"We cannot choose but reject the will.... As physiologists we have to deal with volition as a function of the supreme centres, following reflection, varying in quantity and quality as its cause varies, strengthened by education and exercise, enfeebled by disuse, decaying with decay of structure.... We have to deal with will not as a single undecomposable faculty unaffected by bodily conditions, but as a result of organic changes in the supreme centres, affected as certainly and as seriously by disorders of them as our motor faculties are by disorders of their centres."
And, says Professor Sully, referring to the will:—
"Modern scientific psychology knows nothing of such an entity. As a science of phenomena and their laws, it confines itself to a consideration of the processes of volition, and wholly discards the hypothesis of a substantial will as unnecessary and unscientific."
Neither physiology nor psychology, neither a sane science nor a sound philosophy, knows anything of, or can find use for, an autonomous "will." "Will" as the final term of a discoverable series may be admitted; "will" as a self-directing force, deciding whether particular desires shall or shall not prevail, answers to nothing conformable to our knowledge of man, and is plainly but the ghost of the wills and souls of our savage ancestors. If instead of speaking of the freedom of the will, we spoke of uncaused volitions, the position of the volitionist would be clear, and its indefensible character plain to all. But by giving the abstraction "will" a concrete existence, and by taking from sociology a word such as "freedom" and using it in a sphere in which it has no legitimate application, the issue is confused, and a scientifically absurd theory given an air of plausibility. The dispute between the Determinist and the Indeterminist is certainly not one of words only, but it is one in which the cardinal terms employed need the most careful examination if we are to clear away from the subject the verbal fog created by theologians and metaphysicians.
III.
CONSCIOUSNESS, DELIBERATION, AND CHOICE.
The one argument used by the Indeterminist against the Deterministic position with some degree of universality is that of the testimony of consciousness. It is the one to which practically all have appealed, and which all have flattered themselves was simple in nature and convincing in character. Professor Sidgwick, although he admitted that this testimony might be illusory, yet asserted "There is but one opposing argument of real force, namely, the immediate affirmation of consciousness in the moment of deliberate action." And by the testimony of consciousness must be meant, not, of course, a consciousness of acting, but that at the moment of acting we could, under identical conditions, have selected and acted upon an alternative that has been rejected. I emphasize the phrase "under identical conditions," because otherwise nothing is in dispute, and because, as we shall see, this important consideration has not been always or even frequently borne in mind.
The question is, What does consciousness really tell us, and how far is its testimony valid? In some directions it must be admitted that the testimony of consciousness is absolute. In others it cannot, without verification, claim any authority whatever. When I say that I have a feeling of heat or coldness, of pleasure or pain, there is here a direct deliverance of consciousness against which there is no appeal. But consciousness does not and cannot tell me why I feel hot or cold, or what is the cause of a pain I am experiencing. In this last case the testimony of consciousness may be distinctly misleading. As it tells us nothing of the existence of a brain, a nervous system, viscera, etc., its testimony as to the cause of pain is obviously of no value. We are conscious of states of mind, and that is all. A man seized with sudden paralysis may be conscious of his power to move a limb, only to discover by experience his impotence. In short, consciousness cannot, indeed does not, tell us the causes of our states of mind. For this information we are thrown back upon observation, experiment, and experience. We must, then, make quite sure when we interrogate consciousness, exactly what it is that consciousness says, and whether what it says is on a subject that comes within its province.
What is, then, the testimony of consciousness? When it is said that we are conscious of our ability to have selected one alternative at the time that another is chosen, I think this may be fairly met with the retort that consciousness is unable to inform us as to our actual ability to do anything at all. I may be quite conscious of a desire to jump a six foot fence, or lift a weight of half a ton, but whether I am actually able to do so or not, only experience can decide. What I am really conscious of is a desire to vault a given height or lift a given weight, and it is surely an inexcusable confusion to speak of a desire to do a particular thing as the equivalent of an ability to do it. If a consciousness of desire equalled the ability to perform failure would be but little known among men.
All that consciousness really tells us is of the existence of passing states of mind. It can tell us nothing of their origin, their value, or their consequences. In the particular instance under consideration consciousness informs us of the fact of choice, and this no Determinist has ever dreamed of denying. He does assert that choice, as the Indeterminist persists in using the term, is a delusion, but otherwise, as will be shown later, he claims that it is only on deterministic lines that choice can have any meaning or ethical significance. In any voluntary action I am conscious of the possibility of choice and of having chosen, and that is really all. What is the nature of that possibility, and why I choose one thing rather than another—on these points consciousness can give us no information whatever. One might as reasonably argue that a consciousness of hunger gives us a knowledge of the process of digestion, as argue that a consciousness of choice supplies us with a knowledge of the mechanism of the process. We are conscious of the presence of several desires, we are also conscious that out of these several desires one is strong enough to rank as a motive, but it tells us absolutely nothing of the causes or conditions that have resulted in the emergence of that motive. Instead of telling us that we could have acted in opposition to the strongest motive—which is really the indeterminist position—consciousness simply reveals which desire is the most powerful. We are conscious that other desires were present, we are also aware of the possibility that another desire than the one that actually prevailed might have been the most powerful; but when we admit this and say that we could have acted differently, we have really displaced the actual conditions by imaginary ones. We might have preferred to act differently. This is not denied. It is not questioned that we do choose, or that the same person chooses, differently or different occasions. The question really is, Why have we chosen thus or thus? And so far as consciousness is concerned we are quite in the dark as to why one choice is made rather than another, what are the conditions that give rise to our conscious desires, or why one desire is more powerful than another.