300.  There are here excellent arguments, which are valid against the usual systems; but they fail in respect of the System of Pre-established Harmony, which takes us further than we were able to go formerly.  M. Bayle asserts, for instance, ’that by purely philosophical meditations one can never attain to an established certainty that we are the efficient cause of our volitions’.  But this is a point which I do not concede to him:  for the establishment of this system demonstrates beyond a doubt that in the course of nature each substance is the sole cause of all its actions, and that it is free of all physical influence from every other substance, save the customary co-operation of God.  And this system shows that our spontaneity is real, and not only apparent, as Herr Wittich believed it to be.  M. Bayle asserts also on the same reasons (ch. 170, p. 1132) that if there were a fatum Astrologicum this would not destroy freedom; and I would concede that to him, if freedom consisted only in an apparent spontaneity.

301.  The spontaneity of our actions can therefore no longer be questioned; and Aristotle has defined it well, saying that an action is [310] spontaneous when its source is in him who acts.  ’Spontaneum est, cujus principium est in agente.’  Thus it is that our actions and our wills depend entirely upon us.  It is true that we are not directly the masters of our will, although we be its cause; for we do not choose volitions, as we choose our actions by our volitions.  Yet we have a certain power also over our will, because we can contribute indirectly towards willing another time that which we would fain will now, as I have here already shown:  that, however, is no velleity, properly speaking.  There also we have a mastery, individual and even perceptible, over our actions and our wills, resulting from a combination of spontaneity with intelligence.

302.  Up to this point I have expounded the two conditions of freedom mentioned by Aristotle, that is, spontaneity and intelligence, which are found united in us in deliberation, whereas beasts lack the second condition.  But the Schoolmen demand yet a third, which they call indifference.  And indeed one must admit it, if indifference signifies as much as ‘contingency’; for I have already said here that freedom must exclude an absolute and metaphysical or logical necessity.  But, as I have declared more than once, this indifference, this contingency, this non-necessity, if I may venture so to speak, which is a characteristic attribute of freedom, does not prevent one from having stronger inclinations towards the course one chooses; nor does it by any means require that one be absolutely and equally indifferent towards the two opposing courses.