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374 THE WILL IN NATURE.
Metaphysic "Ethics," than Spinoza, with whom the word
sounds almost like irony, and whose
"
Ethics
"
might be
said to bear the name like lucus a non lucendo ; since it is
only by means of sophistry that he has been able to tack his
morality on to a system, from which it would never logi
cally proceed. In general, moreover, he disavows it down
right with 1
revolting assurance. On the whole, I can
confidently assert, that there has never yet been a philo
sophical system so entirely cut out of one piece, so com
pletely without any joins or patches, as mine. As I have
said in my preface, it is the unfolding of a single thought,
by which the ancient dirXovQ b pi/doc rrjg a\r]0elag etyv
2
is again
confirmed. Then we must still take into consideration here,
that freedom and responsibility those pillars on which all
morality rests can certainly be asserted in words without
3
the assumption of the aseity of the will ; but that it is
to think them without it. Whoever
absolutely impossible
wishes to dispute this, must first invalidate the axiom,
stated long ago by the Schoolmen : operari sequitur esse
(i. e. the acts of each being
follow from the nature of that
being), or we must demonstrate the fallacy of the inference
to be drawn from it: unde esse, inde operari. Respon
sibility has for its condition freedom ; but freedom has for
its condition primariness. For I will according to what I
am ; therefore I must be according to what I will. Aseity
of the will is therefore the first condition of any Ethics
based on serious thought, and Spinoza is right when he says :
JEa res libera dicetur, quce ex sola suce naturce necessitate exis-
tit, et a se sola ad agendum determinatur* Dependence,
as to existence and nature, united with freedom as to action,
is a contradiction. Were Prometheus to call the creatures
of his making to account for their actions, they would be
1 "
For instance, Eth." iv. prop. 37, Schol. 2.
3 The language of truth is simple. [Tr. s add.]
8 Self-existence 5 self-dependence.
4 "
Elk." i. def. 7. [Tr.]