A particular Being becomes "I" in consequence of exercising this act of negation. But this act must be that Being's own; otherwise, supposing it to be the act of another Being, it would be that other Being which would become I, and not the particular Being spoken of. But it was this particular Being, and no other, which was supposed to become I, and therefore the act by which it became so must have been its own; that is, it must have been an act of pure and absolute freedom.
In this self-originated act there is no passivity. Now every pure and underived act, of course, implies and involves the presence of will of the agent. If the act were evolved without his will it would be the act of another Being. In this act of negation, then, or, in other words, in perception and consciousness, Will has place. Thus, though man is a sentient and passionate creature, without his will, he is not a conscious, or percipient being, not an ego, even in the slightest degree, without the concurrence and energy of his volition. Thus early does human will come into play; thus profoundly down in the lowest foundations of the ego is its presence and operation to be found.
