304 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



form, when we were dealing with the character of the 

 categories. My " thinking necessity " cannot be regarded as 

 " necessary/' and therefore, as we have said, the categorical 

 system cannot be founded upon ordinary psychology it 

 cannot be " founded " at all, it simply " is." A very strange 

 antinomy meets us here : my " thinking " as a conscious 

 act is not subject to necessity but creates necessity, but 

 your thinking and, strange to say, rny own " having 

 thought ' are elements of phenomenological Givenness to 

 myself and may even be a very real element in Nature, in 

 the form of a book, for instance. My " having thought ' 

 and your thinking are therefore necessarily and univocally 

 determined with respect to my " thinking." Is therefore my 

 " thinking," are any of my " actings," qua actual and present 

 actings, free ? On a previous occasion we maintained that 

 the psychoid cannot be regarded as " free " in its manifesta- 

 tions, because it is an element of Nature ; we were dealing 

 then with the psychoids of others. At present I am deal- 

 ing with myself, not even with my psychoid but with my 

 " thinking." 



" Freedom " a Mere Negation 



Of course, this is not the place to discuss at full length 

 the philosophical problem of problems, and therefore I only 

 say that, in my opinion, we may speak of the " freedom " of 

 my thinking or of any of my mental acts in a negative sense, 

 in the sense of non-necessity. But our reason is unable to 

 conceive anything positive under this expression. For 

 we are so obliged to conceive under the form of necessity 

 that, as we have said, even my " having thought," as soon as 

 it belongs to the past, must perforce be looked upon as 



