But Paul would permit of no such exception.
The will, with him, was merely the _motive in action_; and as he
compelled you to admit that no thought is, in man's experience, ever
called into being, only developed from prior conditions, and that, even
as to an idea, the doctrine _Nihil nisi ex ovo_ is true, and therefore
that no man can manufacture a motive, so he took a short way with the
maintainers of a moral liberty. This doctrine, so gloomy, so grand, yet
so terrible, was, to Paul, a conviction, which he almost made practical;
nay, he seemed to realize a kind of poetic pleasure from reveries, which
represented to him the universe, with the sun and the stars, and all
living creatures--walking, flying, swimming, or crawling--going through
their parts in the great melodrama of destiny, no one knowing how, or
why, or wherefore, yet every human being believing that he is master of
his actions, at the very moment that he might be conscious that his
belief is only a part of the great law of necessity. Then it seemed as
if this delusion in which men indulge, and are forced to indulge, was an
element of the farce introduced into the play, so as to relieve the mind
from the heavy burden of contemplating so terrible a theory.
"Something to tell me, Rachel!" continued he; "and what may that be?"
"My father has told me to-day," replied she, "that he is to leave me all
his fortune; and however grieved I may be at the thought of losing him,
I am glad to think that it may be in my power to be of service to you,
Paul, as my only relative on my mother's side.
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