epend upon his choice; he was not asked if he
would or would not come into the world; nature did not consult him upon
the country and the parents that she gave him; the ideas he acquired,
his opinions, his true or false notions are the necessary fruits of the
education which he has received, and of which he has not been the
master; his passions and his desires are the necessary results of the
temperament which nature has given him, and of the ideas with which he
has been inspired; during the whole course of his life, his wishes and
his actions are determined by his surroundings, his habits, his
occupations, his pleasures, his conversations, and by the thoughts which
present themselves involuntarily to him; in short, by a multitude of
events and accidents which are beyond his control. Incapable of
foreseeing the future, he knows neither what he will wish, nor what he
will do in the time which must immediately follow the present. Man
passes his life, from the moment of his birth to that of his death,
without having been free one instant. Man, you say, wishes, deliberates,
chooses, determines; hence you conclude that his actions are free. It is
true that man intends, but he is not master of his will or of his
desires. He can desire and wish only what he judges advantageous for
himself; he can not love pain nor detest pleasure. Man, it will be said,
sometimes prefers pain to pleasure; but then, he prefers a passing pain
in the hope of procuring a greater and more durable pleasure. In this
case, the idea of a greater good determines him to deprive himself of
one less desirable.

It is not the lover who gives to his mistress the features by which he
is enchanted; he is not then the master to love or not to love the
object of his tenderness; he is not the master of the imagination or the
temperament which dominates him; from which it follows, evidently, that
man is not the master of the wishes and desires which rise in his soul,
independently of him. But man, say you, can resist his desires; then he
is free. Man resists his desires when the motives which turn him from an
object are stronger than those which draw him toward it; but then, his
resistance is necessary. A man who fears dishonor and punishment more
than he loves money, resists necessarily the desire to take possession
of another's money. Are we not free when we deliberate?--but has one the
power to know or not to know, to be uncertain or to be assured?
Deliberation