Full text of d’Holbach’s The System of Nature (1770) may be found here: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/freethought/holbach/system/0syscontents.htm
From Part I Chapter XI, “Of
the System of Man's Free Agency”
… 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 shown him the absurdity or even the
impossibility.
…
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.
…
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 he 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 he 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.
…
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 recall 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. …
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. …
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 warranty 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. …
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 control. 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 partisans 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.
…
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.
…
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 show 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 irreconcilable 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 shown to children: legislation is necessity shown to the
members of the body politic: morals is the necessity of the relations
subsisting between men, shown 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. …
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 recall 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.