a kind of
compression, that prevents the activity which is suitable to the
preservation of the whole, which is necessary to procure what is
advantageous to its existence. This mechanism will also explain the
irregularity, the indecision, the inconstancy of man; and account for
that conduct, which frequently appears an inexplicable mystery, which
indeed it is, under the received systems. In consulting experience, it
will be found that the soul is submitted to precisely the same physical
laws as the material body. If the will of each individual, during a
given time, was only moved by a single cause or passion, nothing would
be more easy than to foresee his actions; but his heart is frequently
assailed by contrary powers, by adverse motives, which either act on him
simultaneously or in succession; then his brain, attracted in opposite
directions, is either fatigued, or else tormented by a state of
compression, which deprives it of activity. Sometimes it is in a state
of incommodious inaction; sometimes it is the sport of the alternate
shocks it undergoes. Such, no doubt, is the state in which man finds
himself, when a lively passion solicits him to the commission of crime,
whilst fear points out to him the danger by which it is attended: such,
also, is the condition of him whom remorse, by the continued labour
of his distracted soul, prevents from enjoying the objects he has
criminally obtained.
If the powers or causes, whether exterior or interior, acting on the
mind of man, tend towards opposite points, his soul, is well as all
other bodies, will take a mean direction between the two; in consequence
of the violence with which his soul is urged, his condition becomes
sometimes so painful that his existence is troublesome: he has no longer
a tendency to his own peculiar conservation; he seeks after death, as a
sanctuary against himself--as the only remedy to his despair: it is
thus we behold men, miserable and discontented, voluntarily destroy
themselves, whenever life becomes insupportable. Man is competent to
cherish his existence, no longer than life holds out charms to him;
when he is wrought upon by painful sensations, or drawn by contrary
impulsions, his natural tendency is deranged, he is under the necessity
to follow a new route; this conducts him to his end, which it even
displays to him as the most desirable good. In this manner may be
explained, the conduct of those melancholy beings, whose vicious
temperaments, whose tortured consciences, whose chagrin, whose _ennui_,
sometimes determine them to renounce life.
The various powers, frequently very complicated, that act either
successively or simultaneously upon the brain of man, which modify him
so diversely in the different periods of his existence, are the true
causes of that obscurity in morals, of that difficulty which is found,
when it is desired to unravel the concealed springs of his enigmatical
conduct. The heart of man is a labyrinth, only because it very rarely
happens that we possess the necessary gift of judging it; from whence
it will appear, that his circumstances, his indecision, his conduct,
whether ridiculous, or unexpected, are the necessary consequences of
the changes operated in him; are nothing but the effect of motives that
successively determine his will; which are dependent on the frequent
variations experienced by his machine. According to these variations,
the same motives have not, always, the same influence over his will,
the same objects no longer enjoy the faculty of pleasing him; his
temperament has changed, either for the moment, or for ever. It follows
as a consequence, that his taste, his desires, his passions, will
change; there can be no kind of uniformity in his conduct, nor any
certitude in the effects to be expected.
Choice by no means proves the free-agency of man; he only deliberates
when he does not yet know which to choose of the many objects that move
him, he is then in an embarrassment, which does not terminate, until his
will as decided by the greater advantage he believes be shall find in
the object he chooses, or the action he undertakes. From whence it may
be seen that choice is necessary, because he would not determine for an
object, or for an action, if he did not believe that he should find
in it some direct advantage. That man should have free-agency, it were
needful that he should be able to will or choose without motive; or,
that he could prevent motives coercing his will. Action always being the
effect of his will once determined, as his will cannot be determined but
by a motive, which is not in his own power, it follows that he is
never the master of the determination of his own peculiar will; that
consequently he never acts as a free agent. It has been believed that
man was a free agent, because he had a will with the power of choosing;
but attention has not been paid to the fact, that even his will is moved
by causes independent of himself, is owing to that which is inherent
in his own organization, or which belongs to the nature of the beings
acting on him. Indeed, man passes a great portion of his life without
even willing. His will attends the motive by which it is determined. If
he was to render an exact account of every thing he does in the course
of each day, from rising in the morning to lying down at night, he would
find, that not one of his actions have been in the least voluntary; that
they have been mechanical, habitual, determined by causes he was not
able to foresee, to which he was either obliged to, yield, or with which
he was allured to acquiesce; he would discover, that all the motives of
his labours, of his amusements, of his discourses, of his thoughts, have
been necessary; that they have evidently either seduced him or drawn him
along. Is he the master of willing, not to withdraw his hand from the
fire when he fears it will be burnt? Or has he the power to take away
from fire the property which makes him fear it? Is he the master of not
choosing a dish of meat which he knows to be agreeable, or analogous
to his palate; of not preferring it to that which he knows to be
disagreeable or dangerous? It is always according to his sensations, to
his own peculiar experience, or to his suppositions, that he judges of
things either well or ill; but whatever way be his judgment, it depends
necessarily on his mode of feeling, whether habitual or accidental,
and the qualities he finds in the causes that move him, which exist in
despite of himself.
All the causes which by his will is actuated, must act upon him in a
manner sufficiently marked, to give him some sensation, some perception,
some idea, whether complete or incomplete, true or false; as soon as
his will is determined, he must have felt, either strongly or feebly; if
this was not the case he would have determined without motive: thus, to
speak correctly, there are no causes which are truly indifferent to the
will: however faint the impulse he receives, whether on the part of the
objects themselves, or on the part of their images or ideas, as soon
as his will acts, the impulse has been competent to determine him. In
consequence of a slight, of a feeble impulse, the will is weak, it is
this weakness of the will that is called _indifference_. His brain with
difficulty perceives the sensation, it has received; it consequently
acts with less vigour, either to obtain or remove the object or the idea
that has modified it. If the impulse is powerful, the will is strong,
it makes him act vigorously, to obtain or to remove the object which
appears to him either very agreeable or very incommodious.
It has been believed man was a free agent, because it has been imagined
that his soul could at will recall ideas, which sometimes suffice
to check his most unruly desires. Thus, the idea of a remote evil
frequently prevents him from enjoying a present and actual good: thus,
remembrance, which is an almost insensible, a slight modification of his
brain, annihilates, at each instant, the real objects that act upon
his will. But he is not master of recalling to himself his ideas at
pleasure; their association is independent of him; they are arranged in
his brain, in despite of him, without his own knowledge, where they have
made an impression more or less profound; his memory itself depends upon
his organization; its fidelity depends upon the habitual or momentary
state in which he finds himself; when his will is vigorously determined
to some object or idea that excites a very lively passion in him, those
objects or ideas that would be able to arrest his action no longer
present themselves to his mind; in those moments his eyes are shut
to the dangers that menace him, of which the idea ought to make him
forbear; he marches forward headlong towards the object by whose image
he is hurried on; reflection cannot operate upon him in any way; he sees
nothing but the object of his desires; the salutary ideas which might be
able to arrest his progress disappear, or else display themselves either
too faintly or too late to prevent his acting. Such is the case with
all those who, blinded by some strong passion, are not in a condition
to recal to themselves those motives, of which the idea alone, in cooler
moments, would be sufficient to deter them from proceeding; the disorder
in which they are, prevents their judging soundly; render them incapable
of foreseeing the consequence of their actions; precludes them from
applying to their experience; from making use of their reason; natural
operations, which suppose a justness in the manner of associating
their ideas; but to which their brain is then not more competent, in
consequence of the momentary delirium it suffers, than their hand is to
write whilst they are taking violent exercise.
Man's mode of thinking is necessarily determined by his manner of
being; it must, therefore, depend on his natural organization, and the
modification his system receives independently of his will. From this we
are obliged to conclude, that his thoughts, his reflections, his manner
of viewing things, of feeling, of judging, of combining ideas, is
neither voluntary nor free. In a word, that his soul is neither mistress
of the motion excited in it, nor of representing to itself, when wanted,
those images or ideas that are capable of counterbalancing the impulse
it receives. This is the reason why man, when in a passion, ceases to
reason; at that moment reason is as impossible to be heard, as it is
during an extacy, or in a fit of drunkenness. The wicked are never more
than men who are either drunk or mad: if they reason, it is not until
tranquillity is re-established in their machine; then, and not till
then, the tardy ideas that present themselves to their mind, enable them
to see the consequence of their actions, and give birth to ideas,
that bring on them that trouble, which is designated _shame, regret,
remorse_.
The errors of philosophers on the free-agency of man, have arisen from
their regarding his will as the _primum mobile_, the original motive
of his actions; for want of recurring back, they have not perceived the
multiplied, the complicated causes, which, independently of him, give
motion to the will itself, or which dispose and modify his brain, whilst
he himself is purely passive in the motion he receives. Is he the master
of desiring or not desiring an object that appears desirable to him?
Without doubt it will be answered, No: but he is the master of resisting
his desire, if he reflects on the consequences. But, I ask, is he
capable of reflecting on these consequences when his soul is hurried
along by a very lively passion, which entirely depends upon his natural
organization, and the causes by which he is modified? Is it in his power
to add to these consequences all the weight necessary to counterbalance
his desire? Is he the master of preventing the qualities which render an
object desirable from residing in it? I shall be told, he ought to have
learned to resist his passions; to contract a habit of putting a curb on
his desires. I agree to it without any difficulty: but in reply, I again
ask, Is his nature susceptible of this modification? Does his boiling
blood, his unruly imagination, the igneous fluid that circulates in his
veins, permit him to make, enable him to apply true experience in the
moment when it is wanted? And, even when his temperament has capacitated
him, has his education, the examples set before him, the ideas with
which he has been inspired in early life, been suitable to make him
contract this habit of repressing his desires? Have not all these things
rather contributed to induce him to seek with avidity, to make him
actually desire those objects which you say he ought to resist.
The _ambitious man_ cries out,--You will have me resist my passion, but
have they not unceasingly repeated to me, that rank, honours, power,
are the most desirable advantages in life? Have I not seen my
fellow-citizens envy them--the nobles of my country sacrifice every
thing to obtain them? In the society in which I live, am I not obliged
to feel, that if I am deprived of these advantages, I must expect to
languish in contempt, to cringe under the rod of oppression?
The _miser_ says,--You forbid me to love money, to seek after the means
of acquiring it: alas! does not every thing tell me, that in this world
money is the greatest blessing; that it is amply sufficient to render
me happy? In the country I inhabit, do I not see all my fellow-citizens
covetous of riches? but do I not also witness that they are little
scrupulous in the means of obtaining wealth? As soon as they are
enriched by the means which you censure, are they not cherished,
considered, and respected? By what authority, then, do you object to my
amassing treasure? what right have you to prevent my using means,
which although you call them sordid and criminal, I see approved by the
sovereign? Will you have me renounce my happiness?
The _voluptuary_ argues,--You pretend that I should resist my desires;
but was I the maker of my own temperament, which unceasingly invites me
to pleasure? You call my pleasures disgraceful; but in the country in
which I live, do I not witness the most dissipated men enjoying the most
distinguished rank? Do I not behold, that no one is ashamed of adultery
but the husband it has outraged? do not I see men making trophies
of their debaucheries, boasting of their libertinism, rewarded, with
applause?
The _choleric_ man vociferates,--You advise me to put a curb on my
passions; to resist the desire of avenging myself: but can I conquer my
nature? Can I alter the received opinions of the world? Shall I not be
for ever disgraced, infallibly dishonoured in society, if I do not wash
out, in the blood of my fellow-creature, the injuries I have received?
The _zealous enthusiast_ exclaims,--You recommend to me mildness,
you advise me to be tolerant, to be indulgent to the opinions of my
fellow-men; but is not my temperament violent? Do I not ardently love my
God? Do they not assure me that zeal is pleasing to him; that sanguinary
inhuman persecutors have been his friends? That those who do not think
as I do are his enemies? I wish to render myself acceptable in his
sight, I therefore adopt the means you reprobate.
In short, the actions of man are never free; they are always the
necessary consequence of his temperament, of the received ideas, of
the notions, either true or false, which he has formed to himself
of happiness: of his opinions, strengthened by example, forfeited
by education, consolidated by daily experience. So many crimes are
witnessed on the earth, only because every thing conspires to render man
vicious, to make him criminal; very frequently, the superstitions he
has adopted, his government, his education, the examples set before him,
irresistibly drive him on to evil: under these circumstances morality
preaches virtue to him in vain. In those societies where vice is
esteemed, where crime is crowned, where venality is constantly
recompenced, where the most dreadful disorders are punished, only in
those who are too weak to enjoy the privilege of committing them with
impunity; the practice of virtue is considered nothing more than a
painful sacrifice of fancied happiness. Such societies chastise, in the
lower orders, those excesses which they respect in the higher ranks; and
frequently have the injustice to condemn those in penalty of death,
whom public prejudices, maintained by constant example, have rendered
criminal.
Man, then, is not a free agent in any one instant of his life; he is
necessarily guided in each step by those advantages, whether real or
fictitious, that he attaches to the objects by which his passions
are roused: these passions themselves are necessary in a being who,
unceasingly tends towards his own happiness; their energy is necessary,
since that depends on his temperament; his temperament is necessary,
because it depends on the physical elements which enter into his
composition; the modification of this temperament is necessary, as it
is the infallible result, the inevitable consequence of the impulse he
receives from the incessant action of moral and physical beings.
In despite of these proofs of the want of free-agency in man, so clear
to unprejudiced minds, it will, perhaps, be insisted upon with no small
feeling of triumph, that if it be proposed to any one to move or not to
move his hand, an action in the number of those called _indifferent_,
he evidently appears to be the master of choosing; from which it is
concluded, evidence has been offered of his free-agency. The reply is,
this example is perfectly simple; man in performing some action which he
is resolved on doing, does not by any means prove his free-agency: the
very desire of displaying this quality, excited by the dispute, becomes
a necessary motive which decides his will either for the one or the
other of these actions: what deludes him in this instance, or that which
persuades him he is a free agent at this moment, is, that he does not
discern the true motive which sets him in action; which is neither more
nor less than the desire of convincing his opponent: if in the heat of
the dispute he insists and asks, "Am I not the master of throwing myself
out of the window?" I shall answer him, no; that whilst he preserves his
reason, there is not even a probability that the desire of proving his
free-agency, will become a motive sufficiently powerful, to make him
sacrifice his life to the attempt; if, notwithstanding this, to prove he
is a free agent, he should actually precipitate himself from the window,
it would not be a sufficient warrantry to conclude he acted freely, but
rather that it was the violence of his temperament which spurred him
on to this folly. Madness is a state that depends upon the heat of
the blood, not upon the will. A fanatic or a hero, braves death as
necessarily as a more phlegmatic man or a coward flies from it. There
is, in point of fact, no difference between the man who is cast out of
the window by another, and the man who throws himself out of it, except
that the impulse in the first instance comes immediately from without,
whilst that which determines the fall in the second case, springs from
within his own peculiar machine, having its more remote cause also
exterior. When Mutius Scaevola held his hand in the fire, he was as much
acting under the influence of necessity, caused by interior motives,
that urged him to this strange action, as if his arm had been held by
strong men; pride, despair, the desire of braving his enemy, a wish
to astonish him, an anxiety to intimidate him, &c. were the invisible
chains that held his hand bound to the fire. The love of glory,
enthusiasm for their country, in like manner, caused Codrus and Decius
to devote themselves for their fellow citizens. The Indian Calanus and
the philosopher Peregrinus were equally obliged to burn themselves, by
the desire of exciting the astonishment of the Grecian assembly.
It is said that free-agency is the absence of those obstacles competent
to oppose themselves to the actions of man, or to the exercise of his
faculties: it is pretended that he is a free agent, whenever, making use
of these faculties, he produces the effect he has proposed to himself.
In reply to this reasoning, it is sufficient to consider that it in no
wise depends upon himself to place or remove the obstacles that either
determine or resist him; the motive that causes his action is no more in
his own power than the obstacle that impedes him, whether this obstacle
or motive be within his own machine or exterior of his person: he is not
master of the thought presented to his mind which determines his will;
this thought is excited by some cause independent of himself.
To be undeceived on the system of his free-agency, man has simply to
recur to the motive by which his will is determined, he will always find
this motive is out of his own controul. It is said, that in consequence
of an idea to which the mind gives birth, man acts freely if he
encounters no obstacle. But the question is, what gives birth to this
idea in his brain? has he the power either to prevent it from presenting
itself, or from renewing itself in his brain? Does not this idea
depend either upon objects that strike him exteriorly and in despite of
himself, or upon causes that without his knowledge act within himself
and modify his brain? Can he prevent his eyes, cast without design upon
any object whatever, from giving him an idea of this object, from
moving his brain? He is not more master of the obstacles; they are the
necessary effects of either interior or exterior causes, which always
act according to their given properties. A man insults a coward, who is
necessarily irritated against his insulter, but his will cannot vanquish
the obstacle that cowardice places to the object of his desire, which
is, to resent the insult; because his natural conformation, which does
not depend upon himself, prevents his having courage. In this case
the coward is insulted in despite of himself, and against his will is
obliged patiently to brook the insult he has received.
The partizans of the system of free-agency appear ever to have
confounded constraint with necessity. Man believes he acts as a free
agent, every time he does not see any thing that places obstacles to his
actions; he does not perceive that the motive which causes him to will
is always necessary, is ever independent of himself. A prisoner loaded
with chains is compelled to remain in prison, but he is not a free
agent, he is not able to resist the desire to emancipate himself;
his chains prevent him from acting, but they do not prevent him from
willing; he would save himself if they would loose his fetters, but he
would not save himself as a free agent, fear or the idea of punishment
would be sufficient motives for his action.
Man may therefore cease to be restrained, without, for that reason,
becoming a free agent: in whatever manner he acts, he will act
necessarily; according to motives by which he shall be determined.
He may be compared to a heavy body, that finds itself arrested in its
descent by any obstacle whatever: take away this obstacle, it will
gravitate or continue to fall; but who shall say this dense body is
free to fall or not? Is not its descent the necessary effect of its own
specific gravity? The virtuous Socrates submitted to the laws of his
country, although they were unjust; notwithstanding the doors of his
gaol were left open to him he would not save himself; but in this he
did not act as a free agent; the invisible chains of opinion, the secret
love of decorum, the inward respect for the laws, even when they were
iniquitous, the fear of tarnishing his glory, kept him in his prison:
they were motives sufficiently powerful, with this enthusiast for
virtue, to induce him to wait death with tranquillity; it was not in
his power to save himself, because he could find no potential motive to
bring him to depart, even for an instant, from those principles to which
his mind was accustomed.
Man, says he, frequently acts against his inclination, from whence
he has falsely concluded he is a free agent; when he appears to act
contrary to his inclination, he is determined to it by some motive
sufficiently efficacious to vanquish this inclination. A sick man, with
a view to his cure, arrives at conquering his repugnance to the most
disgusting remedies: the fear of pain, the dread of death, then become
necessary and intelligent motives; consequently, this sick man cannot be
said, with truth, by any means, to act freely.
When it is said, that man is not a free agent, it is not pretended to
compare him to a body moved by a simple impulsive cause: he contains
within himself causes inherent to his existence; he is moved by an
interior organ, which has its own peculiar laws; which is itself
necessarily determined, in consequence of ideas formed from perceptions,
resulting from sensations, which it receives from exterior objects. As
the mechanism of these sensations, of these perceptions, and the manner
they engrave ideas on the brain of man, are not known to him, because he
is unable to unravel all these motions; because he cannot perceive
the chain of operations in his soul, or the motive-principle that
acts within him, he supposes himself a free agent; which, literally
translated, signifies that he moves himself by himself; that he
determines himself without cause; when he rather ought to say, he is
ignorant how or for why he acts in the manner he does. It is true the
soul enjoys an activity peculiar to itself, but it is equally certain
that this activity would never be displayed if some motive or some cause
did not put it in a condition to exercise itself, at least it will not
be pretended that the soul is able either to love or to hate without
being moved, without knowing the objects, without having some idea of
their qualities. Gunpowder has unquestionably a particular activity, but
this activity will never display itself, unless fire be applied to it;
this, however, immediately sets in motion.
It is the great complication of motion in man, it is the variety of
his action, it is the multiplicity of causes that move him, whether
simultaneously or in continual succession, that persuades him he is a
free agent: if all his motions were simple, if the causes that move him
did not confound themselves with each other, if they were distinct, if
his machine was less complicated, he would perceive that all his actions
were necessary, because he would be enabled to recur instantly to
the cause that made him act. A man who should be always obliged to
go towards the west would always go on that side, but he would feel
extremely well, that in so going he was not a free agent: if he had
another sense, as his actions or his motion augmented by a sixth would
be still more varied, much more complicated, he would believe himself
still more a free agent than he does with his five senses.
It is, then, for want of recurring to the causes that move him, for
want of being able to analyse, from not being competent to decompose
the complicated motion of his machine, that man believes himself a free
agent; it is only upon his own ignorance that he founds the profound
yet deceitful notion he has of his free-agency, that he builds those
opinions which he brings forward as a striking proof of his pretended
freedom of action. If, for a short time, each man was willing to examine
his own peculiar actions, to search out their true motives, to discover
their concatenation, he would remain convinced that the sentiment he has
of his natural free-agency is a chimera that must speedily be destroyed
by experience.
Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the multiplicity, the
diversity of the causes which continually act upon man, frequently
without even his knowledge, render it impossible, or at least extremely
difficult, for him to recur to the true principles of his own peculiar
actions, much less the actions of others; they frequently depend
upon causes so fugitive, so remote from their effects, and which,
superficially examined, appear to have so little analogy, so slender
a relation with them, that it requires singular sagacity to bring them
into light. This is what renders the study of the moral man a task of
such difficulty; this is the reason why his heart is an abyss, of which
it is frequently impossible for him to fathom the depth. He is, then,
obliged to content himself with a knowledge of the general and necessary
laws by which the human heart is regulated; for the individuals of his
own species these laws are pretty nearly the same, they vary only in
consequence of the organization that is peculiar to each, and of the
modification it undergoes; this, however, is not, cannot be rigorously
the same in any two. It suffices to know that by his essence man tends
to conserve himself, to render his existence happy: this granted,
whatever may be his actions, if he recurs back to this first principle,
to this general, this necessary tendency of his will, he never can be
deceived with regard to his motives. Man, without doubt, for want of
cultivating reason, being destitute of experience, frequently deceives
himself upon the means of arriving at this end; sometimes the means he
employs are unpleasant to his fellows, because they are prejudicial
to their interests; or else those of which he avails himself appear
irrational, because they remove him from the end to which he would
approximate: but whatever may be these means, they have always
necessarily and invariably for object, either an existing or imaginary
happiness; are directed to preserve himself in a state analogous to his
mode of existence, to his manner of feeling, to his way of thinking;
whether durable or transitory. It is from having mistaken this truth,
that the greater number of moral philosophers have made rather the
romance, than the history of the human heart; they have attributed the
actions of man to fictitious causes; at least they have not sought out
the necessary motives of his conduct. Politicians and legislators have
been in the same state of ignorance; or else impostors have found it
much shorter to employ imaginary motive-powers, than those which really
have existence: they have rather chosen to make man wander out of his
way, to make him tremble under incommodious phantoms, than guide him to
virtue by the direct road to happiness; notwithstanding the conformity
of the latter with the natural desires of his heart. So true it is, that
_error can never possibly be useful, to the human species_.
However this may be, man either sees or believes he sees, much more
distinctly, the necessary relation of effects with their causes in
natural philosophy than in the human heart; at least he sees in the
former sensible causes constantly produce sensible effects, ever the
same, when the circumstances are alike. After this, he hesitates not
to look upon physical effects as necessary, whilst he refuses to
acknowledge necessity in the acts of the human will; these he has,
without any just foundation, attributed to a motive-power that acts
independently by its own peculiar energy, that is capable of modifying
itself without the concurrence of exterior causes, and which is
distinguished from all material or physical beings. _Agriculture_ is
founded upon the assurance afforded by experience, that the earth,
cultivated and sown in a certain manner, when it has otherwise the
requisite qualities, will furnish grain, fruit, and flowers, either
necessary for subsistence or pleasing to the senses. If things were
considered without prejudice, it would be perceived, that in morals
education is nothing more than _the agriculture of the mind_; that like
the earth, by reason of its natural disposition, of the culture bestowed
upon it, of the seeds with which it is sown, of the seasons, more or
less favorable, that conduct it to maturity, we may be assured that
the soul will produce either virtue or vice; _moral fruit_ that will be
either salubrious for man or baneful to society. _Morals_ is the science
of the relations that subsist between the minds, the wills, and the
actions of men; in the same manner that _geometry_ is the science of the
relations that are found between bodies. Morals would be a chimera,
it would have no certain principles, if it was not founded upon the
knowledge of the motives which must necessarily have an influence upon
the human will, and which must necessarily determine the actions of
human beings.
If in the moral as well as in the physical world, a cause of which the
action is not interrupted be necessarily followed by a given effect, it
flows consecutively that a _reasonable education_, grafted upon truth,
founded upon wise laws,--that honest principles instilled during youth,
virtuous examples continually held forth, esteem attached solely to
merit, recompense awarded to none but good actions, contempt regularly
visiting vice, shame following falsehood as its shadow, rigorous
chastisements applied without distinction to crime, are causes that
would necessarily act on the will of man; that would determine the
greater number of his species to exhibit virtue, to love it for its own
sake, to seek after it as the most desirable good, as the surest road
to the happiness he so ardently desires. But if, on the contrary,
superstition, politics, example, public opinion, all labour to
countenance wickedness, to train man viciously; if, instead of fanning
his virtues, they stifle good principles; if, instead of directing his
studies to his advantage, they render his education either useless or
unprofitable; if this education itself, instead of grounding him in
virtue, only inoculates him with vice; if, instead of inculcating
reason, it imbues him with prejudice; if, instead of making him
enamoured of truth, it furnishes him with false notions; if, instead
of storing his mind with just ideas drawn from experience, it fills
him with dangerous opinions; if, instead of fostering mildness and
forbearance, it kindles in his breast only those passions which are
incommodious to himself and hurtful to others; it must be of necessity,
that the will of the greater number shall determine them to evil; shall
render them unworthy, make them baneful to society. Many authors have
acknowledged the importance of a good education, that youth was the
season to feed the human heart with wholesome diet; but they have not
felt, that a good education is incompatible, nay, impossible, with the
superstition of man, since this commences with giving his mind a false
bias: that it is equally inconsistent with arbitrary government, because
this always dreads lest he should become enlightened, and is ever
sedulous to render him servile, mean, contemptible, and cringing; that
it is incongruous with laws that are not founded in equity, that are
frequently bottomed on injustice; that it cannot obtain with those
received customs that are opposed to good sense; that it cannot exist
whilst public opinion is unfavourable to virtue; above all, that it is
absurd to expect it from incapable instructors, from masters with weak
minds, who have only the ability to infuse into their scholars those
false ideas with which they are themselves infected. Here, without
doubt, is the real source from whence springs that universal corruption,
that wide-spreading depravity, of which moralists, with great justice,
so loudly complain; without, however, pointing out those causes of the
evil, which are true as they are necessary: instead of this, they search
for it in human nature, say it is corrupt, blame man for loving himself,
and for seeking after his own happiness, insist that he must have
supernatural assistance, some marvellous interference, to enable him to
become good: this is a very prejudicial doctrine for him, it is directly
subversive of his true happiness; by teaching him to hold himself in
contempt, it tends necessarily to discourage him; it either makes him
sluggish, or drives him to despair whilst waiting for this grace: is it
not easy to be perceived, that he would always have it if he was well
educated; if he was honestly governed? There cannot well exist a
wilder or a stranger system of morals, than that of the theologians who
attribute all moral evil to an original sin, and all moral good to the
pardon of it. It ought not to excite surprise if such a system is of no
efficacy; what can reasonably be the result of such an hypothesis? Yet,
notwithstanding the supposed, the boasted free-agency of man, it
is insisted that nothing less than the Author of Nature himself is
necessary to destroy the wicked desires of his heart: but, alas! no
power whatever is found sufficiently efficacious to resist those unhappy
propensities, which, under the fatal constitution of things, the most
vigorous motives, as before observed, are continually infusing into
the will of man; no agency seems competent to turn the course of that
unhappy direction these are perpetually giving to the stream of his
natural passions. He is, indeed, incessantly exhorted to resist these
passions, to stifle them, and to root them out of his heart; but is it
not evident they are necessary to his welfare? Can it not be perceived
they are inherent in his nature? Does not experience prove them to be
useful to his conservation, since they have for object, only to avoid
that which may be injurious to him; to procure that which may be
advantageous to his mode of existence? In short, is it not easy to
be seen, that these passions, well directed, that is to say, carried
towards objects that are truly useful, that are really interesting
to himself, which embrace the happiness of others, would necessarily
contribute to the substantial, to the permanent well-being of society?
Theologians themselves have felt, they have acknowledged the necessity
of the passions: many of the fathers of the church have broached this
doctrine; among the rest Father Senault has written a book expressly on
the subject: the passions of man are like fire, at once necessary to
the wants of life, suitable to ameliorate the condition of humanity,
and equally capable of producing the most terrible ravages, the most
frightful devastation.
Every thing becomes an impulse to the will; a single word frequently
suffices to modify a man for the whole course of his life, to decide
for ever his propensities; an infant who has burned his finger by having
approached it too near the flame of a lighted taper, is warned from
thence, that he ought to abstain from indulging a similar temptation; a
man, once punished and despised for having committed a dishonest
action, is not often tempted to continue so unfavourable a course. Under
whatever point of man is considered, he never acts but after the impulse
given to his will, whether it be by the will of others, or by more
perceptible physical causes. The particular organization decides
the nature of the impulse; souls act upon souls that are analogous;
inflamed, fiery imaginations, act with facility upon strong passions;
upon imaginations easy to be inflamed, the surprising progress of
enthusiasm; the hereditary propagation of superstition; the transmission
of religious errors from race to race, the excessive ardour with which
man seizes on the marvellous, are effects as necessary as those which
result from the action and re-action of bodies.
In despite of the gratuitous ideas which man has formed to himself on
his pretended free-agency; in defiance of the illusions of this suppose
intimate sense, which, contrary to his experience, persuades him that
he is master of his will,--all his institutions are really founded upon
necessity: on this, as on a variety of other occasions, practice throws
aside speculation. Indeed, if it was not believed that certain motives
embraced the power requisite to determine the will of man, to arrest the
progress of his passions, to direct them towards an end, to modify him;
of what use would be the faculty of speech? What benefit could arise
from education itself? What does education achieve, save give the first
impulse to the human will, make man contract habits, oblige him to
persist in them, furnish him with motives, whether true or false, to
act after a given manner? When the father either menaces his son with
punishment, or promises him a reward, is he not convinced these things
will act upon his will? What does legislation attempt, except it be
to present to the citizens of a state those motives which are supposed
necessary to determine them to perform some actions that are considered
worthy; to abstain from committing others that are looked upon as
unworthy? What is the object of morals, if it be not to shew man that
his interest exacts he should suppress the momentary ebullition of
his passions, with a view to promote a more certain happiness, a more
lasting well-being, than can possibly result from the gratification of
his transitory desires? Does not the religion of all countries suppose
the human race, together with the entire of Nature, submitted to the
irresistible will of a necessary being, who regulates their condition
after the eternal laws of immutable wisdom? Is not God the absolute
master of their destiny? Is it not this divine being who chooses and
rejects? The anathemas fulminated by religion, the promises it holds
forth, are they not founded upon the idea of the effects they will
necessarily produce upon mankind? Is not man brought into existence
without his own knowledge? Is he not obliged to play a part against his
will? Does not either his happiness or his misery depend on the part he
plays?
All religion has been evidently founded upon _Fatalism_. Among the
Greeks they supposed men were punished for their necessary faults,
as may be seen in Orestes, in Oedipus, &c. who only committed crimes
predicted by the oracles. It is rather singular that the theological
defenders of the doctrine of _free-agency_, which they endeavour
to oppose to that of _predestination_,--which according to them is
irreconcileable with _Christianity_, inasmuch as it is a false and
dangerous system,--should not have been aware that the doctrines of _the
fall of angels, original sin, the small number of the elect, the system
of grace, &c._ were most incontestibly supporting, by the most cogent
arguments, a _true system of fatalism_.
_Education_, then, is only necessity shewn to children: _legislation_
is necessity shewn to the members of the body politic: _morals_ is the
necessity of the relations subsisting between men, shewn to reasonable
beings: in short, man grants _necessity_ in every thing for which he
believes he has certain, unerring experience: that of which he does
not comprehend the necessary connection of causes with their effects
he styles _probability_: he would not act as he does, if he was not
convinced, or, at least, if he did not presume he was, that certain
effects will necessarily follow his actions. The _moralist_ preaches
reason, because he believes it necessary to man: the _philosopher_
writes, because he believes truth must, sooner or later, prevail over
falsehood: _tyrants_ and _fanatical priests_ necessarily hate truth,
despise reason, because they believe them prejudicial to their
interests: the _sovereign_, who strives to terrify crime by the
severity of his laws, but who nevertheless, from motives of state policy
sometimes renders it useful and even necessary to his purposes, presumes
the motives he employs will be sufficient to keep his subjects within
bounds. All reckon equally upon the power or upon the necessity of the
motives they make use of; each individual flatters himself, either with
or without reason, that these motives will have an influence on the
conduct of mankind. The education of man is commonly so defective, so
inefficacious, so little calculated to promote the end he has in view,
because it is regulated by prejudice: even when this education is good,
it is but too often speedily counteracted, by almost every thing that
takes place in society. Legislation and politics are very frequently
iniquitous, and serve no better purpose than to kindle passions in the
bosom of man, which once set afloat, they are no longer competent to
restrain. The great art of the moralist should be, to point out to man,
to convince those who are entrusted with the sacred office of regulating
his will, that their interests are identified; that their reciprocal
happiness depends upon the harmony of their passions; that the safety,
the power, the duration of empires, necessarily depend on the good
sense diffused among the individual members; on the truth of the notions
inculcated in the mind of the citizens, on the moral goodness that
is sown in their hearts, on the virtues that are cultivated in their
breasts; religion should not be admissible, unless it truly fortified,
unless it really strengthened these motives. But in the miserable
state into which error has plunged a considerable portion of the human
species, man, for the most part, is seduced to be wicked: he injures his
fellow-creature as a matter of conscience, because the strongest motives
are held out to him to be persecuting; because his institutions invite
him to the commission of evil, under the lure of promoting his own
immediate happiness. In most countries superstition renders him a
useless being, makes him an abject slave, causes him to tremble under
its terrors, or else turns him into a furious fanatic, who is at once
cruel, intolerant, and inhuman: in a great number of states arbitrary
power crushes him, obliges him to become a cringing sycophant, renders
him completely vicious: in those despotic states the law rarely visits
crime with punishment, except in those who are too feeble to oppose
its course? or when it has become incapable of restraining the violent
excesses to which a bad government gives birth. In short, rational
education is neglected; a prudent culture of the human mind is despised;
it depends, but too frequently, upon bigotted, superstitious priests,
who are interested in deceiving man, and who are sometimes impostors;
or else upon parents or masters without understanding, who are devoid
of morals, who impress on the ductile mind of their scholars those vices
with which they are themselves tormented; who transmit to them the false
opinions, which they believe they have an interest in making them adopt.
All this proves the necessity of falling back to man's original errors,
and recurring to the primitive source of his wanderings, if it be
seriously intended to furnish him with suitable remedies for such
enormous maladies: it is useless to dream of correcting his mistakes,
of curing him of his depravity, until the true causes that move his will
are unravelled; until more real, more beneficial, more certain motives
are substituted for those which are found so inefficacious; which prove
so dangerous both to society and to himself. It is for those who guide
the human will, who regulate the condition of nations, who hold the
real happiness of man in their grasp, to seek after these motives,--with
which reason will readily furnish them--which experience will enable
them to apply with success: even a good book, by touching the heart of
a great prince, may become a very powerful cause that shall necessarily
have an influence over the conduct of a whole people, and decide upon
the felicity of a portion of the human race.
From all that has been advanced in this chapter, it results, that in no
one moment of his existence man is a free agent: he is not the architect
of his own conformation; this he holds from Nature, he has no controul
over his own ideas, or over the modification of his brain; these are
due to causes, that, in despite of him, very frequently without his own
knowledge, unceasingly act upon him; he is not the master of not loving
that which he finds amiable; of not coveting that which appears to
him desirable; he is not capable of refusing to deliberate, when he
is uncertain of the effects certain objects will produce upon him; he
cannot avoid choosing that which he believes will be most advantageous
to him: in the moment when his will is determined by his choice, he is
not competent to act otherwise than he does: in what instance, then, is
he the master of his own actions? In what moment is he a free agent?
That which a man is about to do is always a consequence of that which
he has been--of that which he is--of that which he has done up to the
moment of the action: his total and actual existence, considered under
all its possible circumstances, contains the sum of all the motives
to the action he is about to commit; this is a principle, the truth of
which no thinking, being will be able to refuse accrediting: his life
is a series of necessary moments; his conduct, whether good or bad,
virtuous or vicious, useful or prejudicial, either to himself or to
others, is a concatenation of action, a chain of causes and effects, as
necessary as all the moments of his existence. To _live_, is to exist in
a necessary mode during the points of its duration, which succeed each
other necessarily: to _will_, is to acquiesce or not in remaining such
as he is: to be _free_, is to yield to the necessary motives that he
carries within himself.
If he understood the play of his organs, if he was able to recal to
himself all the impulsions they have received, all the modifications
they have undergone, all the effects they have produced, he would
perceive, that all his actions are submitted to that _fatality_ which
regulates his own particular system, as it does the entire system of the
universe: no one effect in him, any more than in Nature, produce itself
by _chance_; this, as has been before proved, is a word void of sense.
All that passes in him, all that is done by him, as well as all that
happens in Nature, or that is attributed to her, is derived from
necessary laws, which produce necessary effects; from whence necessarily
flow others.
_Fatality_ is the eternal, the immutable, the necessary order
established in Nature, or the indispensible connection of causes that
act with the effects they operate. Conforming to this order, heavy
bodies fall, light bodies rise; that which is analogous in matter,
reciprocally attracts; that which is heterogeneous, mutually repels; man
congregates himself in society, modifies each his fellow, becomes either
virtuous or wicked; either contributes to his mutual happiness, or
reciprocates his misery; either loves his neighbour, or hates his
companion necessarily; according to the manner in which the one acts
upon the other. From whence it may be seen, that the same necessity
which regulates the physical, also regulates the moral world: in which
every thing is in consequence submitted to fatality. Man, in running
over, frequently without his own knowledge, often in despite of himself,
the route which Nature has marked out for him, resembles a swimmer who
is obliged to follow the current that carries him along; he believes
himself a free agent, because he sometimes consents, sometimes does
not consent, to glide with the stream; which, notwithstanding, always
hurries him forward; he believes himself the master of his condition,
because he is obliged to use his arms under the fear of sinking.
The false ideas he has formed to himself upon free-agency, are
in general thus founded: there are certain events which he judges
_necessary_; either because he sees they are effects that are
constantly, are invariably linked to certain causes, which nothing seems
to prevent; or because he believes he has discovered the chain of causes
and effects that is put in play to produce those events: whilst he
contemplates as _contingent_, other events, of whose causes he is
ignorant; the concatenation of which he does not perceive; with whose
mode of acting he is unacquainted: but in Nature, where every thing is
connected by one common bond, there exists no effect without a cause. In
the moral as well as in the physical world, every thing that happens is
a necessary consequence of causes, either visible or concealed; which
are, of necessity, obliged to act after their peculiar essences.
_In man, free-agency is nothing more than necessity contained within
himself_.