Is it true that we all walk the earth under the dispensation of powers not our own, and live uncertain of the future? Is it true that a heavy veil conceals every man’s destiny, and that fate as a blind force, or even as the alien, arbitrary will of a higher Providence—for my purpose I see no distinction—plays with our decisions as with our desires? Certainly, if our decisions are no more than wishes, then man is the toy of chance! If he has learned to find himself nowhere but in the flux of those transient impressions and particular ideas that happen to be the realities of his life; if his whole life is preoccupied with the insecure possession of external things, and he never penetrates more deeply into his own being, because he is absorbed in dizzy contemplation of the everlasting swirl in which both he and his possessions are carried round; if under the influence of one random emotion or another his attention is always directed upon some particular external thing, which he wants to pursue or possess according to the impulse of the moment; then to be sure fate may prove hostile, robbing him of what he desires and playing with his resolutions, which deserve to be regarded as toys; then let him complain of uncertainty, since from his point of view nothing is certain; then indeed his own blindness must seem like a heavy veil, and it must surely be dark where the light of freedom does not shine; then, of course, he must want to know above all¹ whether the changes that govern him are dependent on a supreme will above all wills, or whether they are a mechanical result of the combination of many forces. For this latter possibility must terrify one who has never laid hold of his true self. If every ray of light upon the infinite chaos of things shows man more clearly that he is not a free being, but only a cog in the great wheel which moves both him and all else in its eternal revolution, then hope, renewed again and again in defiance of all experience and all knowledge, hope in a sublime mercy must be his only support.
Welcome art thou, oh cherished assurance of freedom! Every time I see the slaves of necessity trembling I welcome thee anew! Oh the beauty and peace of that clear understanding with which I confidently greet the future, knowing what it is and what it has in store; I am its master, it is not mine. It hides nothing from me; it approaches without any pretense of power over me. Only the gods,² who have no further scope for self-improvement, are ruled by fate, and the worst of mortals, who have no desire to perfect themselves, but not the man who is occupied, as he should be, in developing himself. Where find the limit set to my power? At what point does the dread realm of alien necessity begin? The only impossibility of which I am aware is to transcend the limits which I freely placed upon my nature from the beginning;1 the only things I cannot do are those which I surrendered in deciding what I wanted to become; naught else is impossible for me save to reverse that original decision as once taken.³ Whoever regards such limitation which is the essential condition of his very existence, of his freedom, of his having a will at all, as an alien coercion seems to me strangely confused. But do I sense any further restrictions upon me within the limits of my chosen sphere? Without doubt this would be the case, if even in matters of morality and self-culture I harbored the desire for some specific result at each moment; if the performance of some particular action should at any time become in itself the object of my will, then, to be sure, this object might escape me just when I wanted it. In such a case I should indeed find myself under alien control, but were I to blame fate, I should only be mistaking the real thing at fault, namely myself. But such a fate can never befall me! For I live always in the light of my entire being. My only purpose is ever to become more fully what I am; each of my acts is but a special phase in the unfolding of this single will; and no less certain than my power to act at all is my ability to act always in this spirit; in the sequence of my actions there will be nothing unconformable to this principle. Come then what may! My will rules fate, as long as I relate everything to this comprehensive purpose, and remain indifferent to external conditions and forms of life, considering them all as of equal value to me provided only that they express the nature of my being and afford new material for its inner cultivation and growth. As long as my spirit’s eye keeps in view this object in its entirety,⁴ seeing each particular purpose only as contained in this whole, yet truly seeing in this whole all particular aims, as long as I never drop out of mind the pursuit that I happen to interrupt, keeping my will fixed upon more than I do, relating whatever I do to all that I will, just so long does my will rule fate, and freely turn to its purposes whatever fate may bring. Such a will can never be cheated of its object, and in its very conception the idea of fate vanishes. Whence then do those changes of human fortune, which men feel to be so tyrannous, take their rise but in the fact that freedom limits freedom in a community of such wills?2 Thus these changes are also an effect of freedom, and of my own freedom to boot. How could I suffer my actions to help form the vicissitudes of other men, if I did not demand that those of others should do the same for me? Yes, I do demand it most emphatically! Let time move on, and bring me what manifold materials it may for my activity, my self-development, and for the outward expression of my nature. I flinch at nothing, the order in which it comes is immaterial to me, and so are all the external conditions. Whatever the active community of mankind can produce shall pass before me, shall stir and affect me in order to be affected by me in turn, and in the manner I receive and treat it, I intend always to find my freedom and to develop my individuality through its outward expression.