Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/502

488 FEEDINAND TONNIES : which it develops in the animal along with the organism itself, then this, like life in all its phenomena, is twofold : assimilative and casting aside, receptive and repellent, affirming and negating. Now among the vital activities of animal beings those of the nervous system in their original unity with those of the muscular system, are altogether characteristic, as supporting the motor changes effected by external stimuli. The unity of the vital feeling in a corre- sponding way separates into the similar feelings of motor activity, and into the more strongly modified and infinitely manifold feelings of reaction to external stimuli the sensa- tions. This animal differentiation does not coincide with the original vegetative differentiation, although allied to it. But this repeats itself in a most marked manner with the higher development of the sensations ; a psychical organism within the soul, like the cerebrum within the body, is formed as a complex tissue of possible and actual connexions of sensations, a tissue of which the essential functions are the positing of likeness and difference, i.e. are assimilation and separation, reception and rejection, affirmation and negation, completing itself in man by the possession of a sign-system of words as the function of judgment, and so as thought. Now we have the word "Will". It means, the idea (A) of something active (grammatical subject) ; (B) of something "passive" (grammatical object). As A the idea is, (i.) equal to the idea of the soul in general ; (ii.) equal to it in so far as it is thought of as working outwards, in opposi- tion to the intellect as the soul receiving from without ; (iii.) specifically as ruling, commanding, guiding, causing, movements of the body. As B, it is something thought, a thought or a complex of thoughts. While therefore the idea A is applicable everywhere where a body is thought to have a soul in it, hence at least in all animal organisms, the idea B is applicable only to men. But these ideas are confused together. Like the soul in general, the will is sometimes used as equivalent to the intelligence, or defined as something intelligent ; then there arises in contrast with intelligent thought the concept of intelligent "instinct," instinct " guides " the animal, instinct " tells" him, " teaches " him, etc. On the other hand, as product of the thinking I the will becomes as it were its instrument, by means of which it issues and fulfils its orders ; it is then very easily simply identified with the thinking I, is therefore its own object, and this corresponds best to the feeling and the idea of the "free" will. But as subject or as object, the idea which the word is meant to express always has a reference