The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

Apart from the fact that the will as the true thing-initself is actually original and independent, and that the feeling of its originality and absoluteness must accompany its acts in self-consciousness, though here they are already determined, there arises the illusion of an empirical freedom of the will (instead of the transcendental freedom which alone is to be attributed to it), and thus a freedom of its particular actions, from that attitude of the intellect towards the will which is explained, separated, and subordinated in the nineteenth chapter of the supplement, especially under No. 3. The intellect knows the conclusions of the will only a ‘posteriori and empirically; therefore when a choice is presented, it has no data as to how the will is to decide. For the intelligible character, by virtue of which, when motives are given, only om

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decision is possible and is therefore necessary, does not come within the knowledge of the intellect, but merely the empirical character is known to it through the succession of its particular acts. Therefore it seems to the intellect that in a given case two opposite decisions are possible for the will.

But ^is is just the same thing as if WQ were to say of a perpendicular beam that Has^lost its balance, and is h^itating whitA way to fall, “ It can fall either to the riglit hand or the left.” ^his can. ¥as merely a subjective significance, and really means "as far as the data known to us are concerned. Objectively, the direction of the fall is necessarily determined as soon as the equilibrium is lost.

Accordingly, the decision of one’s own will is undetermined only to the beholder, one’s own intellect, and thus merely relatively and subjectively for the subject of knowing. In itself and objectively, on the other hand, in every choice presented to it, its decision is at once determined and necessary. But this determination only comes into consciousness through the decision that follows upon it.

Indeed, we receive an empirical proof of this when any difficult and important choice lies before us, but only under a condition which is not yet present, but merely hoped for, so that in the meanwhile we can do nothing, but must remain passive. Now we consider how we shall decide when the circumstances occur that will give us a free activity and choice.

Generally the foresight of rational deliberation recommends one decision, while direct inclination leans rather to the other. So long as we are compelled to remain passive, the side of reason seems to wish to keep the upperhand ; but we see beforehand how strongly the other side will influence us when the opportunity for action arises.

Till then we are eagerly concerned to place the motives on both sides in the clearest light, by calm meditation on the pro et contra, so that every motive may exert its full influence upon the will when the time arrives, and it may not be misled by a

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THE WORLD WILL.

BK. IV.

mistake on the part of the intellect to decide otherwise than it would have done if all the motives had their due influence upon it. But this distinct unfolding of the motives on both sides is all that the intellect can do to assist the choice. It awaits the real decision just as passively and with the same intense curiosity as if it were that of a foreign will. Therefore from its point of view both decisions must seem to it equally possible ; and this is just the illusion of the empirical freedom of the will. Certainly the decision enters the sphere of the intellect altogether empirically, as the final conclusion of the matter; but yet it proceeded from the inner nature, the intelligible character, of the individual will in its conflict with given motives, and therefore with complete necessity. The intellect can do nothing more than bring out clearly and fully the nature of the motives ; it cannot determine the will itself ; for the will is quite inaccessible to it, and, as we have seen, cannot be investigated.