Conscious Human Action 7against freedom of choice. After all, Herbert Spencer,
whose views daily gain wider acceptance, says:
That anyone could desire or not desire arbi-
trarily, which is the real proposition concealed in
the dogma of free will, is refuted as much through
the analysis of consciousness as through the con-
tent of the preceding chapter [on psychology].^2
Others also proceed from the same point of view when
they combat the concept of free will. Their arguments can
all be found in germinal form as early as Spinoza. What
he presented with clarity and simplicity against the idea of
freedom has since been repeated countless times, only
generally sheathed in the most sophistic theoretical doc-
trines, so that it becomes difficult to recognize the simple
course of thought on which everything depends. In a letter
of October or November, 1674, Spinoza writes:
Thus, I call a thingfree that exists and acts out
of the pure necessity of its nature; and I call itcom-
pelled, if its existence and activity are determined
in a precise and fixed manner by something else.
Thus God, for example, though necessary, is free,
- Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), The Principles of Psychology
(1855). German edition Dr. B. Vetter, Stuttgart, 1882. Spencer was an
English philosopher, friend of Huxley, Tyndall, George Eliot, and
John Stuart Mill. He attempted a comprehensive, systematic (materi-
alist/dualist) account of all cosmic phenomena, including mental and
moral principles.”The spirit in our present civilization is the spirit
which John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer have already worked
into their philosophies.” Rudolf Steiner,A Modern Art of Education
(London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1981).