Part 24 (2/2)

[114] ”Entwicklungsgeschichte des Weltalls,” p. 349 _et seq._

[115] See Part I. p. 161.

[116] ”Der menschliche Wille,” p. 13.

[117] On the Motions of the Tendrils of Plants; among the essays of Knight published under the t.i.tle, ”A Selection from Physiological and Horticultural Papers,” 1841.

[118] See ”Insectivorous Plants,” Chaps. I. and II.

[119] ”The Movements of Plants,” Chap. III.

[120] See experiments made by Eimer: ”Entstehung der Arten,” etc., p.

263 _et seq._

[121] E. Pfluger: ”Die sensorischen Functionen des Ruckenmarks der Wirbelthiere,” 1853.

[122] See Lange: ”Geschichte des Materialismus,” II. Theil, p. 486.

[123] ”The Science of Ethics,” p. 60.

[124] ”Der thierische Wille,” p. 161.

[125] See, for instance, Eimer: ”Entstehung der Arten,” p. 283.

[126] Carneri's instance, cited in support of his theory of the possibility of sensation without pleasure or pain, that certain nerves connected with fine sense-perception, may yet be cut without special pain to the owner, is a poor one, first, because highly developed nerves, the media of fine perceptions, are especially inapt examples for citation in support of any theory of primitive sensation in lower organisms, and, second, because the problem of pain and pleasure in such cases is very different from the problem of pain and pleasure in connection with ordinary excitation of nerve endings or the outer covering of the organism from which the nervous system has developed.

The fact that, in highly developed organisms, some parts are less susceptible of pleasure and pain might as easily be construed into an argument that corresponding parts of lower organisms differ, in the same manner, in susceptibility. Furthermore, sensation being admitted, as Carneri admits it, or rather a.s.serts it, of all forms of animal life, it is difficult to conceive how he can interpret the phenomena of appet.i.tion and repulsion as devoid of feeling. Most authors have argued, with much more reason, that pleasure and pain are primordial. Carneri's further argument that he who conceives the lower species as feeling pleasure and pain introduces an immense amount of pain into the world (p. 113, ”Grundlegung der Ethik”) is quite aside from the question as to the facts of the case. Nor can man create pain by his conception of its existence, or destroy it, if it exists, by a refusal to acknowledge its existence.

[127] See Part I. pp. 19, 22.

[128] ”Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Weltalls”, p. 350 _et seq._

[129] See Part I. p. 80.

[130] Pp. 170, 192d.

CHAPTER III

THE WILL

In any discussion of the will, we are met at the outset by the difficulties of definition, on which whole chapters might be, and have been, written. But one great difficulty has already been considered in the discussions of the previous chapter, in the questions as to the existence of consciousness in inorganic nature, in organisms which differ from our own in not possessing a centralized nervous system, and in connection with actions of our own body known to our centralized consciousness only as results. Leaving these questions open, as we have found it necessary to do, and confining ourselves, in speaking of consciousness, to consciousness as we immediately know it, or as we may, with some degree of probability, infer it in animals const.i.tuted similarly to ourselves, we find one obstacle to our definition removed.

For by will is generally meant a psychical faculty; and to speak of ”unconscious will” is either a self-contradiction or a mere figure of speech.

We shall also find, I think, that the most essential characteristic of the will as a psychical faculty is that it is connected with action which has in view some end consciously sought; action to which there corresponds no conscious end, whether a long premeditated end or an end instantaneously comprehended and a.s.sumed in the moment of need, we term reflex. The question may arise as to whether there are not acts which we name merely ”involuntary,” which must be cla.s.sified, from a pyschological standpoint, as midway between the voluntary and the reflex. But it may be answered that here, as everywhere in connection with the organic, there is difficulty in drawing distinct lines; there are psychical conditions in which some strong emotion, for instance, terror, so takes possession of the mind as almost to exclude plan of action, and the individual appears to act, as we say, ”unconsciously”; but I think this very adverb solves, for us, to all practical purposes, the question we have put. When we a.n.a.lyze such psychical conditions, we often find that, besides emotion, there was some degree of preconception of action, though the emotion so absorbed our attention at the time that the other appeared subordinate and was easily forgotten; but the fact that we term action of this sort, where we fail to discover preconception, ”unconsciously” performed, would go to confirm the definition with which we began, though we may have difficulty in deciding whether or not a particular action comes under the head of willed action, that is, action to a preconceived end.

Another question which has been frequently asked, in a.n.a.lyses of the will, is whether mere abstinence from action, the negation of action, can be cla.s.sed as an instance of willing, willing being, by definition, an active, not a pa.s.sive state. It may be answered that, from the physiological point of view, a point of view not to be wholly disregarded even by the conservative psychologist, the arresting action of the will as the control of lower by higher centres, is its most important function. And to this physiological fact corresponds the psychological fact that no stronger exertion of will-power is known to us than that sometimes necessary to the attainment of mere pa.s.sivity. A definition that would exclude such pa.s.sive states from the province of the will must exclude, on the same principle, all other willing not issuing in muscular action, and so all voluntary control of thought. The choice between activity and pa.s.sivity may be as real and as difficult as between two different forms of activity.

We have here introduced the concept of choice, and it may be well to define this, and its significance in our definition of will, more exactly. Voluntary action is, we say, often preceded by long deliberation and severe struggle, ending finally in the choice of one of the many modes of action deliberated. We can conceive of this struggle as not so long, as shorter and shorter, until it occupies so little time and attention as to be scarcely perceptible. But we can conceive, also, of a premeditation which includes no struggle, in which one motive appears so strong as to exclude consideration of any but the one end, and the deliberation has reference only to the best means of attaining that end. The murderer, inspired by a desire for revenge, may seek his end with the same directness, if not the same instantaneousness, or with the same directness and instantaneousness, as the dog who snaps at a piece of meat; yet we call his action voluntary, whatever we may think of the dog's action, our conception of which may be rendered indistinct by our uncertainty as to the nature of instinct and the part it plays in the action of other species. We call the action of the murderer voluntary because we conceive that he consciously sought the end involved. We are even inclined to call it voluntary in cases where the criminal is moved by momentary pa.s.sion, since we conceive that he might have exerted self-control.

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