124 THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE 



involved in the views on consciousness which have been 

 developed in our second chapter. 



We have seen that the difference between a voluntary 

 and involuntary exertion lies in the latter being con- 

 ditioned only by the immediate sense-impression, while 

 the former is conditioned by stored sense-impresses and 

 the conceptions drawn from them. Where consciousness 

 exists, there there may be an interval between sense- 

 impression and exertion, this interval being filled with the 

 " resonance," as it were, of associated but stored sense- 

 impresses and their correlated conceptions. When the 

 exertion is at once determined by the immediate sense- 

 impression (which we associate with a construct projected 

 outside ourselves), we do not speak of will, but of reflex 

 action, habit, instinct, etc. In this case both sense- 

 impression and exertion appear as stages in a routine of 

 perceptions, and we do not speak of the exertion as a first 

 cause, but as a direct effect of the sense-impression ; both 

 are secondary causes in a routine of perceptions, and 

 capable of mechanical description. On the other hand, 

 when the exertion is conditioned by the stored sense- 

 impresses, it appears to be conditioned by something 

 tvithin ourselves ; by the manner in which memory and 

 past thought have linked together stored sense-impresses 

 and the conceptions drawn from them. No other person 

 can predict with absolute certainty what the exertion will 

 be, for the contents of our mind are not objects to him. 

 None the less the inherited features of our brain, its 

 present physical condition owing to past nurture, exercise, 

 and general health, our past training and experience are 

 all factors determining what sense-impresses will be stored, 

 how they will be associated, and to what conceptions they 

 will give rise. By this we are to understand that, if we 

 could bring into the sphere of perception the processes 

 that intervene in the brain between immediate sense- 

 impression and conscious exertion, we should find them 

 just as much routine changes as what precedes the sense- 

 impression or follows the exertion. In other words, will, 

 when we analyse it, does not appear as the first cause in 



