"In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and so on to infinity."
— Baruch Spinoza
In The Mind There Is No
In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and so on to infinity.
About this quote
From Part II of the Ethics (1677), Proposition 48. Spinoza here denies the existence of a free will understood as an uncaused cause — an idea he associates with confusion about the mind's actual nature. Every volition is itself determined by a prior idea, which is determined by another, in an infinite causal chain that is simply the unfolding of God or Nature. Baruch Spinoza's hard determinism was one of the most controversial elements of his philosophy and directly influenced later Enlightenment debates about free will, most notably those involving Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
Source
Ethics, 1677