its centre.  Neither the parts of the universe nor the viscera of the animal are alike nor are they evenly placed on both sides of this vertical plane.  There will therefore always be many things in the ass and outside the ass, although they be not apparent to us, which will determine him to go on one side rather than the other.  And although man is free, and the ass is not, nevertheless for the same reason it must be true that in man likewise the case of a perfect equipoise between two courses is impossible.  Furthermore it is true that an angel, or God certainly, could always account for the course man has adopted, by assigning a cause or a predisposing reason which has actually induced him to adopt it:  yet this reason would often be complex and incomprehensible to ourselves, because the concatenation of causes linked together is very long.

50.  Hence it is that the reason M. Descartes has advanced to prove the independence of our free actions, by what he terms an intense inward sensation, has no force.  We cannot properly speaking be sensible of our independence, and we are not aware always of the causes, often imperceptible, whereon our resolution depends.  It is as though the magnetic needle took pleasure in turning towards the north:  for it would think that it was turning independently of any other cause, not being aware of the imperceptible movements of the magnetic matter.  Nevertheless we shall [151] see later in what sense it is quite true that the human soul is altogether its own natural principle in relation to its actions, dependent upon itself and independent of all other creatures.

51.  As for volition itself, to say that it is an object of free will is incorrect.  We will to act, strictly speaking, and we do not will to will; else we could still say that we will to have the will to will, and that would go on to infinity.  Besides, we do not always follow the latest judgement of practical understanding when we resolve to will; but we always follow, in our willing, the result of all the inclinations that come from the direction both of reasons and passions, and this often happens without an express judgement of the understanding.

52.  All is therefore certain and determined beforehand in man, as everywhere else, and the human soul is a kind of spiritual automaton, although contingent actions in general and free action in particular are not on that account necessary with an absolute necessity, which would be truly incompatible with contingency.  Thus neither futurition in itself, certain as it is, nor the infallible prevision of God, nor the predetermination either of causes or of God’s decrees destroys this contingency and this freedom.  That is acknowledged in respect of futurition and prevision, as has already been set forth.  Since, moreover, God’s decree consists solely in the resolution he forms, after having compared all possible worlds, to choose that one which is the best, and bring it into existence together