to gain his living, refusing all pensions and all the professorial
positions offered to him, and living well-nigh on nothing, had read
Descartes and, to conform to the principle of evidence, had begun by
renouncing his religion, which was that of the Jews. His general outlook
on the world was this: There is only one God. God is all. Only He has His
attributes--that is to say, His manners of being and His modes, that is His
modifications, as the sun (merely a comparison) has as its manners of
being, its roundness, colour, and heat, as modifications its rays,
terrestrial heat, direct and diffused light, etc. Now God has two
attributes, thought and extension, as had already been observed by
Descartes; and for modifications He has exactly all we can see, touch, or
feel, etc. The human soul is an attribute of God, as is everything else; it
is an attribute of God in His power. It is not free, for all that comes
from God, all that _is of God_, is a regular and necessary development
of God Himself. "There is nothing contingent" [nothing which may either
happen or not happen]. All things are determined, by the necessity of the
divine nature, to exist and to act in a given manner. There is therefore
no free-will in the soul, the soul is determined to will this or that by a
cause which is itself determined by another and that by another, and so on
to infinity.

Nevertheless we believe ourselves to be free and according to the principle
of evidence we are; for nothing is more evident to us than our liberty. We
are as intimately convinced of our liberty as of our existence and we
_all_ affirm, I am free,--with the same emphasis that Descartes
affirms: I am. I am and I am free are the two things it is impossible for
man to doubt, no matter what effort he makes.

No doubt, but it is an illusion. It is the illusion of a being who feels
himself as cause, but does not feel himself as effect. Try to imagine a