And then we must remember that the perceptual volition of animals becomes in us the conceptual volition of man. An animal can choose, and is probably conscious of choosing. This is its perceptual volition. Man not only chooses, and is conscious of choosing, but can reflect upon his choice; can see that, under different circumstances, his choice would have been different; can even fancy that, under the same circumstances (external and internal), his choice might have been different. This is conceptual volition. Just as Spinoza said that desire is appetence with consciousness of self; so may we say that the volition of contemplative man is the volition of the brute with consciousness of self. No animal has consciousness of self; that is to say, no animal can reflect on its own conscious states, and submit them to analysis with the formation of isolates. Self-consciousness involves a conception of self, persistent amid change, and isolable in thought from its states. It involves the isolation in thought of phenomena not isolable in experience. We can think about the self as distinct from its conscious states and the bodily organization; but they are no more separable in experience than the rose is separable from its colour or its scent. Such isolation is impossible to the brute. An animal is conscious of itself as suffering, but the consciousness is perceptual. There is no separation of the self as an entity distinct from the suffering which is a mere accident thereof; no conception of a self which may suffer or not suffer, may act or may not act, may be connected with the body or may sever that connection. Just as there is a vast difference between the perception of an object as here and not there, of an occurrence as now and not then, of a touch as due to a solid body; and the conception of space, time, and causation; so is there a vast difference between a perception of an injury as happening to one's self, and a conception of self as the actual or possible subject of painful consciousness. This difference is clearly seen by Mr. Mivart, who therefore speaks of the consentience of brutes as opposed to the consciousness of man. Consciousness he regards as conceptual; consentience as perceptual.[JW] And, as before stated, I should be disposed to accept his nomenclature, were it not for its philosophical implications. For Mr. Mivart regards the difference between consciousness and consentience as a difference in kind, whereas I regard it as a generic difference. I believe that consentience (perceptual consciousness) can pass and has passed into consciousness (conceptual consciousness); but Mr. Mivart believes that between the two there is a great gulf fixed, which no evolutionary process could possibly bridge or span.
The perceptual volition of animals, then, is a state of consciousness arising when, as the outcome of perception and emotion, motor-stimuli prompting to activity conflict with inhibitory stimuli restraining from activity. The animal chooses or yields to the stronger motive, and is conscious of choosing. But it cannot reflect upon its choice, and bother its head about free-will. This involves conceptual thought. When physiologists have solved the problem of inhibition, they will be in a position to consider that of volition. At present we cannot be said to know much about it from the physiological standpoint.
Still, as before indicated, the fact of inhibition is unquestionable and of the utmost importance. It has before been pointed out that through inhibition, through the suppression or postponement of action, there has been rendered possible that reverberation among the nervous processes in the brain which is the physiological concomitant of æsthetic and conceptual thought. We have just seen that, in association with inhibition, the faculty of volition has been developed. And we may now notice that the postponement or suppression of action is one of the criteria of intelligent as opposed to instinctive or impulsive activities. This is, however, subordinate to the criterion of novelty and individuality.
Granting, then, that an action is shown to be intelligent from the novelty of the adjustments involved, and from the individuality displayed in dealing with complex circumstances (instinctive adjustments being long-established and lacking in originality), we may say that the level of intelligence is indicated by the complexity of the adjustments; their precision; the rapidity with which they are made; the amount of prevision they display; and in their being such as to extract from the surrounding conditions the maximum of benefit.
Before closing this chapter, I will give a classification of involuntary and voluntary activities:—
| Initiation. | Motive. | Result. | |
| A. Involuntary (automatic and reflex) | Sense-stimulus | Unconscious reaction of nerve-centres | Automatic or reflex act |
| B. Involuntary (habitual and instinctive) | Percept (perhaps lapsed) | Impulse (perhaps lapsed) | Involuntary activity |
| C. Voluntary (perceptual) | Percept | Appetence | Voluntary activity |
| D. Voluntary (conceptual) | Concept | Desire | Conduct |
In the involuntary acts classed as automatic and reflex, the initiation and the result may be accompanied by consciousness, but the intermediate mental link which answers to the motive in higher activities is, I think, unconscious. In habitual and instinctive activities the consciousness of the percept and the impulse may in some cases have become evanescent, or, to use G. H. Lewes's phrase, have lapsed. In the case of some instincts, originating by the natural selection of unintelligent activities, the perceptual element may never have emerged, and the initiation may have been a mere sense-stimulus.
The division of voluntary activities into perceptual and conceptual follows on the principles adopted and developed in this work. As to the terminology employed, I agree with Mr. S. Alexander[JX] that it is convenient to reserve the terms "desire" and "conduct" for use in the higher conceptual plane. Animals, I believe, are incapable of this higher desire and this higher conduct. It only remains to note that it is within the limits of the fourth class (of voluntary activities initiated by concepts) that morality takes its origin. Morality is a matter of ideals. Moral progress takes its origin in a state of dissatisfaction with one's present moral condition, and of desire to reach a higher standard. The man quite satisfied with himself has not within him this mainspring of progress. The chief determinant of the moral character of any individual is the ideal self he keeps steadily in view as the object of moral desire—the standard to be striven for, but never actually attained.