years ago. When he grew up, he cast spears after wild animals, loved a woman who
became the mother of his children, and quite certainly worshipped the tribal gods. Do
you really think he decided all that for himself?”
“I don’t know.”
“Or think of a lion in Africa. Do you think it makes up its mind to be a beast of
prey? Is that why it attacks a limping antelope? Could it instead have made up its
mind to be a vegetarian?”
“No, a lion obeys its nature.”
“You mean, the laws of nature. So do you, Sophie, because you are also part of
nature. You could of course protest, with the support of Descartes, that a lion is an
animal and not a free human being with free mental faculties. But think of a newborn
baby that screams and yells. If it doesn’t get milk it sucks its thumb. Does that baby
have a free will?”
“I guess not.”
“When does the child get its free will, then? At the age of two, she runs around
and points at everything in sight. At the age of three she nags her mother, and at the
age of four she suddenly gets afraid of the dark. Where’s the freedom, Sophie?”
“I don’t know.”
“When she is fifteen, she sits in front of a mirror experimenting with makeup. Is
this the moment when she makes her own personal decisions and does what she
likes?”
“I see what you’re getting at.”
“She is Sophie Amundsen, certainly. But she also lives according to the laws of
nature. The point is that she doesn’t realize it because there are so many complex
reasons for everything she does.”
“I don’t think I want to hear any more.”
“But you must just answer a last question. Two equally old trees are growing in
a large garden. One of the trees grows in a sunny spot and has plenty of good soil and
water. The other tree grows in poor soil in a dark spot. Which of the trees do you
think is bigger? And which of them bears more fruit?”
“Obviously the tree with the best conditions for growing.”
“According to Spinoza, this tree is free. It has its full freedom to develop its
inherent abilities. But if it is an apple tree it will not have the ability to bear pears or
plums. The same applies to us humans. We can be hindered in our development and
our personal growth by political conditions, for instance. Outer circumstances can
constrain us. Only when we are free to develop our innate abilities can we live as free
beings. But we are just as much determined by inner potential and outer opportunities
as the Stone Age boy on the Rhine, the lion in Africa, or the apple tree in the garden.”
“Okay, I give in, almost.”
“Spinoza emphasizes that there is only one being which is totally and utterly ‘its
own cause’ and can act with complete freedom. Only God or nature is the expression
of such a free and ‘nonaccidental’ process. Man can strive for freedom in order to live
without outer constraint, but he will never achieve ‘free will.’ We do not control
everything that happens in our body—which is a mode of the attribute of extension.
Neither do we ‘choose’ our thinking. Man therefore does not have a ‘free soul’; it is
more or less imprisoned in a mechanical body.”
“That is rather hard to understand.”
“Spinoza said that it was our passions—such as ambition and lust—which
prevent us from achieving true happiness and harmony, but that if we recognize that
everything happens from necessity, we can achieve an intuitive understanding of