Hermia Suydam

HERMIA SUYDAM
GERTRUDE FRANKLIN ATHERTON
AUTHOR OF “WHAT DREAMS MAY COME”
THE CURRENT LITERATURE PUBLISHING CO
NEW YORK, SAN FRANCISCO, LONDON, AND PARIS
Copyright, 1889.
The Current Literature Publishing Co.
Press of J. J. Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York.
Table of Contents
FROM HERBERT SPENCER’S CHAPTER ON “THE WILL.”
To say that the performance of the action is the result of his free will is to say that he determines the cohesion of the psychical states which arouse the action; and as these psychical states constitute himself at the moment, this is to say that these psychical states determine their own cohesion, which is absurd. These cohesions have been determined by experiences—the greater part of them, constituting what we call his natural character, by the experiences of antecedent organisms, and the rest by his own experiences. The changes which at each moment take place in his consciousness are produced by this infinitude of previous experiences registered in his nervous structure, co-operating with the immediate impressions on his senses; the effects of these combined factors being in every sense qualified by the psychical state, general or local, of his organism.