HKB
reason. All such motives in spite of antagonism realise themselves in action with the inevitability of natural law, but we count upon this inevitable necessity when we deal with morals."
This second definition of freedom which is quite opposed to the first is nothing but a very weak paraphrase of Hegel's notions on the subject. Hegel was the first man to make a proper explanation of the relations of freedom and necessity. In his eyes freedom is the recognition of necessity. "Necessity is blind only in so far as it is not understood." Freedom does not consist in an imaginary independence of natural laws but in a knowledge of these laws and in the possibility thence derived of applying them intelligently to given ends. This is true both as regards the laws of nature and of those which control the spiritual and physical existence of man himself,--two classes of laws which we can distinguish as an abstraction but not in reality. Freedom of the will consists in nothing but the ability to come to a decision when one is in possession of a knowledge of the facts. The freer the judgment of a man then in relation to a given subject of discussion so much the more necessity is there for his arrival at a positive decision. On the other hand lack of certainty arising from ignorance which apparently chooses voluntarily between many different and contradictory possibilities of decision shows thereby its want of freedom, its control by things which it should in reality control. Freedom, therefore, consists in mastery over ourselves and external nature founded upon knowledge of the necessities of nature, it is, therefore, necessarily a product of historical development. The first human beings to become differentiated from the lower animals were in all essentials as devoid of freedom as these animals themselves but each step in human development was a step towards freedom. At the threshold of human history stands the discovery of the transformation of mechanical motion in heat, the generation of fire by friction; at the close of development up to the present stands the discovery of the transformation of heat into mechanical motion, the steam engine. In spite of the tremendous revolution in the direction of freedom which the steam engine has produced in society it is not yet half complete. There is no question that the production of fire by friction still surpasses it as an agent in the liberation of humanity. Because the production of fire by friction for the first time gave man power over the forces of nature and separated him for ever from the lower animals. The steam engine can never bridge so wide a chasm. It appears however as the representative of all those productive forces by the help of which alone a state of society is rendered possible in which no class subjection or pain will be produced by reason of the lack of means for the sustenance of the individual, in which moreover it will be possible to speak of real human freedom as arising from living in accordance with the recognised laws of nature. But considering the youth of humanity it would be absurd to wish to impute any universal absolute validity to our present philosophical views, and it follows from the mere facts that the whole of history up to the present time is to be regarded as the history of the period extending from the time of the practical discovery of the transformation of mechanical movement into heat to that of the transformation of heat into mechanical movement.
(The above constitutes a reply to the view which regards history simply as the record of human error and is followed by a discussion of Duehring's opinions in that regard.)