"Ha! ha! ha! But you know there is no such thing as choice in reality, say what you like," you will interpose with a chuckle.
"Science has succeeded in so far analysing man that we know already that choice and what is called freedom of will is nothing else than--"Stay, gentlemen, I meant to begin with that myself I confess, Iwas rather frightened. I was just going to say that the devil only knows what choice depends on, and that perhaps that was a very good thing, but I remembered the teaching of science ... and pulled myself up. And here you have begun upon it. Indeed, if there really is some day discovered a formula for all our desires and caprices--that is, an explanation of what they depend upon, by what laws they arise, how they develop, what they are aiming at in one case and in another and so on, that is a real mathematical formula--then, most likely, man will at once cease to feel desire, indeed, he will be certain to. For who would want to choose by rule? Besides, he will at once be transformed from a human being into an organ-stop or something of the sort;for what is a man without desires, without free will and without choice, if not a stop in an organ? What do you think? Let us reckon the chances--can such a thing happen or not?
