Now that we know the nature of Good and Evil, Truth and
Falsity, and also wherein the well-being of a perfect man
consists, it is time to begin to examine ourselves, and to see
whether we attain to such well-being voluntarily or of necessity.
To this end it is necessary to inquire what the
Will is,
according to those who posit a Will, [N1] and wherein it is different
from Desire. Desire,
we have said, is the inclination which the
soul has towards something which it chooses as a good; whence
it follows that before our desire inclines towards something
outside, we have already inwardly decided that such a thing is
good, and this affirmation, or, stated more generally, the power
to affirm and to deny, is called the
Will. [N2]
[Note N1]: B omits the words "according ... Will."
[Note N2]: Now the
Will, regarded as Affirmation or Decision
*is different from true Belief and from Opinion. It* differs from
True Belief
in this, that it extends also to that which is not truly
good; and this is so because it lacks that conviction whereby it
is clearly seen that it cannot be otherwise; in the case of true
belief there is, and must be, this conviction, because from it none
but good desires emanate.
But it also differs from Opinion
in this, that it can sometimes
be quite infallible and certain; this is not the case with
Opinion, which consists in guessing and supposing.
So that we can call it Belief
in so far as it can proceed with
certainty, and Opinion
in so far as it is subject to error.
It thus turns on the question whether our Affirmations are
made voluntarily or necessarily, that is, whether we can
make any affirmation or denial about a thing without some external
cause compelling us to do so. Now we have already shown that a
thing which is not explained [N1] through itself, or whose
existence does not pertain to its essence, must
necessarily have an external cause; and that a cause which is to
produce something must produce it necessarily; it must therefore
also follow that each separate act of
willing [N2] this or that, each
separate act of affirming or denying this or that of a thing, these, I
say, must also
result from some external cause: so also the definition which we have
given of a cause is, that it cannot be free.
[Note N1]: B: which does not exist.
[Note N2]: It is certain that each separate volition must have an
external cause through which it comes into being; for, seeing that
existence does not pertain to its essence, its existence must
necessarily be due to the existence of something else.
As to the view that the efficient cause [N2N1] thereof is not an Idea but
the human Will itself,
and that the Understanding is a cause
without which the will can do nothing, so that the Will in its
undetermined form, and also the Understanding, are not
things of Reason,
but real entities -- so far as I am concerned,
whenever I consider them attentively they appear to be universals,
and I can attribute no reality to them. Even if it be so, however, still
it must be admitted that Willing is a modification of the Will, and
that the Ideas are a mode of the Understanding; the Understanding
and the Will are
therefore necessarily distinct, and really distinct
substances, because [only] substance is modified, and not the mode
itself. As the soul is said to direct these two substances, it must be
a third substance. All these things are so confused that it is
impossible to have a clear and distinct conception about them. For,
since the Idea is not in the Will, but in the Understanding, and in
consequence of the rule that the mode of one substance cannot
pass over into the other substance, love cannot arise in the
will: because to will something when there is no idea
of that thing in the willing power involves
self-contradiction. If you say that the
Will, owing to its union with the
Understanding, also becomes aware of that which the Understanding
understands, and thus also loves it, *one may retort to this:* but since
awareness is also an apprehension, [N2N2] it is therefore also a mode
of understanding; following the above, however, this cannot be in the
Will, even if its union [with the Will] were like that of the soul and body.
For suppose that the body is united with the soul, as the philosophers
generally maintain, even so the body never feels, nor does the soul
become extended. [N2N3]. When they say that the Soul directs both the
Understanding and the Will, this is * not only* inconceivable, * but
even self-contradictory,* because by saying so they seem to deny that
the will is free, which is opposed to their
view. But, to conclude, I have no inclination to adduce all my
objections against positing a created finite substance. I shall
only show briefly that the
Freedom of the Will does not in any
way accord with such an enduring creation; namely, that the
same activity [N2N4] is required of God in order to maintain *a
thing* in existence as to create it, and that otherwise the thing
could not last for a moment; as this is so, nothing can be
attributed to it. [N2N5] But we must say that God has created it
just as it is; for as it has no power to maintain itself in existence
while it exists, much less, then, can it produce something by
itself. If, therefore, any one should say that the soul produces the
volition from itself, then I ask, by what power? Not by that which
has been, for it is no more; also not by that which it has now, for
it has none at all whereby it might exist or last for a single
moment, because it is continuously created anew. Thus, then, as
there is no thing that has any power to maintain itself, or to
produce anything, there remains nothing but to conclude that
God alone, therefore, is and must be the efficient cause of all
things, and that all acts of Volition are determined by him
*alone.*
[Note N2N1]: A: the idea of the efficient cause.
[Note N2N2]: A: an apprehension [or "conception"] and a confused idea.
[Note N2N3]: A continues: For then a Chimera,in which we
conceive two substances might become one; this is false.
[Note N2N4]: B: ... such an enduring creation as they admit; for, if
one and the same activity...
[Note N2N5]: B: ... as this is so, no causality can be attributed to the
thing.
Possibly this will not satisfy some who are accustomed to keep
their understanding busy with
things of Reason more
than with Particular things which really exist in Nature;
and, through doing so, they come to regard a thing of
Reason not [N1] as such, but as a real thing.[N2]. For, because
man has now this, now that volition, he forms in his soul a
general mode which he calls
Will, just as from this man
and that man he also forms the Idea of man; [N3] and
because he does not adequately distinguish the real things
from the things of Reason,
he comes to regard the things
of Reason as things which really exist in Nature, and so he
regards himself as a cause of some things. This happens
not infrequently in the treatment of the subject about which
we are speaking. For if any one is asked why people
want this or that, the answer usually given is, because they
have a will. But, since the
Will, as we have said, is only
an Idea of our willing this or that, and therefore only a mode of
thought, a thing of reason,
and not a real thing, nothing can be
caused by it; for out of nothing, nothing comes. And so, as we
have shown that the
will is not a thing in Nature, but only in
fancy, I also think it unnecessary to ask whether the will is free
or not free.
[Note N1]: B: no more.
[Note N2]: B continues: and thus regard themselves as the cause
of some things; as happens not infrequently in the matter about which
we are at present speaking.
[Note N3]: B continues: if then the question is asked, why people
want this or that, they answer...
I say this not [only] of
will in general, which we have shown
to be a mode of thought, but also of the particular act of willing
this or that, which act of willing some have identified with
affirmation and denial. Now this should be clearly evident to
every one who only attends to what we have already said. For
we have said [N1] that the understanding
is purely passive; it is an awareness, in the soul, of the
essence and existence of things; so that it is never we who
affirm or deny something of a thing, but it is the thing itself that
affirms or denies, in us, something of itself.
[Note N1]: In B this paragraph begins thus: "Now in order to
understand whether we are really free, or not free in any
particular act of willing, that is of affirming or denying this or
that, we must recall to our memory what we have already said,
namely, ..."
Possibly some will not admit this, because it seems to them
that they are well able to affirm or to deny of the thing something
different from what they know about the thing. But this is only
because they have no idea of the conception which the soul has
of the thing apart from or without the
words
[N1] [in which it is
expressed]. It is quite true that (when there are reasons which
prompt us to do so) we can, in words or by some other means,
represent the thing to others differently from what we know it to
be; but we can never bring it so far, either by words or by any
other means, that we should feel about the things differently from
what we feel about them; that is impossible, and clearly so to all
who have for once attended to their understanding itself apart
from the use of words or other significant signs.
[Note N1]: B: ... because they make no distinction between
the idea which the soul has of a thing, and the words in
which the same is expressed.
Against this, however, some perchance may say: If it is not we,
but the thing itself, that makes the affirmation and denial about
itself in us, then nothing can be affirmed or denied except what is
in agreement with the thing; and consequently there is no falsity.
For we have said that falsity consists in affirming (or denying)
aught of a thing which does not accord with that thing; that is,
what the thing does not affirm or deny about itself. I think,
however, that if only we consider well what we have already said
about Truth and Falsity, then we shall see at once that these
objections have already been sufficiently answered. For we have
said that the object is the cause of what is affirmed or denied
thereof, [N1] be it true or false: *falsity arising thus,* namely,
because, when we happen to know something *or a part* of an
object, we imagine [N2] that the object (although we only know
very little of it) nevertheless affirms or denies that of itself as a
whole; this takes place mostly in feeble souls, which receive very
easily a mode or [N3] an idea through a slight action of the
object, and make no further affirmation or denial apart from
this.
[Note N1]: A: ... the cause of that about which something is
affirmed or denied; B: the cause of our affirmation or denial
thereof, ...
[Note N2]: B continues: that the whole is such; this takes place ...
[Note N3]: B omits "a mode or."
Lastly, it might also be objected that there are many things
which we *sometimes* want and [sometimes also] do not
want, [N1] as, for example, to assert something about a thing or
not to assert it, to speak the truth, and not to speak it, and so
forth. But this results from the fact that Desire is not adequately
distinguished from Will. [N2] For the
Will, according to those
who maintain that there is a Will, is only the activity of the
understanding whereby we affirm or deny something about a
thing, with regard to good or evil.
Desire, however, is the
disposition of the soul to obtain or to do something for the sake
of the good or evil that is discerned therein; so that even after
we have made an affirmation or denial about the thing, Desire
still remains, namely, when we have ascertained or affirmed
that the thing is good; such is the
Will, according to their statements,
while desire is the inclination, which we only
subsequently feel, to advance it -- so that, even
according to their own statements, the Will may well
exist without the Desire, but not the Desire without the
Will, which must have preceded it.
[Note N1]: B continues: or about which we [sometimes] assert
something, and [sometimes] do not assert it ...
[Note N2]: B continues as follows: For, although they are both
of them an affirmation or denial of a thing, they nevertheless differ
in this that the last occurs without regard, and the first with
reference, to the good or evil which is discerned in the thing: so
that, even after we have made the affirmation or denial about
the thing, the Desire itself remains, namely, to obtain or to do
what we have ascertained or affirmed to be good, so that the
Will may well exist without the Desire, but not the Desire
without the Will.
All the activities, therefore, which we have discussed
above (since they are carried out through Reason under
the appearance of good, or are hindered by Reason
under the appearance of evil) can only be subsumed
under that inclination which is called Desire, and by no
means under the designation of Will, which is
altogether inappropriate.
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