“...if in the heat of the dispute he insists and asks, 'Am I not the master of throwing myself out of the window?' I shall answer him, no; that whilst he preserves his reason there is no probability that the desire of proving his free agency, will become a motive sufficiently powerful to make him sacrifice his life to the attempt: if, notwithstanding this, to prove he is a free agent, he should actually precipitate himself from the window, it would not be a sufficient warranty to conclude he acted freely, but rather that it was the violence of his temperament which spurred him on to this folly. Madness is a state, that depends upon the heat of the blood, not upon the will. A fanatic or a hero, braves death as necessarily as a more phlegmatic man or a coward flies from it.”
Quote by Baron d'Holbach
Author
Baron d'Holbach
Baron d'Holbach, a German philosopher and author, was born on December 8, 1723, in France, and died on January 21, 1789. He was an influential figure of the Enlightenment era, known for his atheistic and materialist ideas. more
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