OF THE WILL 359 



muscular movement of the parts of the body, and for the maintenance 

 of the vital functions ; while the nucleus of sensations, instead of being 

 situated throughout the length, or in any isolated part of the spinal 

 cord, becomes concentrated at its superior or anterior extremity in 

 the inferior part of the brain. This nucleus of sensations is therefore 

 quite close to the organ in which are carried out the various acts of the 

 intelligence, and is yet separate from it. 



When animal organisation has reached the limit of perfection impUed 

 by an organ for acts of intelUgence, the individuals which possess such 

 an organisation have simple ideas, and may form complex ideas. They 

 possess a will, free in appearance, which determines some of their 

 actions ; they have passions, that is, heightened incUnations which 

 draw them towards certain kinds of ideas and actions beyond their 

 control ; lastly, they are endowed with memory and have the faculty 

 of calUng up ideas previously traced in their organ, a process which 

 is due to the nervous fluid passing over, and being acted on by, the 

 impressions or traces implanted by these ideas. 



It seems probable that the disturbed agitations of the nervous fluid 

 in contact with these traces are the cause of dreams, which often call 

 up ideas in animals during sleep. 



Animals which have intelligence yet carry out most of their actions 

 by instinct and habit, and in this respect they never make a mistake ; 

 when they act by will, that is, as the effect of a judgment, they still 

 make no mistakes, or, at least, very rarely so ; because the elements 

 which enter into their judgments are few in number and usually 

 furnished by sensations, and still more because in any one race there 

 is no inequality in the intelHgence and ideas of individuals. Hence 

 it follows that their acts of will are determinations which lead them 

 always unerringly to the satisfaction of their needs. For this reason 

 it has been said that instinct is for animals a torch which lights them 

 better than our reason. 



The truth is that animals are less free than ourselves to vary their 

 actions and more subject to habit, and hence that they find in their 

 instinct a compelhng necessity, and in their acts of will only a cause 

 the elements of which are invariable, unmodified, quite simple and 

 always the same in individuals of the same race ; so that it has in 

 all an equal power and extent. Finally, since there is no inequahty 

 in the intellectual faculties of individuals of the same species, their 

 judgments and their will, resulting from these judgments, cause them 

 always to carry out the same actions in the same circumstances. 



I shall conclude these theories on the origin and results of the will 

 by some remarks on this faculty in man. We shall then see that things 

 are quite different in his case from what they are in the case of animals ; 



