Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/336

 THE WILL IN NATURE.

our self-knowledge. This process therefore, in coincidence with the consciousness of that true freedom which belongs to the will, as thing in itself outside phenomenon, produces the deceptive illusion that even the single act of volition is unconditioned and free: that is, without a reason; whereas, when the character is given and the motive recognised, every act of volition really follows with the same strict necessity as the changes of which mechanics teach us the laws, and, to use Kant's words, were character and motive exactly known, might be calculated with precisely the same certainty as an eclipse of the moon; or again, to place a very heterogeneous authority by the side of Kant, as Dante says, who is older than Buridan:

"Intra duo cibi distanti e moventi D'un modo, prima si morra di fame, Che liber' uomo l'un recasse a' denti." 1

[The Divine Comedy, "Paradiso," iv. I. 1]

1 Between two kinds of food, both equally Remote and tempting, first a man might die Of hunger, ere he one could freely choose.