No matter what
conception one may form of the
freedom of the will in
metaphysics,
the phenomenal appearances of the will, i.e.,
human actions, are determined by general laws
of nature like any other event of
nature.
History is concerned with telling about these
events. History allows one to hope that when history considers in the large the play of the
freedom of human will, it will be possible to
discover the regular progressions thereof. Thus
(it is to be hoped) that what appears to be
complicated and
accidental in individuals, may
yet be understood as a steady, progressive, though slow,
evolution of the original endowments
of the entire species. Thus marriages, the consequent births and the
deaths, since the
free
will seems to have such a great influence in them, do not seem to be
subject to any law
according to which one could
calculate their number beforehand. Yet the annual (statistical)
tables about them in the
major countries show that they occur according to stable
natural
laws. It is like the erratic
weather the occurrence of which cannot be determined in
particular instances, although it never fails in maintaining the growth of plants, the
flow
of streams, and other of nature's arrangements at a
uniform, unintenupted pace. Individual
human beings, each pursuing his own ends according to his inclination and often one
against
another (
and even one entire people against another) rarely
unintentionally promote, as if it were their guide,
an
end of nature that is unknown to them. They thus work to promote what they would care little for if they knew about it.
Since men in their endeavors do not act like animals merely according to instinct, nor like rational citizens according to an
agreed plan, no planned history seems to be possible (as in the case of bees and beavers). It is hard to suppress a certain
disgust when contemplating men's action upon the world stage. For one finds, in spite of apparent wisdom in detail that
everything, taken as a whole, is interwoven with stupidity, childish vanity, often with childish viciousness and
destructiveness. In the end, one does not know what kind of conception one should have of our species that is so conceited
about its superior qualities. Since the philosopher must assume that men have a flexible purpose of their own, it is left to
him to attempt to discover an end of nature in this senseless march of human events. A history of creatures who proceed
without a plan would be possible in keeping with such an end; the history would proceed according to such an end of nature.
We shall see whether we can succeed in discovering a guide to such a history. We shall leave it to nature to produce a man
who would be capable of writing history in accordance with such an end. Thus nature produced a Kepler who figured out an
unexpected way of subsuming the eccentric orbits of the planets to definite laws, and a Newton who explained these laws by a
general cause of nature.
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