bilities for it, because it is incapable of such an idea, and cannot choose or of itself put an end to this state of indecision: there must be external grounds by which it may be determined to some one of those various possibilities to which it is unable to determine itself. This determination can have no previous existence within it, for it is capable of but one mode of determination, that of real existence. Hence it was, that I formerly felt myself compelled to maintain that the manifestation of every power must receive its final determination from without. I, doubtless, only took cognizance of such powers as are incapable of consciousness, and manifest themselves merely in the outward world. To them the above assertion may be applied without the slightest limitation; with respect to intelligences, the grounds of this assertion are not admissible, and it appears, therefore, rash to extend it to them.
Freedom, such as I have laid claim to, is conceivable only of intelligences; but to them, undoubtedly, it belongs. Under this supposition, man, as well as nature, is perfectly comprehensible. My body, and my capacity of operating in the world of sense, are, as in the former system, manifestations of certain limited powers of Nature; and my natural inclinations are the relations of these manifestations to my consciousness. The mere knowledge of what exists independently of me arises under this supposition of freedom, precisely as in the former system; and up to this point, both agree. But according to the former,—and here begins the opposition between these systems,—according to the former, my capacity of physical activity remains under the dominion of Nature, and is constantly set in motion
