Chapter: "Ha! ha! ha!  But you know there is no such thing as choice in reality,
say what you like," you will interpose with a chuckle.  "Science has
succeeded in so far analysing man that we know already that choice and
what is called freedom of will is nothing else than--"

Stay, gentlemen, I meant to begin with that myself I confess, I was
rather frightened.  I was just going to say that the devil only knows
what choice depends on, and that perhaps that was a very good thing,
but I remembered the teaching of science ... and pulled myself up.  And
here you have begun upon it.  Indeed, if there really is some day
discovered a formula for all our desires and caprices--that is, an
explanation of what they depend upon, by what laws they arise, how they
develop, what they are aiming at in one case and in another and so on,
that is a real mathematical formula--then, most likely, man will at
once cease to feel desire, indeed, he will be certain to.  For who
would want to choose by rule?  Besides, he will at once be transformed
from a human being into an organ-stop or something of the sort; for
what is a man without desires, without free will and without choice, if
not a stop in an organ?  What do you think?  Let us reckon the
chances--can such a thing happen or not?

"H'm!" you decide.  "Our choice is usually mistaken from a false view
of our advantage.  We sometimes choose absolute nonsense because in our
foolishness we see in that nonsense the easiest means for attaining a
supposed advantage.  But when all that is explained and worked out on
paper (which is perfectly possible, for it is contemptible and
senseless to suppose that some laws of nature man will never
understand), then certainly so-called desires will no longer exist.
For if a desire should come into conflict with reason we shall then
reason and not desire, because it will be impossible retaining our
reason to be SENSELESS in our desires, and in that way knowingly act
against reason and desire to injure ourselves. And as all choice and
reasoning can be really calculated--because there will some day be
discovered the laws of our so-called free will--so, joking apart, there
may one day be something like a table constructed of them, so that we
really shall choose in accordance with it.  If, for instance, some day
they calculate and prove to me that I made a long nose at someone
because I could not help making a long nose at him and that I had to do
it in that particular way, what FREEDOM is left me, especially if I am
a learned man and have taken my degree somewhere?  Then I should be
able to calculate my whole life for thirty years beforehand.  In short,
if this could be arranged there would be nothing left for us to do;
anyway, we should have to understand that.  And, in fact, we ought
unwearyingly to repeat to ourselves that at such and such a time and in
such and such circumstances nature does not ask our leave; that we have
got to take her as she is and not fashion her to suit our fancy, and if
we really aspire to formulas and tables of rules, and well, even ... to
the chemical retort, there's no help for it, we must accept the retort
too, or else it will be accepted without our consent...."

Yes, but here I come to a stop!  Gentlemen, you must excuse me for
being over-philosophical; it's the result of forty years underground!
Allow me to indulge my fancy.  You see, gentlemen, reason is an
excellent thing, there's no disputing that, but reason is nothing but
reason and satisfies only the rational side of man's nature, while will
is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life
including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this
manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply
extracting square roots.  Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to
live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my
capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my
capacity for life.  What does reason know?  Reason only knows what it
has succeeded in learning (some things, perhaps, it will never learn;
this is a poor comfort, but why not say so frankly?) and human nature
acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or
unconsciously, and, even if it goes wrong, it lives.  I suspect,
gentlemen, that you are looking at me with compassion; you tell me
again that an enlightened and developed man, such, in short, as the
future man will be, cannot consciously desire anything disadvantageous
to himself, that that can be proved mathematically.  I thoroughly
agree, it can--by mathematics.  But I repeat for the hundredth time,
there is one case, one only, when man may consciously, purposely,
desire what is injurious to himself, what is stupid, very
stupid--simply in order to have the right to desire for himself even
what is very stupid and not to be bound by an obligation to desire only
what is sensible.  Of course, this very stupid thing, this caprice of
ours, may be in reality, gentlemen, more advantageous for us than
anything else on earth, especially in certain cases.  And in particular
it may be more advantageous than any advantage even when it does us
obvious harm, and contradicts the soundest conclusions of our reason
concerning our advantage--for in any circumstances it preserves for us
what is most precious and most important--that is, our personality, our
individuality.  Some, you see, maintain that this really is the most
precious thing for mankind; choice can, of course, if it chooses, be in
agreement with reason; and especially if this be not abused but kept
within bounds.  It is profitable and sometimes even praiseworthy.  But
very often, and even most often, choice is utterly and stubbornly
opposed to reason ... and ... and ... do you know that that, too, is
profitable, sometimes even praiseworthy?  Gentlemen, let us suppose
that man is not stupid.  (Indeed one cannot refuse to suppose that, if
only from the one consideration, that, if man is stupid, then who is
wise?)  But if he is not stupid, he is monstrously ungrateful!
Phenomenally ungrateful.  In fact, I believe that the best definition
of man is the ungrateful biped.  But that is not all, that is not his
worst defect; his worst defect is his perpetual moral obliquity,
perpetual--from the days of the Flood to the Schleswig-Holstein period.
Moral obliquity and consequently lack of good sense; for it has long
been accepted that lack of good sense is due to no other cause than
moral obliquity.  Put it to the test and cast your eyes upon the
history of mankind.  What will you see?  Is it a grand spectacle?
Grand, if you like.  Take the Colossus of Rhodes, for instance, that's
worth something.  With good reason Mr. Anaevsky testifies of it that
some say that it is the work of man's hands, while others maintain that
it has been created by nature herself.  Is it many-coloured?  May be it
is many-coloured, too: if one takes the dress uniforms, military and
civilian, of all peoples in all ages--that alone is worth something,
and if you take the undress uniforms you will never get to the end of
it; no historian would be equal to the job.  Is it monotonous? May be
it's monotonous too: it's fighting and fighting; they are fighting now,
they fought first and they fought last--you will admit, that it is
almost too monotonous.  In short, one may say anything about the
history of the world--anything that might enter the most disordered
imagination. The only thing one can't say is that it's rational.  The
very word sticks in one's throat.  And, indeed, this is the odd thing
that is continually happening: there are continually turning up in life
moral and rational persons, sages and lovers of humanity who make it
their object to live all their lives as morally and rationally as
possible, to be, so to speak, a light to their neighbours simply in
order to show them that it is possible to live morally and rationally
in this world.  And yet we all know that those very people sooner or
later have been false to themselves, playing some queer trick, often a
most unseemly one.  Now I ask you: what can be expected of man since he
is a being endowed with strange qualities?  Shower upon him every
earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but
bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic
prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat
cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even
then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some
nasty trick.  He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately
desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply
to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic
element.  It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly that he
will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself--as though
that were so necessary--that men still are men and not the keys of a
piano, which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that
soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar.  And that
is not all: even if man really were nothing but a piano-key, even if
this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then
he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something
perverse out of simple ingratitude, simply to gain his point.  And if
he does not find means he will contrive destruction and chaos, will
contrive sufferings of all sorts, only to gain his point!  He will
launch a curse upon the world, and as only man can curse (it is his
privilege, the primary distinction between him and other animals), may
be by his curse alone he will attain his object--that is, convince
himself that he is a man and not a piano-key!  If you say that all
this, too, can be calculated and tabulated--chaos and darkness and
curses, so that the mere possibility of calculating it all beforehand
would stop it all, and reason would reassert itself, then man would
purposely go mad in order to be rid of reason and gain his point!  I
believe in it, I answer for it, for the whole work of man really seems
to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a
man and not a piano-key! It may be at the cost of his skin, it may be
by cannibalism!  And this being so, can one help being tempted to
rejoice that it has not yet come off, and that desire still depends on
something we don't know?

You will scream at me (that is, if you condescend to do so) that no one
is touching my free will, that all they are concerned with is that my
will should of itself, of its own free will, coincide with my own
normal interests, with the laws of nature and arithmetic.

Good heavens, gentlemen, what sort of free will is left when we come to
tabulation and arithmetic, when it will all be a case of twice two make
four?  Twice two makes four without my will.  As if free will meant
that!

 Next, he confronts the counter-argument that man's "free will" is just an illusion-just a scientific formula of biological chemicals. The UM says that if this were ever the case, man would cease being human altogether and become an organ stop. Later, he even suggests that this liberty of choice, this freedom to be stupid, is a right

