The assertion of an empirical freedom of the will, a _liberum arbitrium indifferentiæ_, agrees precisely with the doctrine that places the inner nature of man in a _soul_, which is originally a _knowing_, and indeed really an abstract _thinking_ nature, and only in consequence of this a _willing_ nature—a doctrine which thus regards the will as of a secondary or derivative nature, instead of knowledge which is really so. The will indeed came to be regarded as an act of thought, and to be identified with the judgment, especially by Descartes and Spinoza. According to this doctrine every man must become what he is only through his knowledge; he must enter the world as a moral cipher come to know the things in it, and thereupon determine to be this or that, to act thus or thus, and may also through new knowledge achieve a new course of action, that is to say, become another person. Further, he must first know a thing to be _good_, and in consequence of this will it, instead of first _willing_ it, and in consequence of this calling it _good_. According to my fundamental point of view, all this is a reversal of the true relation. Will is first and original; knowledge is merely added to it as an instrument belonging to the phenomenon of will. Therefore every man is what he is through his will, and his character is original, for willing is the basis of his nature. Through the knowledge which is added to it he comes to know in the course of experience _what he is_, _i.e._, he learns his character. Thus he _knows_ himself in consequence of and in accordance with the nature of his will, instead of _willing_ in consequence of and in accordance with his knowing. According to the latter view, he would only require to consider how he would like best to be, and he would be it; that is its doctrine of the freedom of the will. Thus it consists really in this, that a man is his own work guided by the light of knowledge. I, on the contrary, say that he is his own work before all knowledge, and knowledge is merely added to it to enlighten it. Therefore he cannot resolve to be this or that, nor can he become other than he is; but he _is_ once for all, and he knows in the course of experience _what_ he is. According to one doctrine he _wills_ what he knows, and according to the other he _knows_ what he wills.