annot tell us that it does not feel the law of attraction or repulsion
and that that law is untrue, but man, who is the subject of history,
says plainly: I am free and am therefore not subject to the law.

The presence of the problem of man's free will, though unexpressed, is
felt at every step of history.

All seriously thinking historians have involuntarily encountered this
question. All the contradictions and obscurities of history and the
false path historical science has followed are due solely to the lack of
a solution of that question.

If the will of every man were free, that is, if each man could act as he
pleased, all history would be a series of disconnected incidents.

If in a thousand years even one man in a million could act freely, that
is, as he chose, it is evident that one single free act of that man's
in violation of the laws governing human action would destroy the
possibility of the existence of any laws for the whole of humanity.

If there be a single law governing the actions of men, free will cannot
exist, for then man's will is subject to that law.

In this contradiction lies the problem of free will, which from most
ancient times has occupied the best human minds and from most ancient
times has been presented in its whole tremendous significance.

The problem is that regarding man as a subject of observation
from whatever point of view--theological, historical, ethical, or
philosophic--we find a general law of necessity to which he (like all
that exists) is subject. But regarding him from within ourselves as what
we are conscious of, we feel ourselves to be free.

This consciousness is a source of self-cognition quite apart from and
independent of reason. Through his reason man observes himself, but only
through consciousness does he know himself.

Apart from consciousness of self no observation or application of reason
is conceivable.

To understand, observe, and draw conclusions, man must first of all be
conscious of himself as living. A man is only conscious of himself as
a living being by the fact that he wills, that is, is conscious of
his volition. But his will--which forms the essence of his life--man
recognizes (and can but recognize) as free.

If, observing himself, man sees that his will is always directed by
one and the same law (whether he observes the necessity of taking
food, using his brain, or anything else) he cannot recognize this
never-varying direction of his wil