was first shown by Hobbes, then by Spinoza, and Hume, and also by Dietrich von Holbach in his Syst�me de la Nature; and lastly by Priestley it was most completely and precisely demonstrated.

This point, indeed, has been so clearly proved, and placed beyond all doubt, that it must be reckoned among the number of perfectly established truths, and only crass ignorance could continue to speak of a freedom, of a liberum arbitrium indifferentiae (a free and indifferent choice) in the individual acts of men. Nor did Kant, owing to the irrefutable reasoning of his predecessors, hesitate to consider the Will as fast bound in the chains of Necessity, the matter admitting, as he thought, of no further dispute or doubt. This is proved by all the passages in which he speaks of freedom only from the theoretical standpoint.