its merit most highly. In an indifferent case we recognize in
it more individuality, originality, and independence. But if
even one of the innumerable causes of the act is known to us
we recognize a certain element of necessity and are less insistent on punishment for the crime, or the acknowledgment
of the merit of the virtuous act, or the freedom of the apparently original action. That a criminal was reared among
male factors mitigates his fault in our eyes. The self-sacrifice
of a father or mother, or self-sacrifice with the possibility of
a reward, is more comprehensible than gratuitous self-sacrifice, and therefore seems less deserving of sympathy and
less the result of free will. The founder of a sect or party,
or an inventor, impresses us less when we know how or by
what the way was prepared for his activity. If we have a large
range of examples, if our observation is constantly directed to seeking the correlation of cause and effect in people’s
actions, their actions appear to us more under compulsion
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and less free the more correctly we connect the effects with
the causes. If we examined simple actions and had a vast
number of such actions under observation, our conception
of their inevitability would be still greater. The dishonest
conduct of the son of a dishonest father, the misconduct of a
woman who had fallen into bad company, a drunkard’s relapse into drunkenness, and so on are actions that seem to
us less free the better we understand their cause. If the man
whose actions we are considering is on a very low stage of
mental development, like a child, a madman, or a simpletonthen, knowing the causes of the act and the simplicity
of the character and intelligence in question, we see so large
an element of necessity and so little free will that as soon
as we know the cause prompting the action we can foretell
the result.
On these three considerations alone is based the conception of irresponsibility for crimes and the extenuating
circumstances admitted by all legislative codes. The responsibility appears greater or less according to our greater or
lesser knowledge of the circumstances in which the man
was placed whose action is being judged, and according to
the greater or lesser interval of time between the commission of the action and its investigation, and according to the
greater or lesser understanding of the causes that led to the
action.
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Chapter X
Thus our conception of free will and inevitability gradually diminishes or increases according to the greater or
lesser connection with the external world, the greater or
lesser remoteness of time, and the greater or lesser dependence on the causes in relation to which we contemplate a
man’s life.
So that if we examine the case of a man whose connection with the external world is well known, where the time
between the action and its examination is great, and where
the causes of the action are most accessible, we get the conception of a maximum of inevitability and a minimum of
free will. If we examine a man little dependent on external
conditions, whose action was performed very recently, and
the causes of whose action are beyond our ken, we get the
conception of a minimum of inevitability and a maximum
of freedom.
In neither casehowever we may change our point of view,
however plain we may make to ourselves the connection between the man and the external world, however inaccessible
it may be to us, however long or short the period of time,
however intelligible or incomprehensible the causes of the
action may becan we ever conceive either complete freedom
or complete necessity.
(1) To whatever degree we may imagine a man to be ex
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empt from the influence of the external world, we never get
a conception of freedom in space. Every human action is
inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his
own body. I lift my arm and let it fall. My action seems to
me free; but asking myself whether I could raise my arm
in every direction, I see that I raised it in the direction in
which there was least obstruction to that action either from
things around me or from the construction of my own
body. I chose one out of all the possible directions because
in it there were fewest obstacles. For my action to be free
it was necessary that it should encounter no obstacles. To
conceive of a man being free we must imagine him outside
space, which is evidently impossible.
(2) However much we approximate the time of judgment
to the time of the deed, we never get a conception of freedom in time. For if I examine an action committed a second
ago I must still recognize it as not being free, for it is irrevocably linked to the moment at which it was committed. Can
I lift my arm? I lift it, but ask myself: could I have abstained
from lifting my arm at the moment that has already passed?
To convince myself of this I do not lift it the next moment.
But I am not now abstaining from doing so at the first moment when I asked the question. Time has gone by which I
could not detain, the arm I then lifted is no longer the same
as the arm I now refrain from lifting, nor is the air in which
I lifted it the same that now surrounds me. The moment in
which the first movement was made is irrevocable, and at
that moment I could make only one movement, and whatever movement I made would be the only one. That I did not
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lift my arm a moment later does not prove that I could have
abstained from lifting it then. And since I could make only
one movement at that single moment of time, it could not
have been any other. To imagine it as free, it is necessary to
imagine it in the present, on the boundary between the past
and the futurethat is, outside time, which is impossible.
(3) However much the difficulty of understanding the
causes may be increased, we never reach a conception of
complete freedom, that is, an absence of cause. However inaccessible to us may be the cause of the expression of will in
any action, our own or another’s, the first demand of reason is the assumption of and search for a cause, for without
a cause no phenomenon is conceivable. I raise my arm to
perform an action independently of any cause, but my wish
to perform an action without a cause is the cause of my action.
But even ifimagining a man quite exempt from all influences, examining only his momentary action in the present,
unevoked by any causewe were to admit so infinitely small
a remainder of inevitability as equaled zero, we should
even then not have arrived at the conception of complete
freedom in man, for a being uninfluenced by the external
world, standing outside of time and independent of cause,
is no longer a man.
In the same way we can never imagine the action of a
man quite devoid of freedom and entirely subject to the law
of inevitability.
(1) However we may increase our knowledge of the conditions of space in which man is situated, that knowledge
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can never be complete, for the number of those conditions
is as infinite as the infinity of space. And therefore so long
as not all the conditions influencing men are defined, there
is no complete inevitability but a certain measure of freedom remains.
(2) However we may prolong the period of time between
the action we are examining and the judgment upon it, that
period will be finite, while time is infinite, and so in this respect too there can never be absolute inevitability.
(3) However accessible may be the chain of causation of
any action, we shall never know the whole chain since it is
endless, and so again we never reach absolute inevitability.
But besides this, even if, admitting the remaining minimum of freedom to equal zero, we assumed in some given
caseas for instance in that of a dying man, an unborn babe,
or an idiotcomplete absence of freedom, by so doing we
should destroy the very conception of man in the case we
are examining, for as soon as there is no freedom there is
also no man. And so the conception of the action of a man
subject solely to the law of inevitability without any element
of freedom is just as impossible as the conception of a man’s
completely free action.
And so to imagine the action of a man entirely subject
to the law of inevitability without any freedom, we must
assume the knowledge of an infinite number of space relations, an infinitely long period of time, and an infinite series
of causes.
To imagine a man perfectly free and not subject to the
law of inevitability, we must imagine him all alone, beyond
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space, beyond time, and free from dependence on cause.
In the first case, if inevitability were possible without
freedom we should have reached a definition of inevitability
by the laws of inevitability itself, that is, a mere form without content.
In the second case, if freedom were possible without
inevitability we should have arrived at unconditioned freedom beyond space, time, and cause, which by the fact of its
being unconditioned and unlimited would be nothing, or
mere content without form.
We should in fact have reached those two fundamentals
of which man’s whole outlook on the universe is constructedthe incomprehensible essence of life, and the laws
defining that essence.
Reason says: (1) space with all the forms of matter that
give it visibility is infinite, and cannot be imagined otherwise. (2) Time is infinite motion without a moment of rest
and is unthinkable otherwise. (3) The connection between
cause and effect has no beginning and can have no end.
Consciousness says: (1) I alone am, and all that exists is
but me, consequently I include space. (2) I measure flowing
time by the fixed moment of the present in which alone I
am conscious of myself as living, consequently I am outside
time. (3) I am beyond cause, for I feel myself to be the cause
of every manifestation of my life.
Reason gives expression to the laws
