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To Tranquillise the Sceptic.—“I don't know at all what I am doing. I don't know in the least what I ought to do!”—You are right, but be sure of this: you are being done at every moment! Mankind has at all times mistaken the [pg 129] active for the passive: it is its eternal grammatical blunder.
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Cause and Effect.—On this mirror—and our intellect is a mirror—something is going on that indicates regularity: a certain thing is each time followed by another certain thing. When we perceive this and wish to give it a name, we call it cause and effect,—fools that we are! as if in this we had understood or could understand anything! For, of course, we have seen nothing but the images of causes and effects, and it is just this figurativeness which renders it impossible for us to see a more substantial relation than that of sequence!
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The Purposes in Nature.—Any impartial investigator who examines the history of the eye and its form in the lower creatures, and sees how the visual organ was slowly developed, cannot help recognising that sight was not the first purpose of the eye, but probably only asserted itself when pure hazard had contributed to bring together the apparatus. One single example of this kind, and the “final purposes” fall from our eyes like scales.
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Reason.—How did reason come into the world? As is only proper, in an irrational manner; by accident. We shall have to guess at this accident as a riddle.
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What Is Volition?—We laugh at a man who, stepping out of his room at the very minute when the sun is rising, says, “It is my will that the sun shall rise”; or at him who, unable to stop a wheel, says, “I wish it to roll”; or, again, at him who, thrown in a wrestling match, says, “Here I lie, but here I wish to lie.” But, joking apart, do we not act like one of these three persons whenever we use the expression “I wish”?
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On the Domain of Freedom.—We can think many more things than we can do and experience—i.e. our faculty of thinking is superficial and is satisfied with what lies on the surface, it does not even perceive this surface. If our intellect were strictly developed in proportion to our power, and our exercise of this power, the primary principle of our thinking would be that we can understand only that which we are able to do—if, indeed, there is any understanding at all. The thirsty man is without water, but the creations of his imagination continually bring the image of water to his sight, as if nothing could be more easily procured. The superficial and easily satisfied character of the intellect cannot understand real need, and thus feels itself superior. It is proud of being able to do more, to run faster, and to reach the goal almost within the twinkling of an eye: and in this way the domain of thought, when contrasted with the domain of [pg 131] action, volition, and experience, appears to be the domain of liberty, while, as I have already stated, it is nothing but the domain of superficiality and self-sufficiency.
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Forgetfulness.—It has never yet been proved that there is such a thing as forgetfulness: all that we know is that we have no power over recollection. In the meantime we have filled up this gap in our power with the word “forgetfulness,” exactly as if it were another faculty added to our list. But, after all, what is within our power? If that word fills up a gap in our power, might not the other words be found capable of filling up a gap in the knowledge which we possess of our power?
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For a Definite Purpose.—Of all human actions probably the least understood are those which are carried out for a definite purpose, because they have always been regarded as the most intelligible and commonplace to our intellect. The great problems can be picked up in the highways and byways.
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Dreaming and Responsibility.—You would wish to be responsible for everything except your dreams! What miserable weakness, what lack of logical courage! Nothing contains more of your [pg 132] own work than your dreams! Nothing belongs to you so much! Substance, form, duration, actor, spectator—in these comedies you act as your complete selves! And yet it is just here that you are afraid and ashamed of yourselves, and even Oedipus, the wise Oedipus, derived consolation from the thought that we cannot be blamed for what we dream. From this I must conclude that the great majority of men must have some dreadful dreams to reproach themselves with. If it were otherwise, to how great an extent would these nocturnal fictions have been exploited in the interests of man's pride! Need I add that the wise Oedipus was right, that we are really not responsible for our dreams any more than for our waking hours, and that the doctrine of free will has as its parents man's pride and sense of power! Perhaps I say this too often; but that does not prove that it is not true.