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304 THE WILL IN NATURE.
our self-knowledge. This process therefore, in coincidence
with the consciousness of that true freedom which belongs
to the will, as thing in itself outside phenomenon, produces
the deceptive illusion that even the single act of volition
is unconditioned and free : that is, without a reason ;
whereas, when the character is given and the motive recog
nised, every act of volition really follows with the same
strict necessity as the changes of which mechanics teach us
the laws, and, to use Kant s words, were character and
motive exactly known, might be calculated with precisely
or again, to
the same certainty as an eclipse of the moon ;
place a very heterogeneous authority by the side of Kant,
as Dante says, who is older than Buridan :
"
Intra duo cibi distant! e moventi
D un modo, prima
si morria di fame
Che liber uomo 1 un recasse a denti."
Paradiso,
iv. I. 1
1 Between two kinds of food, both equally
Remote and tempting, first a man might die
Of hunger, ere he one could freely chuse. s (Gary TV.)