INDIVIDUALITY AND WORLD 631 



ducible, not explainable ; hence individuality is assumed to be essentially non- 

 rational. But in reality, the nature of individuality represents a problem to 

 be analyzed and explained. The non-rational of today may be the mechanism 

 of tomorrow. The manifoldness of human individuality depends upon varia- 

 tions in the organization of the individual and in the reactions of the indi- 

 vidual to different environments. These are accessible to analysis and there 

 are at least indications that such variations are the manifestations of con- 

 nected mechanisms. 



Our will is assumed by us to depend on our thoughts and inasmuch as 

 thoughts appear as isolated phenomena, detached from the reflex circuit of 

 which they are really a part, and inasmuch as we have forgotten the experi- 

 ences which gave origin to them, our will appears to us as a free, indeter- 

 mined phenomenon. It is not predictable, it cannot be duplicated in others, 

 it is considered by us to be our own, the expression of our individuality, 

 which is therefore characterized by free will. 



Yet the more we study the actions and attitudes of human beings, the 

 greater the degree of our experience, the less becomes the range of indeter- 

 mined actions. We learn to know of the reflexes active in us and of the 

 establishment of conditioned reflexes ; we analyze our sense impressions, our 

 thoughts, which depend upon sense impressions and complex experiences ; we 

 observe the accompaniment by emotions of thoughts and motor activity, and 

 in particular of inhibited activities ; and furthermore, we note the stimu- 

 lating and inhibiting effects of suggestions, those given from the outside by 

 the spoken words and actions of others and those resulting from our own 

 thoughts and actions, which we remember as we do those of others and 

 which function in like manner. Especially susceptible to analysis are experi- 

 mental posthypnotic suggestions and their consequences, which subjectively 

 may appear as expressions of free will. Furthermore as others issue com- 

 mands to us, so we issue commands to ourselves. We know what, under 

 certain conditions, will happen to our person, as we know what will happen 

 to things and living beings around us. Remembering the consequences of 

 former experiences and the thoughts and actions following our choices and 

 decisions, new, complex conditioned reflexes, pleasant in some cases, in- 

 hibiting, painful in others, develop and complicate our attitudes. The choices 

 and decisions made in the past, act therefore as suggestions tending to 

 influence our future course. But in addition, we know of the effect of 

 chemical and physical factors and of changes in our bodily structures and 

 functions on our thoughts and actions. All our experiences and the subse- 

 quent analysis of the interaction between our thoughts and our organism 

 affect and regulate our bodily reactions. This very complex, and therefore 

 incompletely known and only partly predictable balancing of factors which 

 determines our actions, is what is felt as freedom of will in the circuit of 

 outer world — > sense impression — » thought -» reaction. Usually we develop 

 conscious thoughts only of the central and efferent, but not of the afferent com- 

 ponents of these thought reflexes, a condition which tends further to foster in us 

 the feeling of inner freedom. These relations of "ourselves" to "ourselves," 



