Then, whether one says, “It becomes possible only afterward,” or, “It is possible together with it,” the fact remains that a merely possible thing cannot have its existence outweigh its non-existence except through a determinant. On the assumption that no determinant exists other than what has already been cited, nothing at all could ever come into being.

If someone objects, “The determinant is the very attachment of the will,” we reply: Should that attachment be originated, it too requires an originator; and if it is eternal, then nothing new has occurred.

Furthermore, if this attachment is a positive existent, it is itself an event and therefore needs a cause; but if it is sheer non-existence, it is nothing, and nothingness cannot determine existence.

Again, when—by their own admission—the state before the event occurs is in every respect identical to the state afterward, selecting one of these two identical states for the event’s occurrence is to prefer an equivalent over its like without a determinant.

Hence the assertion that “will, by its very essence, necessitates specification without a specifier” is groundless. The will that people know from their own experience never produces preference except through a determinant. For a person to will one of two indistinguishable alternatives while both are equal in every regard and while the will’s relation to each is the same is inconceivable to anyone who grasps the idea, and the knowledge of its impossibility is self-evident. That is, in fact, the very notion of preferring without a determinant.