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

And it is also this immediate knowledge of his own will out of which in human consciousness the conception of freedom springs ; for certainly the will, as worldcreating, as thing in itself, is free from the principle of sufficient reason, and therewith from all necessity, thus is completely independent, free, and indeed almighty. Yet, in truth, this only holds good of the will in itself, not of its manifestations, the individuals, who, just through the l?/n CRITICISM OF THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.

will itself, are unalterably determined as its manifestations in time. But in the ordinary consciousness, unenlightened by philosophy, the will is at once confused with its manifestation, and what belongs only to the former is attributed to the latter, whence arises the illusion of the unconditioned freedom of the individual Therefore Spinoza says rightly that if the projected stone had consciousness, it would believe that it flew of its own free will. For certainly the in-itself of the stone also is the will, which alone is free ; but, as in all its manifestations, here also, where it appears as a stone, it is already fully determined. But of all this enough has already been said in the text of this work.

Kant fails to understand and overlooks this immediate origin of the conception of freedom in every human consciousness, and therefore he now places (p. 533 ; V. 561) the source of that conception in a very subtle speculation, through which the unconditioned, to which the reason must always tend, leads us to hypostatise the conception of freedom, and it is only upon this transcendent Idea of freedom that the practical conception of it is supposed to be founded. In the " Critique of Practical Reason," § 6, and p. 158 of the fourth and 235 of Rosenkranz's edition, he yet deduces this last conception differently by saying that the categorical imperative presupposes it. The speculative Idea is accordingly only the primary source of the conception of freedom for the sake of this presupposition, but here it obtains both significance and application. Neither, however, is the case. For the delusion of a perfect freedom of the individual in his particular actions is most lively in the conviction of the least cultivated man who has never reflected, and it is thus founded on no speculation, although often assumed by speculation from without Thus only philosophers, and indeed only the most profound of them, are free from it, and also the most thoughtful and enlightened of the writers of the Church.

It follows, then, from all that has been said, that the

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true source of- the conception of freedom is in no way essentially an inference, either from the speculative Idea of an unconditioned cause, nor from the fact that it is presupposed by the categorical imperative.

But it springs directly from the consciousness in which each one recognises himself at once as the will, i.e., as that which, as the thing in itself, has not the principle of sufficient reason for its form, and which itself depends upon nothing, but on which everything else rather depends.

Every one, however, does not recognise himself at once with the critical and reflective insight of philosophy as a determined manifestation of this will which has already entered time, as we might say, an act of will distinguished from that will to live itself ; and, therefore, instead of recognising his whole existence as an act of his freedom, he rather seeks for freedom in his individual actions. Upon this point I refer the reader to my prize-essay on the freedom of the will.