Origen of Alexandria, On First Principles

In the church's proclamation, the message about God's righteous anointing is contained; once it is believed to be true, it also provokes people to live well and to flee from sin in every way, so that we, having been reconciled to God, may grasp the most necessary problem. To grasp what free will is, we must unfold its concept so that, once clarified, the question at hand may be set out clearly. Some things that are moved have the cause of their movement within themselves, while others are moved only from outside. Things that are carried — wood, stones, and all matter held together by habit alone — are moved only from outside. Let us set aside from the discussion the motion of bodies as such, since it is not needed for our present topic. Animals, plants, and in short all things held together by nature or soul have the cause of movement within themselves; they say that metals belong among these, and that fire is self-moving, and perhaps springs as well. Among the things that have the cause of movement within themselves, some are said to be moved from themselves, others from outside themselves: the inanimate things are moved from outside themselves, the animate things from themselves. Animate things are moved from themselves when a fantasy occurs that provokes an impulse. Again, in some animals, fantasies arise that provoke an impulse, with their imaginative nature moving the impulse in an orderly way — as in the spider, where a fantasy of weaving occurs and an impulse follows to weave, because its imaginative nature provokes it to this very thing in an orderly way, and the animal believes nothing else after that nature; and in the bee, toward the shaping of wax. But the rational animal also possesses reason alongside its imaginative nature — reason that judges the fantasies, rejecting some and accepting others, so that the animal may be led according to them. Since the nature of reason contains starting points for contemplating the good and the bad, and by following them we contemplate the good and the bad, choose the good, and turn away from the bad, we are praiseworthy when we give ourselves to the practice of the good, but blameworthy when we do the opposite. Still, we must not ignore that the greater part of the nature ordered to all things exists in animals, and for the most part, or for the lesser part, so that the work of reason in tracking dogs and war horses is, so to speak, close at hand. To undergo something from outside that stirs a fantasy in us, one way or another, is, to be sure, not within our power; but to judge whether to use what has happened in this way or otherwise is the work of the reason within us — whether it acts in us through the starting points that provoke us toward the good and toward duty, or turns us away toward the opposite.