Moral truth no more becomes relative and subjective, to take for a moment the language of Kant, in appearing to us obligatory, than truth becomes relative and subjective in appearing to us necessary; for in the very nature of truth and the good must be sought the reason of necessity and obligation. But if we stop at obligation and necessity, as Kant did, in ethics as well as in metaphysics, without knowing it, and even against our intention, we destroy, or at least weaken truth and the good.[223]
Obligation has its foundation in the necessary distinction between good and evil; and is itself the foundation of liberty. If man has duties, he must possess the faculty of fulfilling them, of resisting desire, passion, and interest, in order to obey law. He ought to be free, therefore he is free, or human nature is in contradiction with itself. The direct certainty of obligation implies the corresponding certainty of liberty.
This proof of liberty is doubtless good; but Kant is deceived in supposing it the only legitimate proof. It is very strange that he should have preferred the authority of reasoning to that of consciousness, as if the former had no need of being confirmed by the latter; as if, after all, my liberty ought not to be a fact for me.[224] Empiricism must be greatly feared to distrust the testimony of consciousness; and, after such a distrust, one must be very credulous to have a boundless faith in reasoning. We do not believe in our liberty as we believe in the movement of the earth. The profoundest persuasion that we have of it comes from the continual experience that we carry with ourselves.
Is it true that in presence of an act to be done I am able to will or not to will to do it? In that lies the whole question of liberty.
Let us clearly distinguish between the power of doing and the power of willing. The will has, without doubt, in its service and under its empire, the most of our faculties; but that empire, which is real, is very limited. I will to move my arm, and I am often able to do it,—in that resides, as it were, the physical power of will; but I am not always able to move my arm, if the muscles are paralyzed, if the obstacle to be overcome is too strong, &c.; the execution does not always depend on me; but what always depends on me is the resolution itself. The external effects may be hindered, my resolution itself can never be hindered. In its own domain, will is sovereign.
And I am conscious of this sovereign power of the will. I feel in myself, before its determination, the force that can determine itself in such a manner or in such another. At the same time that I will this or that, I am equally conscious of the power to will the opposite; I am conscious of being master of my resolution, of the ability to arrest it, continue it, repress it. When the voluntary act ceases, the consciousness of the power does not cease,—it remains with the power itself, which is superior to all its manifestations. Liberty is therefore the essential and always-subsisting attribute of will.[225]
The will, we have seen,[226] is neither desire nor passion,—it is exactly the opposite. Liberty of will is not, then, the license of desires and passions. Man is a slave in desire and passion, he is free only in will. That they may not elsewhere be confounded, liberty and anarchy must not be confounded in psychology. Passions abandoning themselves to their caprices, is anarchy. Passions concentrated upon a dominant passion, is tyranny. Liberty consists in the struggle of will against this tyranny and this anarchy. But this combat must have an aim, and this aim is the duty of obeying reason, which is our true sovereign, and justice, which reason reveals to us and prescribes for us. The duty of obeying reason is the law of will, and will is never more itself than when it submits to its law. We do not possess ourselves, as long as to the domination of desire, of passion, of interest, reason does not oppose the counterpoise of justice. Reason and justice free us from the yoke of passions, without imposing upon us another yoke. For, once more, to obey them, is not to abdicate liberty, but to save it, to apply it to its legitimate use.
It is in liberty, and in the agreement of liberty with reason and justice, that man belongs to himself, to speak properly. He is a person only because he is a free being enlightened by reason.
What distinguishes a person from a simple thing, is especially the difference between liberty and its opposite. A thing is that which is not free, consequently that which does not belong to itself, that which has no self, which has only a numerical individuality, a perfect effigy of true individuality, which is that of person.
A thing, not belonging to itself, belongs to the first person that takes possession of it and puts his mark on it.