In this view
now the rational being can justly say of every unlawful action that he
performs, that he could very well have left it undone; although as
appearance it is sufficiently determined in the past, and in this
respect is absolutely necessary; for it, with all the past which
determines it, belongs to the one single phenomenon of his character
which he makes for himself, in consequence of which he imputes the
causality of those appearances to himself as a cause independent of
sensibility.
With this agree perfectly the judicial sentences of that wonderful
faculty in us which we call conscience. A man may use as much art as
he likes in order to paint to himself an unlawful act, that he
remembers, as an unintentional error, a mere oversight, such as one
can never altogether avoid, and therefore as something in which he was
carried away by the stream of physical necessity, and thus to make
himself out innocent, yet he finds that the advocate who speaks in his
favour can by no means silence the accuser within, if only he is
conscious that at the time when he did this wrong he was in his
senses, that is, in possession of his freedom; and, nevertheless, he
accounts for his error from some bad habits, which by gradual
neglect of attention he has allowed to grow upon him to such a
degree that he can regard his error as its natural consequence,
although this cannot protect him from the blame and reproach which
he casts upon himself.
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