I say, that free-will (_arbitrium_) in its narrowest sense first makes its appearance; and this I have called elective decision. It nevertheless merely consists in the _strongest_ motive for a given individual character overcoming the others and thus determining the act, just as an impact is overcome by a stronger counter-impact, the result thus ensuing with precisely the same necessity as the movement of a stone that has been struck. That all great thinkers in all ages were decided and at one on this point, is just as certain, as that the multitude will never understand, never grasp, the important truth, that the work of our freedom must not be sought in our individual actions but in our very existence and nature itself. In my prize-essay on Freedom of the Will, I have shown this as clearly as possible. The _liberum arbitrium indifferentiæ_ which is assumed to be the distinctive characteristic of movements proceeding from _the will_, is accordingly quite inadmissible: for it asserts that effects are possible without causes. [199] By this Schopenhauer means the distinction between _the will_ in its widest sense, regarded as the fundamental essence of all that happens,--even where there is no choice, even where it is _unconscious_,--and _conscious will_, implying deliberation and choice, commonly called _free-will_. We must however carefully guard against confounding this _relative_ free-will, with _absolute_ free-will (_liberum arbitrium indifferentiæ_), which Schopenhauer declares to be inadmissible. The sense in which I have used the expression '_free-will_' throughout this treatise, is that of _relative_ freedom, _i.e._ power to choose between different motives, free of all outward restraint (_Willkühr_). (Tr.) [200] I have shown the difference between _cause_ in its narrowest sense, _stimulus_, and _motive_, at length in my "Grund-probleme der Ethik" p. 29 _et seq._