_am_; therefore I must _be_ according to what I _will_. Aseity of the will is therefore the first condition of any Ethics based on serious thought, and Spinoza is right when he says: _Ea res libera dicetur, quæ ex sola suæ naturæ necessitate_ existit, _et a se sola ad agendum determinatur_.[348] Dependence, as to existence and nature, united with freedom as to action, is a contradiction. Were Prometheus to call the creatures of his making to account for their actions, they would be quite justified in answering: "We could only act according to our being: for actions arise from nature. If our actions were bad, the fault lay in our nature: this is thine own work; punish thyself."[349] And it is just the same with the imperishableness of our true being in death; for this cannot be seriously thought without the aseity of that being, and can even hardly be conceived without a fundamental separation of the will from the intellect. This last point is peculiar to my philosophy; but Aristotle had already proved the first thoroughly, by showing at length how that alone can be imperishable which has not arisen, and that the two conceptions condition each other:[350] Ταῦτα ἀλλήλοις ἀκολουθεῖ, καὶ τό τε ἀγένητον ἄφθαρτον, καὶ τὸ ἄφθαρτον ἀγένητον.... τὸ γὰρ γενητὸν καὶ τὸ φθαρτὸν ἀκολουθοῦσιν ἀλλήλοις.--εἰ γενητόν τι, φθαρτὸν ἀνάγκη[351] (_hæc mutuo se sequuntur, atque ingenerabile est incorruptibile, et incorruptibile ingenerabile.... generabile enim et corruptibile mutuo se sequuntur.--si generabile est, et corruptibile esse necesse est_). All those among the ancient philosophers who taught an immortality of the soul, understood it in this way; nor did it enter into the head of any of them to assign infinite permanence to a being _having arisen_ in any way. We have evidence of the embarrassment to which the contrary assumption leads, in the ecclesiastical controversy between the advocates of Pre-existence, Creation and Traduction. [345] For instance, "Eth." iv. prop. 37, Schol. 2. [346] The language of truth is simple. [Tr.'s add.] [347] Self-existence; self-dependence. [348] "Eth." i. def. 7. [Tr.] [349] Compare "Parerga," i. p. 115, _et seqq._ (p. 133 of 2nd ed.). [350] Aristot. "De Cœlo," i. 12. [351] "These two go together, the uncreated is imperishable, and the imperishable is uncreated.... For the created and the perishable go together.... If a thing is created it is necessarily perishable." [Tr.]