62 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



problem, very often discussed by philosophical psychologists, 

 the problem of the so-called origin of the act of volition 

 in the child. It will hardly be avoidable to use a 

 few psychological expressions in the following analysis, 

 but we repeat that we use them only for the sake of 

 brevity, and it would be better could every one of them 

 possess its proper phenomenological correlate ; for it is 

 with moving bodies in nature that we are dealing. 



The Origin of the Acts of Volition 



Movements without any specific regularity, called forth 

 by unknown general causes from without and within, are 

 considered to be the real starting-point of acting in the 

 child ; a supposition that agrees very well with the recent 

 discoveries of Jennings. The child notes the effect of 

 every one of those movements and its share in bringing 

 pleasure or pain these words taken in their broadest 

 meaning and afterwards it " desires " and carries out 

 certain possible effects of its movements, and others it 

 does not " desire " and carry out. The possible effects, 

 of course, as the age of the child advances, may relate 

 to any change of the medium in the widest sense, as 

 far as the medium may be the subject of experience. It 

 belongs to Psychology to make out what elemental psychical 

 functions are concerned in this " desiring " and " liking " : of 

 course the rudiments of judging are concerned in it, and a 

 fuller analysis would probably reveal that volition, reasoning, 

 and liking are at work here as a whole, inseparable in fact 

 and separated only by analytical science. It has been 

 neglected by some writers, but has been most clearly 



