Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/173

THE DEFINITION OF WILL. 159 volition, because it implies that the actual will does not cease to be foreign. This idea of foreignness in the will from which the action proceeds cannot be removed from the meaning even of express consent. And hence as an expression for the essence of will consent is most inappropriate. My will is surely not the action of a foreign force in me, nor can it consist in my permission of such an event. Suggestions, we have seen, can in volition come before me as a not-self, but, if, starting from this, I do not go on to make them mine, I have assuredly not willed. And in the presence of a great alternative, where I adopt one course with all the energies of my being, and throw myself, as we say, entirely into the carrying out of one event, to insist that all I do is to give an express consent to this event somehow happening in me, seems really ridiculous. 1 and defined by abstinence, and if it passes into an attempt to further the act or commit it in common, it has ceased so far to be mere consent. It is obvious from the above that the positive state of consent itself is not properly an act and is not itself willed. It might itself be willed as a psychical effect, but as such it would be only the effect of a volition other than itself. On the other hand, the signification, to another or to my own mind, of my state of consent can obviously be willed. And that abstinence from opposition, which is one aspect of the consent, can itself again be willed. I can will to behave consistently as consenting without any ulterior end in view beyond this behaviour as following from the consent. If on the other hand my behaviour, as consenting or again as signifying consent, is willed as a means to the performance of the act in question, I have (as we have seen) passed beyond simple consent. I now have furthered by my act the act of another, and may even have joined with him in committing it. And the result here will be no longer the mere effect of my consent ; it will be that effect as contemplated by me and set before me as my end. The mere foreseeing by me that in fact the effect will follow must be distinguished from this ; and the difference between the two lies in the nature and action of the idea which in each case is before my mind. Thus, even in theory, the mental state of consent is not easy to fix, while in practice the difficulty seems well-nigh insuperable. The diffi- culty here lies mainly in knowing the exact nature of that to which at the moment consent is given. For the consent is given to something as it appears at one moment to the consenter, and as at that moment it is qualified by his feelings. But the exact nature of such an impression, as it happens in another, can be arrived at only by approximation and always presumptively. The difficulty again as to what is to be taken as and presumed to be a willed or unwilled indication or signification of consent, can only be disposed of roughly. 1 -The reason why Prof. James with all his insight is led to advocate this absurdity is, I venture to think, at once clear and instructive. Prof. James, as I have noticed before (MiND, N.S., No. 43, p. 297), seems to approach the facts of the soul with a rnind too much dominated by