THE FEEEDOM OF THE WILL. 237 



is never solely tlie direct result of the external influence, 

 but must always be traced to the corresponding reaction, 

 and to the activity of the organism itself, which consists in 

 contracting a habit, or practice, and in the use or non-use of 

 organs. The fact that these latter phenomena, as a rule, 

 have been considered distinct from the former, is owing first 

 to the one-sided manner of viewing them already mentioned, 

 and secondly to the wrong notion which has been formed 

 as to the nature and the influence of the activity of the 

 will in animals. 



The activity of the will, which is the organ of habit, of 

 practice, of the use or non-use of organs among animals, is, 

 like every other activity of the animal soul, dependent upon 

 material processes in the central nervous system, upon 

 peculiar motions which emanate from the albuminous 

 matter of the ganglion cells, and the nervous fibres con- 

 nected with them. The will, as well as the other mental 

 activities, in higher animals, in this respect is different from 

 that of men only in quantity, not in quality. The will of 

 the animal, as well as that of man, is never free. The 

 widely spread dogma of the freedom of the will is, from a 

 scientific point of view, altogether untenable. Every 

 physiologist who scientifically investigates the activity of 

 the will in man and animals, must of necessity arrive at the 

 conviction that in reality the will is never free, but is 

 always determined by external or internal infiuences. These 

 influences are for the most part ideas which have been 

 either formed by Adaptation or by Inheritance, and are 

 traceable to one or other of these two physiological functions. 

 As soon as we strictly examine the action of our own will, 

 without the traditional prejudice about its freedom, we 



