astonish him, an anxiety to intimidate him, &c. were the invisible
chains that held his hand bound to the fire. The love of glory,
enthusiasm for their country, in like manner, caused Codrus and Decius
to devote themselves for their fellow citizens. The Indian Calanus and
the philosopher Peregrinus were equally obliged to burn themselves, by
the desire of exciting the astonishment of the Grecian assembly.

It is said that free-agency is the absence of those obstacles competent
to oppose themselves to the actions of man, or to the exercise of his
faculties: it is pretended that he is a free agent, whenever, making use
of these faculties, he produces the effect he has proposed to himself.
In reply to this reasoning, it is sufficient to consider that it in no
wise depends upon himself to place or remove the obstacles that either
determine or resist him; the motive that causes his action is no more in
his own power than the obstacle that impedes him, whether this obstacle
or motive be within his own machine or exterior of his person: he is not
master of the thought presented to his mind which determines his will;
this thought is excited by some cause independent of himself.

To be undeceived on the system of his free-agency, man has simply to
recur to the motive by which his will is determined, he will always find
this motive is out of his own controul. It is said, that in consequence
of an idea to which the mind gives birth, man acts freely if he
encounters no obstacle. But the question is, what gives birth to this
idea in his brain? has he the power either to prevent it from presenting
itself, or from renewing itself in his brain? Does not this idea depend
either upon objects that strike him exteriorly and in despite of
himself, or upon causes that without his knowledge act within himself
and modify his brain? Can he prevent his eyes, cast without design upon
any object whatever, from giving him an idea of this object, from moving