[5] If you give a pledge, be sure that Ate (the goddess of mischief) is beside you; _i.e._, beware of giving pledges.--Thales ap. Plat. _Charm_. 165 A. [6] Kant leads up to this position with great ingenuity, by having recourse to the theory of the two characters coexistent in man--the _noumenal_ (or _intelligible_) and the _empirical_; the one being in time, the other, timeless; the one, fast bound by the law of causality, the other free.--(_Translator._) [7] Greek: _Άλλ' ἄγε δὴ σύ, ϕίλος, μêτιν ἐμβάλλεο θυμῷ, κ.τ.λ._ CHAPTER VIII. KANT'S DOCTRINE OF THE INTELLIGIBLE[1] AND EMPIRICAL CHARACTER. THEORY OF FREEDOM. The attack I have made, in the cause of truth, on Kant's system of Morals, does not, like those of my predecessors, touch the surface only, but penetrates to its deepest roots. It seems, therefore, only just that, before I leave this part of my subject, I should bring to remembrance the brilliant and conspicuous service which he nevertheless rendered to ethical science. I allude to his doctrine of the co-existence of Freedom and Necessity. We find it first in the _Kritik der Reinen Vernunft_ (pp. 533-554 of the first, and pp. 561-582 of the fifth, edition); but it is still more clearly expounded in the _Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_ (fourth edition, pp. 169-179; R., pp. 224-231). The strict and absolute necessity of the acts of Will, determined by motives as they arise, was first shown by Hobbes, then by Spinoza, and Hume, and also by Dietrich von Holbach in his _Système de la Nature_; and lastly by Priestley it was most completely and precisely demonstrated. This point, indeed, has been so clearly proved, and placed beyond all doubt, that it must be reckoned among the number of perfectly established truths, and only crass ignorance could continue to speak of a freedom, of a _liberum arbitrium indifferentiae_ (a free and indifferent choice) in the individual acts of men. Nor did Kant, owing to the irrefutable reasoning of his predecessors, hesitate to consider the Will as fast bound in the chains of Necessity, the matter admitting, as he thought, of no further dispute or doubt. This is proved by all the passages in which he speaks of freedom only from the =theoretical= standpoint. Nevertheless, it is true that our actions are attended with a consciousness of independence and original initiative, which makes us recognise them as our own work, and every one with ineradicable certainty feels that he is the real author of his conduct, and morally =responsible= for it. But since responsibility implies the possibility of having acted otherwise, which possibility means freedom in some sort or manner; therefore in the consciousness of responsibility is indirectly involved also the consciousness of freedom. The key to resolve the contradiction, that thus arises out of the nature of the case, was at last found by Kant through the distinction he drew with profound acumen, between