SECOND EPILOGUE
10. 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 case- however 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 be- can we ever conceive
either complete freedom or complete necessity.
(1) To whatever degree we may imagine a man to be exempt 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.
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