Like them, we are governed by irresistible appetites. Every act has its sufficient reason. According to the indeterminists, a free or voluntary act is one which, though there be a sufficient reason for its performance, is not necessary. The absurdity of this definition is obvious. If an occurrence or an act does not happen, it is because there is no sufficient reason for its happening.
Sufficient reason is synonymous with necessity.
Man, like all creatures, is subject to the law of necessity, to fate, or, if we choose, to the will of God. Good and evil are relative ideas. Interest is the supreme judge in morals as in everything else. Absolute good, absolute evil, absolute justice, absolute morality, are so many chimeras, gratuitous inventions of the theological mind and metaphysics. Liberty he considers as impossible in politics as in metaphysics and ethics.