10 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Pathout an action by a similar necessity if impelled to it by any
reason. Human beings imagine themselves to be the free
originators of their actions only because they are aware of
these actions. In so doing, however, they overlook the
causes driving them, which they must obey unerringly.
The error in this train of thought is easy to find. Spinoza
and all who think like him overlook the human capacity
to be aware not only of one’s actions, but also of the caus-
es by which one’s actions are guided.
No one will dispute that a child isunfreewhen it de-
sires milk, as is a drunkard who says things and later re-
grets them. Both know nothing of the causes, active in
the depths of their organism, that exercise irresistible
control over them. But is it justifiable to lump together
actions of this kind with those in which humans are con-
scious not only of their actions but also of the reasons that
motivate them? Are the actions of human beings really
all of a single kind? Should the acts of a warrior on the
battlefield, a scientist in the laboratory, a diplomat in-
volved in complex negotiations, be set scientifically on
the same level as that of a child when it desires milk? It
is certainly true that the solution to a problem is best
sought where it is simplest. But the lack of a capacity to
discriminate has often brought about endless confusion.
And there is, after all, a profound difference between
knowing and not knowing why I do something. This
seems self-evident. Yet the opponents of freedom never
ask whether a motive that I know, and see through, com-
pels me in the same sense as the organic process that
causes a child to cry for milk.