Man is as unconditionally subject to the law of causality, psychically and physically, as the merest atom. There is no such thing as chance; but in this very fact lies a consolation. In the concept of individualization in its broadest sense, is included the conception of freedom, and in the very nature of man there is an indestructible impulse to freedom; his being, as self-conscious, is identical with the latter impulse. This increases with increasing civilization, and has finally become the problem by the solution of which alone man can attain to self-satisfaction. It is true that the power of choice is inconsistent with the law of causality; but in the manner in which the man, as a thinking being, takes his stand over against the species, he becomes a person, an individuality. As one of the species, he shares the characteristics of the species, is an expression of the species-idea, and his action is determined outwardly by things; but it is so determined only mediately by means of thought, of concepts; these are the immediate determinants. Hence, man's relation to things is a different one according to the grade of his knowledge. In so far as this is adequate, that is, corresponds to the truth of actuality, his relation is an active one; in so far as it is, on the contrary, inadequate, the relation is a passive one. Character is inborn and can never be effaced but only clarified, though this least through the bitter experience of the results of action. As the horse loses his sure-footedness after one fall, and falls again more easily, so we lose, through many a deed, the motive furnished by the consciousness of never having committed it, and have a greater tendency to repeat it. If an act has bad results, it is more likely that an attempt to avoid these results by cunning will be made at later opportunities for the act, than that the act itself will be avoided. And even if it were to be avoided, such avoidance would not constitute an improvement of the character; the latter would but hide itself under a mask to reappear at the first prospect of exemption from punishment. That which alone can modify character is a considerable extension of knowledge. For, since all things influence us only in proportion to the worth we attribute to them, their power over us must differ according to the correctness or incorrectness of our judgment. Therefore, the more we regard things in the light of their actual worth and hence also in their relations to each other, the more our character, beholding in these relations the general as the true, will incline to avoid extremes in action. A preponderantly sensual character remains such through life; but there is no doubt that a careful education, which makes it acquainted with nobler principles and develops a sensibility to true beauty, may ennoble it; while, if the education is, on the contrary, neglected, it must sink deeper and deeper into the mire of coarseness and vulgarity.