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NOTE 8. Philosophy of History

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CHAPTER 8 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

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1.

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THE THEME OF HISTORY

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History deals with human action, that is, the actions performed by individuals and groups

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of individuals.

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It describes the conditions under which people lived and the way they reacted to these conditions.

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Its subject are human judgments of value and the ends men aimed at guided by these judgments,

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the means men resorted to in order to attain the ends sought, and the outcome of their

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actions.

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History deals with man's conscious reaction to the state of his environment, both the

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natural environment and the social environment as determined by the actions of preceding

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generations as well as by those of his contemporaries.

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Every individual is born into a definite social and natural milieu.

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An individual is not simply man in general, whom history can regard in the abstract.

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An individual is at any instant of his life the product of all the experiences to which

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his ancestors were exposed, plus those to which he himself has so far been exposed.

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An actual man lives as a member of his family, his race, his people, and his age, as a citizen

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of Money, The Theory of Money and State, The Theory of Money and State, The Theory

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and they change when new thoughts are added to the old stock of ideas or are substituted

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for discarded ideas.

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In searching for the origin of new ideas, history cannot go beyond establishing that

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they were produced by a man's thinking.

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The ultimate data of history beyond which no historical research can go are human ideas

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and actions.

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The historian can trace ideas back to other previously developed ideas.

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He can describe the environmental conditions to which actions were designed to react, but

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he can never say more about a new idea and a new mode of acting than that they originated

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at a definite point of space and time in the mind of a man and were accepted by other men.

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Attempts have been made to explain the birth of ideas out of natural factors.

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Ideas were described as the necessary product of the geographical environment, the physical

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structure of people's habitat.

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This doctrine manifestly contradicts the data available.

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Many ideas are the response elicited by the stimulus of a man's physical environment.

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But the content of these ideas is not determined by the environment.

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To the same physical environment, various individuals and groups of individuals respond

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in a different way.

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Others have tried to explain the diversity of ideas and actions by biological factors.

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The species man is subdivided into racial groups with distinctive hereditary biological

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traits. Historical experience does not preclude the assumption that the members of some racial

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groups are better gifted for conceiving sound ideas than those of other races. However,

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what is to be explained is why a man's ideas differ from those of people of the same race.

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Why do brothers differ from one another? It is moreover questionable whether cultural

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Racial backwardness conclusively indicates a racial group's permanent inferiority.

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The evolutionary process that transformed the animal-like ancestors of man into modern

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men extended over many hundreds of thousands of years.

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Viewed in the perspective of this period, the fact that some races have not yet reached

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a cultural level other races passed several thousand years ago does not seem to matter

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very much.

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There are individuals whose physical and mental development proceeds more slowly than the

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average who yet in later life far excel most normally developing persons. It is not impossible

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that the same phenomenon may occur with whole races.

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There is for history nothing beyond people's ideas and the ends they were aiming at motivated

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by these ideas. If the historian refers to the meaning of a fact, he always refers either

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Whether to the interpretation acting men gave to the situation in which they had to live

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and to act, and to the outcome of their ensuing actions, or to the interpretation which other

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people gave the result of these actions.

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The final causes to which history refers are always the ends individuals and groups of

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individuals are aiming at.

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History does not recognize in the course of events any other meaning and sense than those

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2. THE THEME OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

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Philosophy of history looks upon mankind's history from a different point of view. It

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assumes that God or nature or some other superhuman entity providentially directs the course of

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events toward a definite goal different from the ends which acting men are aiming at.

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There is a meaning in the sequence of events which supersedes the intentions of men.

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The ways of providence are not those of mortal men.

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The short-sighted individual deludes himself in believing that he chooses and acts according

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to his own concerns.

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In fact he unknowingly must act in such a way that finally the providential plan will

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be realized.

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The historical process has a definite purpose set by providence without any regard to the

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and Human Will.

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It is a progress toward a preordained end.

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The task of the philosophy of history is to judge every phase of history from the point

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of view of this purpose.

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If the historian speaks of progress and retrogression, he refers to one of the ends men are consciously

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aiming at in their actions.

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In his terminology, progress means the attainment of a state of affairs which acting men considered

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or Consider More Satisfactory Than Preceding States. In the terminology of a philosophy

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of history, progress means advance on the way that leads to the ultimate goal set by

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providence. Every variety of the philosophy of history must answer two questions. First,

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what is the final end aimed at and the route by which it is to be reached? Second, by what

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What means are people induced or forced to pursue this course?

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Only if both questions are fully answered is the system complete.

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In answering the first question, the philosopher refers to intuition.

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In order to corroborate his surmise, he may quote the opinions of older authors, that

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is, the intuitive speculations of other people.

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The ultimate source of the philosopher's knowledge is invariably a divination of the intentions

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of Providence, hitherto hidden to the non-initiated and revealed to the philosopher by dint of

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his intuitive power.

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To objections raised about the correctness of his guess, the philosopher can only reply,

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An inner voice tells me that I am right and you are wrong.

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Most philosophies of history not only indicate the final end of historical evolution but

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also disclose the way mankind is bound to wander in order to reach the goal.

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They enumerate and describe successive states or stages, intermediary stations on the way

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from the early beginnings to the final end.

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The systems of Hegel, Kant and Marx belong to this class.

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Others ascribe to certain nations or races a definite mission entrusted to them by the

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plans of Providence.

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Such are the role of the Germans in the system of Fichte and the role of the Nordics and

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the Aryans in the constructions of modern racists.

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With regard to the answer given to the second question, two classes of philosophies of history

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are to be distinguished.

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The first group contends that Providence elects some mortal men as special instruments for

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the execution of its plan.

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In the charismatic leader, superhuman powers are vested.

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He is the plenipotentiary of Providence, whose office it is to guide the ignorant populace

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the right way.

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He may be a hereditary king or a commoner who has spontaneously seized power and whom

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the blind and wicked rabble in their envy and hatred call a usurper.

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For the charismatic leader but one thing matters, the faithful performance of his mission no

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matter what the means he may be forced to resort to.

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He is above all laws and moral precepts.

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What he does is always right and what his opponents do is always wrong.

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Which was the doctrine of Lenin, who in this point deviated from the doctrine of Marx?

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It is obvious that the philosopher does not attribute the Office of Charismatic Leadership

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to every man who claims that he has been called.

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He distinguishes between the legitimate leader and the fiendish imposter, between the God-send

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prophet and the hell-born tempter.

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He calls only those heroes and seers legitimate leaders who make people walk toward the goal

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Goals Set by Providence.

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As the philosophies disagree with regard to this goal, so they

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disagree with regard to the distinction between the legitimate leader and the devil incarnate.

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They disagree in their judgments about Caesar and Brutus, Innocent III and Frederick II,

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Charles I and Cromwell, the Bourbons and the Napoleons.

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But their dissent goes even further.

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There are rivalries between various candidates for the supreme office which are caused only

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by personal ambition. No ideological convictions separated Caesar and Pompey, the House of

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Lancaster and that of York, Trotsky and Stalin. Their antagonism was due to the fact that

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they aimed at the same office, which of course only one man could get. Here the philosopher

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must choose among various pretenders, having arrogated to himself the power to pronounce

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This judgment in the name of Providence, the philosopher blesses one of the pretenders

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and condemns his rivals.

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The second group suggested another solution of the problem.

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As they see it, Providence resorted to a cunning device.

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It implanted in every man's mind certain impulses the operation of which must necessarily result

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in the realization of its own plan.

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The individual thinks that he goes his own way and strives after his own ends, but unwittingly

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he contributes his share to the realization of the end providence wants to attain. Such

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was the method of Kant. It was restated by Hegel and later adopted by many Hegelians,

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among them by Marx. It was Hegel who coined the phrase, CUNNING OF REASON.

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There is no use arguing with doctrines derived from intuition.

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Every system of the philosophy of history is an arbitrary guess which can neither be

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proved nor disproved.

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There is no rational means available for either endorsing or rejecting a doctrine suggested

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by an inner voice.

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3.

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The difference between the point of view of history and that of philosophy of history.

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Before the eighteenth century, most dissertations dealing with human history in general and

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not merely with concrete historical experience, interpreted history from the point of view

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of a definite philosophy of history. This philosophy was seldom clearly defined and

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particularized. Its tenets were taken for granted and implied in commenting on events.

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Only in the Age of Enlightenment did some eminent philosophers abandon the traditional

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Social Methods of the Philosophy of History and Stop Rooting about the Hidden Purpose

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of Providence Directing the Course of Events.

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They inaugurated a new social philosophy entirely different from what is called the philosophy

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of history.

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They looked upon human events from the point of view of the ends aimed at by acting men

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instead of from the point of view of the plans ascribed to God or nature.

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The significance of this radical change in the ideological outlook can best be illustrated

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by referring to Adam Smith's point of view. But in order to analyze the ideas of Smith,

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we must first refer to Mandeville. The older ethical systems were almost unanimous

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in the condemnation of self-interest. They were ready to find the self-interest of the

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tillers of the soil pardonable and very often tried to excuse or even to glorify the king's

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lust for aggrandizement. But they were adamant in their disapprobation of other people's

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Self-Interest and the Desire for Material Well-Being, commonly stigmatized as vices,

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are in fact the incentives whose operation makes for welfare, prosperity and civilization.

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Adam Smith adopted this idea. It was not the object of his studies to develop a philosophy

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of history according to the traditional pattern. He did not claim to have guessed the goals

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which Providence has set for mankind and aims to realize by directing men's actions. He

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abstained from any assertions concerning the destiny of mankind and from any prognostication

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about the Ineluctable End of Historical Change.

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He merely wanted to determine and to analyze the factors that had been instrumental in

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man's progress from the straightened conditions of older ages to the more satisfactory conditions

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of his own age.

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It was from this point of view that he stressed the fact that, every part of nature, when

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attentively surveyed, equally demonstrates the providential care of its author, and that,

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We may admire the wisdom and goodness of God even in the weakness and folly of men.

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The rich, aiming at the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, are led by

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an invisible hand in such a way that they, without intending it, without knowing it,

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advance the interests of society and afford means for the multiplication of the species.

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Referring in the existence of God, Smith could not help tracing back all earthly things to

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him and his providential care, just as later the Catholic Bastiat spoke of God's finger.

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But in referring in this way to God, neither of them intended to make any assertion about

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the ends God may want to realize in historical evolution. The ends they dealt with in their

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writings were those aimed at by acting men, not by providence. The pre-established harmony

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to which they alluded did not affect their epistemological principles and the methods

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of their reasoning.

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It was merely a means devised to reconcile the purely secular and mundane procedures

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they applied in their scientific efforts with their religious beliefs.

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They borrowed this expedient from pious astronomers, physicists and biologists who had resorted

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to it without deviating in their research from the empirical methods of the natural

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sciences.

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What made it necessary for Adam Smith to look for such a reconciliation was the fact that,

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like Mandeville before him, he could not free himself from the standards and the terminology

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of traditional ethics that condemned as vicious man's desire to improve his own material conditions.

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Consequently, he was faced with a paradox. How can it be that actions commonly blamed

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as vicious generate effects commonly praised as beneficial?

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The utilitarian philosophers found the right answer.

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What results in benefits must not be rejected as morally bad.

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Only those actions are bad which produce bad results.

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But the utilitarian point of view did not prevail.

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Public opinion still clings to the pre-Mandevillian ideas.

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It does not approve of a businessman's success in supplying the

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customers with merchandise that best suits their wishes.

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It looks askance at wealth acquired in trade and industry and finds it pardonable only

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if the owner atones for it by endowing charitable institutions.

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For the agnostic, atheistic and anti-atheistic historians and economists, there is no need

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to refer to Smith's and Bastiat's invisible hand.

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The Christian historians and economists who reject capitalism as an unfair system consider

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it blasphemous to describe egoism as a means providence has chosen in order to attain its

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ends. Thus the theological views of Smith and Bastiat no longer have any meaning for

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our age. But it is not impossible that the Christian churches and sects will one day

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discover that religious freedom can be realized only in a market economy and will stop supporting

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anti-capitalistic tendencies. Then they will either cease to disapprove of self-interest

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or return to the solution suggested by these eminent thinkers. Just as important as realizing

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Following the essential distinction between the philosophy of history and the new purely

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mundane social philosophy which developed from the eighteenth century on, is awareness

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of the difference between the stage doctrine implied in almost every philosophy of history

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and the attempts of historians to provide the totality of historical events into various

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periods or ages.

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In the context of a philosophy of history, the various states or stages are, as has been

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have been mentioned already, intermediary stations on the way to a final stage which

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will fully realize the plan of providence.

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For many Christian philosophies of history the pattern was set by the four kingdoms of

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the book of Daniel.

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The modern philosophies of history borrowed from Daniel the notion of the final stage

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of human affairs, the notion of an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away.

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Whether Hegel, Kant and Marx may disagree with Daniel and with one another, they all accept

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this notion, which is an essential element in every philosophy of history.

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They announce either that the final stage has already been reached, Hegel, or that mankind

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is just entering it, Kant, or that its coming is to be expected every day, Marx.

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The ages of history as distinguished by historians are of a different character.

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Historians do not claim to know anything about the future, they deal only with the past.

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Their periodization schemes aim at classifying historical phenomena without any presumption

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of forecasting future events.

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The readiness of many historians to press general history or special fields, like economic

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or social history or the history of warfare, into artificial subdivisions has had serious

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drawbacks.

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It has been a handicap rather than an aid to the study of history.

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It was often prompted by political bias.

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Modern historians agree in paying little attention to such period schemes.

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But what counts for us is merely establishing the fact that the epistemological character

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of the periodization of history by historians is different from the stage schemes of the

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philosophy of history.

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4.

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PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY AND THE IDEA OF GOD

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The three most popular pre-Darwinian philosophies of history of the nineteenth century, those

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of Hegel, Kant, and Marx, were adaptations of the Enlightenment's idea of progress, and

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this doctrine of human progress was an adaptation of the Christian philosophy of salvation.

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Modern theology discerns three stages in human history.

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The bliss of the age preceding the fall of man, the age of secular depravity, and finally

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the coming of the kingdom of heaven.

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If left alone, man would not be able to expiate the original sin and to attain salvation.

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But God in His mercy leads him to eternal life.

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In spite of all the frustrations and adversities of man's temporal pilgrimage, there is hope

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for a Blessed Future.

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The Enlightenment altered this scheme in order to make it agree with its scientific outlook.

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God endowed man with reason that leads him on the road toward perfection.

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In the dark past, superstition and sinister machinations of tyrants and priests restrained

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the exercise of this most precious gift bestowed upon man.

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At last, reason has burst its chains, and a new age has been inaugurated. Henceforth

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every generation will surpass its predecessors in wisdom, virtue, and success in improving

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earthly conditions. Progress toward perfection will continue forever. Reason, now emancipated

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and put in its right place, will never again be relegated to the unseemly position the

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and the Dark Ages assigned to it. All reactionary ventures of obscurantists are doomed to failure.

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The trend toward progress is irresistible. Only in the doctrines of the economists did

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the notion of progress have a definite, unambiguous meaning. All men are striving after survival

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and after improvement of the material conditions of their existence. They want to live and

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and to raise their standard of living.

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In employing the term progress, the economist abstains from expressing judgments of value.

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He appraises things from the point of view of acting men.

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He calls better or worse what appears as such in their eyes.

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Thus, capitalism means progress since it brings about progressive improvement of the material

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conditions of a continually increasing population.

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It provides people with some satisfactions which they did not get before and which gratifies

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some of their aspirations.

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But to most of the 18th century champions of Meliorism, this mean materialistic content

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of the economists' idea of progress was repulsive.

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They nurtured vague dreams of an earthly paradise.

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Their ideas about the conditions of man in this paradise were rather negative than affirmative.

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They pictured a state of affairs free of all those things which they found unsatisfactory

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in their environment.

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No tyrants, no oppression or persecution, no wars, no poverty, no crime, liberty, equality

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and fraternity, all men happy, peacefully united and cooperating in brotherly love.

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As they assumed that nature is bountiful and all men were good and reasonable, they could

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and see no cause for the existence of all that they branded evil but inherent deficiencies

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in mankind's social and political organization.

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What was needed was a constitutional reform that would substitute good laws for bad laws.

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All who opposed this reform dictated by reason were considered hopelessly depraved individuals,

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enemies of the common wheel, whom the good people were bound to annihilate physically.

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The main defect of this doctrine was its incomprehension of the liberal program as developed by the

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economists and put into effect by the harbingers of capitalistic private enterprise.

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The disciples of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who raved about nature and the blissful condition

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of man and the state of nature, did not take notice of the fact that the means of subsistence

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are scarce and that the natural state of man is extreme poverty and insecurity.

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They disparaged as greed and predatory selfishness the businessmen's endeavors to remove need

297
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and want so far as possible.

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Witnesses to the inauguration of new ways of economic management that were destined

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to provide unprecedented improvement in the standard of living for an unprecedented increase

300
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of population, they indulged in daydreams about a return to nature or to the alleged

301
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virtuous simplicity of early Republican Rome.

302
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While manufacturers were busy improving the methods of production and turning out more

303
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and better commodities for the consumption of the masses, the followers of Rousseau perorated

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about reason and virtue and liberty.

305
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It is vain to talk about progress, pure and simple.

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One must first clearly designate the goal one has chosen to attain.

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Only then is it permissible to call an advance on the way that leads to this goal, progress.

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The philosophers of the Enlightenment entirely failed in this regard.

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They did not say anything definite about the characteristics of the goal they had in mind.

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They only glorified this insufficiently described goal as the state of perfection and the realization

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of all that is good.

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But they were rather hazy in employing the epithets perfect and good.

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As against the pessimism of ancient and modern authors who had described the course of human

314
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In history, as the progressive deterioration of the perfect conditions of the fabulous

315
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golden age of the past, the Enlightenment displayed an optimistic view.

316
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As has been pointed out earlier, its philosophers derived their belief in the inevitability

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of progress toward perfection from the confidence they placed in man's reason.

318
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By dint of his reason, man learns more and more from experience.

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A new generation inherits a treasure of wisdom from its forbearers and adds something to

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it.

321
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Thus the descendants necessarily surpass their ancestors.

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It did not occur to the champions of this idea that man is not infallible and that reason

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can err in the choice of both the ultimate goal to be aimed at and of the means to be

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resorted to for its attainment.

325
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Their theistic faith implied faith in the goodness of Almighty Providence that will

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will guide mankind along the right path.

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Their philosophy had eliminated the Incarnation and all the other Christian dogmas but one-salvation.

328
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God's magnificence manifested itself in the fact that the work of His creation was necessarily

329
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committed to progressive improvement.

330
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Hegel's philosophy of history assimilated these ideas.

331
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Cognition rules the world, and this cognition is tantamount to the insight that Providence

332
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rules it.

333
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The task of philosophy of history is to discern the plans of Providence.

334
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The ultimate foundation of the optimism that Hegel displayed with regard to the course

335
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of historical events and the future of mankind was his firm faith in God's infinite goodness.

336
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God is genuine goodness.

337
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The cognition of philosophy is that no power surpasses the might of the good, i.e., God,

338
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and could prevent God from asserting himself that God is right at the last, that human

339
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history is nothing else than the plan of Providence. God rules the world. The content of His government,

340
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the realization of His plan, is the history of mankind.

341
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In the philosophy of Kant as well as that of Marx there is no room left for God and

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His infinite goodness. In the system of Hegel it made sense to speak of a necessary progress

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of mankind from less to more satisfactory conditions. God had decided that every later

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stage of human affairs should be a higher and better stage. No other decision could

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be expected from the Almighty and infinitely good Lord. But the atheists Kant and Marx

346
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should not have simply assumed that the march of time is necessarily a march toward ever

347
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better conditions and will eventually lead to a perfect state.

348
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It was up to them to prove that progress and improvements are inevitable and a relapse

349
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into unsatisfactory conditions impossible.

350
00:29:04.760 --> 00:29:09.020
But they never embarked upon such a demonstration.

351
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If for the sake of argument one were prepared to acquiesce in Marx's arbitrary prediction

352
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that society is moving with the inexorability of a law of nature towards socialism, it would

353
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still be necessary to examine the question whether socialism can be considered as a workable

354
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system of society's economic organization and whether it does not rather mean the disintegration

355
00:29:30.840 --> 00:29:37.940
of social bonds, the return to primitive barbarism and poverty and starvation for all.

356
00:29:37.940 --> 00:29:43.040
The purpose of Marx's philosophy of history was to silence the critical voices of the

357
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The idea of an irresistible trend towards salvation and the establishment of a perfect

358
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God's state of everlasting bliss is an eminently theological idea. In the frame of a system

359
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of atheism, it is a mere arbitrary guess, deprived of any sense. There is no theology

360
00:30:23.240 --> 00:30:30.640
without God. An atheistic system of philosophy of history must not base its optimism upon

361
00:30:30.640 --> 00:30:35.240
confidence in the infinite goodness of God Almighty.

362
00:30:35.240 --> 00:30:42.600
5. Activistic Determinism and Fatalistic Determinism

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Every philosophy of history is an instance of the popular idea, mentioned earlier, that

364
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all future events are recorded in advance in the Great Book of Fate. A special dispensation

365
00:30:54.140 --> 00:30:58.920
has allowed the philosopher to read pages of this book and to reveal their content to

366
00:30:58.920 --> 00:31:05.000
the uninitiated. This brand of determinism inherent in a philosophy of history must be

367
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be distinguished from the type of determinism that guides man's actions and search for knowledge.

368
00:31:11.200 --> 00:31:16.760
The latter type, we may call it activistic determinism, is the outgrowth of the insight

369
00:31:16.760 --> 00:31:22.000
that every change is the result of a cause and that there is a regularity in the concatenation

370
00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:24.280
of cause and effect.

371
00:31:24.280 --> 00:31:29.100
However unsatisfactory the endeavors of philosophy to throw light upon the problem of causality

372
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Causality may have been hitherto, it is impossible for the human mind to think of uncaused change.

373
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Man cannot help assuming that every change is caused by a preceding change and causes

374
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further change.

375
00:31:43.220 --> 00:31:49.020
Notwithstanding all the doubts raised by the philosophers, human conduct is entirely and

376
00:31:49.020 --> 00:31:56.980
in every sphere of life, action, philosophy and science, directed by the category of causality.

377
00:31:56.980 --> 00:32:02.780
The lesson brought home to man by Activistic Determinism is, if you want to attain a definite

378
00:32:02.780 --> 00:32:10.100
end, you must resort to the appropriate means, there is no other way to success.

379
00:32:10.100 --> 00:32:15.500
But in the context of a philosophy of history, determinism means, this will happen however

380
00:32:15.500 --> 00:32:17.860
much you may try to avoid it.

381
00:32:17.860 --> 00:32:23.060
While Activistic Determinism is a call to action and the utmost exertion of a man's

382
00:32:23.060 --> 00:32:28.420
and its physical and mental capacities, this type of determinism, we may call it fatalistic

383
00:32:28.420 --> 00:32:34.540
determinism, paralyzes the will and engenders passivity and lethargy.

384
00:32:34.540 --> 00:32:40.060
As has been pointed out, it is so contrary to the innate impulse toward activity that

385
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it never could really get hold of the human mind and prevent people from acting.

386
00:32:46.160 --> 00:32:50.860
In depicting the history of the future, the philosopher of history as a rule restricts

387
00:32:50.860 --> 00:32:57.420
himself to describing big-scale events and the final outcome of the historical process.

388
00:32:57.420 --> 00:33:02.640
He thinks that this limitation distinguishes his guesswork from the augury of common soothsayers

389
00:33:02.640 --> 00:33:07.160
who dwell upon details and unimportant little things.

390
00:33:07.160 --> 00:33:11.360
Such minor events are in his view contingent and unpredictable.

391
00:33:11.360 --> 00:33:13.400
It does not bother about them.

392
00:33:13.400 --> 00:33:18.460
His attention is exclusively directed toward the great destiny of the whole, not to the

393
00:33:18.460 --> 00:33:21.800
The Trifle, which, as he thinks, does not matter.

394
00:33:21.800 --> 00:33:28.800
However, the historical process is the product of all these small changes going on ceaselessly.

395
00:33:28.800 --> 00:33:33.880
He who claims to know the final end must necessarily know them, too.

396
00:33:33.880 --> 00:33:38.960
He must either take them all in at a glance with all their consequences or be aware of

397
00:33:38.960 --> 00:33:44.480
a principle that inevitably directs their result to a preordained end.

398
00:33:44.480 --> 00:33:48.980
The arrogance with which a writer elaborating his system of philosophy of history looks

399
00:33:48.980 --> 00:33:55.880
down upon the small fry of palmists and crystal-gazers, is therefore hardly different from the haughtiness

400
00:33:55.880 --> 00:34:02.240
which in pre-capitalistic times wholesalers displayed towards retailers and peddlers.

401
00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:07.900
What he sells is essentially the same questionable wisdom.

402
00:34:07.900 --> 00:34:13.760
Activistic determinism is by no means incompatible with the, rightly understood, idea of freedom

403
00:34:13.760 --> 00:34:15.240
of the Will.

404
00:34:15.240 --> 00:34:20.400
It is, in fact, the correct exposition of this often-misinterpreted notion.

405
00:34:20.400 --> 00:34:25.880
Because there is in the universe a regularity in the concatenation and sequence of phenomena,

406
00:34:25.880 --> 00:34:31.400
and because man is capable of acquiring knowledge about some of these regularities, human action

407
00:34:31.400 --> 00:34:34.760
becomes possible within a definite margin.

408
00:34:34.760 --> 00:34:40.040
Free will means that man can aim at definite ends because he is familiar with some of the

409
00:34:40.040 --> 00:34:43.660
laws determining the flux of world affairs.

410
00:34:43.660 --> 00:34:48.120
Here is a sphere within which man can choose between alternatives.

411
00:34:48.120 --> 00:34:53.640
He is not, like other animals, inevitably and irremediably subject to the operation

412
00:34:53.640 --> 00:34:55.340
of blind fate.

413
00:34:55.340 --> 00:35:00.840
He can, within definite narrow limits, divert events from the course they would take if

414
00:35:00.840 --> 00:35:02.640
left alone.

415
00:35:02.640 --> 00:35:04.720
He is an acting being.

416
00:35:04.720 --> 00:35:11.160
In this consists his superiority to mice and microbes, plants and stones.

417
00:35:11.160 --> 00:35:18.820
In this sense, he applies the, perhaps, inexpedient and misleading term, free will.

418
00:35:18.820 --> 00:35:24.260
The emotional appeal of the cognizance of this freedom and the idea of moral responsibility

419
00:35:24.260 --> 00:35:30.360
which it engenders are as much facts as anything else called by that name.

420
00:35:30.360 --> 00:35:36.200
Comparing himself with all other beings, man sees his own dignity and superiority in his

421
00:35:36.200 --> 00:35:37.520
will.

422
00:35:37.520 --> 00:35:43.940
The will is unbendable and must not yield to any violence and oppression, because man

423
00:35:43.940 --> 00:35:49.800
is capable of choosing between life and death and of preferring death if life can be preserved

424
00:35:49.800 --> 00:35:57.120
only at the price of submitting to unbearable conditions. Man alone can die for a cause.

425
00:35:57.120 --> 00:36:05.440
It was this that Dante had in mind, che volante se non vuole, non se morse. The will does

426
00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:09.920
Does Not Die If It Does Not Will

427
00:36:09.920 --> 00:36:15.400
One of the fundamental conditions of man's existence and action is the fact that he does

428
00:36:15.400 --> 00:36:18.840
not know what will happen in the future.

429
00:36:18.840 --> 00:36:25.080
The exponent of a philosophy of history, arrogating to himself the omniscience of God, claims

430
00:36:25.080 --> 00:36:29.340
He says that an inner voice has revealed to him knowledge of things to come.