IF HISTORY had to deal with external phenomena, the establishment of this simple and obvious law would be sufficient, and our argument would be at an end. But the law of history relates to man. A particle of matter cannot tell us that it does not feel the inevitability of attraction and repulsion, and that the law is not true. Man, who is the subject of history, bluntly says: I am free, and so I am not subject to law.
The presence of the question of the freedom of the will, if not openly expressed, is felt at every step in history.
All seriously thinking historians are involuntarily led to this question. All the inconsistencies, and the obscurity of history, and the false path that science has followed, is due to that unsolved question.
If the will of every man were free, that is, if every man could act as he chose, the whole of history would be a tissue of disconnected accidents.
If one man only out of millions once in a thousand years had the power of acting freely, that is, as he chose, it is obvious that a single free act of that man in opposition to the laws governing human action would destroy the possibility of any laws whatever governing all humanity.
If there is but one law controlling the actions of men, there can be no free will, since men's will must be subject to that law.
In this contradiction lies the question of the freedom of the will, which from the most ancient times has occupied the best intellects of mankind, and has from the most ancient times been regarded as of immense importance.
Looking at man as a subject of observation from any point of view—theological, historical, ethical, philosophical—we find a general law of necessity to which he is subject like everything existing. Looking at him from within ourselves, as what we are conscious of, we feel ourselves free.
This consciousness is a source of self-knowledge utterly apart and independent of reason. Through reason man observes himself; but he knows himself only through consciousness.
Apart from consciousness of self, any observation and application of reason is inconceivable.
To understand, to observe, to draw conclusions, a man must first of all be conscious of himself as living. A man knows himself as living, not otherwise than as willing, that is, he is conscious of his free will. Man is conscious of his will as constituting the essence of his life, and he cannot be conscious of it except as free.
If subjecting himself to his own observation, a man perceives that his will is always controlled by the same law (whether he observes the necessity of taking food, or of exercising his brain, or anything else), he cannot regard this never-varying direction of his will otherwise than as a limitation of it. If it were not free, it could not be limited. A man's will seems to him to be limited just because he is not conscious of it except as free. You say: I am not free. But I have lifted and dropped my hand. Everybody understands that this illogical reply is an irrefutable proof of freedom.
This reply is an expression of a consciousness not subject to reason.
If the consciousness of freedom were not a separate source of self-knowledge apart from reason, it would be controlled by reasoning and experience. But in reality such control never exists, and is inconceivable.
A series of experiments and arguments prove to every man that he, as an object of observation, is subject to certain laws, and the man submits to them, and never, after they have once been pointed out to him, controverts the law of gravity or of impenetrability. But the same series of experiments and arguments proves to him that the complete freedom of which he is conscious in himself is impossible; that every action of his depends on his organisation, on his character, and the motives acting on him. But man never submits to the deductions of these experiments and arguments.
Learning from experience and from reasoning that a stone falls to the ground, a man unhesitatingly believes this; and in all cases expects the law he has learnt to be carried out.
But learning just as incontestably that his will is subject to laws, he does not, and cannot, believe it.
However often experience and reasoning show a man that in the same circumstances, with the same character, he does the same thing as before, yet on being led the thousandth time in the same circumstances, with the same character, to an action that always ends in the same way, he feels just as unhesitatingly convinced that he can act as he chooses, as ever. Every man, savage and sage alike, however incontestably reason and experience may prove to him that it is impossible to imagine two different courses of action under precisely the same circumstances, yet feels that without this meaningless conception (which constitutes the essence of freedom) he cannot conceive of life. He feels that however impossible it may be, it is so; seeing that, without that conception of freedom, he would be not only unable to understand life, but could not live for a single instant.
He could not live because all men's instincts, all their impulses in life, are only efforts to increase their freedom. Wealth and poverty, health and disease, culture and ignorance, labour and leisure, repletion and hunger, virtue and vice, are all only terms for greater or less degrees of freedom.
To conceive a man having no freedom is impossible except as a man deprived of life.
If the idea of freedom appears to the reason a meaningless contradiction, like the possibility of doing two actions at a single moment of time, or the possibility of an effect without a cause, that only proves that consciousness is not subject to reason.
That unwavering, irrefutable consciousness of freedom, not influenced by experience and argument, recognised by all thinkers, and felt by all men without exception, that consciousness without which no conception of man is reliable, constitutes the other side of the question.
Man is the creation of an Almighty, All-good, and All-wise God. What is sin, the conception of which follows from man's consciousness of freedom? That is the question of theology.
Men's actions are subject to general and invariable laws, expressed in statistics. What is man's responsibility to society, the conception of which follows from his consciousness of freedom? That is the question of jurisprudence.
A man's actions follow from his innate character and the motives acting on him. What is conscience and the sense of right and wrong in action that follows from the consciousness of freedom? That is the question of ethics.
Man in connection with the general life of humanity is conceived as governed by the laws that determine that life. But the same man, apart from that connection, is conceived of as free. How is the past life of nations and of humanity to be regarded—as the product of the free or not free action of men? That is the question of history.
Only in our conceited age of the popularisation of knowledge, thanks to the most powerful weapon of ignorance—the diffusion of printed matter—the question of the freedom of the will has been put on a level, on which it can no longer be the same question. In our day the majority of so-called advanced people—that is, a mob of ignoramuses—have accepted the result of the researches of natural science, which is occupied with one side only of the question, for the solution of the whole question.
There is no soul and no free will, because the life of man is expressed in muscular movements, and muscular movements are conditioned by nervous activity. There is no soul and no free will, because at some unknown period of time we came from apes, they say, and write, and print. Not at all suspecting that thousands of years ago all religions and all thinkers have admitted—have never, in fact, denied—that same law of necessity, which they are now so strenuously trying to prove by physiology and comparative zoology. They do not see that natural science can do no more in this question than serve to illumine one side of it. The fact that, from the point of view of observation, the reason and the will are but secretions of the brain, and that man, following the general law of development, may have developed from lower animals at some unknown period of time, only illustrates in a new aspect the truth, recognised thousands of years ago by all religious and philosophic theories, that man is subject to the laws of necessity. It does not advance one hair's-breadth the solution of the question, which has another opposite side, founded on the consciousness of freedom.
If men have descended from apes at an unknown period of time, that is as comprehensible as that they were fabricated out of a clod of earth at a known period of time (in the one case the date is the unknown quantity, in the other the method of fabrication); and the question how to reconcile man's consciousness of free will with the law of necessity to which he is subject cannot be solved by physiology and zoology, seeing that in the frog, the rabbit, and the monkey we can observe only muscular and nervous activity, while in man we find muscular and nervous activity plus consciousness.
The scientific men and their disciples who suppose they are solving this question are like plasterers set to plaster one side of a church wall, who, in the absence of the chief superintendent of their work, should in the excess of their zeal plaster over the windows, and the holy images, and the woodwork, and the scaffolding, and rejoice that from the plasterers' point of view everything was now so smooth and even.
假如历史是研究外部现象的，那么提出这样一个简单明了的法则就够了，我们也就可以结束我们的讨论了。但是历史法则与人类有关。一粒物质不能对我们说，它完全觉察不出相吸或相斥的法则，因而那种法则是错误的；但是作为历史研究对象的人，直截了当地说：我是自由的，因此不属于什么法则范畴。
历史每走一步，都令人觉得有不言而喻的人类意识自由问题的存在。
所有认真思考的历史学们都不知不觉地遇到这个问题。历史所有的矛盾和含糊，这种科学所走的错误道路，完全是由于这个问题没有得到解决的缘故。
假如每个人的意志都是自由的，就是说，假如每个人都可以随心所欲地行动。整个历史就要成为一系列互不连贯的偶然事件了。
假如，在一千年间，一百万人中有一个人有自由行动的可能，就是说，可以随心所欲地行动，那么很显然，那个人只消有一个违反法则的自由行动，就会破坏适用于全人类的任何法则存在的可能。
假如只要有一个支配人类行动的法则，自由意志就不能存在，因为人类的意志要服从那个法则。
关于意志自由的问题存在着这样的矛盾，这个问题自古以来就占据了最卓越的人类头脑，自古以来就有人提出了它的全部重大意义。
问题就在于，如果把人视为观察的对象，无论从什么观点——神学观点、历史观点、道德观点、哲学观点——我们都发现人正如一切存在的事物一样，必须服从普遍的必然法则。但是，如果把它当作我们意识到的事物从我们内心来看他，我们就会感到我们自己是自由的。
这种意识是完全独立的，不以理性的自我认识的来源为转移。人通过理性来观察自己；也只有通过意识他才认识自己。
如果没有自我意识，任何观察和理性的运用都是不可思议的。
要想理解、观察和推理，人首先必须意识到自己是活着的。一个人有了意愿，也就是意识到他的意志，他才知道自己是活着的。但是，当人意识到构成他的生命实质的意志时，他也只能意识到它是自由的。
假如人在观察自己的时候，他看出他的意志总是按同一法则活动（他观察吃饭的必要性或者头脑的活动，或者观察任何别的现象），他不能不把他的意志总是沿着同样的方向活动看作意志的限制，如无自由，则无限制可言。一个人觉得他的意志受限制，正因为他意识到他的意志是自由的。
你说：我是不自由的。但是我举起我的手，又把它放下。人人都懂得，这一不合逻辑的答案是一种无法反驳的自由的证明。
这个答案不属于理性的意识的表现的范畴。
假如自由的意识不是一个独立的不依赖理性的自我认识的源泉，那么，它就是可以论证和实验的，但实际并不存在这种情况，而且是不可思议的。
一系列的实验和论证对每个人表明，他，作为观察的对象，服从某一些法则；人一旦认识到万有引力不渗透性的法则，他就服从这些法则，并且永远不会抗拒这些法则。但是，一系列同样的实验和论证对他表明，他内心感觉的那种完全的自由是不可能存在的，他的每一个动作都取决于他的肌体，他的性格，以及影响他的动机；但是人类从来不服从这些实验和论证的结论。
一个人根据实验和论证知道一堆石头向下落，他毫不狐疑地相信这一点，在任何情况下他都期望他所知道的那个法则得以实现。
但是，当他同样毫不狐疑的知道他的意志服从若干法则的时候，他不相信这一点，而且也不可能相信。
虽然实验和论证一再向人表明，在同样的情况下，具有同样的性格，他就会跟原先一样做出同样的事情，可是，当他在同样的情况下，具有同样的性格、第一千次做那总会得到同样结果的事情的时候，他仍然像实验以前一样确定无疑地相信他是可以为所欲为的。每个人，不论是野蛮人还是思想家，虽然论证和实验无可争辩地向他证明，在同样的条件下，有两种不同的行动是不堪想象的，但是他仍然觉得，没有这种不合理的观念（这种观念构成自由的实质），他就无法想象生活。他觉得就是这样的，尽管这是不可能的，因为没有自由这个概念，他不仅不能了解生活，而且连一刻也活不下去。
他之所以活不下去，是因为人类的一切努力，一切生存的动机，都不过是增进自由的努力。富裕和贫寒、光荣和默默无闻、权力和屈服、强壮和软弱、健康和疾病、教养和无知、工作和闲暇、饱食和饥饿、道德和罪恶，都不过是较高或较低程度的自由罢了。
一个没有自由的人，就只能看作是被夺去生活的人。
假如理性认为自由的概念是一种没有意义的矛盾，好像在同一条件下做出两种不同动作的可能性一样，或者好像一种没有理由的行动的可能性一样，那只能证明意识不属于理性范畴。
这种不可动摇、不可否认的自由意识，不受实验或论证支配，为所有思想家所承认，毫不例外地为每个人所觉察，没有它就不可能有任何关于人的观念的自由的意识，这构成问题的另一面。
人是全能、全善、全知的上帝的造物。由人类的自由的意识中产生的罪恶是什么呢？这是神学的问题。
人的行动属于用统计学表示的普遍的不变法则这一范畴。人类对社会的责任（这一概念也是从自由的意识中产生的）是什么呢？这是法学的问题。
人的行动是从他的先天性格和影响他的动机中产生的。良心是什么，从自由的意识中产生出来的行为的善恶认识是什么？这是伦理学的问题。
联系人类的全部生活来看，人是服从那决定这种生活的法则的。但是，不从这种联系来看，一个人他似乎是自由的。应当怎样看待各民族和人类的过去生活呢——作为人们自由行动的产物呢，还是作为人们不自由行动的产物呢？这是历史的问题。
只有在我们知识普及、具有自信的时代，因为有对付愚昧的最有力的工具——印刷品的传播，才把意志自由的问题提到这个问题本身不能存在的地位。在我们这个时代，大多数所谓先进人物，也就是一群不学无术的人，从事博物学家的工作，研究问题的一个方面，以求得全部问题的解答。
灵魂和自由不存在，因为人的生活是筋肉运动的表现，而筋肉运动受制于神经的活动；灵魂和自由意志并不存在，因为在远古时代我们是由猿猴变来的，他们就是这样说、写、印成书刊，一点也不怀疑，他们现在那么卖力用生理学和比较动物学来证明的那个必然性的法则，早在几千年前，不仅被所有宗教和所有思想家所承认，而且从未被人否认。他们不知道，在这个问题上，自然科学只能解释问题一个方面。因为，从观察的观点来看，理性和意志不过是脑筋的分泌物（secrétion），根据一般的法则，人可能是在那无人知道的时代从低级动物发展起来的，这事实不过从一个新的方面说明了几千年前所有宗教和哲学理论都承认了的真理，从理性的观点来看，人从属于必然性的一系列法则，但是它一点也没有促进这个问题的解决，这个问题具有建立在自由意识上的相反的另一方面。
假如人是在无人知道的时代从猿猴变来的，这与说他是在某个时期用一把土做成的，是同样可以理解的（前者的未知数是时间，后者的未知数是起源），而人的自由意识怎样与他所服从的必然性法则相结合的问题，是不能用比较生理学和动物学来解决的，因为从青蛙、兔子和猿猴身上，我们只能观察到肌肉和神经活动，但是从人身上，我们既能观察到肌肉活动和神经活动，也能观察到意识。
那些自以为能解决这个问题的博物学家和他们的信徒，正如这样一些灰泥匠：本来指定他们粉刷教堂的一面墙壁，可是他们趁着总监工不在，一时热情冲动，粉刷了窗子、神像、脚手架，还未加扶壁的墙壁，他们心里很高兴，从他们作灰泥匠的观点来看，一切都弄得又平又光滑。
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