Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/174

160 F. H. BEADLEY: Consent, we have seen, does not go far enough for volition, but for belief on the other hand it goes a great deal too far. In the theoretical relation the object comes to me as some- thing foreign, but I can hardly give consent to the object's being in character what it is. I accept the fact that the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, but to give my consent or permission is not in my power. It is a fact which I cannot help or hinder, and for which I have no responsibility. I can of course will the appearance of the truth in my mind, but I cannot will the actual truth itself to be this rather than that. The attempt would obviously at at once destroy my theoretical attitude. And even my attitude when I will to receive whatever is the truth in itself, cannot be denned as my express consent to that reception. For, if I actively will the reception, I do much more than consent to it. Consent in short for will is too little, and for mere belief is too much. Truth, I agree, is the satisfaction of a want in my nature, and the criterion, I agree, in the end may be called a postulate. There is no attitude in fact which is simply theoretical, just as there is no attitude in fact which is barely practical. But after all there is a differ- ence between thinking and doing, and a difference which happily is ascertain able. And this ascertainable character on either side alike refuses to be described as consisting in consent. We now approach a difficult part of our subject, the question how far in will the self enters into the idea of the change ; and we may connect with this question a brief inquiry into the meanings of activity and agency. The reader, if he is unable here to accept our result, will, I hope, at least find matter which deserves his consideration. We have seen that the end of will, when that is completely realised, need not involve throughout the knowledge or even the existence of the agent. The necessity for my awareness in all cases of my own volition cannot in short hold except of the beginning of the process. As that process starts from mechanical metaphors. What moves in the soul is forces external and foreign. And when in use such principles fail, and Prof. James sees their failure, instead of rejecting them as disproved he attempts to help them once again from the outside. My will is more than the resultant effect of foreign forces, and it is therefore something inexplicable which supervenes and is added from the outside at a certain point. And, being merely added, it does not and it must not transform the external forces. Hence the special virtue of consent, which on one side makes an assertion of myself, and on the other side still leaves the forces foreign.